Nurse Education in Practice (2005) 5, 84–90

NurseEducation

www.elsevierhealth.com/journals/nepr

in Practice

The role of the lecturer in practiceplacements: what do students think?

Lynn Brown*, Kathleen Herd, Gwynneth Humphries, Moya Paton

School of Health, Nursing and Midwifery, University of Paisley, RAH Campus, Corsebar Road, Paisley,Renfrewshire, Scotland, UK

Summary The importance of providing high quality practice placement experi-ences has long been a feature of pre-registration nursing programmes. There are amyriad of people who may be involved in ensuring that this is the case, includingservice providers and educational providers. The role, remit and function of thenurse educator in sustaining the quality of this experience has been revised andrefined throughout the history of nurse education. Whilst this has been the topic ofmuch investigation, research and debate, there is a lack of studies which considerthe actual experience of the student nurse in relation to the nurse educator inpractice. This paper presents a retrospective qualitative study of the experiences ofa group of senior student nurses who were involved in a formal, sustained teaching/learning relationship with nurse educators during the first two years of their course.The nurse educator’s role was that of a lecturer preceptor who had regular contactwith every student in each practice placement. A presentation of the students’experiences will be given supported by actual verbatim accounts, followed by athematic analysis of their comments. The study concludes that the lecturerpreceptor has a diverse, yet crucial role to play in supporting the student experienceduring practice placements.

�c 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

KEYWORDSPractice placement;Clinical placement;Preceptor;Lecturer;Student;Student nurse support

Introduction

Pre-registration nurse education in the UK has un-dergone radical change over the last 10 years. Amajor shift has occurred with student nursesmoving from a traditional apprenticeship typetraining to a Higher Education based preparation.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +441415804753.E-mail addresses: brow-nm1@wpmail.paisley.ac.uk; herd-

rn0@wpmail.paisley.ac.uk; hump-rn0@wpmail.paisley.ac.uk;pato-rn0@wpmail.paisley.ac.uk.

1471-5953/$ - see front matter �c 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserdoi:10.1016/j.nepr.2004.03.006

The provision of high quality practice place-ments remains a vital element in contemporarynurse education (Quality Assurance Agency QAA,2001). Experience gained by students in the ‘reallife’ practice setting is a complex mix of socialand educational elements and is critical tolearning, development (Cope et al., 2000), pro-fessional socialisation (Gray and Smith, 1999;Holland, 1999), and to student satisfaction (Cahill,1997). The QAA (2001) stated that practicalexperience should take place in a ‘supportive’environment, however May et al. (1997) foundthat student support in the practice environment

ved.

The role of the lecturer in practice placements 85

was poor and inconsistent, main sources of sup-port being clinical staff, fellow students and nurselecturers. (Koh, 2002).

Student

Lecturer PreceptorClinical Preceptor

Figure 1 The University of Paisley Tripartite Model ofStudent Support in the Practice Placement.

Literature review

The debate about the nurse lecturer’s role inpractice placements is well rehearsed (Lee, 1996;Ahern, 1999; Cahill, 1997; Newton and Smith,1998). Humphreys et al. (2000) and the NationalBoard for Nursing, Midwifery and Health visiting forScotland NBS (2000a) observed that there was alack of consensus within the profession as to whatthe role should be, and this is still the case today.This is reflected in the diverse findings from thereviewed literature. Although defining the precisenature of the role is contentious, there is no doubtthat the lecturer has some role to play in thepractice placement (May et al., 1997).

The English National Board for Nursing, Mid-wifery and Health Visiting ENB (1998) found thatstudents were unsure of what to expect from thelecturer but expressed a desire for consistent andpre planned periods of support.

Humphreys et al. (2000) found that the nature ofcontact was less important than the regularity andfrequency of visits. A desire for clearly defined,planned and regular periods of lecturer presence ismirrored in studies by Wills (1997) and Koh (2002),who also found that the learning experience wasenhanced simply by the presence of the educator.Humphreys et al. (2000) found that students ex-pected lecturers to visit them in practice but wereunclear about the reasons for this.

