Teaching assertiveness to undergraduate nursing students

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Professional Development
• Communication Skills

Background:

• Assertiveness is increasingly recognized as vital for professional nurses, moving beyond traditional stereotypes.
• Effective nurse-patient communication and professional confidence are linked to assertive behavior.
• Current undergraduate nursing programs may lack formal assertiveness training, despite its importance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a 3-hour assertiveness workshop for undergraduate nursing students.
• To explore the use of role-play as a central teaching method for assertiveness.
• To provide insights from a teacher's perspective on implementing assertiveness education.

Main Methods:

• A 3-hour assertiveness workshop was designed for undergraduate nursing students.
• The workshop utilized role-play as a primary experiential learning method.
• The paper details the workshop's implementation and student responses.

Main Results:

• The assertiveness workshop experience was reported as positive and enlightening by the teacher.
• Student responses indicated a beneficial impact of the training.
• The study provides a model for assertiveness education in nursing.

Conclusions:

• Nurse educators play a critical role in developing and delivering assertiveness training.
• Experiential methods like role-play are valuable for teaching communication skills.
• Further empirical studies are needed to validate assertiveness training in nursing education.