Tertiary Ecuadorian Students' Beliefs About Learning a Foreign Language: A Descriptive Study

This descriptive study aimed at identifying tertiary Ecuadorian students' beliefs about learning a foreign language. The sample was composed of 200 (n=200) students enrolled in the first semester of Agriculture, Nursing, Pedagogy, and Psychopedagogy in a public university in the Los Rios province, Ecuador. Among the participants, 168 were female (84%), and 32 were male (16%). The mean age was 21.49, varying from 18 to 44 years old. The data was collected using the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory questionnaire (BALLI), and it was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results demonstrated that participants reported strong beliefs in the categories of aptitude for learning the language, motivation and expectations, and learning and communication strategies. The results of this research will unblock a new field of studies to be conducted in the country. The authors recommend doing qualitative studies to deeply understand the reason for each one of the most salient beliefs.

Crowdsourcing in Nursing Education: A Possibility of Creating a Personalized Online Learning Environment for Student Nurses in the Post-COVID Era

The widespread COVID-19 pandemic has not only posed a major health threat in Taiwan but also has challenged the nursing pedagogy. Both academia and the education industry are calling for a radical change of nursing pedagogy. Under such a call, the present study investigates an online collaborative knowledge co-construction mechanism—Crowdsourcing Collaborative Learning Strategy (CCLS)—to help student nurses acquire and practice functional knowledge on clinical operations targeted to the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) at anytime and anywhere via the internet service. A t-test on the pre-and-post test between the control and experimental group explained the effectiveness of the CCLS online platform. Two questionnaires were used to explore students’ perception of the effectiveness and the usefulness of the CCLS online platform. The findings suggested the CCLS online platform can help students to revisit their clinical performance via the recorded videos, facilitate student nurses’ self-reflection on their performance, and help student nurses to minimize the academic-practice gap. Participants in this study scored the CCLS online platform as helpful and easy to use during the learning process.

Nursing pedagogy: Qualitative study of students’ nighttime practicum’s

The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study is to explore the lived experience of student nurses experiencing their first 12-hour nighttime practicum. Pedagogy, the art, and science of nursing directs the educational context of the nighttime practicum’s significant to how students acquire knowledge and skills. However, fatigue among the students working and studying at night has resulted in requests of duty to accommodate; more time off between shifts or no 12-hour shifts. The research question is what the lived experiences of student nurses enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in nursing program completing nighttime practicum during their consolidated practice experience? Two interviews occurred; beginning and end of the students’ practicum. Themes extracted included getting ready and prepared, meeting standards of fitness to practice, nursing praxis and practice activities, providing an environment to practice, and burden of fatigue. Findings from the students’ first night time practicum highlight that assignments and clinical practice seminars should count as clinical hours, consider 8-hour versus 12-hour shifts, or five days off after a 12-hour set.

Assessing Attitudes of Nursing Pedagogy: An Instrument Based on the Midrange Theory of Empowered Holistic Nursing Education

Background and Purpose:The Empowered Holistic Nursing Education (EHNE) midrange theory provides a structure for a pedagogy for nursing, bringing the core values of nursing into the classroom. There are five principles of EHNE: Self-Care, Interconnectedness, Prior Knowledge, Contextual Teaching-Learning, and Meet Them Where They Are.Methods:The Thurstone method was used in the development of this scale, resulting in two subscales representing unique phenomena, each with 11 relational items that represent the spectrum of attitudes for the phenomenon.Results:With a CVI score of 0.92 (n= 23) for subscale 1 and 0.89 (n= 23) for subscale 2, the scale was found to have high inter-rater reliability with an agreement of K = 0.814 (99% confidence interval). Analysis revealed a significant, positive association between the two subscales (r= .96 and sig/2 tailed = .003).Conclusions:This instrument development study as a whole allows for further testing of the midrange theory and advancement to implementation and intervention research.

An integrative review of Albertina Sisulu and ubuntu: Relevance to caring and nursing

Background: Caring forms the core component of nursing. The history of the nature of caring in South Africa is non-specific and is unknown. The impact of nurse and activist Albertina Sisulu – known as the Mother of the Nation – has the potential to offer uniquein sights into what could be the context of caring for nurses.Aims: The study aimed at 1) critically synthesising the available evidence of caring as portrayed by Albertina Sisulu within the South African context, and 2) interpreting Sisulu's work within the Ubuntu philosophy as a framework for nursing and caring.Method: An integrative review was completed using Whittemore and Knafl's framework. Key electronic databases, selected references and web-based search engines were scoured for articles meeting the inclusion criteria. This systematic and iterative approach yielded 18 non-research reports related to Sisulu; eight reports (three research, five non-research) related to ubuntu and nursing. Data was extracted that related to relevant and conclusive new and innovative practices in caring.Results: The findings provided a context for practice guidelines of caring concerning knowledge and critical thinking about caring by nurses. Two primary factors emerged that demonstrated a culture of caring as seen through the prism of Sisulu's life: devoted dancer and creation of a healing environment. These factors also reflect African ubuntu principles, where the focus is on the relationships between people and how these relationships could be conducted.Conclusions: Ubuntu and Sisulu's approach to caring have much to offer for the nursing profession in terms of developing of new directions for nursing pedagogy, curriculum,practice patterns, and policies that emphasise caring constructs.

A Midrange Theory of Empowered Holistic Nursing Education: A Pedagogy for a Student-Centered Classroom

The purpose of this article is to propose Empowered Holistic Nursing Education (EHNE) as a midrange theory—developed through induction, explication, deduction, and retroduction—to help nurse educators teach holistically and create a student-centered classroom, to establish a theoretical basis for a nursing pedagogy reflecting nursing’s foundational principles, and to guide future research. The model’s 5 core concepts, how to use the model as a pedagogy for practice, and its application to research will be presented. Holistic nursing will be defined, and traditional holistic nursing, holistic pedagogy, and emancipatory pedagogy will each be described.