Workplace learning: pre-registration nursing students' perspectives

Current issues concerned with pre-registration education are focused on students'fitnessfor practice at the point of registration. Interest in what takes place in clinical settings is becoming central to discussions. This paper presents findings from a phenomenological, longitudinal study of eight volunteer students undertaking a nursing degree course in the UK. The study examined the nature of students'; professional development whilst learningin clinical settings. The study used a multi-method approach to data collection of which the major approach was individual interviews conducted over students' 12 or more clinical placements supplemented by observation, illuminative art and analysis of students' documented critical incidents. Data were analysed using a constant comparative method (Glaser 1965) to construct individual case studies of the five completing students. This was then followed by a cross case analysis of all the participating students and a content analysis to respond to each research sub-question. Findings demonstrated that students are concerned with seven categories of professional knowledge development. A fundamental influence on this process was effective mentorship as defined by Spouse (1996). Important secondary factors were support provided by peer group discussions, students' concepts of nursing and the nature of clinical activities they were engaged in when visiting clinical settings.