Factors associated with students' orientations to nursing

This paper presents the results of a study focusing on the factors associat ed with orientations to nursing. Students' orientations to nursing have not as yet been a focus of nursing research. In some other professions, howeve r, professional orientation has been associated with learning motivation an d study performance, and has been seen as a predictor of work satisfaction. In this study, students' orientations to nursing were defined in terms of caring, nursing expertise and life orientation. The hypothesis of whether s tudents' pre-educational experiences of nursing, gender, choice of nursing specialty, problems with nursing studies and intention to stay in nursing w ere associated with different orientations was tested. The extent to which students were orientated to caring, nursing expertise and their own life wa s also examined. The orientation to nursing measurement tool, which has bee n developed on the basis of a qualitative study, was used to collect the da ta, Nurse teachers collected the data from nursing students (n = 184) who w ere studying in three different nursing programmes in Finland. Non-parametr ic assessments (Mann-Whitney U-test and Kruskal-Wallis test) of the differe nces between the students' orientations were carried out. A majority of the students were highly life-orientated, and two-thirds had average nursing e xpertise or caring orientation scores. The results supported the study hypo thesis of an association between students' orientations and their gender, c hoice of nursing speciality, problems with nursing studies and intention to stay in nursing; However, the hypothesis of an association between student s' pre-educational nursing experiences and orientation to nursing was not s upported. The contradictions between students' orientation to nursing and t he philosophy of nursing underlying the study programme may be a source of motivational problems and dissatisfaction with nursing education. Therefore , nurse educators are challenged to discuss curriculum matters and student supervision in order to promote flexibility in planning personal study prog rammes.