D Roberts
Friendship fosters learning: The importance of friendships in clinical practice
Roberts, D
Authors
Abstract
This paper reports on one of the key findings from a recent ethnographic study (Roberts, D., 2007.
Friendships and the community of students: peer learning amongst a group of pre-registration student
nurses. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Salford, UK) and aims to highlight the importance of
friendships for student nurses in clinical practice. An interpretive ethnographic approach was taken
in order to reveal the student experience during their pre registration programme. Data was collected
using ethnographic interviewing (Sorrell, J.M., Redmond, G.M., 1995. Interviews in qualitative nursing
research: differing approaches for ethnographic and phenomenological studies. Journal of Advanced
Nursing 21, 1117–1122.) and participant observation. Within this paper I argue that student nurses
exist on the edge of the community of practice (of the qualified staff) and therefore form their own parallel
community where students are all seen as being in the same boat. In particular students use the
friendships they develop in clinical practice to enable them to learn; developing an ‘ask anything’ culture
where all students are perceived as valuable sources of knowledge. Furthermore, it appears that
knowledge is contextually bound and not therefore linked to seniority, or length of time served on
the course.
Citation
Roberts, D. (2009). Friendship fosters learning: The importance of friendships in clinical practice. Nurse Education in Practice, 9(6), 367-371. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2008.10.016
Journal Article Type | Article |
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Publication Date | Jan 1, 2009 |
Deposit Date | May 9, 2011 |
Journal | Nurse Education in Practice |
Print ISSN | 1471-5953 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 9 |
Issue | 6 |
Pages | 367-371 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2008.10.016 |
Publisher URL | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2008.10.016 |