Effect of a career decision-making course on the career planning of nursing students

This study assessed whether participation in a structured career decision-making course would enhance the career planning of 42 final semester associate degree nursing students. Levels of career planning were measured by the Career Planning Scale (CPS) (Super, Thompson, Lindman, Jordaan, & Myers, 1982), and the Nursing Career Development Inventory (NCDI) (Savickas, 1984). Subjects were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. The experimental group received a four-week career decision-making course, which included self-assessment of values, interests, and skills, and information on occupational opportunities in nursing. An ANOVA on the change scores from pretest to post-test revealed significance between the groups on the CPS (p = .002), and on the NCDI (p less than .00001). The experimental group progressed much more in career planning. All subjects were found to have lower levels of career planning than the average college student at pretest. Intercorrelational data and multiple regression analyses indicated that individuals who had worked in a nursing-related field had higher levels of career planning. Overall, the course emerged as being effective in enhancing the career planning of nursing students.