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Nurse Educator Vol. 38, No. 6, pp. 246-251 Copyright * 2013 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Developing a Sense of Community Among Nursing Students Karen J. Foli, PhD, RN & Pamela M. Karagory, MSN, MSB, MBA, RN, CNE & Gregory Gibson, PhD Jane M. Kirkpatrick, PhD, RNC-OB, ANEF For beginning students, becoming a member of the nursing profession starts with experiences in nursing school. Better understanding of the experiences that contribute to sense of community for students can guide faculty efforts and curricular decisions. Using the sense of community model as a framework, the authors assessed the influence of a freshman-level class and other leadership and student organization experiences on the students’ perceptions of the school of nursing as community. The authors discuss the study and its outcomes.
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Author Affiliations: Assistant Professor (Dr Foli), Clinical Assistant Professor (Ms Karagory), Associate Professor and Head (Dr Kirkpatrick), School of Nursing, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; Assistant Professor, Director of Survey Research Lab (Dr Gibson), Department of Sociology, Kent State University, Ohio. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Correspondence: Dr Foli, School of Nursing, Purdue University, Johnson Hall of Nursing, 502 N University St, West Lafayette, IN 47907 ([email protected]). Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and areprovided in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal’s Web site (www.nurseeducatoronline.com). DOI: 10.1097/01.NNE.0000435267.61236.fb
Sense of Community Originally constructed by Sarason,4 the concept of (psychological) SOC was further developed by McMillan (unpublished data, 1976) and McMillan and Chavis5 and later refined by Chavis et al.6 Sense of community was initially conceptualized to place (territorial), such as neighborhoods, and to relational communities, such as a psychological place, which were not seen as mutually exclusive.5,7,8 Current discussions of SOC9-12 acknowledge and tend to emphasize the relational aspects of community. Our study views community as having both physical and social/psychological dimensions. The SOC model developed by McMillan and Chavis5 contains 4 principle elements: (1) membership, (2) influence, (3) integration and fulfillment of needs, and (4) shared emotional connection. The membership element has 5 attributes: boundaries, emotional safety, sense of belonging and identification, personal investment, and a common symbol system. By making clear what is ‘‘us’’ in the community and ‘‘them’’ outside the community, a sense of boundary is established. Membership imparts a sense of belonging and safety for self-disclosure and intimate conversation.13 McMillan and Chavis5 attribute an element of cognitive dissonance that causes the individual to give from himself/herself to invest in the cause of the community. This process ultimately results in individual loyalty to the group. Influence is constructed as reciprocal, with individual members perceiving that they have influence and make recognized contributions to the group; group cohesion is supported by the influence on individual members by the group. Moreover, the community influences its members, whereas members affect the community, thus producing a sphere of influence. The most significant component of
eaders in nursing education have called for new ways of thinking about how education is delivered to future nurses. Benner et al1 call for early initiation of nursing classes in the curriculum. At the same time, faculty in higher education in some states have been challenged to keep total credit hours for baccalaureate degrees to 120.2 Concurrently, schools of nursing (SONs) have sought to keep pace with the supply and demand of meeting internal and external stakeholder needs. All of these forces influence the way faculty design nursing curricula. Awareness of how the sense of community (SOC) in nursing develops has never been more important, especially in light of the changes occurring in healthcare. Although the profession is more than 3 million strong, the voice of nursing is not always coherent. For beginning students, becoming a member of the nursing profession starts with experiences in nursing school, and the time spent in nursing education is a key period for nurses to establish a professional identity.3 If nurses are expected to find their voice and use it in support of enduring values of the profession, nursing faculty need better evidence of how this identity is developed. There has been little research to explore the factors that contribute to developing SOC in undergraduate nursing students. Better understanding of the experiences in the SON that contribute
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to students’ SOC can guide curricular decisions and influence administrative decisions on student support.
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influence is in the growth of trust in the community. McMillan13 suggested that allocation of power is significant to the way trust evolves, and this becomes evident in the norms and rules of the community as well as a sense of order and authority from the decision makers. As members understand the rules that are in play, they begin to achieve a sense of personal mastery.13 McMillan and Chavis5 and, later, McMillan13 identified the third principle as integration and fulfillment of needs. This element recognizes the symbiotic relationship between the community and its individual members. Individuals are attracted to communities when they recognize shared similarities and traits. McMillan13 proposed that these shared similarities and traits enhance the members’ feeling of safety within the community and fulfill a sense of belonging; the role of the community is to identify and address member’s needs. In addition, there is a direct correlation between community acceptance of its members and a person’s attraction to the community.13 The fourth and final element is shared emotional connection. McMillian and Chavis5 posited that the key component of this element is shared experiences that occur through quality contact; the community maintains the responsibility to provide meaningful and quality community contact. Influences on the quality of community contact are ‘‘closure to events, shared outcomes from the events, risk and sacrifice, honor and humiliation.’’13 Ostermann9 further supported the significance of the shared emotional connection in the academic community environment by suggesting that there is a direct correlation between student acceptance and a positive, successful, and emotionally satisfying academic experience. In our study, we use this theoretical framework and study it within the context of a baccalaureate program in nursing. We situated community as the focus of study with it being defined as the SON, including faculty, students, didactic classes, and clinical experiences.
Study Objectives The purpose of the study was to describe students’ SOC, analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, including responses to open-ended questions pertaining to membership within and outside the community. Because the study was descriptive in nature and offered to all students at the SON, the researchers approached the data as originating from the community as a whole, which is consistent with the SOC framework. Table 1 lists the study’s objectives.
Methods Procedure At the end of the 2009 fall semester, all undergraduate students in a Midwestern university were invited individually via e-mail to participate in an online survey; 2 follow-up e-mails reminded them of the survey. Most of the students who responded were generic baccalaureate students, who began the nursing curriculum in their freshman year. Data were deidentified from the e-mail address and stored in a secured electronic server. The study was granted exempt status by the university institutional review board. Of the 304 respondents who took the survey, 61 partially completed the Nurse Educator
Table 1. Study Objectives 1. Present descriptive statistics of a. the SCI-2 b. the 4 SCI-2 subscales (reinforcement of needs, membership, influence, and shared emotional connection) c. SCI-2 scores by class standing (freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior students) 2. Explore the effects on students’ SOC and a. perceptions of faculty and peers b. involvement in organizations within and outside the SON c. leadership roles in student organizations d. perceptions of a 5-wk introductory nursing course (no credit) offered during the freshman year 3. Derive themes from open-ended responses that described membership inside and outside the community SCI, Sense of Community Index.
survey and were removed from the present analysis, yielding 249 completed surveys. Only completed surveys from students who were directly admitted from high school into the SON were used in the final analysis (81.0%; n = 202). Given this article’s attention to SOC, the researchers elected to focus the analysis on students coming directly from high school, an important community emphasizing the development of socialization skills (eg, making friends, connecting with others), to a new community, that of our university SON, a community emphasizing professional skills and learning partners. The sample was overwhelmingly white American (94.4%; n = 187) women (97.0%; n = 196) who averaged 21.11 years of age. At 31.7% (n = 64), seniors were the largest group completing the survey, followed by freshmen at 27.7% (n = 56), juniors at 18.3% (n = 37), and sophomores at 22.3% (n = 45).
