A Turkish Study of Nurses’ Attitudes Towards Graduate Distance Education

Abstract

The aim of the study to assess nurses’ attitudes towards graduate distance education in nursing. This descriptive study was conducted in a medical center in July- October 2012 in Turkey. The study sample included total 238 nurses. A questionnaire that was developed by authors was used to collect data. The mean of the participants’ age is 32.72+6.07 and the mean duration of working as a nurse was 11.59+6.64 years. Of them 37.4% work in a internal medicine clinic, and 69.7% of them work as a clinic nurse. 56.7% of them stated that they follow developments related to distance education in nursing. More than fifty percent of participants think that distance education in nursing would be easier than current education and give an opportunity to take education independently, wherever they want. On the other hand, considerable amount of participant have some concerns about lack of a role model and feedback that may lead to poor and unqualified education. It is important that nursing differs from other disciplines in that it is practice-oriented; hence, distance education in nursing should be evaluated separately.