1. Understanding Career Choice: A Turn to Narrative
Understanding Career Choice: A Turn to Narrative Sheri Price RN (PhD Candidate)
Dr. Linda McGillis Hall (PhD Supervisor)
Dr. Jan Angus (Committee Member)
Dr. Elizabeth Peter (Committee Member)

2. Introduction Why Study Career Choice? Why Now?
A significant focus within health care organizations is the recruitment and retention of future professionals, specifically nurses. Over the next decade, Canada will experience a critical shortage of nurses, with a projected shortfall of 100,000 nurses by 2016 (Advisory Committee on Health Human Resources, 2002). Nursing recruitment is a recognized national and international priority. The future of Nursing will lie in the ability to attract and recruit the upcoming Millennial generation (born between 1980 and 2000) to the profession; however, we currently lack an understanding of the factors (personal and situational) that influence their decision to enter and remain in the profession. Understanding the early socialization experiences of this next cohort of nurses is of critical importance and may inform future recruitment and retention strategies.
Based on existing gaps in relation to professional socialization research and theory, the role of early socialization in career choice, and the need to further understand the unique characteristics of the future generational cohort of professionals, it is hypothesized that early professional socialization experiences will have an impact on the career decisions and career outcomes of the future generation of nursing professionals. The purpose of this study will be to explore the early professional socialization experiences of the Millennial generation of nurses, examining personal, social, organizational and political influences on their decision to enter the profession.
What attracts individuals to the profession?
How do individuals learn about nursing as a profession/career choice? What influences the career decisions of the next generation? What experiences comprise early socialization to the profession?
Professional Socialization
Essential Process of Knowledge, Skill, Attitudes, & Behavior Acquisition
Organizational Psychology
Post Professional Entry Focus; Link to Satisfaction & Retention
Anticipatory Socialization = Job Search & Prior Job Experience
Nursing
Education to Practice; Transition Theories; Orientation Focus
Career Choice Influences linked to Early Socialization

3. Background Nursing Shortage Recruitment & Retention
Shortfall of 100, 000 Nurses (31%) by 2016 (CNA, 2008)
Recruitment & Retention
Growing Attrition Rates; Reality & Transition Shock
Millennial Generation (Born )
Emerging professional group;
Distinct Socialization Experiences, Parenting; Job Expectations
Experiential Knowledge
Nurse; Educator; Mentor
Recruitment Committees
A significant focus within health care organizations is the recruitment and retention of future professionals, specifically nurses. Over the next decade, Canada will experience a critical shortage of nurses, with a projected shortfall of 100,000 nurses by 2016 (Advisory Committee on Health Human Resources, 2002). Nursing recruitment is a recognized national and international priority. The future of Nursing will lie in the ability to attract and recruit the upcoming Millennial generation (born between 1980 and 2000) to the profession; however, we currently lack an understanding of the factors (personal and situational) that influence their decision to enter and remain in the profession. Understanding the early socialization experiences of this next cohort of nurses is of critical importance and may inform future recruitment and retention strategies.
Based on existing gaps in relation to professional socialization research and theory, the role of early socialization in career choice, and the need to further understand the unique characteristics of the future generational cohort of professionals, it is hypothesized that early professional socialization experiences will have an impact on the career decisions and career outcomes of the future generation of nursing professionals. The purpose of this study will be to explore the early professional socialization experiences of the Millennial generation of nurses, examining personal, social, organizational and political influences on their decision to enter the profession.
What attracts individuals to the profession?
How do individuals learn about nursing as a profession/career choice? What influences the career decisions of the next generation? What experiences comprise early socialization to the profession?
Professional Socialization
Essential Process of Knowledge, Skill, Attitudes, & Behavior Acquisition
Organizational Psychology
Post Professional Entry Focus; Link to Satisfaction & Retention
Anticipatory Socialization = Job Search & Prior Job Experience
Nursing
Education to Practice; Transition Theories; Orientation Focus
Career Choice Influences linked to Early Socialization

