Engaging undergraduate nursing students in perioperative research

Actively engaging in perioperative research lays a framework for stimulating interest in future research possibilities and provides students and graduate nurses with challenges to keep them interested as their careers progress. In this article, former honors students and a faculty researcher share their perceptions of participating in perioperative research. The primary investigator must emphasize learning throughout the process, be available to the students, provide structured guidance, and clarify the goals and expectations of the research experience. The students gain a greater understanding of the research process, discover the dedication and ethical values that are required of the researcher, learn how theory becomes the underlying framework for the research, and discover how descriptive statistics can be used to help explain the study results. Involvement in applied research may encourage these students to continue to contribute to evidence-based practice when they are employed as nurses and thus improve patient care.