Predicting Nurse Faculty Members' Intent to Stay in the Academic Organization: A Structural Equation Model of a National Survey of Nursing Faculty

Purpose/Aims:

Our objective was to investigate the relations between several factors regarding the academic context among a nationally representative sample of U.S. nursing faculty in academic organizations across the U.S. serving at either a CCNE- or NLNAC-accredit institution of higher education.

Rationale/Background:
Nursing programs are under pressure from their universities to demonstrate greater accountability as demonstrated by high quality graduates, innovative research and strategic partnerships with the community. This is accomplished through the efforts of the nursing faculty and there is a shortage of them. A recent survey indicated an 8.3% shortage of faculty across nursing programs in the United States with a major wave of retirements anticipated in the  next few years. Concurrently there is an ever-growing need to produce more graduates. Nursing faculty are being pressed to do more in their teaching and in their research and service efforts. Nurse administrators are trying to both recruit and retain quality faculty who are able to handle such diverse demands. This provides a compelling reason to investigate factors in the faculty work place that may predict their intent to stay.

Methods:

Standard confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the validity of a proposed measurement model and structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the validity of a structural/latent variable model.

Results:

Several direct and indirect effects were observed among the constructs under investigation. Of special importance, perceptions of nurse administration’s support and perceived teaching expertise positively predicted U.S. nursing faculty members’ intent to stay in the academic organization.

Implications:

Understanding the way that nursing faculty members’ perceptions of the various factors common to the academic context interact with intent to stay in the organization is essential for faculty and nursing administrators. This information can assist in obtaining more resources for faculty development, lobbying for additional faculty in order to meet the teaching, research and service missions of the organization, and personalizing relationships with each individual faculty member to understand their needs and acknowledge their efforts.

This study funded by a grant from the American Nursing’s Foundation.