THE EFFECTS OF SUMMER WORK STUDY PROGRAMS UPON THE PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS OF BACCALAUREATE NURSING STUDENTS (DECISION-MAKING, INTERNSHIP).
Contributors: University of Connecticut.
Published: 1986
Number of pages: 88
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Baccalaureate nursing programs have frequently focused major components of the curriculum on developing the students' problem solving skills in order to teach them to optimally utilize the nursing process. It has been assumed that, by witnessing the experts engaged in the practice of their profession, the novice will begin to gain knowledge in solving the problems of the practice. Many nursing students in baccalaureate programs have elected to participate in summer work study programs to increase their clinical skills in the use of the nursing process. "Hands-on" care, under the guidance of an expert nurse, has been an integral part of the clinical nursing experience in summer work study programs. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of summer work study programs upon the problem solving skills of baccalaureate nursing students.

Thirty-two baccalaureate students from a small private college in the northeast were equally divided into a control or experimental group. Students in the experimental group participated in one of three similar summer work studies under the direction of an expert nurse.

Students from both groups were pretested with the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal in May, prior to the work study program, and post tested in September following the program. Pretest and post test scores for both groups on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal were utilized in a repeated measure ANOVA with a .05 level of significance. In addition, narrative summaries of the clinical performance of both groups following the first semester senior level clinical experience were examined by three nursing experts. Each examiner was instructed to cite the number of positive comments related to problem solving skills for both groups.

No significant increase in post test scores on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal was noted between groups. Examiners did not identify significant differences between groups in the number of positive comments related to problem solving. However, a difference in perception of problem solving behavior was noted between examiners.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-05, Section: B, page: 1926.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT, 1986.

School code: 0056.