Background: Preceptorship is an approach to teaching and learning in the clinical setting. It is purported to facilitate the connection between nursing education and clinical practice, foster an ethos for critical thinking, and contribute to professional development. As part of nursing education in Ghana, preceptors collaborate with educational institutions to enhance the supervision of students in the clinical settings. However, working relations between the hospitals and the health training institutions in many regions in Ghana are challenging, with hospitals only passively involved in the education of students. Purpose:The purpose of the current study was to explore the perceptions of Ghanaian nursing students, preceptors and nurse educators regarding their preceptorship experience. Methods:A focused ethnographic approach guided the study. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 26 nurse educators, nursing students, and preceptors from a regional hospital and a diploma level nursing educational institution in a small city in Ghana. Eight nurse educators and nine nursing students participated from the educational institution and nine preceptors participated from the hospital. Results:Findings from this study indicated that: a) preceptorship in Ghana was not well established and was in the developmental stage; and b) clinical teaching and learning were influenced by the stakeholders involved in nursing education in Ghana. Conclusions:Although preceptors were used in Ghana, the clinical teaching approach did not reflect the concept of preceptorship. Stakeholders in nursing education from both within and outside the clinical settings influenced the clinical teaching environment. Findings from the study present baseline data for stakeholders in nursing education to promote effective preceptorship programs in Ghana.

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This article presents the results of a pilot study comparing how high-school students in Canada and Japan ( n=194) understand and imagine the responsibilities of ‘world citizenship.’ Analysis of the results of our study indicate that despite similarities in perceptions between students in the two nations, significant differences exist in how Japanese and Canadian students construct a global imaginary of citizenship – particularly in terms of the extent to which students have a hopeful attitude towards the future and view themselves as active participants in the resolution of global issues. These results suggest that educational policy makers in Canada and Japan currently involved in curriculum reform that emphasizes internationalization and intercultural dialogue, must be mindful of the possibilities and paradoxes inherent in attempts to foster a global imaginary of citizenship among their students.

A B S T R A C TConversations with teachers and professional development leaders enable us, as researchers, to highlight the ambiguous promise of action research within the context of mandated teacher professional development in the province of Alberta, Canada. From this departure, we investigate how educators believe action research projects influence their professional practices and we explore the question of the validity of using state-mandated action research projects as a means of bringing about authentic teacher professional development. Using conversations, we recount the experiences of three teachers who took part in two separate action research projects. As the conversations we present underscore, many teachers involved in state-mandated school-based projects found themselves caught between competing discourses of personal empowerment and individual autonomy on the one hand and externally driven measures of accountability and excellence on the other. In this complex and ambiguous location and within the context of their involvement in action research projects, the three teachers in this study negotiated their own understandings of professional development. Action ResearchVolume 4(1): 65-80 Copyright© 2006 SAGE Publications