| American colleges and universities are faced with questions of how to create learning environments relevant to the internationalization of society. Health and education experiences are emerging within complex international contexts indicating an emerging need for nursing knowledge.; Watson's (1990) theory of Transpersonal Human Caring was used as the theoretical framework emphasizing caring as a transpersonal process, the integration of mind, body, and soul. Transpersonal human caring was described as an end in itself, the moral ideal of all nursing resulting in protection, enhancement, and preservation of human dignity recognized through healing outcomes.; The purpose of this study was to gain understanding of the nature or meaning of international education of baccalaureate nursing students through exploring descriptions of lived experiences. This qualitative descriptive inquiry was informed by phenomenology as described by van Manen (1990). All North Dakota baccalaureate nursing students who participated in an international education experience were invited to participate (n = 34), sixteen participated in mail surveys and eleven with phenomenological interviews. Experiences were viewed through written responses from demographic and open-ended questions in mail surveys and from tape-recorded interviews that were transcribed.; Descriptive statistics were used to summarize demographic information collected through mail surveys. Participants were mostly female, Caucasian, university seniors with an average age of 31 years. Almost half were involved in an international experience less than one year ago and had some knowledge of a foreign language. Responses from the open-ended questions collected through the mail surveys and transcribed interviews were analyzed for meanings. The process of isolating themes by selective reading and linguistic transformations guided analysis of meanings. Thematic statements were isolated and categorized into nine experiential structures and four essential themes. Four essential themes were identified as preparing, adjusting, caring, and transforming. These themes represented a pattern or profile of the structure of the human experience of international education that was found to be influenced by culture, values, and ethics. An descriptive diagram was created to summarize the structure of meaning of international education for baccalaureate nursing students.; Through this inquiry, descriptions and meanings of phenomena related to nursing students' international education experiences were discovered. The significance of this nursing study was the identification of plausible descriptive insights that may be useful to educators who assist students with international education experiences. |
