Self-determination in nursing students: an empirical investigation

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine nursing students' perc eptions of student Researcher, self-determination in a Finnish health-care institute and to find out whether background data were in any way associate d with these perceptions. To do this we developed a 56-item Students Self-D etermination Questionnaire (SSDQ), which was completed by 435 nursing stude nts. The results showed that self-determination is important for nursing st udents and that they are willing to exercise self-determination in their tr aining. In practice, however, the students were not very active in this res pect, nor did they feel that they were getting very much support from teach ing staff. The meaning of self-determination increased with age and with in creasing experience. (C) 1999 Harcourt Publishers Ltd.