AN ANALYSIS OF ADVANCED PLACEMENT POLICY FORMULATION FOR DEGREE-SEEKING REGISTERED NURSES: A GROUNDED THEORY APPROACH (STANDING, ADMINISTRATION, AWARDING CREDIT FOR EXPERIENCE).
Contributors: Northern Illinois University.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 261
Subjects: Education, Adult and Continuing.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this study was to generate a substantive theory for the formulation of advanced placement policies for degree-seeking registered nurses. Interviews of 41 administrators, admissions personnel, nurse faculty, and registered nurse students and documents were used to analyze the processes these respondents went through in formulating advanced placement policies for registered nurses in three baccalaureate nursing degree programs.

A qualitative grounded theory approach was used to collect, analyze, and synthesize data. Each person was interviewed, using an open-ended, in-depth format. Interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed in a verbatim manner. Data were analyzed and categories and elements emerged for advanced placement policy-formulating processes.

Conceptual elements related to advanced placement policy formulation were identified. These included the participants such as policy formulators, implementers and recipients; interrelationships between participants through communication linkages and dissemination methods; and transfer of credit, credit by examination and life experience credit that were given as advanced placement mechanisms. Within the policy-formulating process, operational stages were also identified and analyzed. The operational stages were: academic mission and policy goals, policy projections and trends, program integrity and balance, policy implementation mechanisms and policy maintenance.

Conceptual categories describing the events occurring within policy-formulating operational stages were organized into a set of six dichotomies. The dichotomies were: (a) consensus vs. diversity, (b) flexibility vs. rigidity, (c) specialization vs. generalization, (d) individualism vs. collectivism, (e) recipient focused vs. recipient excluded, and (f) recipient responsiveness vs. recipient unresponsiveness. The policy formulation process was conceptualized as discriminating between each dichotomy set and acceptable advanced placement policies for registered nurses resulted when a balance was achieved.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-12, Section: A, page: 3568.

Thesis (ED.D.)--NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY, 1985.

School code: 0162.