Evaluation of Doctor of Philosophy Nursing Programs in the U.S. and Turkey By PhD Students

Purpose: Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (PhD) programs in nursing prepare nurses to develop the science, steward the profession, educate the next generation of nurses, expand expertise for the purpose of conducting original research, lead to new knowledge in the field,  and maintain professional integrity. To advance and promote high quality doctoral education in nursing, both national and international comparisons, collaboration, and cooperation are important. Evaluation and comparing of PhD nursing programs are becoming more important needs with the rapid increase in PhD nursing programs and PhD nursing students. Therefore, a further understanding of PhD nursing education from the PhD nursing students’ perspective may be helpful for students who enrolled these programs, also for administrators and faculty who work on developing, implementing, and evaluating these programs. The aim of this descriptive research is to compare and contrast PhD Nursing programs in the US and Turkey.

Methods:

This research carried out between May 2011 and January 2012. The sample size consisted of 137 nursing PhD students (68 participants from the US, and 69 participants from Turkey). The study sample consisted of Nursing PhD students in various stages of the program and recruited from Texas Woman’s University (Houston and Denton campuses) in the US, and three schools of nursing (Gulhane Military Medical Academy School of Nursing, Istanbul University Florence Nightingale School of Nursing, and Dokuz Eylul University School of Nursing) in Turkey. Two questionnaires including 86 questions were prepared by researches both in English and Turkish to assess the socio demographic characteristics, nursing PhD program, and expected outcomes of PhD nursing program. Ethical approval was given by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Texas Woman’s University. Data were obtained by online questionnaires using Psych data. Obtained data were analyzed with SPSS version 15.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Descriptive statistics, such as frequency, mean, and standard deviation were used to describe the sample and main variables. Chi square test was used to determine the differences between two groups.

Results:

The mean ages of PhD students in the US were 50.92 years (range 35-64 years), and the mean ages of Turkish PhD students were 31.23 years (range 26-42 years). The results of this study showed that there were statistically significant differences between the US and Turkish PhD students in terms of socio-demographic characteristics (age, age at graduation from bachelorette degree, relationship status, having children, working in other positions before becoming nurse, working setting, and annual household income) (p<0.05), there were both similarities and statistical differences between the PhD program structure, admission requirements, curriculum, progression requirements, financial support, and length of completion, and there were similarities between expected outcomes of PhD program. Comparison of the expected outcomes of PhD program have shown that both the US and Turkish PhD students thought that their education helped to develop the science, steward the discipline, educate the next generation. Both the US (62.3%) and Turkish PhD (78.9%) students stated professional, academic improvement gained by PhD education. As strengths of doctoral program most of the (57.9%) Turkish PhD students reported good educational structure of the program and most of the (55.7%) US PhD students reported faculty and mentorship. As challenges of doctoral program while 26.3 % of Turkish PhD students stated need for more research publication opportunities, 21.3% of the US PhD students stated need for more variety of courses. Finally both the US (72.9%) and Turkish PhD (86.2%) students stated mostly improvement of nursing profession as benefits of more doctorally prepared nurses for nursing profession.

Conclusion: This study showed that both the US and Turkish PhD students thought that their PhD education helped to develop the science, steward the discipline, educate the next generation. In recent years, international collaborations are increasing rapidly in nursing. Therefore, it is important to evaluate PhD nursing programs across countries. The involvement of nursing PhD students in evaluating the PhD program is also essential in improving the quality of program. In conclusion, further studies are offered to include evaluations not only by students but also by graduates, and faculty for a comprehensive evaluation of PhD nursing programs.