Instrument The Sense of Community Index (SCI), based on the work of McMillian and Chavis,5 has been widely used in social psychology and many other disciplines, including education. To our knowledge, however, it has not been used to assess SOC in undergraduate nursing education. The SCI Version 2 (SCI-2) evolved as a result of criticisms over the SCI, specifically limited variability (a true-false format), its adequacy as a cross-cultural tool, as well as inconsistent reliability. The updated tool is publically available, but no changes may be made without permission from the author.6 Although the overall SCI demonstrated adequate reliability, there were numerous criticisms of the 4 subscales,10,14,15 ultimately resulting in a revised SCI-26 that demonstrated high reliability (coefficient ! = .94) as well as high reliability of the subscales (coefficient ! of .79-.86). Adapted from the SCI, the 24-item SCI-2 was used in this study.6 Following the SOC model, the SCI-2 contains 4 subscales: reinforcement of needs, membership, influence, and shared emotional connection. The scale has a Likert-type response pattern (scored 0-3): 0 = ‘‘not at all,’’ 1 = ‘‘somewhat,’’ 2= ‘‘mostly,’’ and 3 = ‘‘completely.’’ The highest possible score per subscale was 18. In a survey of 1800 subjects, the SCI-2 has demonstrated excellent reliability (coefficient !) of .94 and good to very good subscale coefficient ! values of .79 to .86.6 In our study, the Cronbach’s ! Volume 38 & Number 6 & November/December 2013
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remained high at .953 for the complete scale. Quantitative analyses were performed using SPSS (version 18.0).
that faculty and classmates are important in building a strong SOC.
Additional Survey Items Researcher-generated items were also included to reflect the SON’s unique community. These questions solicited responses related to how important faculty and students were to the community and the importance of a 5-week, non–creditearning orientation course for incoming freshman students; a description of this course may be found in the literature.16 The course was offered for 1 hour per week for 5 weeks at the beginning of the fall semester. In this course, students met executive leaders in the school and college and leaders of student organizations and learned about support services available to them. As well, there was an opportunity for students to learn about the wide variety of career options in the nursing profession, including roles that would require graduate education.
Objective 2: Effects on SOC Table 2 presents the effects on the SCI-2 using the General Linear Model function in SPSS (Chicago, Illinois). Significant effects were produced by (1) being a leader in an organization in the SON (F = 6.09, P = .015), (2) the respondent seeing one’s self in a leadership role/position after he/she graduated (F = 18.812, P = .000), and (3) self-reported value of a student’s nursing orientation course (freshman year) (F = 18.824, P = .000). However, only the last 2 factors (respondent seeing one’s self in a leadership role/position after he/she graduated and self-reported value of a student’s nursing orientation course [freshman year]) produced an observed power over the acceptable threshold of 0.70. Both of these variables produced a strong observed power greater than 0.90. Reported value of a student’s orientation course was a 5-item categorical variable (not at all important, not very important, somewhat important, important, and very important) for which a post hoc Scheffe test revealed no significant effects for any of the mean comparisons. All other variables in Table 2 are dichotomous (yes, no).
Qualitative Analysis A qualitative content analysis of approximately 400 total student responses, across 3 open-ended questions, regarding involvement in the community was also conducted (see objective 3 in the ‘‘Results’’ section). Not all students responded to the questions, and the software did not force respondents to offer feedback. That is, they could click on ‘‘Next’’ without entering any text, and the valid number of cases changed to reflect only those cases that offered text responses. Two members of the research team used a deductive, unrestrained matrix approach17 to independently code the open-ended responses into themes, which were defined by Desantis and Ugarriza.18 They then discussed the themes that had emerged. Consensus was achieved by comparing notes and extracted meanings from the responses and describing the derived themes.
Objective 3: Content Analyses of Student Open-Ended Responses Students had opportunities to forward comments in the survey and generated 3 major clusters of responses: involvement within the community, involvement outside the community, and general comments. Table 3 displays the themes within each cluster. Involvement Within the Community Students provided approximately 180 responses to ‘‘Why do you choose or not choose to be involved in a school of nursing organization?’’ Three motivators to becoming a
Results Objective 1: SOC Scores Mean (SD) scores for the overall SOC scale were 62.15 (13.17). Mean (SD) scores for the 4 subscales were as follows: (1) reinforcement of needs, 15.99 (3.45); (2) membership, 14.89 (3.35); (3) influence, 15.29 (3.46); and (4) shared emotional connection, 15.99 (4.24). However, for these subscales, the differences in scores were not found to be statistically significant. Sense of community scores were then categorized into high (91 standard deviation), average (T1 standard deviation around the mean), and low (G1 standard deviation). The highest percentage of all respondents by class standing (ie, freshman, 73.2%; sophomores, 68.9%; juniors, 64.9%; and seniors, 67.2%) had average scores on the SOC scale. No statistically significant difference was found between class standing. However, a slightly higher percentage of sophomores (20.0%) had high scores on the SOC scales compared with seniors (15.6%), juniors (16.2%), and freshman (14.3%). Despite the fact that the students earned no credit in a freshmen orientation course, almost half of the students expressed that the course was very important, important, or somewhat important. Findings also indicated that a significant (P e .001) and overwhelming majority reported 248
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Table 2. Test of Between-Subject Effects on SOC Scale Variablea Member of a student organization within the SON (yes: 110; no: 92) Are you a leader in an organization within the school of nursing? (yes: 20; no: 182) Member of an organization outside the SON (yes: 138; no: 64) Are you a leader in an organization outside the school of nursing? (yes: 64; no: 137) Do you see yourself in a leadership role/position after you have graduated? (yes: 186; no: 15) How valuable was your nursing orientation course to you (during the freshman year)?
