Student Nurses' Experience of Feedback During Clinical Learning at a Rural Nursing School: An Exploratory study

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY : Introduction and background Feedback is an integral element of clinical teaching and acts as a platform for identification and correction of learners' mistakes to improve their future performances. Without feedback mistakes could be repeated in future as the learner will be unaware of such. Learners' enrolments at Paray School of Nursing have quadrupled during the past four years. Since feedback provision during clinical practice of learners is mainly done by clinical teachers, an imbalance between learners and clinical nursing staff enrolments during the past five years has increased the workload of nurses as they strive to balance between teaching role and patient care. These circumstances have casted a doubt on the adequacy and quality of feedback learners are subjected to during their clinical practice. Aim and purpose of the study The aim of this study was to explore learners' experiences of feedback they received during clinical practice. The results better the understanding of the learners' experiences of such feedback. Methods A qualitative explorative descriptive design was used to describe the learner's understanding of the concept of feedback during clinical practice. Purposive sampling technique was utilised to select a sample of twenty eight learners who participated in focus group discussions. Sample size was determined on the basis of data 'saturation'. Selected students were asked to give a written consent to participate in the study. A semi-structured interviews schedule was used to guide focus group discussions. Data obtained was analysed through content thematic analysis. Findings and conclusion Ten themes emerged from data gathered namely learners' understanding of feedback; feedback occurrence; means for feedback provision; learners' perception of impact of feedback on learning; learners' interest in feedback; learners' response to feedback; feedback content; positive and negative feedback; lack of standards for feedback provision as well as timing of feedback provision. Generally, learners expressed dissatisfaction regarding the feedback citing that it lacks necessary scaffolds to help them to improve their performance. Besides, learners' shared experiences demonstrated that feedback provision process does not conform to guidelines from literature. However, learners' responses supported the opportunity of introducing self-regulation feedback model in future.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University