Nursing Student's Perceptions on the Role of Instructors and Institute in Their Professional Socialization

Professional socialization is a process in which a person acquires the values, norms, behaviors, and social skills, and internalizes the sense of identity and commitment to a discipline. This process takes place officially and unofficially at faculties during the study period and continues toward the completion of nursing education and entering the work environment. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate nursing students’ perceptions on the role of instructors and institute in their professional socialization.
In this descriptive cross-sectional study, all nursing students (n=175) were studied at the end of the 2, 4, 6, and 8 semesters in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, 2017. A questionnaire was used to collect data on demographic characteristics, instructors characteristics, and institute characteristics. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS (V. 13) and descriptive – inferential statistics.
The results showed that in the professional socialization of nursing students, the role of instructors was moderate to high and the role of the institute was moderate to low. Among the characteristics of the instructors, the personality traits and educational behaviors had a higher mean score. In this study, compassion, professional communication, preparation of the students for professional responsibilities, and the making a connection between the subjects and nursing values were reported as significant features of instructors in socialization. Student's perceptions on personality traits (P = 0.023), the nature of the relationship (P =0.002 and educational behaviors (P =0.014) differed significantly in different semesters. The institute did not play a significant role in the professional socialization of students so that only 19 individuals (13.1%) were satisfied with socialization.
In this study, student's perceptions of the role of instructors and institutes were varied in different semesters, and it was found that instructors, in comparison to the institution, played a better role in the professional socialization of nursing students. It is recommended that the role of the institution should be improved in the process of professional socialization of nursing students.