Article For Nursing Theorists For Mentorship

Qualities of an Effective Mentor

Describe about the Article for Nursing Theorists for Mentorship.

Mentorship can be defined as an equal and community oriented learning relationship between two people with common objectives and shared responsibility for the achievement of the relationship. According to Alligood (2014), the mentor is the aide, master, and good example who help in the development of another or less experienced mentee. In numerous occasions, mentoring is an unconstrained relationship that creates between two individuals. Nevertheless, tutoring can likewise be fruitful when the guide and mentee are combined or coordinated deliberately. This is regularly the case in medicinal services offices when a mentee moves into another part. The mentee is combined with an accomplished medical attendant to take in another position and create in the part Vanlaar et al. (2016).

As stated by Olson et al. (2014), the supervision of nurses, especially with respect to their mentorship indicates that nurses utilize and appreciate the opportunities provided by such schemes for promotion of practice. Most of the literature review in this case usually includes the supervision of practicing students, but of late, more priority has been provided to the supervision of the qualified nurses. This essay aims to discuss the key qualities of an effective mentor, identifying the behavior of an underachieving second year student, and provides an outline for application of learning styles and theories to the present case study, in order to promote the development of the mentee. It also highlights the importance of the environment of clinical learning (Esposito et al. 2016).

Every student achieves success related to their learning outcomes only when they undergo placement. However, certain student cannot perform according to the expectation. As discussed by Vanlaar et al. (2016), evidence reflects the fact that every mentor finds such an aspect to be a challenging part of the role of a mentor. Many studies revealed the fact that mentors find difficulty in recognizing and assessing the performance of those students who displays problems in behavior or their attitude. Thus, more attention needs to be given to such students to assess their weakness and strength (Kim 2016).

According to Olson et al. (2014), the underachieving students generally display a wide range of behavioral aspects. First of all these set of students shows an unenthusiastic attitude such as lack of interest, no sign of questions, etc. Secondly, they are normally not reliable due to poor attendance and punctuality. As stated by Vanlaar et al. (2016), such student’s displays lack of confidence and possess a high level of anxiety. Fourthly, the underachieving students lack theoretical knowledge, skill and also possess unreliable clinical performance. Fifthly, the care provided by such student is incomplete, and the record also reports about their incompetence’s. Moreover, these student’s lack interpersonal skills, lack of response to the received feedback, poor professional conduct, failure to improve and progress through placement and conflicts with personal issues. Therefore, it is very important to construct a learning module and set up a healthy environment in order to enhance the learning process (Esposito et al. 2016). 

Identifying an Underachieving Nursing Student

In this case, the second year student who was underperforming in the last placement when assessed during the second placement was found to possess all the attributes and behaviors of an underachieving student. According to Vanlaar et al. (2016), the student not only lacked interpersonal skills, theoretical and clinical knowledge, she also avoided working with her concerned mentor. Additional to this her modes and techniques of care giving to the patients were not proper and clinical and according to the nursing practice. Even after repeated instructions and warnings provided by the mentor, she continued to make mistakes and her nursing practices were unsafe and lacked the professional boundaries. So as a mentor it is very important to recognize the areas which need to be improved and plan for a learning style that encourages her to achieve success in the medical field (Damber et al. 2012).

Mentors are one of the intrinsic parts of any placement shell. The roles of a mentor are to recognize the problems associated with the student, identify the key goal, achieve support from colleagues, develop an action plan and then address the concern relating the underachieving student appropriately within the time frame. The role of a mentor is influenced by several contributing factors such as time constraints, the uncertainty of the outcome, conflict with the pattern of shifts, lack of confidence in order to deal with the certain issues, etc. (Olson et al. 2014).

According to Scanlan et al. (2001), the most important professional responsibility of an effective mentor is to prevent students without proper professional skills from becoming a registered practitioner in the field of nursing. Although there might be serious personal and emotional consequences on a student’s life, failing to prevent them from continuation of the education program might lead to problems in the healthcare sector. In this case, the nursing mentor should first supervise the student and construct a feedback, assess his performance, set an objective, determine the areas that need to be focused and provide her the support and create a clinical environment to motivate her to work effectively. Learning is a process of acquiring dictated subject matter. A mentor should therefore work with his effective communication, professionalism and honesty in regards to enhance his teaching skills (Eddy et al. 2015).

