Students' voices: the lived experience of faculty incivility as a barrier to professional formation in associate degree nursing education.
BACKGROUND
Nursing faculty play an important role in constructing learning environments that foster the positive formation of future nurses. The students' construction of a nursing identity is grounded in social interactions with faculty and is shaped by values and norms learned in both the formal and informal curriculum. The informal curriculum is communicated in faculty teaching practices and relationships established with students.


OBJECTIVE
To acquire an understanding of the students' lived experience in associate degree nursing education and identify educational practices that support students' professional formation.


METHODS
A phenomenological design was chosen to study the lived experience of nursing education. In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 participants. Five students participated in second interviews for a total of 18 interviews. Symbolic interactionism guided data analysis.


METHODS
Participants represented three ADN programs in the northeastern U.S. and were diverse in terms of gender and age and to a lesser extent race, and sexual orientation.


RESULTS
Faculty incivility included demeaning experiences, subjective evaluation, rigid expectations, and targeting and weeding out practices. Targeting practices contributed to a perceived focus on clinical evaluation and inhibited clinical learning. Faculty incivility hindered professional formation by interfering with learning, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and confidence.


CONCLUSIONS
Faculty who model professional values in the formal and hidden curriculum contribute to the positive formation of future nurses. Nursing faculty should be formally prepared as educators to establish respectful, connected relationships with students. Faculty should role model professional values, deemphasize their evaluative role, provide constructive formative feedback, and remain open to the student's potential for growth.
Department of Nursing and Health Professions, State University of New York Institute of Technology, 100 Seymour Road, Utica, NY 13502, USA. Darlene.DelPrato@sunyit.edu
Darlene
D
Del Prato
D000328:Adult; D004507:Education, Nursing, Associate / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005181:Faculty, Nursing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008297:Male; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012919:Social Behavior; D012951:Socialization; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult