The need for seamless academic progression from nursing school into practice is imperative. Nursing programs need a knowledge base from which to develop learning and mentoring experiences for their NACF. They will provide quality learning experiences for their students if NACF have been effectively oriented to their role (Ard & Valiga, 2009). Healthcare delivery and the nursing profession are changing dramatically due to consumer demand for cost-effective quality care, and an evidence-grounded profession (AACN, 2012b). The demand for registered nurses is expected to grow by 40 percent between 2000 and 2020 and if the current trends continue there will be a 29 percent shortage by 2020 (King, 2002). New nurses will need to be better prepared after graduation for higher acuity patients and higher workloads due to the nursing shortage.
Surprisingly there is an absence of research on NACF, specifically with how best to educate them to their teaching role. The researcher of this study interviewed twelve NACF with no less than one semester and no more than four semesters teaching experience. The researcher asked NACF how they best learn or what would be helpful to them to assimilate into their new educator role. van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenological design approach was used. The goal was to explore or uncover descriptions of a particular experience and the meanings, the phenomenon or human experience of being a novice NACF.
Four themes (frustration, training, mentorship and desire to teach) and eight subthemes (unknown expectations, role struggle, shadowing, grading, feedback, professional resource, lifelong learning and educate future nurses) were identified after the researcher analyzed the data. The constant comparison method was used and the data was broken down into segments and expressions were grouped and labeled. The most predominant theme of frustration was experienced by 8 of the 12 participants related to their adjunct clinical faculty experience. Unknown expectations and role struggle were subthemes of frustration. Unknown expectations included how to grade student assignments; believing students were more prepared for clinical than they were; last minute clinical site changes; no formal orientation to their clinical faculty role; and receiving no direction throughout their clinical rotation by a course coordinator. NACF struggled in their teaching role because they wanted to help students learn but felt they weren’t given the tools they needed to be successful in their role. Nine out of 12 participants overwhelmingly discussed their need to know how to conduct a clinical. Ten participants reported that they are visual learners and would like to have had hands on clinical training to ensure their success as a clinical educator. Seven out of 12 participants shared that shadowing another clinical faculty prior to the start of their clinical would have been the most helpful in learning how to conduct a clinical; including what to do with the students in the clinical area; and how to conduct a pre and post conference. Eight out of 12 participants agreed that receiving help with grading clinical write-ups would have helped them be proficient with grading.
In addition to shadowing clinical instructors and getting help with grading, participants wanted feedback. This feedback may be given through mentorship. One participant described a mentoring relationship but all other participants did not describe a desire to have a mentoring relationship. They wanted someone to go to if they had questions “a point of contact” and someone to check on them at the beginning of their clinical rotation, not throughout their rotation, until they knew what their expectations were as clinical faculty. Participants wanted feedback throughout their teaching assignment from either clinical faculty or course coordinators. Six out of 12 participants accepted an adjunct clinical faculty position because they believed it would be interesting and an educational role for them. Lifelong learning and wanting to educate future nurse were subthemes of Desire to Teach.
The contributions of the researcher’s study to nursing education included: Students may not be prepared upon graduation to provide quality and safe care; Adjunct clinical faculty were frustrated in their teaching role due to the lack of preparation from their nursing school employers; and adjunct faculty shared what would be helpful to them for their success in their teaching role. The contribution to professional practice included: Prepared clinical faculty are needed to help students make connections from education to practice; According to the participants responses to questions the quality of students’ clinical rotations may be absent; New nurses will be better prepared; and employers and patients will benefit.