F
P
0.670
.414
6.09
.015
0.046
.831
0.511
.476
18.812
.000
18.824
.000
a
Only the last 2 factors (respondent seeing one’s self in a leadership role/position after he/she graduated and self-reported value of a student’s nursing orientation course [freshman year]) produced observed power over the acceptable threshold of 0.70. Both of these produced a strong observed power greater than 0.90. SON, School of Nursing
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Table 3. Student SOC Membership Themes Membership inside the community Interactions with peers and community (+) Benefits to student and the school (+) Opportunity to share common interests and values (+) Time limitations (j) Logistics (j) Competing values and priorities (j) Concentrating on academics/adjusting to college (j) Involvement with other activities (j) Waiting for the future (j) Overall negative beliefs (j) Membership outside the community Interests and social connections exist outside of community (+) Broader range of opportunities; desire to be ‘‘well rounded’’ (+) Time limitations (j) Competing priorities: academics/family (j) Logistics (+ and j) Inside vs outside community involvement (j) Community in general Ways to improve the community Positive reinforcement from the community Community as clinical group Negative perceptions of community/academic complaints SOC, Sense of Community. + indicates motivator/benefit of membership/involvement; j, barrier to membership/involvement.
member of the community were interactions with peers and community, benefits to the students and the school, and opportunity to share common interests and values. Barriers to involvement with the community were time limitations, logistics, competing values and priorities, concentrating on academics and adjusting to college, involvement with other activities, waiting for the future, and overall negative beliefs. Exemplars illustrating these themes can be viewed in the Document, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/NE/A111. Involvement Outside the Community After answering close-ended questions regarding membership and acting as a leader in organizations outside the community/SON, students further elaborated by providing approximately 175 comments. Obtaining a broader college experience and interests in other areas were the 2 themes that were supported by the largest number of comments. Social sororities were mentioned by several students as a way to create a support network. Leadership opportunities, purposeful distraction from the pressure of the academic climate in nursing, and passion for the mission of outside community organizations were cited. Additional themes were similar to the reasons preventing students from being involved within the community: time limitations and competing priorities (academics and family). For students, logistics were both motivating factors as well as barriers. Finally, students described reasons for being involved within the community versus outside it, including interests and feeling it was important to be involved within the SON. Exemplars illustrating these themes can be viewed in the Document, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/NE/A111. Nurse Educator
Last, students were invited to offer general comments with 42 students sharing feedback regarding community. Clear themes emerged from this open-ended question: suggestions for improving the community, positive reinforcement from the community, community as clinical group, and negative perceptions of community/academic complaints. As the themes and exemplars listed in the Document, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/NE/A111, show, student feedback varied considerably as several comments indicated a close community where members’ needs were met and other texts described disenfranchised members.
Discussion The results indicate that students see faculty and peers as important in building a strong SOC. Those students who saw themselves in a leadership role/position after they graduate and who valued a freshman orientation class also perceived a stronger SOC. Interestingly, the student perceptions of community did not differ by class (freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior), although sophomores had the largest percentage of students who perceived community in the high range. The intimate experience of clinical courses where learning takes place in small, faculty-led groups begins in the sophomore year of the school’s program and may have contributed to the higher ratings of SOC by the sophomore class. Faculty influence in both articulating the values of the profession and role modeling behavior and relationship expectations at the beginning of student’s academic experience lays the groundwork from which learned professional behavior begins.19 The pedagogical transition from ‘‘sage on the stage’’ to a role of ‘‘guide on the side’’20 has changed the traditional faculty-student relationship from one of gatekeeper to coach. The emphasis on best practices in teaching and learning,1,21 such as incorporating active learning strategies, may also have a positive influence on the development of SOC and teacher-student relationships. The impact of peers was also considered significant in the development of community. Student participation and leadership in student organizations inside and outside the SON did not generate a significant contribution to SOC. It may be that the overall SOC was already well established within the courses and program of study. It is also possible that the number of students involved in the organizations was too small in this sample to demonstrate impact. The rigor and intensity of nursing curricula, especially clinical experiences that often deal with individuals in crises, may supersede student organizational involvement. Student comments indicate that outside collegiate organizations compete for their time while also providing opportunities to experience shared emotional connections, influence, and reinforcement of needs that might otherwise be met by the SON community. Students who contributed open-ended responses clearly articulated their suggestions for improving the community, beliefs about group exclusion and inclusion, and opinions of faculty members. In general, students were motivated to participate in communities that offered them similar interests and beliefs (both in members and in mission), social and professional networking, opportunities to benefit themselves and the community, and were logistically feasible. Volume 38 & Number 6 & November/December 2013
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The SOC element of membership was supported by those students who felt a sense of belonging versus those who felt excluded. Faculty and classmates were important to building a strong SOC, and this supports the influence of members on each other, including trust and being reciprocal in nature. Evidence of the third element, integration and fulfillment of needs, was present in how students were able to describe what they received from being part of the community. Identification with the community (eg, pride, school spirit), connecting with others, building resumes, and networking were identified. A shared emotional connection was also represented in the open-ended responses. Because of the often intense experiences associated with nursing clinical practice, some students created a subcommunity with members of their clinical groups. The shared participation in clinical groups, with faculty members as the respected authority, provided the students with experiences that built trust and identification with the community. However, there are still barriers to building SOC, from logistics (meeting times and living off campus) to prioritization of academics. Today’s students have many choices in their collegiate environments, and faculty should be aware of these competing activities. In contrast, students who felt marginalized offered what seemed to be very heartfelt responses of how not being members in the community had affected them. These negative perceptions focused on relationships with faculty, peer mentors, and fellow students who belonged to social sororities. Shared emotional connections, the fourth aspect to SOC, seemed to be lacking for these students. This marginalization was different from the logistical barriers identified by some students as the comments from marginalized students had an affective component to them. There also seemed to be a subtext of generalized anger toward the school for not addressing this unmet need.
Implications In the beginning of the fall semester, 2 of the authors presented the findings of the study during a general faculty meeting. Emphasis was placed on the influential role that faculty play in helping students develop SOC in the SON and how this leads to professional identity. As a result of this discussion, faculty voted to expand the freshman course and made it a required 1-credit course for all undergraduate nursing students. This course integrates the aspects of the non– credit course and includes all incoming freshman students. Sense of community is also a construct that the school purposely nurtures throughout the curriculum. An e-newsletter, prepared by the support staff of the school and sent to all students, communicates special events (eg, study abroad opportunities, scholarships, and announcements of workshops) and job opportunities. Feedback from students indicates that this is an effective mode of communicating and enhancing SOC. Specific class activities are also targeted to nurture SOC. For example, project-based service learning projects in the senior year provide common experiences and appreciation for representing the SON to external stakeholders. Reinforcement of needs, membership, influence, and shared emotional connection, as influenced by peers and faculty, seems to be equally important to the student. Perhaps, SOC remains 250
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high because of the diligence of the faculty reinforcement across the curriculum. On the basis of these findings, faculty should consider some targeted strategies. Given the academic rigor of a prelicensure nursing program and the varied cultural, economic, and personal challenges that nursing students face, creating an inclusive and supportive environment that fosters SOC and belonging is critical for successful program outcomes. The National League for Nursing identifies the creation of a learning environment that promotes the socialization of the nursing role as a core competency for nurse educators.22 This socialization should begin early in a student’s academic career and nurtured through purposeful strategies and learning environments. Nursing faculty and program leadership must continue to build skills and understand the emerging and evolving science of adult learning and the developmental and social/community needs of the ‘‘emerging adult.’’23 Nursing faculty has an ongoing responsibility to recognize and engage in role modeling behaviors that enhance the student’s sense of inclusion, empowerment, and safety. When faculty and leadership role model caring and respectful communication and collaboration, SOC can be created. Examining student feedback, such as formal instructor evaluations or informally in student sponsored meetings, for patterns and themes assists in identifying valid messages students are trying to send to their community leaders. This environment empowers nursing students and fosters learning, retention, and professional development.
