The role of the nurse teachers: concerns, conflicts and challenges

As part of an ongoing study into the role of the nurse teacher a series of questionnaires was designed and administered to explore nurse teachers perception of different facets of their role. Reasons for entering nurse education as a career, preparation for that career, positive and negative aspects of working in nurse education and specific aspects of the role in classroom teaching, clinical practice, research and management were all explored. An exploratory study was undertaken in one college of nursing. Following this the questionnaire was refined and administered to four colleges of nursing in England to determine if the findings identified in the exploratory study were typical of the nurse teacher group as a whole. This paper reports some of the concerns and conflicts identified by nurse teachers in this study. As a result of this work some of the challenges facing nurse teachers, particularly in relation to a clinical role, are discussed.