Quality of Mentors and How It Reflect on Student Nurses Grade - Essay Example

?Quality of Mentors and how it Reflect on Nurses Grade on Placement Mentor’s responsibilities mainly have to do with ensuring that their mentees get the best information about the subject of interest while benefiting from the best experience in order to practically apply their acquired abilities and skills. Moreover, the aspects of mentors that most influence or affect mentees are their mentors’ non-professional skills. Good mentors are able to influence mentees by merely listening with empathy to their problems or concerns. Mentors who particularly respect their mentees and create opportunities in which their mentees’ personal strengths can be developed are also more likely to affect their mentees’ choices of placement. A mentee can even make the decision to work on an ability, during placement, that his or her mentor has identified as a personal strength even though the mentee may not completely believe this; thus improving his or her overall marketability. Research Question: How does the quality of Mentors reflect on nursing students grades on placement? Introduction In nursing, mentoring can be said to be a part of the ‘helping process’ that allows student nurses to benefit from the experience of the more practiced nurses. Mentoring allows the structural, insightful, and intentional learning which takes place in different stages. The mentor is expected to account for his or her own as well as the mentee’s experience. The professional student nurse mentor will help the student nurse to realize her potential and demonstrate how best to put theoretical issues into practice. The professional student nurse also plays a big part in determining their placements. They can establish learning contracts for their mentees which help the student nurses to learn about how to participate in projects. Rationale Mentoring is the prime example of self-directed learning. It basically calls for a mentor and mentee to take responsibility for all the learning processes that are necessary (Carter, Hudyma, and Horrigan 2010). In most professions, including nursing, the recognized codes of ethics stress the tradition and professional requirement of passing to new learners the skills and abilities that they require in order to be competent. In a mentoring relationship between a student nurse and a certified medical practitioner is mutually defined and shared (Kenyon and Peckover 2008). Moreover, the mentor’s character plays an important part in influencing the student nurse’s selection of placement choice as well as future career. Through the study of the importance of mentorship qualities, mentors will be able to recognize the effect that their behaviors have on their mentees (Young and Curzio 2007). This study will also give suggestions on how mentors can alter their approaches towards student nurses so as to avail intervention strategies that will help the mentees to make more informed decisions in future. For many students to benefit the most from mentoring relationships, mentors must be able to understand when they do not make the best decisions for the situations they are in (Harwood, Reimer-Kirkham, Sawatzky, Terblanche, and Van Hofwegen 2009). They must also be able to recognize what other options they have in terms of their dealing with difficult situations, and the effects that will materialize in mentees if their behavior impacts on student nurses in a negative way (Sedgwick and Yonge 2009). Background Research studies conducted by specialists have shown that mentors play a significant role in the lives of student nurses. In addition, the individual qualities of the mentor can greatly affect how a student nurse responds to his or her placement. For example, mentors who hold the view that supervising a student nurse’s placement is a privilege for them tend to have more influence on their mentees (Jokelainen, Jamookeeah, Tossavainen and Turunen, 2013). Understanding mentors will also seek to make sure that their student nurses acquire the required clinical skills that are required for safe practice (Pellatt, 2006). Many empathetic mentors also view mentoring nurses who are about to make the change from student nurse to staff nurse as great opportunities to build a lasting relationship with the mentee which will bring benefits to both of them (Jokelainen, Turunen, Tossavainen, Jamookeeah, and Coco, 2011). Another important quality of a good mentor is astuteness. A wise mentor will search for places of placement that will be generate learning experiences for the student nurse. An understanding mentor will also consult the mentee before suggesting the best place for the placement experience (Magnusson, 2007). The cordial relations between the mentor and mentee even outside the formal environment will spur the mentee to trust the advice offered by the mentor in the matter of placement (McNamara, 2007). Another important quality for a mentor to have, apart from the necessary academic requirements, is open-mindedness and patience. Feedback is a vital part in the process of mentoring. A well-meaning mentor will always seek to applaud whenever his or her student nurse exhibits competency during placement (Mallik and McGowan, 2007). This is because positive feedback supports good practice. Also, it is important for a mentor to be able to confront matters of concern with the mentee without necessarily causing