Analyzing Enablers and Constraints for Nurses' Learning in Nursing

This essay explores the enablers and constraints that impact nurses' learning within the dynamic healthcare environment. It identifies factors such as feedback, reflection, and learning theories as enablers, while barriers include ineffective communication, discrimination, and stress. The essay delves into behaviorism, cognitive theory, and constructivist theory, highlighting their roles in nursing education. It also addresses the importance of regular feedback, practical advice from supervisors, and reflection as supportive elements. Key constraints discussed are time limitations, workplace culture, and emotional factors that hinder cognitive and behavioral learning. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for motivational practices and effective time management to overcome these barriers and promote continuous learning among nurses.

Essay on Enablers and
constrains for nurses to learn

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Health and social care sector is involving the different task and activities which has to be
accomplish by the nursing department (Rebair, & Hulatt, (2017)). For the effective care of the
patient and achievement of the success in their role, nurses have to be effective learner and
manage the task with different evidence based learning experiences. There are the various factors
of the health care environment which support and prevent the learning of nurses, such as
feedbacks, reflection and learning theories. Barriers of the nurses learnings ineffective
communication discrimination etc. in this essay Enablers and constrains related to the nurses
learning is identified, which is associated with needs and challenges of a complex and ever-
changing health care environment.
MAIN BODY
Tony Smith (2019) according to this literature, Nursing is a practice which is a
combination of practical learning as well as the theoretical learning that enables a nursing student
to gain the knowledge as well as skills. Nursing practice is purely based on caring that include
various processes such as assessments, diagnosis,interventions and treatment that are applied on
humans to know about their health and illness. During nursing practice, it includes continuous
input from patients or their relatives to analyse the disorders. The planning, diagnosis and the
involvements may be interchangeable at any step on the basis of new information taken from the
patients . Major part of the nursing education may be carried out in the clinical environments as
clinical knowledge is considered to be an integral and most important part of the nursing
program. Unlike the educations which are provided in classrooms, the clinical training in the
nursing practice may occurs in a complex clinical learning environment which is regulated by
various factors. This type of learning environment gives a chance to the nursing students to learn
experimentally and also to convert their theoretical knowledge to a variety of psychological,
mental skills that are the significance of patients care.
The three themes comes to know from the nursing practice programs having a workplace
as learning environment here, first theme consists the involvement of the community in work
secondly, it may engage in interpersonal relations, and the last of this nursing practice program is
gaining some important as well as crucial knowledge resources (Gotterson, & Manias, (2020)).

Kate Davis (2015) on the basis of this literature The nursing care programs consists of
some learning theories as it allows an individual to modify to demand and alter the
circumstances and it is decisive in health care. It helps nurses to manage the healthcare
situations. These theories are classified into three general groups firstly, behaviourism as it states
that the nurses in clinical learning that are encountered at different points which needs different
combined forces as according to the psychology, human mind consists of various forces such as
attention, opinion, disputation, memory and other similar items and it is considered that these
forces can be strengthened by practising. It is also believed that to study the learning phenomena,
it can be analysed in simple components as by studying these basic concepts it is easy to
recognize the detection of the complex phenomena (Greenshields, (2018)). This guide and
support the nurses to change their behaviour for effective learning by the implementation of
different communication techniques. Learning theories helps the nurses in application of the
appropriate step to learn about the patient and manage the effective learning at their busy are.
The second learning theory is cognitive theory, unlike behaviourism theory it also
believes that learning may be a targeted internal process that focus on managing, understanding,
thought process and so on (Rogers, 2021)). It states that this type of learning cannot be
determined directly as it is connected with the change in capability and the individual's capacity
to respond. This learning theory is the another key supporter of the effective learning in nursing
sector at their specific surgical setting and busy area, as it illustrate the different method's of
learning. Such as comprehension through the help of which student make the most effective
learning by thinking about the importance of learning, then other step of the theory is skills
memorization the process through which nurses can use to explore their memories about the
solution or either save the new skills for future use, which help to learn in the buy area without
any issue. Application of the existing skills through the reflection is another cognitive process of
learning which enables the nurses to learn continuously (Rasheed & Sundus, (2019)).
The last learning theory is constructivist theory as it is quite different from other theories
peculiarly theories of behaviourism and cognitive. It considers that the reality of the universe is
not dependent on the mind set and outside the learning. This is another most important theory
which support the effective learning of the nursing staff, as according to this theory people must
construct the new and innovative idea and add on their previous experience. By the help of this

