Sammanfattning
The aim of this study was to deepen the understanding of student nurses' processes of
understanding and becoming nurses. The study is phenomenological-hermeneutic in design,
comprising data from three focus group interviews in two Scandinavian countries. The process of
student nurses' understanding and becoming a nurse emerged as a hermeneutical movement. A
caring student-preceptor relationship and a growth-promoting preception in a supportive and
inclusive environment provide the frame within which the movement happens. The movement
towards understanding and becoming is initiated as students, based on their level of knowledge, are
given responsibility. In order to fulfil the responsibility imposed on them, students take their entire
repertoire of knowledge into consideration. By tying these threads together, they found the basis for
conscious action, and care is provided according to what the current situation requires. The
experiences obtained are reflected on and integrated with earlier knowledge, which leads to
enhanced understanding. Students form a new base to stand on. They show increased readiness for
still more responsibility and action. This movement towards deeper understanding and becoming
affects the students also ethically and deepens their ethical awareness. When one loop of
understanding and becoming is closed the process continues by passing into a new loop. This
movement could be described as a hermeneutical spiral consisting of interconnected loops taking the
students further and deeper in their process of understanding and becoming a nurse. The student-
preceptor relationship and the ethos permeating it are decisive for students' learning both
epistemologically and ontologically. Responsibility is the catalyst in students' understanding and
becoming both intellectually and ethically. Understanding and becoming are ongoing processes of
appropriation, thus altering students both professionally and personally. Understanding and
becoming can be perceived as the hearth of the matter in nurse education. Published by arrangement
with John Wiley & Sons.