Elsevier

Nurse Education Today

Volume 33, Issue 3, March 2013, Pages 286-290
Nurse Education Today

Students' voices: The lived experience of faculty incivility as a barrier to professional formation in associate degree nursing education

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2012.05.030Get rights and content

Summary

Background

Nursing faculty play an important role in constructing learning environments that foster the positive formation of future nurses. The students' construction of a nursing identity is grounded in social interactions with faculty and is shaped by values and norms learned in both the formal and informal curriculum. The informal curriculum is communicated in faculty teaching practices and relationships established with students.

Purpose

To acquire an understanding of the students' lived experience in associate degree nursing education and identify educational practices that support students' professional formation.

Methods

A phenomenological design was chosen to study the lived experience of nursing education. In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 participants. Five students participated in second interviews for a total of 18 interviews. Symbolic interactionism guided data analysis.

Participants

Participants represented three ADN programs in the northeastern U.S. and were diverse in terms of gender and age and to a lesser extent race, and sexual orientation.

Findings

Faculty incivility included demeaning experiences, subjective evaluation, rigid expectations, and targeting and weeding out practices. Targeting practices contributed to a perceived focus on clinical evaluation and inhibited clinical learning. Faculty incivility hindered professional formation by interfering with learning, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and confidence.

Conclusions

Faculty who model professional values in the formal and hidden curriculum contribute to the positive formation of future nurses. Nursing faculty should be formally prepared as educators to establish respectful, connected relationships with students. Faculty should role model professional values, deemphasize their evaluative role, provide constructive formative feedback, and remain open to the student's potential for growth.

Section snippets

Background

The following databases were accessed to identify relevant literature: CINAHL, Medline, Science Direct, and Education Research Complete. The parameters of the review were English language literature between 2000 and 2011that examined the socialization experience of undergraduate nursing students. Relevant literature published prior to 2000 was also reviewed. Search terms included ‘nursing,’ ‘socialization,’ ‘self-concept as nurse,’ ‘identity development,’ and ‘professional formation.’

Method

An interpretive phenomenological design was used to study the lived experience of ADN education (Spiegelberg, 1975). Phenomenology focuses on understanding a phenomenon as experienced by a group of people and the meaning of the experience as they perceive it because “critical truths about reality are grounded in people's lived experiences” (Polit and Beck, 2010, p. 267).

Since professional formation occurs within a social context, symbolic interactionism was used to guide data analysis. Blumer

Findings

Themes and narrative data are presented for the research question, How do students' lived experiences shape their emerging identity as nurses? Faculty incivility was comprised of four interrelated experiences: a) verbally abusive and demeaning experiences, b) favoritism and subjective evaluation, c) rigid expectations for perfection and time management, and d) targeting and weeding out practices. Participants' narratives uncovered faculty incivility that interfered with professional identity

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to acquire an understanding of the lived experience of ADN education. Participants described nursing education as a challenging endeavor. They expressed appreciation for caring faculty who provided formative feedback, conveyed belief in their ability to learn and grow, and assisted them to navigate the challenges of nursing education (Del Prato, 2010). In stark contrast, participants' narratives uncovered faculty incivility as a major source of stress that

Limitations

This study is limited to the experiences and meaning making processes of the 13 participants. The findings are presented in the context of these students' lived experiences in one of three ADN programs in the northeastern US. The experiences of nursing students in other types of programs and from other geographic locations are not represented in this work.

Nursing students' perspectives are honored in this work. Faculty perspectives are important to examine but are not represented in this study

Conclusion

Faculty who role model caring and respect in the formal and hidden curriculum contribute to the positive formation of future nurses. As leaders, nursing faculty create cultures of caring and civility by openly addressing incivility, creating safe opportunities for student and faculty discussion of experiences, and improving organizational support (Clark and Springer, 2010).

Educating and empowering future nurses to manage uncivil experiences may also help interrupt the cycle of horizontal

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    The author thanks Dr. Deanna Reising and Dr. Kathie Lasater for their careful and constructive review of this manuscript.

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