the loss of confidence in the mentee. If a mentor notices lackluster performance in his or her student nurse, it is important for this issue to be dealt with swiftly and professionally (Gopee, 2008). A wise mentor will approach this issue by first accentuating the positive qualities in the student nurses’ practice; and then move to tackle the more negative issues. Good mentoring is determined by the support given to student nurses as well as the number of learning opportunities provided (Barrett, 2007). Mentors should also be approachable and have adequate assessment tools in order to be able to correctly evaluate the student nurse. They should also be able to identify the best placement area that will afford the student nurse with many learning opportunities (Hall 2006). They also regularly supervise their mentees in order to be able to assess how the mentees are applying their newly taught skills in a practical manner. A good mentor will also find ways of making the entire learning experience enjoyable for the student nurse (Watts, 2010). At the end of placement, good mentors will allow time to reflect with the student nurse on the experience, and also seek for feedback about his or her feelings on the entire placement experience (Wilkes, 2006). Methodology An assessment of health-related and nursing journals was undertaken to classify previous research that had been conducted on how student nurses with different mentors had chosen their placements. The EMBASE database, as well as British Nursing Index and CINHAL were used in electronic searching. The keywords included ‘nursing’, ‘student’, ‘pre-registration’, and ‘placement’. Most of the journals, all of which were written in the last decade, and that gave opinion pieces were omitted. The research literature had the views of student nurses mentors documented. There was also an evaluation of the mentoring relationship after the placement experience was completed. This research also utilized a qualitative approach to survey the experiences of both student nurses and mentors where information was gathered through focus groups whose inclusion criteria consisted of: Qualification as a registered nurse Evidence of an existing mentoring relationship with a student nurse (Goodman, 2006) Registered nurses were encouraged to participate by means of letters of introduction sent along with an information sheet as well as an addressed and stamped envelope. Once the nurses agreed to take part, they got additional letters telling them the times, days and venues of the focus group interviews. They were also encouraged to communicate with the researcher if they misunderstood anything. Before giving any information, the research participants signed consent forms and were reminded that they could stop participating in the research anytime they felt like doing so. Data Collection The focus groups were organized according to the schedules of the participants. This was a bit complicated because most student nurses had different schedules from the mentors, who were registered nurses (McArthur and Burns, 2007). To save time and reduce the workload, the focus groups worked with local clinicians in order to ensure that hospital routines were not interrupted. A total of 24 registered nurse mentors and student nurses working across five separate placement areas agreed to participate in the study. The information gathered was in answer to the question ‘How do you think your interest and experience with your mentee affected your mentoring relationship before and after placement?’ The focus group meeting took approximately 55 minutes. The answers were all digitally recorded for the sake of ensuring accuracy and then transcribed word for word. The final transcriptions were also reviewed against the recorded tapes to make sure that they were accurate recordings of the interviews. Data Analysis Data analysis for the research was started while the first interview was still underway. Reliability of the true meanings of the transcripts was realized through the independent validation of the interpretation by a different researcher. Findings All the student nurse participants spoke on matters concerning the length of the final placement. The placement being discussed was took place over 16 weeks and incorporated a 2-week hiatus. The arrangement of the placements was in accordance with the NMC requirements (McCarthy and Murphy, 2007). As well as shoring the confidence of student nurses, some research participants felt that the length of placement helped in practical acquiring skills. The student nurses who felt this way indicated that the confidence of mentors in their abilities helped to inform this view. Student nurses also suggested that their mentors had indicated that short placements do not allow the student nurse to view, first-hand, all the aspects involved in nursing care. The majority of student nurses also indicated that, from the experiences that their mentors had spoken of, they understood that longer placements will help the student nurse to acquire the coping skills of qualified nurses A few student nurse participants indicated that they were unable to communicate with their mentors for long about their placements due to time constraints. Some mentors also indicated that they may be unable to provide students with needed care because they were still expected in their places of work and caring for sick patients took precedence over the