Nursing Research and Practice Likewise, Lisa stated, “hopefully you will go with them wher- ever they go. Like, they’ll look back at it [the preceptorship experience] and say, you know, I learned a lot from this preceptor.” Students in this study also acknowledged the preceptors’ innate ability to impart the legacy of nursing onto them. For example, Andrew observed, “I’ve seen it. . .they [preceptors] care about nursing. . .and they want to impart something onto the next generation of nurses.” This genuine commit- ment to the profession and demonstrating value for the education of future nursing professionals could be said to exemplify what Myrick et al. [39] refer to as “engaging in authentic nursing practice,” a process which the authors suggest nurtures practical wisdom in the preceptorship experience (page 82). These authors note that aﬃrming the student role and recognizing student potential were inherent in the preceptor student interaction and were key elements of engaging in authentic practice. 5.5. Strengthening Nursing Knowledge. Several of the precep- tors highlighted the beneﬁt of feeling as though their own nursing knowledge was strengthened as a result of working with nursing students. Wendy remarked, “It keeps me on my toes and it keeps me up on my skills and reminds me of why I’m in there too. It makes me appreciate what I do.” Lisa described students as “a wealth of knowledge when they’re coming out of school.” She added, “I am impressed with them.” Colleen indicated that she appreciates it when students inform her of new ways of doing things. Patricia speciﬁed that learning these new things and keeping current made her “feel so good!” She went on to say: I ﬁnd that I am so on top of all my policies. I just ﬁnd that I’m on top of everything, I’m so educated and I learn alongside my preceptee. They bring you new knowledge and new ideas. So you’re more open, so it’s good both ways, you know? You can learn. The preceptors described many other positive attributes of working with students of the Millennial Generation. Dave commented on the fact that he looks forward to “an inﬂux of new blood” each time a new group of preceptees comes to his nursing unit and this keeps him from feeling “stagnant.” He elaborated in this way: I really have no problems working with the younger graduates. I mean, I look forward to it, it’s an inﬂux of new blood almost, because sometimes you get stagnant in areas and then the new people come in, and sometimes when they come in they’re right ready to take charge and raring to go. Sometimes you need that little jolt in units . . . I have no problems, none whatsoever, I like new people coming in. Just change. Change is good for any area, you know. Sharon expressed that she enjoys working with students because “they’re fun to be around and they are high energy, and I like being challenged.” She added: 7 I like working with younger people because even at my age, I’m 46 years old, but at my age I don’t consider myself old. Now I know a 20 year old looks at me and thinks “oh grandma” (laugher), but I don’t consider myself old. I like to think that as long as your mind is active and your mind is progressive and you’re open to new ideas, you’re not old. So I enjoy working with the younger people because they’re fun. They’re fun to be around and they are high energy, and I like being challenged. I like to be in a situation where I like to know your stuﬀ, because you’ve got to pass it on to someone else and you’ve got to teach it to somebody else. And they ARE very inquisitive. Lisa added, “They keep you young, keep you vibrant, keep you educated and. . .they’re the ones we’re going to be depending on.” Overall, these comments reveal a level of self-reﬂection that emanates from being a preceptor and such reﬂection in and of itself was aﬃrming for preceptors. Preceptors rec- ognized that they were strengthening their own knowledge base and awareness of themselves as professional nurses. This ﬁnding is corroborated by other researchers who have speciﬁcally examined the experiences of preceptors [9, 14, 44, 45]. Numerous other intrinsic rewards such as teaching, role modelling, contributing to the future of the profession, moulding students, and enhancing one’s pedagogical skill through precepting are also identiﬁed [7, 8, 12, 13, 46–49]. 6. Implications and Recommendations Findings of this study generate new knowledge about the diﬀerent generations, namely, Millennials and Gen Xers, and the inﬂuence of generational diversity in shaping the teaching/learning process in the clinical practice setting. The three themes identiﬁed serve to provide the structure and meaning of the participants’ lived experience. The ﬁrst theme, being aﬃrmed, showed that both preceptors and students found the experience to be positive and rewarding and highlighted the fact that the rewards were manifested diﬀerently for each group. Identifying the aﬃrming aspects is signiﬁcant as it allows others to understand the nature of the rewards inherent in the experience and further research in this area would be beneﬁcial to strengthening pedagogical nursing knowledge. It is important to acknowledge that a number of challenges were identiﬁed in this study as well; however it is outside the scope of this paper to address the challenges that were revealed. We acknowledge as well that developing strategies to address the challenges is crucial to the future success of the preceptorship model of clinical practice. As well, further research addressing the speciﬁc challenges that relate to preceptorship in an intergenerational context is warranted. Overall, we believe this study provides a beginning understanding of the diﬀerent generations and how they work together in preceptorship, but there is clearly a need for further research in this area. One of the topics that we suggest pursuing is a broader assessment of generational