A practice placement provides the ability to a student to work effectively and in accordance with the integration of the theory into the nursing practice. So it is very important for a mentor to facilitate and evaluate the student’s learning achievements and competencies. In order to achieve success in terms of mentorship it is very important to realize the requirements or attributes that a mentor should possess. As stated by Eddy et al. (2015), emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability to identify one’s own feelings and others as well in order to motivate and manage the emotions of oneself and others. Emotional intelligence is a cognitive aspect that can measure by “intelligence quotient.” Emotional competencies are the outcome of emotional intelligence. These are capabilities that one must learn and develop. As a mentor emotional intelligence can act as a framework for understanding ways that one’s behaviour can contribute to positive work environment (Papaioannou et al. 2016). 

Application of Learning Styles and Theories

The profession of nursing requires a high level of emotional work. According to Papaioannou et al. (2016), a nursing mentor only becomes successful when he or she can regulate his or her own emotions and express those emotions for the need of the patient through their teaching and knowledge distribution quality. Sometimes the role of a mentor becomes difficult in constructing a compassionate and positive work environment in order to aid the student nurses to cope up with the emotional situations and at the same time manage their own emotional transition. The “emotional intelligence framework” is divided into two distinct division i.e. self-awareness, social awareness and self-management. Self-awareness is the attribute that help an individual to understand and manage situational variations of his or her own internal emotions. Self-management helps in building the strength in oneself and social awareness is created on the grounds of skills of compassion. Thus a mentor should possess these two qualities (O’Brien et al. 2014). 

Mentoring is a vital element of the educational training which helps an individual develops into a professional. It relates to self-development, self-awareness, career development of a mentee. Literature review reveals that nurses who are in the progress of becoming a mentor or student supervisor should have sound knowledge about their clinical setting and also should follow certain principles. While acting as a mentor, he or she not only provide constructive feedback to the students to improve their clinical skills, also shares her own knowledge, experience, and feedbacks to solve their problems (Daniel et al. 2015). 

A mentor should be able to hold up students poignant into precise part of practice or a height of practice further than first registration, recognizing their individual requires in touching to an altered level of practice. Waters (2009) discover the qualities which patients rate in professional nurses and establish these qualities to be as attentiveness, professionalism, caring, organized, kindness, sympathy, cheerfulness, advocacy, efficiency, thoughtfulness, selflessness, and politeness. Such qualities would thus include a precondition for shaping nurse-patient relationship achieved through clinical learning styles (Ashktorab et al. 2015).  

In general, there are several learning styles that can be used in the clinical practice. The most frequently used learning style implemented in nursing is visual, aural, verbal and physical or kinesthetic method. Practical learning is more effective way of learning in the clinical practice. Learning styles are important in the field of teaching since it promotes better integration of theoretical knowledge into practice. During assessment learning style aids in identifying whether the teaching mode is effectively transferring the rules and professional values in the student or not. A positive learning atmosphere always improves the quality of the nursing care. One of the learning styles involves the theory which probably is learnt through structured interaction (Jonassen and Land 2012).

Importance of Clinical Learning Environment

One of the theories based on learning is  andragogy theory which is also known as the adult learning theory, was developed by Malcolm Shepherd Knowles, which is reviewed with respect to its assumptions, principles and practices  (Merriam and Bierema 2013). Andragogy is a method which promotes self-directed learning. There are six primary assumptions of Andragogy:

An autonomous self-concept and self-direction – this refers to the psychological need of a student or an individual to be treated as responsible or capable enough to handle their own tasks. This would provide a positive gesture to the student (Knowles, Holton and Swanson 2014).

A higher level of experience – No change in the basics, an attempt to impose on the background knowledge could lead to resistance or withdrawal from the procedure pf learning.

