Abstract
The purpose of this research was to develop and test a conceptual
framework concerning health care students' views of nursing
and factors associated with it. The research process was conducted
during 1992-1998 as a practice-based process of theory development,
and it included four phases: 1) developing a conceptual framework
inductively, 2) developing a measurement tool for testing the conceptual
framework, 3) empirical testing of the conceptual framework and
4) analysing the core concept of the conceptual framework.
In the first phase of the research, a
conceptual framework of health care students' orientation
to nursing was developed inductively using the Grounded Theory method.
A group of students (n = 35) wrote essays and were interviewed
at the beginning of their nursing programme in a polytechnic. In the second phase of the research, an
instrument development process was carried out in order to test the
conceptual framework. The instrument was tested via a panel evaluation
(n = 15) and by using data collected from 184 students of
health care. Besides that, 25 students completed the questionnaire twice.
The data were used to evaluate the stability of the instrument.
In the third phase of the research the
hypotheses derived from the conceptual framework and the previous
research results were tested by using the data (n = 184)
which had been collected with the tool developed earlier. Besides
that, the students from the first phase of the research (n = 19)
were interviewed. These qualitative data were analysed by deductive
content analysis. In the fourth phase of
the research, the concept "orientation to nursing" was
analysed in order to further elaborate the conceptual framework.
Three different types of students' orientations to
nursing were found: a caring orientation, a nursing profession orientation
and a life orientation. The orientations differed from each other
with regard to the prerequisites of orientation, the core of orientation,
the meaning of nursing and the goals applied to a nursing career.According
to the results of testing the theoretical framework, a majority of
the students were highly life-oriented, and two thirds had average
nursing expertise and caring orientation scores. The special characteristics
of the students' orientation were emphasised during the education:
caring-oriented students emphasised their personal development,
nursing profession-oriented students the integration of theory and
practice and life-oriented students emphasised the integration of
studies, work and personal life. The nursing expertise and life
orientation scores increased during the education. Caring orientation
did not change during the education.
On the basis of the research results, a tentative theory of
health care students' orientation to nursing is presented
and methods for developing the teaching of nursing and learning
to nurse are suggested.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:oulo.fi/oai:oulu.fi:isbn951-42-5586-0 |
| Date | 21 March 2000 |
| Creators | Vanhanen, L. (Liisa) |
| Publisher | University of Oulu |
| Source Sets | University of Oulu |
| Language | Finnish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess, © University of Oulu, 2000 |
| Relation | info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pissn/0355-3221, info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/eissn/1796-2234 |
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