Professional attitude is the individual’s perception of a certain occupation and the psychological tendency to react in terms of behavior, which is the foundation of professional ethics.1
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%.
The research team consulted experts to design the questionnaire, which included gender, grade, source of birth, professional voluntary choice, academic performance, and education level of the main guardians.
The original nursing professional identity questionnaire was compiled by Hu Zhonghua5 and includes six dimensions: professional cognition, professional will, professional emotions, professional expectations, professional skills, and professional values. It was divided into 25 items based on Likert 5 grade to score, and the scores revealed that higher the score, the higher the professional recognition would be. Yin Yajuan6 team revised the original questionnaire according to the characteristics of the vocational nursing profession, and re-tested the reliability of the six dimensions of the revised scale. The test coefficient
The scale was compiled by Liang Yusong7 based on the relevant questionnaires designed by Pintrich,8 and was divided into two dimensions of learning ability self-efficacy and learning behavior self-efficacy with a total of 22 items, using Likert 5 grade to score. The Cronbach’s α coefficients of the scale and 2 dimensions were 0.872, 0.820, and 0.752.
The original scale was compiled by Hisar,9 and the translated Chinese version of I-PASN was done by Xiao Yuying.10 The scale contains 7 dimensions including professional development, cooperation, contribution to scientific knowledge, ethical standards and theories, nursing autonomy, community service and continuing education with a total of 28 entries; Using Likert 5 grade to score, and the higher the score, the more professional attitude would be. The total Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.868, and the factor load of each item was between 0.409 and 0.838. The extracted factors explain the 57.0% of the total variation and had good reliability and validity.
SPSS21.0 was used for
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.
The professional attitude scores of vocational nursing students (
Dimension | Score | Item average |
---|---|---|
Professional attitude | 106.34 ± 10.86 | 3.79 ± 0.85 |
Professional development | 23.12 ± 3.77 | 3.85 ± 0.56 |
Cooperation | 17.89 ± 3.52 | 3.58 ± 0.72 |
Contribution to scientific knowledge | 20.92 ± 3.90 | 3.49 ± 0.67 |
Ethical standards and theories | 11.76 ± 2.53 | 3.92 ± 0.72 |
Nursing autonomy | 12.48 ± 2.31 | 4.16 ± 0.83 |
Community service | 6.39 ± 1.38 | 3.20 ± 0.64 |
Continuing education | 13.78 ± 2.47 | 4.59 ± 0.79 |
Professional attitude is positively correlated with academic self-efficacy and professional identity (Table 2).
Correlation analysis on professional attitude, academic self-efficacy, and professional identity.
Item | Professional attitude | |
---|---|---|
Academic self-efficacy | ||
Self efficacy of learning ability | 0.412 | 0.007 |
Self efficacy of learning behavior | 0.245 | 0.042 |
Total score | 0.323 | 0.025 |
Professional identity | ||
Professional cognition | 0.421 | 0.008 |
Professional will | 0.428 | 0.006 |
Professional emotions | 0.246 | 0.134 |
Professional expectations | 0.152 | 0.048 |
Professional skill | 0.261 | 0.206 |
Professional values | 0.437 | 0.037 |
Total score | 0.305 | 0.044 |
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 (
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 (
The results of this study show that the professional attitude of vocational nursing students is at the upper middle level, and the awareness of community service needs to be improved. Academic self-efficacy and professional identity are important predictors of professional attitude. Self-efficacy of learning behavior, professional cognition, professional will, and professional values have a significant impact on the importance of establishing professional attitudes for vocational nursing students. Professional attitude is the foundation of professional ethics and takes a primary position in the process of optimizing the quality of nursing students. According to the actual situation of nursing students, nursing education practitioners should actively guide students to properly and objectively understand the majors they learn, strengthen professional will, enhance professional values, and finally cultivate their good professional attitudes.