Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Determining problems experienced by student nurses in their work with clinical educators in Turkey
Ayfer Elcigil *, Hatice Yldrm Sar
Dokuz Eylul University, School of Nursing, Inciralti 35340, Izmir, Turkey
Accepted 29 August 2006
KEYWORDS
Clinical education; Nursing; Clinical problems
Introduction
Summary Clinical education is considered an indispensable and vital part of nursing education. Educators have an important role in the successful completion of a students clinical education. The clinical educators approach, experience and knowledge have an inuence on the students. Students encounter certain problems during their clinical practice under the supervision of educators. This study was conducted to determine the nature of the problems student nurses encounter during clinical training in Turkey. The focus-group interviews were used for this study. Three groups of 8, a total group of 24, composed of students completing their third year were included in the interviews. The students in this study had completed their practical training in the departments of internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, psychiatry and public health. Among the problems mostly encountered by students, as established by the study, were inadequate assessment by the clinical educator, judgment, negative feedback, communication problems, inadequate guidance and overload. At the end of the research, recommendations were that educators should offer information in the direction of student expectations, increase their positive feedback and lighten the academic workload of these students. c 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Nursing education involves both theoretical and practical training processes. Clinical training is
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 2324 124790; fax: +90 2324 124768. E-mail address: ayfer.aydin@deu.edu.tr (A. Elcigil).
considered as indispensable and very important part of professional nursing education (Wellard et al., 1995; Lee, 1996; Dunn and Hansford, 1997). Since nursing is a discipline based on practice, it needs to be a curriculum of education that offers students the opportunity to develop their clinical skills, so important in the care of patients (Nahas et al., 1999; Becker and Neuwirth, 2002).
0260-6917/$ - see front matter c 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2006.08.011
492 Clinical training, then, comprises about 50% of the nursing school curriculum (Andrews and Roberts, 2003). The aim of clinical education is to develop in the student the professional skills and knowledge needed in life-long learning and critical thinking, to create self-condence as a nurse, and to ensure that the nurse is able to make his/her own decisions and be independent (Nolan, 1998; Lo fmark and Wikblad, 2001; Sundstrom, 2000; Papp et al., 2003). Clinical education provides the student with the opportunity to apply the knowledge, skills and concepts learned in the classroom to the actual care of the patient. Only if the student nurse can apply the theoretical knowledge she has acquired to the real environment can she provide the desired level of nursing care. In other words, nursing can only be undertaken through clinical practice, which is in effect learning through experience. Clinical education, an important part of nursing education, has always created a stress-producing situation for students (Cooke, 1996; Oermann and Standfest, 1997; Admi, 1997). The student going out into the application eld enters an unaccustomed environment which he/she nds cannot be controlled (Nahas and Yam, 2001). There have been some studies examining the effects of clinical practice on students and the problems students encounter during their training. These studies have shown that stress factors for students include worries concerning going out into the clinical eld for the rst time, the fear of making a mistake, anxiety over possible criticism from peers, communication with health personnel and patients, the approach to take toward seriously ill or terminal patients, technical skills and procedures, attitudes and expectations of clinical nurses (Cooke, 1996; Nahas and Yam, 2001). Beside the factors mentioned above, the approach, experience and knowledge of clinical educators who work with the student in the clinical environment also has an effect on the student (Nahas and Yam, 2001; May and Veitch, 1998). It is known that clinical educators are responsible for acting as a advisor to the student, being a role model, defending the student when necessary and assessing his/her competence (Chow and Suen, 2001). A good clinical educator combines the best available resources and conditions to combine theory and practical training and makes an effort to allow the student to gather clinical experience, creating learning opportunities and bringing the student to the highest possible level of competence (Neary, 2000; Nahas and Yam, 2001). The clinical educator must bring together strategies in support of the type of training that will facilitate
A. Elcigil, H. Yldrm Sar learning (Lo fmark and Wikblad, 2001; Nolan, 1998). There are many studies seeking to determine the characteristics of effective clinical educators in the clinical environment (Gignac-Caille and Oermann, 2001; Benor and Leviyof, 1997; Sieh and Bell, 1994; Chow and Suen, 2001). Research results in the literature point to four types of behavior in this contextsupporting, assessing, teaching and preparatory behavior (Cooke, 1996). Chow and Suen (2001) examined perceptions of the roles and responsibilities of clinical educators and found that students classify organizing learning opportunities and facilitating learning in the clinical environment in the context of a helpful role and designate this as the most important characteristic of a clinical educator. Other studies conducted with nursing students show that professional competence is dened as the most important characteristic of a clinical educator (Nahas et al., 1999; Benor and Leviyof, 1997). Lee (1996) examined effective clinical educator traits and found that the Australian nursing students disclosed that being a good role model was the most effective trait of a clinical educator.
