BACCALAUREATE AND ASSOCIATE DEGREE STUDENT NURSES\u27 CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE ATTITUDES TOWARD BLACK AMERICAN CLIENTS (DIVERSITY, HEALTH, NURSING EDUCATION)

A large number of student nurses are enrolled in either a Baccalaureate or Associate Degree nursing program that offers cultural diversity learning experiences. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare baccalaureate and associate degree student nurses\u27 cultural knowledge of and attitudes toward black American clients. Has the teaching of cultural diversity health practices in either the four-year baccalaureate or the two-year associate degree nursing program resulted in the acquisition of demonstrable cultural knowledge of and appropriate attitudes toward black American clients? The sample consisted of 110 baccalaureate and associate degree senior and freshmen students from National League for Nurses accredited schools of nursing in Southeastern Wisconsin that included cultural diversity educational experiences in their curricula. Each participating school was responsible for administering the three part questionnaire: a biographic section, a cultural knowledge tool-reliability .76, and an attitude scale-reliability coefficient .91 for Black American clients. Cross tabulation and chi-square were used to describe the sample in terms of age, race, marital status and cultural diversity educational experiences. The t test was used to compare the two nursing educational programs\u27 student nurses\u27 cultural knowledge of and attitudes toward black American clients. Analysis indicated that there was statistically significant difference in cultural knowledge between the two programs and no difference in attitudes toward black American cleints at p \u3c .05 level. An Anova comparison of the four class groups\u27 cultural knowledge and attitudes means indicated significant difference in attitudes at the p \u3c .001 level. An analysis for direction of the cultural knowledge differences was done using the Newman-Keuls procedure. Results indicated that baccalaureate-degree freshmen (the least in rank, X = 56.52) was significantly different from the other three classes in cultural knowledge of black American clients, p \u3c .05. There were no significant differences in the associate-degree freshmen (X = 71.85) baccalaureate-degree seniors (X = 70.92) and associate-degree seniors (X = 70.08) cultural knowledge of black American clients. No significant difference was indicated between the classes in attitudes toward black American clients at p \u3c .05 level. Implications of these findings were discussed and a number of suggestions for further research was made