Microethical Decision Making Among Baccalaureate Nursing Students: A Qualitative Investigation

Nursing students frequently encounter microethical nursing practice problems during their clinical experience. The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of senior-level baccalaureate students faced with making microethical clinical decisions in practice settings. A descriptive qualitative design was used, and five central themes emerged. A dominant finding was the experience of unapplied and forgotten ethics education revealing a mismatch between what faculty perceived was taught and students' experiences of that education. When faced with microethical decisions, participants trusted and deferred to staff nurse recommendations, even if the advice contradicted best-practice standards. Contextual naivete was brought out of concealment, contributing to the experience of moral disequilibrium (i.e., students felt conflicted about what they learned in school as best practice and what they observed being role modeled in the clinical environment). This study resulted in theory-guided implications for nursing education and recommendations for future study.