Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Over 9000 nurses graduate every year in Canada, and the quality of these graduates has a significant impact on the health of Canadians. Nursing education prepares nurses for the challenges of working in today's complex healthcare system in which practitioners need a wide set of skills to effectively provide healthcare. Critical thinking, cultural sensitivity, communication skills, reflective practice, and empathy are all essential competencies for nursing practice; yet, many of these important skills are hard to teach through a lecture or to learn from reading a text-book. Nursing educators around the world are realizing the importance of providing classroom teaching which is active, engaging, and process-based to teach these complex concepts. Arts-based learning [ABL] is a creative strategy in which learning about a subject occurs through the arts, either by creating a piece of art about the topic, or reflecting on someone else's art about the subject. Throughout the twentieth century, prominent educators argued that the arts are important in learning as they educate people's senses and nurture student's imagination. ABL is slowly being recognized as having potential in healthcare education for transformational learning. Learning through the arts is also an effective way to help people understand new information in other areas of healthcare, such as learning about research findings through arts-based methods. Education, like healthcare, should be based on research evidence and theory developed through research in order to develop the best nurses possible. The aim of this study is to explore the process of ABL in order to come up with a theory about how this process helps people to learn. This theory will help educators to know how to develop ABL activities, and how to use the arts for learning in many different healthcare contexts. Well-educated nurses are vital to excellent healthcare and this study will help educators to teach future practitioners effectively.