Determining problems experienced by student nurses in their work with clinical educators in Turkey 493 that 28.3% of students felt fearful of the reactions they might get from their clinical educators (Atalay et al., 1994). It is not fully known what types of problems are experienced by students in their clinical education in our country. More detailed data is needed. This research has been conducted as a qualitative study to establish the problems encountered by student nurses in their clinical education, using the method of focus group interviewing. research under the guidance of literature. The interview form included questions on the problems students encountered with their clinical educators during their clinical applications and on how these problems affected the students. Each interview took 7590 min and a voice recording was made of each.
Methods
Participants
All of the participants in the study were students who had completed three years of their four-year nursing education. The students in the study had, at the end of these three years, completed 1950 h of theoretical courses, 1660 h of clinical practice, fullling a total of 180 credits. By the end of their third year, the students had clinical experience in the departments of internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry and public health. After providing 57 third-year students with verbal information on the research, written consent was obtained from the 24 students agreeing to participate in the study. Three groups of eight each were organized (Sim, 1998) and the interviews were held at the end of the academic term.
Table 1
Sub-themes
Fear of not passing the class Judgment No empathy from advisors Body language Feedback Insomnia Fatigue Problems in private life Stress Believing that clinical educator will not provide answers Anxiety about being evaluated as incompetent Differences between advisors Differences between theory and practical application
Seeking Guidance
Differences
494
A. Elcigil, H. Yldrm Sar nursing schools. There is no mentorship system in our country, that is, the nurses working at the clinics are not directly responsible for the students clinical education. Faculty, perhaps, place their roles as educators in front of their roles as nurses and this may be the reason why students feel more anxiety about evaluations. In addition, faculty members working in clinical education take on the full responsibility of all the patients cared for by the students. The responsibility of educators encompasses not only training and evaluating students in a study by Li (1997), evaluation has been established as the most effective behavior of clinical instructors. Lee et al. (2002) showed in their research on the effective traits of clinical educators that while evaluation was cited by students as the second most effective behavior, educators themselves marked this as the third effective behavior. In their study, Viverais-Dresler and Kutschke (2001) determined that nursing students considered evaluation as the most effective behavior among the different clinical educator behaviors and that fairness and constructive criticism were conducive to learning.
Research ethics
The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Nursing School. Written consent was obtained from the students participating in the research and the Dokuz Eylu l University Nursing School Directorate where the study was carried out. All participants were informed of the purpose and design of the study. The interviews were held at the end of the academic term after students grade was announced to the students.
Judgement
Students state that they feel judged by educators in the clinical environment. They say that educators sometimes ask so many and so detailed questions that it makes students feel as if they are being judged. They assert that when they are unable to answer the questions, their motivation suffers a blow and they experience anxiety. Students say that younger educators generally pose questions that pass judgment and that the older the educator is, the more the questions seem to be directed toward learning. Students have made the point that younger educators continually ask irrelevant questions because of their own inexperience. The instructor sometimes asks some very detailed questions. We shouldnt be learning something by just repeating them to the teacher. The higher the level of competence of the instructor, the better is her approach to us. My worst experiences, for instance, were the experiences I had with the young clinical educators. They kept asking me, Did you do this? Did you do that? The clinical environment is at the same time the place where the student transfers her theoretical knowledge to the eld. Educators believe that a students knowledge of the reasons for the interventions she engages in will in the long run prepare
Determining problems experienced by student nurses in their work with clinical educators in Turkey 495 the student nurse to work as an independent and self-condent nurse. This is why educators in the clinics ask students the reasons for their intervention and their decisions. This questioning is perceived by the student as a stress-creating interrogation. It may be that in our country the reason students are questioned to a greater extent is because faculty members so closely accompany the students in their clinical work. In the literature the researches show us that students are not this disturbed with this particular factor in Europe or the United States. Due to the mentorship practice in those parts of the world, clinical education is offered by the nurses. Nurses are responsible for both patient care and training student nurses. It may be that because of this, nurses may not be able to nd the time to evaluate a particular students knowledge. the body language used by educators particularly affects them negatively when the educators do not answer students questions during discussions of patient care plans. The slightest mimic, the smallest difference in tone of voice affects us immensely.
