Objectives Formative peer assessment focuses onlearning and development of the student learning process.This implies that students are taking responsibility forassessing the work of their peers by giving and receivingfeedback to each other. The aim was to compile researchabout formative peer assessment presented in higherhealthcare education, focusing on the rationale, theinterventions, the experiences of students and teachersand the outcomes of formative assessment interventions.Design A scoping review.Data sources Searches were conducted until May 2019in PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied HealthLiterature, Education Research Complete and EducationResearch Centre. Grey literature was searched in LibrarySearch, Google Scholar and Science Direct.Eligibility criteria Studies addressing formative peerassessment in higher education, focusing on medicine,nursing, midwifery, dentistry, physical or occupationaltherapy and radiology published in peer-reviewedarticlesor in grey literature.Data extractions and synthesis Out of 1452 studies,37 met the inclusion criteria and were critically appraisedusing relevant Critical Appraisal Skills Programme, JoannaBriggs Institute and Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool tools.The pertinent data were analysed using thematic analysis.Result The critical appraisal resulted in 18 includedstudies with high and moderate quality. The rationale forusing formative peer assessment relates to giving andreceiving constructive feedback as a means to promotelearning. The experience and outcome of formativepeer assessment interventions from the perspectiveof students and teachers are presented within threethemes: (1) organisation and structure of the formativepeer assessment activities, (2) personal attributes andconsequences for oneself and relationships and (3)experience and outcome of feedback and learning.Conclusion Healthcare education must considerpreparing and introducing students to collaborativelearning, and thus develop well-designedlearningactivities aligned with the learning outcomes. Since peercollaboration seems to affect students’ and teachers’experiences of formative peer assessment, empiricalinvestigations exploring collaboration between studentsare of utmost importance.

AIM: The aim was to explore collaboration between first year undergraduate nursing students in a three-year bachelor program during clinical skills lab practices.

BACKGROUND: The ability to collaborate is important in the nursing profession to ensure patient safety. Thus, efforts supporting nursing students with learning activities emphasizing this ability is crucial in nurse education as a preparation for the requirements of the nursing profession. Collaborative learning models are described as ways that support the students' interaction during education. However, collaboration between students has shown to have challenges such as negative competition and confrontations. This stresses the need to explore the collaboration between students to find ways to support the interaction.

DESIGN: The study was conducted with a focused ethnographic approach.

METHOD: Data were generated by participant observations during one semester, involving 70 h observation of 87 first year nursing students for 6 months and 24 training sessions in clinical skills lab practices. Two focus group discussions were used to elaborate students' views of collaboration and to provide an opportunity for follow up questions and interpretations from the observations. Field notes and focus group discussions were interpreted as one unit of analysis conducted with thematic network analysis. A global theme were synthesized from organizational and additional basic themes presenting the overall metaphor of the students' collaboration.

RESULT: The global theme, Between adaptation and non-conformity, revealed a field of tension in the nursing students' collaboration. One the one hand, the global theme involved the students' ability to adopt to new knowledge and to being a nursing student in a clinical skills lab and to others' perspective. On the other hand, non-conformity creates a collaboration with less reflection between the students and non-synchronized and time-consuming laboratory work.

CONCLUSION: Collaborative activities in nurse education fosters and challenges nursing students' collaboration required for clinical practices and later in the nursing profession. By the presented scaffolding efforts, nurse educators can arrange a learning environment that can support the collaboration between students and facilitate the transition into the profession.

Collaboration for nursing is a core competence and therefore educational interventions are essentials for collaborative skills. To identify such interventions, we carried out a study to understand nursing students' collaborative process. A narrative inquiry method was used to explore the collaborative process of first-year undergraduate nursing students. The analysis was conducted on field notes from 70 h of observation of 87 nursing students' collaboration during skills lab activities. It also included transcriptions of four focus group discussions with 11 students. The results are presented as a sequential process of (1) navigating in unfamiliar territory, (2) navigating together to cope, and (3) navigating together towards independency and the future nursing profession. We identified a transition from teacher-led assistance and guidance to student interdependency and reciprocal learning, ending with student-led assistance supporting independency. In line with Vygotsky's theory of zone of proximal development, different scaffolding interventions are needed depending on where the students are in the collaborative process. 

AIM: This study aimed to understand the variety of nurse educators' conceptions of nursing students' collaboration in clinical skills lab activities.

BACKGROUND: Collaborative learning has gained attention in nurse education as an educational approach that supports learning and professional development. However, research is deficient concerning nurse educators in faculty-based education and their conceptions of student collaboration.

METHOD: The study adopted a phenomenographic approach. A purposeful sampling of nurse educators teaching in a skills lab setting was conducted at five universities in Sweden. Individual interviews with sixteen nurse educators were performed between November 2023 and February 2024. The interviews were analysed following phenomenographic procedures.

RESULTS: Four different description categories were identified: the purpose of collaboration, the didactic activities for collaboration, the student's intrapersonal skills, and the group activity skills. The outcome space presents the purpose of collaboration as the most complex descriptive category.

CONCLUSION: The educational purpose of collaboration should be settled by the faculty of nurse education and aligned to the collaborative requirements in the nursing profession. Introducing didactic activities specifically contextualized to the nursing profession and including peer observations and feedback in a formative manner may facilitate the development of collaboration.