Recognition of prior learning (RPL) in South Africa is critical to the development of an equitable education and training system. Historically, nursing has been known as one of the professions that provides access to the training and education of marginalised groups who have minimal access to formal education. The advent of implementing RPL in nursing has, however, not been without challenges. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of RPL nursing candidates related to a 4-year comprehensive nursing training programme at a nursing education institution in Gauteng. An exploratory, descriptive and contextual qualitative research design was undertaken. The research sample comprised 13 purposefully selected participants. Face-to-face individual interviews, using open-ended questions, were used to collect data, which were analysed using Tesch’s approach. Recognition of prior learning candidates experienced a number of realities as adult learners. On a positive note, their prior knowledge and experience supported them in their learning endeavours. Participants, however, experienced a number of challenges on personal, interpersonal and socialisation, and educational levels. It is important that opportunities are created to support and assist RPL candidates to complete their nursing training. This support structure, among others, should include the provision of RPL-related information, giving appropriate advice, coaching and mentoring, effective administration services, integrated curriculum design, and a variety of formative and summative assessment practices.
The apartheid system in South Africa had a negative impact on the education and training systems in the country (South African Nursing Council [SANC]
Recognition of prior learning has been a contested discourse and practice for more than a decade with numerous opportunities and challenges. Discourses that are more current include authors such as Letseka and Pitsoe (
The pedagogic nature of RPL has also been questioned. Cooper et al. (
Several authors have written on the potential of RPL being either positively or negatively transformative for candidates. According to Miguel et al. (
Nursing has historically been known as one of the professions that provides access to training and education to marginalised groups who have minimal access to formal education (SANC
According to the Gauteng NEI student affairs’ statistics, the number of RPL candidates failing or terminating studies during the 4-year comprehensive nursing diploma programme was between 12% and 16% higher than non-RPL candidates (Mothokoa
The objective of this research was to explore and describe the RPL nursing candidates’ experience related to a 4-year comprehensive nursing diploma programme.
The study was viewed from the vantage point of the educational theorist Malcolm Knowles’ principles of andragogy. The seminal text is used as reference. In applying this theoretical perspective to the study, RPL candidates are viewed as adults who bring accumulated life experiences with them to their learning encounters (Knowles
The research setting was a provincial government NEI in Gauteng, South Africa.
This study utilised a qualitative design with an exploratory, descriptive and contextual approach (Creswell
Purposive sampling (Richards
Recognition of prior learning candidates who applied for and were awarded credits for one or more 4-year nursing programme subjects between 2011 and 2013 and who were at their first, second, third or fourth level of training.
These RPL candidates were either enrolled nurses or enrolled auxiliary nurses who did not meet the admission requirements for access to the 4-year comprehensive nursing diploma programme and followed the RPL access programme.
The exclusion criteria were all other candidates training for the 4-year comprehensive nursing diploma programme who met the standard admission requirements for access into their diploma studies.
Data were collected through face-to-face interviews. The first author conducted the first three interviews with the second author present; thereafter, the second author continued with the interviews. Thirteen nursing RPL candidates took part in the study. Data saturation (Richards
All data, including interview transcripts and the reflective logs, were analysed independently by the authors using the descriptive analysis technique by Tesch (in Creswell
Strategies employed to ensure the quality of data included the following measures of trustworthiness as described in Egon Guba’s seminal text (Guba
Participants could choose whether to participate in this study and could also withdraw from the study without penalty. Informed consent was obtained, and participants indicated the place and time most suitable for the interview to be conducted. The identity of all participants was safeguarded. Findings are described in such a way that participants cannot be identified because of the use of identity codes. Each participant was treated fairly.
Ethical clearance for this study was granted by the University of South Africa (HSHDC/251/2013) and the education institution.
The study comprised 13 nursing RPL candidates. This included 2 males and 11 females. During the interviews, two participants were in their third level of study, and five participants were in their 4th year and had recently obtained their final year results. Four participants were excluded from the course because of poor academic performance (terminated). One participant received credits for all his first-year subjects and completed the course within three years. All participants were Africans and their age breakdown was as follows: one participant was between the ages of 20 and 29 years, two were between the ages of 30 and 39 years, eight were between the ages of 40 and 49 years and two were between the ages of 50 and 59 years.