Feedback
Students say that the words and tone of voice used by educators during feedback affects them to a great extent. The students said that they would like to get some positive feedback but that they mostly get negative feedback about what they have not done. Were not saying that there shouldnt be feedback but it should be without judgment, it should be delivered with a different body language. We get most of our positive feedback from patients and from our families. This of course does motivate us but we inevitably want the same positive feedback from our educators. It is known that the communication achieved between the educator and the student in clinical education inuences the success of the clinical implementation. Feedback offers the student the opportunity to be aware of deciencies and provides the chance for self-development. That is why it is recommended that feedback be constructive and not destructive. It may be the effort to discover deciencies and urge the student to correct these that cause educators to more frequently give the student negative feedback. In a qualitative study by Lo fmark and Wikblad (2001), students asserted that receiving positive feedback made students more condent of themselves. Lee et al. (2002) have indicated that offering feedback without hurting the students feelings is among the ten most important characteristics cited in this context. In the qualitative study by Papp et al. (2003), students express the need to be appreciated. Kotzabassakis study (1997) has stated that not being able to offer constructive criticism is among the worst characteristics an educator can have. In the study by Evans and Kelly (2004), being evaluated in front of the patient takes third place in the list of factors causing nursing students stress in the clinical environment.
Body language
Students said that they are very much affected by their educators body language. They assert that
Overload
Students said that during their clinical education, they nd it difcult to nish the tasks related to
496 patient care but that the educator expects them to complete all they have been assigned to do. They state that when they come to the clinic in the mornings and have to plan more than one patients care, they nd this difcult and experience stress. They also express the fact that their course load in conjunction with their clinical work brings additional burdens on them. They say that they spend all their time in the library and have no time for social activities. Students particularly note that preparing nursing care plans takes up much of their time and on clinic where there is a great deal of patient circulation, this preparation is particularly difcult. They say that they cannot sleep properly and experience a great deal of stress for this reason. We have no time to rest. We always have to be studying. Third-year students may sometimes start off with one patient during their clinical training and then, depending upon the patient situation and the particular student, have to deal with two or three patients. During clinical training, a student is expected to prepare a program of care for her patient and provide complete care. Sometimes students care for the patient on the basis of priorities and have difculty providing the needed care. They may not be able to manage their time well and they may be stressed when the educator offers feedback in this context. In addition, the students course work goes on during the period of their clinical training. Sometimes they are unable to allot enough time for studying because of their clinical work. Lo fmark and Wikblad (2001) indicated that students did not have the time to talk to their patients because of their work load. Lindop (1999) claimed that the reason students feel tired stems from the extreme physical workload that clinical training brings.
A. Elcigil, H. Yldrm Sar like this and push ourselves into different methods of learningwe approach the assistants, we approach the nurses, we approach everybody but our advisors. I have difculty with this because of this. Clinical educators have an important effect on the clinical experiences of the nursing students. An important function of the educator during clinical practice is to give support to nursing students (Andrews and Roberts, 2003). If the clinical education does not provide the student with the support needed for the planning and fulllment of the students tasks, the clinical learning period may be ineffective (Papp et al., 2003). Oermanns study (1998) indicates that clinical educators are perceived by students as their biggest stress inducers. Referring the student to relevant literature (Lee et al., 2002) or the educational skills of the clinical educators are not indicated as important categories in the studies carried out. In the present study, the students wanted the clinical educators to be knowledgeable and competent in their own elds. Students said that they wanted to spend their clinical training with specialized educators and more experienced instructors. The reason students want to work with more knowledgeable and experienced teachers may be because they feel themselves to be more secure in the clinical environment in this way. Studies have shown that professional competence is set out as an important trait (Papp et al., 2003; Viverais-Dresler and Kutschke, 2001; Nahas et al., 1999). Nahas et al. (1999) explains this result by saying that students accustomed to the traditional educational model prefer to see the educator in the role of information provider. In the study by Chow and Suen (2001), students have accepted the mentor role as the most important assistance role. Students feel that advisors, in the assisting role, set up learning opportunities and facilitate learning in the clinical environment.
