Poster Presentation
Thursday, July 12, 2007
9:30 AM - 10:15 AM
Thursday, July 12, 2007
3:15 PM - 4:00 PM
The Lived Experience of Nursing Students Who Study Abroad
Michelle L. Edmonds, School of Nursing, Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, FL, USA
| Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to identify two personal or professional benefits achieved through a study abroad course. |
| Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to describe two opportunities for collaboration between American and English nursing students. |
Despite the many speculated professional and personal benefits that have been attributed to study abroad in other disciplines, existing inquiry on this topic in nursing is scarce. Nurse researchers need to explore this type of engaged learning and identify its impact on the development of cultural competence and global perspectives in nursing students. The research question for this proposed phenomenology is “What is the lived experience of BSN students who study abroad?” Students who have participated in a nursing elective entitled “Nursing Practice in the UK” will be extended an invitation to be interviewed. This nursing elective is composed of didactic sessions and a one-week study abroad in London, England. Prior to leaving on the trip, the American students are visited at their home campus by a group of English nursing students. These two groups converse at length on various topics of their choice, such as healthcare systems in both countries and nursing preparation programs. While in the UK, American students complete a reflective travel journal focused on their experience. They will then reunite with the same English nursing students and attend classes on their campus. Finally, they have a significant amount of free time to explore the city sights and sounds. For many students, this is their first experience outside of the United States. Data collection will be obtained from two sources: unstructured or semi-structured interviews and written reflective travel journals. The travel journal questions will be largely structured based on findings from previous qualitative and quantitative research on this topic but the interviews will remain unstructured to semi-structured to allow for new themes to emerge. These themes will be compared to existing literature on the topic in an effort to expand the existing body of knowledge.