Professional Experience Placement

This study by Newton  et al (2015) aimed to understand the factors in the workplace that may contribute to or inhibit a culture of learning in nursing. The authors describe the background to the study citing that students and staff need to be engaged with the health team to maximise learning opportunities to enable the development of competence and confidence in their own abilities. The authors suggest that there continues to be a compartmentalisation of education and service in workplace settings. Students learn to juggle the compartmentalisation by learning  to conform to the norm of workplace settings.

The study comprised of observations of nurses and students in workplace settings and follow up interviews of participants. Three dominant themes were found. These were:

• learning by doing;
• Navigating through communication; and
• Entrustability.

Comments made by Newton et al (2015) indicated that learning by doing sometimes occurred without much preparation or planning and therefore learning opportunities were lost. Students indicated that good communication assisted them to feel more comfortable, relaxed and able to ask questions. Entrustability was more complex. Where students were in environments where trust was present, enhanced the learning experience and validated their sense of professionalism.

The authors found that the sharing of of knowledge was performed in a rushed manner, leaving little time for the students to reflect or make sense of learning; teamwork was focused on expediently getting the work done; interactions were mostly purpose driven and unrelated to exploring issues. The findings of this study demonstrate the importance of building trust that is  central in supporting knowledge development.

The authors concluded that the quality of workplace learning environments are affected by the culture and/or routine  practices. Challenging these environments can improve workplace learning opportunities.  The implications for clinical supervisors are heeding the findings and reorientating learning.  Newton et al (2015) suggested e-conversations could be a way forward. The authors suggested that developing virtual communities of practice could be a strategy to ameliorate some of the communication issues and promote professional identity development. If this concept was adopted along with the integration of mobile learning in workplaces, a new pedagogy could be implemented to promote quality learning and teaching in this digital age.

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