Exploring factors affecting registered nurses' pursuit of postgraduate education in Australia

Linda Ng, Robert Eley and Anthony Tuckett

Nursing & Health Sciences, 2016, vol. 18, issue 4, 435-441

Abstract: The aim of this study was to explore the factors influencing registered nurses' pursuit of postgraduate education in specialty nursing practice in Australia. Despite the increased requirement for postgraduate education for advanced practice, little has been reported on the contributory factors involved in the decision to undertake further education. The Nurses' Attitudes Towards Postgraduate Education instrument was administered to 1632 registered nurses from the Nurses and Midwives e‐Cohort Study across Australia, with a response rate of 35.9% (n = 568). Data reduction techniques using principal component analysis with varimax rotation were used. The analysis identified a three‐factor solution for 14 items, accounting for 52.5% of the variance of the scale: “facilitators,” “professional recognition,” and “inhibiting factors.” Facilitators of postgraduate education accounted for 28.5% of the variance, including: (i) improves knowledge; (ii) increases nurses' confidence in clinical decision‐making; (iii) enhances nurses' careers; (iv) improves critical thinking; (v) improves nurses' clinical skill; and (vi) increased job satisfaction. This new instrument has potential clinical and research applications to support registered nurses' pursuit of postgraduate education.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/nhs.12289

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:nuhsci:v:18:y:2016:i:4:p:435-441

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Nursing & Health Sciences from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().