PERCEPTIONS OF CONTINUING EDUCATION IN FOUR LEVELS OF NURSING PREPARATION.
Contributors: Memphis State University.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 309
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Adult and Continuing.
Description: The purpose of this research was to examine continuing education in four levels of nursing: (a) licensed practical nurses, (b) diploma prepared nurses, (c) associate degree nurses, and (d) baccalaureate prepared nurses. Collection of data included certain demographic information and rankings of their perceptions and preferences concerning continuing education. The demographic information provided a profile of nurses employed at Baptist Memorial Hospital in the fall of 1989.

Three hundred registered nurses were chosen randomly from a total of 1200 registered nurses employed, and 100 licensed practical nurses were chosen randomly from a total of 400 licensed practical nurses employed. Differentiation was not available before the selection process to identify basic preparation in the three registered nurse groups. All registered nurses were classified as one group, and the various types of schools represented were identified from the questionnaires.

The data were analyzed by use of the Kruskal-Wallis test expanded as a specific statistic for the first 6 hypotheses. This non-parametric test was used because of the nature of the data, which was ranked, and was an appropriate test for the number of independent samples. The seventh hypothesis was analyzed with Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. These data were also ordinal.

The analysis determined there were significant differences in the four groups of nurses based on: (1) initial program completed, (2) number of degree(s) completed since initial program, (3) years since state board examination successfully completed, and (4) current work assignment. The four null hypotheses based on these measures were rejected. Two of the null hypotheses, based on age and the number of programs attended each year, were not rejected. The seventh hypothesis was rejected because of significant correlations evidenced among the dependent variables of the study.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: B, page: 5809.

Thesis (ED.D.)--MEMPHIS STATE UNIVERSITY, 1990.

School code: 0124.