INFLUENCES ON NONCHOICE OF NURSING CAREERS BY WOMEN OF COLOR.
Contributors: University of Virginia.
Published: 1994
Number of pages: 370
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies.; Women's Studies.; Education, Guidance and Counseling.
Description: Purpose. To determine what influences women of color against choosing nursing careers and if the influences differ on the basis of ethnicity by surveying college women enrolled in non-nursing majors (non-choosers) at six schools in five states.

Instrument. 74-item researcher-developed, completed during class. Background variables included age, sex, ethnicity, SES, GPA, academic major, and presence of nurse role models and/or advice against a nursing career. Career choice variables included 43 statements about nursing organized into 6 content groups, Information, Perceptions, Experiences, Discrimination, Gender/Ethnic, and Academic/Personal Scales, with Likert-type response formats measuring influence on not choosing nursing careers; 7 items dealt with salaries, image, status, conflicting obligations, and cultural/religious prohibitions; there were also 11 open-ended follow-ups.

Sample. 647 non-choosers (425 women, 218 men); 23 Asians, 112 blacks, 142 Hispanics, 149 Native Americans, and 212 whites.

Methods. Variables were ranked on a frequency-based score to identify leading influences against nursing; MDA and Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA were used to determine if women's influences differed on the basis of ethnicity.

Results. Students were deterred most frequently by aspects of physical care of the sick/injured (Information Scale), followed by pay, image, prestige, and autonomy issues (Perceptions Scale). Perceived discrimination in financial aid awards, admissions, and grading (Discrimination Scale) were more frequent influences than concerns about caring for, working with, being supervised by, or supervising persons not of one's gender and/or ethnic group (Gender/Ethnic Scale). Students underestimated nurses' average annual salaries by about $5,000 and their opinions about nurses' image and nursing's status were only weakly positive. MDA correctly classified only 52\% of women based on ethnicity and KW with Tukey's HSD demonstrated that most of the variation in career choice item responses was between persons of color and whites and/or between women and men.

Conclusions. Results validated influence of variables previously only assumed to affect non-choice of nursing, particularly for women of color, but much work remains to better understand interaction of ethnocultural factors with other aspects of personality and environment. They also highlighted the need to evaluate current recruitment strategies and materials--and to design new ones--with mindfulness of the population's increasing ethnic diversity.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-10, Section: B, page: 4319.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1994.

School code: 0246.