Brown et al. (1998) found that different types ofsupport were desirable ranging from an assessor/inspector type role to a supportive role that en-hanced learning processes. Koh’s (2002) study de-fined key roles as: integration of theory topractice; development of reflective skills; studentsupport; peer support and motivation.

Some studies define the role in humanistic terms,with students expressing a desire to ‘connect’ tothe lecturer – important traits being confidence,ability, skill, compassion, competence and com-mitment (Gillespie, 2002). Wills (1997) found thatstudents valued the lecturers’ interpersonal skills,competence, evaluation skills and teaching ability.Newton and Smith (1998) found that students ratedthe ‘social’ aspects of the lecturer role highly,along with teaching/tutorial ability.

Nonetheless a major deficit in the literature re-viewed appears to be a lack of studies that considerthe lecturer’s role in the practice placement solelyfrom the students’ point of view. Gillespie (2002)

noted that whilst many studies identify the profileof an effective educator in the practice area, thestudent is ‘invisible’ in most of these studies.

The context of this study

Prior to 2001, the University of Paisley offered afocused, student centred tripartitemodel of supportin placements. (Fig. 1). The ENB (1993) found thatthis type of model was welcomed by students andpractitioners but occurred only rarely in practice.Indeed this direct, formal, sustained involvement oflecturers in practice was offered by only 2 nurseeducation providers in Scotland (May et al., 1997).

Working within a learning contract, the lecturerpreceptor (a nurse lecturer attached to a practiceplacement) took on the role of directing, guidinglearning, assessing and supervising progress (Finlayet al., 1992). As the student developed, the lecturerpreceptor role moved through various stages, de-fined as motivator, catalyst, moderator, sustainer,critic and evaluator (Steinaker and Bell, 1979).

The clinical preceptor (a member of the place-ment staff who had undergone specific rolepreparation) had day-to-day responsibility for fa-cilitating the students’ learning. In order to evi-dence clinical learning, students were required towrite and discuss how they had met specifiedlearning outcomes. They recorded this evidence,and discussion took place, based on what the stu-dent produced.

Following a major curriculum review, arisingfrom the Peach Report (UKCC, 1999), and Fitnessfor Practice (NBS, 2000b), the role and function ofthe lecturer preceptor changed to that of a liaisonlecturer, with a revised remit, involving reduceddirect student contact and no active participationin the learning contract or student assessment,prime responsibility being devolved entirely to theclinical preceptor.

86 L. Brown et al.

The ENB (1998) reported that this liaison or linklecturer role was the dominant model identified bystudy participants. Pegram and Robinson (2002)noted wide variation in defining this role, andLanders (2000) cautioned that whilst this role mayserve as a valuable communication tool, it did notnecessarily allow for facilitation of learning. Theliaison role is defined as being predominantly con-cerned with supporting practice staff and ensuringtransfer of information (Andrews and Wallis, 1999;Duffy et al., 2000; ENB, 1998; Humphreys et al.,2000), with little or no emphasis on direct studentsupport activities.

We were aware that there had been little oppor-tunity for a formal appraisal and evaluation of thestudents’ perceptions of the role of the nurse edu-cator within the tripartite model and therefore setout to carry out a retrospective study focusing on thelived experiences of this type of student support.

Approach to the study

The central purpose of this inquiry was to gain in-sight into, and to create an understanding of, stu-dent nurses’ experiences with lecturer preceptors,therefore the approach chosen was an interpretive,qualitative one, based on the complimentary po-sitions of Heideggerian phenomenology and Ga-damerian hermeneutics (Robertson-Malt, 1999).

The team believed that students’ past experi-ences involving lecturer preceptors could not berecovered as they had occurred, as they did notexist as a “single timeless truth” independent of aparticular perspective. We believed that theycould however, be accessed via the students’ sto-ries about them and we accepted that these storieswere interpretations of the reality the students hadexperienced (Koch, 1999).

