Experiencing Narrative Pedagogy

Nurses, as the largest sector of health professionals, play a pivotal role in addressing the increasing complexity of patient care in the twenty-first century.  Nurse educators are challenged to graduate students who are able to meet the diverse needs of patients, work collaboratively, and deliver safe, competent care.  The landscape of the national health care delivery system is changing as the number of patients with multiple morbidities increases.   How nurses learn to manage these conditions begins with nursing education.  The literature reflects a need for nurse educators to use pedagogies that improve clinical reasoning in a variety of patient care contexts. 

According to the literature, new nursing graduates are deficient in prioritizing care, managing multiple patients, and effective clinical decision making in their first year of nursing.  When new nursing graduates are not able to transition to practice effectively, there is an increased risk of medical errors.  The complexity of patient care is continuing to grow and these new graduates need to be able to practice safely in their first year as a nurse.  Nurse educators play an important role in graduating students who are able to make this transition and address these deficiencies. 

The importance of nurse educators using alternative pedagogies is more important now as the landscape of health care continues to change.  Nurse educators need to move away from saturating the curriculum with more content and focus on how teaching and learning are occurring.  Narrative Pedagogy offers a way for nurse educators to address the current needs of students when caring for patients with complex health conditions.  My study is exploring the Concernful Practice of Listening: knowing and connecting as a phenomenon that is considered meaningful in nursing education.  The research question I am addressing is ‘how do teachers enabling Narrative Pedagogy experience Listening: knowing and connecting’?