TRADITIONAL AND REENTRY WOMEN NURSING MAJORS: MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS, VOCATIONAL PERSONALITIES, BARRIERS AND ENABLERS TO PARTICIPATION.
Contributors: Ball State University.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 162
Subjects: Education, Adult and Continuing.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of the study was to determine whether the motivational factors, vocational personalities, barriers to enrollment, and enabling factors of the reentry women nursing majors were different from those of women nursing majors of traditional college age. Participants were female nursing majors from all four grade levels of a baccalaureate program at one midwestern university.

The Chain-of-Response Model (Cross, 1981) was adapted as a conceptual framework. The sample consisted of 46 reentry women and 73 traditional college age women nursing majors. The Education Participation Scale (Boshier, 1982) and The Vocational Preference Inventory (Holland, 1985) were utilized. Barriers to Enrollment and Enabling Factors questionnaires were compiled by the researcher after a review of the literature and interviews with ten reentry and ten traditional age women nursing majors. The qualitative data were used to strengthen the study by triangulation with the quantitative data.

Findings. (1) The reentry women differed from the traditional age women in terms of motivational factors. The reentry women were found to be less motivated by social contact and more motivated by social stimulation than the traditional age women nursing majors. (2) Differences in vocational personality were found on two scales of The Vocational Preference Inventory (Holland, 1985): (a) The reentry women scored higher on Acquiescence, and (b) The traditional age women scored higher on Self-Control. Both groups scored highest on the Social Scale. (3) Barriers to enrollment that were of greater importance to the reentry women included: cost of college, other responsibilities, fear of failure, arranging for child care, attitudes toward education by family of origin and significant others. Barriers that were of greater importance to the traditional age women included: leaving home and friends and being tired of attending school. (4) Enabling factors that were of greater importance to the reentry women included: encouragement from husbands and college personnel, change in responsibilities at home, change in priorities, making a decision on a career in nursing, and deciding they could get a degree in nursing if they really tried. The support of significant others was an enabling factor of greater importance to the traditional age women.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-05, Section: A, page: 1183.

Thesis (D.ED.)--BALL STATE UNIVERSITY, 1989.

School code: 0013.