Whilst accepting participants’ stories as theirconstructions of reality, these descriptions are notthe endpoint of a hermeneutic phenomenologicalinquiry. Therefore, we (researchers and partici-pants), engaged in dialogue characterised by“openness”, and compared and contrasted ourvarious interpretations. By reaching a consensus ofthese competing interpretations, we moved be-yond mere description, and constructed an under-standing of the students’ experiences with lecturerpreceptors in clinical areas (Corben, 1999; Koch,1995; Koch, 1999).

Permission to recruit participants was obtainedfrom Head of School and a cohort of 65 third-yearAdult Branch nursing students was approached.These students were selected as they had been

exposed to the tripartite model; the samplingstrategy used was therefore “purposive”, (Apple-ton, 1997). Details of the study were verballypresented by the study team and supplementedwith a written synopsis. We were aware that ourpossible “authority” status as lecturers could havecoerced the students into participating (Richard-son, 1998), so we explicitly reinforced that par-ticipation was voluntary (Jackson and Mannix,2001). 25 students volunteered to participate in 5focus group discussions, each with 2 facilitators.Participants were assured of confidentiality andanonymity and written consent was obtained.

Focus groups were selected as the method fordata generation as this method enables dynamicinteraction to take place between participants andresearchers (Asbury, 1995). In order to reach aconsensus of interpretations via “open” dialogue,willingness on the part of the participants, to de-scribe and discuss experiences was crucial (Jack-son, 1998). Self-selection of group membershipencouraged this, as groups were created with es-tablished relationships of trust between members(Morse and Field, 1996). Cognisant of the possibleprohibitive influence on dialogue (Koh, 2002), stepswere also taken to ensure that the facilitators hadnot acted as lecturer preceptors to the groupmembers.

Narrative was activated by bidding the partici-pants to “tell” about their experiences andinteractions with lecturer preceptors and anythoughts and feelings they had about this role. Aseach contributed, others reflected on thesestatements and were stimulated to add further tothe discourse. Facilitators added to the dialogueby asking questions. A tape recorder was used tocapture the discussion, allowing the researchersto concentrate on the facilitation of the group(Sloan, 1998).

Preparation of data for analysis often meanstranscription, however we chose not to do this, astranscribed data can never wholly replicate theoriginal contact. We wanted to preserve the wordsspoken but more importantly the interaction cre-ated within the group; therefore we used the tapesin their “raw” form (Sandelowski, 1995).

Initially we listened to all tapes to grasp asense of the “whole”. Then, using a form ofthematic analysis adapted from Benner (1994),Draper (1996) and Koch et al. (1995), we indi-vidually listened to each tape several times andtentatively noted down commonly occurring“themes”. We considered a “theme” to be aconcept or term that exemplified the students’experiences and perceptions of the lecturer pre-ceptor’s role. Furthermore, listening to the tapes

The role of the lecturer in practice placements 87

several times was extremely useful as it yieldednew interpretations of the data which helped theemergence of themes (Nelms, 1996). We thendiscussed our individual interpretations and iden-tified themes, reached a consensus of opinion,and affixed a set of theme titles to them. We didnot return this interpreted data to participantsfor validation, the benefit to be gained beingquestionable, as participants seek to identifytheir own viewpoint and not the consensus ofopinion (Appleton, 1997; Koch and Harrington,1998). The theme titles will be used to structurethe discussion of our findings.

Findings

Supporting

The need for support from the lecturer preceptorwas the predominant feature of the discussions.There was a feeling of abandonment when studentsmoved away from university and into clinicalplacement. Some participants reported that theyfelt alone and that a friendly face made a differ-ence to their experience of placement, even whenthe lecturer preceptor’s visits were infrequent.This feeling of not quite belonging was felt stronglyby the students and caused discomfort to them.One participant commented:

“If you go onto a ward, you’re not part of their team. Ifthe lecturer comes in, you’re part of their team – youbelong somewhere. You’re part of another team. Youcan say “I’m part of her team!”.

