NURSING FACULTY AND DOCTORATES: DOCTORAL PREPARATION OF NURSING FACULTY IN CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES.
Contributors: University Of Toronto (Canada)
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 219
Subjects: Education, Higher.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The overall purpose of this exploratory, descriptive study was to document the importance accorded to doctoral preparation of faculty in Canadian university schools of Nursing. The conceptual framework was adapted from the strategic planning model (Bryson, 1988; Keller, 1983).

Twenty-six of the 29 deans of university schools of Nursing returned questionnaires about their faculty, and 21 participated in telephone or personal interviews. Descriptive statistics were used to report quantitative data. Interview data were analyzed according to a modification of grounded theory methodology.

Twenty-six percent of full-time faculty had a doctorate, and of these doctorates, 21% were Nursing PhDs. Approximately 23% of master's-prepared, full-time faculty were enrolled in doctoral studies with the majority in non-Nursing PhD programs. It was deemed desirable by the deans for about three-fourths of full-time faculty to be doctorally-prepared.

The mission of the schools was focussed on teaching, research and community service. The five-year visions of the schools included increased research activity, expansion or development of graduate programs, and for some, collaborative programming with diploma schools. The research and graduate program visions were seen to rest upon adequate numbers of doctoral faculty. Internal strengths and weaknesses in the schools were described as were external threats and opportunities. Although doctoral preparation of faculty was an important issue to the deans, it did not meet the definition of a strategic issue.

Networking, letter-writing and advertising were the main recruitment strategies. The prominent development strategy was "growing our own": assisting master's-prepared faculty to complete a doctoral program. An implication of an increase in the numbers of doctorally-prepared faculty is the need for their thoughtful integration into university schools of Nursing so that master's-prepared faculty do not feel depreciated.

Study limitations and implications for further research were identified. This study has added a Canadian perspective to the literature about academic Nursing.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-09, Section: A, page: 3343.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO (CANADA), 1993.

School code: 0779.