Communication barrier between nursing supervisors and international nursing students in Finland

Various universities in Finland offer nursing studies for international students also where the nursing study is taught in English language. Some of the universities require a certain level of Finnish language to study in English also. That might have been implemented because nursing is a practical subject and students have to spend time in practical training in hospitals where Finnish is the main language of communication. However, there are other universities which do not require any prior knowledge of the Finnish language to study nursing. Students studying in those universities have no problems during their theoretical classes but they meet challenges when attending practical training. The main problem that they seem to face during their practice is a communication barrier between them and their supervisor. The research question for this thesis was how effectively and efficiently nursing supervisors and international nursing students are communicating with each other during a clinical placement. The purpose of this thesis was to identify the factors related to communication barriers between a nursing supervisor and an international nursing student during clinical placement. During the thesis process students and nursing supervisors were asked to express their views and opinions based on their experiences. The aim was to discuss how the communication barriers between the nursing supervisor and international nursing students could be overcome. The study set out to find out how both the nursing supervisors and international nursing students were coping with each other during clinical placements and bring forth the difficulties faced by both sides. A qualitative method was used to analyse the collected data. Five international nursing students and five supervisors were interviewed. Based on the collected data difficulties in communication was not only expressed by the students but also by the supervisors. Apart from improving the Finnish language skills of the students, suggestions were made about improving the teaching methods, and better supporting the students mentally during their practical training. Both the supervisors and the international students are expected to benefit from this thesis. Both parties can potentially look for the factors resulting in communication barriers and try to overcome those in the future. A further topic of research in the same thematic framework could be to consider the suggestions provided in this study to create a better learning environment for all