The need for support during the first year and, inparticular, during the first placement was em-phasised strongly. The amount of time spent withthe student did not appear to be crucial, with theparticipants frequently stating that even if thelecturer preceptor called in to the ward for onlyfive minutes or so, it was seeing the friendly facethat was important.

Experiences with a lecturer preceptor were notalways positive, however, and students felt thatsome lecturers disliked any criticism of their linkplacement.

The personality of the lecturer also influencedthe nature of support given. One participant voicedthis as:

“The support was only as good as the lecturer providingit”.

An interesting aspect of this discussion was thatthe students felt that they were able to identify,

from the classroom environment, which lecturerswould be supportive in clinical practice, due totheir personality and interactions in the classroomsetting.

However, participants stated that they wouldlike to see the lecturer preceptor return to theirprevious role, but if they did so the role would haveto be standardised so that all students received thesame level of support.

Directing, motivating, and facilitating

In early placements especially, students felt in thedark, they did not know what was expected ofthem and perceived that clinical staff did not knoweither. The lecturer preceptor clarified theselearning needs for both student and staff and pro-vided the student with a path to follow. As onestudent expressed:

“In first wards you feel overwhelmed, overcrowded withthings, you don’t know what to learn. The lecturer pre-ceptor can help you distinguish and can direct you as towhat to concentrate on”.

The directing role included giving on-goingguidance to clinical staff, with respect to whatstudents could participate in, the pace at whichthey should be learning, and the giving of feedbackon student progress. Students felt that this pacingcould involve either slowing them down or speedingthem up in response to their individual progressand the expected level of performance for thatstage of their learning.

Students described the motivating influence ofthe lecturer preceptor thus:

“You feel like when they’re not coming out, there’s noneed to do it – I don’t mean there’s no need to learnit but you’re not pushed to do it. Well, we are students– we are lazy – and we do need a bit of pushing some-times!”.

Students acknowledged that it was their re-sponsibility to achieve learning outcomes, but ifthey perceived no one was interested in them,they did not expend as much effort or extract asmuch learning from the process. Worryingly thisspilled over into other areas of clinical learning. Itseemed that if students perceived that no onewas guiding or assessing their clinical learning,they would fall into an auxiliary or non-learningrole.

The discussion which took place between stu-dents and lecturer preceptor was perceived posi-tively by students, as it facilitated the teasing outof learning from clinical experiences. One studentsaid:

88 L. Brown et al.

“It was great, I got so much more out, about experiences,by talking about it”.

However if meaningful interaction betweenlecturer and student did not happen, students feltthey had been short changed.

Problem solving, trouble-shooting andadvocating

The lecturer preceptor was revealed as the stu-dents’ choice of person to turn to, if they wereexperiencing problems in clinical areas. Studentshad ample opportunity to air any problems ordiscuss how they were feeling, as the lecturerinevitably asked, “How are you?” There seemed tobe a range of roles that the lecturer preceptoradopted, one being that of a sounding board.Students also invited lecturer preceptors to be-come involved in their problems, almost to trou-ble – shoot them on their behalf. This included awide range of problems, such as domestic andpersonal problems as well as course relatedissues.

It seemed to be important to students that thelecturer preceptors were outside the clinical en-vironment but could legitimately be involved as thestudents’ advocate.

Dependable and consistent involvement inclinical areas was seen as being essential to dealwith smaller issues before they grew to dispro-portionate dimensions. One participant summar-ised this as:

“I had went[sic] the whole placement and then eventu-ally exploded but had there been a lecturer there atthe time, they would have been to see me, and I couldhave said, “Things are not going well in here”. If some-one was there. . .”.

Monitoring

This role was seen as a requirement in order topromote professional development. Studentsstrongly stated that without the presence of thelecturer preceptor, standards could slip in relationto their professional behaviour and appearance aswell as preparation to meet their learning out-comes. They felt that the presence of the lectureror the possibility that they might arrive in theplacement helped to keep the students on theirtoes.

