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Abstract

Background

Storytelling is a frequent practice within nursing education. Stories are thought to be helpful for student learning, engagement, professional role development, and transmission of ethical values. Despite its common use, little is known about the stories told by nurse educators and the implicit ethical values within those stories.

Aims

To describe the reasons nurse educators tell stories to undergraduate students and examine implicit ethical values within these stories.

Research design

A qualitative descriptive study with Rubin and Rubin’s responsive interviewing method. Interview transcripts and written stories were analyzed thematically with constant comparison.

Participants and research context

Participants included 15 nurse educators, primarily from the northeastern United States.

Ethical considerations

Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for protection of human subjects was received prior to conducting the study. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Findings

Nurse educators use storytelling to help students understand what it means to be a nurse, to improve student learning, because we are all human, and because the art and science of nursing requires storytelling. Ethical values from these stories were organized into the following themes: advocacy, nurse attributes, importance of the nurse-patient relationship, and reflection.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that that storytelling in nursing education is used for role development and communicating ethical values. Additional studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of storytelling and how it can be used to improve nursing practice.

Keywords

Storytelling nursing education pedagogy ethical values prelicensure

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