THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NURSING EDUCATION AND THE CREATIVITY OF NURSING STUDENTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING EDUCATIO

Today nurses are practicing in diverse roles that require independent judgment and creative strategies for alternative solutions to patient problems. However, past research has shown that creative thinking ability of nursing students decreased as their education progressed. Comparison of nursing students enrolled in the three types of basic nursing education showed differences in specific characteristics of creativity but no one group scored higher in overall creativity.;This study compared basic nursing students enrolled in an associate degree program in nursing with registered nurses enrolled in a baccalaureate program in nursing. Both beginning and graduating students participated. The sample consisted of nursing students enrolled in two nursing programs at a liberal arts college (N = 118). The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking was utilized to obtain scores of creative thinking ability for each subject in the sample. The groups were compared utilizing a one-way analysis of variance. The Tukey test was used to determine specific group differences.;The results showed that the mean scores of each group increased with each year of nursing education. Graduating associate degree students scored slightly higher than beginning associate degree students but the difference was not statistically significant. The graduating registered nurse baccalaureate students scored significantly higher (p (LESSTHEQ) .05) than all three other groups of students. All the registered nurse baccalaureate students scored significantly higher (p (LESSTHEQ) .05) on two of the three characteristics of creative thinking.;It appears that a relationship exists between baccalaureate education for registered nurses and creative thinking ability. Further research is needed to determine other variables that may influence the creative thinking ability of registered nurse baccalaureate students.