Faculty encounters with uncivil nursing students: an overview

The critical incident technique (CIT) was used to explore faculty experiences with uncivil nursing students. Twenty-one nursing faculty with various years of experience in teaching were interviewed to ascertain what they considered critical incidents of uncivil encounters with nursing students and what effect those encounters had on them. Thirty-six encounters were described by the faculty. Of the 36 encounters, 33 occurred with individual students and 3 occurred with groups of students. Twenty-three encounters occurred in the context of poor student performance requiring constructive criticism or resulting in course failure. A battlefield metaphor is used to describe the incidents, their antecedents, and their consequences. The encounters were precipitated by a period of escalating tensions and effort by the faculty to diffuse the situation. The faculty were surprised and caught off guard by the encounters, which ranged in severity from mild to highly aggressive. The faculty often perceived significant threats to well-being of self, loved ones, job security, and/or possessions. The aftermath of the encounters included physical and emotional tolls on faculty, decreased self-esteem and loss of confidence in teaching ability, significant time expenditures, and negative consequences to the educational process. Three of the faculty left teaching in part due to encounters with students.