Incivility in Nursing Education in China and the United States – Quantitative Aspects

Purpose: To measure and analyze the degree of student incivility at Hangzhou Nursing College in Hangzhou, China and to show how nursing faculty from Boise State University (BSU) and HNC collaborated on this international study.

Methods: The quantitative portion of the mixed methodological survey was used to measure student and faculty perceptions of and experience with incivility in nursing education in HNC. Twenty one of 28 faculty (75%) and 392 of 482 students (81.3%) completed the Incivility in Nursing Education (INE) survey. Research questions included: 1) the extent to which incivility was considered to be a problem, 2) whether students or faculty were more likely to engage in uncivil behavior, 3) student behaviors that faculty and students perceived to be uncivil, and 4) the frequency of the uncivil student behaviors.

Results: Nearly half of the faculty and student respondents (47%) perceived incivility to be a moderate to serious problem in HNC, and more than half (56%) believed that students were a little more likely to engage in uncivil behavior. The five most frequently experienced uncivil student behaviors included being unprepared for class (82.6%), sleeping in class (71.9%), acting bored and apathetic (69.8%), using cell phones and pagers during class (69.1%), and not paying attention (67.2%). The five most frequently reported threatening student behaviors included challenges to faculty knowledge or credibility (60.5%), general taunts or disrespect toward students (30.0%), general taunts or disrespect toward faculty (21.5%), vulgarity directed at students (17.1%), and vulgarity directed at faculty (7.0%).

Conclusion: Student incivility in nursing education is a relatively new area of study and strategies must be developed to deal with this problem in the context of the Chinese culture. Conducting open forums, setting clear behavioral expectations, and instituting policies are helpful strategies for preventing and effectively dealing with student incivility.