Transcript UK student nurses' education values: a three

UK student nurses' education values:
a three-centre study
Carol Haigh, Senior
Lecturer in Research;
Natalie Yates-Bolton,
Lecturer in Nursing
Martin Johnson,
Professor in Nursing,
School of Nursing,
University of Salford,
UK
What are Values?

A cognitive and emotional disposition
towards a person, object or idea.

Attitudes are similar, but more specific.
‘Measurement’ of attitudes can suggest
strength that values are held
How are values adopted?

Genetic disposition (Dawkins)


Behaviourism and Social
Learning Theory (Bandura)


Species altruism, ‘Selfish Gene’
Modelling and perceived
reward/status
Existential/humanist (Raths)

Values chosen, freely from
alternatives
Background
Gerard Fealy (2004, Irish Context)
Quotes from Attitude surveys:
 ‘the nurse who is good at theory is rarely
good at the practical side of nursing’
(McGowan 1980, p. 94).
 university education was not appropriate
for nurses (Scanlan 1991)
 Underlying these views are ‘values’
Approaches to the study of values

Spranger’s (1928) ‘Types of ‘men’. ”
Theoretical, Economic, Aesthetic, Social, Political,
Religious
Theoretical “…since the interests of the theoretical man
(sic) are empirical, critical and rational, he is necessarily an
intellectualist, frequently a scientist or a philosopher.”
(Vernon and Allport 1931, p233)
Allport, Vernon and Lindzey (1960) values instrument
draws on this, used by several nurse researchers



Early studies of educational values
In a UK study Singh (1971) compared students on
‘experimental’ courses (e.g. combined degree/SRN)
and Diploma/SRN) courses with ‘traditional’ SRN
students but found no statistically significant
difference on the ‘theoretical’ value.
Experimental
29.96
SRN
30.24
Difference
=
- 0.28
Singh (1971)
However when he compared ‘experimental’
students (N = 229) with non-nursing ‘female
undergaduates’ (N = 147) he found a notable and
statistically significant difference
(p < 0.001)
Experimental
students
29.96
Female
undergraduates
33.80
In the USA
O’Neill (1973) found the opposite (p < 0.1)
Values
Theoretical
General
College
Students
N = 1289
Nursing
students
Mean
Mean
35.7
37.5
N = 459
Research Questions
Do student nurses’ educational values
vary between different universities?
 Do educational values in student nurses
differ by programme of study?
 Do educational values in student nurses
change across time?

Sample

3 universities


Southern, Russell, Riverside
Pre-registration students (n=1133)


Diploma
Degree
n=835
n=287
(11 missing responses on this variable)
Methods 1
William A Scott General Values Instrument (1959). This is a
Likert Scale Instrument measuring general attitudes;
Honesty
Religiousness
Intellectualism
Self Control
Academic
Achievement
Independence
Altruism
Nursing specific items
added which included
the Scott categories
plus 2 other Paternalism and
Authority
A sub set of variables focusing upon general and professional educational values is
the focus of this presentation. We report on altruism and honesty (Johnson, Haigh
and Yates-Bolton JAN, 57, 4, 366-374)
Educational values subset - Scott
Reading only things that don’t pose any
intellectual challenge (S2)
 Working hard to do well academically (S4)
 Ignoring lectures and text-books that are
difficult (S7)
 Not letting studies interfere with one’s
social life (S24)
 Striving hard to get the top marks in the
group (S27)
 Being interested only in one’s work (S34)

Educational values subset - Johnson
Little has been gained by educating nurses
in a University rather than a Hospital
School of Nursing (J5)
 Nursing should be a highly educated
profession like Medicine and Law (J8)
 Academic qualifications should not be
important to nursing career advancement
(J16)

Methods 2






Ethical approval obtained from participating
organisations
Student questionnaire administered in class
time – 20 minutes. Investigators not
particularly involved with programme
Ordinal data was analysed using SPSS
Descriptive stats
Correlation
MANOVA
Demographics - Gender
Demographics - age ranges
age ranges
15-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
250
200
Count
150
100
50
0
Southern
Russell
Uni
Riverside
Educational Demographics - NVQ
Students with any NVQ Attainment by Centre
40.00
% of cohort
35.00
30.00
35.71
25.00
28.16
20.00
15.00
17.03
10.00
5.00
0.00
Southern
N = 98
Russell
N = 417
University
Riverside
N =618
Educational Demographics – entry level
GSCE,O & A level
Proxy measure of educational entry level
Mean GCE and GCSE O and A level Per student
9.00
8.00
8.5
7.00
6.00
6.8
6.5
5.00
4.00
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
Southern
N = 98
Russell
N = 417
Riverside
N = 618
Educational Demographics - degree
Percentage degree possession by Centre
8
7.2
7
Percentage
6
4.8
5
3.8
4
3
2
1
0
Southern
N = 98
Russell
N = 417
University
Riverside
N = 618
Educational values relationships by
university - 1




