SUPPORT SYSTEMS AND RETENTION: PERCEPTIONS OF BLACK ADULTS ABOUT THEIR ACADEMIC PROGRESS IN A BACCALAUREATE NURSING PROGRAM (SELF-CONCEPT, SELF-INITIATED ACTION, TRANSITIONS, NONTRADITIONAL STUDENT).
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1986
Number of pages: 288
Subjects: Education, Adult and Continuing.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This qualitative descriptive study looked at those support systems which black adults perceived as being helpful in promoting their progress in a baccalaureate nursing program.

The conceptual framework was based on Darkenwald and Merriam's model of barriers to adult participation in education and Caplan's conceptualization of support systems.

Two data collection tools, a semistructured interview schedule and a closed-ended demographic data sheet, were developed based on concepts gleaned from the literature and conceptual framework. Both tools were piloted on a small sample of black women who had graduated from the nursing program less than a month before the pilot study was done.

The sample consisted of twenty-five black women who had successfully completed their junior year in the nursing program.

The major findings were: (1) Participants experienced multiple barriers to their academic progress. (2) Participants relied on multiple forms of support systems. (3) Participants perceived the family as their most significant support system, followed in declining order by religion; peers; faculty, friends, university services and self in equal numbers. (4) The family functioned primarily in assisting with child care, financial aid and emotional support. (5) Peers functioned as supports in self-tutoring groups, as standards of reference and as emotional support. (6) Faculty provided tutoring or advisement for academic and personal problems. (7) Major reliance on religion was in the form of prayer. (8) Participants' descriptions of actions they took to cope with barriers to their academic progress indicated that they were self-initiators who relied primarily on their own resourcefulness to successfully achieve in the nursing program.

The multiple barriers which participants experienced were reflected in the four major categories of the conceptual framework. The multiple support systems on which participants reportedly relied were also reflected in the conceptual framework. These black women, however, demonstrated more resourcefulness, initiative, motivation and perseverance than the conceptual framework or literature projected.

Six emergent themes from the analysis and synthesis of data were used to interpret the findings and provided a base from which conclusions could be drawn, recommendations made and future research delineated.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-06, Section: A, page: 1985.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1986.

School code: 0055.