Abstract Detail

Abstract

Effective nursing education is crucial for the increasing complex care needed in healthcare settings. Academic-practice partnerships are established through collaboration of university and healthcare institutions to address the shortage of faculty and nurses. The Dedicated Education Unit (DEU) model is used to train staff nurses to become preceptors while providing increased individualized learning opportunities for students. The DEU first originated in Australia in the twentieth century and since then has been implemented internationally including the United States. Students in the DEU receive ample exposure to patient care while working in a one- on-one clinical approach with a preceptor. The nursing faculty oversees the clinical experience and serves as the clinical coach in the DEU. Nurse preceptors are equipped with learning resources to help students integrate classroom education into nursing practice. Hence, the DEU increases teaching capacity by allowing trained preceptors to become clinical teachers at the bedside while maintaining the quality of nursing education for students. The aim of this study was to gain insights into the perceived effectiveness of the DEU clinical model through self-reports of the learning experience among students and preceptors. A pilot study was conducted in Spring 2022 to investigate the learning experiences of 22 second semester baccalaureate students and 14 nurse preceptors sin the DEU clinical. Approval for the study was obtained from the university institutional review board and two affiliated hospitals located in Southern California. Participants completed an online survey after signing consent in Qualtrics. The Student Clinical Learning Culture (SCLC) and Support Instrument for Nurses Facilitating the Learning of Others (SINFLO) surveys were used to examine the perceived learning experiences of students and preceptors, respectively. Based on one-sided two-sample t-tests, student motivation, social inclusion, and preceptor preparation subscales had means that were significantly higher than a similar study (Williams et al. 2021). Having increased one-on- one learning with a trained DEU preceptor thus facilitates student preparation for nursing practice. Findings of the study cannot be generalized to other settings and causal inferences cannot be determined based on the small sample size. However, this study provides a better understanding of student motivation, social inclusion and preceptor preparation in the DEU clinical. As the DEU continues to expand across the United States, future studies can build on results of this pilot study by implementing student motivation and social inclusion strategies in future preceptor preparation programs.

Biography

Dr. Neomie Congello is an assistant professor at California State University Channel Islands where she has been teaching in the nursing department since 2015. She teaches in the traditional, ADN/RN to BSN and MSN programs. In addition to teaching, Dr. Congello is the Assistant Chair of the Nursing Program and Director for the ADN/RN to BSN program while mentoring faculty in medical-surgical and research courses. Dr. Congello currently serves as Research Chair for the Gamma Tau at-Large Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.