Conclusion Data from this study support early courses in nursing as a contributor to building SOC in the SON. Faculty and fellow classmates are important components to students’ perceptions of SOC. Consistent messaging across the curriculum on the values and attributes embraced by the nursing community is important. Faculty members are key in this process not only through role modeling in the classroom and clinical environment but also as advisors to nursing student organizations. Consistent messaging about all aspects of community in the SON and the larger discipline requires purposeful strategies by leadership to ensure that faculty are in consensus about the mission and vision of their program.
References 1. Benner P, Sutphen M, Leonard V, Day L. Educating Nurses: A Call for Radical Transformation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 2009. 2. Berrett D. Indiana seeks to cap college credits at 120. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2012. Available at http://chronicle.com/blogs/ ticker/indiana-seeks-to-cap-college-credits-at-120/41214. Accessed July 19, 2013. 3. Johnson M, Cowin LS, Wilson I, Young H. Professional identity and nursing: contemporary theoretical developments and future research challenges. Int Nurs Rev. 2012;59:562-569. 4. Sarason SB. The Psychological Sense of Community: Prospects for a Community Psychology. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 1974. 5. McMillan DW, Chavis DM. Sense of community: a definition and theory. J Commun Psychol. 1986;14:6-23. 6. Chavis DM, Lee KS, Acosta JD. The Sense of Community (SCI) revised: the reliability and validity of the SCI-2. In: Proceedings Nurse Educator
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of the 2nd International Community Psychology Conference; 2008; Lisboa, Portugal. 7. Chavis DM, Pretty GMH. Sense of community: advances in measurement application. J Commun Psychol. 1999;27:635-642. 8. Gusfield JR. The Community: A Critical Response. New York, NY: Harper Colophon; 1975. 9. Osterman KF. Student’s need for belonging in school community. Rev Educ Res. 2000;770(3):323-367. 10. Peterson NA, Speer PW, McMillan DW. Validation of a brief sense of community scale: confirmation of the principal theory of sense of community. J Commun Psychol. 2008;36(1): 61-73. 11. Proescholdbell RJ, Roosa MW, Nemeroff CJ. Component measures of psychological sense of community among gay men. J Commun Psychol. 2006;34:9-24. 12. Rovai AP. Sense of community, perceived cognitive learning, and persistence in asynchronous learning networks. Internet High Educ. 2002;5:319-322. 13. McMillan DW. Sense of community. J Commun Psychol. 1996;24(4):315-325. 14. Long DA, Perkins DD. Confirmatory factor analysis of the sense of community index and development of a brief SCI. J Commun Psychol. 2003;31(3):279-296. doi:10.1002/jcop.10046.
15. Vieno A, Perkins DD, Smith T, Santinello M. Democratic school climate and sense of community in school: a multilevel analysis. Am J Commun Psychol. 2005;36:327-341. 16. Altman M, Musselman M, Curry L. Success begins in nursing freshman orientation course. Nurse Educ. 2010;35(1):6-7. 17. Elo S, Kyngas H. The qualitative content analysis process. J Adv Nurs. 2007;62:107-115. doi:10.111/j.1365-2648.2007.04569.x. 18. Desantis L, Ugarriza DN. The concept of theme as used in qualitative nursing research. West J Nurs Res. 2000;22:351-372. 19. Price S. Becoming a nurse: a meta-study of early professional socialization and career choice in nursing. J Adv Nurs. 2008; 65(1):11-19. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04839.x. 20. Weimer M. Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 2002. 21. National League for Nursing. Position statement: transforming nursing education. Nurs Educ Perspect. 2005;26(3):195-197. 22. National League for Nursing. Core competencies with task statements. Available at www.nln.org/profdev/corecompetencies. Accessed July 19, 2013 23. Tanner J, Arnett J, Leis J. Emerging Adulthood: Learning and Development During First Stage of adulthood. Handbook of Research on Adult Learning and Development. New York, NY: Routledge; 2009:34-67.
Misperceptions About Plagiarism Software A recent report by iThenticate, the producer of plagiarism detection software, highlights The National Science Foundation investigation of what might be more than $100 million in plagiarized grant proposals and reports over the last 20 years. The report then debunks 7 misperceptions about plagiarism detection software: automatically detects plagiarism, produces inaccurate results, easy to deceive, all products are basically the same, only for academia, only useful for detecting unethical work, and time consuming. Seven short essays highlight how difficult it really is to outsmart the software, citing the great lengths students have tried, such as imbedding grammatical differences, inserting extra spaces between words, or using Cyrillic letters. Another essay identifies the value of the software to ‘‘identify poor paraphrasing, missing citations and even grammatical errors.’’ All plagiarism software is not the same. Some software searches for keywords, text-to-text matches, and paraphrasing. Others do a surface level search and do not search materials requiring payment before accessing. IThenticate software has a database of 37 billion Web pages in addition to millions of online and offline works. It has also created a proprietary algorithm that creates a ‘‘digital fingerprint’’ of a submitted manuscript and compares it with their enormous database to detect the slightest of changes. Whether intentional or not, plagiarism is a serious and common incident. Faculty should encourage students to check their work before they submit it for grading. In an academic climate where students attempt to deceive plagiarism software programs, reintroducing the seriousness of this ethical issue could create a culture of writing for academic rigor and integrity. Faculty should also check their own manuscripts to avoid the embarrassment of an unintentional plagiarism while increasing self-assurance in originality of their work during the submission process. Source: Plagiarism Detection Software Misconceptions. iThenticate.com. Available at http://www.ithenticate.com/Portals/ 92785/docs/plagiarism-detection-misconceptions.pdf?submissionGuid=c877bb92-db3d-4243-8955-561d69a4ac07\. Accessed July 29, 2013. Submitted by: Alma Jackson, PhD, RN, COHN-S, News Editor at [email protected]. DOI: 10.1097/01.NNE.0000435276.06085.2d
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Developing a Sense of Community Among Nursing Students Karen J. Foli, PhD, RN & Pamela M. Karagory, MSN, MSB, MBA, RN, CNE & Gregory Gibson, PhD Jane M. Kirkpatrick, PhD, RNC-OB, ANEF For beginning students, becoming a member of the nursing profession starts with experiences in nursing school. Better understanding of the experiences that contribute to sense of community for students can guide faculty efforts and curricular decisions. Using the sense of community model as a framework, the authors assessed the influence of a freshman-level class and other leadership and student organization experiences on the students’ perceptions of the school of nursing as community. The authors discuss the study and its outcomes.
