The Lived Experience of HIV/AIDS Volunteer Educators in Tanzania, Africa

Open Access
- Author:
- Flanagan, Erin
- Area of Honors:
- Nursing
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Carol A Smith, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Carol A Smith, Thesis Supervisor
Donna Marie Fick, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Health education
cross-cultural education
qualitative
HIV/AIDS - Abstract:
- This research was based on Heidegger’s philosophy and the interpretative hermeneutic phenomenology method. The study was conducted to enhance understanding of the lived experiences of young adult volunteers recruited to teach in an international HIV/AIDS prevention education program. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, text analysis was completed for emergent individual themes, patterns, and shared group themes to produce an in-depth interpretation of individual and common features of the phenomenon (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009). An expert in phenomenological research assisted with analysis and provided an audit to assure the quality and rigor of the process and trustworthiness of the findings. Findings of the study revealed that the teaching/learning activity was not the main focus of the volunteers in their experience. Program designs that blocked the educator role were also identified. Concerns of the volunteers that detracted from their focus on the educator role included: expressed inability to feel helpful; conflicts between expectations of what they would do and what they were assigned; language translation difficulties and unexpected cultural barriers to the teaching /learning process. Possible implications for young adults seeking international experiences are suggested by the finds of this study. Additional research is needed with a more representative sample to determine applicability of these findings in similar international volunteer experiences.