An Exploration of the Professional Identity of Nurse Lecturers in the Irish Higher Education Setting

DR MYLES HACKETT

Research Questions

1. How do nurse lecturers in the Irish higher education setting perceive and construct their professional identities?

2. In what ways have nurse lecturer’s professional identities been shaped by recent changes in nursing, nurse education and higher education in Ireland?

Context

The development of Irish nursing

The changes in nurse education in Ireland over the past 20 years

Changes in higher education in Ireland

Identity

Two paradigms:◦ Essentialism◦ Constructionism

Theoretical Perspective:◦ Identity theory (Stryker 2013)◦ Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979)◦ Professional identity (Roberts 2000, Clouder 2003)◦ Academic identity (Henkel 2000, 2002)

Communities of Practice

A theory of learning which assumes that engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we

learn and become who we are. The theory explores the systematic way meaning, social practice, community and

identity intersect to give a social account of learning. (Wenger 1998)

Methodology

Narrative Research Approach:◦ Experience-centred narrative research (Squire 2008)

Data Collection:◦ Focus group and individual semi-structured interviews and a participant survey

Sample:◦ Purposive sample of nurse lecturers (17 in total) from 4 higher education institutions in Ireland

Data Analysis:◦ Thematic narrative analysis using ATLAS.ti

Validity, Reliability and Evaluation:◦ Riessman (2008) and Creswell (2013)

Findings

Context

Role

Identity

Change

Nursing

Teaching

Clinical Practice

Communities of Practice

Context Participants:

◦ 16 female/1 male

◦ Majority 41-50 years of age

◦ Employed in higher education from 1-5 years to 15-20 years

◦ Majority (12) employed by open competition

◦ Represent all divisons of the nursing and midwifery register

◦ 8 have Master’s Degrees/9 have Doctorate Degrees

Context

Organisational Culture:◦ Institutes of Technology focus on Technological University (TU) status“I mean its very research focused and it’s driven by the bid for TU status…”

◦ Universities - new manageralism with focus on market forces and key performance indicators

“…it’s driven by market forces…those with power in the university are the people in the university management team who see this now as an economic entity…”

Context

School/Department Culture:◦ Institutes of Technology - research focused and sometimes inequitable“Those who shout the loudest…often get their way”

◦ Universities - hierarchial and competitive“…there was a lot of disrespect between colleagues…people who were research active were not required to teach clinical skills”.

Academic Incivility Rude and disrespectful behaviours that result in

psychological, physiological and physical harm (Wright and Hill 2015)

1. Cultures of exclusivity in relation to research2. Competitive cultures

Role

Clearly defined in the university sector:◦ Teaching◦ Administration◦ Research

Institute of Technology sector:◦ Teaching◦ Administration

Identity

Participants found it difficult to articulate a single professional identity

Nurse: “Yeah, I would say I am a nurse…”

Teacher: “I tell them I teach nursing in the college”.

Lecturer: “I would actually say I am a lecturer…”

Educator: “Primarily I’d be an educator…”

Motivator: “…I’d be a motivator for them, for the student”.

Change

Change is a constant theme in the narratives from the focus group and individual interviews

Constant change: “…I mean the thing that I feel that runs through it is constant change…no such thing as a steady stage”.

Organisational change: “…we are on the path to and our goal is to become a university”.

Changes in health service: “It is in a massive flux and a massive change…”

Teaching and Learning: “So blended learning, more online learning…”

Nursing

Participants articulated different views in relation to the perception of nurse education in the higher education setting.

“…school is perceived in a positive light in the university. I think it is seen as an emerging School and quite an innovative School”.

“…is that because we are women predominately…maybe we are not as competitive, as aggressive, as career focused. Maybe that has a huge impact on who we are as a school and as a profession”.

Nursing

Some participants made reference to the concept of nursing/nurses as an oppressed profession/group

“Yeah, completely and I feel as an individual within the system here, completely oppressed”.

“I don’t know whether they feel oppressed and I know the perception of some people round here that we are oppressed”.

