What Makes Them Stay? A Study of Nursing Faculty Persistence

There is a nursing faculty shortage contributing to the nursing shortage that necessitates more than just standard recruitment and retention efforts. The purpose of this study was to understand faculty persistence by asking nurse faculty members why they persist in their educating role, what factors influence their persistence, and what obstacles could impede persistence. The study used a basic qualitative research design using semi-structured interviews. The sample consisted of nine nurse faculty members teaching full-time for five or more years in BSN nursing programs in the state of Illinois. Interview data revealed persistent nurse faculty members possessed beneficial personal characteristics, such as passion and a desire to make a difference, and had positive work circumstances with collegial peer relationships and supportive administration. They also made a conscious choice to stay and were committed to their role despite the presence of obstacles to persistence. Implications for practice are fostering attributes of persistence, creating positive work environments, and reducing obstacles to persistence, such as workload and autocratic nursing administration. Further research is needed using different populations of nurse faculty members to validate findings and quantitative measures to rank influential and obstructing factors on persistence