Describing the needs of new nursing faculty in mentoring relationships

Abstract

Currently there is a shortage of qualified nursing faculty in Canada, which is predicted to increase in the near future. Mentorship is one retention and recruitment strategy suggested to help manage the prevailing nursing faculty shortage issue. There is limited research that describes that needs of nursing faulty in mentoring relationships, particularly those that work in technical college settings. The purpose of this naturalistic inquiry was to describe, interpret, and connect the voices of nursing faculty, from a Canadian school of nursing, as nursing faculty shared their lived experiences in formal mentorship relationships. This research project was inspired by several faculty from this particular school of nursing that felt others may learn more about mentoring from their lived experiences.

Interpretative phenomenology was used as aboard framework to evaluate a range of individual experiences within a formal mentoring program from which commonalities were sifted; patterns were identified using comparative methodology, and incidental and essential themes were located. Investigative and interpretive endeavors focused on answering the research question: What do novice nursing faculty need in mentoring relationships at a Canadian School of Nursing? Five themes were identified: 1) Conquering the Divide described the multiple role transitions faculty faced when they need to master classroom teaching, laboratory instruction, and clinical teaching; Self-serve Only identified participants who were involved in informal mentoring relationships that were initiated by participants while they were in a mentee role prior to entering formal mentoring relationships; Under Utilization of Mentoring Process outlines how mentees unsuccessfully plan and evaluated goals with their mentors; Outside Influences explains the effect that collateral hostility had on mentoring culture and how people outside a work climate could impact personal and professional growth; the final overarching theme, Time, tied all of the themes together by describing workload and work-life balance issues. All of the themes indentifies that formal mentoring relationships were meeting some of the needs of new nursing faculty but the program did not meet all of their needs. Key points of knowing and meaning that emerged from this project can be used to inform mentoring practices and as a basis for future research.