Introduction: Undergraduate healthcare students on placement abroad can experience challenges that affect their wellbeing, personal and professional development. These challenges may result in students taking a more peripheral role in workplace activities, which negatively impacts learning. We studied how personal and professional challenges affect students’ learning and wellbeing during a clinical placement abroad.Methods: We used the rich pictures drawing method to elicit semi-structured student interviews and capture personal and professional challenges within different contexts. Language, culture, education, and belonging were used as sensitizing concepts, underlying thematic analysis. We conducted a parallel and iterative analysis of the transcripts and rich pictures. Team discussions focused on developing patterns and further conceptualization of results.Results: Based on thirteen student accounts, we identified four main themes: ‘Learning to work in the international context’; ‘Cultural differences shape professional identity’; ‘Deliberate social connections’; and ‘Personal growth through international experiences’. Active participation in local practices was crucial to overcome barriers in language, culture or education, and increase belonging. Local healthcare teams and peers supported students’ wellbeing, personal and professional development by helping them establish their role as a learner, whilst exploring the scope and boundaries of their future profession.Conclusions: Language, cultural and educational challenges can be considered an inevitable part of student placement abroad. Local peers and staff may support this transition and help recognize learning opportunities and challenges in the workplace. Clinical educators can facilitate learning and wellbeing by providing social support and guidance on professional behavior, including communication.
Students’ health profession education includes learning at the workplace through placements. For students, participating in daily work activities in interaction with supervisors, co-workers and peers is a valuable practice to learn the expertise that is needed to become a health care professional. To contribute to the understanding of HPE-students’ workplace learning, the focus of this study is to identify affordances and characterise student’s participation during placements. We applied a research design based on observations. Three student-physiotherapists and four student-nurses were shadowed during two of their placement days. A categorisation of affordances is provided, in terms of students’ participation in activities, direct interactions and indirect interactions. Students’ daily participation in placements is discussed through unique combinations and sequences of the identified affordances reflecting changing patterns over time, and differences in the degree of presence or absence of supervisors, co-workers and peers.
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Werkplekleren is een belangrijk onderdeel van beroepsopleidingen. Toch weten we weinig over hoe praktijkopleiders het leren van studenten op de werkplek ondersteunen. In dit promotieonderzoek wordt de begeleiding van studenten tijdens stages onderzocht.
