Assessment of the practices and experiences on mentorship and mentoring of nurse educators in the school of nursing, University of Namibia
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Date
2023
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Namibia
Abstract
Mentoring in nursing academia is receiving more attention as many senior academics are
retiring and new nurse educators are joining nursing education. Mentoring is an important
tool for clinical practice, nursing education, administration, and research that contributes
to the competencies of many new nurse educators, who are recruited with a clinical
background and little or no experience in an academic environment. It is expected for an
expert nurse to become a novice in a new environment or role and needs mentoring to
become an expert nurse educator. Despite the emphasis on the mentoring relationship
among nursing academics, there is no established standard practice and nurse educators
experience difficulty in their new role in the absence of mentoring.
This study aimed to assess and describe the practices and experiences of nurse educators
in the School of Nursing1
at the University of Namibia on mentorship and mentoring. The
study adopted a comparative descriptive convergent parallel mixed method where
quantitative and qualitative data were collected at the same time, analyzed separately, and
merging occurred by comparing the two data sets and representing the merging results in
a narrative discussion. The target population was nurse educators who were registered
nurses by profession, teaching at the four campuses of the University of Namibia where
the School of Nursing was established among the 12 campuses. The researcher opted for
the same individuals in both quantitative and qualitative objectives that help to minimize
threats during data collection and allowed the results to be compared. Likewise, both
strands focused on the same study concepts of mentorship and mentoring to allow
interpretation and comparison.
For objective one, which was quantitative and focused on the practices, due to small
population of nurse educators employed in the School of Nursing the total target
population of 74 was included in the study as it was small and feasible for the researcher
to contact everyone using a self-administered questionnaire. The target population was
stratified as per campus and various teaching ranks. The mentees were nurse educators
who were registered nurses by profession who had worked for less than five years at the
School of Nursing while mentors should have worked for five years or more at the same school. The response rate for the quantitative strand was 82% (n= 40 questionnaires
received out of 49 for the mentees and 96 % for the mentors (n=24 questionnaires received
out of 25). Purposive sampling was done for objective two, which was qualitative to select
the participants who participated in the semi-structured interviews at each campus as per
respective study groups. For the qualitative strand, data saturation was determined per
campus due to the different settings and heterogenous teaching ranks that had different
experiences. A total of 36 mentees and 16 mentors participated across the different
campuses. The interpretation of data sets shows convergent and discordant results in the
quantitative data between the mentees and mentors in mentorship and mentoring practices.
Likewise, similar four main themes emerged from both groups, with some variants of
unique sub-themes across the groups. The quantitative results show that mentees and
mentors agreed on mentorship practices but had discordant results on mentoring aspects
as mentees disagreed with mentors’ positive ratings. Variables with significant p-values
were identified and compared first within each group of mentees and mentors first and
then finally with the finding from the qualitative data set.
Equally, the qualitative results also had convergent and discordant results between
mentees and mentors as well within each group supported by various sub-themes. The
common approach of primary data analysis integration procedure was used. The
representation of merging integration results was done by a side-by-side comparison of
significant p- values of quantitative and main themes and sub-themes of the qualitative
results through a narrative discussion.
The discussion narrated how qualitative themes and sub-themes either confirm,
disconfirm, or complemented the quantitative results or vice versa. This study concluded
that mentoring and mentorship practices were described differently by mentors and
mentees as well that positive and negative experiences emerged in both groups.
Recommendations included the facilitation of good relationships as well as establishing
trust, respect, and healthy communication between mentors and mentees. It was also
recommended for the School of Nursing to have a school-specific orientation for nurse
educators and develop a formal mentoring programme. Finally, there was a need to revisit
the workload of nurse educators and develop a guideline for virtual mentoring of mentees
Description
Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of master in nursing science
Keywords
Nurse educators, Practices and experiences, Mentorship and mentoring, Mentoring in nursing academia, Nursing education