The experiences of undergraduates nursing students on academic support provided by the public nursing college during the COVID-19 lockdown in Gauteng Province

Abstract

Introduction: During the first phase of the COVID-19 lockdown (lockdown level 5), all public nursing colleges in Gauteng were forced to comply with COVID-19 lockdown regulations, as with all other higher education institutions, the college shut down, and the academic program was put on hold. As a result, the training period for the student nurses was affected. Once COVID-19 lockdown regulations were adjusted to level 4, lecturers were expected to establish alternate ways of delivering teaching and learning processes other than through contact classes as people movement was still prohibited and the college had to continue to comply with social distancing rules. At that point in time the public nursing college in Gauteng was not ready or prepared to deliver teaching and learning through any other platform other than face-to-face classroom teaching.

Objectives: The study explored and described the experiences of undergraduate students with the academic support provided in a public nursing college in Gauteng Province during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Method: The qualitative descriptive phenomenological method was used to explore the rich and deeper meaning of participants’ experiences with academic support offered by the public college in Gauteng Province. Purposive sampling was used and consisted of fourteen participants. The unstructured individual interviews were conducted across four campuses of public nursing college in Gauteng Province. The researcher followed the Colaizzi process of data analysis.

Findings: The following themes emerged from conducted individual interviews with undergraduate students in a public nursing college in Gauteng Province. Experiences in supportive communication, experiences in the availability of learning resources, experiences of psycho-social support, and experiences of support to ensure continuity of learning. The study findings were supported by literature during the discussion.

Conclusion: The study concluded that students had different experiences concerning academic support during COVID-19. The lack of provision of effective academic support during the COVID-19 lockdown to students contributed to participants' frustrations and the extension of the study programme.