theory guidelines nurses get motivated to construct the new learning resource effectively at their
busy area(Lavallée & Cullum (2018)).
Bjørg Dale (2013) According to this literature main and important supportive of the
nurses learnings are regular feedbacks related to their work as this is helping in the identification
of their mistakes and weakness which can further use for the learning of specific thing. Such as
bring the busy area nurses can use their experience to reduce the chances of mistakes and learn
new way of management (Terp & Bisholt, B (2019)). Practical advice of the supervisor is
another supporting factor for nurses learning as this help to develop the effective experience of
the key activities and health care task. In the nursing one of the most important supporting factor
is reflection, the process through which nurses can evaluate their experience for the analysis of
new learning and identification of the learning gaps.
Nahid Jamshidi (2016) According to this literature key barriers to the learning process of
nurses are improper communication, discrimination, stress. Because these are some key factors
which impact the confidence level of the individual which further influence their learning
approach. Such as then inappropriate environment with lack of the communication with
subordinates and the discrimination causes higher inferiority complex which prevent them to
make learning approaches at their specific work setting and busy area (Neiman, T. (2019)).
Another factor which prevent the constructive learning of the nurses are their own behavioural
factor such as the lack of the dedication and self motivation for the constructive learning. In
health care setting one of the key skill is dedication, absence of this can lead to the various
learning and performance challenges. Such as it prevent to make the innovative learning
approaches, in order to encourages nurses for the constructive learning that is important to
implement motivational practices within the work environment. Through the help of which
nurses can make effective learning at their busy area too. Constructive learning take huge time
and the busy schedule of the nursing practices prevent learning of the new things, which can be
manage with the effective time schedules along with the incorporation of learning activities on
that.
In the process of cognitive learning the key barriers are time constraints, such as the
complicated and panic situation in the patient care practices do not give the time to make
cognitive thinking for the learning. Another factor which prevent the cognitive learning is the
workplace culture, is the organization culture is effective and supportive, give the opportunity to

make the continuative thinking then this can be consider as the supportive factor (Islam &
Ahmad, (2017)). But if the work culture is not appropriate to make the cognitive thinking, such
as higher workforce, complicated situation and lack of the resources then this can work as the
behaviour to cognitive learning. Another barrier to the cognitive thinking is emotional factors
like lack of the self esteem, confidence and beliefs on own skills, can lead to the ineffective
cognitive learning.
Michael (2020) In context to the behaviour learning of the nurses the major issues or
challenges are associated with the ineffective communication, lack of the feedbacks and
environmental support. Such as communication gap between the nurses, patient and their
subordinates causes the challenges in understanding process, which further impact the process of
behavioural changes to learn about the patient or any other practices. With the inappropriate
communication nurses can not manage the right behavioural changes and learning. For the
effective behaviour learning that is important to build the effective communication. Another
factor which impact the behaviour learning is workplace environment such as if the working
environment do not support the changing of the behaviour due to the lack of resources or
appropriate learning condition, then this can prevent the behaviour learning (Astbury &
Schafheutle, (2021)). Discrimination within the nursing care setting is also the key factor
associated with the prevention of behavioural learning as due to the discrimination staff can not
get the equal opportunity to make leaning.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been concluded that within the health and social care system
there are the various factors and learning theories which support the effective learning of nurses.
Along with this there are some barriers of the nurses learning such as higher time required for
the active learning and lack of the dedication for constructive learning, prevent the effective
learning. Time constraints, work place culture, discrimination are the key challenges of cognitive
learning. Lack of the environment support, ineffective communication and lack of the feedbacks
are the key barriers of behaviour learning.

REFERENCES
Books and journals:
Rebair, A., & Hulatt, I. (2017). Identifying nurses’ needs in relation to suicide awareness and
prevention. Nursing Standard, 31(27).
Gotterson, F., Buising, K., & Manias, E. (2020). Nurse role and contribution to antimicrobial
stewardship. An integrative review. International journal of nursing studies, 103787.
Rogers, C., 2021. Supporting health students on rural placements: A scoping review. Australian
Journal of Rural Health.
Lavallée, J. F., Gray, T. A., Dumville, J., & Cullum, N. (2018). Barriers and facilitators to
preventing pressure ulcers in nursing home residents: A qualitative analysis informed by
the Theoretical Domains Framework. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 82, 79-
89.
Neiman, T. (2019). Nurses’ perceptions of basic palliative care in the Hmong population.
Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 30(6), 576-586.
Islam, T., Khan, M. M., Khawaja, F. N., & Ahmad, Z. (2017). Nurses’ reciprocation of
perceived organizational support: the moderating role of psychological contract breach.
International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare.
Terp, U., Hjärthag, F., & Bisholt, B. (2019). Effects of a cognitive behavioral-based stress
management program on stress management competency, self-efficacy and self-esteem
experienced by nursing students. Nurse educator, 44(1), E1-E5.
Rasheed, S. P., Younas, A., & Sundus, A. (2019). Self‐awareness in nursing: A scoping review.
Journal of Clinical Nursing, 28(5-6), 762-774.
Greenshields, S. (2018). Exploring the impact training and resources have on school nurses'
knowledge and confidence. British Journal of School Nursing, 13(3), 122-127.
Astbury, J., Ferguson, J., Silverthorne, J., Willis, S., & Schafheutle, E. (2021). High-fidelity
simulation-based education in pre-registration healthcare programmes: a systematic
review of reviews to inform collaborative and interprofessional best practice. Journal of
interprofessional care, 35(4), 622-632.

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