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This thesis investigates the following factors concerning student nurses: (1) demographic background and life experiences; (2) motivations to enter and commitment to nursing school; (3) students' conceptions of the role of a nurse; (4) comparison of students' expectations with their ideals and with the realities of nursing. A questionnaire was administered to first year nursing students at three institutions; a four-year baccalaureate degree program and two community college associate degree programs. The two types of institutions were chosen to allow comparison between students on two different career tracks. The findings indicate that contemporary student nurses are older than typical college students, have had a significant number of prior occupational experiences, and in contrast to the 1960's and earlier, are not exclusively female. They were most strongly motivated to be nurses by the desire to help others and conceive of the role of a nurse as challenging, rewarding, and relatively professional. In general, these students had a good understanding of the role of the average nurse, but they would construct the ideal nursing environment somewhat differently than the actual nursing environment. These findings relate to career exploration and motivational processes associated with occupational training. It can be inferred from survey data that initiates to training programs often are quite aware of what the discipline demands. In many cases they have sought out others who are working in the field. These data also reflect the increasing occupational mobility of American society whereby individuals change careers once or more during their lifetimes.

The purposes of this study were to (1) describe the personal values and work values of nursing students in the last year of their present educational preparation, (2) to investigate the relationships between values, both personal and work, and selected demographic variables (type of educational institution, present educational preparation, job interests, and age), and (3) to examine the correlations between students' personal values and work values. Using the Profile of Life Values (PLV) and the Ohio Work Values Inventory (OWVI) , the personal and work values of 452 student nurses were examined, first as a total sample for means and standard deviations, then by selected demographic variables with MANOVA, ANOVA, and Scheffe at the .10 level of significance. In the sample were 43 students from graduate nursing programs, 143 students from baccalaureate nursing programs, and 266 students from associate degree programs, from both public and private educational institutions in two northwestern states. The order of the means for the total sample on the PLV scales from the highest to lowest were Considerate, Intellectual, Achievement, Recognition, Creative, Artistic, and Integrity. The order of the means for the total sample on the OWVI scales from highest to lowest were Task Satisfaction, Self Realization, Altruism, Security, Money, Independence, Ideas/Data Orientation, Object Orientation, Control, Prestige, and Solitude. In comparing the values on the PLV and OWVI by type of educational institution, the means were significantly higher for students enrolled in private educational institutions than for students from public educational institutions. When the values on the PLV and OWVI scales were compared by educational preparation, significant differences were found on the means, with graduate students placing more values on Intellectual, baccalaureate degree students placing more value on Recognition, Control, Independence, and Object Orientation, and associate degree students placing more value on Integrity, Security, and Money. When the means on the PLV and OWVI scales were examined by job interest, students interested in pediatrics placed more importance on Considerate, Achievement, and Intellectual; students interested in specialty areas, such as the operating room or emergency room placed more value on Object Orientation, just as students interested in critical care and pediatrics placed more value on Object Orientation than did the students interested in medical/surgical nursing, geriatrics, obstetrics, mental health, nurse practitioner or clinical specialist role. In the final comparison of the PLV and OWVI values with age, the 40-54 age group placed more value on Intellectual while the 20-29 age group placed more value on Recognition, Security, Control, Money, and Prestige. Using Chi-Square as the inferential test, educational preparation and job interests were found to be related. Graduate students were primarily interested in the nurse practitioner or clinical specialist role; students receiving a baccalaureate degree expressed more interest in critical care and pediatrics; students receiving an associate degree expressed more interest in medical/ surgical nursing and geriatrics. In examining the correlations between the PLV and OWVI, 58 of the 77 coefficients were significant at the .05 level. The correlations of the two instruments demonstrated a logical relationship exists between the instruments. These findings have implications for nursing education. The educational foundation for nursing is based on the fostering of personal well-being and continuing growth through interpersonal interactions. The nursing curriculum needs to be reviewed periodically for differentiation, interpretation, and clarification of values. In order to provide an education that is conducive to recognition of values, the faculty need to be aware of their own values, be able to recognize how their values relate to teaching, student learning, and professional practice, and periodically evaluate how they use values in the process. Teaching by relating values to subject matter, human differences, and practice enables student nurses to recognize and understand their own values as well as the values of other people. These findings have implications for further research, as values of faculty and students are in some ways related to age, specific interests, and educational preparation.

