Abstract:
In 2013 the New Zealand Nurses Organisation found that in-service education accounted for a large portion of continuing education activities for many nurses in New Zealand. Previous research had identified that in-service education is valued by nurses and that it leads to practice change. But how these changes occur is less well understood. The potential benefits of in-service to assist nurses to maintain clinical competence, and develop new knowledge and skills cannot be underestimated and warrants further investigation. The aim of this study to investigate in-service education with the research question: what are the perceived factors that influence nurses to transfer knowledge from in-service education sessions to clinical practice? This research was conducted using in-depth semi-structured interviews with 11 nurses who had experienced in-service education. An interpretive phenomenological analysis method was used to explore these nurses’ perceptions of the factors that influence knowledge transfer from in-service education to clinical practice. Findings indicate that knowledge transfer from in-service education is a complex process. Attendance at in-service education, meaningful participation, and knowledge transfer were key themes identified and these were found to be interconnected with the beliefs, values, and preferences of individual nurses, impacting their decision making. Knowledge transfer required the alignment of a number of other core factors such as timing, resources, and supports to be successful. Based on these findings recommendations include meaningful participation and knowledge transfer be considered in the context of nurse personhood for successful planning and implementation of in-service education.