PROBLEM FINDING, PROBLEM DEFINING, AND PROBLEM SOLVING BY NOVICE CLINICAL TEACHERS IN NURSING.
Contributors: Indiana University.
Published: 1995
Number of pages: 367
Subjects: Health Sciences, Education.; Education, Curriculum and Instruction.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this inquiry was to discover and describe: (a) the types of problems experienced by novice clinical teachers in nursing in relation to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of clinical laboratory sessions during their first year of clinical teaching; (b) the ways in which novice clinical teachers found, defined, and solved these problems; and (c) the guidelines formulated by clinical teachers during and following their experiences in the first year of clinical teaching.

Three novice nurse faculty in three midwestern universities were selected with the use of established criteria. Multiple interviews with each of the three participants and multiple observations of their clinical teaching over the course of one academic year provided the data for this inquiry. Member checking and an audit trail were used to address the issue of trustworthiness of the data.

A case study of each participant was written after categorizing data according to the kinds of problems and the ways of finding, defining, and solving them. Significant problems shared by at least two of the three participants included: (a) insufficient orientation/support for clinical teaching; (b) ambivalence about how closely they should be supervising students; (c) ambivalence about the extent to which they should take personal responsibility for student errors; (d) lack of structure in pre- and post-conferences; (e) inadequate performance of students on written assignments; (f) inadequacy of instruction in the fast-paced, complex clinical settings; (g) inadequacy in the design of clinical learning experiences; (h) discomfort with providing feedback and evaluating students; (i) student anxiety related to providing care for patients in complex settings; and (j) differences within and between groups of students. In addition, 35 problems unique to the individual participants were identified.

Five ways of finding problems were common to all three participants, including attending to their own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, and comparing current experiences with personally held goals. Four ways of defining problems were shared by the three participants, including consulting colleagues and using previous experiences to inform present ones. Four ways of solving problems were common to all participants, including implementing specific actions and experimenting with various instructional strategies. A number of ways of finding, defining, and solving problems unique to individual participants also were identified.

The inquiry was concluded with specific recommendations for additional study of novice clinical teachers in nursing and for specific induction strategies that could facilitate the preparation of novice educators for clinical teaching.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-09, Section: B, page: 4804.

Thesis (ED.D.)--INDIANA UNIVERSITY, 1995.

School code: 0093.