The BCcampus Research Fellows program provides support for B.C. post-secondary educators to conduct research on improving student learning and to share their results and experiences with peers in B.C. and beyond.
Project Lead/Fellow: Harroop Sharda
Institution: British Columbia Institute of Technology
Project Title: Flourishing in Formation: A Mixed Methods Study of Self-Care in Undergraduate Nursing Education
Research Focus: In this BCcampus-funded project, Flourishing in Formation, we will explore how undergraduate nursing students understand, experience, and practice self-care during their education. Dr. Harroop Sharda, as the primary investigator, will collaborate with PhD candidate Ruhina Rana, Douglas College, as a co-investigator to examine the personal, institutional, and systemic influences that shape nursing student well-being. The aim is to generate insights that can inform educational design, student supports, and wellness initiatives across post-secondary nursing programs.
The study is conceptually guided by the BCIT IDEAS Framework and the Okanagan Charter, both of which offer integrated approaches for embedding well-being into institutional priorities by advancing inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, and sustainability. These frameworks serve as anchors for examining students lived experiences of well-being and self-care within academic and clinical learning environments and will guide the development of meaningful curricular and co-curricular strategies.
By engaging undergraduate nursing students as co-researchers and research trainees, this project fosters research capacity-building while generating actionable evidence to support institutional decision-making. Outcomes will aim to advance evidence-informed strategies to promote student well-being and resilience in polytechnic and college-based nursing education. This project also serves as a model for cross-institutional collaboration between faculty and students, strengthening scholarly connections across nursing programs in British Columbia.
Biography: Harroop Kaur Sharda (she/her) is a nurse scholar, educator, and researcher with over two decades of experience in clinical and academic nursing. She serves as the scholarship capacity lead for the bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program at BCIT. In this role she mentors students, faculty, and point of care healthcare professionals in clinical settings in applied research, knowledge synthesis, and scholarly inquiry. Harroop holds a PhD in nursing from the University of Calgary and is recognized for her expertise in qualitative research, particularly grounded theory. She is currently a Grounded Theory/Grounded Action Research Postdoctoral Fellow with the Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies where she continues to advance qualitative inquiry and action-oriented scholarship within health professions education and practice environments. Harroop is engaged in research and scholarly work with a focus on clinical learning experiences in undergraduate nursing education, workplace violence in healthcare environments, new graduate transition to practice, nursing scope optimization, and nursing education history in Canada.