L
Perceptions of Community
Author Affiliations: Assistant Professor (Dr Foli), Clinical Assistant Professor (Ms Karagory), Associate Professor and Head (Dr Kirkpatrick), School of Nursing, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; Assistant Professor, Director of Survey Research Lab (Dr Gibson), Department of Sociology, Kent State University, Ohio. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Correspondence: Dr Foli, School of Nursing, Purdue University, Johnson Hall of Nursing, 502 N University St, West Lafayette, IN 47907 ([email protected]). Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and areprovided in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal’s Web site (www.nurseeducatoronline.com). DOI: 10.1097/01.NNE.0000435267.61236.fb
Sense of Community Originally constructed by Sarason,4 the concept of (psychological) SOC was further developed by McMillan (unpublished data, 1976) and McMillan and Chavis5 and later refined by Chavis et al.6 Sense of community was initially conceptualized to place (territorial), such as neighborhoods, and to relational communities, such as a psychological place, which were not seen as mutually exclusive.5,7,8 Current discussions of SOC9-12 acknowledge and tend to emphasize the relational aspects of community. Our study views community as having both physical and social/psychological dimensions. The SOC model developed by McMillan and Chavis5 contains 4 principle elements: (1) membership, (2) influence, (3) integration and fulfillment of needs, and (4) shared emotional connection. The membership element has 5 attributes: boundaries, emotional safety, sense of belonging and identification, personal investment, and a common symbol system. By making clear what is ‘‘us’’ in the community and ‘‘them’’ outside the community, a sense of boundary is established. Membership imparts a sense of belonging and safety for self-disclosure and intimate conversation.13 McMillan and Chavis5 attribute an element of cognitive dissonance that causes the individual to give from himself/herself to invest in the cause of the community. This process ultimately results in individual loyalty to the group. Influence is constructed as reciprocal, with individual members perceiving that they have influence and make recognized contributions to the group; group cohesion is supported by the influence on individual members by the group. Moreover, the community influences its members, whereas members affect the community, thus producing a sphere of influence. The most significant component of
eaders in nursing education have called for new ways of thinking about how education is delivered to future nurses. Benner et al1 call for early initiation of nursing classes in the curriculum. At the same time, faculty in higher education in some states have been challenged to keep total credit hours for baccalaureate degrees to 120.2 Concurrently, schools of nursing (SONs) have sought to keep pace with the supply and demand of meeting internal and external stakeholder needs. All of these forces influence the way faculty design nursing curricula. Awareness of how the sense of community (SOC) in nursing develops has never been more important, especially in light of the changes occurring in healthcare. Although the profession is more than 3 million strong, the voice of nursing is not always coherent. For beginning students, becoming a member of the nursing profession starts with experiences in nursing school, and the time spent in nursing education is a key period for nurses to establish a professional identity.3 If nurses are expected to find their voice and use it in support of enduring values of the profession, nursing faculty need better evidence of how this identity is developed. There has been little research to explore the factors that contribute to developing SOC in undergraduate nursing students. Better understanding of the experiences in the SON that contribute
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to students’ SOC can guide curricular decisions and influence administrative decisions on student support.
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influence is in the growth of trust in the community. McMillan13 suggested that allocation of power is significant to the way trust evolves, and this becomes evident in the norms and rules of the community as well as a sense of order and authority from the decision makers. As members understand the rules that are in play, they begin to achieve a sense of personal mastery.13 McMillan and Chavis5 and, later, McMillan13 identified the third principle as integration and fulfillment of needs. This element recognizes the symbiotic relationship between the community and its individual members. Individuals are attracted to communities when they recognize shared similarities and traits. McMillan13 proposed that these shared similarities and traits enhance the members’ feeling of safety within the community and fulfill a sense of belonging; the role of the community is to identify and address member’s needs. In addition, there is a direct correlation between community acceptance of its members and a person’s attraction to the community.13 The fourth and final element is shared emotional connection. McMillian and Chavis5 posited that the key component of this element is shared experiences that occur through quality contact; the community maintains the responsibility to provide meaningful and quality community contact. Influences on the quality of community contact are ‘‘closure to events, shared outcomes from the events, risk and sacrifice, honor and humiliation.’’13 Ostermann9 further supported the significance of the shared emotional connection in the academic community environment by suggesting that there is a direct correlation between student acceptance and a positive, successful, and emotionally satisfying academic experience. In our study, we use this theoretical framework and study it within the context of a baccalaureate program in nursing. We situated community as the focus of study with it being defined as the SON, including faculty, students, didactic classes, and clinical experiences.
Study Objectives The purpose of the study was to describe students’ SOC, analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, including responses to open-ended questions pertaining to membership within and outside the community. Because the study was descriptive in nature and offered to all students at the SON, the researchers approached the data as originating from the community as a whole, which is consistent with the SOC framework. Table 1 lists the study’s objectives.
Methods Procedure At the end of the 2009 fall semester, all undergraduate students in a Midwestern university were invited individually via e-mail to participate in an online survey; 2 follow-up e-mails reminded them of the survey. Most of the students who responded were generic baccalaureate students, who began the nursing curriculum in their freshman year. Data were deidentified from the e-mail address and stored in a secured electronic server. The study was granted exempt status by the university institutional review board. Of the 304 respondents who took the survey, 61 partially completed the Nurse Educator
Table 1. Study Objectives 1. Present descriptive statistics of a. the SCI-2 b. the 4 SCI-2 subscales (reinforcement of needs, membership, influence, and shared emotional connection) c. SCI-2 scores by class standing (freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior students) 2. Explore the effects on students’ SOC and a. perceptions of faculty and peers b. involvement in organizations within and outside the SON c. leadership roles in student organizations d. perceptions of a 5-wk introductory nursing course (no credit) offered during the freshman year 3. Derive themes from open-ended responses that described membership inside and outside the community SCI, Sense of Community Index.
survey and were removed from the present analysis, yielding 249 completed surveys. Only completed surveys from students who were directly admitted from high school into the SON were used in the final analysis (81.0%; n = 202). Given this article’s attention to SOC, the researchers elected to focus the analysis on students coming directly from high school, an important community emphasizing the development of socialization skills (eg, making friends, connecting with others), to a new community, that of our university SON, a community emphasizing professional skills and learning partners. The sample was overwhelmingly white American (94.4%; n = 187) women (97.0%; n = 196) who averaged 21.11 years of age. At 31.7% (n = 64), seniors were the largest group completing the survey, followed by freshmen at 27.7% (n = 56), juniors at 18.3% (n = 37), and sophomores at 22.3% (n = 45).
