A relational view of learning: implications for nurse education

For about two decades, student learning in the context of professional and higher education, more generally, has been investigated by groups of researchers in countries such as Sweden, the UK, Australia and South Africa. The focus in many of these studies has been on the experience of students as they undertake complex, realistic tasks such as reading academic articles, listening to lectures, writing essays, solving problems and learning subject matter concepts. Central to this research is the adoption of a relational and holistic model of learning in which the relationships among all elements in the learning situation, including the student, the learning task, the teaching methods and assessment practices have been investigated. In particular, researchers from this line of inquiry have studied the relationship between the ways students go about learning in natural educational settings, referred to as approaches to learning, and what they learn. They have established that a full understanding of subject matter is reliant on students employing deep learning approaches which, in turn, depend on the perceived learning environment encouraging such learning. In this paper, the work of the relational theorists is described and the substantial and practical findings arising from this school of research are reported. Specific implications for the education of undergraduate nurses are also outlined.