A visual art museum in Sweden as pedagogical scenery: Gibbs’ reflective cycle guiding student nurses in the reflective process

The pedagogy employed in health care education must continually be questioned and expanded. Student nurses must be prepared for nursing practice that continually changes, consequently alternative concepts in nurse education must be considered. The aims were to provide student nurses with reflection skills and to evaluate the potential of studying the reflective process using visual art at a museum as an enriched activity in education. A pedagogical program with Gibbs’ reflection model was used as a complement. The study was conducted at a University College of Health Sciences in Sweden in collaboration with a visual art museum. Data were collected during a period of three years. A random sample (n = 35 of n = 98 students’ reports) was selected for qualitative analysis. The painting by George-Pierre Seurat, Seated woman was used as a source of inspiration. Analysis was conducted of the excerpts generated from the steps in Gibbs’ reflection model and from students’ evaluations of the teaching-learning structure. The results show that students were able to build hypothetical situations around the character depicted in the painting. They observed and described a great many aspects of the reflective process. The chosen painting was regarded as suitable for its purpose, and a source of inspiration. It could be interpreted as a patient you might meet in clinical practice. The students ́ evaluations show that they became aware of knowledge they had not thought of before, and a way of taking a step closer to clinical practice. It could be concluded that art museum could be regarded as a stimulating environment that nurtured the reflective process. Consequently, visual art museums have to be considered as possible teaching learning milieus to be used in nurse education. It is to be hoped that this study will contribute to further development of visual art museums as teaching learning settings.