Nursing Student's Experiences

Nursing Students Experiences

Introduction

I have selected the topic “Nursing Students Experiences” for this essay. Three articles from online research journal databases have been selected and analyzed. The names of those three articles have been provided in appendices.

Literature Review

The first article which has been selected for analysis is about the experiences of Montana State University nursing students. This article has covered the perceptions of students concerning factors that lead to success in a nursing program at University of Montana.

Overview

Retaining nursing students in nursing courses and programs across the country is a major concern especially in times of serious and grave nursing shortages in United States. Nursing education in a country is expensive and students who drops out in the middle of a program actually makes it more expensive because throughout their time in nursing programs, valuable resources are invested on them on a priority basis and they take those resources which could have been otherwise invested on other students who could have provided a results to their community unlike drop out students. This research article has attempted to understand and discover the personal and program factor that previous non-persistent, graduates, and current students have reported to be helping in keeping them persistent in their nursing programs at Montana State University. This research study has also explored personal and program factors those previous non-persistent, graduates, and current students have reported to be de-motivating for them and contribute in their decision to drop out from nursing program (Johannes, 2007, Pp. 933).

Aim

Aim of this article to explore the factors that help nursing students to keep pursuing their education in the area of nursing as well as those factors which make them drop out and leave the nursing education.

Sample

114 Students have been asked about the motivating/de-motivating factors out of the population of 191 students who were inducted into the nursing program in Montana State University from 2002 to 2004.

Methodology

Study was divided into two parts, qualitative and quantitative. A Questionnaire has been used by researchers for data collection purpose for quantitative portion. Twenty four students are interviewed for qualitative portion.

Findings

Findings for this research study consisted of 21 distinct themes. The main themes were found to be program factors of the relationship between students and faculty, peers support, and particular factors related to curriculum in the program were perceived by students as helping factors in their education. Personal factors were found to be a commitment and determination to their goal of becoming a nurse, help and support from family, realization of complexities of a program, and self esteem (Numminen et al., 2011, Pp. 710).

Discussion

Recommendations which were made in this research study include developing several strategies for promoting student-faculty relationships, encouraging peer to peer contact among students for developing stronger peer support during their nursing education, undertaking specific curriculum changes aimed at making it more modern and easier for the students, investigating financial resources of students and assisting them financially so that they don't have to work longer hours while in nursing program to make ...