Nursing students' socialisation into practical skills.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Clinical Socialization
• Healthcare Professional Development

Background:

• Socialization significantly influences nursing students' clinical learning.
• Understanding how students acquire practical skills and are socialized into them is crucial for patient safety and care quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the process of nursing students' socialization into practical skills within clinical settings.
• To identify factors influencing this socialization process and its impact on learning.

Main Methods:

• Employed an ethnographic approach involving participant observation in an emergency department.
• Collected data through informal conversations with nursing students and their preceptors.

Main Results:

• Four key themes emerged: reflective practice, multitasking, role shifts, and supervision styles.
• Preceptors play a pivotal role in shaping students' socialization into practical skills.
• Discrepancies in reflection practices between students and preceptors were identified.

Conclusions:

• Continuity between university-based and clinical learning settings is essential for enhancing nursing students' skill acquisition and socialization.
• Optimizing teaching, learning styles, and preceptor-student interactions can improve the clinical learning environment.