Developmental tasks in nursing undergraduate education

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Ingrid Darmann-Finck
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 397140108

Developmental tasks in nursing educationSo far the construction of curricula for nursing education and therefore the theoretical and practical education at nursing schools is based mostly on technical reasons. Thereby the real learning processes of nursing competence are not considered, which are mainly influcenced by job related socialization during nursing training. This leads to a lack of matching between the curricula and the acquisition processes of nursing students. Until now there is no empirical research about subjective perception, interpretation and processing of learning requirements in nursing education neither in Germany nor in the international area. To gain insight into developmental learning processes of nursing trainees, the focus of the study is put on subjective educational processes respectively backgrounds of nursing trainees. The project is related to a theory of subjective acquisition process from learners in education (Bildungsgangtheorie) and to the socialization theory approach of developmental tasks (Havighurst). By subjective perception, interpretation and processing objective qualification requirements will become developmental tasks of nursing students. In the project sub-ordinated developmental tasks of the development task profession are reconstructed and, when indicated, the logic of sequence of developmental tasks as well as interpretations and forms of processing by the trainees are investigated. The over-arching goal of the research project is to generate an empirically well-grounded model of developmental tasks as well as a typology of a subjective educational background of nursing trainees and to give evidence on facilitative formal and informal learning scenarios. It is intended to perform a longitudinal study with nursing trainees containing three times of data collection (after 12, 24 and 33 months of nursing education). We aim at a sample size of 20 cases that are investigated on the basis of one initial interview and two follow-up interviews (overall 60 interviews). All three nursing professions, adult nursing, paediatric nursing as well as geriatric nursing care should be considered on a basis of parity. The data analysis is based upon the Integrative Method of qualitative interview research by Kruse.This project should provide a platform for the development of curricula and the further development of nursing-didactic models. Based on the results conclusions can be drawn with regard to the subjective relevance and adaptability of teaching and educational offerings in relation to developmental tasks in different training phases.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants