Schulstationen in der Pflegeausbildung: Zur Lernförderlichkeit eines komplexen Lehr-Lernarrangements. On the learning potential of a complex learning arrangement

Student-run hospital wards are institutionalised learning arrangements in which nursing students are fully responsible for the planning, organisation, and implementation of patient care within a real-existing hospital ward for a limited time frame during their initial nursing training. Although nurses in Germany have been trained in student-run hospital wards for almost 20 years and their learning potential has been widely discussed in the literature empirical studies investigating whether such arrangements are indeed conducive to learning are largely missing. This contribution aims to address this research gap by answering the following research question: How do student-run hospital wards differ from other workplace learning settings that are part of the student nurses’ curriculum in terms of characteristics conducive to work-related learning? To do so, a mixed-method approach within a replication framework was used. At the end of two consecutive runs of a student-run hospital ward, altogether 36 participants filled in a standardised questionnaire. In addition, 25 interviews with students as well as three staff nurses and three physicians involved at the student-run hospital wards were conducted. The findings speak in favour of the student-run hospital wards: they robustly exhibit more characteristics conducive to workplace learning then regular practice phases. Based on the empirical findings practical implications will be derived in order to secure the learning potential of student-run hospital wards.