This blog has been contributed by Dr Beverly Joshua, Head of School of Health Sciences, University of Greenwich, and Professor Claire Thurgate, Head of the School of Nursing, Allied and Public Health, Kingston University.
Within healthcare education, there is a need for an appropriately qualified workforce to facilitate the delivery of sustainable quality, evidence-based education that supports current and future workforce needs. However, higher education institutions (HEIs) across London are struggling to recruit and retain academic staff. These experiences reflect the findings of the Council of Deans’ academic staffing census, where the main recruitment challenges included a discrepancy between job requirements and the applicant skills and/or a mismatch between job requirements and teaching experience; and low application numbers for part-time and fixed-term positions.
The transition of nursing clinicians into academia is a strategic response by higher education institutions to address the depleting academic workforce. Recognising the urgent need for educators in nursing education, institutions are actively creating opportunities for clinicians to enter academia. This shift not only helps in filling the gaps within the academic workforce but also brings a valuable perspective to the classroom; one grounded in real-world clinical experience. By fostering these recruitment opportunities, HEIs are also enhancing the quality of nurse education, by ensuring that the future healthcare professionals receive a contemporary, well-rounded understanding of the discipline. This collaborative effort between clinicians and academia becomes crucial in fortifying the educational foundation necessary for the next generation of nurses.
Embarking on a career in academia, especially as a novice nurse educator, can be both exciting and challenging. The transition period requires a supportive environment to ensure successful integration into the academic landscape. Below we look at various modes of mentoring that have been suggested by researchers and educators to facilitate the smooth transition and retention of novice nurse academics.
Modes of mentoring
There are multiple modes of mentoring to support the transition for the newly recruited academic. These vary and consider the depth of experiences newly recruited staff may have had working with nursing students in the clinical environment, as well as the situational support in place for the employing HEI. Therefore, the choice of mentoring model is dependent on the academic developmental needs of the member of staff as well as the role and expectations of the HEI. It is worth noting that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to mentoring. Incorporating multiple mentoring models may be crucial in supporting novice nurse academics. Aiming to create a considerate, nurturing mentoring experience would require a robust needs-assessment at the beginning of the mentoring process as this would allow the mentoring experience to be tailored to the transitioning individual’s needs.
The Novice Faculty Confidence Scale (NFCS) serves as a valuable tool to assess the transitional deficits of newly recruited faculty. It is worth mentioning, that the self-directed mentee-led mentoring approach, was found to be challenging and unsupportive, with a suggestion that an experienced mentor/mentee partnership guided by a structured mentoring approach would be more beneficial. The dyad mode of mentoring, requiring the pairing of novice academics (mentees) with seasoned, expert educators (mentors who have a deep understanding of institutional expectations, academia, and organisational politics), is also recommended in contributing to a smoother transition.
Formal mentoring programmes
To foster a culture of support for the transitioning clinician to academia, studies advocate implementing a formal mentoring programme. The merits of instituting a structured mentoring programme include providing the opportunity for both short and long-term mentor-mentee partnerships, allowing for focused collaboration.
A phased approach through a Teaching Mentorship Programme, which is a structured programme supporting new nurse lecturers in transitioning, using evidence-based teaching practices, and developing teaching scholarships over two semesters, has been evaluated as vital in acclimating to the new role change. The incorporation of this scholastic mentorship engagement over an extended period has been evidenced to enable mentors to guide, support, and develop new faculty members, resulting in positive retention.
Mentoring partnerships:
Additional recommendations include providing guidance on creating mentoring dyads that involve formative and summative evaluations. This approach allows senior academics to address identified issues iteratively, leading to increased job satisfaction, commitment, and motivation among newly recruited staff.
My personal involvement in the recruitment of nurses into academia through the secondment route from two London-based Trusts before the pandemic, has provided me with insights into the advantages and challenges associated with this recruitment approach. Despite implementing a mentorship programme guided by a peer-assessed checklist of academic-developmental requirements, with regular debriefs on the transitioning novice academics’ progress, some challenges arose due to the choice of secondment arrangements. Specifically, some novice academics faced difficulties managing the part-time academic/nurse working pattern. Incidentally, this challenge appears not been reported in the research reviewed.
In contrast, novice nurse academics who opted for full-time academic secondment roles over a six-month or yearly period reported a smoother transition to the new academic role. Successful outcomes of this recruitment initiative include several of the nursing staff who initially seized these secondment opportunities eventually transitioning to full-time academic posts. Moreover, several of them have advanced to senior lecturer positions and embarked on higher academic pursuits, including master’s and doctoral studies.
Navigating the complexities of academia as a novice nurse educator requires intentional support. By understanding and implementing diverse mentoring strategies, we can create an environment that not only facilitates a smooth transition but also fosters the growth and development of the next generation of nursing academics.
