Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Clinical Instructors' Perceptions Of Structural And Psychological Empowerment In Academic Nursing Environments, Sandra E. Wiens

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

ABSTRACT

The study purpose was to explore clinical instructors’ perceptions of empowerment in academic nursing environments. Clinical instructors (CIs), often part-time faculty, facilitate learning in professional practice environments. However, they also need to function within the academic environment to learn about the curriculum and how students are to be evaluated.

The qualitative description method was used to obtain a broad understanding of CIs’ empowerment experiences and to interpret their perceptions with the framework of Kanter’s (1977, 1993) structural empowerment and Spreitzer’s (1995) psychological empowerment theories. Eight CIs from two nursing programs were interviewed.

All empowerment components were important in CIs’ …