Collaborative clinical learning environment for nursing students: perspectives from Botswana

Abstract

As the provision of health care requires coordinated communication among all players, a collaborative clinical learning environment plays an important role in nursing education. This paper reports on nursing students’ and the clinical staff’s perspectives about a collaborative clinical learning environment at a large teaching hospital in Botswana. Thirty health care providers comprising nurses, doctors, nursing and medical students were engaged in one-to-one informal dialogues to explore their views about collaborative clinical learning environment. Content analysis method was employed for data analysis. Four themes emerged from the participants’ responses and these were: participants’ valuing of a collaborative clinical learning environment; efforts being made toward cultivating and supporting a collaborative learning environment; factors frustrating participants’ effort to nurture a collaborative clinical learning environment; students experience of a collaborative clinical learning environment. The authors provide recommendations for improving the clinical learning environment.