The clinician and the academic: nursing experience and academic study

This study was conducted at an Australian university which uses telephone group tutorials to enable off-campus students to link their academic and practice worlds. Audiotapes of the content of the 16 teletutorials in one first year unit of the university's Bachelor of Nursing course and interviews with the tutor and 10 of the registered nurses who were student participants were transcribed for analysis. Analysis of the tapes and texts revealed that there was discernible tension between the students' roles as 'expert' clinicians and 'novice' students and, further, that this was a reflection of inherent tension between faculty rhetoric, reality/belief and practice. It became evident that these tensions would become problematic and impact on both the tutor's and students' perceptions of the course.