Faculty members’ use of power: midwifery students’ perceptions and expectations

Caring behaviours demonstrated to nursing students in the interpersonal relation with the faculty: A cross sectional study

BACKGROUND

Nursing students need to experience caring in their educational environment in order to learn how to care for the patients.

OBJECTIVE

The present study describes the caring model demonstrated by the faculty to the nursing students through their behaviours, from the perspective of both students and faculty members.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional, descriptive, observational study was conducted.

PARTICIPANTS

The sample included 286 students and faculty members.

METHODS

The Nursing Students' Perceptions of Instructor Caring assessing tool was used to gather the data.

RESULTS

After analysing 676 questionnaires, it was revealed a moderately high level of caring perceived by the students. The most appreciated dimension was control versus flexibility, reporting a mean value of 82.29 and a confidence interval from 81.14 to 83.44, and the least valued was appreciation of life's meanings, reporting a mean value of 63.90 and a confidence interval from 62.20 to 65.60. The students' perception of the care demonstrated by the faculty was significantly lower than the care that the latter believed to transmit in all dimensions (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

The caring perceived by the student was expressed through behaviours that inspired confidence in them, promoted a climate of learning and support, helped them to recognise the meaning of life, showed them flexibility and fostered their professional autonomy. The findings of this study can help to improve nursing education by providing a view of the interpersonal relations that the students established during their training with the faculty.

Uncovering nursing students' views of their relationship with educators in a university context: A descriptive qualitative study

INTRODUCTION

Power dynamics is a key element in the educator-student relationship, and can be influential to the learning outcomes of students.

BACKGROUND

Power relations are inherent in the interaction between educators and students. The educator-student relationship is still an under-explored area of power dynamics.

AIM

The aim of the study was to investigate nursing students' perceptions of the power dynamics in the educator-student relationship in a university learning context in order to offer educators some understanding of how such a relationship was perceived by students.

DESIGN

A descriptive qualitative study using focus group inquiry.

METHODS

Through convenience sampling, a total of 56 students were recruited and eight focus group interviews were conducted. Thematic analysis was adopted to capture the meanings extracted from the student narratives.

RESULTS

Four core themes of the educator-student relationship were identified. Referring to these themes, some implications were drawn, such as the significance of the educator-student relationship; an educator's power matters; and polarized views among the students on whether or not an educator should be a friend.

CONCLUSIONS

The power dynamics varied depending on an educator's personality, communication skills, ability to effectively monitor large classes, and teaching style. More efforts are needed to investigate the preferred conceptions and types of educator-student relationships in order to evaluate the impact that these have on learning.

Challenges of implementating a doctoral program in an international exchange in Cuba through the lens of Kanter's empowerment theory

The literature in international education focuses primarily on the experiences of western students in developing countries, international students in western universities, the development of an educational program in a developing country, or internationalization of curricula in western universities. There is little in the literature that addresses the challenges students and participating faculty face when implementing a graduate program in a developing country. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the challenges of implementing a doctoral program in an international exchange through the lens of Kanter's theory of empowerment. Recommendations to address these challenges will be made.

The feelings of guilt and shame experienced by Nursing and Midwifery students

AIM

Feelings of guilt and shame might affect the abilities of nursing and midwifery students when fulfilling their roles assertively and with professional autonomy during the interdisciplinary care and treatment process. The present study was conducted in order to examine the feelings of guilt and shame experienced by nursing and midwifery students with respect to certain variables.

METHODS

The population of this study, which had a cross-sectional design, comprised a total of 1002 students from three training locations: a school of nursing, the nursing program of a health vocational school, and the midwifery program of a health vocational school. From this population, 667 students were recruited to the study by a stratified random sampling method. Personal Information Forms and a Guilt-Shame Scale were used as data collection tools.

RESULTS

From amongst the students, 88.6% were women. The average age was 20.57 years; the mean scores of the guilt and shame subscales were 50.51 and 43.63, respectively. Statistically significant differences were observed between the guilt-shame scores of the students by the variants of gender, age, school, and year at school.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study concluded that midwifery and nursing students experience measurable feelings of guilt-shame and that the levels of guilt-shame had an impact on their targets regarding nursing/midwifery. Therefore, it is suggested that guidance programmes be established and that the related problems be resolved.