The Emotional Journey of Independent Learning: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of Undergraduate Adult Nursing Student’s Experience of Self-Managed Independent learning (SML) in one UK University.

Abstract

This thesis explores the phenomenon of independent learning - using the local vernacular of Self-Managed Independent Learning (SMIL) - through the lived experience of thirteen final year adult nursing students in one UK University. Independent learning as a key purpose of higher education is well established and increasingly promoted within today's unprecedented and globalised world where knowledge itself is recognised as constantly changing. Undergraduate independent learning is therefore positioned as an important developmental process from learner dependency to autonomy in order to help promote lifelong learning beyond graduation. Yet little is known about how contemporary UK student nurses themselves experience this. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) uses in-depth qualitative analysis to interpret how people make sense of major life experiences. Data was collected using individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews from participants across three cohorts in order to gain insight into their individual SMIL experiences and “life-world.” True to IPA, individual narratives were closely and repeatedly analysed to identify individual participant themes before undertaking a cross-case analysis to identify both convergence and divergence between participant accounts. Three superordinate themes emerged of “feeling overwhelmed,” “the pressure of time” and “connecting socially” supported by fourteen subordinate themes indicating that SMIL is lived as an affective, temporal and social phenomenon. These findings offer an alternative and unique insider perspective on SMIL as an emotional journey in which learning to regulate and positively transform emotions precedes cognitive change, and thus plays a key, yet until now unrecognised, role in student nurses’ development and transformation from dependent to independent learner. This thesis recommends that the sentient nature of SMIL and a pedagogy of emotion needs to be more fully recognised by nurse educationalist alongside the promotion of social and empathic relationships as mechanisms for enhancing successful student-centred facilitation of SMIL for adult student nurses.