Melrose, Sherri

Shapiro, Bonnie

Athabasca University Library Institutional Repository

Clinical teaching inmental health nursingThe purpose of this research in progressis to investigate how student nursesdevelop personally meaningful con-structs during their psychiatric mentalhealth clinical rotation. A secondary pur-pose is to examine the role that personalconstruct theory can play in the process.Three questions guide the research:How do student nurses construe staffactivities? What changes, if any, do stu-dent nurses perceive in their personalways of knowing about mental healthnursing? And, does the construction of arepertory grid help student nurses toarticulate what they learn?A constructivist conceptual perspec-tive undergirds the project. This viewsees the individual not as a passiverecipient of knowledge, but as an activeconstructor of meaning. Personal con-struct theory extends readily from a con-structivist world view and lends itself toexploration and inquiry in complex,interactive situations. The methodology,repertory grids, is logically derived fromthe theory.The study will begin in mid-January1997. Six second-year students will berecruited from the Calgary ConjointNursing Program. Students will be inter-viewed at the beginning and end of theirmental health clinical placements onpsychiatric wards of general hospitals.Data will be collected by May 1997.The study should provide insight intocurrent learning needs of participatingstudent nurses. Investigation in this areamay also inform practice in terms ofdeveloping collaborative nursing educa-tional experiences from a personal con-struct theory approach. The researchmay suggest important changes in ourunderstanding of clinical teaching inpsychiatric mental health rotations.Findings could also contribute aCanadian perspective to the developingbody of international literature linkingpersonal construct theory and nursingeducation.The project will provide a descriptionof learning in a local nursing program. Itemphasizes the importance of discover-ing personal meaning as opposed to anassumption of universal meaning, andtherefore limited generalization is war-ranted.Finally, two key areas of research innursing education are pertinent to thisstudy: clinical teaching and personalconstruct theory. It is the objective ofthis investigation to weave a commonthread between the two to gain insightinto student nurses' ways of knowing inmental health nursing. The study arguesfor the importance of including studentnurses' voices in the scholady dialoguesurrounding their learning.-Sherri Melrose, RN, BN, MEdand Bonnie Shapiro, BA, MEd, PhDCalgary, AlbertaTHE CANADIAN--~"---""-"~--"~" "._."-_.~~- --~ ~"--"--"-~._----_.__._-_._._----CANADIENNENURSE 20 I. 'I NFl R M I ERE

Clinical teaching in mental health nursing.

http://auspace.athabascau.ca/bitstream/2149/1383/1/clinical_teaching.pdf

Clinical teaching in mental health nursing.

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