Work readiness of graduating nursing students: Case study research

The catch cry from health services and others is that new graduates are not work ready (Hegney et al., 2013 2013; Missen et al., 2016; Schwartz, 2019), Masso et al., 2019). An important factor causing a lack of work readiness is the quality of clinical student learning experiences. Use of sub-optimal clinical areas for student experiences that do not align with the curriculum, or a lack of quality opportunities for learning experiences will not prepare student nurses efficiently (Janson & Ene, 2016).

Clinical practice learning models have evolved and aim for optimal student learning experiences. One approach is preceptorship. In this model, students’ “shadow” or work alongside registered nurses to learn the registered nurses (RNs) role (Bachmann et al., 2019). Preceptors have responsibility for students’ learning in addition to their own allocated patients and workloads, however Preceptors have expressed difficulty in providing students’ learning, prioritizing care of patients (Valizadeh et al., 2016) with increased nurse-patient ratios, patients with complex comorbidities, and undertaking administrative work (“task shifting”) (Richards & Borglin, 2019).

A part time nursing workforce does not align with the preceptorship model. This results in students being allocated various staff across their placement, who can have different expectations of students’ performances. Student nurses report anxiety and apprehension when support is inconsistent (Ward & McComb, 2017).

Student clinical experiences are also influenced by the culture of organizations and wards where the students are allocated. Nursing students commonly report they are excluded from team environments and described these as non-receptive or non-inclusive environments. This can lead to social isolation and perceived comprehension of incompetence (King et al., 2017) by staff. Students argue their learning opportunities and decisions made regarding their individual clinical performance can be based on whether or not they are liked by staff members rather than by their clinical competence (Hampshire et al., 2012).

Recent global work readiness research has been implemented in England, New Zealand (Jamieson et al., 2019); America (Baumann et al., 2018); and Canada (Mirza et al., 2019). Research examining students have also included Ireland and Scotland (Kennedy & Chesser-Smyth, 2017); Sweden (Gustafsson et al. , 2015; Falk et al., 2015; Theander et al., 2016) yet more work is required to explore students’ perceptions of work readiness (Jamieson et al., 2019). The Australian student voice is particularly lacking and following negative feedback from a health service regarding poor readiness of new graduates from a particular Australian university a single case study research project was implemented using the research question of:

How do final year students perceive themselves as work ready for RN roles and clinical practice in Australia?

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