cultural and structural/organizational influencesOur findings cannot be understood when divorced from acultural context, and many students made direct reference tothe importance of ‘ward culture’. The greatest contributionto ward culture comes from staff (Beskine 2009), and theimportance of mentors as positive role models has beenreported (Watson 1999, Chow & Suen 2001, Kilcullen 2007,Elcigil & Sari 2008). Similarly, in our study most studentswere socialized into supportive clinical environments wherethey were exposed to positive nursing role models. In turn,several expressed an intention to emulate the behaviours ofthese role models to perpetuate a positive nursing culture.Incorporated into Figure 1 is acknowledgement thatstructural and organizational factors influence the empow-erment of nursing students. This level is concerned with theway in which placements are organized and the extent towhich this influences the spheres beneath it. A core issue isthe organization of time and the extent to which studentshave time to learn and become integrated into the team. Asdiscussed earlier, a supportive mentor is crucial to thelearning experience and when students discussed empower-ment, this was often attributed to the time invested in themby a mentor. These findings support those of Myall et al.(2008), who reported that the amount of time studentsspent with mentors influenced the quality of their experi-ence