Limitations
Being a nurse, teacher and researcher warranted familiarity with
the culture of nurse education. However, a researcher without this
prior knowledge may have constructed findings differently. Reflexivity
was employed to ensure the familiar was not taken for granted. This
meant looking at what happened within the programme in connection
with reflection and then at the conditions, interpretations and situations
that may have shaped it (Denzin, 1997). It also involved paying
attention to what participants thought they were doing and why they
were doing it, as well as using other forms of data such as observation
and documentation. This has shaped the construction of the account
and it is written as an expression of the relationships between people
and thus the meanings generated by people socially through their
discourse (Finlay and Gough, 2003). In addition, the programme and
participants can only be described within the bounds of confidentiality.
This has its own limitations, since greater contextual detail cannot be
given.