The Registered Nurse as Work-Based Learner: Towards a Framework for Socio-Cultural Learning in Nursing Practice

Abstract

This study focuses on post-registration nursing education in the workplace. Pre-Registration qualifying student nurse education is not considered as this is controlled and regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council which includes monitoring of the quality of the educational and learning environments in practice placements. This may not be the case regarding continuing education in the workplace where learning may be formal and/or informal and there may be no or a few experienced mentors dedicated to supporting the registered nurse as learner in the workplace. This study also explores the ontological needs of the nurse as a work-based learner and how they created, (morphogenetic factors), maintained and sustained (morphostatic factors) in the workplace and examines the factors that may enable the creation or destruction of the work-based learner. This study also explores the creation of the social reality of the work-based learner from a social ontological approach and how elements of this reality, for example power relations, status functions and collective intentionality, may impact upon the learner. As a contribution to new knowledge, I propose a new socio-cultural educational framework for work-based learning for nurses that promotes the development of self-determined and self-directed learning to meet the ontological needs of the work-based learner. This is underpinned by a heutagogical approach that may facilitate socio-cultural learning in the workplace by driving innovation, invention and a heutagogical approach to education.