Renate Elizabeth Gibbs
Camosun College, Canada
Title: Motivating and Deterring Factors that Influence Canadian Student Nurses’ Decisions to Study Abroad
Biography
Biography: Renate Elizabeth Gibbs
Abstract
Study abroad opportunities in many Canadian Nursing programs have become increasingly popular in the past decade. Schools of nursing are tasked with making nursing education culturally relevant in a global society and student learning can be enhanced with this expanded curriculum focus in addressing global health content, cultural competence in a variety of overseas placements. Camosun College’s Nursing Program (Victoria, BC, Canada) has offered international Study Abroad experiences for students in the Baccalaureate of Nursing Program since 2004. Study abroad opportunities offer an experiential learning opportunity to expand a student’s personal and professional development. International placements have included both developed and developing countries and require adequate numbers of student participants to support these optional programs. Students frequently demonstrate strong interest in study abroad programs as nursing programs develop their links with international settings, however a variety of factors may deter the student’s participation from this optional experience.
In order to build on the capacity with individual study abroad programs an exploratory study was conducted in 2016 with nursing students and involved an interpretive descriptive research study. This multi-faceted study sought to address four study objectives with nursing students (n = 21) participating in two programs; New Zealand and in the Philippines. A combination of data collection techniques included pre and post study abroad focus groups (n = 4), critical reflections (n = 24), a fluid survey (n = 12) and a structured questionnaire (n = 60). Rich data emerged to address the issues and factors that influence Canadian nursing student’s motivation and challenges as they considered study abroad opportunities. It is anticipated that the presentation of these research findings, coupled with recommendations for best practice to consider study abroad programs’ motivating and deterring factors which can influence students’ decisions to participate will help inform the discussion on the merits and challenges of Study Abroad programs.