Effective Mentoring and Belongingness

Nursing students who enter work placement encounter many challenges in translating their clinical knowledge to nursing practice. For newly placed student, student’s stress level is high due to challenges in day-to-day practice. Effective mentoring is also a factor that determines bad or good experience for a student nurse in work placement (Al-Dubai et al., 2013). To understand the association between mentoring and nurse’s stress level, review of past research work is necessary to understand things that have covered in past studies.

The study by Levett?Jones et al., (2009) is found relevant to the research question as it focuses on exploring the relationship between student-staff and its impact on nursing student’s belonging and clinical learning. The topic is significant and related to the research question lack of belongingness is the major reason for poor confidence and motivation of student nurses. Hence, to understand student nurses experience of belongingness, Levett?Jones et al., (2009) conducted semi-structured interview with third year students from two Australian and UK universities. The interview mainly comprised of open ended questions related to clinical placement experiences of nurses and where they felt they belonged or do not belonged. The interview lasted for 50-60 minutes. The thematic analysis of data gave idea about the receptiveness of nursing staff, nurse’s feeling of exclusion/inclusion, recognition and appreciation and challenge and support. The response of student’s nurses had many similarities as many favored a placement experience that had high degree of belongingness. Hence, when students got supportive staffs or mentor, students found it easy to enter threatening clinical environment. The strength of the study is that it has given in-depth idea about nurse’s perception of belongingness and experience during clinical placement. However, one limitation is that this research has been done only with students and not mentors, hence conducting interviews with nurse educators would have given better idea about interaction between nurse-staff.

The limitation found in above research was addressed by Allan, (2010) as it aimed to identify the barriers to effective and non-discriminatory mentoring practices by interviewing both overseas nurses and mentors from six UK health care sites. Mentoring programs are crucial in supporting students to adapt professional behaviors in clinical setting, hence identifying barriers to the process of effective mentoring is necessary to address student’s nurses problem in health care setting. By the use of ethnographic research design with mixed data collection methods, interview data were collected and coded using data analysis software. The study revealed that lack of preparation for addressing cultural difference is the main barrier to effective mentoring and it affects learning for overseas nurses. It was also the reason for bullying and discriminatory practices in clinical setting. Hence, the study gave the insight that overseas nurse experience unfair treatment during mentoring because of lack of guidelines on ethical practice and discriminatory attitudes. The strength of the study is that it has highlighted the issues for overseas nurses during work placement, however there is a need to analyze the special role and activities of mentor too to provide positive work placement experiences to all nurses irrespective of nationality.

Barriers to Effective Mentoring

The research evidence by Allan (2010) pointed out to the need for taking strategies to reduce stress and negative work experience for nurses. The research was not found reliable to answer the research question as it focused mainly on the experiences of overseas nurses in clinical setting. The research by Li et al., (2011) is significant and relevant to answer the research question as its gives a solution to reduce stress level of students nurses by analyzing the impact of peer mentoring strategy. The study was based on a quasi-experimental research design where research participants were divided into control group and experimental group. The experimental groups were introduced to peer mentoring program. Both participant groups were examined based on research questions related to perceived level of stress before and after placement and effect of peer mentoring program on stress level of nursing students. The stress levels of students were measured by perceived stress scale. The analysis of interview data of nursing students revealed no difference in stress score in two groups, however stress difference before and after first clinical practice. This result is also consistent with other research work as Stunden, Halcomb, & Jefferies, (2015) it showed that anxiety level of student nurse is high during first year of clinical placement. The stress perception also changed in experimental and control group due to assignments and workload. The tudy showed that there is no significant reduction in stress due to mentoring strategy. However, this may be due to limited sample size and time for data collection. Despite this, the study has implications in providing guidance to implement effective peer mentoring strategies to improve workplace experience of student nurses.

The topic of relationship between mentoring and nursing student’s work experience has also been explored by. Wilson, (2014) aimed to get an understanding about the lived experiences of mentoring by the use of hermeneutic phenomenological study design. Twelve mentors were taken for the study from clinical settings in England and open ended questionnaires like experiences of being a mentor was explored through interview. The thematic analysis of data revealed the ‘educational use of self’ as the major theme that summarized the essence of being a mentor. It gave idea about past self and environmental practicalities influencing mentoring strategies. The importance of mentoring network was also discussed. The extra demands on a mentor were also found thus indicating that mentors having limited time with students reduce opportunities for effective mentoring. Hence, the study was successful in providing insight into negative and positive aspects of mentoring program. From this analysis, certain factors affecting the work of mentorship are indicated. This evidence has implications in supporting mentor to work productively with nursing students and addressing barriers to effective mentoring.

