A COMPARISON BETWEEN REGISTERED NURSES WHO ARE ENROLLED AND THOSE NOT ENROLLED IN A BSN DEGREE PROGRAM (BARRIERS TO EDUCATION).
Contributors: Indiana University.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 166
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Health.
Description: Given the pressing societal need for registered nurses (RNs) with a bachelor's degree, one of the current challenges for nursing service and education is to understand how to motivate RNs who do not have this degree to return to school and to support their efforts while in school. The framework for the study was Jung's theory of Psychological Types. Jung's theory provides an understanding as to how individuals orient themselves to the environment, perceive, process, and make judgments about information.

The problem of this study was to identify factors that may influence RNs to return to school by comparing RNs enrolled in a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program with RNs not enrolled using the following variables: demographic characteristics; perceptions of family, social and financial support for returning to school; perceptions of the specific benefits of and barriers to a BSN degree; and psychological type.

The non-random, convenience sample was comprised of 132 nonBachelor of Science in Nursing registered nurses (nonBSNRNs) who were employed in selected hospitals or in BSN classes in one university. A survey instrument was developed to obtain data on all of the foregoing variables except for psychological type. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was used to measure psychological type.

Descriptive statistics were computed for all variables including frequencies, group means, ranges, and standard deviations for the nonenrolled and enrolled samples of nonBSNRNs. The t-test was used to identify group differences on continuous variables. Chi-square was used to identify group differences in relation to categorical variables. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify the combination of variables that best predict enrollment status. All data were summarized and reported in aggregate form. Age, perceptions of the benefits of a BSN degree and barriers to going back to school, and the Thinking/Feeling scale of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) were the variables found to predict the RN's decision to return to school for a BSN degree.

Recommendations for future research include refinement of the Survey Tool, replication of the study using a broader geographic sample, exploration of other study designs that will help answer questions as to: Why the enrolled subjects returned to school, how perceptions of the benefits of a BSN degree can be increased and the perceptions of the barriers to a BSN program can be decreased, and how to use interventions in respect to psychological type in order to effect the desired changes in perceptions.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-11, Section: B, page: 5645.

Thesis (ED.D.)--INDIANA UNIVERSITY, 1992.

School code: 0093.