Abstract
Background: Patient/parent/family education (PPFE) commonly involves children’s nurses. They help parents to learn ─ interactively encode information, link new and existing knowledge, construct meaning and transform information to usable knowledge, building the skills to manage their children’s health/wellbeing. Ways nurses facilitate learning using Learning Principles (subjective/invisible practice aspects promoting deep thinking/metacognition) and which ones are important to parents’ learning are un-explained in nursing. Three action research cycles explored and mapped nurses’ use of Learning Principles within PPFE. This paper reports Cycles two and three ─ cycle one is published elsewhere.
Method: In Cycle two, Stringer’s Look, Think, Act approach within focus groups, involved nurses (n= 23) and parents (n= 8) from one Australian health network. Participants explored their perceptions and practice through interactive discussions and feedback ─ Look(ed). Look shifted to Think, as participants sorted their ideas, tested them against those of others, posed new questions, uncovered using and experiencing Learning Principles. Act involved stimulating nurses to draw up their tacit knowledge.
In a collaborative workshop (Cycle three), participants brainstormed, used creative, critical thinking and a decision-making matrix to determine the content and format to communicate those key Learning Principles used/experienced in PPFE to others.
Results: Cycle two’s thematic analysis coded Learning Principles nurses used/parents experienced to five themes. Shifting from ‘automatic’ behaviours and knowing ‘what would work’, nurses made sense of theory/practice connections and ways they used Learning Principles important to parents’ needs. Mapped Learning Principles aligned with the Dimensions of Learning framework from educational-psychology, a framework rarely integrated into nursing’s PPFE.
In Cycle three’s data synthesis, participants and the researcher identified ways to integrate the Learning Principles into a parent-education resource using the Dimensions of Learning framework. Cues guide nurses in ways cognitive and adult Learning Principles promote learners’ thinking (metacognition) in PPFE.
Conclusion: Mapping, describing and creating of a resource now shows how nurses use and parents experience Learning Principles in PPFE. Further research can determine the resource’s value in communicating the role of Learning Principles in the learning process ─ importantly, the information transformation process to usable, meaningful knowledge vital for self-management.