How students experience professional socialisation

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Abstract

The question of how a nurse becomes socialised into the nursing profession remains of critical importance. An exploration of the literature relating to professional socialisation reveals a shift from the notion that it is a reactive process, to proactive. Our research explores this issue from a personal constructivist perspective using the repertory grid technique.

Our findings show that the professional socialisation process is complex and diverse. During their educational preparation community nursing students make a radical reappraisal of their role perceptions. In their transition to becoming a graduate practitioner they gain a greater understanding of their specialist role whilst becoming less rigid in their thinking.

We conclude that the impact nurse education has on professional socialisation will depend on the students past experiences, the reflective nature of the process and the beliefs and values promoted in the course.

Introduction

The process of socialisation into a profession is of central importance (Tooth, 1996, p. 261).

It is the process by which professionals learn during their education and training, the values, behaviours and attitudes necessary to assume their professional role. The nursing profession, as all other professions, devotes much time and money to the educational preparation of nurses. It is the professional knowledge and skills of nursing that are on offer in the market, it is these that define nursing in the eyes of the public, practitioners and purchasers. To those with the job of commissioning nurse education contracts, identifying learning outcomes is essential in ensuring that the emerging student is fit to practice. The question of how a nurse becomes socialised into the nursing profession remains of critical importance.

Section snippets

Literature review: professional socialisation

Berger and Luckman (1967)distinguish between primary and secondary socialisation, the former is the process found in childhood and the latter is the subsequent process a person undergoes to become socialised into wider society. Jarvis (Jarvis, 1983, p. 88) defines socialisation as: the process by which the objective world of reality is internalised and becomes subjectively meaningful. Socialisation into an occupation is a major part of secondary socialisation. Jarvis, 1983felt it had such

Personal construct psychology (PCP)

We have chosen to explore professional socialisation from a personal construct approach, thus to recount Kellys philosophical stance must be a necessary first step.

No one needs to paint himself into a corner: no one needs to be completely hemmed in by circumstances; no one needs to be a victim of his biography (Kelly, 1955, p. 15).

This quote sums up Kellys position and permeates much of his writing. People can change the way they see the world, they can redefine their position but, in order to

Student thinking elicited through repertory grids

Adopting the Kellian philosophical approach we were able to start from the premise that all nursing students have a unique system of personal constructs which they bring with them on a new course. This enables them to make sense of new events, predict future events and to guide their behaviour.

The repertory grid is a technique which allows the researcher to elicit a persons constructs concerning specific issues. The advantage of using the grid as a research tool is the in-depth exploration of a

The study

The research we undertook was on role perception of specialist community nurse students undergoing their qualifying course. Our research focused on the ways in which the students construed their role and the changes that took place during their professional community nurse training. The question we asked was:

how, if at all, did the students role identity change and develop during their professional training?

Students were recruited for the study from the October 1994 cohort of two integrated

Data analysis

The qualitative nature and small sample used in the study makes it impossible to claim generalisability, confirming validity is also difficult in studies of this nature. Kelly, 1955perceived validity in terms of usefulness and preferred the term consistency and therefore our aim was to establish consistency through the research strategies.

Repertory grids in themselves are not intrinsically valid but it is possible through returning to the participants involved and recording their conversations

Findings

Our data analysis revealed three themes relating to how students role identity changed and developed during their professional training. These three themes were: the development of the graduate practitioner, gaining a better understanding of own role and adopting less polarised views.

Discussion of findings

Some of the literature on professional socialisation had led us to expect a much more reactive and linear process in the development of students role identity than we actually found. In contrast we found students brought to the educational experience their own personal constructions based on their unique past experiences. The social context of the student had influenced the personal constructs held, but the diversity of beliefs and values indicated to us, that it had been of greater value to

Implications of findings for nurse education

We needed to apply our research findings to nurse education. We identified three main aspects for discussion: course development, lifelong learning and recruitment.

Conclusion

Professional socialisation should be seen from a new perspective. It can no longer be seen as a reactive and linear process associated with one course, but a dynamic ever changing process. Nurses at any point in their career development can change the way they view themselves and their role. However, the changes a student will make during a course will depend on the students past experience, the type and form of educational provision, the opportunity to reflect on practice and the beliefs and

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