The researchers felt that the students consid-ered that the lecturer preceptor created an omni-presence which persisted even in their absence andsomehow promoted good standards.

Discussion

Participants were keen to discuss a range of neg-ative and positive aspects related to their experi-ences in practice placements. The overridingmessage from the students was the need for visitsfrom a lecturer while on clinical placement. Thestudents justified this need by statements thatidentified social (“out on my own”), educational(“don’t know what I can and can’t do”, “motivatesus to learn”), and monitoring issues (“seeingwhat’s going on”).

The literature clearly identifies that studentnurses generally perceive lecturers as having a rolewithin clinical placements (Ahern, 1999; Koh,2002; Wills, 1997) and that they value the lecturercontact within the clinical setting (May et al.,1997; Humphreys et al., 2000).

Coping with clinical practice is recognised asanxiety provoking and stressful (Gray and Smith,1999; Brown et al., 1998). Gray and Smith (1999)identified the clinical mentor as the students’lynchpin in supporting clinical practice. Howeverour participants perceived that clinical staff couldbe too busy, did not always appreciate the stu-dents’ anxieties and for a variety of reasons werenot always able to respond.

The supportive role of the lecturer preceptorwas seen as necessary to promote the studentsability to cope within the clinical areas. Interest-ingly, this support was only of any value when thelecturer preceptor was actually physically presentin the clinical area. Koh (2002) also alludes to thisin his study:

“Further studies are needed to identify whether the sup-port of the students is directly attributed to practicebased teaching or to the mere presence of a link lec-turer’’ (p. 41).

Students expressed reluctance to contact thelecturer preceptor by other means such as bytelephone as this appeared to formalise commu-nication in a way which was neither desirable,effective nor felt to be necessary. There was asense that such contact conferred a level of seri-ousness to an issue and unnecessarily magnified itsimportance. Participants in our study also sug-gested that clinical preceptors required the pres-ence of a lecturer preceptor to clarify issuesrelated to student practice. Wills (1997) and Cahill(1996) both suggest that the lecturer’s role in-cludes support of students and staff. It was sug-gested that the knowledge and understanding ofclinical preceptors was sometimes limited in rela-tion to the learning needs of and expected out-comes for student nurses. This aspect of the

The role of the lecturer in practice placements 89

student nurse’s experience is clearly an issuepertinent to nurse education and the role of thelecturer preceptor.

The participants also saw the lecturer preceptoras acting a motivator and a director to enhancetheir learning. They agreed with Darbyshire’s(1993) suggestion that

“. . ..Not all students are driven by a desire to becomeself-directed and autonomous in their learning” (p. 329).

Discussing learning outcomes and completingrelated documentation were seen as potentiallearning/teaching opportunities utilised by thelecturer preceptor. Students said they prepared forthe lecturer as she/he asked questions and dis-cussed nursing care. Students’ anticipation of thephysical presence of the lecturer, along with theexpectations of the lecturer’s demands, motivatedthe student to carry out preparatory work to pro-duce documentary evidence of their learning. Theactual face-to-face interaction between studentand lecturer was highly valued, and students couldarticulate clearly how the outcome of these ses-sions increased their knowledge and understandingof the clinical experience. This was viewed bystudents as a tangible form of learning, which wasdescribed as more meaningful than other perhapsmore subtle forms of learning. There was a sug-gestion that the students required the lecturer’sapproval or validation of the learning which hadtaken place. It appeared that they felt unable toextract learning from their clinical placement in-dependently. As one student stated:

“We’re sponges.. We want the information. . . nobody’sgiving us it. We need a bit of a push and there’s nothingout there to do it”.

Whilst this is a cause for some concern, it mustbe noted that the participants were discussing theirexperiences during years 1 and 2 of their course,and it would be anticipated that further develop-ment could take place in year 3 and beyondregistration.

