Doctoral graduates' attitudes toward scholarly work and Institutional Review Board and Quality Improvement Committee...

Educators are challenged to find better ways to prepare doctoral nursing students to conduct scholarly work involving human subjects.

To better understand doctoral nursing students' attitudes toward programmatic scholarly work and Institutional Review Board (IRB)/Quality Improvement Committee (QIC) education and submission processes.

Recent Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and Philosophy of Nursing (PhD) graduates were recruited using convenience sampling techniques to participate in this cross-sectional, descriptive, mixed-methods pilot study. Data were collected using two researcher-developed instruments.

Nineteen doctoral nursing students participated in this study. Students most often used a quantitative approach with health care providers to complete their scholarly work requirements. Both PhD and DNP participants were overall satisfied with the IRB/QIC content in the curricula and the submission process. Four themes were identified: (a) Efficiency, (b) Collaboration, (c) Faculty Mentorship, and (d) Areas for Improvement.

Findings from this pilot study may be used to enhance IRB/QIC processes through revision of administrative processes and student education.