Use of intuition by nursing students: instrument development and testing

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Psychometrics
• Clinical Reasoning

Background:

• Intuition is recognized as a crucial component of nursing knowledge and professional expertise.
• Existing measures for intuition primarily target experienced nurses, leaving a gap for student assessment.
• Nursing students' intuitive abilities are vital for developing advanced clinical judgment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and psychometrically test an instrument for measuring intuition use among nursing students.
• To provide a reliable tool for evaluating the development of intuitive skills in nursing education.
• To define and operationalize intuition within the context of student nursing practice.

Main Methods:

• Instrument development involved concept clarification, item generation from literature and interviews, and expert content validation (CVI=0.86).
• A 33-item measure was refined through pretesting and nationwide validation with 349 senior nursing students (BSN and ADN).
• Principal component analysis identified seven factors, leading to a revised 25-item scale.

Main Results:

• The final 25-item measure demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including an overall Cronbach's alpha of 0.89.
• Factor analysis revealed seven distinct dimensions of student intuition: physical sensations, premonitions, spiritual connections, cue recognition, energy sensing, apprehension, and reassuring feelings.
• Factor loadings ranged from 0.534 to 0.858, with eigenvalues from 1 to 7.1, explaining 66.2% of the variance.

Conclusions:

• The developed 25-item instrument exhibits evidence of construct validity and reliability for assessing intuition in nursing students.
• This validated measure can be utilized in nursing education to identify and potentially enhance students' intuitive capacities.
• Further research and testing are recommended to fully establish the measure's utility in fostering intuitive development.