Measuring expectations for participative decision making among graduating nurses

This paper reports on the initial stage of a research program that examines decisions nurses expect to participate in and the methods by which they expect to participate. This stage of the research focuses on the development of a scale, the Participative Decision Making Scale for Nurses (PDMSN), to measure expectations for participative decision making (PDM) among graduating nurses. It has four subscales that measure expectations for participation in clinical, unit, hospitalwide, and strategic decisions. The PDMSN was administered to two groups of graduating nursing students. Results indicate that the subscales of the PDMSN have high internal consistency; alpha coefficients in Study 1 and Study 2 ranged from .70 to .85 and from .76 to .90, respectively. Patterns of correlations among the subscales and significant correlations with an alternative scale measuring PDM indicate that it is a valid instrument.