Instrument The Sense of Community Index (SCI), based on the work of McMillian and Chavis,5 has been widely used in social psychology and many other disciplines, including education. To our knowledge, however, it has not been used to assess SOC in undergraduate nursing education. The SCI Version 2 (SCI-2) evolved as a result of criticisms over the SCI, specifically limited variability (a true-false format), its adequacy as a cross-cultural tool, as well as inconsistent reliability. The updated tool is publically available, but no changes may be made without permission from the author.6 Although the overall SCI demonstrated adequate reliability, there were numerous criticisms of the 4 subscales,10,14,15 ultimately resulting in a revised SCI-26 that demonstrated high reliability (coefficient ! = .94) as well as high reliability of the subscales (coefficient ! of .79-.86). Adapted from the SCI, the 24-item SCI-2 was used in this study.6 Following the SOC model, the SCI-2 contains 4 subscales: reinforcement of needs, membership, influence, and shared emotional connection. The scale has a Likert-type response pattern (scored 0-3): 0 = ‘‘not at all,’’ 1 = ‘‘somewhat,’’ 2= ‘‘mostly,’’ and 3 = ‘‘completely.’’ The highest possible score per subscale was 18. In a survey of 1800 subjects, the SCI-2 has demonstrated excellent reliability (coefficient !) of .94 and good to very good subscale coefficient ! values of .79 to .86.6 In our study, the Cronbach’s ! Volume 38 & Number 6 & November/December 2013
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remained high at .953 for the complete scale. Quantitative analyses were performed using SPSS (version 18.0).
that faculty and classmates are important in building a strong SOC.
Additional Survey Items Researcher-generated items were also included to reflect the SON’s unique community. These questions solicited responses related to how important faculty and students were to the community and the importance of a 5-week, non–creditearning orientation course for incoming freshman students; a description of this course may be found in the literature.16 The course was offered for 1 hour per week for 5 weeks at the beginning of the fall semester. In this course, students met executive leaders in the school and college and leaders of student organizations and learned about support services available to them. As well, there was an opportunity for students to learn about the wide variety of career options in the nursing profession, including roles that would require graduate education.
Objective 2: Effects on SOC Table 2 presents the effects on the SCI-2 using the General Linear Model function in SPSS (Chicago, Illinois). Significant effects were produced by (1) being a leader in an organization in the SON (F = 6.09, P = .015), (2) the respondent seeing one’s self in a leadership role/position after he/she graduated (F = 18.812, P = .000), and (3) self-reported value of a student’s nursing orientation course (freshman year) (F = 18.824, P = .000). However, only the last 2 factors (respondent seeing one’s self in a leadership role/position after he/she graduated and self-reported value of a student’s nursing orientation course [freshman year]) produced an observed power over the acceptable threshold of 0.70. Both of these variables produced a strong observed power greater than 0.90. Reported value of a student’s orientation course was a 5-item categorical variable (not at all important, not very important, somewhat important, important, and very important) for which a post hoc Scheffe test revealed no significant effects for any of the mean comparisons. All other variables in Table 2 are dichotomous (yes, no).
Qualitative Analysis A qualitative content analysis of approximately 400 total student responses, across 3 open-ended questions, regarding involvement in the community was also conducted (see objective 3 in the ‘‘Results’’ section). Not all students responded to the questions, and the software did not force respondents to offer feedback. That is, they could click on ‘‘Next’’ without entering any text, and the valid number of cases changed to reflect only those cases that offered text responses. Two members of the research team used a deductive, unrestrained matrix approach17 to independently code the open-ended responses into themes, which were defined by Desantis and Ugarriza.18 They then discussed the themes that had emerged. Consensus was achieved by comparing notes and extracted meanings from the responses and describing the derived themes.
Objective 3: Content Analyses of Student Open-Ended Responses Students had opportunities to forward comments in the survey and generated 3 major clusters of responses: involvement within the community, involvement outside the community, and general comments. Table 3 displays the themes within each cluster. Involvement Within the Community Students provided approximately 180 responses to ‘‘Why do you choose or not choose to be involved in a school of nursing organization?’’ Three motivators to becoming a
Results Objective 1: SOC Scores Mean (SD) scores for the overall SOC scale were 62.15 (13.17). Mean (SD) scores for the 4 subscales were as follows: (1) reinforcement of needs, 15.99 (3.45); (2) membership, 14.89 (3.35); (3) influence, 15.29 (3.46); and (4) shared emotional connection, 15.99 (4.24). However, for these subscales, the differences in scores were not found to be statistically significant. Sense of community scores were then categorized into high (91 standard deviation), average (T1 standard deviation around the mean), and low (G1 standard deviation). The highest percentage of all respondents by class standing (ie, freshman, 73.2%; sophomores, 68.9%; juniors, 64.9%; and seniors, 67.2%) had average scores on the SOC scale. No statistically significant difference was found between class standing. However, a slightly higher percentage of sophomores (20.0%) had high scores on the SOC scales compared with seniors (15.6%), juniors (16.2%), and freshman (14.3%). Despite the fact that the students earned no credit in a freshmen orientation course, almost half of the students expressed that the course was very important, important, or somewhat important. Findings also indicated that a significant (P e .001) and overwhelming majority reported 248
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Table 2. Test of Between-Subject Effects on SOC Scale Variablea Member of a student organization within the SON (yes: 110; no: 92) Are you a leader in an organization within the school of nursing? (yes: 20; no: 182) Member of an organization outside the SON (yes: 138; no: 64) Are you a leader in an organization outside the school of nursing? (yes: 64; no: 137) Do you see yourself in a leadership role/position after you have graduated? (yes: 186; no: 15) How valuable was your nursing orientation course to you (during the freshman year)?
