6 that I appreciated” (active experimentation). She added that her preceptor’s level of experience working with students was a real strength and it was a key factor in allowing her to progress more easily. My preceptor in third year—she’s been preceptor- ing for ten years—so she’s very experienced: a) in what the outcomes of the course are, so she was very good at helping me meet the objectives of the course, because of that was very aware of my scope of practice—what I could and couldn’t do—those types of things. She was also very comfortable with students, and I think that’s a factor as well. If you have a nurse that’s never preceptored before, it’s essentially a person doing work under your umbrella, under your name, but it’s not you doing it. And I could see that nurses would be very uncomfortable with that–I would be uncomfortable with that. So if you’re not used to having a student, that can be an uncomfortable thing. Similarly, Andrew concurred, “You do sort of learn a huge amount in your ﬁrst real clinical placement with nurses and that has been really valuable for me” (reﬂective observation). Andrew added, “The preceptorship experience. . .was the beginning of feeling like a nurse” (abstract conceptualiza- tion). Kayla identiﬁed her preceptor’s strength in relation to giving feedback and recognized this as a signiﬁcant contri- bution to developing her own conﬁdence. She also reﬂected upon experiences with other nurses that were not so positive. She [preceptor] was great, because in other rota- tions I’ve had other nurses who said “I’m not one to praise someone up but if you’re doing something wrong I’ll tell you”. But she was good because if I was uncertain about a skill or it was my ﬁrst time doing it I would kind of verbalize to her ﬁrst, if I was nervous or really unsure, she would come in and watch me or if she thought. . .actually, no . . .she’s just watch me and afterwards say “okay, you did that really good” or “make sure next time that you got the bed up higher so you’re not bending over”, stuﬀ like that. Another student noted that her preceptor’s openness and receptiveness went a long way toward building her conﬁ- dence. My preceptor last year, she was 45, and I found that she was excellent. . .if I said something, she was open to it, and I was so open to everything she said, so I thought we kind of got along really good and we could learn from one another. . .and I felt that I got a lot more independence and I thought that. . .when I ﬁnished, I felt like I was ready to be a nurse. (Ashley) Overall, the students’ recognition of their growth toward increasing conﬁdence led to a feeling of being aﬃrmed. This Nursing Research and Practice aﬃrmation as it relates to the presence of a professional role model as well as building conﬁdence, as found in this study, is congruent with previous research [10, 18, 37–41]. Kolb’s [35] learning cycle is reported to correspond well with ﬁeld education experiences in professional disciplines [42] and in nursing in particular, research on experiential learning theory dates as far back as the late 1970s [43]. All seven of the preceptors in this study also agreed that precepting younger students is an aﬃrming experience. In particular, they described the following aspects of the expe- rience to be most signiﬁcant and these are also considered to be subthemes of being aﬃrmed: being respected, imparting the legacy, and strengthening nursing knowledge. 5.3. Being Respected. With regard to feeling respected for their knowledge and skill, one of the preceptors indicated that he felt valued when students and new nurses choose to come to him when they have questions about nursing care. He stated: They come to me, and I’ve always had that, after I got so many years under my belt, lots of people come to me, and still do, and I like that because I’d rather for them to come to me and ask, and if I don’t know, I’ll get the answer rather than them go make a mistake. So I encourage that. (Dave) Another preceptor noted that it is “very rewarding to see a student who’s just left the area and they’re so impressed with the experience that they had and they thank you for passing on some of your knowledge” (Lisa). Such “tokens of gratitude” are considered to be a signiﬁcant reward of precepting ([7, page 6]). 5.4. Imparting the Legacy. Being able to impart the legacy of nursing onto the younger generation was another signiﬁcant reward for preceptors and led to feeling aﬃrmed. One pre- ceptor noted, “I like teaching those that are coming up, the things that I already know, that I wish I knew when I began” (Colleen). She added: And I like learning the new stuﬀ that they come to me with because there’s always new stuﬀ in nursing. They learn it and I learn it from them. “Oh we learned how to do it this way”, “that’s a good way, I’ll remember that.” Another preceptor elaborated on the personal responsibility she perceived for imparting the legacy and noted that she felt satisfaction when students achieved success. She stated: It kind of reﬂects back on me when a student is ﬁnished and going to soon graduate and become a nurse and whatever type of nurse they are if they spent 8 weeks with me, obviously I’ve had some impact on them somehow in what they do. . .and how they behave. . .and when you ﬁnd out that you know what, this is a great person, we’re so happy we hired them, it’s almost like a satisfaction for yourself. (Wendy)