The relationship between
university and admiration
for those who do not let
studies interfere with social
life was investigated
There was a small weak
negative statistically
significant correlation
between the two variables
[rs= -.101 n= 1133 p
=.001]
This gives of coefficient of
determination of 1%
This suggests that students
who attended Riverside
university were more likely
to admire this behaviour
Educational values relationships by
university- 2



The relationship between
university and admiration
for those who strive hard
to get the top marks was
investigated
There was a weak
statistically significant
correlation between the
two variables [rs= .202
n= 1133 p <.001] giving a
coefficient of determination
of 4%
This suggests that
students who attended
Riverside university were
more likely to admire this
behaviour
Educational values relationships by
programme of study - 1



The relationship between
programme of study and
admiration for those who
strive hard to get the top
marks was investigated
There was a small weak
positive statistically
significant correlation
between the two variables
[rs= .133 n= 1133 p
<.001] giving a coefficient
of determination of 1.7%
This suggests that
students who were
enrolled on degree
programmes were more
likely to admire this
behaviour
Educational values relationships by
programme of study - 2



The relationship between
programme of study and
agreement with the statement
‘Nursing should be a highly
educated profession like
Medicine and Law’ was
investigated
There was a weak positive
statistically significant
correlation between the two
variables [rs= .104 n= 1133 p
<.001] giving a coefficient of
determination of 1.0%
This suggests that students
who were enrolled on degree
programmes were more likely
to agree with this stance
Educational values relationships by year
of study - 1



The relationship between
year of study and
admiration for those who
ignore lectures and textbooks that are difficult was
investigated
There was a weak negative
statistically significant
correlation between the
two variables [rs= -.166
n= 1133 p <.001] giving a
coefficient of determination
of 2%
This suggests that third
year students were less
likely to admire this
behaviour
Educational values relationships by year
of study - 2



The relationship between
year of study and the
variable ‘little has been
gained by educating nurses
in a University rather than a
Hospital School of Nursing’
was investigated
There was a weak negative
statistically significant
correlation between the two
variables [rs= -.125 n=
1133 p <.001] giving a
coefficient of determination
of 1.5%
This suggests that third year
students were less likely to
agree with this statement
MANOVA

Multivariate tests for statistical significance
between groups by



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University
Programme of Study
Year of study
Used Pillai’s trace as test of statistically
significant differences between groups because of
differences in sample sizes
Because this used multiple comparisons we
applied a Bonferroni adjustment which gave a
new probability value of .007
Working hard to do well academically
Diploma and Degree
admire
5
4.8
year 1
year 2
year 3
4.6
4.4



Diploma
Degree
Southern (Dip)
Overall students on both programmes viewed working hard
to do well academically less positively by the third year.
(Diploma – M 4.78, 4.74,4.70) (Degree – M 4.85,
4.83,4.64)
Southern Diploma held opposite view in year 3 (M – 4.64,
4.60.4.79)
Impact on life long learning
Studying hard to get good marks in tests
and exams
admire


5
4.8
4.6
4.4
4.2
year 1
year 2
year 3
Diploma
Degree
S Dip
Overall Diploma and Degree students viewed
studying hard to get good marks in tests and
exams less favourably in the third year.
Exception Southern Diploma students
Between subjects effects

For the sub set ‘educational values’

University accounted for 3.6% of variance
(p=.001)

Programme of study accounted for 6.1% of
variance (p=>.001)

Year of study accounted for 3.2% of variance
(p=>.001)
Conclusions




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There were some variable specific differences
between the student groups
There was values congruence across the diploma
groups as there was across the degree groups
The biggest difference between the student
groups was accounted for by programme of
study.
For some educational values there was no
evidence of improvement over time
Many students are leaving nurse education with
less intellectual enthusiasm than with which they
entered.
Thank you
Carol Haigh
[email protected]
 Natalie Yates-Bolton
[email protected]
 Martin Johnson
[email protected]
