Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate nurses' experience and/or consciousness that have formed their learning needs and their desire to enter the baccalaureate course of nursing, in order to investigate the adequacy of RN/BSN course. 22 nurses who have graduated from junior colleges and have desire to learn more under a RN/BSN program are interviewed.
The analytical focus is placed on the relationship between two kinds of consciousness; fundamental consciousness/experience of the learning needs, and self-consciousness. The findings are as follows:
1) All subjects are classified into 3 types according to the categories of consciousness in which they fall, mainly due to the difference of their aims and/or their learning needs.
2) The first group,“external”, includes 13 subjects who show intense concern over their daily nursing practice.
3) The second group, “intersubjective”, includes 5 keen observers of contrasts between patients and themselves.
4) The last group,“internal”, includes 4 subjects who feel stronger needs for self-improvement than for professional training.
5) As an educational issue, it is the perspective of the nurse-as-learner that teachers in charge of RN/BSN course have to understand.
Two conclusions emerge out of these findings. 1. Teachers are recommended to sympathise with the nurses' balance of social and individual consciousness, which has formed through nursing experience and/or daily life. 2. RN/BSN course ought to include some programs to correct nurses' tendency that set the valuation at rather lower level, around their own nursing capability.