F
P
0.670
.414
6.09
.015
0.046
.831
0.511
.476
18.812
.000
18.824
.000
a
Only the last 2 factors (respondent seeing one’s self in a leadership role/position after he/she graduated and self-reported value of a student’s nursing orientation course [freshman year]) produced observed power over the acceptable threshold of 0.70. Both of these produced a strong observed power greater than 0.90. SON, School of Nursing
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Table 3. Student SOC Membership Themes Membership inside the community Interactions with peers and community (+) Benefits to student and the school (+) Opportunity to share common interests and values (+) Time limitations (j) Logistics (j) Competing values and priorities (j) Concentrating on academics/adjusting to college (j) Involvement with other activities (j) Waiting for the future (j) Overall negative beliefs (j) Membership outside the community Interests and social connections exist outside of community (+) Broader range of opportunities; desire to be ‘‘well rounded’’ (+) Time limitations (j) Competing priorities: academics/family (j) Logistics (+ and j) Inside vs outside community involvement (j) Community in general Ways to improve the community Positive reinforcement from the community Community as clinical group Negative perceptions of community/academic complaints SOC, Sense of Community. + indicates motivator/benefit of membership/involvement; j, barrier to membership/involvement.
member of the community were interactions with peers and community, benefits to the students and the school, and opportunity to share common interests and values. Barriers to involvement with the community were time limitations, logistics, competing values and priorities, concentrating on academics and adjusting to college, involvement with other activities, waiting for the future, and overall negative beliefs. Exemplars illustrating these themes can be viewed in the Document, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/NE/A111. Involvement Outside the Community After answering close-ended questions regarding membership and acting as a leader in organizations outside the community/SON, students further elaborated by providing approximately 175 comments. Obtaining a broader college experience and interests in other areas were the 2 themes that were supported by the largest number of comments. Social sororities were mentioned by several students as a way to create a support network. Leadership opportunities, purposeful distraction from the pressure of the academic climate in nursing, and passion for the mission of outside community organizations were cited. Additional themes were similar to the reasons preventing students from being involved within the community: time limitations and competing priorities (academics and family). For students, logistics were both motivating factors as well as barriers. Finally, students described reasons for being involved within the community versus outside it, including interests and feeling it was important to be involved within the SON. Exemplars illustrating these themes can be viewed in the Document, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/NE/A111. Nurse Educator
Last, students were invited to offer general comments with 42 students sharing feedback regarding community. Clear themes emerged from this open-ended question: suggestions for improving the community, positive reinforcement from the community, community as clinical group, and negative perceptions of community/academic complaints. As the themes and exemplars listed in the Document, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/NE/A111, show, student feedback varied considerably as several comments indicated a close community where members’ needs were met and other texts described disenfranchised members.
Discussion The results indicate that students see faculty and peers as important in building a strong SOC. Those students who saw themselves in a leadership role/position after they graduate and who valued a freshman orientation class also perceived a stronger SOC. Interestingly, the student perceptions of community did not differ by class (freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior), although sophomores had the largest percentage of students who perceived community in the high range. The intimate experience of clinical courses where learning takes place in small, faculty-led groups begins in the sophomore year of the school’s program and may have contributed to the higher ratings of SOC by the sophomore class. Faculty influence in both articulating the values of the profession and role modeling behavior and relationship expectations at the beginning of student’s academic experience lays the groundwork from which learned professional behavior begins.19 The pedagogical transition from ‘‘sage on the stage’’ to a role of ‘‘guide on the side’’20 has changed the traditional faculty-student relationship from one of gatekeeper to coach. The emphasis on best practices in teaching and learning,1,21 such as incorporating active learning strategies, may also have a positive influence on the development of SOC and teacher-student relationships. The impact of peers was also considered significant in the development of community. Student participation and leadership in student organizations inside and outside the SON did not generate a significant contribution to SOC. It may be that the overall SOC was already well established within the courses and program of study. It is also possible that the number of students involved in the organizations was too small in this sample to demonstrate impact. The rigor and intensity of nursing curricula, especially clinical experiences that often deal with individuals in crises, may supersede student organizational involvement. Student comments indicate that outside collegiate organizations compete for their time while also providing opportunities to experience shared emotional connections, influence, and reinforcement of needs that might otherwise be met by the SON community. Students who contributed open-ended responses clearly articulated their suggestions for improving the community, beliefs about group exclusion and inclusion, and opinions of faculty members. In general, students were motivated to participate in communities that offered them similar interests and beliefs (both in members and in mission), social and professional networking, opportunities to benefit themselves and the community, and were logistically feasible. Volume 38 & Number 6 & November/December 2013
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The SOC element of membership was supported by those students who felt a sense of belonging versus those who felt excluded. Faculty and classmates were important to building a strong SOC, and this supports the influence of members on each other, including trust and being reciprocal in nature. Evidence of the third element, integration and fulfillment of needs, was present in how students were able to describe what they received from being part of the community. Identification with the community (eg, pride, school spirit), connecting with others, building resumes, and networking were identified. A shared emotional connection was also represented in the open-ended responses. Because of the often intense experiences associated with nursing clinical practice, some students created a subcommunity with members of their clinical groups. The shared participation in clinical groups, with faculty members as the respected authority, provided the students with experiences that built trust and identification with the community. However, there are still barriers to building SOC, from logistics (meeting times and living off campus) to prioritization of academics. Today’s students have many choices in their collegiate environments, and faculty should be aware of these competing activities. In contrast, students who felt marginalized offered what seemed to be very heartfelt responses of how not being members in the community had affected them. These negative perceptions focused on relationships with faculty, peer mentors, and fellow students who belonged to social sororities. Shared emotional connections, the fourth aspect to SOC, seemed to be lacking for these students. This marginalization was different from the logistical barriers identified by some students as the comments from marginalized students had an affective component to them. There also seemed to be a subtext of generalized anger toward the school for not addressing this unmet need.
Implications In the beginning of the fall semester, 2 of the authors presented the findings of the study during a general faculty meeting. Emphasis was placed on the influential role that faculty play in helping students develop SOC in the SON and how this leads to professional identity. As a result of this discussion, faculty voted to expand the freshman course and made it a required 1-credit course for all undergraduate nursing students. This course integrates the aspects of the non– credit course and includes all incoming freshman students. Sense of community is also a construct that the school purposely nurtures throughout the curriculum. An e-newsletter, prepared by the support staff of the school and sent to all students, communicates special events (eg, study abroad opportunities, scholarships, and announcements of workshops) and job opportunities. Feedback from students indicates that this is an effective mode of communicating and enhancing SOC. Specific class activities are also targeted to nurture SOC. For example, project-based service learning projects in the senior year provide common experiences and appreciation for representing the SON to external stakeholders. Reinforcement of needs, membership, influence, and shared emotional connection, as influenced by peers and faculty, seems to be equally important to the student. Perhaps, SOC remains 250
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high because of the diligence of the faculty reinforcement across the curriculum. On the basis of these findings, faculty should consider some targeted strategies. Given the academic rigor of a prelicensure nursing program and the varied cultural, economic, and personal challenges that nursing students face, creating an inclusive and supportive environment that fosters SOC and belonging is critical for successful program outcomes. The National League for Nursing identifies the creation of a learning environment that promotes the socialization of the nursing role as a core competency for nurse educators.22 This socialization should begin early in a student’s academic career and nurtured through purposeful strategies and learning environments. Nursing faculty and program leadership must continue to build skills and understand the emerging and evolving science of adult learning and the developmental and social/community needs of the ‘‘emerging adult.’’23 Nursing faculty has an ongoing responsibility to recognize and engage in role modeling behaviors that enhance the student’s sense of inclusion, empowerment, and safety. When faculty and leadership role model caring and respectful communication and collaboration, SOC can be created. Examining student feedback, such as formal instructor evaluations or informally in student sponsored meetings, for patterns and themes assists in identifying valid messages students are trying to send to their community leaders. This environment empowers nursing students and fosters learning, retention, and professional development.
