Developing clinical teaching capacities of midwifery students

Background: Competency Standards in Australia articulate that the midwife must be able to contribute to the professional development of themselves and others. Few undergraduate health professional curricula currently incorporate content for the development of specific knowledge and skills required for clinical teaching. This project aimed to understand and enhance midwifery students' preparedness to assume their future clinical teaching responsibilities. Methods: Design-based research was used to implement an educational intervention aimed at developing clinical teaching skills through a peer education session between 1st and 3rd year students. The perspectives of 30 undergraduate midwifery students about their preparedness for their teaching role and the intervention were obtained through 3 focus groups. A thematic analysis of the data was undertaken. Findings: Three themes were identified encompassing the research aims and objectives; 'Co-creating a culture for learning', 'reciprocal teaching and learning' and 'developing clinical teaching capacities'. The findings indicate that the midwifery students had a holistic understanding of their responsibilities in clinical teaching in the workplace. They were able to identify ways in which their teaching capacities were being developed through their clinical experiences and the curriculum, both intended and hidden. Conclusions: Despite limited educational activities for clinical teaching, the midwifery students made explicit connections of the relational interdependence of workplace-based experiences and their learning. Students were clearly able to identify ways in which their own learning experiences and the culture in which this learning is embedded, assists them to develop clinical teaching skills, ready to support the next generation of midwifery students.