Nurse to educator? academic roles and the formation of personal academic identities

Recent research by Boyd et al (2009) and Murray (2007) designed to explore the experiences of new academics moving into higher education from vocational and professional backgrounds, indicates that the transition from clinical practice to academic roles can be challenging. Additional research by Hurst (2010) further demonstrates that despite having established successful clinical careers, clinicians often experience feelings of uncertainty and inadequacy following such a move, taking between 1.5 and 3 years to socialise into their new academic roles (Hurst, 2010). In addition, the transition of pre-registration nurse training into higher education is relatively recent, following its wholesale relocation from schools of nursing located in the National Health Service to higher education institutions in the early 1990s. This move was initiated in response to growing concerns that the traditional apprentice model of pre-registration training, with its focus on functional competency, failed to give nurses the freedom or status required for professional development (UKCC, 1986). Therefore, given the relative recency of the move and growing evidence of the difficulties experienced by health
professionals, it is pertinent to examine how they have managed the transition. Therefore, the purpose of this constructivist study is to investigate the academic
role of the nurse educator and its contribution to the formation of personal academic identity. Undertaken over a three year period, this study uses intensive interviews with
14 academics employed in pre-1992 and post-1992 universities. Data analysis using grounded theory techniques provides a rich and detailed picture of nurse educators' personal academic identities, juxtaposed by a number of institutional,
social and professional drivers. The main findings also signify congruence with previous studies (Boyd et ai, 2009, Murray, 2007) and indicate academics experience multiple challenges when making the transition into higher education. Challenges inhibit their ability to assimilate into an academic identity and realise academic roles, a position leading respondents to express concern about the efficacy of the competency based curricula and their ability to meet
the wider educational needs of pre-registration nursing. The reciprocal processes of data collection, analysis and theory generation leads to the production of a model of academic identity transformation and explicit recommendations that may be used to direct the ongoing development of nurse education.