Diversity, Inclusion and Equality in Practice Placements: Experiences of pre-registration student nurses with dyslexia

The study of the perspectives of student nurses with dyslexia has an
under-represented knowledge base as this is a relatively new branch of
nursing educational research. While researchers have suggested that
those with dyslexia experience deficits of executive functionality within
practice placements, one outstanding area for exploration is the student
nurses’ own lived-experience of the challenges faced in this context.
Using mixed-methods my study investigated this phenomenon. I
replicated some earlier studies examining the students’ perception of the
practice mentor’s provision for learning and student satisfaction with
their clinical learning environment. My study’s data showed that there
was a perception of satisfaction with the quality of practice placements
that were ‘not boring.’ There was apparently little difference in whether
or not students look forward to ‘going to shifts on practice placement’ or
perceive them to be a ‘waste of time’. The environment was perceived to
be ‘very interesting’ for learning. There was a perceived significant
difference in mentor behaviour shown in support of the student’s
learning and toward them as a person the effect of this relationship was
examined further. I also explored interpretations of the students’ own lived-experience of
being a student with dyslexia in the practice placement context. A
probing investigation into the impact of dyslexia within nursing practice
found surprisingly high levels of psychological discriminative abuse (on
issues relating to diversity, inclusion and equality), directed toward this
vulnerable group of students. For the first time pragmatic constraints
around reasonable adjustments were also revealed.
The thesis concludes that there is a role indicated for changes to
normalise diversity, inclusion and equality with reasonable adjustments
in the pedagogy practiced within practice placements. The thesis
strongly suggests future work is needed to further eliminate
discrimination within practice placement education of nurses.