Recognition of prior learning candidates experienced a number of realities as adult learners. On a positive note, their prior knowledge and experience supported them in their learning endeavours. Participants, however, experienced a number of challenges on a personal, interpersonal and educational level. What follows is a discussion of the theme and categories as they emerged from the data analysis of interviews conducted with nursing RPL candidates.
Themes, categories and codes.
Theme | Category | Code |
---|---|---|
The realities faced by the RPL candidates as an adult learner | Positive aspects related to being an adult learner | Prior knowledge and experience |
Personal challenges | Unexpected and un or underprepared | |
Advancing age | ||
Additional responsibilities | ||
Anxiety regarding their ability to perform academically | ||
Interpersonal and socialisation challenges | Challenging family relations | |
Relationship with younger students and peers | ||
Educational strain | Course workload | |
English proficiency | ||
The importance of information technology (IT) skills | ||
Clinical learning experience |
RPL, recognition of prior learning.
The first theme relates to the realities faced by RPL candidates as adult learners. These include positive aspects as well as a number of challenges.
As adult learners, participants had prior nursing knowledge and experience, which meant that they did not enter the programme as a ‘blank slate’. A positive result was that they could combine their work experience with the knowledge gained in the course:
‘As an RPL, I did have light and unlike the people coming straight from home who did not have any knowledge about the subjects. I had to match the things that I am doing at work and the things that the college taught.’ (IP 141106-0013)
Snyman (
Participants, however, experienced a number of challenges. These challenges were of a personal, interpersonal, socialisation and educational nature. For many RPL candidates, the challenges were unexpected, and they felt un or underprepared. Participants held the perception that their prior experience might be sufficient to ease them through the processes and programme, but were caught off-guard when the reality of the course proved otherwise:
‘I thought it was going to be easy because I’ve been a nurse for twenty eight years, so I thought I was just going to knock it out simply. When I came here, I thought that we were going to be taught those things that I was doing at the hospitals. Coming here … I found things are difficult now and it is as if I am in another world … not in nursing anymore.’ (IP 141105-0011)
‘I didn’t know what RPL meant. We only came here and they told us you…if you want to challenge the exam you can write… these are the subjects, that was all, but they didn’t explain to us what it actually means to challenge the exams. So we didn’t know.’ (IP 141106-0012)
Issues relating to underprepared students or students being unaware of the requirements of programmes are not unique to nursing or the South African context. This sentiment is echoed in research findings worldwide (Glessner
Several participants experienced their advancing age as adversely affecting their learning processes. They felt that should they have been given an opportunity to study at a younger age, they would have coped better. Their experience was that learning and understanding took greater effort and was more time intensive:
‘Another problem is that they allow you to come to school when you are older. They shouldn’t allow people to wait for a long time before coming to school. It’s difficult to cope ….’ (IP 141105-0012)
‘[
‘So, you’ve got to struggle, some of us must read ten times before you understand because the brain is also ageing.’ (IP 141105-0011).
