THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS FOR MASTER'S LEVEL NURSE PRACTITIONER STUDENTS: STUDENTS' EXPECTATIONS OF THEIR FUTURE ROLES AND THE SOCIALIZATION FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE THESE ROLE EXPECTATIONS.
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1988
Number of pages: 262
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Higher.
Description: The number of master's prepared nurse practitioners has increased dramatically in recent years, yet published research has not reflected this educational change. In order to ascertain why the anticipated role has not evolved, this study sought to describe master's level nurse practitioner students' expectations of the role behaviors of a nurse practitioner and to identify factors within the socialization process which seemed to influence these expectations. The study was carried out to determine: (1) if the students' role expectations incorporated behaviors of both a technical/medical nurse practitioner and a master's prepared nurse, and (2) which of the educational and adult socialization factors, identified for this study, seemed to influence the students' expectations of their future roles as nurse practitioners. Role theory as described by Biddle (1964, 1979) and Biddle and Thomas (1966) was utilized as the framework. Socialization would be considered successful if appropriate nurse practitioner role behavior expectations were induced in these students.

All 26 U.S. graduate adult nurse practitioner programs were asked to participate. This yielded a sample size of 94 final semester graduate students, representing 13 schools. These students completed a questionnaire relating to their backgrounds, present educational experiences, and the expected nurse practitioner role behaviors.

The results demonstrated that all of the background factors and most of educational factors were not significantly influential on the students' expectations of nurse practitioner role behaviors. The educational factor "opportunity to practice role behaviors in the clinical laboratory," did statistically increase the expectations for selected master's role behaviors. The results suggest that graduate students need the opportunity to practice all master's role behaviors to enhance the socialization process.

The data also revealed that the students placed greater importance on the technical instead of master's role behaviors as part of their future roles as nurse practitioners. Also, many master's behaviors requiring actual role expansion were consistently considered less important than other behaviors. These findings suggest that masters' level nurse practitioner students are not adequately socialized into the role of a master's prepared nurse practitioner during their graduate education.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-09, Section: B, page: 3675.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1988.

School code: 0055.