Teaching Approaches to Nursing Students During the Early Stages of Nursing Skills Acquisition in Laboratories

−Making Students Aware of Their Own Feelings−

Abstract

〔Aims〕This study aimed to clarify the approaches faculty members use to encourage students who are beginners in nursing techniques to ‘gain a feel for them’ with their own senses.

〔Methods〕A qualitative descriptive research design was used. Study participants were five faculty members and 12 students from three nursing universities. Participant observation in the practical setting and semi-structured interviews （including informal interviews during the practical work） were carried out. The settings were reconstructed from verbatim recordings and field notes, and themes were extracted.

〔Results〕The following six approaches were found: 1. faculty members describe their own senses to the students without modifying, 2. faculty members show their physical movements to provide an idea of how to move, 3. sharing senses with students by creating a harmonious atmosphere, 4. show students in a way that they notice the gap between the ideas they have formed and reality, 5. touch the students to direct them to the correct position, and 6. describe actions using methods that are easy for the students to imagine.

〔Conclusions〕The present results suggest that beginner students use faculty members’ sensations as an anchor that encourages them to notice their own physical sensations, upon which they actively perform reasoning and use their own senses to gain a feel for the techniques.