ROLE PERCEPTIONS OF FRESHMAN AND SENIOR NURSING AND MEDICAL-STUDENTS AND ATTITUDES TOWARD COLLABORATIVE DECISION-MAKING

David Kolb's (1981) experiential learning theory was used to examine d ifferences between first- and fourth-year nursing and medical students ' perceptions of competencies important for nursing and medicine, A co nvenience sample of nursing (n = 109) and medical (n = 108) students f rom a large Canadian research university was surveyed, Respondents com pleted the Environmental Press Questionnaire, the Adaptive Competency Scale, and a 6-item measure of attitudes toward collaborative nurse-ph ysician patient care decision making. Nursing students' perceptions of competencies important for medicine were found to be more congruent w ith medical students' perceptions of these competencies than were medi cal students' perceptions of competencies important for nursing as see n by nursing students, Gaps in perceptions of each others' roles were significantly negatively related to attitudes toward collaborative pat ient care decision making. Copyright (C) 1995 by W.B. Saunders Company