mentoring relationship with their mentees. Discussion This qualitative study proved that most mentors of student nurses actually enjoy mentoring students. They take on the challenges involved in sustaining a mentoring relationship and seek to ensure that their charges have the best experience by suggesting placement places that they know will provide the needed experience. In many cases, the choice of placement is influenced by how the mentee perceives the mentor (Elcock, 2007). For example, it was found that student nurses who felt confident in their relationships with their mentors and had strong relationships with them would take their mentor’s advice on the best place for placement. The few student nurses who did not have strong relationships with their mentors were more likely to ask many other people about the best places for placement even if their mentors gave them suggestions. This research also gave evidence that nurse mentors sometimes tend to feel nervous about acting as a sign-off mentor. Some mentors actually revealed that they felt pressurized to allow their mentees the benefit of the doubt when their student nurses showed incompetence in one area or the other. It is important for staff to be given the needed support when they have to address the issue of failing students or other matters that could result in tension in the mentoring relationship (Jowett and McMullan, 2007). Limitations of the Study Many qualitative studies in the past have been accused of bias. The participants in this research were basically self-selecting as they agreed to do the study after getting written information about the research. This may be viewed as a limitation, even though the research participants who supplied the information met the objectives of the study. In order to reduce the chances of researcher bias, a systematic outline for information analysis was used. There were two focus groups that had six participants. In spite of their small size, the synergy created from each team’s dialogues still allowed the research participants to approach the subject matter with more interest than would have been achieved if individual interviews were used. In addition, there is no assertion that the findings from this research can be viewed as being representative of the wider population of mentoring relationships. As only a limited sample size was used, there is need for more research to corroborate the themes in mentoring relationships that were uncovered by this study. Conclusion This small research mainly took into account the views of 24 mentors and student nurses and was based on their views about how mentors could affect a student nurse’s choice of placement. The qualitative data gives evidence that while most of the mentors with friendly relationships with their mentees encouraged their student nurses to take on longer placements, tensions in mentoring relationships would coincide with the student nurses in such relationships taking shorter placements and seeking advice from others on the best places of placement. Some mentors decried the lack of support they experienced when their students proved to be incompetent in some areas; causing them to ascribe these anomalies to something other than student ineptness. Future researches have to investigate the causes of tensions in mentoring relationships when mentors question the performance of their mentees in order to discover the real cause of trouble in such matters. Appendix One - Proposal Timetable Select topic Start Date 6/2/13 Target Date 6/2/13 Select readers 6/3/13 6/4/13 Obtain literature 6/5/13 6/8/13 Complete lit review 6/10/13 6/13/13 Develop research question 6/14/13 6/14/ 13 Complete draft proposal 6/16/13 6/20/13 Develop research methods 6/21/13 6/22/13 Revise proposal 6/24/13 6/27/13 Collect data 6/28/13 7/1/13 Analyze data 7/2/13 7/2/13 Finish first draft of paper 7/3/13 7/3/13 Submit revised draft 7/4/13 7/4/13 References Barrett, D. (2007) ‘The clinical role of nurse lecturers: past, present, and future’, Nurse Education Today, vol. 27, pp. 367-374. Carter, L., Hudyma, S., & Horrigan, J. (2010) ‘Investigating the educational needs of nurses in telepractice: A descriptive exploratory study’, Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education, vol.36, no.1, pp. 1-20 Elcock, K. (2007) ‘Supernumerary status: an unrealized ideal’, Nurse Education in Practice, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 4-10. Goodman, J. (2006) Telecommunications policy-making in the European Union, Edward Elgar Pub, London. Gopee, N. (2008) ‘Assessing student nurses' clinical skills: the ethical competence of mentors,’ International Journal of Therapy & Rehabilitation, vol. 15, no. 9, pp. 401-7. Hall, A. (2006) ‘Mentorship in the community’, J Com Nurs, vol.20, no.6, pp. 10–12 Harwood, C.H., Reimer-Kirkham, S., Sawatzky, R., Terblanche, L., & Van Hofwegen, L. (2009) ‘Innovation in community clinical placements: a Canadian survey’, International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, vol.6, no.1, pp. 1-19 Jokelainen, M. Jamookeeah, D. Tossavainen, K. & Turunen, H. (2013) ‘Finnish and British mentors' conceptions of facilitating nursing students' placement learning and professional development’, Nurse Education in Practice, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 61-7. Jokelainen, M. Turunen, H. Tossavainen, K. Jamookeeah, D. & Coco, K. 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