Phipps, Prieto and Ndinguri (
As an (older) adult, there were also additional duties, such as family and financial responsibilities, that arose with being mature of age. Adult learners had more responsibilities, for example, family, friends, work and the need for personal quality time. This may lead to difficulties for an adult to make time for learning. If their life is already demanding, then the learning outcome may be compromised (Fuller, Kuhne & Frey
‘Studying is difficult because you’ve got family. You have to travel home, before you can study, you have to prepare for your children and a husband.’ (IP 141106-0013)
‘… you have more responsibilities.’ (IP 141106-0014)
Participants consequently experienced significant anxiety regarding their ability to perform academically, which caused physical stress and mental distress:
‘… as an RPL student they have more pressure than somebody from not being and RPL because of there are so many things contributing to that stress.’ (IP 141106-0017)
‘There was pressure, there was anxiety. Ja all those things. I had to go to a Doctor, and then he referred me to a psychologist, I ended up being physically not well; my BP (Blood pressure) was uncontrollable … I am taking medication ….’ (IP 141122-0019)
Nursing education and care is generally perceived by most nursing students as demanding and anxiety provoking (Hollenbach
The additional responsibilities and anxieties often resulted in a strain on their interpersonal relationships with their spouses as well as fellow students:
‘He would always complain, look at this glass, look at the house, look at the children, he would point at everything, everything was wrong and in a mess.’ (IP 141106-0015)
Naseer (
In addition to strained family relationships, some RPL candidates had challenging relationships with the younger students. A few reported negative experiences with younger students and felt they were excluded through distancing interactions and social discrimination:
‘It’s difficult to cope with a class full of young ones.’ (IP 141105-0012)
‘Our English … though it is the same but it differ, the pronunciation … sometimes we will find it difficult to present in the classroom, because this young ones they will laughing [
‘The younger ones … will be grumbling … because they understood already so they want to move on and we want the lecturer to go back, so it’s a bit difficult.’ (IP 141126-0021)
Humans are by nature social beings and as such have both intrinsic and extrinsic desires to belong and seek support. This need is often amplified when people move to new and unfamiliar environments. Woman often report feeling isolated and rejected in their pursuit for better or higher qualifications (Ojo
In order to manage the perceived or possible marginalisation, some RPL candidates identified peers whom they believed were accepting, who valued them as students, and with whom they negotiated more meaningful personal interactions and support. Positive interpersonal relationships thus formed the foundation for their learning and development. It would seem that participants who realised this and harnessed this potential had an improved learning experience:
‘The four of us we have done it, the four of us we were on the same RPL group knowing that we can’t cope with the other young ones. So we decided no, because with the four, we see we are old and then these people they just go blah … blah … blah …blah so we go step by step, so we have make [
Not all adult RPL candidates had positive experiences with their peers. Some preferred to associate with the younger students for both psychological and academic support:
‘As RPLs we don’t give each other support, that’s my experience in this college. It’s better to mix with the young ones.’ (IP 141106-0013)
‘Some of them may not regard themselves as falling in the peer of the students, they may continue to be isolated, and they click together as the RPLs. So if they’ve got a negative perception about a particular course, they will share the negativity.’ (IP 141121-0018)
Not all candidates experience adaptation and socialisation in the same way. Ojo (
Participants experience the course load as an additional strain along with the personal and interpersonal issues. They expressed concern regarding the course load and felt the time allocated for content was insufficient. For some candidates, the additional educational burden was too much and they discontinued their studies:
‘They will tell you that this courses it too heavy, they can’t go on with it. The other one just resigned, she said no I can’t cope with this heavy load of X college studying, no, it’s enough she resigned last year.’ (IP 141105-0015)
‘I would say my expectations … I expected the course to be a lot easier, but to my surprise there was too much workload it was not easy there were many challenges, clinical area when you go to the hospitals even at school it was just too much workload.’ (IP 141126-0021)
Curriculum overload and constant demands for change in the education arena can have substantial negative consequences for both students and educators (Campbell
The RPL candidates were schooled in very different educational contexts and practices. They were often used to rote learning and experienced the new teaching formats as different and unfair:
‘we have attended the Bantu education.’ (IP 141105-0011)
‘Now I encounter the challenges? I think the matter … after all they teach about … so most of us that are RPLs we left school many years ago, then when we come here the method of teaching … I think they use OBE so especially when they ask the questions, some question … when we study … I’m talking about myself, when I’m studying I’m using the study guide, so I’m expecting the question from the study guide whereas they twist the questions, but they took the questions from the study guide but they twisted them.’ (IP 141105-0010)
Many RPL candidates were schooled in a rote-learning educational environment. The challenge with rote learning is that memorisation becomes an end in itself, instead of a means to an end. The learning thus fails to become a building block of critical thinking. Outcomes based education (OBE) is based on the constructivist theory of learning, which argues that individuals build new knowledge by adapting their past experience and knowledge to solve new problems. Within OBE, new knowledge emerges through an active, social process, informed by the use of relevant real-world examples (Halbleib & Jepson
