“It’s literally like I’m sat right there in the room with you!” A generic qualitative study of formative audio feedback within pre-registration nurse education

Introduction: For pre-registration student nurses’ provision of academic feedback contributes to academic performance, professional practice and their professional identity, and technological advancements have created opportunities for Higher Education Institutions to diversify approaches to feedback. Aim: To explore how the embodied voice of the nurse academic, delivered through formative audio feedback, mediates pre-registration student nurses learning, facilitating knowledge construction and mean-making, and contributing to development of professional identity. Methodology: This Generic Qualitative study initially explored sixteen pre-registration student nurses’ expectations of formative audio feedback through meta-planned focus groups. Following receipt of digital audio files, without any additional written commentary, twelve pre-registration student nurses within individual semi-structured interviews articulated their experiences of formative audio feedback. Data analysis was facilitated through using reflexive thematic data analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2013). Findings: Conceptualised through the four themes of (1) “Literally like I’m sat there”; (2) “Knowing what you meant”; (3) “Creating professional identity” and (4) “Knowledge created through technological mediation but...” this study highlights that as an embodied vocal practice, the nurse academic’s voice through formative audio feedback is less formal and nuanced, and is linked to the way in which pre-registration student nurses learn and subsequently develop their professional identity. Formative audio feedback elicits feelings of connection conceptualised through the notion of “virtual academic-student interaction” whereby voice as a semiotic resource enables the exchange of meanings. Emerging from the findings, was the development of the Initiation, Preamble, Focused, Explanations and Disengagement (IPFED) Framework for formative audio feedback, intended to provide a structured approach for provision of formative audio feedback. Conclusions: Formative audio feedback alone, without any written feedback is sufficient as a feedback modality as the embodied voice of nurse academic mediates pre-registration student nurses learning, supports knowledge construction and mean-making which contributes to the development of professional identity.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Professional Doctorate

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wolverhampton

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Lewis, Donna

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Paniagua, Hilary
• Barratt, Julian

• pre-registration student nurses
• formative audio feedback
• professional identity
• embodied vocal practice
• virtual academic-student interaction
• displaced presence
• academic-student relationship
• socially constructed learning
• embodied mean-making
• initiation preamble focused explanations and disengagement framework

Licence

• https://wlv.openrepository.com/bitstreams/8b1099b0-21dc-4d9e-90b2-1f9a54b1fe1c/download