Academic integrity is an important part of higher education. This is especially true in nursing education programs. Nurses must be able to think critically, have sound clinical judgement, and make autonomous decisions. If there are concerns of academic integrity violations during nursing programs, these skills become questionable when the student enters the nursing profession. Nursing students believe that the severity of academic integrity violations occur along a continuum, which impacts their acceptance of these violations. Severity may also impact a student’s willingness to report a peer for a violation of academic integrity. This cross-sectional, correlational study assessed baccalaureate nursing students’ perceptions on various aspects of academic integrity violations using McCabe’s Academic Integrity Survey-Modified for Nursing Students (MAIS-MNS) and a knowledge assessment. Correlations, t tests, and regression analysis were used to identify relationships among variables and potential predictive factors between classroom and clinical violations, willingness to report peers, and perceived program supports. This study also considered the theory of neutralization as a factor in student acceptance of academic integrity violations. Results suggest that the perceived severity of cheating in the classroom can predict the perceived perception of severity in the clinical setting. Results also showed that students who neutralize their actions, do not perceive those actions as severe. Finally, the perception of severity does predict a student’s willingness to report peer violations of academic integrity. Creating a culture of academic integrity has the potential to reduce academic integrity violations. Creating this culture, partially through education on academic integrity and violations of academic integrity, is needed to enhance nursing education programs and ensure the continued excellence expected of nurses.

This study examines nursing students' adoption of inferential sets in a clinical situation. The investigation determines (1) the particular inferential set(s) nursing students adopt toward a patient in a clinical situation; (2) the particular inferential set(s) adopted by sophomore and senior nursing students in a clinical situation; and (3) whether or not inferential sets adopted by the sophomore and senior nursing students differ. Sophomore and senior nursing students at a woman's university in Texas were asked to complete a research tool designed to determine inferential set adoption.

This study focused on the experiences of ethnic minority nursing students at a predominately white institution, the Health Sciences University School of Nursing in an attempt to learn more about the stress, appraisal, and coping of this group of individuals. The University School of Nursing was selected as a comparison site as it offered a setting with no predominate ethnic group. Faculty•s perceptions of students stress, appraisal and coping were sought to provide a context for the students• experience. A review of the literature indicated that ethnic minority students in predominately white universities experience alienation. At some universities white and ethnic minority students and faculty differ in their perceptions of what should be offered as support to ethnic minority students. Studying the experiences of students at a health care science university, dedicated to the health and care of individuals provided useful insights. Of particular importance was the investigation of what constituted problematic and nonconstructive relationships and structures. Symbolic interactionism, socialization theory, stress, appraisal and coping theory and attribution theory offered sensitizing concepts from which 23 ethnic minority nursing student and 12 nursing faculty interviews were taped, and analyzed. A constant comparative method of qualitative analysis proposed by Glaser and Strauss offered a systematic approach in developing substantive concepts. Common to most nursing students was the phenomenon of making it in nursing school. Making it was characterized by two main categories, being out of control and gaining control. Being out-of-control was understood as the stress producing threats of conflicting demands of family, work and school and being sanctioned, the evaluation and approval by faculty of ones• professional performance. Gaining control included managing multiple demands, reaffirming ones• choice of nursing and disengaging from the student role to becoming a nurse. A set of experiences unique to ethnic minority students was identified when some aspect of ethnicity was central to the problematic experience. A core phenomenon of exclusion as a threat to identity emerged. Three forms of exclusion were identified: (1) linguistic difficulty; (2) interpersonal disregard; (3) ethno-cultural incongruity. Students 1 acceptance of responsibility for the problematic situation influenced their coping strategies. Holding back, keeping silent, disengaging and giving up were the usual coping responses. Only when the stakes were high, for example passing a course, would students speak out, negotiate or confront to in order to preserve their academic progression. Faculty accurately identified students 1 stresses as: staggering under the load, building a professional identity, experiencing isolation and facing cultural unresponsiveness. Faculty misidentified some of students 1 withdrawal coping behaviors as a cultural norm of being quiet or reserved. In addition, faculty offered descriptions of their own stress in teaching ethnic minority students with English as a second language such as trying to decide when to bend over backwards to help the students and when to draw the line. The most important conclusion reached was that ethnic minority students experienced a set of stressors linked to their perceptions of their ethnic status. A major stressor was exclusion, in that it interfered with the core task of becoming socialized as a nurse. Weak social bonds within the school of nursing and to the profession can hamper the recruitment of others from a particular ethnic group to the school and ultimately into the health care profession. A focus on the interpretation of interpersonal events in health care settings is crucial in surfacing the cultural nuances of understanding and meaning. Recommendations were made to: (1) develop an enriched grounded theory and promote mutual understanding through faculty, nursing staff and student group interviews and (2) increase the comprehensiveness of ethnic minority student retention data bases.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the phenomenon of spiritual nurturing as experienced by students in their fourth-year of an undergraduate baccalaureate nursing education program in Canada, using van Manen’s (2002) approach to phenomenology. The goal of this study is to describe the lived experience of spiritual nurturing of fourth-year nursing students in order to reflect on how nursing students learn spiritual care. Data were collected via in-depth interviews with seven fourth-year nursing students and analyzed according to van Manen’s interpretive approach. Three themes of spiritual nurturing emerged: spiritual nurturing as exchanging energy (spirituality as relationship with others), spiritual nurturing as recharging energy (spirituality as relationship with self), and spiritual nurturing as receiving energy (spirituality as relationship with transcending). Spiritual nurturing as it applies to nursing education, nursing practice, administration of nursing programs and nursing research are discussed from the students’ perspectives. / vii, 142 leaves : ill. (col. ill.) ; 29 cm

