Professional socialization of baccalaureate nursing students: can students in distance nursing programs become socialized?

Distance education programs may have difficulty socializing nursing students due to limited face-to-face student-faculty interaction. Socialized attitudes toward the nursing profession were assessed using two measures with three groups--senior BSN students enrolled at campus-based programs, senior BSN students enrolled in distance programs, and non-nursing students. The purpose of this analysis was to determine whether nursing students enrolled in distance programs had professional socialization outcomes comparable to nursing students enrolled in campus-based programs, and to examine the psychometric properties of two popular measures of professional socialization. Results indicated that students in the distance programs had higher scores than the campus-based nursing students, who, in turn, had higher scores than non-nursing students. A statistical interaction of RN status by program type indicated that health care experience was a critical factor in the socialization process. Of the two socialization measures examined, one had acceptable psychometric properties. These data suggest that health care and preceptorship experiences are important determinants of professional socialization and that students who opt for distance nursing programs graduate with socialization outcomes that are at least comparable to those of students who attend traditional programs.

Development of an instrument to measure thinking, learning, and creativity: a triangulation process.

The process of triangulation was used to develop an instrument to measure thinking, learning, and creativity in the nursing workplace. A TLC instrument consisting of five components was systematically developed as part of this study. In this descriptive correlative study, we investigated nurses' perceptions of their ability to think, learn, and be creative in their work life. The results of the investigation showed that TLC is significantly related to the perceived quality of work life of practicing registered professional nurses supporting Naisbett and Aburdene's (1985) idea that TLC is essential to attract and retain employees in the workplace.