Seeking a progressive relationship for learning: A theoretical scheme about the continuity of the student-educator relationship in clinical nursing education

Relationship between nursing students' perceptions of clinical instructor caring and their professional behaviors

PURPOSE

To examine the relationship between nursing students' perceptions of clinical instructor caring and their professional behaviors.

METHOD

This study used a descriptive and cross-sectional design. The data were analyzed with Pearson's correlation and Linear regression analyses.

RESULTS

The professional behaviors of nursing students were found to increase their desire to become a nurse in the future with "instills confidence through caring" and "supportive learning climate" subscales but to decrease their desire to be an academician in the future.

CONCLUSION

As students' perceptions of clinical instructor caring increased, their status of applying professional behaviors was found to increase, as well.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATION

Descriptive characteristics and clinical instructor caring are related to high professional behaviors in nursing students.

What matters, what is valued and what is important in mentorship through the Appreciative Inquiry process of co-created knowledge

BACKGROUND

A key element in the provision of safe and competent midwifery care is how learning experiences are construed and translated into practice. This process can be supported through clinical/professional mentoring. What constitutes 'good mentorship' has been the topic of much debate. While research exploring mentorship exists, there is less research exploring co-created perceptions of mentorship by the mentee and mentor.

OBJECTIVES

To explore student and registered midwives' co-created perspectives of what matters, what is valued and what is important in mentorship.

DESIGN

An adapted Appreciative Inquiry methodology guided this study with thematic analysis used for data analysis.

SETTINGS

One regional Australian university.

PARTICIPANTS

A convenience sampling, from a population of 39 third-year Bachelor of midwifery students and 39 registered midwives providing clinical supervision for students enrolled in a specific unit of study and concurrently undertaking midwifery practice experience were recruited into this study.

METHODS

Following the four-step process of Appreciative Inquiry; Appreciate, Envision, Co-create and Embed, imagery cards were provided, and participants selected the image that resonated with their understanding of mentorship. Shared understandings were cultivated to co-create what worked well and what was valued in facilitating a positive learning experience.

RESULTS

Trust developed over time is a valued component of mentorship relationships. Similarly valued is the sense of belonging and feeling safe, elements reliant on the establishment of effective and respectful communication.

CONCLUSION

What matters, what is valued and what is important in midwifery mentorship is a mutually respectful relationship between mentee and mentor. This requires time and trust and the creation of a space where the student can develop a sense of professional belonging and feel safe to learn. Further research is needed to explore ways to co-create safe learning environments. Appreciative Inquiry is a method suited to studying this area.

The characteristics of an effective clinical instructor from the perspective of nursing students: a qualitative descriptive study in Iran

Background

Clinical instructors have an important role in advancing nursing students to achieve the program objectives. Nursing student perceptions about the characteristics of an effective clinical instructors may help programs improve clinical instruction. As such, the purpose of this study was to understand the characteristics perceived by students to define an effective clinical instructor.

Methods

In this qualitative descriptive study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students. The sample was purposefully selected. MAXQDA software was used for the content analysis. The codes were organized into subcategories and consolidated into categories.

Results

Data saturation was reached with twelve participants, including seven women and five men, between 21 and 36 years of age. General and special characteristics were the two main categories that emerged from the data. These categories were defined by nine subcategories including internal motivation, professional acceptability, clinical competency, teaching skill, clinical experience, values, being a faculty member, appropriate appearance, and communication skills.

Conclusions

Effective clinical instructors have a specific characteristics identified by student. The most important characteristics of effective clinical instructors were related to communication and teaching skills, internal motivation, and professional appearance. More research is necessary to determine the relationship between the characteristics, instructor competency, and student learning outcomes.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-021-00556-9.

Assessment of reliability and validity of the Spanish version of the Nursing Students' Perception of Instructor Caring (S-NSPIC)

The care that clinical instructors demonstrate to students is essential for their education, considering the strong impact it has on their future relationships with patients, relatives, and other health professionals. Nursing Students’ Perceptions of Instructor Caring (NSPIC) is an instrument designed to assess nursing students’ perceptions of instructor’s caring behaviors. A trans-cultural, conceptual, and psychometric validation study was conducted with 315 nursing students at the University of Seville during their clinical practices in three regional hospitals. The NSPIC was translated and adapted to Spanish. The content validity was established by a panel of experts. To assess concurrent validity the culturally adapted Spanish version of the Clinical Placement Evaluation Tool (CPET) was used as a gold standard. The construct validity was determined by an exploratory factor analysis to identify the internal structure of the NSPIC-S. The internal consistency was established by Cronbach’s α and the intra-observer reliability for each item was established by test-retest. The content validity index varied between 0.53 and 0.93 and the correlation to the CPET was moderate. The factor analysis revealed a structure of five factors, one of which differed from the original scale. The value of Cronbach’s α was 0.95 and intraclass correlation coefficients varied between 0.5 and 0.89. Our study provided a culturally adapted version of the NSPIC, valid and reliable to be used in the Spanish context, the NSPIC-S.