Article Analysis Essay on Caring Experiences of Nurse Educators

Introduction

The article "Caring Experiences of Nurse Educators" is authored by Grigsby and Megel (Grigsby & Megel, 1995). It involves the study on the caring of nurse educators as faculty members. To "describe the nursing faculty member's experience of caring so that the concept of caring can be expanded to include those who teach nursing" (Grigsby & Megel, 1995, p. 411-12) is the primary purpose of this study. The study is explored by researchers for the purpose of enabling educators to experience the caring attitudes and to convey to their students. Grigsby and Megel (1995) define the abstract notion of caring in many ways in this study including: giving and receiving care; helping another to self-actualize; take over; lead the way; and through "a web of relationships" (p. 412).

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Nurse educators themselves, Grigsby and Megel (1995) found that while nurse educators need to teach care to their students, the demands of their tasks precluded balance between technical proficiency and a caring attitude. They determined a need for analyzing the phenomenological experience of caring and uncaring to allow greater understanding of the construct. The exhaustive description culled from their work was intended to become a part of their curriculum.

The study used seven faculty members in nursing from three programs in one state. Experiences in caring were culled from this population via interviews and including both examples of caring and uncaring. Grigsby and Megel (1995) used Colaizzi's (1978) methodology and procedures for analysis of the data. This consisted of the following tasks: Reading each text completely for a total sense of the experiences; reading again noting "significant statements, phrases, and sentences" (p. 413); discussing and comparing findings between researchers; formulate meanings or themes; organize themes into clusters independently by researcher; refer clusters to original transcripts for validation and verification; transcripts and coding schema passed to another research for confirmation of decision trail; researchers dialogue over clusters until consensus reached and all data was in clusters; caring in work situations was described exhaustively; uncaring in work situations were described exhaustively; and descriptions returned to participants for validation. The article has two main themes of "caring is a connection" and "caring is a pattern of establishing relationships" as is evident through the process. The study found great importance in listening carefully and fulfilling needs as identified rather than presuming to know the needs. In caring for one another as educators, the nurse educators can model caring for their students both between each other as nurses and to their patients.

The following information depicts how this study uses the phenomenological approach:

1. A "phenomenon" - the experience of a nurse educator in a caring or uncaring position - was examined in the study.
2. Rigorous data collection through hour-long unstructured interviews with a group of individuals was used.
3. The researchers mentioned the philosophical ideas of bracketing their personal experience as nurse educators.
4. The data collection consisted of hour-long unstructured interviews in a private location.
5. Systematic data analysis was used, identifying specific statements, themes, and clusters. An exhaustive description of the essence of the phenomenon followed the procedures recommended by Colaizzi (1978).
6. The inclusion of significant statements, and identified themes showed the decision trail from raw data to the exhaustive description of the essence of the study as presented in the Figures.
7. The Figures captured the exhaustive description of nursing faculty experiencing caring work environments and uncaring work environments.

References

Creswell, J. & Poth (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Los Angeles, California: Sage Publications.

Grigsby, K., & Megel, M. (1995). Caring experiences of nurse educators. Journal of Nursing Education, 34(9), 411-418.