Nurses' lived experience of being a preceptor.
Registered nurses' lived experience of preceptorship was studied in this phenomenological study. To illuminate the meaning of registered nurses' experience of being a preceptor for student nurses, individual tape-recorded interviews were conducted with 17 registered nurses. They narrated their experience of being a personal preceptor for student nurses during practical training on a hospital unit, and the interviews transcribed verbatim were analyzed phenomenological-hermeneutically. The analysis revealed two main themes (1) including the student in their daily work and (2) increasing awareness of the process of learning, as well as six other themes, which contributed to a new comprehension of the meaning of being a preceptor. All the themes were related to the ongoing preceptor-preceptee relationship. The preceptors' thinking on past experiences and their ideas of nursing care in the future were present simultaneously. Nurses acting as preceptors were perceived as conscious individuals, demanding a balance of their daily work responsibility with increased awareness of the professional demands of nursing care. Preceptors gained increased awareness of and a desire to fulfill the student nurses' varied learning needs and increased awareness of their own learning process.
Centre for Research in Teaching and Learning, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden.
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K
Ohrling
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Hallberg
D000328:Adult; D004506:Education, Nursing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D011231:Preceptorship; D013548:Sweden; D013663:Teaching