Identification of the reasons to learn something – To provide sufficient reason or information on why learning a particular topic could be useful. It is often not convincing for an adult to know that learning is good for them.

A learning motivation for personal need – In the case of an adult, the basic need of learning comes from the inadequacy of performance in a particular field. Identifying that particular reason in the student could help in convincing the need of learning a particular topic.

Pragmatic orientation – Individuals tend to learn things, which are useful in their daily life, or they would be able to utilize the information to a practical extent. This would help enhance the practical knowledge of the student.

Internally driven motivation – participation of an adult in a learning process is mainly driven by their personal requirements than superimposed by an external reason. Identifying the internal reason of the student would help in acknowledging the problems in a better way. Motivating the student would also help in enabling the student to focus on the topic (Merriam 2015).

The second theory is Cognition theory that alludes to mental action including considering, recollecting, learning and utilizing dialect (Kendall and Hollon 2013). When we apply a subjective way to deal with learning and educating, we concentrate on the understanding of data and ideas. On the off chance that we can comprehend the connections between ideas, separate data and modify with logical connections, then our retention of material and comprehension will increase (Stevens 2013).

Since Cognitive, learning depends on one’s feeling and behaviour and thus relates to all forms of knowing, including thinking, memory, comprehension, motivation, perception and psycholinguistics. It is a more practical form of approach, and requires an imaginative perception of the student (Estes 2014)

Professional Responsibility of a Mentor

The third theory of learning is Behaviorism which is a learning hypothesis that lone spotlights on dispassionately detectable practices and rebates any autonomous exercises of the psyche. Behaviour scholars characterize learning as just the securing of new conduct in view of natural condition, connections, then our retention of material and comprehension will increase (Seimens 2014).

This hypothesis is moderately easy to comprehend in light of the fact that it depends just on detectable conduct and depicts a few general laws of conduct. Its positive and negative support strategies can be extremely effective, for example, in medicines for human issue including autism a type of mental imbalance, tension issue and reserved conduct. Behaviorism is regularly utilized by instructors who punish or reward such students (Jonassen and Land 2012).

Learning satisfaction is a term that can be represented as an individual’s emotional affordance of the measure at which the nursing students’ learning experiences match his or her expectations on a course. According to Knowles et al. (2014), andragogy theory teachers direct the apprentices to their own understanding rather than providing them with details. This approach differs with pedagogy where students depend on the instructor to instruct the learning. On the basis of the pedagogical approach, a mentor will be able to act as a facilitator in order to deliver instructions and assist the mentees in pursuing self-directed learning. According to the cognitive theory, an individual’s acquisition can be achieved y observing others through social interactions and experiences.  If a mentor examines his or her belief on a student’s behavior or reason of failure then, through interaction behaviors can be changed. Teacher’s role becomes easy with understanding of the student’s behavior and action. Thus, innovative approaches should be used to recognize the strength and weakness of the student. One of such effective approach is the SMART goal approach (Siemens 2014).

As discussed by Estes (2014), the SMART goal approach during the first interview will involve firstly a specific goal which will help to understand the student’s complications and also identify the areas where he or she needs obtain skills and knowledge. Secondly, the measure would involve communication with the student, assessing him or her and giving back feedbacks and also helping the student to realize the importance of the learning through clinical practices. Thirdly, he objective of the interview is achievable by designing a questionnaire which would be able to identify the strength and weakness of the student. The interview would be conducted to understand the initial requirement of the clinical teaching during the student’s placement. Thus, communication through interview is relevant. The time limit of this interview would be two hours and the duration is enough to understand the initial requirements in terms of teaching further.

Emotional Intelligence and its Importance for a Mentor

Clinical environment highly effects student learning experience. This is evident from certain literature reviews. According to Ashktorab et al. (2015), belongingness includes feelings of safety, feeling linked to the clinical nurse team and that their personal and professional values are in coordinated with the bigger clinical group. In one of the literature review, it was discussed that students who feel anxiety during the placements may experience less learning opportunities which might cause student attrition in future.

