Caring behaviours : the perceptions of first and fourth year nursing students

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Educators across the health professions are now concerned with the teaching and assessment of professional skills. Caring behaviour is one of the attributes of professionalism in the health sciences professions and in the nursing profession it is regarded as the essence of the profession. The aim of this study is to explore the understandings and experiences of caring behaviours of first- and fourth year nursing students and how they would like to be assessed about their caring behaviours in a curriculum where it is not overtly taught. This will be investigated according to Watson's carative factors and theoretical framework of caring, while Bloom's Taxonomy of the affective learning domain will also be consulted. The design of the study is qualitative and explorative. A purposive sample was drawn from first-year nursing students (n=64), and fourth-year nursing students (n=41) at one nursing education institution. The sample of students (n=105) from seven (7) private training hospitals in the Western Cape participated in nine (9) focus group interviews (n=10-15). Data analysis was done by means of a framework analysis approach with a deductive strategy. Research findings from this study are extensively discussed and will be used to inform the undergraduate nursing curricula in South Africa about the profiles of caring nursing students and to make recommendations about the internalisation of caring behaviours, according to the affective learning domain.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University