Conclusion Data from this study support early courses in nursing as a contributor to building SOC in the SON. Faculty and fellow classmates are important components to students’ perceptions of SOC. Consistent messaging across the curriculum on the values and attributes embraced by the nursing community is important. Faculty members are key in this process not only through role modeling in the classroom and clinical environment but also as advisors to nursing student organizations. Consistent messaging about all aspects of community in the SON and the larger discipline requires purposeful strategies by leadership to ensure that faculty are in consensus about the mission and vision of their program.
References 1. Benner P, Sutphen M, Leonard V, Day L. Educating Nurses: A Call for Radical Transformation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 2009. 2. Berrett D. Indiana seeks to cap college credits at 120. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2012. Available at http://chronicle.com/blogs/ ticker/indiana-seeks-to-cap-college-credits-at-120/41214. Accessed July 19, 2013. 3. Johnson M, Cowin LS, Wilson I, Young H. Professional identity and nursing: contemporary theoretical developments and future research challenges. Int Nurs Rev. 2012;59:562-569. 4. Sarason SB. The Psychological Sense of Community: Prospects for a Community Psychology. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 1974. 5. McMillan DW, Chavis DM. Sense of community: a definition and theory. J Commun Psychol. 1986;14:6-23. 6. Chavis DM, Lee KS, Acosta JD. The Sense of Community (SCI) revised: the reliability and validity of the SCI-2. In: Proceedings Nurse Educator
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of the 2nd International Community Psychology Conference; 2008; Lisboa, Portugal. 7. Chavis DM, Pretty GMH. Sense of community: advances in measurement application. J Commun Psychol. 1999;27:635-642. 8. Gusfield JR. The Community: A Critical Response. New York, NY: Harper Colophon; 1975. 9. Osterman KF. Student’s need for belonging in school community. Rev Educ Res. 2000;770(3):323-367. 10. Peterson NA, Speer PW, McMillan DW. Validation of a brief sense of community scale: confirmation of the principal theory of sense of community. J Commun Psychol. 2008;36(1): 61-73. 11. Proescholdbell RJ, Roosa MW, Nemeroff CJ. Component measures of psychological sense of community among gay men. J Commun Psychol. 2006;34:9-24. 12. Rovai AP. Sense of community, perceived cognitive learning, and persistence in asynchronous learning networks. Internet High Educ. 2002;5:319-322. 13. McMillan DW. Sense of community. J Commun Psychol. 1996;24(4):315-325. 14. Long DA, Perkins DD. Confirmatory factor analysis of the sense of community index and development of a brief SCI. J Commun Psychol. 2003;31(3):279-296. doi:10.1002/jcop.10046.
15. Vieno A, Perkins DD, Smith T, Santinello M. Democratic school climate and sense of community in school: a multilevel analysis. Am J Commun Psychol. 2005;36:327-341. 16. Altman M, Musselman M, Curry L. Success begins in nursing freshman orientation course. Nurse Educ. 2010;35(1):6-7. 17. Elo S, Kyngas H. The qualitative content analysis process. J Adv Nurs. 2007;62:107-115. doi:10.111/j.1365-2648.2007.04569.x. 18. Desantis L, Ugarriza DN. The concept of theme as used in qualitative nursing research. West J Nurs Res. 2000;22:351-372. 19. Price S. Becoming a nurse: a meta-study of early professional socialization and career choice in nursing. J Adv Nurs. 2008; 65(1):11-19. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04839.x. 20. Weimer M. Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 2002. 21. National League for Nursing. Position statement: transforming nursing education. Nurs Educ Perspect. 2005;26(3):195-197. 22. National League for Nursing. Core competencies with task statements. Available at www.nln.org/profdev/corecompetencies. Accessed July 19, 2013 23. Tanner J, Arnett J, Leis J. Emerging Adulthood: Learning and Development During First Stage of adulthood. Handbook of Research on Adult Learning and Development. New York, NY: Routledge; 2009:34-67.
Misperceptions About Plagiarism Software A recent report by iThenticate, the producer of plagiarism detection software, highlights The National Science Foundation investigation of what might be more than $100 million in plagiarized grant proposals and reports over the last 20 years. The report then debunks 7 misperceptions about plagiarism detection software: automatically detects plagiarism, produces inaccurate results, easy to deceive, all products are basically the same, only for academia, only useful for detecting unethical work, and time consuming. Seven short essays highlight how difficult it really is to outsmart the software, citing the great lengths students have tried, such as imbedding grammatical differences, inserting extra spaces between words, or using Cyrillic letters. Another essay identifies the value of the software to ‘‘identify poor paraphrasing, missing citations and even grammatical errors.’’ All plagiarism software is not the same. Some software searches for keywords, text-to-text matches, and paraphrasing. Others do a surface level search and do not search materials requiring payment before accessing. IThenticate software has a database of 37 billion Web pages in addition to millions of online and offline works. It has also created a proprietary algorithm that creates a ‘‘digital fingerprint’’ of a submitted manuscript and compares it with their enormous database to detect the slightest of changes. Whether intentional or not, plagiarism is a serious and common incident. Faculty should encourage students to check their work before they submit it for grading. In an academic climate where students attempt to deceive plagiarism software programs, reintroducing the seriousness of this ethical issue could create a culture of writing for academic rigor and integrity. Faculty should also check their own manuscripts to avoid the embarrassment of an unintentional plagiarism while increasing self-assurance in originality of their work during the submission process. Source: Plagiarism Detection Software Misconceptions. iThenticate.com. Available at http://www.ithenticate.com/Portals/ 92785/docs/plagiarism-detection-misconceptions.pdf?submissionGuid=c877bb92-db3d-4243-8955-561d69a4ac07\. Accessed July 29, 2013. Submitted by: Alma Jackson, PhD, RN, COHN-S, News Editor at [email protected]. DOI: 10.1097/01.NNE.0000435276.06085.2d
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