Role modeling in undergraduate nursing education: an integrative literature review

The transition of nursing education from the hospital setting to the university sector over recent decades has opened dialog about who is guiding the development of nursing students' professional identity. In addition, there is ongoing debate over real or perceived gaps between nursing student learning in the university and the clinical area, how this translates into professional behaviors and how well students make the transition between the two settings. This paper presents the findings of an integrative literature review into the topic of role modeling in undergraduate nursing education. This review was conducted to identify and appraise research findings about role modeling of professional behaviors for undergraduate nursing students. Literature reviewed from 2000 onwards assesses what is currently known about role modeling of undergraduate nursing students. A systematic search of the databases of CINAHL, Scopus and PubMed from 2000 onwards resulted in the selection of 33 articles for deeper analysis. Two clear themes emerged from the literature, the first relating to nurse clinicians as role models for students during clinical placements and the second relating to nurse academics as role models in the academic setting. Findings from this integrative literature review show an imbalance in the recognition of the role modeling of professional behaviors in the clinical versus the academic setting. Nurses in academic settings have more contact with the students over their period of study and as such, the significance of nurse academics as student role models requires further investigation.