The level and nature of support depended on thestudents needs. Specific problems experiencedwithin clinical areas, which students felt unable toresolve without the support or sometimes the in-tervention of the lecturer preceptor were dis-cussed. In Koh’s (2002) research the students alsoexpected the lecturer to help deal with problems.In our study students appeared able to deal withproblems independently, with occasional need torefer their decision making to the lecturer for ap-proval. However, if a lecturer opportunisticallyappeared in the clinical area the student wouldinevitably share the problem, sometimes simply

using the lecturer as a sounding board but oftenseeking active intervention on the part of the lec-turer. This tendency to view the lecturer preceptoras some sort of ally concurs with the findings ofBrown et al. (1998) that the lecturer is a safeperson in whom students can confide.

Conclusion

This study has highlighted the crucial role of thelecturer preceptor in supporting students duringclinical placement. This role was seen to be diverseand included supporting, directing, motivating,facilitating, problem solving, troubleshooting, ad-vocating and monitoring. To an extent the findingsmirror those in previous studies, however this studyhas raised some issues worthy of further investi-gation, in particular the precise nature of thisperceived multi faceted influence of the lecturerpreceptor on the entire clinical experience. Interms of the way forward, it would seem that fromthe students’ point of view consideration needs tobe given to increasing the visible, physical pres-ence of the lecturer in the clinical areas. From thefindings of this study we conclude that such a de-velopment could only impact positively on thestudents’ clinical experiences.

References

Ahern, K.J., 1999. The nurse lecturer role in clinicalpractice conceptualised; helping clinical teachers provideoptimal student learning. Nurse Education Today 19,79–82.

Andrews M., Wallis, M., 1999. Mentorship in nursing: a literaturereview. Journal of Advanced Nursing 29 (1), 201–207.

Appleton, J.V., 1997. Constructivism: a naturalistic methodol-ogy for nursing inquiry. Advances in Nursing Science 20 (2),13–22.

Asbury, J., 1995. Overview of focus groups research. QualitativeHealth Research 5 (4), 414–420.

Benner, P., 1994. The tradition and skill of interpretivephenomenology in studying health, illness and caring prac-tices. In: Benner, P. (Ed.), Interpretive Phenomenology,Embodiment, Caring and Ethics in Health and Illness. Sage,California.

Brown N., Forrest S., Pollock, L., 1998. The ideal role of thenurse teacher in the clinical area; a comparison of theperspectives of mental health, learning difficulties andgeneral nurses. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental HealthNursing 5, 11–19.

Cahill, H.A., 1997. What should nurse teachers be doing? Apreliminary study. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 26,146–153.

Cope P., Cuthbertson P., Stoddart, B., 2000. Situated learning inthe practice placement. Journal of Advanced Nursing 31 (4),850–856.

90 L. Brown et al.

Corben, V., 1999. Misusing phenomenology in nursing research:identifying the issues. Nurse Researcher 6 (3), 52–66.

Darbyshire, P., 1993. In defence of pedagogy: a critique of thenotion of andragogy. Nurse Education Today 13, 328–335.

Draper, P., 1996. Nursing research and the philosophy ofhermeneutics. Nursing Inquiry 3 (1), 45–52.

Duffy K., Docherty C., Cardnuff L., White M., Winters G., 2000.The nurse lecturer’s role in mentoring the mentors. NursingStandard 15 (6), 35–38.

English National Board 1993. A detailed study of the relation-ships between teaching, support, supervision and role mod-elling for students in clinical areas within the context ofProject 2000 courses, ENB, England.

English National Board 1998. The role of the teacher/lecturer inpractice, ENB, England.

Finlay, N., Lyttle, J.R., Owens, C., Hayden, M., 1992. Preceptorguidelines for practice. Argyll and Clyde College of Nursingand Midwifery, Paisley (unpublished).

Gillespie, M., 2002. Student–teacher connection in clinicalnursing education. Journal of Advanced Nursing 37 (6),566–576.

