| Summary: | The aim of this study is to explore nursing pupils' and nursing teachers' understanding of responsibility for one's own learning. Philosophical hermeneutic as outlined by Hans-Georg Gadamer underlies this study. Gadamer investigated and explained how understanding occurs hence a research method, based on his work 'Truth and Method', had been developed to answer the research questions. Dialogues with the participants in this research provide an insight into their understanding of responsibility within nursing education. This understanding is examined by means of a five-step analysis method. The 30 participants in this study belonged to eight different nursing schools. The 13 nursing teachers, who participated in this research each had between seven and 22 years teaching experience and were individually interviewed once. Dialogues with 15 nursing pupils, participating in this research, were carried out twice. The first dialogue took place in their first year of nursing education and the second in their third and final year of nursing education. Two nursing pupils were interviewed once. A total of 45 dialogues were carried out, transcribed and analysed. The data from this research establish that nursing pupils understand responsibility for their own learning as learning to nurse in keeping with postulated nursing rules. The data further indicate that nursing pupils feel insecure in their nursing education and that this insecurity prevents them from taking responsibility for their own learning. The participating nursing teachers are ambivalent about the task of nursing education to develop the ability of responsibility. The analysis ofthe data show that responsibility for one's own learning can only be developed if nursing education realises the objective to build the personality of nursing pupils on the basis of a broad educational and cultural background.
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