THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS IN SELECTED CLINICAL NURSING PRACTICE CONTEXTS.
Contributors: University of Toledo.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 417
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Higher.; Health Sciences, Health Care Management.
Description: The purpose of this study was to provide qualitative descriptive data about clinical teaching and learning in hospital based clinical practice portions of three different types of nursing education programs in one midwestern community. The ethnographic methodology utilized in this study consisted primarily of participant observation in clinical areas of local hospitals where students of selected schools were engaged in supervised clinical practice and instruction by nursing school faculty and others. The views and perspectives of the students, teachers and hospital staff were sought in an effort to depict the clinical teaching-learning phenomena. A naturalistic approach was used in the examination of the clinical milieu with its sociocultural and interactional context as well as other environmental characteristics. Data have been presented in terms of contextual features and recurring teaching-learning processes.

Findings of this investigation indicate that there are interacting contextual features in the hospital clinical environment that are impacting the teaching-learning process and opportunities for growth in nursing competency. Some influences perceived to be important by participants in this study were: (a) nursing identity and roles; (b) features of the health care system such as change, discontent, diversity and discontinuity; (c) fluctuating patient census and nursing staff composition; (d) theoretical and philosophical factors; (e) issues of responsibility and accountability; (f) stress and anxiety; (g) the impact of an unfamiliar setting; (h) opportunities for personal goal fulfillment and job satisfaction; (i) and the availability of adequate experiential (hands on) opportunities.

Although three different types of nursing programs were observed, the clinical educational experiences and processes witnessed were found to be very similar. In keeping with the hospital practice realities, there seemed to be a common core of nursing behaviors and competencies desired for and by all students of all three programs. The most prominent differences noted between the practice experiences observed related to philosophical stances, diversity of students on a personal level, types of teaching methods, teacher to student ratios, time and timing of experiences as well as academic program features. Among the teaching-learning processes noted were: integration, the nondirective approach, the translation of nursing theory to practice, pooled partial information, role modeling, written assignments and nursing procedure practice. The findings and narrative of this report will be of interest to nursing faculty, nurse employers, curriculum planners, and future investigators.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-04, Section: B, page: 1739.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO, 1990.

School code: 0232.