Professional Experience Placement

This blog has previously discussed recent literature about clinical supervisors and students and differences regarding learning and teaching approaches; the impact that alternating views may have on holistic patient care and outcomes; relationships with each other and other members of the health care team. Farr-Wharton, Brunetto and Shacklock (2012) have studied three generational cohorts of nurses and report that intuition is the key to their empowerment and consequent commitment to their workplace organisations.

This self report survey of 900 nurses in 7 private hospitals from three generation cohorts in Australia was analysed using correlations, regression analysis, MANOVA and path analysis. The findings confirmed that intuition differs between the Baby Boomers, Generation X and Y. The authors reported that empowerment is more important to Baby Boomer and Generation X nurses than Generation Y nurses. They also found the impact of using intuition differs significantly among generational cohorts. The implications of these findings suggest there may be a need to be sensitive to the different perceptions of empowerment and affective commitment because of the impact on nurse – supervisor relationships if they are not!

Review of the literature suggested that intuition is influenced by age, gender, religious beliefs, self-esteem and support of co-workers. Baby Boomers due to their age are more likely to use intuition than the younger cohorts.  Additionally, nurse’s perception of empowerment is important because it predicts affective commitment and therefore turnover of employment within organisations. Employers need to consider these factors when assessing job productivity, satisfaction or planning turnover intentions.

The findings of this study have implications for clinical supervision of students. A proportion of students are Gen X or Y and will behave in similar ways to those described by the authors in this study. It is therefore important to be aware of behavioural traits of these cohorts when guiding them in practice. Similarly there are implications for working with preceptors as they too, will have their own lens. Perceptions of student knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour towards competency development will differ according to the lens of the supervisor or student.

Standardising the assessment of competency has been a vexed question and remains to be resolved. In the mean time an understanding of our own cohort world view, the lens of others, reflection and use of objective tools will continue to assist clinical supervisors in facilitating students of each generational cohort towards competency.

There are also implications for job productivity and satisfaction for clinical supervisors. Depending on model of professional experience supervision, if these roles are not valued within a workplace the likelihood of turnover of the role could be higher depending on the mix of generational cohort within the team. From this study, for example,  it may be extrapolated that if the professional experience supervisor is Gen Y, within a predominant Baby Boomer team, the turnover of supervisors may be higher, than if the mix included more Gen X or Y nurses. Similarly, if the supervisor and student relationships become challenging due to differences in cohort traits, this may reduce learning and teaching opportunities as there is a higher potential for conflict due to the perceived quality of relationships within their role designation.

Self-awareness, reflection and the ability to empathise with colleagues and students regarding their roles and functions will facilitate a clinical supervisor to navigate their way through the complex of relationships that are present in each organisational unit.  Knowing where the potential differences lie will be helpful in being effective as a role model and nurturing students to reach their potential.

Do you have an opinion about whether there are cohort differences that could affect your ability to undertake your role effectively as a professional experience supervisor of students? If you have any comments you are welcome to post them here. Please join us @PEPCommunity.