An impossible dream? Images of nursing held by pre‐registration students and their effect on sustaining motivation to become nurses

Abstract

An impossible dream? Images of nursing held by pre-registration students and their effect on sustaining motivation to become nurses Each year approximately 13 000 people enter higher education programmes leading to nurse registration in England. Evidence suggests that students enter nursing with strong images about how they will practice. This paper explores the nature of such images and how they are used to inform students' approaches to nursing practice. Findings come from a longitudinal study designed to investigate how students develop their professional knowledge whilst working in clinical settings. Eight pre-registration degree-course nursing students participated in the study. A multi-method approach to data collection was used over their 4-year programme. One involved in-depth interviews taking place during each of students' clinical placements. Data were analysed manually and subjected to a constant comparative method of analysis. From this material individual case studies of the ®ve completing students were constructed, with participants checking their own case study to ensure that it re¯ected their intended meaning. A second phase followed where cross-case comparison addressed each of the original research questions. The question relevant to this paper was: What were students' conceptions of nursing on entry, and how do these in¯uence their development? Findings indicate that participating students' preconceptions of nursing had a profound in¯uence on their decision whether to continue with their course, sometimes despite social and academic set-backs, or to leave nursing. An important contribution to realizing their aims was their supernumerary status and effective support from knowledgeable and experienced practitioners. These ®ndings indicate that with better understanding of the relationship between this form of personal knowing and practice, educators would have more information with which to select students and to design professional curricula.

Stress and stressors in the clinical environment: a comparative study of fourth‐year student nurses and newly qualified general nurses in Ireland

“…This has been cited by previous studies as a contributory factor to conflict and inhibitory to learning (Downes, 2001) and inhibitory to socialisation of the student nurse on placement (Joyce, 1998;Hyde and Brady, 2002). Nevertheless there are both positive and negative attributes to supernumerary status on clinical placement (Gray and Smith, 1999;Spouse, 2000;O' Callaghan and Slevin, 2003;McGowan, 2006). This study group were on rostered placement at the time of the study, which warrants further exploration.…”

“…Student nurses were constantly aware of their clinical assessment and there appeared to be unfulfilled needs to express their concerns to someone that is completely impartial and not participating in their assessment. Other studies note that there is a compulsion to get on with work colleagues in order to gain favourable assessments (Spouse, 2000). This has implications for future research particularly in Ireland in relation to facilitator roles despite their undisputed merit.…”

“…This has been introduced into the programme for nurse education in Ireland in 1994(Government of Ireland, 2000. Supernumerary status during nursing education is widely supported as evidenced by Spouse (2000). This follows exploration of student's images of how they will practice in nursing from eight student nurses in England.…”

“…The attitude of some qualified staff has been clearly sensed in this study. This is pertinent to student nurse learning as the attitude of the nurse towards to the student has great impact on clinical learning experience (Spouse, 2000;Condell et al, 2001;Morgan, 2002). This study revealed an imbalance of power between qualified nurses and student nurses.…”

“…Workload was considered to impede empowerment of students to learn in the clinical environment (Spouse, 2000;Maben et al, 2006). Fealy (2002) adds that service needs appeared to outweigh learning needs in relation to learning exposure.…”