An investigation of the effects of teaching professionalism to associate degree nursing students

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate if students who received a specific professional development teaching module scored differently than peers who did not receive the professional teaching module. Subjects in the study were 43 Associate Degree senior nursing students in their final semester of a five semester program. Students were randomly assigned to Group I (the experimental group), 21 subjects; or Group II (the control group), 22 subjects. Both groups were administered the Hall Professional Development Inventory (Hall, 1968) (HPDI) initially, at the onset of the semester, as a pretest. Following the pretest, the experimental group was presented a 6-hour teaching module on professional development. Near the end of the semester, both groups were again administered the Hall tool (HPDI) a second time and Group II was then given the professional development teaching module following the second testing period. Data were collected using the Hall Professional Development Inventory which assesses an individual\u27s level of professionalism on five attitudinal scales: use of professional organization as a major reference, a belief in service to the public, a belief in self-regulation, a sense of calling to the field, and autonomy. Results indicated no significant differences in professional attitudes between groups on any of the five attitudinal areas, either at the first testing period or the second testing period. There were also no significant differences between the pretest and post-test scores of Group I indicating the teaching module had no measurable effects on the scores. In relation to the demographic data, the majority of students (37%) attributed their current level of professional development to their spouses