Professional socialisation of nursing students as an outcome of a senior clinical preceptorship experience.

The study purpose was to examine the effects of a senior clinical preceptorship experience on the professional socialisation of nursing students. Corwin's (1961) conception of the professional nursing role and literature on professional socialisation provided the model for the study. A three-group, pre- and post-test design was used. The voluntary, non-randomised sample was drawn from 242 senior community college, baccalaureate and RN-BScN nursing students. Instruments were the Lawler-Corwin (1988) Nursing Role Conception Scale and the Lawler-Stone (1988) Health Care Professional Attitude Inventory. Demographic data were collected. One-way ANOVA was used to compare the mean scores among the three groups. For statistically significant (p < 0.05) F tests, Student-Newman-Keuls multiple comparison tests were used to determine which pairs of groups were different. Pre-post scores were compared using paired t-tests. Following the preceptorship, on the Lawler-Stone subscales, the groups became more professional and more similar in attitude. On Corwin's three role conceptions, the total group reported less role conflict, with the community college students having the least and the RN-BScN students the most amount of conflict. The mixed results emphasise that professional socialization requires further research, especially as an outcome of a preceptorship experience for RN-BScN students.