Correlation among academic self-efficacy, professional identity, and professional attitude of higher vocational nursing students^†

A total of 656 nursing students from 2 vocational colleges in Zhengzhou were selected as research subjects using the convenient sampling method from September to November 2019. Inclusion criteria are: (1) Full-time students enrolled in nursing majors who have passed the national unified college entrance examination starting point of high school; and (2) Volunteer to participate in this research. Exclusion criteria are: transferred professionals and dropouts or leavers.

For conducting the on-site investigation by class, the questionnaires were issued in a unified way after obtaining the consent of the respondents. Before the survey, the researcher explained the purpose of the study and the principle of confidentiality to the respondents and applied the unified guidelines to guide the filling of the questionnaire, and collected the questionnaire on site. A total of 692 questionnaires were sent out and 656 effective questionnaires were recovered, with an effective rate of 94.79%.

SPSS21.0 was used for t test, χ² test, and Pearson correlation analysis. The difference was considered statistically significant when P < 0.05.

A total of 656 vocational nursing students participated—32 males and 624 females, aged 18–25 (21 ± 2.76) years; 289 aged 18–20 years and 367 aged 21–25 years. Sources of students: 455 in rural areas and 201 in urban areas; Professional voluntary selection method: 101 people choose independently, 419 parents or others will, 136 people transfer; Learning situation (average score):79 students: ≥85 points, 241 students: 76–84 points, 298 students: 60–75 points, 38 students: <60 points; The education level of the main guardians: 177 people in junior high school and below, 397 people in high school or secondary school, and 82 people in college and above.

The academic self-efficacy score of nursing students in higher vocational colleges was (75.27 ± 9.27), average score (3.42 ± 0.61), learning ability (38.36 ± 6.35), learning behavior (36.91 ± 5.64); The Professional recognition total score was (68.42 ± 9.38), average score (2.74 ± 0.76), professional recognition (14.29 ± 3.20), professional will (16.72 ± 3.43), professional emotion (14.17 ± 2.39), professional expect (9.09 ± 2.24), professional skills (11.51 ± 2.65), and professional values (2.81 ± 0.54). The professional attitude scores of higher vocational nursing students are shown in Table 1.

Professional attitude is positively correlated with academic self-efficacy and professional identity (Table 2).

The results of the survey show that the total score of professional attitudes (106.34 ± 10.86) of nursing students in higher vocational schools is higher than the 70-point mark in the Hisar I-PASN scale, which is generally consistent with the results of Liang Huilian¹¹ team. The highest score among the 7 dimensions is continuing education with an average score of (4.59 ± 0.79). Perhaps the current medical institutions need higher qualities for nursing talents, and vocational nursing students also recognize their deficiencies and look forward to continuing education to improve one’s academic qualifications and abilities. The lowest score is community service. The reason may be that domestic community nursing started lately, and the hospitals where nursing students practiced have not involved the community field in practice, and so the vocational nursing students have not yet understood the community nursing. The survey found that¹² vocational nursing students generally believe that community nursing work has low social recognition relatively, lack of development space, and poor welfare treatment, which indicate that vocational nursing students lack necessary understanding of nursing work in the community and fail to recognize its development trend and prospects.

Academic self-efficacy refers to the individual’s judgment and self-confidence in the ability to complete academic tasks.¹³ The performance of self-efficacy in the learning field and the degree of self-confidence that students use in their abilities or skills are used to complete learning tasks evaluation. The Ferla¹⁴ team research found that academic self-efficacy can predict important indicators of academic performance and can give students strong thinking and confidence. The results of the study show that the professional attitude of high vocational nursing students is positively correlated with academic self-efficacy (P < 0.05) and positively correlated with learning ability self-efficacy (P < 0.01), indicating that the stronger the academic self-efficacy of nursing students, the more professional positive attitude. Higher vocational nursing students’ strong sense of academic self-efficacy can promote their positive professional attitude, and further, positive professional attitude will also promote the improvement of academic self-efficacy.¹⁵ Students with high-level learning ability and self-efficacy feel that they have the ability to complete learning tasks, and they can work hard and diligently when they encounter academic difficulties and frustrations. The Høigaard team found that learning ability self-efficacy can affect academics through psychological hint achievement.¹⁶ However, Palida’s research believed that self-efficacy is related to professional attitudes. Academic self-efficacy does not significantly affect professional attitudes.¹⁷ The reason may be that the selected research subjects are from different regions and different ethnic groups, and nurses of different regions will have different views on professional attitudes. Further, the research team can try to expand the area and increase the sample size for future research.

Professional identity is a dynamic concept that accompanies the learning process. It refers to the emotional acceptance and recognition of learners on the basis of cognitive understanding of the disciplines studied, together with positive external behaviors and inner appropriateness, a process of empathy, attitude and even cognition.¹⁸ The results of this study show that the professional attitude of professional nursing students is positively correlated with professional identity (P < 0.05). The higher the professional identity, the more positive the professional attitude will be. In all dimensions, professional cognition, professional will, professional expectations, and professional values can significantly affect the professional attitude of nursing students (P < 0.05). A high level of professional cognition is helpful to a high level of professional input,¹⁹ which can further promote a good professional attitude of nursing students, and an enhanced professional identity will further promote their motivation to learn professional knowledge and thus achieving a benign professional attitude and professional identity circulate which will promote each other. Kyung believes that the higher the professional interest of nursing students,²⁰ the more positive the professional attitude. If the interest is not high, professionals will play a decisive role. Professional values can directly affect individual behavior and cognition, and also have a significant impact on their professional attitudes. Therefore, from the perspective of professional identification, medical teachers and teaching managers can adopt a variety of methods to integrate professional emotion and professional will in the teaching process, and gradually help nursing students to form a positive professional attitude through external factors.