Developing Professional Nurses

Baccalaureate education is intended to develop nurses who can function beyond task-focused roles, and instead serve as pro-fessionals with a broad range of competencies and critical thinking skills. Given this desired state of professional practice, one of the primary goals of baccalaureate nursing education should be to prepare nurses with skills to enable them to solve complex problems and demonstrate metacognitive abilities, such as the ability to learn how to learn, as well as possess professional skills to control and positively change their work environment. This study provides knowledge about the complexity of variables and the relationships between variables (known and latent) that may influence professional nursing practice behaviors among student nurses. Findings from this study may assist nurse educators by contributing knowledge relevant for planning and evaluating effective clinical practice learning experiences for student nurses and to support/facilitate the transition of individuals from student nurses to professional registered nurses and, thus enhance the impact of professional nurses contributions in healthcare delivery.