Existence of differences
Differences between educators
Students state that there are differences among educators and that this adversely affects their learning. They say that particularly during the planning of the patients care program, different educators will have different expectations and criteria. They stress that advisors have different ideas about which topics are important. One instructor will place importance on one aspect whereas another
Determining problems experienced by student nurses in their work with clinical educators in Turkey 497 will place importance on something entirely different. Students have said that there are also certain differences in clinical skills among educators and that this affects their learning as well. They say that differences are more pronounced between young and experienced instructors. The students complained that they are not sufciently guided by their educators during their clinical work. When guidelines for nursing practice are lacking, the students will not continue to ask questions for learning. To eliminate the problems encountered by students, clinical educators may provide the information the student expect. They may, during the clinical applications, explain topics more concretely and share with the students their own expectations at the start of the clinical experience. The students also complained that they have many tasks to do in practice. If students experience stress and lack of time, they have feeling of losing control and doubt their choice of profession. So students studying loads should be reduced during clinical training and increased in proportion to their capacity to cope. The results of this study will be helpful in dening what the clinical educator must consider in order to provide a productive clinical education.
References
Admi, H., 1997. Nursing students stress during the initial clinical experience. Journal of Nursing Education 36, 323327. Andrews, M., Roberts, D., 2003. Supporting student nurses learning in and through clinical practice: the role of the clinical guide. Nurse Education Today 23, 474481. Atalay, M., Tel, H., Altun, E., Tel, H., 1994. Hems irelik birinci snf o grencilerinin klinik uygulamada yas adklar gu clu kler ve yardm beklentileri. Hacettepe Hems irelik Yu ksekokulu Dergisi 1, 1. itimcilerde etkili eg itici Bayk, A., 1993. O grencilerin hems ire eg erlendirmeleri u niteliklerini deg cals ma, 3. zerine bir itimi Sempozyumu, Istanbul. Hems irelik Eg Becker, M.K., Neuwirth, J.M., 2002. Teaching strategy to maximize clinical experience with beginning nursing students. Journal of Nursing Education 41, 8991. Benor, D.E., Leviyof, I., 1997. The development of students perceptions of effective teaching: The ideal, best and poorest clinical teacher in nursing. Journal of Nursing Education 36, 206212. Chow, F.L.W., Suen, L.K.P., 2001. Clinical staff as mentors in pre-registration undergraduate nursing education: students perceptions of the mentors roles and responsibilities. Nurse Education Today 21, 350358. Cooke, M., 1996. Nursing students perceptions of difcult or challenging clinical situations. Journal of Advanced Nursing 24, 12811287. Dunn, S.V., Hansford, B., 1997. Undergraduate nursing students perceptions of their clinical learning environment. Journal of Advanced Nursing 25, 12991306. Evans, W., Kelly, B., 2004. Pre-registration diploma student nurse stress and coping measures. Nurse Education Today 24, 473482. Gignac-Caille, A.M., Oermann, M.H., 2001. Student and faculty perceptions of effective clinical instructors in ADN program. Journal of Nursing Education 40, 347354. itimi uygulamaGo irelik eg mleksiz, M., Temel, A., 1993. Hems itimi Sempozlarnda ortaya ckan sorunlar. 3. Hems irelik Eg yumu, Istanbul.
498
Kotzabassaki, S., Panou, M., Dimou, F., Karabagli, A., Koutsopoulou, B., Ikonomou, U., 1997. Nursing students and facultys perceptions of the characteristics of best and worst clinical teachers: a replication study. Journal of Advanced Nursing 26 (4), 817825. Lee, D.T.F., 1996. The clinical role of the nurse teacher: a review of dispute. Journal of Advanced Nursing 23, 1127 1134. Lee, W.S., Cholowski, K., Williams, A.K., 2002. Nursing student and clinical educators perceptions characteristics of effective clinical educators in an Australian university school of nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing 39, 412420. Li, M.K., 1997. Perceptions of effective clinical teaching behaviours in a hospital-based nurse training programme. Journal of Advanced Nursing 26, 12521261. Lindop, E.A., 1999. A comparative study of stress between preand post-Project 2000 students. Journal of Advanced Nursing 29 (4), 967973. Lo fmark, A., Wikblad, K., 2001. Facilitating and obstruction factors for development of learning in clinical practice: a student perspective. Journal of Advanced Nursing 34, 43 50. May, N., Veitch, L., 1998. Working to learn and learning to work: placement experience of Project 2000 nursing students in Scotland. Nurse Education Today 18, 630636. Nahas, V.L., Nour, V., Al-Nobani, M., 1999. Jordanian undergraduate nursing students perceptions of effective clinical teachers. Nurse Education Today 19, 639648. Nahas, V.L., Yam, B.M.C., 2001. Hong Kong nursing students perceptions of effective clinical teachers. Journal of Nursing Education 40, 233237. Neary, M., 2000. Supporting students learning and professional development through the process of continuous assessment and mentorship. Nurse Education Today 20, 463474.