AN IDENTIFICATION OF FACTORS INFLUENCING PRE-PROFESSIONAL SOCIALIZATION OF ASPIRANTS TO THE NURSING PROFESSION.
Contributors: Loyola University of Chicago.
Published: 1994
Number of pages: 152
Subjects: Education, Higher.; Education, Guidance and Counseling.; Health Sciences, Education.
Description: Health care facilities, especially tertiary, intensive care units and community based agencies have been in the throes of a nursing shortage since the mid-1980's. Beginning in 1991 there has been a temporary ease in the nurse unemployment percentage. However, employment projections indicate that this is a false reassurance and that there will still be a need for qualified nurses that will exceed the supply of these professionals.

There are many studies which have examined nurse retention in a health care setting. However, since the 1960's only four studies addressed specifically what motivates individuals to choose nursing as a career. Occupational choice, or anticipatory socialization to the nursing profession is the focus of this study. Corcoran and Clark's (1984) conceptual framework is applied to the process of career choice for pre-nursing students. The study seeks to understand why women and men in the 1990's are choosing to enter nursing. In addition, career attractors and career facilitators are identified as motivators to pursue nursing as a career.

Using a qualitative methodology of in-depth, nonstructured interviews 22 pre-nursing students were interviewed for this study. The interview questions were guided by themes that emerged from the literature that addressed what motivated career decision making. The interviewees' responses were categorized under two primary themes, career attractors and career facilitators. Secondary themes were subsumed under attractors and facilitators.

The results of the study were that for nursing the career attractors, altruism, and self-fulfillment were key motivators. The career facilitators, observation of the role, and imitation of the role held the greatest import for the subjects in this study.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-01, Section: A, page: 0054.

Thesis (PH.D.)--LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, 1994.

School code: 0112.