%0 Journal Article
%T Using a Socioecological Framework to Understand the Career Choices of Single- and Double-Degree Nursing Students and Double-Degree Graduates
%A Noelene Hickey
%A Linda Harrison
%A Jennifer Sumsion
%J ISRN Nursing
%D 2012
%R 10.5402/2012/748238
%X Untested changes in nursing education in Australia, such as the introduction of double degrees in nursing, necessitate a new research approach to study nursing career pathways. A review of the literature on past and present career choice theories demonstrates these are inadequate to gain an understanding of contemporary nursing studentsĄ¯ career choices. With the present worldwide shortage of nurses, an understanding of career choice becomes a critical component of recruitment and retention strategies. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how an ecological system approach based on BronfenbrennerĄ¯s theory of human development can be used to understand and examine the influences affecting nursing studentsĄ¯ and graduatesĄ¯ career development and career choices. BronfenbrennerĄ¯s socioecological model was adapted to propose a new Nursing Career Development Framework as a way of conceptualizing the career development of nursing students undertaking traditional bachelor of nursing and nontraditional double-degree nursing programs. This Framework is then applied to a study of undergraduate nursesĄ¯ career decision making, using a sequential explanatory mixed method study. The paper demonstrates the relevance of this approach for addressing challenges associated with nursing recruitment, education, and career choice. 1. Introduction The overall effectiveness of any healthcare system depends on a viable nursing workforce to provide optimum population health outcomes [1]. Yet that viability is under increasing threat as the recruitment and retention of nurses both in Australia and overseas reaches a crisis point [2¨C4]. At the time of writing, estimated shortages in Australia stand at approximately 10,000 registered nurses [5]. Furthermore, research from several comparable western countries has shown that between 30% and 61% of new graduates intend to leave nursing within their first year [6, 7]. Supply of new graduates from university bachelor of nursing (BN) programs is not able to keep up with demand [8, 9]. In 2002, in an attempt to address this problem, the Australian Federal Government increased the number of funded places for nurse education in universities [10, 11]. Many of these places became situated in new double-degree programs that combine a bachelor of nursing (BN) with another undergraduate degree. Double degrees (DDs), also known as joint, dual, or combined degrees are well established in Australia [12¨C14] and are slowly on the rise in Europe [15]. These DDs involving nursing are studied conjointly and can be either within a similar discipline
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.nursing/2012/748238/