ERIC Number: ED532886
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 461
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: ISBN-978-1-1094-6265-4
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Complexity Science and Adult Education: The Role of Trauma in Nurses' Embodied Learning
Swartz, Ann L.
ProQuest LLC, D.Ed. Dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University
Every day nurses work in environments that expose them to trauma and they move through their professional space as embodied creatures with their own histories of trauma. Because trauma changes our bodies in multiple ways, these diverse, changed and changing embodied selves are the people who come to class when nurses engage in higher education. From Adult Education emerging interests in several discourses are present to inform this picture: complexity science and education, embodied learning, neuroscience, and trauma. Although the discourses have intersecting theoretical underpinnings, they are not yet interconnecting in explicit ways. This mixed-methods, primarily qualitative research study grounded in a complexity science theoretical framework sought to understand how RN-BS clinical students learned through their bodies, how they formed new patterns of connection, and how these patterns related trauma. It examined, retrospectively, the learning that occurred for a group of 16 RN-BS students who took two courses in health assessment and complex clinical problems, using a pedagogy that included experiential anatomy, yoga trance dance, mindfulness exercises, reflective journaling, and clinical storytelling that attended to body experiencing. Course content incorporated an ethological neurobiological model of human development and trauma and a complexity science informed perspective of nursing and healthcare. Outcomes were examined as new patterns of connection into the contexts of personal and professional lives. Findings revealed the ubiquitous presence of trauma in nurses' clinical learning. The trauma arises from education and socialization processes and the paradoxes of hi-tech healthcare. Embodied connection with self emerged, branching into new patterns of connection as new personal/professional knowledge and actions. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]
Descriptors: Socialization, Qualitative Research, Nurses, Adult Education, Course Content, Anatomy, Science Education, Higher Education, Trauma, Mixed Methods Research, Nursing, Nursing Education, Neurology
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Publication Type: Dissertations/Theses - Doctoral Dissertations
Education Level: Adult Education; Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A