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What are Younger ( Millennial Aged 24 - 40) Secondary Religious Education Teachers in Sydney Catholic Schools Understanding and Experiencing in Terms of a Call to Witness
No full textTeachers of Religious Education in Australian Catholic secondary schools, like teachers of all key learning areas, are expected to have specialist knowledge of the content being taught and skills in contemporary pedagogy for high-quality learning. They also have an additional expectation – they are called to witness to the Catholic faith and Catholic teachings as they teach about them. Or at least they are in theory. However, in a contemporary Australian society that is becoming increasingly non-religious, secular, pluralistic, and religiously diverse is this call to witness still tenable or appropriate? Research on Catholic education has called for a greater examination of the nature, role and purpose of Religious Education given this changing context. However, there is a gap in research that examines this call to witness.
This research will use authoritative church documents to establish the foundations for the call to witness of secondary Religious Education teachers in Catholic schools, a definition of what is meant by it and the reasons given for why it is considered to be important. The research will then explore the contemporary reality of this call to witness through the insights, experiences and understandings of a purposeful sample of secondary Religious Education teachers in Sydney Catholic Schools. It is a qualitative study using an interpretive research paradigm and the research methodology of phenomenography so that the participants could have space to explore their own perceptions and understandings in depth while also having sufficient structure to develop meaningful research findings. The purposeful sample of teachers are all in the “millennial” age bracket (25-40) as this category of teachers is seen to be both fully immersed in the contemporary social forces of diversity and secularisation and vital to the future of Catholic education.
The research asks this purposeful sample of teachers about their understanding of the call to witness and their experiences of responding to it. It identifies the purposeful sample as being dominated by a category of religiously committed millennials who have much to contribute to the topic. The research revealed that the participants were able to establish seven characteristics of effective witness from their experiences, insights and understandings. These characteristics are explored in detail and offer a potential framework for the role of the Catholic religious education teacher that could be further developed and used in the formation of teachers. However, the research also reveals significant limitations and challenges facing teachers in responding to the call to witness. This includes the participant\u27s perception that Religious Education is not a priority in their schools and there is a call to witness void in that it is largely ignored and left to the discretion of the individual teacher. They also speak of the effect this has on the religious education experience of students. The participants offer constructive recommendations for the future that focus on building specialist teams of Religious Education teachers who can be supported through networking, mentoring, professional learning and formation.
The key implication of the research is that Catholic school and system leaders are being called to address the nature of Religious Education and to offer greater clarity and support for those teaching it. This research contributes to an understanding of how this can be addressed and offers a catalyst for further research that could include the input of a broader group of teachers as well as opportunities to research the insights and experiences of students and exploring changes to the structure of how Religious Education is delivered in schools
Nursing Students\u27 Clinical Placement Experience in a Residential Aged Care Facility: A Comparative Study
Full text linkNursing education programs play a significant role in preparing future nurses to care for the growing number of older people who will require health care. A key component of this preparation is the learning that nursing students acquire through clinical placement experience in a residential aged care facility. This clinical placement provides them with opportunities to experience caring for older adults. However, many students are reportedly reluctant to accept clinical placement in aged care and are ill-prepared for the challenges of the residential aged care facility environment. Hence, it is important for the development of future nursing programs and the delivery of nurse education, as well as for providing quality care to an ageing demographic, to understand and mitigate such shortfalls. A significant part of this mitigation may lie in understanding student perspectives.
Accordingly, this study aims to understand whether undertaking residential aged care facility clinical placement changed (positively or negatively) first-year nursing students’ attitudes and led to transformative practice among them following clinical placement in Western Australia during the period February 2021 and July 2021. To this end, this study employs a qualitative research approach with a comparative research design. Data were collected in two phases. Prior to nursing students’ residential aged care facility clinical placement, data were collected from them using an open-ended questionnaire. Following clinical placement, data were collected through one-on-one semi-structured interviews with these students, clinical practice team members and clinical facilitators.
The findings indicate that attitudes of all nursing students who participated in this study had changed positively after their clinical placement experience and that transformative practice occurred. Recommendations are suggested that may help education providers, clinical facilitators and residential aged care facility staff to improve future students’ clinical placement experiences and, importantly, prepare them to care for an ageing population
