Nursing students’ perception towards educational environment in governmental Universities of Southwest Ethiopia: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Educational environment refers to the diverse physical facilities, the clinical settings where students learn, the design and delivery of the curriculum, and involve the skills, and attitudes of the teachers. Due to various undesirable aspects of the educational environment, students often do not attain the expected professional standard of nursing care. There is limited evidence on students’ perception of their educational environment in Ethiopia, particularly in the study area. Thus, this study aimed to assess nursing students’ perceptions of their educational environment in government Universities of Southwest Ethiopia. METHODS: An institution-based qualitative case study was employed. Eight participants were interviewed from government Universities of southwest Ethiopia. Face to face in-depth interview was used to generate data. The interviews were conducted for forty-five minutes to one hour using an open-ended semi-structured guiding questionnaire. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, translated, and analyzed using a conventional content analysis approach; finally, themes were derived and presented with narration. RESULTS: The analysis of this study yields four themes categorized as curriculum, instructors’, organizations’, and students. The result of the study revealed that there were poor institutions students support systems, inadequate skills and knowledge in certain instructors, inadequate instructional materials and teaching aids, scarce facilities in students’ practical areas, accommodation, and transportation. CONCLUSION: Improvement of nursing students’ educational environment was recognized as a strong attention-seeking area. The majority of the key informants stated that the educational environment is not suitable for the teaching-learning process. Thus, to create a conducive educational environment, the Minister of education, Universities, instructors, and other concerned bodies should design and implement strategies targeted at the aforementioned problems.