Doctoral Dissertations
Date of Award
8-1982
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Major Professor
Bill C. Wallace
Committee Members
Sylvia Hart, W.J. Huffman, K. Owen McCullough, Charles Hamilton
Abstract
The primary purpose of the study was to identify the characteristics of the male student enrolled in professional nursing programs in Tennessee. A secondary purpose was to identify the characteristics of the female enrolled in professional nursing programs in Tennessee and to compare the male and the female student. The null hypothesis that there was no difference in the two groups was explored.
Data were obtained from 24 males and 26 females enrolled in six Baccalaureate Degree Nursing Programs and one Generic Masters Nursing Program in Tennessee. Two personality instruments and a demographic question naire were used to provide the data. The two personality instruments were the Cattell Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The t test for difference between two sample means was used at the 0.05 level of significance. The Omegasquared (W 2 ) was used to compute the significant t value. No significant difference was found in 14 of the 16 P.F. primary source traits. The null hypothesis that there was no difference was rejected for Factors F and I and also for two second-stratum factors and for two derived criteria scores. The female student was more impulsive, lively, and happy-go-lucky than the male, and was more extraverted, employed a more rational, objective approach and showed higher leadership potential. Male students were more tender minded and showed higher creativity potential.
Additional findings were that the personality characteristics of both the male and female were more masculine than feminine. Both were more dominant, more self-sufficient, more self-disciplined, more venturesome, more abstract thinking, more calm and stable, more conscientious, and more relaxed and composed. Both demonstrated executive characteristics.
The male nursing student was older, more likely to be married, and likely to have previous undergraduate degrees. They liked working with concrete facts, were intellectually ingenious and adept at problem solving, were resourceful, preferred their own decisions, were introspective and stuck to their inner values, and conservative with respect for established ideas.
Recommended Citation
Badgett, Wynella Bramblett, "Identification and comparison of characteristics of the male and female in professional nursing programs in Tennessee. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1982.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/13180