Navigating concerns about students’ suitability: Exploring nurse teachers’ perspectives in a qualitative interview study using vignettes

Abstract

Assessing students' suitability for the nursing profession is the nurse teachers' responsibilities. Clinical placements serve as typical arenas for conducting such assessments. Nurse teachers collaborate closely with nurse mentors during student assessments, and they also receive student-related concerns from mentors. This study aims to explore nurse teachers' experiences with suitability assessments in clinical placement, including how nurse teachers handle and assess suitability concerns reported by nurse mentors. This study is an explorative qualitative study. Focus group interviews was conducted, using a semi-structured interview guide and vignettes. The study included 15 nurse teachers from three universities in Norway who conduct student follow-up in clinical placement. The study was reported in accordance with the SRQP checklist. The analysis identified three themes: 1) introducing questions about suitability has a high threshold, 2) building a solid case for ‘the system’ and 3) responding critically to concerns from the practice field. Suitability assessments impact nurse teachers on a personal level. Nurse teachers express a critical attitude toward reports originating from the practice field. They want to investigate concerns independently and assist students in moving forward. The effort put into building solid cases sometimes leads to critical views of the system.