Aim To describe psychiatric nursing students‟ stereotypical beliefs associated with mental illness labels and the potential mediating effects of information provided from curriculum content and contact through clinical placement. Methodology Four nursing campuses were sampled, resulting in one hundred and thirty two (n=132) participants. Participants remained the same for all three phases of the repeated measure. A quantitative approach, non-experimental survey design with repeated measures made use of a self-report questionnaire. Section A included demographic data (age, gender and cultural group), while Section B consisted of a semantic differential measure (SDM) focusing on three mental illness labels; schizophrenia, major depressive disorder and bipolar mood disorder. Data was collected on the first day of the psychiatric nursing training block, the last day of the training block, and the first day of the second training block, after approximately six weeks of clinical placement in specialist psychiatric settings. Results Participant scores suggested greater negative stereotypical beliefs associated with the schizophrenia label in all the three phases of data collection. The bipolar mood disorder label was the least associated with negative stereotypical beliefs. Information given during the initial teaching block and contact during the clinical placement period resulted in a slight reduction of negative stereotypical beliefs associated with the schizophrenic label. In contrast negative stereotypical beliefs associated with the bipolar mood disorder label were increased slightly after information and contact. Conclusion and recommendation The results of the study confirmed that health care professionals are not different from the general population in their negative stereotypical beliefs towards mental illness labels. A review of the proposed new nursing curriculum should specifically include emphasis on psychosocial rehabilitation. In addition, clinical placement of the student nurses must be designed to ensure interaction with mental health care users engaged in recovery and community integration to remove perceptions of inability to recover associated with mental illness labels (Adewuya & Oguntade, 2007; Adewuya & Makanjuola, 2008; Corrigan, 2007; Smith, 2010). / M.N. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2014

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the RN to BSN student's perceptions about what they need from curricula and the faculty to meet their educational goals. In addition, the study looked at the relationship between student identified needs and those identified by the faculty in regard to the RN to BSN curriculum.Evidence was collected using three focus group interviews with RN to BSN students and three focus group interviews with faculty who teach in RN to BSN programs. The number of participants in faculty focus group totaled 13 while participants in student focus groups totaled 16 participants. Individual follow-up interviews were conducted with participants from five of the six focus groups.A total of 50 concepts and a total of 20 subcategories were identified as significant as a result of the student data analysis. Seven themes emerged from the data analysis: 1) reasons for seeking BSN degrees (personal reasons, job advancement or maintenance, bridge to graduate school); 2) curricular content (nursing research, nursing leadership/management, health assessment, politics, computer technology, and general education); 3) curricular outcomes (professionalism, professional self-esteem, critical thinking); 4) institutional factors (advising and admissions processes, separation from traditional BSN students); 5) teaching methodologies (discussion, sharing, student presentations); 6) adult learning principles (self-direction, choices, peer learning, respect for experience); and 7) accommodations (acknowledgement for multiple roles, convenience, flexibility, credit for previous work, choices, physical environment). / Department of Educational Studies