Facilitating students' critical transition capabilities in a first year nursing course

Abstract

[Abstract]: From the moment they participate in higher education nursing students undergo a number of transitions which are critical in terms of their capabilities to persevere at university. Their first year experience includes the processes of becoming familiar with, mastering and demonstrating mainstream university literacies. These include academic literacy and numeracy, communication and information literacies as well as personal, cultural and social literacies, such as reflective practice and critical self awareness. Apart from these transitions nursing students are also required to master discipline specific nursing culture with its various, and at times inconsistent, clinical, theoretical and research literacies. Nursing students’ abilities to develop critical transition capabilities are therefore crucial if they are to persist and be effective, at university and beyond. This paper prioritises three key transition capabilities that nursing students can apply in undergraduate contexts – reflective, sociocultural and critical practice – and discusses how they are prioritised and developed in a first year nursing course. The approach is underpinned by critical discourse, constructivist and cross cultural theoretical perspectives. The paper also reports the findings of a pilot study evaluating the approach’s effectiveness in assisting students to develop and apply these critical transition capabilities.