Challenges to research progression among part-time master's students in nursing in China: a qualitative descriptive study

Since 2017, master's programs in nursing in China have admitted part-time candidates who remain in full-time clinical employment throughout their studies. Slow research progress among these students has become a recognized concern. In this study, slow research progress is conceptualized as a phenomenon arising from the interplay of conditions across several levels. Its observable marker is sustained delay in thesis-related milestones. Drawing on Role Theory and Ecological Systems Theory as sensitizing frameworks, this study describes the challenges that part-time master's students in nursing encounter in research progression and the multilevel conditions that shape them.

This qualitative descriptive study was conducted at one medical university in China. Fourteen participants, including two who had withdrawn after exceeding the maximum permitted duration of study, were recruited by maximum-variation purposive and snowball sampling between October and December 2025. Seventeen semi-structured interview sessions, including three supplementary interviews, were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Sample size was judged against the concept of information power. The study is reported in accordance with the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ).

Five themes were developed, namely role conflicts and resource depletion, structural barriers within the microsystem, insufficient support from mesosystem and exosystem levels, macro-level cultural influences, and temporal-developmental constraints. The first four themes were described by participants at every stage of candidature. By contrast, the sequence from interrupted learning through deferral to loss of academic confidence was elaborated mainly by participants in later years and by those who had withdrawn.

Participants' accounts support treating slow research progress as a trajectory shaped by conditions operating at several levels rather than as an individual trait or behavior. Participants themselves, however, sometimes explained their difficulties in individual terms. The findings indicate that support for part-time postgraduate learners in nursing should not target students alone. It also needs to address the organization of clinical work, the coordination between hospital and university, and the design of the part-time route.