scholarly journals Nursing Practicum Equity for a Changing Nurse Student Demographic: a Qualitative Study

Author(s):  
Lesley Andrew ◽  
Julie Dare ◽  
Ken Robinson ◽  
Leesa Costello

Abstract Background:The nursing practicum (clinical practice) is an essential but often highly stressful aspect of the nursing degree. A review of the published literature reveals a strong focus on the stressors that originate within the practicum environment, rather than the student’s life outside the university and practice setting. This article reports on an Australian study, completed before the COVID-19 pandemic, of the university experiences of undergraduate women nurse students with family responsibilities. The findings reveal the importance of factors outside the university on the women students’ practicum experience and their ability to engage and achieve.Methods:The study was qualitative, guided by Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy. Twenty-nine women students with family responsibilities (partners and children) were interviewed at two stages of their degree journey. Over 50 hours of data were thematically analysed.Findings:The themes ‘family pressure’ and ‘practicum poverty’ describe the impact of domestic work, family finances and practicum organisation on student stress, wellbeing, achievement, thoughts of attrition, and family tension. These findings are particularly pertinent to Australia and other developed nations where the nurse student demographic continues to age. An interpretation of these findings against the recent impact of COVID-19 on nurse education and women’s life choices reveals the likelihood that these difficulties have intensified for women students with family responsibilities since the pandemic began.Conclusions and Recommendations:Many developed nations, including Australia, are increasingly reliant on older women nurse students to maintain the future graduate nursing workforce. This change in nurse student demographic to the mature-age student requires a revision of the organisation of the nursing practicum. Recommendations to nurse education to improve practicum accessibility for women students who have family responsibilities include the application of a flexible and collaborative approach to practicum organisation and communication. Wider recommendations to Government include a revision of the way the nursing student is financially supported during the practicum. Further research that explores the practicum experience for women nurse students during and following the COVID-19 pandemic is also recommended.

Author(s):  
Terry L. Birdwhistell ◽  
Deirdre A. Scaggs

Since women first entered the University of Kentucky (UK) in 1880 they have sought, demanded, and struggled for equality within the university. The period between 1880 and 1945 at UK witnessed women’s suffrage, two world wars, and an economic depression. It was during this time that women at UK worked to take their rightful place in the university’s life prior to the modern women’s movement of the 1960s and beyond. The history of women at UK is not about women triumphant, and it remains an untidy story. After pushing for admission into a male-centric campus environment, women created women’s spaces, women’s organizations, and a women’s culture often patterned on those of men. At times, it seemed that a goal was to create a woman’s college within the larger university. However, coeducation meant that women, by necessity, competed with men academically while still navigating the evolving social norms of relationships between the sexes. Both of those paths created opportunities, challenges, and problems for women students and faculty. By taking a more women-centric view of the campus, this study shows more clearly the impact that women had over time on the culture and environment. It also allows a comparison, and perhaps a contrast, of the experiences of UK women with other public universities across the United States.


Author(s):  
Cassandra R. Davis ◽  
Harriet Hartman ◽  
Milanika Turner ◽  
Terri Norton ◽  
Julie Sexton ◽  
...  

In March 2020, the higher-education community faced one of its largest disruptions to date with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing campuses to close their doors to thousands of students. The university-wide closures prompted a collaboration between researchers and college administrators to assess the impact of COVID-19 on First-Generation College Students (FGCS). The team surveyed 659 FGCS across five U.S. universities to assess the ways in which the pandemic exacerbated already existing inequalities students faced in their persistence to graduate from college. The team used the social cognitive career theory as a conceptual framework for analysis. Our findings revealed that when respondents compared their life before COVID-19 with their present state, FGCS were less likely to perceive they had enough money to return to college, felt overwhelmed and lonely by added stress, and were more likely to see an increase in family responsibilities.


2020 ◽  
pp. 130-163
Author(s):  
Terry L. Birdwhistell ◽  
Deirdre A. Scaggs

This chapter explores the impact of the Great Depression on women students at UK. To support financially strapped women students the university utilized several New Deal student work programs and established group houses where women students could live more frugally. Highlighted are the contradictions between women’s academic aspirations and successes and their vocational and educational opportunities after college, made even more problematic by the worsening economic conditions. Combining a career with marriage remained almost impossible for most women college graduates. Moreover, women students still had to endure both subtle and obvious sex discrimination in the classroom. Also discussed is the establishment of a women’s building on campus, where women students and faculty could gather and where women’s organizations could meet. By the end of the 1930s the Woman’s Building was closed with the opening of a new student union.


