NURSE FACULTY'S WORK, BELIEF, AND AUTHORITY AS EVIDENCE OF SOCIALIZATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS.
Contributors: University of California, Los Angeles.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 359
Subjects: Education, Higher.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Socialization in academe is a process that can be inferred from faculty behaviors related to academic work, belief, and authority. It is influenced both by the individual faculty member's level of education and by the institutional type where employed. This study investigated the extent to which nursing faculty are socialized into the academic profession.

The study used a descriptive survey design. Questionnaire and interview instruments were used to supply quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data involved secondary analysis of the data from the 1984 faculty survey carried out by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Interviews were conducted with nursing faculty in California using the UCLA Academic Profession Study format. The qualitative data utilized portions of the interviews from the UCLA Academic Profession study in addition to the interviews with California nursing faculty.

Nursing faculty were compared among themselves, and with other faculty members by level of education and institutional type in the areas of academic work, belief, and authority. Nursing faculty with doctoral degrees are much more interested in research, and are more productive than non-doctoral nursing faculty. Research interest and associated behaviors are strongest among nursing faculty at universities. With highest degree controlled, when academic nurses were compared to other academics and other academic women, nurses consistently did equally as well as or better in research behaviors. Of all groups compared, nursing faculty at universities and four-year colleges, especially those with doctorates, have the strongest positive feelings about their discipline, their institution, and their students. Nursing faculty at two-year colleges indicate ambivalent feelings about their disciplines, their institution, and their students. Nursing and non-nursing faculty hold similar perceptions about departmental and institutional authority. Faculty authority is generally confined to the department level.

This study shows that in order to judge socialization in academe, nursing faculty should not be viewed as a collective group. Despite similarities among academic nurses, important differences exist in the areas of work, belief, and authority, based on the individual's academic preparation and institutional affiliation.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-02, Section: A, page: 0320.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES, 1987.

School code: 0031.