No abstract

This paper was designed to explore the relationships of three role conception types (the professional, bureaucratic and service role conceptions) to the ethical behaviour of student nurses from the apprenticeship and degree nursing programmes in Hong Kong. The effect of role discrepancy on ethical behaviour will also be explored. A nonprobability convenience sampling of 140 certificate students from a hospital-based training course and 81 degrees nursing students from a tertiary programme were selected. Role conception and role discrepancy were measured by the modified Nursing Role Conception scale originally developed by Corwin. For ethical behaviour, the Judgement About Nursing Decisions scale developed by Ketefian was used. Multiple regression analyses showed that the ideal professional role conception was a significant predictor, accounting for 17% of the variance in the ideal ethical score of the degree students. Actual service role conception was a better predictor of the actual ethical score, explaining 10% and 14% of its variance for the certificate and degree students respectively. Professional and bureaucratic role discrepancies together were found to have a negative effect on the actual ethical behaviour of the degree students. These results suggest that professional values that have been developed through socialization in nurse education programmes could benefit patients only when degree students, in particular, could adapt successfully to the demands of bureaucratic organization.

This paper reports on a cross-sectional survey that aimed to compare the role conception types and role discrepancy between 140 certificate and 81 degree nursing students in Hong Kong. Non-probability convenience sampling was used and the participants selected from the hospital-based training were first, third and fourth study block students. Second-, third- and fourth-year students from the degree programme were selected for comparison. The role conception scale developed by Pieta was modified and adopted to measure the role conception and discrepancy. ANOVA test was performed to examine differences across and within the two groups. The results showed that the degree students had a significantly higher ideal but lower actual professional role conception than the certificate students. An interaction effect between the groups (certificate--degree) and grades (stages of education) was detected in the ideal professional role, indicating a marked drop of the score for the fourth-year degree students. For the discrepancy role conception score, the degree students had a significantly higher discrepancy score in all the three role conception types compared with their certificate counterparts. In summary, the impact of the educational process on the development of role conception was demonstrated. Compared to the certificate students, the ward practice seemed to exert a far greater impact on degree students' role conception.