1. Factors contributing to student incivility |
Stressors |
[13,14,16,29-32] |
“I feel in nursing, they have so much to do, so many assignments and activities, the required number of clinical and lab hours, their theory hours and their written exams… They have to work for gas money to even get to school…” [29] |
|
Intellectual and academic immaturity |
[13,14,16,29,31-33] |
“… when students enter the university as freshmen, they are still acting as high schoolers thinking that they can be free and relaxed here too; they treat people around them, their friends and professors the way they wish…” [32] |
|
Entitlement and consumerism mentality |
[13,14,16,30] |
“I have had many students that I feel like they just act as if we owe them everything in the world just because they’re a student and they pay tuition. They are just allowed to say and do whatever they want because they think it is a business relationship and they are the customer.” [24] |
|
Poor teaching or classroom management |
[13,29,31,32] |
‘Then also it can also be the attitude of the lecturers… because I think sometimes lecturers can also be very abrupt and you know behavior breeds behavior.” [31] |
|
University culture |
[14,16,31,32] |
“You feel as if there is this personal […] defaming that happens because you’ve been called in to the director’s office now twice for the same sort of nonsense. I do call it nonsense. I do think the culture at [the university] is one of pleasing students. It’s not about protecting faculty.” [14] |
|
Generational culture |
[13,14,30,31] |
“Yes, it is a big growing problem. I believe it has to do with our students… many of them are the generations of computers. They don’t have the social skills or the social manners that we were raised with.” [29] |
2. Management of student incivility |
A range of uncivil behaviors |
[13-16,28-30,33] |
“Before, I thought of a more disrespectful attitude… I now know that incivility can be more than just a bad attitude and smart remarks… it can make you feel unsafe.” [29] |
|
A sense of shock |
[14-16,29] |
“I was just flabbergasted… My first thought was I cannot believe they’re behaving this way… I was amazed…” [15] |
|
Applying various strategies to an incivility incident |
[10-29,30,32] |
“In other words, we use various methods. A single one is not working on everyone. You should know that in each term, you have a new version of students.” [10] |
|
Approaching uncivil students in a courteous manner as a role model |
[10,14,15,32] |
“… but here, I directly reminded the student of her inappropriate behavior on the basis of the university rules and regulations.” [32] |
|
Establishing professional boundaries |
[10,14,16,29,33] |
“We are still their instructors and we need to keep our relationship on a level where we can maintain that faculty/student relationship.” [29] |
|
Feeling alone without support |
[14-16,28,31] |
“I kind of feel like almost defeated. I felt almost victimized that it was allowed to go on without repercussion, and I felt faculty are almost a sitting target.” [28] |
|
Distrust of administration |
[14-16] |
“But it was—the most unsettling thing was that it was a group of my peers that allowed her to stay, …That other people weren’t looking at the profession like I was, they weren’t looking at the safety of others. They were more worried about law suits and money and their clients.” [16] |
3. Impact: professional and personal damage |
Threats to physical well-being |
[15,28,30] |
“I experienced all of that [troubling sleeping, headaches, decreased concentration], some short-term memory where I had things to pick up, something at the store, go meet someone, missing a whole lot of appointments.” [30] |
|
Emotional turmoil and psychological trauma |
[13-16,28-30] |
“There were rumors going around the university about me, like my partner was a prostitute and a drug dealer and that I condoned her lifestyle… lived off her…, that I didn’t have a PhD… Of course, it was a complete pack of lies.” [13] |
|
Damage to self-esteem and confidence |
[10,13-16,28-31] |
“I almost felt sick, I was rattled. I was rattled to the core. I took blame. I felt blame… I felt like it was my fault, because I allowed it to happen. How did I allow this to happen? How did I allow myself to be bullied? Like, what the heck’s wrong with you?” [14] |
|
Expenditure of time and money |
[14,15,28] |
“And we addressed it several times during the following week, as we made arrangements to meet with her [the student] together… You know, maybe 16 hours of actual work, documenting, rehashing it, talking it over with supervisors, with the assistant dean, going over it… writing it up. At least 16 hours.” [15] |
|
Compromising teaching strategies for self-protection |
[14,15,29] |
“I will never give a student less than a B anymore, because it’s not worth it to me—my physical and mental, emotional health—to go through that in this system. I will never do it again.” [15] |
|
Demotivation and job dissatisfaction |
[13-15,27,28,33] |
“When things like that occur, it makes me unhappy in my job, I wonder why I am doing |
this, I could be doing lots of other things, I don’t have to put up with this…” [29] |
4. Impact: professional growth |
Accountability for the professional development of students |
[10,14,16,32] |
“I will continue, and I need to hold them[students] to accountability. And, — because I feel that I have a moral and ethical responsibility to society to provide and educate competent practitioners, and I will not compromise that.” [16] |
|
Accountability as a gatekeeper |
[14,16,30] |
“Now I'm thinking of this person wandering—going through her nursing education and now becoming a staff nurse. And, now I’m fearful of that person out taking care of patients—my parents, my family…” [16] |
|
Moving forward to professionalism as an educator |
[15,16,29,32] |
“… as our experiences increased, we were skillful in teaching the content; we started getting more familiar with how to treat students; we came to an understanding that we needed to value students, to keep good relations with them, to listen to their stories, and to value them…” [32] |
5. Initiatives for the future |
Institutional initiative |
[14,29,30,32] |
“We need more classes available to teach us how to deal with this type situation, not just at the moment, but how you react to the student after that point. What barriers do you need in the relationship to prevent incidences from happening again?” [29] |
|
Unified approach |
[10,14,16] |
“The class has been overall much better. But I think some of it is because it wasn’t just me. The entire level got behind me to say this isn't appropriate behavior and it needs to stop now.” [16] |
|
Faculty-to-faculty support network |
[14,16,28,32] |
“I think faculty need to know that they need to talk to other faculty when they’re dealing with these challenging students. One of the blessings that I had at both organizations is that I had faculty colleagues who were very experienced clinicians and offered me some wonderful sage advice. And, not all of them were nursing, by the way. Some of them were other disciplines.” [16] |
|
Improving teaching and learning strategies |
[10,30,33] |
“…We always go over the syllabus the very first day… I set the ground rules at the beginning of class… It is important they know where you stand and they need to follow the rules. When you have policies, enforce them.” [30] |