Conflict in the preceptorship or field experience: a rippling tide of silence.

A major component of the educative process in the professional disciplines is the field education/preceptorship experience in which students are afforded opportunities to develop professional competence under the tutelage of a practising professional and/or a university instructor. During this time students are exposed to competing discourses about what it means to think and act as nurses, teachers, doctors and social workers. Frequently, field teaching is characterized by conflictual situations involving students, field instructors and university faculty.