Author(s):  
Ibrahim R. Ayasreh ◽  
Inaam A. Khalaf

AbstractBackgroundWorkplace violence is one of the most compelling problems facing health care sectors all over the world. The detrimental impact of workplace violence extends to affect nurse students who receive their training in clinical areas.ObjectiveThe study aimed to investigate the impact of witnessing workplace violence during clinical training on the attitudes of Jordanian nursing students toward the nursing profession.MethodsCross-sectional design was used in this study. Data were collected through electronic survey questionnaires from 131 nursing students from three nursing schools in Jordan. Attitude Scale for Nursing Profession was used to assess the participants’ attitude toward nursing profession.ResultsThe results showed that about 34% of student participants witnessed workplace violence during their clinical training. Nursing student participants who did not witness workplace violence showed significantly more positive attitude toward nursing profession than who did witness.ConclusionWitnessing workplace violence had a significant negative impact on how nursing students view nursing job.


Author(s):  
Christabelle Sethna

The birth control pill is routinely associated with the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s. Yet this case study of the impact of the pill on the University of Toronto reveals that young, single, white, middle-class women students were not always able to access this prescription contraceptive at the campus Health Service. The refusal or reluctance of the Health Service to prescribe the pill to single women students resulted in heightened male and female student pressure on the Health Service to do so. The development of and changes to the Health Service's policy on the provision of oral contraceptives to single women students reflected the often contradictory moral, legal and administrative positionalities of that Service. The result was a complex dynamic marked by conflict and collusion.


Author(s):  
Albert Sánchez-Gelabert ◽  
Riccardo Valente ◽  
Josep M Duart

In recent decades, there has been a steady growth in the population who enter higher education in both brick-and-mortar and, in particular, online universities. This has led to an increase in heterogeneous student profiles in a relatively short period of time. The purpose of this paper was to explore the student profiles at a university that gives all its courses online, namely the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), and analyse students’ perceptions of their university experience. With this goal in mind, we constructed a student typology based on their social conditions and backgrounds using multiple correspondence analysis. Subsequently, an analysis of variance (Kruskall-Wallis test) was run to detect whether there were any differences in students’ perceptions of the impact of their university experience (N = 1850). Although the prevailing profile of students in the online university continues to reflect students with responsibilities outside of the university (e.g., work and/or family), new profiles have been observed, made up of younger students without any work or family responsibilities. In turn, younger students’ distinct perceptions of their university experience has been observed, depending on student profiles, with older students having more intrinsic perceptions, focused on learning and the acquisition of theoretical knowledge.


The university is considered one of the engines of growth in a local economy or its market area, since its direct contributions consist of 1) employment of faculty and staff, 2) services to students, and supply chain links vendors, all of which define the University’s Market area. Indirect contributions consist of those agents associated with the university in terms of community and civic events. Each of these activities represent economic benefits to their host communities and can be classified as the economic impact a university has on its local economy and whose spatial market area includes each of the above agents. In addition are the critical links to the University, which can be considered part of its Demand and Supply chain. This paper contributes to the field of Public/Private Impact Analysis, which is used to substantiate the social and economic benefits of cooperating for economic resources. We use Census data on Output of Goods and Services, Labor Income on Salaries, Wages and Benefits, Indirect State and Local Taxes, Property Tax Revenue, Population, and Inter-Industry to measure economic impact (Implan, 2016).


Author(s):  
John Mckiernan-González

This article discusses the impact of George J. Sánchez’s keynote address “Working at the Crossroads” in making collaborative cross-border projects more academically legitimate in American studies and associated disciplines. The keynote and his ongoing administrative labor model the power of public collaborative work to shift research narratives. “Working at the Crossroads” demonstrated how historians can be involved—as historians—in a variety of social movements, and pointed to the ways these interactions can, and maybe should, shape research trajectories. It provided a key blueprint and key examples for doing historically informed Latina/o studies scholarship with people working outside the university. Judging by the success of Sánchez’s work with Boyle Heights and East LA, projects need to establish multiple entry points, reward participants at all levels, and connect people across generations.I then discuss how I sought to emulate George Sánchez’s proposals in my own work through partnering with labor organizations, developing biographical public art projects with students, and archiving social and cultural histories. His keynote address made a back-and-forth movement between home communities and academic labor seem easy and professionally rewarding as well as politically necessary, especially in public universities. 


Author(s):  
Nham Phong Tuan ◽  
Nguyen Ngoc Quy ◽  
Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen ◽  
Hong Tra My ◽  
Tran Nhu Phu

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of seven factors causing academic stress on students of University of Economics and Business - Vietnam National University: Lack of leisure time, Academic performance, Fear of failure, Academic overload, Finances, Competition between students, Relationships with university faculty. Based on the results of a practical survey of 185 students who are attending any courses at the University of Economics and Business - Vietnam National University, the study assesses the impact of stress factors on students. The thesis focuses on clarifying the concept of "stress" and the stress level of students, while pointing out its negative effects on students. This study includes two cross-sectional questionnaire surveys. The first survey uses a set of 16 questions to assess students’ perceptions and attitudes based on an instrument to measure academic stress - Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents (ESSA). The second survey aims to test internal consistency, the robustness of the previously established 7-factor structure. Henceforth, the model was brought back and used qualitatively, combined with Cronbach’s Alpha measurement test and EFA discovery factor analysis. This study was conducted from October 2019 to December 2019. From these practical analyzes, several proposals were made for the society, the school and the students themselves.


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