Paper
Monday, November 5, 2007
407
Alumni Mentoring Students: Making the Connection
Janice Waddell, PhD, RN, Linda Cooper, RN, PhD, and Sharifa Sumar. School of Nursing, Faculty of Community Services, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada
| Learning Objective #1: examine an alumni-student mentorship model that can be used by interdisciplinary health care educators to inform retention, recruitment, curriculum development initiatives in academia and practice. |
| Learning Objective #2: learn and discuss qualitative research findings related to the implementation of an alumni-student mentorship model. |
Nursing educators are faced with the task of creating curriculum-based opportunities for nursing students to gain a sense of competence in their professional practice. Nursing students in the latter years of their education often report a lack of confidence in their professional practice competencies, and the effectiveness of their nursing education curriculum in helping prepare them for practice (Dorsey & Baker, 2004). The mentorship relationship is a strategy and resource to assist students to actively embrace and capitalize on their nursing education curriculum to enhance confidence regarding readiness for practice. The mentoring relationship has a focus on career pathways and development and is suggested as a solution to improve the recruitment and retention of nursing students and graduates (Dorsey & Baker, 2004). In the role of career mentor, alumni mentors may be of significant assistance in supporting students to make the necessary connections between curriculum and practice (Dorsey & Baker, 2004; Sword et al., 2002). The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of an alumni-student mentoring relationship in fostering student confidence in their ability to optimize curricular opportunities and transition to the workplace. Through semi-structured interviews, this study examined the following research questions: Does the alumni-student mentor relationship enhance a) students’ perception of the connection between the content and process of their nursing curriculum and preparation for professional practice, and b) alumni perceived career satisfaction. Alumni who were recent graduates from an undergraduate nursing degree program were recruited for participation as mentors to senior nursing students enrolled in the same undergraduate program. Students were randomly selected for participation in the study. Qualitative data were collected from focus groups with both student mentees and alumni mentors.