Most participants verbalised having experienced difficulties in mastering the English language. This had a negative impact on written and oral communication and interpretation of meaning:
‘Yes, because of sometimes you … the English part can be difficult because of you can interpret things wrongly in your own way, even in a test you can interpret a question in a wrong way because of English, not just because you don’t know, maybe you studied it but you can’t relate that question to what you know.’ (IP 141106-0017)
‘My first day here at the college I go … I came from X District Hospital. When we finished I go there to the matron and say …told the matron that I am coming back because there they talk only English. I can’t understand. I can’t even go forward to participate. When they say come and present I even hide.’ (IP 141105-0009)
Although black students were able to gain access to higher education at historically white institutions of higher learning in 1994, many institutions use English for teaching and learning – a second language to the majority of these students. Many adult nursing students are products of Bantu Education, a tool used by the apartheid government to ensure that they leave secondary school with poor English skills. This has created a significant impediment in students’ capacity to handle the demands of higher education in English (Sebolai
Language, thinking and, therefore, learning are intimately tied together. Elder and Paul (
In addition to mastering the language skills for participating in the educational aspect, participants also realised the importance of information technology (IT) skills, but verbalised that they lacked this skill, which resulted in them finding it difficult to handle certain aspects of their learning process. They felt disadvantaged when comparing themselves with the younger students who had mastered the IT skills and benefited from that:
‘Mm, I think they’re coping better and then also their understanding and then also their using of the technology things, they are … they can Google everything fast and then unlike me, even if I do have the technology, so it takes me a long time. I’ll ask them, why … where must I go, what must I do? Sometimes I’m boring them but with them they can do … let me say, like the time we were doing the practical, the diagnosis of the diseases and then they will do that … the work using their phone and then it’s easier for them. Unlike me, I have to carry all the books all the time and then it’s time wasting but to them it’s easy.’ (IP 141106-0013)
‘Yes, because most of them they are so exposed to technology, they go Google so many things they gather information from the internet meanwhile somebody who is an RPL, you find that that person cannot even use a computer.’ (IP 141106-0017)
The use of computerised information systems for nursing care plans, patient result management, discharge planning, duty rosters and a range of other activities has become a central focus in nursing practice as well as nursing education (Boore & Deeny
An additional educational challenge involves the clinical learning environment. Participants expressed a diverse range of sentiments regarding their learning experiences at various clinical facilities. A participant described how the supportive relationship she had with clinical staff enhanced her confidence and improved her self-directed learning:
‘I have never had any problem with the practical facilities; they were all nice and willing to can teach me because … even the hospitals, I didn’t even have a problem.’ (IP 141105-0015).
Some participants experienced clinical facilities as unsupportive, discouraging and threatening environments, which lead to a lack of confidence and failure to achieve learning objectives:
‘No, another thing at hospitals, the people which we met with them, they have a lot of attitude If they saw the student, they’re relaxed they don’t want to work, and if we talk they say no I’m going to call the college, it makes us to lose hope. They don’t teach us, they don’t assist us.’ (IP 141105-0010)
‘Sisters at clinical facilities are busy with their own things and don’t have time for students. They just expect all the work to be done without supervising students. If you tell them to assist, they scare you and say when your tutors come we will tell them that you don’t want to work.’ (NP 14112822)
Challenges as well as opportunities for growth during clinical placements and clinical experiences are often recorded in studies exploring nurse’s attrition and clinical experiences. Positive experiences include the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally (Moagi, Janse van Rensburg & Maritz
This study confirms that RPL nursing candidates as adult students are faced with multiple role demands, such as having to balance their educational, work, family, partners’ and children’s needs. In order for them to succeed with their studies, they often make great sacrifices. They also face other challenges in terms of academic and institutional barriers, which make it more difficult for them to cope with these demands. It is therefore of enormous importance that opportunities are created in supporting and assisting these candidates to complete their nursing training. This support structure, among others, should include the provision of RPL-related information, giving appropriate advice, coaching and mentoring, effective administration services, integrated curriculum design, and a variety of formative and summative assessment practices. This study was limited in that it mainly focused on only one government nursing student affairs’ statistics education institution in Gauteng, which is a single setting. This may decrease the generalisability of the findings. Recognition of prior learning candidates in other nursing programmes can also be included in future studies to compare findings from different nursing programmes.
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
N.B.M. and J.M. were responsible for the project design, analyses of data and writing of the manuscript. N.B.M. collected the majority of the data. J.M. made conceptual contributions.