Summary This study investigated students' characterizations of nursing and the personal importance assigned to these at various levels in two baccalaureate nursing programs. The process of professional socialization was hypothesized to result in measurable changes. Although professional socialization was not supported throughout the study, it was upheld by some findings. Seniors' perceptions of nursing and related values corresponded closely with those of faculty members. Students assigned greater personal inportance to advanced professional characteristics at later stages in both programs but did not typically attribute these characteristics to their picture of nursing. In general, correlate student and faculty groups in the two programs did not differ in their attribution of advanced professional characteristics to nursing or in their valuation of these characteristics. Student groups reached greater consensus with respect to the personal importance of the suggested characteristics of nursing, but not regarding what they saw in nursing. Individually, students did not typically achieve greater consonance within themselves between what they attributed to nursing and what they valued for themselves.
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Hildegarde Siegel (1968) studied this question.