Since a clinical environment leaves a mark on the learning experience of the student the beginning of the learning session should be effective. The role of induction in clinical settings is important since it is mode of welcoming the new staffs and also makes them feel that they are part of the team. In addition to this an induction also imparts necessary safety and peril management information, gives interior obligatory training and provides nurses the realistic data they will require to start their fresh jobs. In the context the setting mentioned have several clinical aspects that would motivate and encourage the student learning. Firstly, there are numerous mentors that might be available to seek help. Highly improvised technical equipment is available to help the students to cope up with every situation. Audio and visual tools are available for clinical teaching. Moreover, the student has the access to the library in order to gather theoretical knowledge and it also promotes evidence-based practice (Estes 2014).

In order to understand the pros and cons of the clinical setup, it is important to use the SWOT analysis practice. One literature review aimed at identity shared “aspects of the job from which further work could emerge to support the three aims of the association and, especially, to further nursing leadership across Europe.” This study was done through SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis in accordance with the above clinical context states that the clinical setting has records of commitment and sharing with the opportunity to access patient for clinical practice for the students. But restriction towards certain things can be ethical and patient confidentiality disclosure can be a big threat. The Strengths of the clinical setting is that the environment possesses a strong ethos of sharing, commitment and openness to increase student confidence. The Weakness of the setting is that ant restrictions in accordance to student performance can lead to ethical and personal issues.  The Opportunities of the whole learning set up involves the openness to use patients to improve practical skills. The Threats include the fact that confidentiality can be a big risk. (Estes 2014).

Nursing Mentorship and Professional Development

The SWOT analysis reflects the various strengths and weaknesses of the setup that can be utilized to design the action plan. The action plan must involve identification of the weakness of the student and areas that need to be improved. Recording of the data through observation, feedback, preparation of mock documents. Data should be set the weekly basis to review the progress of the student. Examination results should also be collected and entered in the data entry documents.

Feedback is an important part of the learning. In the clinical approach, it is very important to receive feedback from both the end. A mentor feedback reveals or gives the opportunity to the student to realize the areas that need to be rectified and accordingly improvement can be made. In terms of student, feedback gives the teacher to understand the areas where a teacher still needs to work on in order to make the student a clinical professional (Merriam 2015).

Another significant part of the learning process is assessment. Assessment is a mode of evaluating the level of understanding of a student. In terms of the clinical practice, assessment has high significance. Healthcare deals with patient care. Therefore, any minor mistake can give rise to a lot of health complications. Thus assessing a student timely on a short term basis (formative) and also long term basis (summative) is important to judge the level of students understanding (Merriam 2015).

Thus it can be concluded that the functionality of good mentorship is based on supporting practice-based education and delivering instruction and the conveyance of protected and viable information. It is observed as a critical means for the transference of information into practice and advances a learning society within an association. While various concerns and challenges around the present system for mentorship rose up out of the discoveries, numerous shown that advancement was required inside the current framework as opposed to entire change. In this essay, I have not only highlighted the learning styles and theories but also outlined an action plan, regarding the application of the same. I believe that the promotion of new models of mentorship will help in the development of the methods, which enable sharing of education and practice, promote distribution of the same, and assessment of the new models of mentorship. This can be brought about by adopting the following methods – 

According to Merriam (2015), creating an online resource center, which would provide recent tools and information, would favor the practice-based knowledge. Certain recommendations that can impact on the future practice as a mentor are development of tools in support of local utilization and assessing their impact. Building or development of evidence based data system, which demonstrates the inter-relationship between the mentorships and its outcomes, at both inter and uni-professional levels. Establishment and facilitation of social networks, which involves communities practicing mentorship and promote contacts between mentors. Using nomenclature for designations, which utilize or support practice-based learning. Promoting of the value of mentorship and focusing on the development of the future workforce. Development and sponsoring an award system that highlights the good practice of mentorship. Exploring new methods of mentorship to facilitate better integration of nursing within inter -professional working (Jonassen and Land 2012).

Conclusion

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