AN EXPLORATION OF THE SHIFTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-REGISTRATION NURSING STUDENTS ACROSS A BSc ADULT NURSING PROGRAMME

The adult student nurses of today are continually challenged to negotiate the meanings of their experiences as members of different communities of practice, both as students of a university and also in the myriad of clinical placements that are so integral to their achievement of fitness for registration by their professional body. This study aims to explore the shifting identities of pre-registration students across a BSc adult nursing programme and gain deeper understanding of their participation in both university and clinical practice. Adult nursing students are currently attempting to develop, achieve and learn how to be a nurse in a challenging, ever changing context still reflecting on several high profile scandals and reports of poor care and less than ideal nursing practice. These events have led the profession, public, politicians and media to question the values, skills and principles of those who are choosing to take up nursing and question if nurse education is producing the necessary empowered, confident caring staff and strong leadership essential to ensure the delivery of optimum clinical care.

This thesis details a qualitative study exploring the experiences of student nurses and how the communities they find themselves in construct their identities and is an investigation of their perceptions and understanding of nurse identity and what they believe it means to ‘be a nurse’. Focus groups and interviews were completed with students in each of the three years of a BSc adult nursing course at a university in the north of England and a systematic thematic analysis of the data undertaken. The three main themes that were generated were:

Becoming a nurse

Engagement with old timers

The University - Practice dissonance

The findings indicate that participation in clinical practice and university produces a perception of intellectual power in the students that sustains them and helps to offset any negative experience in clinical practice and helps maintain a belief in their unique roles as positive change agents and ‘nurses of the future’.

The recounting of their experience highlights significant problems with the apprenticeship model and challenges the Belief that apprenticeship type approaches are necessarily a guaranteed way to promote positive outcomes, quality and any reduction in the likelihood of further failures of care in the healthcare environment.