ENTRY INTO NURSING PRACTICE IN NORTH DAKOTA: A CASE-STUDY ANALYSIS USING POLITICAL AGENDA-SETTING MODELS (NURSING EDUCATION).
Contributors: University of Minnesota.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 151
Subjects: Education, Higher.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Administration.; Health Sciences, Education.
Description: On January 1, 1987, North Dakota became the first state to require its educational programs for registered nurses to offer baccalaureate preparation. This study examined the political process by which the baccalaureate became the minimal educational requirement for licensure as a professional registered nurse in North Dakota. The research questions for the study were: (1) how did the issue of the baccalaureate degree as the minimal educational requirement for nursing practice achieve the political agenda in North Dakota? and (2) what strategies were used to achieve the successful implementation of the change once it had attained the agenda? The conceptual framework for the study was from the political agenda setting literature, primarily using the models of Cobb, Ross, and Ross (1976) and Kingdon (1984).

Professional education has been at the heart of an ongoing conflict between the needs of society and traditional views regarding the role of higher education. This study focuses on who determines what professional education will be and the process by which those decisions are made.

A case-study approach was used in which the propositions of the agenda-setting literature were examined in relation to the decision made in North Dakota. Data were drawn from relevant documents in the process, including minutes of meetings, legal materials, legislative testimony, and from interviews with three of the principal actors in the process. Analytic approaches appropriate for case-study analysis were employed.

The findings indicate that the agenda for implementation of the baccalaureate as the minimum educational preparation for registered nurses was set using an inside-access approach as defined by Cobb, Ross, and Ross (1976). Implementation of the educational requirements was enhanced by the emergence of an entrepreneur as defined by Kingdon (1984).

The long-term implications of this study demonstrate that nursing as a profession has the power to define its educational requirements provided that it is willing to use its political acumen to persist in the political process. Nursing can effectively achieve the political agenda and, furthermore, implement its agenda with the persistence of those within the profession.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-01, Section: A, page: 0105.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, 1993.

School code: 0130.