Peer Mentoring Strategies

The literature review gave an insight into different experiences of students nurse and mentors in the mentoring program. However, inconsistent results have been found regarding the role of nurse in reducing stress level of nursing students. Hence, research work in this area is needed to identify the strategies that mentors used to reduce stress level of student nurses.

Once you have chosen your research question/statement and reviewed the literature on your chosen area of investigation, you need to plan how you would design or collect the data for a proposed study (REMEMBER: you are not going to conduct research for this assessment task – this is a theoretical exercise only).

Identify what research approach would be best suited to your research question/statement Choose from:

• quantitative
• qualitative

or

• mixed method

Qualitative research method is most suitable to answer the research question because the main aim is to explore the experience or strategies that mentor use to support and reduce stress in student nurses.

Identify which research design would be best suited to your research question/statements. Choose one from the following approaches and provide a rationale for why you have chosen that design method. (Reference required)

Qualitative

• Ethnography
• Phenomenology
• Grounded Theory
• Field Research

Quantitative

• Descriptive
• Correlational
• Experimental
• Quasi- experimental

Qualitative research design by the use of phenomenology approach is best suited to address the research question because it is related to the phenomenon of mentoring in clinical setting and qualitative research design favors getting in-depth understanding of an event among a group of participants (Taylor, Bogdan, & DeVault, 2015). The main purpose of research question is to gain experiences of mentor in supporting nursing students and the main purpose of phenomenologic inquiry is also to interpret people’s experience regarding a phenomenon (Marshall & Rossman, 2014).  Hence, phenomenological interviewing of research participant will support in understanding mentor’s perception regarding supporting student nurses and looking at the same situation from multiple perspective.

Provide a short definition of your chosen research method

A phenomenological qualitative research design is a research methodology that can induce and support in interpreting lived experience of particular group related to a phenomenon of interest. It favors analyzing experiences as close as possible to clearly understand the issues and advantage concerning the target phenomenon. Good contextual background can be generated from this research design (Wilson, 2014).

Identify which type of data collection method/s you will use (e.g. Questionnaire, interview, focus group). Your chosen data collection method must match with the type of research design you have chosen. (Reference required)

Inconsistencies in Research Findings

Semi-structured interview method with the use of open ended questionnaires will be done to collect data related to experience of using mentoring strategies to reduce stress level in nursing students. This process will help to get as much data as required for analysis and explore feelings and thoughts of participants in different ways (Sutton & Austin, 2015). The interview response can be transcribed and then analyzed by means of relevant data analyzing tool. 

What organisational policies, procedures and protocols need to be considered when planning a research study? (Reference required)

When planning research studies, it is necessary to take approval for research from Research Ethics Committee. All ethical requirements related to conducting research such as informed consent, treatment of participants during research, confidentiality requirements and ways of using the data needs to be followed (Resnik, 2015, December). In case of organization or setting where research is done, it is necessary for researchers to clarify the details of the research and take permission for selecting staffs for the purpose of research. In addition, the Human Ethics in Research policy also needs to be followed to protect the rights of human subjects in research (Rea, and Parker, 2014).

Research Project Title	Mentoring student nurses
Aim	To investigate the experience of strategies used by mentors to support students nurses and reduces their stress level in work placement
Approach	Phenomenological approach
Design	Qualitative research design
Participants	Mentors selected from clinical setting in Australia
Timeframe	6 months
Costs	1500-2000$
Benefits	It will help to improve student’s nurses experiences in work placement and develop a sense of belonging in new clinical environment

Define the term data analysis. (Reference required)

Data analysis is the process of evaluating data using logical reasoning to study each element of the data provided. Data from different sources is gathered, reviewed and then analysed to come into some sort of conclusion. (BusinessDirectory, 2018).