“…Silent voice…no voice in decision making…no political voice…”

Teaching

Main priority for most participants

Some higher education institutions may not value teaching “The teaching role is not valued”.

“…the teaching role has become eroded to the other demands, like academic administration demands and research demands…”

Tension between research and teaching “That would worry me…I think that if we get overly reliant on the

good staff being researchers and forget the value of educating clinicians…”

Clinical Practice Maintaining clinical competence:

“…as one becomes along the academic line, the further the distance away from the bedside”.

“…I initially tried to maintain my clinical competence by doing the odd day here and there but found that it’s really not possible…”

“I mean I very much see I maintain my expertise now is in terms of very much liaising in networking and having good relationships with those people in clinical practice…to find out, you know, what is current and what is happening…”

Communities of Practice

Occur at a number of levels:◦ Schools/Departments◦ Institutional◦ Between higher education institutions and clinical partners

Difference between Institutes of Technology and Universities◦ Institutes of Technology: communities of practice which focus on each nursing discipline“I suppose we would have three main teams in terms of the different programmes that we have so we would have general nursing team, mental health team and then intellectual disability team”. ◦ Universities: no communities of practice just groups and committees“There is a team, say we look at undergradaute education, there are teams, you know, and I’d be a leader of one of those teams, but I wouldn’t consider us a community of practice”.

Limitations

1. Purposive sample from 4 higher education institutions

2. Gender balance of sample

3. Lecturers from the university sector appeared to be very

unhappy particularly in relation to workloads, research and

staff promotion (academic incivility)

Recommendations

1. Address academic incivility and oppressed group behaviours

2. Review the tension between teaching and research roles

3. Review of workload models to take into consideration the impact of excessive

administration and/or teaching loads have on the ability of staff to engage in

research

Conclusion Experience-centred narrative research approach

Data gathered from a purposive sample of 17 nurse lecturers using semi-structured focus group and individual interviews and a participant survey

Three rounds of thematic narrative analysis resulted in the identification of 8 main themes

Conclusion How do nurse lecturers in the Irish higher education setting perceive and construct their

professional identities? Fragmented identities influenced more by their nursing careers than the cultures of their schools/departments

In what ways have nurse lecturer’s professional identities been shaped by recent changes in nursing, nurse education and higher education in Ireland?

Teaching main priority despite research emphasis

Communities of Practice exist in universities and institutes of technology

Sense of academic incivility particularly in relation to the exclusivity of research and the competitive cultures within some Schools of Nursing

Evidence of oppressed group behaviours which may be attributed to the predominately female gender of the profession and the subservient roles nurses adopt in the presence of medical professionals

References Clouder L. (2003) Becoming professional: exploring the complexities of professional socialization in health and social care. Learning in Health and Social Care 2 (4), 213-222.

Creswell J. (2013) Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design Choosing Among Five Approaches (3rd ed.). SAGE, Los Angeles.

Henkel M. (2000) Academic Identities and Policy Change in Higher Education. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London.

Henkel M. (2002) Academic Identity in Transformation? The Case of the United Kingdom. Higher Education Management and Policy 14 (3), 137-147.

Riessman C. (2008) Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. SAGE Publications, Los Angeles.

Roberts S. (2000) Development of a Positive Professional Identity. Advances in Nursing Science 22 (4), 71-82.

References Squire C. (2008) Experience-centred and culturally-orientated approaches to narrative. In Andrews M., Squire C., Tamboukou M. (eds) (2008) Doing Narrative Research. SAGE Publications, Los Angeles.

Stryker S. (2013) Symbolic Interactionist Theories of Identity. In Turner J. Contemporary Sociological Theory. Sage Publications, Los Angeles.

Tajfel H. and Turner J.C. (1979) An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict. In W.G. Austin and S. Worchel (eds) The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Brooks-Core, Monterey.

Wenger E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Wright N. and Hill L. (2015) Academic Incivility Among Health Sciences Faculty. Adult Learning 26 (1), 14-20.