Gray M., Smith, L.N., 1999. The professional socialization ofDiploma of Higher Education in Nursing students (Project2000): a longitudinal qualitative study. Journal of AdvancedNursing 29 (30), 639–647.

Holland, K., 1999. A journey to becoming: the student nurse intransition. Journal of Advanced Nursing 29 (1), 229–236.

Humphreys A., Gidman J., Andrews, M., 2000. The nature andpurpose of the role of the nurse lecturer in practice settings.Nurse Education Today 20, 311–317.

Jackson, P., 1998. Focus groups interviews as a methodology.Nurse Researcher 6 (1), 72–84.

Jackson P., Mannix, J., 2001. Clinical nurses as teachers:insights from students of nursing in their first semester ofstudy. Journal of Clinical Nursing 10 (2), 270–277.

Koch, T., 1995. Interpretive approaches in nursing research: theinfluence of Husserl and Heidegger. Journal of AdvancedNursing 21 (5), 827–836.

Koch, T., 1999. An interpretive research process: revisitingphenomenological and hermeneutical approaches. NurseResearcher 6 (3), 20–34.

Koch T., Harrington, A., 1998. Reconceptualizing rigour: the casefor reflexivity. Journal of Advanced Nursing 28 (4), 882–890.

Koch T., Webb C., William, A., 1995. Listening the voices ofolder patients: an existential-phenomenological approach toquality assurance. Journal of Clinical Nursing 4 (3), 185–193.

Koh, L.C., 2002. The perceptions of nursing students of practice-based teaching. Nurse Education in Practice 2, 35–43.

Landers, M., 2000. The theory–practice gap in nursing: the roleof the nurse teacher. Journal of Advanced Nursing 32 (6),1549–1556.

Lee, D., 1996. The clinical role of the nurse teacher: a review ofthe dispute. Journal of Advanced Nursing 23, 1127–1134.

May N., Veitch L., McIntosh J., Alexander, M., 1997. Evaluationof nurse and midwife education in Scotland. NBS, Glasgow.

Morse J.M., Field, P.A., 1996. Nursing Research, the applicationof qualitative approaches, second ed. Stanley Thornes,Cheltenham.

NBS, 2000a. Partnerships in development and delivery. Fitnessfor practice – implementation in Scotland, NBS, Edinburgh.

NBS, 2000b. Fitness for practice- implementation in Scotland.Supporting students in practice placements – report of aconsultation seminar, NBS, Edinburgh.

Nelms, T., 1996. Living, a caring presence in nursing: aHeideggerian hermeneutical analysis. Journal of AdvancedNursing. 24 (2), 368–374.

Newton A., Smith, L., 1998. Practice placement supervision; therole of the personal tutor. Nurse Education Today 18,496–504.

Pegram A., Robinson, L., 2002. The experience of undertakingfaculty practice. Nurse Education in Practice 2, 30–34.

QAA, 2001. Placements in Focus; guidance for education inpractice for health care professions, QAA, England.

Richardson, R., 1998. The role of the personal tutor in nurseeducation: towards an understanding of practice in a collegeof nursing and midwifery at a particular point in time.Journal of Advance Nursing 27 (3), 614–621.

Robertson-Malt, S., 1999. Listening to them and reading me: ahermeneutic approach to understanding the experience ofillness. Journal of Advanced Nursing 29 (2), 290–297.

Sandelowski, M., 1995. Qualitative analysis: what it is and howto begin. Research in Nursing and Health 18 (4), 371–375.

Sloan, G., 1998. Focus group interviews: defining clinicalsupervision. Nursing Standard 12 (42), 40–43.

Steinaker N., Bell, M.R., 1979. The experiential taxonomy. Anew approach to teaching and learning. Academic Press,London.

UKCC, 1999. Fitness for Practice. The UKCC Commission fornursing and midwifery education (The Peach Report). UKCC,England.

Wills, M., 1997. Link teacher behaviour: student nurses’perceptions. Nurse Education Today 17, 232–246.