2019 Annual Conference

Health Professionals

Concurrent Session (45 minutes)

Minnie the Therapy Dog spent a semester in an undergraduate nursing program.  Although not every class can have its own therapy dog, this session, informed by the findings of a mixed-methods case study, shares practical strategies for facilitators in identifying and responding to learners’ perceived stress.

This session is appropriate for practitioners, educators, and scholars who are interested in learning more about this mixed-methods case study of Minnie the Therapy Dog in an undergraduate nursing program.  This session will present the findings of the case study, as well as address how learners’ perceived stress can affect their engagement and learning in a learning environment.  Additionally, this session will present strategies for identifying and responding to learners’ perceived stress.

Participants who attend this session will be able to:
- Understand the effects of stress on undergraduate nursing students
- Describe the experiences of undergraduate nursing students’ semester with a therapy dog in their classrooms
- Describe ways to identify, and respond to, perceived learner stress in higher education

Nursing students are under an enormous amount of stress due to the rigorous course of study, intense clinical schedules, and the responsibility of learning to care for a human life.  While the stress is understood, what is less well known are the strategies to mitigate that stress.  This mixed-methods case study explored the presence of Minnie the Therapy Dog in an undergraduate nursing program for one semester.  The purpose of this case study was to explore:   The effect of a therapy dog on the students’ perceived stress levels, using pre/post survey data; and, through written reflections, individual interviews, and focus groups, to understand the meaning the undergraduate nursing students constructed of the therapy dog’s presence in their classrooms throughout the semester.  The strategy of incorporating a therapy dog into high-stress learning environments has been effective in other areas of education and could be a valuable strategy to employ by nursing education programs.

In this session, the presenters will share the findings of this case study, and discuss the practical implications of learners’ perceived stress on engagement in the learning environment and the overall learning.  Additionally, the presenters will share practical strategies for identifying and responding to learners’ perceived stress.

This session will begin with an overview of the findings of this mixed-methods case study.  Next, the presenters will address how learners’ perceived stress can affect engagement in the learning environment and the overall learning.  Then, the presenters will share strategies for identifying and responding to learners’ perceived stress.  Finally, participants will brain-storm further strategies for identifying and responding to learners’ perceived stress and then generate ideas for incorporating these strategies into their practices.