NURSES IN TRANSITION: NURSES' USE OF CONTINUING EDUCATION IN PREPARING FOR WORK IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.
Contributors: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Published: 1991
Number of pages: 146
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Adult and Continuing.; Education, Bilingual and Multicultural.
Description: This exploratory study examined ways in which nurses prepared for changing work location to a developing country was studied at an international conference. Data were collected at an international conference of 550 members of the health professions who were concerned about improving health care for the poor of the world. Of the 92 nurses attending the conference, 63 accepted and completed the research instrument.

The problems studied were: What was the relationship between the following variables: change in work location, learning approaches used by nurses making these changes, and learning outcomes including a change in perceived preparedness for work in the next location? The $\chi\sp2$ and Fisher Exact Test were used to determine which relationships were statistically significant at the.05 level.

The respondents were returning from or going to 38 different countries. Nurses indicated that they simultaneously used more than one of the learning approaches defined in the Three Foci Model by Farmer (1983). Model I emphasizes a broad general learning approach, Model II focuses on specific problem-solving, and Model III includes difficulty-based and anomaly-based learning approaches.

Learning outcomes, in addition to perceived preparedness, were reported by the respondents. For example, 71% reported that they had "Developed or changed an attitude related to my professional practice." In addition, 55% said they "Became aware of fundamental changes I need to make in my professional or personal behavior" and 57% said they had "Designed a new framework for further learning and action.".

Recommendations include planning learning experiences for continuing education of nurses working in developing countries which would match the complexity of the learning approaches used by the respondents. Learning technologies should be employed by nurses for ongoing dialogue and problem-solving at their work sites in developing countries.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: B, page: 1352.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, 1991.

School code: 0090.