Browsing by Author "Nuuyoma, Vistolina Nenayishula"

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    Feedback in clinical settings: perceptions of nursing students at a small rural district hospital in the southern part of Namibia
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Nuuyoma, Vistolina Nenayishula; Louw, A. J. N.; Van der Merwe, Charmaine; Stellenbosch Universithy. Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Centre for Health Professions Education.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY: Feedback is one of the basic elements that should be present in all clinical interventions used in clinical education. This is because it delivers the path by which assessment becomes a tool for teaching and learning. Learning in a clinical environment is critical to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes required of a health professional. Placement of students in clinical settings enables them to learn from clinical encounters with patients, families and communities. In addition, it affords students an opportunity to transfer theory into practice. Although feedback is widely acknowledged as an important element of clinical education, which is supposed to accompany all learning and teaching activities, it is a component in which educators continue to fall short. In Keetmanshoop District in Namibia, some nursing students are not confident and do not feel free to practise their nursing skills during their practical placements due to the nature of the feedback that they receive while in these placements. This study was conducted to explore nursing students’ perceptions of the feedback that they received during placements in clinical settings, with the objective to ultimately improve clinical nursing education. The study followed an explorative qualitative design with an interpretivist perspective. It was conducted at the Keetmanshoop district hospital. Twenty four nursing students from the University of Namibia and Keetmanshoop Regional Health Training Centre participated in the study. The two data gathering techniques used in this study were: one–on- one in-depth interviews with nursing students and the observation of feedback given to students in clinical settings. All interviews were audio recorded with a digital voice recorder followed by verbatim transcriptions, with the participants’ permission. Thereafter, data were analysed manually by coding, and then related codes were grouped to form themes. Emerging themes are presented as the findings of this study. The four themes that emerged from the results of this study are: positive perceptions of feedback, negative perceptions of feedback, the perception of students on the feedback process and recommendations of nursing students on feedback. The findings further revealed that no individual feedback was given to the students in clinical settings and that feedback was provided without having directly observed the skills performed by a student. The study exposed areas that need to be improved and this will ultimately benefit the students as their mentors’ skills in providing feedback will improve.