AN ANALYSIS OF PRE-PRACTICE AND PRACTICE READING DEMANDS ON ASSOCIATE DEGREE REGISTERED NURSES (NURSING STUDENTS, TEXT READABILITY, ASSOCIATE DEGREE NURSES).
Contributors: University of Georgia.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 199
Subjects: Education, Curriculum and Instruction.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Reading.
Description: This study responded to the lack of information about reading demands on pre-practice and practice associate degree nurses. Increasing numbers of nursing students have low verbal skills, pre-practice attrition rates are high and the range of pre-practice and practice reading demands was unknown. Reading demand was defined as text-based predictors of the range and concentration of reading difficulty of written materials.

The sample consisted of 500 documents and document segments used by associate degree nursing students (pre-practice) and hospital staff nurses (practice). The setting was a rural Southern community college and an acute care community hospital. Pre-practice published and teacher-made documents and practice materials used directly and indirectly by nurses in practice were analyzed. Content was limited to the health care categories of respiratory and cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes.

The method used was descriptive analysis of reading demands of documents used by associate degree nurses. Reading demand was measured by Flesch, Flesch-Kincaid and Fog readability formulas using the computer program Rightwriter to analyze word-processed whole text or text excerpts. Published text excerpts were content-specific purposeful selections.

The most significant result was the wide range of reading demands in pre-practice and practice. As expected, practice reading demand was less than pre-practice. Published documents demonstrated higher, more consistent reading demands than teacher-made. Practice direct documents, specifically patient records, had low yet consistent reading demands, reflecting the repetitive and standardized nature of many documentation systems.

Within the health care categories, pre-practice cancer had the highest mean and widest range of reading demands, reflecting the concentration of pathophysiological and pharmacological terms and teacher attempts to improve student comprehension. Teacher-made documents ranged widely, reflecting document purpose. Explanatory documents had low reading demands. Summary references had high demands. The practice diabetes category had the lowest reading demand, reflecting that disease's narrow and specific nature and high level of patient self-care.

Conclusions of the study included suggestions for decreasing reading demands of practice and pre-practice and use of reading demand in development of pre-practice admission criteria, curriculum design and alternative learning strategies.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2224.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, 1992.

School code: 0077.