Cultivating interpretive thinking through enacting narrative pedagogy

Teachers and educational researchers in nursing have persisted in their attempts to teach students critical thinking and to evaluate the effectiveness of these efforts. Yet, despite the plethora of studies investigating critical thinking, there is a paucity of research providing evidence that teachers’ efforts improve students’ thinking. The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study is to explicate how students’ thinking can be extended when teachers use Narrative Pedagogy. Specifically, the theme Cultivating Interpretive Thinking refers to how teachers’ use of Narrative Pedagogy moves beyond the critical thinking movement’s emphasis on analytical thinking (ie, problem solving). Cultivating Interpretive Thinking offers an innovative approach for teaching and learning thinking that attends to students’ embodied, reflective, and pluralistic thinking experiences. Teachers who cultivate interpretive thinking add complexity to students’ thinking to better prepare them for challenging, complex, and unpredictable clinical environments

An interpretive study of nursing students’ experiences of caring for suicidal persons

Suicide is a worldwide public health problem. Although preparing nursing students to care for suicidal persons has been a standard part of nursing education for many years, nurses consistently report that they lack competencies in caring for this population of patients. The purpose of this phenomenological and hermeneutical study was to understand the experiences undergraduate nursing students had in regard to caring for suicidal persons. The aim of the study was to obtain insights into the basic preparation of students in the care of suicidal persons to inform pedagogical approaches pertaining to suicide and improve the nursing care for these individuals. Twelve senior nursing students were recruited for the study. Data were collected using in-depth, unstructured interviews. The study themes indicated that (a) when participants read about suicidal persons\u27 mental status and behavior in patient, records they initially feared interacting with and caring for these individuals; (b) participants\u27 abilities to gather information about suicide risk was influenced by how much patients talked with them about their suicidal tendencies; and (c) participants\u27 capacity to provide safe and therapeutic suicide prevention interventions was impacted by judicious critical thinking skills. Teaching strategies that align with the themes are provided

Decentering resources: A phenomenological study of interpretive pedagogies in patient education

The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study was to document an innovative approach to teaching patient education where RN–Bachelor of Science in Nursing students, through an online course, learned and applied the interpretive pedagogies in patient education. The online course was the educational intervention which laid the groundwork of the study. Data were then collected from 9 of 18 students who took the course and agreed to participate. Interviews were audiotaped face to face or by telephone and transcribed and interpreted for meanings. Two themes that emerged for teaching patient education included “Decentering Resources: Listening Through Questioning” and “Decentering Resources: Empowering Through Questioning.” This study revealed that, as students learned the interpretive pedagogies, resources (brochures, handouts, videos, etc.) took on less importance in their patient education practice. They recognized how resources frequently impeded patient–nurse interactions in teaching and learning encounters. Once students understood that they were perhaps depending too much on resources, they began engaging in questioning practices where significant meanings of listening and empowering in patient education unfolded. This study encourages nurse educators to teach students interpretive pedagogies in patient education to promote pedagogical literacy, which preserves the time-honored tradition of working together with patients during teaching and learning encounters

Building a home for the science of nursing education: Developing the NLN web-based repository

Development of an NLN Repository To begin constructing the NLN repository, NERAC identified necessary tasks: 1 the development of a thesaurus - or word list - to index nursing education research literature; 2 the development of a format for the parts of the literature the electronic repository would contain (e.g., literature citations and abstracts); 3 devising a methodology for scanning the literature for new research in nursing education; and 4 developing methods for continually adding items to the electronic repository and refining the repository in ways that enhance its use (10). Despite these barriers, the task group is currently investigating converting the NLN Literature Search Database for use as an online resource for nurse educators that would permit ease of data entry and retrieval of useful information

Improving patient and caregiver new medication education using an innovative teach-back toolkit

Background: Patients and caregivers are often not adequately informed about new medications. Nurses can lead innovations that improve new medication education. Local Problem: Healthcare Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores on medication questions trailed state and national levels in one Midwestern hospital. Methods: This quality improvement project, guided by the Ottawa Model of Research Use and the Always Use Teach-back! innovative toolkit, used a 1-group pre- and post education design with RNs, patients, and caregivers. Intervention: RNs (n = 25) were observed in patient/caregiver education and surveyed in confidence/conviction in the teach-back method before and after education. Patients’ (n = 74) and caregivers’ (n = 33) knowledge was assessed. Results: RNs reported significant increases in conviction in the importance of (P \u3c .0001), confidence in using (P \u3c .0001), and frequency in using (P \u3c .0001) teach-back. With teach-back, both patients and caregivers recalled the purpose and side effects of new medications. Specific HCAHPS scores increased from 6% to 10%. Conclusion: The teach-back method strengthened safe nursing practice and enhanced quality in new medication education

The collaborative improvement model: an interpretive study of revising a curriculum

Curriculum revisions in nursing programs are necessary to maintain currency and ensure that nursing students are prepared to competently practice nursing. Yet, the research for curriculum revisions in nursing education is sparse, leaving nursing educators with a thin evidence base upon which to revise curricula. The purpose of this phenomenological and hermeneutical study was to understand the experiences of faculty members and students who used the Collaborative Improvement Model (CIM) at a midwestern nursing department as an approach to revise their curriculum. The findings of this study demonstrate how the CIM (a) promoted student involvement in revising a curriculum, (b) facilitated faculty collaboration across two campuses with different campus cultures, (c) encouraged the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and (d) emphasized the need to use external facilitators when revising a curriculum. Faculty members in nursing programs can use this study when considering the CIM as a framework for revising their curricula

Experiencing chronic illness: Cocreating new understandings

This study was conducted as part of a research course in which new partnerships with area citizens and community-driven programs of research were developed. Working together, the teachers, students, and citizens were able to document their practical knowledge through conducting a study of the lived experiences of chronic illness using Heideggerian hermeneutical phenomenology. The pattern, Experiencing Chronic Illness: Cocreating New Understanding, and three themes emerged during the analysis of the data (a) focusing on functional status doesn’t adequately account for the experience of chronic illness, (b) decentering the focus on the treatment of symptoms makes way for equally important discussions of meaning making in the context of chronic illness, and (c) the objectified language of healthcare covers over how chronic illness is experienced