The author's experience as a public health nurse in a public sector gave impetus to produce three consecutive studies. They were; Clients' Behavior Analysis in the Home Visiting Situation by Public Health Nurses, Adaptation Patterns of Clients' Living in their Home, and Nurses' Behavior in Home Health Care Nursing. In this paper, the results of these studies were revealed and recounted how they were applied to a community setting. The importance for encouraging nurses to continue their researches in their working fields and improving learning circumstances in their working places were suggested. Moreover, research activities of nurses are worth to be considered only when they are able to apply for nursing practice. Implications for nursing researches and utilization of their results were discussed.

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This study aimed to conceptualize faculty's behavior in the learning laboratory and to clarify the features of the teaching activities. Methodology for Conceptualization of Nursing was applied. Data on interactions between faculty and students or among faculty members in the laboratory were collected through participant observation without intervention. As a result of continuing comparative analysis, the following 10 concepts emerged : "organizing and changing application of teaching modes and skills according to circumstances", "discontinuing and resuming teaching and learning process repeatedly through evaluation on students' readiness for learning", "creating an environment for teaching and learning process in addition to the curriculum", "modifying the teaching plan and adding new things to it while furthering it through interpretations and demonstrations", "equalizing the achievement of students by compensating for shortcomings of one faculty through the efforts of another", "accepting students' cooperation and collaborating with faculty members to facilitate the teaching and learning process", "providing feedback on achievements of laboratory objectives and learning attitudes", "finding and correcting problems through observation of individual students", "responding to a student's request and not responding to the others according to priority", and "creating a real situation through simulation." These concepts suggested that requirements for faculty in the learning laboratory include the following : 1) forming teaching plans in addition to the curriculum based on the faculty's individual knowledge and utilizing various teaching modes and skills, 2) Changing teaching plan flexibly through formative evaluating it, 3) Responding to students' problems and requests through interaction with them smoothly, and 4) creating situations based on faculty's nursing experiences and students' readiness.

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This study's aim was to conceptualize occupational experiences of novice faculty in universities and colleges of nursing and to clarify their features. Methodology for Conceptualization of Nursing was adopted. Analysis of data collected through semi-structured interviews of twenty-one faculty members in academia revealed the following concepts : (1) understanding education and the value of teaching through academic events, (2) teaching activities being performed smoothly by utilizing one's teaching resources but lack of these resources creating uncertainty, (3) being confident about teaching activities as clinical nurse and doing self study upon the realization of inexperience as faculty, (4) stagnating role activity and broadening experience by transferring from the position of clinical nurse to faculty, (5) identifying teaching ability by self-evaluation of one's teaching activities, (6) acquiring and losing recognition from others as faculty through feedback, (7) being enthusiastic about practicing as an experienced nurse, through loosing opportunities due to position change from hospital to school, (8) realizing one's significance upon recognizing opportunities to utilize clinical experience and concern for difficulties in adapting, (9) faculty stereotypes and liberation from being governed by them, (10) criticizing educational establishments and worrying about preventing career development upon realizing the differences between ideal and actual education, (11) trying to facilitate peer relationships to function smoothly, and (12) hesitating and compromising occupational continuation as faculty when confronting problems. Thus novice faculty were confused in some situations, wanting to preserve their identity as clinical nurses, and hesitating for occupational continuation as faculty. Moreover, progress in the science of nursing educational knowledge and acquiring skill to attain educational goals is necessary.

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The purpose of this study was to identify expertize in nursing practice by hospital based nurses and to discuss its characteristics. Two kinds of the instruments were used. One instrument consisted of a closed-ended questions asking whether they have perceived expertise in nursing, and the other was open-ended questionnaire asking what kinds of expertise they have perceived. They were mailed to 1142 hospital based nurses in Japan. 749 responses were received, and 433 of them had completed the open-ended questions and were analyzed by Berelson's content analysis method. As a result of the analysis, 35 categories were formed, such as 1) managing time to relieve the pain and anxiousness of patients and their families with communication skill in time, 2) overcoming difficulties using experienced nursing skills based on special knowledge and attaining goals. The reliability of the 35 categories was confirmed by the agreement rates calculated by the formula of W. A. Scott. They were 93.6%, 89.4%, and 83.1%. The 35 categories of expertise in nursing practice suggested that the experts were affected by eight aspects of hospital based nurses. The eight aspects were (a) communication skill to solve or avoid mental problems of patients and their families and to maintain or to improve the nurse-patient relationship, (b) competence to collect information continuously and efficiently and organize and utilize the information, (c) special nursing skills and knowledge of nursing, disease, and treatment which reflects the features of the clinical setting, (d) ethical considerations and respect to patients' human dignity and personality, (e) clarification of problems lying in existing conditions, and creativity in solving them, (f) ability to multitask as a nurse on a health care team, (g) ability to overcome handicaps in patients or working environments, and (h) awareness of professional responsibility.

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The purpose of this study was to identify the essential teaching activities of nursing faculty for goal attainment in nursing clinical practicum and to discuss their features. A metasynthesis was used as research methodology to synthesize three qualitative studies which conceptualized a faculty's teaching behaviors in clinical settings. As a result of metasynthesis, 13 teaching activities were identified as essential teaching activities of a nursing faculty in clinical practicum. These activities were as follows; 1) systemizing and using teaching skills, 2) preventing patient from harmful effects for quality of nursing care and promoting students' learning activity, 3) maintaining and changing teaching plans according to various information, 4) protecting students from possible danger, 5) accepting the stagnation of students' learning activities and overcoming it by understanding students' physical condition, 6) explaining and integrating nursing phenomena with nursing theories and principles by going back and forth between abstract and concrete, 7) coordinating the learning environment in clinical settings, 8) evaluating the level of goal-attainment and informing students, 9) seeking an appropriate time and place for teaching students individually, 10) accepting and sympathizing students' emotional experiences, 11) accepting and overlooking ineffective teaching results on students, 12) helping students to share and complement among themselves by selecting important nursing phenomena and restructuring them, and 13) asking for supports and obtaining them from nurses with concern to the clinical situation. As a result of discussion on 13 teaching activities, following essential teaching activities were implied, such as, [seeing through essence of nursing in multiple nursing phenomena and relating them to theoretical and empirical knowledge], [understanding students' immaturity and the stressful influence of clinical practicum on their minds and bodies], [exercising matured sociality], [keeping clinical competence and a view of ethics], [collecting and systemizing various information and deciding teaching priority adequately based on information].

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The purpose of this study was to clarify the trends and issues in the studies on preceptorship for new graduate nurses and to provide the basic data for future research which would contribute to staff development. To search the related literature, two computer databases, the CINAHL and Igaku Chuou Zasshi between 1982-2003, were used with the keywords "preceptorship, ""preceptor, " and "new graduate nurse" to focus the type of study, subjects, and findings. Then, 67 pieces of literature were selected as study samples. Fifty-one were domestic literature and sixteen were foreign literature in English. Eighty-two point one percent were qualitative studies and 65.6% were studies focusing on the preceptors. Using Berelson's content analysis methods, thirteen categories were defined, such as : 1) educational effect by the introduction of a preceptorship program, 2) educational effect on new graduate nurses by preceptorship. The reliability of categories was confirmed by the agreement rates calculated by the formula of W.A. Scott; they were 83.3%, 83.2%, and 74.9%. The results suggest the following themes for future research : (1) analysis of the difference in preceptorship between Japan and other countries, (2) qualitative and inductive analysis of the phenomena of preceptorship, (3) analysis of the abilities required of the preceptor, and (4) research findings which contribute to developing programs to educate the preceptors.

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