NURSES' ROLE CONCEPTIONS FOR THE 1990'S: UPDATING THE CORWIN SCALE.
Contributors: University of San Francisco.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 146
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The traditional instrument used to measure students' and practicing professional nurses' perceptions of nursing's role was developed by Corwin in the 1950's. That role has changed since the 1970's, and a new instrument is needed that reflects these changes.

Two instruments were developed by the researcher. The first was a survey instrument, Beliefs About the Role of the Nurse in Contemporary Health Care Settings, consisting of 30 items developed to determine beliefs about changing nurse roles. Ten experts in nurse role conceptions and nursing education responded to this survey indicating beliefs that nursing's role is more complex and sophisticated than it was 20 years ago and incorporating four areas not adequately covered by the original Corwin survey: use of judgement; consideration of patients when planning and implementing care; involvement in professional organizations; and cost considerations.

A new Nurse Role Conception Questionnaire incorporating these new areas was developed. This instrument consisted of 18 items, six of which were constructs measuring the bureaucratic scale, six the professional scale, and six the service scale. Each item is a hypothetical situation in which a nurse might find him/herself. The respondent is asked to indicate both the extent to which the situation should be the ideal for nursing, the normative score; and the extent to which the respondent has observed the situation in hospital practice, the categorical score.

A pilot study to determine reliability and validity of this questionnaire was conducted. Thirty-three senior baccalaureate nursing students in their final semester of nursing school volunteered as subjects. Cronbach's alpha yielded moderate reliability estimates.

Factor analysis using iterative principal axis and varimax rotation factor analytic techniques for the normative responses were used. Results indicate that a profound paradigm shift may be occurring in nursing. Rather than three factorially pure constructs, nurse role conceptions seem to be more complex than previously described.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-02, Section: B, page: 0661.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1989.

School code: 6019.