Exploring students' cognitive interactions with their past and future learning experiences during professional socialisation: A focused ethnographic study.

BACKGROUND: Becoming a professional is a complex psychosocial learning process usually framed in a period of formal education. The social-relational dimension of students' learning has been predominantly examined with a view of learning as a linear socialisation process. However, the underlying cognitive mechanisms that make learning a temporally dynamic process are underexplored. AIMS: To explore the complex cognitive mechanisms by which nursing students mentally interact with past and future learning experiences during their professional socialisation. DESIGN: A focused ethnographic study. METHODS: A pluralism of methods was used. Eight nursing students were observed in their university activities in 2019, and seven students were followed in their final year using personal audio diaries in 2020. Finally, twelve students were interviewed in 2021 to refine the analysis. The data analysis considered inductive and abductive phases, framed in constructivist grounded theory strategies. RESULTS: Students construct dynamic learning experiences by constantly revisiting past experiences and simulating future experiences. We identify descriptive forms of retrospection and prospection (evocative and imaginative, respectively) and cases where the mental move is deliberately interpretative. We bring insights from cognitive and memory studies to analyse this temporally dynamic facet of learning. CONCLUSIONS: This study offers a characterisation of the mechanisms of retrospection and prospection concerning professional learning. It also provides a framework for understanding learning as a dynamic process rather than a linear one, as personal experiences are constantly (re)constructed via mental faculties encompassing the student's biography and projected expectations.