The development of a clinical portfolio as a learning approach for intensive care nurses in a private nursing education institution in Gauteng
Lizelle Potgieter
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
: J Chem Appl Chem Eng
Abstract
Clinical portfolios guide clinical learning experiences and assess the student’s attainment of programme outcomes. The researcher experienced that neither the student nor the educator utilised the clinical portfolio effectively in the development and transformation of the intensive care nursing student at the private nursing education institution. The purpose of the study was to improve the structure and enhance the use of clinical portfolios as a learning approach in intensive care nursing education. The study objectives for the study were: Stage 1: to solicit the opinion of students and their educators on the quality of the existing clinical portfolio and their recommendations for the design and utilization of a revised clinical portfolio; Stage 2: to design a revised clinical portfolio for intensive care nursing students based on educator and student opinion and literature review; Stage 3: to solicit the opinion of nursing education experts on the revised clinical portfolio and to make changes as required. This study is a shortened intervention research with qualitative methods for data collection from intensive care nursing students, lecturers, clinical facilitators, and nursing education experts. A content analysis (Tesch, 1990) was used for data analysis. The setting for this study was set in a private nursing education institution in Gauteng that offers the intensive care programme. Purposive sampling was used to select participants of the three focus groups. Students were not as concerned about the structure of the clinical portfolio as they were concerned about how the portfolio assists them in reaching their outcomes. Small changes were recommended. Educators and the literature were more concerned about the structure of the clinical portfolio and less concerned about the process of application. The clinical portfolio was redesigned to improve its function as a learning approach and is ready for piloting in larger sample groups.
Biography
Lizelle Potgieter completed bachelor from the University of Pretoria in 1991, a Diploma in Medical Surgical Nursing Science from Netcare Education, affiliated with the University of the Witwatersrand, in 2006 and completing her Diploma in Nursing Education from The University of Johannesburg in 2008. She taught post basic nursing students from 2008 Medical and Surgical Nursing Science and completed her MSc Nursing in 2016 from the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Nursing. She was awarded by the Golden Key International Honour Society for her study. She served on the Nursing Education Association Committee before leaving South Africa. She currently works in Morocco as the Academic Lead of Fatima College of Health Sciences in Rabat, teaching a Bridging programme to nurses who have a diploma in nursing that will culminate into bachelors in Nursing.
E-mail: zellepotgieter@gmail.com
