Abstract

Despite more than 40 years of research and governmental support, African Americans continue to be underrepresented in the nursing profession compared to the population it serves. Though some progress has been made over the past 20 years, the American Nurses Association (ANA), American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), National Black Nurses Association (NBNA) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) continue to identify increasing diversity as a disciplinary priority. Further understanding of the experiences of African American nursing students is needed to inform decisions about recruitment, retention and successful matriculation of these students. This qualitative descriptive study focused on understanding the experiences, and the meaning those experiences had, for African American students who attended predominately European American schools of nursing. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with fourteen African American nurses who shared their experiences in prelicensure nursing programs. Thematic analysis revealed two salient themes: ";Standing out"; and ";It's not just about me."; The findings from this study shed new light on this persistent issue and inform faculty members and nursing school administrators about the strategies and ways of framing the educational experience that may create environments that are welcoming to African American students to address the retention of African American students in pre-licensure nursing programs.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 10119269; ProQuest document ID: 1795570272. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Barbara Jean White, PhD, RN, CPN, CNE

Sigma Membership

Alpha

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Descriptive/Correlational

Research Approach

Qualitative Research

Keywords:

Nursing Students, African American Nursing Students, Nursing Education, Nursing Diversity

Advisor

Pamela M. Ironside

Second Advisor

Kristina Thomas Dreifuerst

Third Advisor

Jomo W. Mutegi

Fourth Advisor

Sharron J. Crowder

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

Indiana University

Degree Year

2016

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2021-11-29

Full Text of Presentation

wf_yes

Download

Share

COinS