Data analysis is the analytical process of logically and systematically examining data obtained from research. Based on different research design and data collection methods, the process used for data analysis many change. Many logical and statistical techniques are applied to summarize and evaluate data (Silverman, 2016).

Identify how you would analyse the data in your proposed research project (e.g. statistics, finding patterns, counting, graphs). (Reference required)

As the proposed research project will use interview method to collect data, the transcribed verbatim interview data of participants will be analysed by means of thematic analysis. The data will be categorized and patterns wil be anaylzed to put them into different themes. The advantage of thematic analysis in qualitative research is that it will help in observing and recording patterns within the response collected from research participants. To increase the validity of research and eliminate researcher related biases, data analysis software can also be used to categorize the data (Clarke & Braun, 2014). Thematic analysis will help in systematically gain knowledge regarding the role taken by mentors in supporting student nurses and reducing their anxiety in workplace setting.

Research Design

List any possible barriers to your proposed research and how would you overcome these? (Reference required)

As mentor often need to handle multiple task, it will be difficult to get mentors for the research study because of time constraints (Ejiogu et al. 2011). However, this aspect can be addressed by communicating with the clinical setting provider regarding the need for such research. They may support mentors to take time out for the interview.

How would you determine if our research is valid, useful and cost effective? (Reference required)

The validity and cost effectiveness of research will be determined by consideration of credibility and transferability of research data. The credibility will checked by sending the interview transcript to participants for review to check if any information has been misinterpreted. The transferability will be enhanced by describing context in which the research data was collected (Levett?Jones et al., 2009).

Identify at least one method of disseminating the research findings. (Reference required)

The research findings can be disseminated by arranging conferences in clinical setting and distributing the research data to staffs in health care setting. Different presentation styles can be used during conferences to get the message across target audience (Sandelowski, 2015).

Which of the following words would be the best synonym (substitute) for reliability?

• Consistency
• Usefulness
• Truthfulness
• Economy

Truthfulness is the best synonym for reliability.

References:

Al-Dubai, S. A. R., Alshagga, M. A., & Manaf, M. R. A. (2013). Mentoring and perceived stress level among private medical students: a Malaysian perspective. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93, 276-280.

Allan, H. (2010). Mentoring overseas nurses: barriers to effective and non-discriminatory mentoring practices. Nursing ethics, 17(5), 603-613., DOI: 10.1177/0969733010368747

Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2014). Thematic analysis. In Encyclopedia of critical psychology (pp. 1947-1952). Springer New York.

Ejiogu, N., Norbeck, J. H., Mason, M. A., Cromwell, B. C., Zonderman, A. B., & Evans, M. K. (2011). Recruitment and retention strategies for minority or poor clinical research participants: lessons from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study. The Gerontologist, 51(suppl_1), S33-S45.

Levett?Jones, T., Lathlean, J., Higgins, I., & McMillan, M. (2009). Staff–student relationships and their impact on nursing students’ belongingness and learning. Journal of advanced nursing, 65(2), 316-324, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04865

Li, H., Wang, L. S., Lin, Y., & Lee, I. (2011). The effect of a peer-mentoring strategy on student nurse stress reduction in clinical practice. International Nursing Review, 58(2), 203-210.

Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2014). Designing qualitative research. Sage publications.

Rea, L.M. and Parker, R.A., 2014. Designing and conducting survey research: A comprehensive guide. John Wiley & Sons.

Resnik, D. B. (2015, December). What is ethics in research & why is it important. In ideas.

Sandelowski, M. (2015). A matter of taste: evaluating the quality of qualitative research. Nursing inquiry, 22(2), 86-94.

Silverman, D. (Ed.). (2016). Qualitative research. Sage.

Stunden, A., Halcomb, E., & Jefferies, D. (2015). Tools to reduce first year nursing students’ anxiety levels prior to undergoing objective structured clinical assessment (OSCA) and how this impacts on the student’s experience of their first clinical placement. Nurse education today, 35(9), 987-991.

Sutton, J., & Austin, Z. (2015). Qualitative research: data collection, analysis, and management. The Canadian journal of hospital pharmacy, 68(3), 226.

Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R., & DeVault, M. (2015). Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.

Wilson, A. M. (2014). Mentoring student nurses and the educational use of self: A hermeneutic phenomenological study. Nurse Education Today, 34(3), 313-318