Professionhood and professionalism as an educational aid for facilitating nursing students’ development and renewal of self and profession

Abstract

Educational aids that replicate life-long learning and facilitate professional nursing identity development are important to the education and practice of nursing students. The on-going development and renewal of self and the nursing profession need to exist together, each informing the other. Reflecting on examples from an introductory course on nursing as a profession with first year baccalaureate nursing students in Canada, the aim is to discuss how Margretta Styles’ ideas of professionhood and professionalism were used to engage students in course content and process. The data source for this article is a description of an educational practice derived from Styles ideas of professionhood and professionalism. Guided by a constructivist interpretative-qualitative educational perspective, the cyclic interplay between Styles ideas is offered as an educational aid for facilitating students’ awareness of self (professionhood) and what is expected by the nursing profession (professionalism); and, as a tool for students and educators to continue to imagine and re-imagine their professional nursing identity individually and as a group.