Group mentoring: a story of transition for undergraduate baccalaureate nursing students.

Background: Group mentoring has been endorsed as an effective method of supporting novice professionals across disciplines. In one university, faculty revised the undergraduate nursing curriculum to include a group mentoring course as a requirement of students during the four semesters they are enrolled in the nursing program.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of undergraduate nursing students participating in a group mentoring course.

Design: This study used a hermeneutic interpretive phenomenological method.

Setting And Participants: Data were collected from 22 undergraduate nursing students enrolled in group mentoring courses at a private Midwestern university in the United States.

Methods: At the end of each semester of mentoring, students provided written responses to five open-ended questions about their experiences of participating in the mentoring courses.

Results: Four themes emerged: conversation, communication, connection, and cohesion.

Conclusion: Group mentoring was an effective way to support nursing students as they transitioned from undergraduate student to novice professional nurse.