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Friendship fosters learning: The importance of friendships in clinical practice

Roberts, D

Authors

D Roberts



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 Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Salford, UK) and aims to highlight the importance of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
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



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