Role-modelling and the hidden curriculum: New graduate nurses' professional socialisation.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To explore new graduate nurses' experiences of professional socialisation by registered nurses in hospital-based practice settings, and identify strategies that support professional identity development.

BACKGROUND: Professionalism is reinforced and stabilised in the clinical environment through the "hidden curriculum", with major learning coming from practice role-models. New graduates observe attitudes, behaviours, decision-making and skills, and gain feedback from registered nurses, which they translate into their own practice. Professional socialisation occurs through encounters with desirable and undesirable role-modelling; both are significant in professional identity formation.

DESIGN: Qualitative descriptive design.

METHOD: Data collection was undertaken through semistructured interviews with five new graduate nurse participants. A general inductive approach guided analysis. The meaningful descriptions gained provided insight into their experiences.

RESULTS: Three main themes identified from the data include: "Lessons from the wilderness"; "Life in the wild"; and "Belonging to a wolf pack". The data set highlighted the major transitional process from student identity to registered nurse.

CONCLUSIONS: New graduates' rethinking of beliefs and professional nursing identities were influenced by organisational pressures and experienced nurses' role-modelling practices contrary to professional values. Despite encountering a range of professional behaviours, attitudes and dilemmas, new graduates were capable of moral agency and critical thinking. However, they rapidly acculturated and described compromises to cope. To promote high morale and a sense of belonging, a concerted effort is required by all nurses to facilitate the socialisation process to encourage self-authorship.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: A well-developed professional identity enhances nursing as a profession, contributing towards better healthcare delivery and outcomes. It is critically important how professional values are learnt within the culture of nursing. Tensions in clinical practice need to be understood better to avoid moral distress caused by dissonance between expectation and experience. It is advantageous to increase early positive socialisation.