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Personal construct theory and repertory grid technique provides a suitable framework for exploring Registered Nursing students' perceptions of their psychiatric practicum. This descriptive research was designed to understand students' own ways of constructing knowledge during their mental health clinical experience. A constructivist conceptual perspective and George Kelly's personal construct psychology were the theoretical bases of the research. A qualitative case study methodology allowed creation of and reflection on personal construct changes as provided in participants' review of repertory grid ideas about psychiatric nursing. The participants were six Canadian second-year nursing students in a Baccalaureate programme that integrated psychiatric and medical surgical nursing curricula. The following three overarching themes were identified and are used to explain and describe significant features of the psychiatric clinical experience: 1) students' anxiety related more to feeling unable to help than to interactions with mentally ill patients; 2) students' feelings of a lack of inclusion in staff nurse groups; 3) student emphasis on the importance of nonevaluated student-instructor discussion time.

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This research evaluates the effectiveness of an anti-bullying program, Project Ploughshares Puppets for Peace (Woodfine, Lubimiv, & Langlois, 1995). Students in grades 3 and 4 (N = 129, 69 boys, 60 girls) from two public elementary schools completed a questionnaire on bullying at both pretest/post-test. Although Chi-square results showed no significant increase in knowledge or skills to deal with bullying, responses to open-ended questions indicated that half the students reported feeling more confident in managing bullying. These results suggest that evaluations should include student perspectives on the impact of a program that extends beyond specific program goals.

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