Exploring student perceptions of the learning environment in four health professions education programs.

The desire to support student learning and professional development, in combination with accreditation requirements, necessitates the need to evaluate the learning environment of educational programs. The Health Education Learning Environment Survey (HELES) is a recently-developed global measure of the learning environment for health professions programs. This paper provides evidence of the applicability of the HELES for evaluating the learning environment across four health professions programs: medicine, nursing, occupational therapy and pharmaceutical sciences. Two consecutive years of HELES data were collected from each program at a single university (year 1 = 552 students; year 2 = 745 students) using an anonymous online survey. Reliability analyses across programs and administration years supported the reliability of the tool. Two-way factorial ANOVAs with program and administration year as the independent variables indicated statistically- and practically-significant differences across programs for four of the seven scales. Overall, these results support the use of the HELES to evaluate student perceptions of the learning environment multiple of health professions programs.

Commentary: Exploring the Intersections between Bullying and Racism in Nursing.

Although bullying and racism are often explored separately in nursing literature, this commentary explores how bullying and racism intersect with each other. It emphasizes the importance of clearly understanding the meaning of each concept and argues that a focus on the intersectionality between the two ensures that bullying and racism are addressed not only at the intra- and interpersonal levels but also at the structural level. The authors ask themselves and their readers to reflect on posed questions and to make a commitment not to "do nothing" but instead to "do something."

Stepping out of the shadows: Creating a graphic novella to address bullying in nursing education.

The prevalence of bullying in nursing and nursing education is of serious concern. Not only is bullying an issue at the interpersonal level, it is also pervasive at structural and institutional levels. Addressing bullying requires attention to all levels. In previous published work, we emphasized the importance of transparent and easily accessible processes and reporting mechanisms for students if or when they witness or experience bullying in nursing education. In this paper, we describe one of a number of education initiatives designed to inform stakeholders (students, faculty members, clinical instructors, registered nurses, clinical education leaders) about the prevalence of bullying, the nature of bullying, the consequences of bullying, and some strategies to address bullying in nursing education. We chose a creative approach in the form of a graphic novella (aka comic) because we believed that this medium would be visually appealing and user friendly and would therefore draw stakeholders, especially students, to the sensitive nature of the content embedded within it.

Interrupting the cycle of bullying witnessed or experienced by nursing students: An ethical and relational action framework.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of bullying experienced by nursing students continues to be a substantial concern for the profession, especially for nurse educators. It is also an issue in other health care professional programs. OBJECTIVES: To explore how educational institutions address bullying experienced by nursing and other health care professional students, with the goal of creating a set of procedures for reporting bullying if students witness or experience it during their education. DESIGN: Qualitative Description. Our central question was "What processes and resources do faculty members use when students disclose an experience related to bullying?" SETTINGS: Educational institutions in Western Canada. PARTICIPANTS: Nine faculty members and one staff member with a student service role from nursing and other health care profession programs. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews. RESULTS: We found significant variation in interviewees' conceptions of bullying and the policies, processes, and resources for addressing bullying within programs. We adopted an existing definition of bullying; designed a set of procedures focused on reporting mechanisms; and developed a guiding framework entitled Addressing Bullying in Nursing Education: An Ethical and Relational Action Framework. CONCLUSIONS: Nursing and other health care professional programs should ensure they have 1) clear and transparent procedures to report bullying 2) education about bullying for students and faculty.

Exploring the implications of a self-care assignment to foster undergraduate nursing student mental health: Findings from a survey research study.

BACKGROUND: Nursing students experience numerous personal, academic, and practice-related stressors, impacting their mental health. Nursing programs often contribute to student stress and should incorporate strategies to support students' mental health. Self-care has the potential to enhance students' ability to manage current stressors and to build capacity for addressing future stress and burnout; however, the concept has been limitedly integrated into nursing education. OBJECTIVES: To examine students' responses to a self-care assignment integrated into core nursing coursework. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study using an online survey. SETTINGS: An accelerated two-year undergraduate nursing program in Western Canada. PARTICIPANTS: Undergraduate nursing students in first- and second-year of a two-year program. METHODS: A 16-question survey, including closed- and open-ended response fields was developed by the research team. Survey questions were grounded in Bloom's Cognitive, Psychomotor, and Affective learning domains to comprehensively examine the impact of the assignment on students' learning and self-care capacity. RESULTS: 89 participants completed the survey (49% response rate). Participants' increase in self-care practices pre- and post-assignment was statistically significant (p = 0.023). Results further demonstrate that students' knowledge of self-care and capacity to identify and manage stressors were enhanced. Participants reported that overall the assignment supported their well-being. However, some participants described that aspects of the assignment detracted from well-being, including challenges with grading and feelings of guilt when not practicing self-care. CONCLUSIONS: A self-care assignment is an effective strategy for nursing educators to foster students' capacity to cope with stressors.

Uncovering nurse educators' beliefs and values about grading academic papers: guidelines for best practices.

Fair and consistent assessment, specifically grading, is crucial to teaching and learning scholarship and is a professional responsibility of nurse educators. Yet, many would agree that assessment is one of the most challenging aspects of their role. Despite differing beliefs, values, and meanings attributed to grading and grades, teachers' grading practices should be guided by principles and supported by policies. Inconsistent grading practices among educators, students' unrealistic expectations of grades, and a trend toward grade inflation may be contributing to both educators' and students' concerns. A teaching scholarship project that led to a research study explored nurse educators' beliefs, values, and practices related to the grading of written academic work. The purpose of this article is to share the findings and the resulting grading guidelines that were developed to support nurse educators' endeavors to enact equitable grading practices.

Strengthening communication education in an undergraduate nursing curriculum.

As effective communication is an essential professional competency that is conceptualized and developed during undergraduate education, the purpose of this study was to investigate and reinforce the role of communication in the nursing undergraduate curriculum. Analysis of faculty and student focus group discussions revealed the benefit of purposefully structuring and explicitly articulating communication education throughout the undergraduate curriculum for increased accessibility and visibility of communication education, expanded ranges of available teaching and learning methods and resources, and strengthened ability to address undermining mixed communication messages. These findings have implications for how to specifically include communication education in a learning-centered undergraduate curriculum.