A STUDY ON THE FACTORS INFLUENCING THE CAREER CHOICE OF NURSING STUDENTS

Li-Ling Yang, RN, MSN and Yueh-Chin Chung, Ph. D.*

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The career choice of nursing students is to have professional recognition and commitment to the nursing work, strengthen presentation, and continue choosing nursing career after experiencing socialized internship. Purpose: The main purpose is to explore the relevant influencing factors of nursing career choice.The sample of this study comprises 162 fifth-grade five-year-diploma students of the nursing department, and they have all completed the annual internship. Design: With cross-sectional research, the data were collected with the structured questionnaire survey method. The main contents included students‟ personal background, internship experience, professional commitment, and nursing career choice. The SPSS 20.0 statistical software package was used to establish files and analyze the data. Statistical methods, such as descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, ANOVA analysis, chi-square test, Pearson product–difference correlation, and logistic regression analysis, were used. Results: Results corroborated that the average score of internship experience was 3.20 ± 0.31, and that of professional commitment was 3.07 ± 0.50. A significant difference was found in whether tutors have a nursing background (t = −2.310, p < .05) and in professional commitment (t = −2.507, p < .05). A significant relationship with career choice was also found (X2 value = 10.37, p < .05). Internship results affirmed significant difference with internship experience (F = 9.440, p < .001) and professional commitment (F = 20.232, p < .001). The decision maker to study nursing confirmed significant difference with professional commitment (F = 6.058, p < .01). The correlation coefficient between internship experience and professional commitment total scores affirmed a significant moderate positive correlation (r = 0.57, p < .001), indicating that the better the internship experience, the higher the professional commitment. Career choice showed a significant difference with professional commitment (t = 2.652, p < .01). The important predictors affecting the career choice of nursing students include three independent variables: whether tutors have a nursing background (p <.05), whether family members are engaged in nursing work (p < .05), and professional commitment (p < .05).Conclusions: The nursing education unit must establish a system of associate tutors, implement tutoring and care mechanism, arrange emergency and severe disease courses and related internship units according to the needs of students, strengthen the positive concept of nursing internship experience and professional commitment during the school period, and establish exclusive counseling mechanism for career choice.

Keywords: nursing student, internship experience, professional commitment, career choice.