Background: The goal of undergraduate nursing education is to provide opportunities for learner to become professional nurses who acquired competency in cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills. Teaching in higher education does not solely concern learner nursesʼ ability to recall or reproduce information rather it concerns altering theirʼ understanding regarding the provision of quality patient care. The study aimed to explore the experiences of learner nurses during experiential learning in the clinical setting of Limpopo province.

A qualitative phenomenological research design was used. The population comprised all learner nurses registered for a four-year degree at the University of Limpopo. Purposive sampling was used to select 48 learner nurses who participated in the focus group interviews for data collection. Teschʼs open coding method was used for data analysis. Ethical clearance was obtained from the University Ethics Committee.

Findings: Five themes emerged from data analysis: attitudes of professional nurses in hospital, initial clinical anxiety, opportunities for learning, difficulty in correlation of theory and practice and good versus bad experiences.

Conclusions: Experiences of learner nurses in clinical setting provide opportunity to develop an effective clinical teaching strategy in nursing education. The main objective of this study was to explore the experiences of learner nurses regarding their learning experiences in the clinical settings.

Recommendations: Professional nurses should be encouraged on clinical teaching of learner nurses as part of their teaching function. Quality improvement strategies should be applied in the clinical settingto enhances correlation of theory and practice.

Biography:
Dr. Lekhuleni Masamo is a professor in the department of Nursing Science at University of Limpopo in South Africa. She has published 43 articles on nursing education and nursing practice, presenter at national and international conferences.