Becoming A Member of A Ward Nursing Community of Practice: Negotiating Participation Space

This research aimed to find out how newly graduated nurses, also known as novices, participate in clinical practice in their first year. Current literature adopts a fixed model of a competent identity, judging an individual nurse either competent or not without the consideration of the working context. We aimed to find out what really happens during their transition.

The workplace is a shared space which all nurses have to navigate daily. This space consists a fabric of mental and physical factors such as people, their interactions and the perceived power positions among them. Just like how drivers do at any traffic intersection, nurses have to find their passage through this shared space with other healthcare workers. The passage each nurse negotiated is his/her Participation Space. There are various factors they need to take into consideration.

We identified Prized Tasks, Relational Position and Contextual Dimensions.