Supporting physiotherapy learners in practice settings: a mixed methods evaluation of experiences of physiotherapy educators.

Background: Practice-based education is an essential component of pre-registration physiotherapy programs, and there is a need for a contemporary review of practice-based educational experiences.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore physiotherapy practice educators' experiences of supporting learners to inform considerations for future workforce development.

Methods: This was a mixed methods sequential explanatory study based in the United Kingdom (UK).

Birley Place: a virtual community for the delivery of health and social care education.

Virtual simulation can provide high-quality learning experiences through innovative and engaging activities while also overcoming some of the constraints associated with physical simulation. We developed a virtual community, called Birley Place, to facilitate simulation-based learning activities. Adopting a novel approach, we modelled the virtual community on the large metropolitan city in which our institution is based.

"Feel the fear and do it anyway" … nursing students' experiences of confronting poor practice.

Aim: The two aims of this study were, first, to explore nursing students' experiences and perspectives of reporting poor care and second, examine the process by which they raised concerns.

Background: The nursing literature is replete with studies which explore nursing students' experiences of clinical placement. However only a small number explore students experiences of challenging poor care and how this is enacted in the practice setting.

'She would wash the patients as if she was scrubbing a dirty plate in the sink': Exploring nursing students experiences of care delivery.

Background: While much is known about nursing students' clinical placement experiences in general, less has been reported about their specific encounters with poor care delivery. A few small-scale qualitative studies have been undertaken, which suggest that nursing students do witness poor care but often decide not to act on what they see. This study sought to explore a wider international perspective on this issue.

PLATO: A practice education tool to support learning and professional development.

It is important that nursing students are adequately supported during their clinical practice placements in order to promote effective learning and reduce student attrition. Educators have an important role and this paper offers an interactive tool, 'PLATO', (The Practice Learning and Teaching Orientations Tool) to support them to meaningfully engage with learners in the practice setting. To enable such engagement, four personal orientations are presented, (role model, advocate, legitimiser and respecter) which enable educators to explore their role, across both local and wider contexts.

The wicked problem of healthcare student attrition.

The early withdrawal of students from healthcare education programmes, particularly nursing, is an international concern and, despite considerable investment, retention rates have remained stagnant. Here, a regional study of healthcare student retention is used as an example to frame the challenge of student attrition using a concept from policy development, wicked problem theory. This approach allows the consideration of student attrition as a complex problem derived from the interactions of many interrelated factors, avoiding the pitfalls of small-scale interventions and over-simplistic assumptions of cause and effect.

"My mentor didn't speak to me for the first four weeks": Perceived Unfairness experienced by nursing students in clinical practice settings.

Aims And Objectives: To explore the perceived unfairness experienced by student nurses during their undergraduate clinical placements.

Background: It is important that student nurses feel supported by practice staff during their clinical placement education experiences. However, it has been reported that learners can feel ignored, unsupported and bullied by others in the clinical environment and this has a detrimental effect on their learning.

The influence of role models in undergraduate nurse education.

Aims And Objectives: To explore the concept of role modelling in undergraduate nurse education and its effect on the personal and professional development of student nurses.

Background: Effective educative strategies are important for student nurses, who have to cope with learning in both clinical and university settings. Given the contemporary issues facing nurse education and practice in the United Kingdom (UK), it is timely and important to undertake pedagogical research into the concept of role modelling as an effective educative method.

Students' perceptions of their learning experiences: A repeat regional survey of healthcare students.

Background: Student experience is an international concern and recent research has focused on initiatives to improve students' learning experiences and ultimately reduce attrition levels.

Objective: To determine similarities and differences between students' perceptions of their learning experiences between 2011 and 2015 in relation to campus-based learning, placement-based learning and personal circumstances.

Design: A repeat online survey in 2011 and 2015; using a questionnaire developed from thematic analysis of narrative interviews with a subsample of the target population.

Should I stay or should I go? A study exploring why healthcare students consider leaving their programme.

Background: Attrition in healthcare programmes is a growing concern internationally. Students leave for a variety of reasons but it is difficult to understand the complex interactions that eventually lead to attrition.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to identify the factors that prompted students to consider leaving their programme, and to make recommendations regarding strategies to reduce attrition.

What are reasonable expectations? Healthcare student perceptions of their programmes in the North West of England.

Background: Concerns about current levels of attrition from some healthcare programmes have emphasised the need to gain a greater insight into students' expectations and experiences.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine how students in the North West of England perceived their studies and to identify the factors that could contribute to students' dissatisfaction.

Design: A mixed methods sequential exploratory study.

'The placement was probably the tipping point' - the narratives of recently discontinued students.

Much has been written on student attrition from healthcare programmes and we know that it is often multifactorial. However in order to reduce attrition we need to gain a greater understanding of how multiple factors impact upon and compound one another to prompt a student to decide to leave. The purpose of this study was to explore healthcare students' experiences of university and the circumstances that initiated their decision to leave their programme.