Relationship of a preceptorship experience to the views about nursing as a profession of baccalaureate nursing students.

In nursing education, preceptorship experiences have gained much popularity as a teaching/socializing strategy. This strategy is assumed to assist students in bridging the practice-theory gap and in becoming socialized to the professional role of the nurse but there has been minimal research on the effectiveness of the strategy in the professional socialisation of nursing students. This study examined the effects of a preceptorship experience on baccalaureate nursing students' perceptions about professional nursing before and after 4-week and 7-week preceptorship experiences. Variables such as the length of the experience and the educational preparation of preceptors were included to determine their influence on students' perceptions of the professional role. A pre-test/post-test design was used. Senior baccalaureate nursing students with a preceptorship component in their program formed the non-randomised convenience sample (n = 103). Data collection was through the administration of the Valiga Concept of Nursing Scale (1982). Results showed that, while there were no significant differences in students' perceptions after a 4-week preceptorship experience, a significant difference was found after the 7-week preceptorship experience. Interestingly, no significant differences were discerned when the two groups were compared post preceptorship. The students paired with baccalaureate prepared nurses had a significantly greater increase in score than the students paired with diploma prepared nurses.