It appeared that for all students taking part in the study,having knowledge and confidence was essential to their senseof empowerment. Moreover, this increased as they pro-gressed through the programme. Thus, from a phenomeno-logical perspective, just as a chair that cannot be a chairwithout a seat (Giorgi 1988), from nursing students’ per-spective, empowerment cannot exist without knowledge andconfidence. Importantly, knowledge and confidence arelocked into a dynamic interplay: they co-exist. Lauder et al.(2008) equate confidence with self-efficacy, and for thisreason Bandura’s (1997) work on self-efficacy is usefulreference in terms of the study findings. According toBandura, self-efficacy beliefs are constructed from foursources of information: (1) enactive mastery; (2) vicariousexperiences; (3) verbal persuasion; (4) physiological andaffective states. Enactive mastery is the most influentialsource of information because it provides evidence ofwhether one has what it takes to succeed. According toBandura, successes build a firm belief in one’s personalefficacy, whereas failures undermine it. Thus, nursing stu-dents in this study clearly articulated the effects of achieve-ment in relation to learning in practice. This bolstered their confidence and stimulated them towards further learning. In
terms of verbal persuasion, Bandura (1997) proposes that it is
easier to sustain self-efficacy if others have faith in one’s
capabilities than if they have doubts. Thus, it is unsurprising
that students in the study experienced increased confidence
when they received positive feedback, particularly from
mentors.
The relationship between empowerment and self-efficacy
was identified by Pearson (1998), who found that if nursing
students felt empowered, their levels of self-efficacy would
increase. Lauder et al. (2008) found that diminishing selfefficacy
was not a problem for students at the end of the
programme and, similarly, Gray and Smith (1999) found that
nursing students were more confident by the end of the
programme. Overall, knowledge and confidence are at the
core of the empowerment of nursing students in clinical
practice, as represented in Figure 1. The external influences
that affect nursing students’ empowerment are numerous, the
most direct influence being the extent to which they are
valued.