Sex-Role Identity and Perception of Professional Self in Graduates of Three Nursing Programs

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Abstract
This study explored the relationship between sex-role identity (M/F) among female nursing students and their description of self; explored whether differences in self-description resulted from the students' M/F role identity or from the type of program in which they obtained education, and compared and contrasted the measured M/F of graduating female nurses to female American college students in general and to a range of personality constructs which might be salient to the profession of nursing. The sample consisted of 163 female graduating nurses in six nursing programs: diploma (45), associate degree (23), and baccalaureate degree (91). Utilizing several data-collection instruments (the Student Biographical Inventory, the Omnibus Personality Inventory, and the Nurse's Self-Description Form (NSDF)), findings demonstrated that: 1) There was no significant relationship between M/F and age, birth order, number of brothers and sisters, education level of either parent, educational aspirations, and number of years in college. 2) Differences existed between female nursing students and a normative sample of college females on only four scales: autonomy, religious orientation, personal integration, and practical outlook. 3) Nursing students' M/F scores were positively correlated with a normative sample in thinking introversion, aestheticism, impulse expression, and anxiety level; M/F scores did not correlate with theoretical orientation, complexity, altruism, practical outlook, religious orientation, or social extroversion. 4) No significant differences were manifested in M/F scores between the two samples. 5) There was no difference in sex-role identity as measured by mean M/F scores for female nursing students in the three program levels. 6) The NSDF did not differentiate according to sex-role identification but did differentiate according to program level. The study dispels the popular myth that nursing students manifest more feminine characteristics than other women in college and points to the need to differentiate the outcomes expected from education in nursing at the technical and the professional levels.

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