Graduate student self-efficacy: Implications of a concept analysis

Nurses with graduate degrees play pivotal roles in nursing care, education, and research. Alarming trends of a nurse faculty shortage and high levels of graduate nursing student attrition highlight the need to better understand the experiences of graduate nursing students.

The purpose of this paper is to define the concept of self-efficacy in graduate students as it pertains to enrollment, retention, and graduation.

Using Rodgers' Evolutionary Method of concept analysis, self-efficacy was analyzed from the literature of various disciplines, including nursing.

Antecedents, attributes, and consequences of self-efficacy were identified from 23 studies. Self-efficacy in graduate students is sourced by perceived, positive experiences. Its attributes are personal, malleable, goal-driven, a resource, knowledge, and trust. Graduate student self-efficacy results in productive thoughts, feelings, and actions that culminate in successful outcomes.

Self-efficacy has been identified by researchers in other disciplines as a helpful concept for understanding why and how graduate students initiate, continue, and complete their degrees. With a dearth of research exploring nursing graduate student self-efficacy, qualitative research is needed to understand the role this concept plays in graduate nursing education. Nevertheless, the findings of this concept analysis may serve as a starting point to inform nursing graduate education practice.