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Professional identity as a resource for talk: exploring the mentor-student relationship
Pam Shakespeare1, Christine Webb
1Faculty of Health and Social Care, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. p.r.shakespeare@open.ac.uk
Nursing Inquiry
|December 17, 2008
Summary
Nurse mentors assess student competence using everyday communication and behaviors, not just clinical skills. This study explores how these interactions shape professional judgments in nursing education.
Area of Science:
- Nursing Education
- Professional Development
- Communication Studies
Background:
- Mentorship is crucial in nurse education, involving both support and formal assessment.
- Communication is central to the mentor-mentee relationship and professional judgment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine how nurse mentors make professional judgments about pre-registration nursing students' clinical competence.
- To analyze the role of communication in assessing student and mentor professional capacity.
Main Methods:
- Qualitative study involving interviews with nine UK pre-registration nursing students and 15 mentors.
- Focused on critical incidents in practice settings.
- Employed conversation analysis to examine interview excerpts.
Main Results:
- Mentors use everyday behaviors (e.g., enthusiasm, confidence) alongside clinical competence for judgments.
- Communication episodes are used to establish professional identity for both students and mentors.
- Mundane communication serves as a resource for assessing competence.
Conclusions:
- Professional judgments in nursing education are based on a holistic view of student performance.
- Effective communication is key for both assessment and relationship-building in mentorship.
- Mentors utilize diverse communication strategies to evaluate nursing students' overall professional capacity.
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