4. Literature Review Nursing Organizational Psychology
Synthesis of Career Choice & Prof. Socialization
Meta-Study of Career Choice in Nursing (Price, 2009)
Organizational Psychology
Review of Career Choice Theory (Price, 2008)
Themes emerged inductively

5. Synthesis Nursing Literature Broad Search terms:
Career/Occupational/Vocational Choice
Nurse/Nurses/Nursing
Professional Socialization/Socialization
1990 – Present
48 Studies – 23 Qualitative; 25 Quantitative & Mixed
4 Themes
Themes emerged inductively

6. Themes Idealized and Traditional Views
Caring; Compassionate; Nurturing
Altruistic Decision
Career Choices Influences: Self and Others
Self Concept; Prof. Orientation
Parents; Peers, Role Models
Gender, Race and Cultural Considerations
Gender Roles; Diversity; Social Class; Cultural Expectations
Socialization & Shock
Incongruence with Expectations; Dissonance; Distress; Attrition
Theme #1
Nursing as caring, compassionate and nurturing; Expertise & critical thinking not emphasized
Altruistic, virtuous & noble career choice; Desire to care for & help others; “make a difference”
Dissonance with stereotypical portrayal & tasks; Link to attrition, transition shock, career satisfaction and retention
Theme #2
Self Concept -Congruence with perceptions of Nurse
Professional Orientations-Caring; Expertise; Life
Parents; Peers; Teachers; Experiential Knowledge; Direct Encounters; Nursing Role Models; Media
Theme #3
Gender Role Orientation-Nursing as a female profession (feminine & caring)
Women – Caring orientation; Men – Life orientation
Professional personhood linked to social positions- Career for white, middle class women
Lack of role models reflecting diversity; Racial prejudice exists; Influence of cultural expectations
Theme #4
Essential Process of Knowledge, Skill, Attitudes, & Behavior Acquisition
Focus on Transition (Education to Practice); Linked to pre-held assumptions & perceptions
Incongruence with practice lead to dissonance & distress -Link to attrition, job satisfaction, retention

7. Career Choice Theory Developmental Person-environment Fit
Early childhood experiences; family interactions; life-long socialization experiences; values; gender & class
(Ginztberg et al, 1951; Roe, 1956; Gottfredson, 1981, 1996)
Person-environment Fit
Interplay between personality and environment; values, attitudes, skills and abilities (Holland, 1959; Strong, 1927)
Social-cognitive
Self-efficacy; interplay of individual, social and environmental influences (Betz et al., 1996; Lent et al., 1994)
Holland’s (1959) theory of ‘Career Typology’ remains one of the most widely accepted and researched career choice theories today and is recognized as having the greatest impact on our understanding of the career choice process
Social Cognitive Career Theory’ (SCCT) developed by Lent, Brown & Hackett (1994). SCCT was derived in part from Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory and provides a comprehensive framework for exploring career choice by recognizing the interplay of multiple individual, social and environmental
Developmental Process
Life-Span Considerations
Early Socialization Influences
Childhood Experiences
Parental & Family Interactions
Peer Influence
Assessment of Fit

8. Literature Review: Summary
Career Choice is …
A dynamic processing of life-long influences and experiences
Influenced by a variety of individual, developmental, social and environmental variables
Links to professional socialization; transition; retention
career choice is influenced by a variety of indivdual, developmental, social and environmental variables. Each of these theories also provide support for the recognition of career choice as a dynamic processing of life-long influences and experiences.
unique phenomenology and context of the individual
What are all the contextual factors influencing career choice for the emerging generation of professionals within modern society? How do individuals make sense of career choice influences and experiences that inform their career choice options? How does the career choice process unfold over time?

9. Literature Review: Gaps
Contextual understanding of career choice
Unique phenomenology of individual experience
Experiences of the emerging Millennial generation:
Influences on career choice
Process of career choice
Consideration for the challenges, complexities and uncertainties of modern society and workplaces

10. My Story Why did I become a Nurse?
How did I come to choose Nursing as a Career?
Why did I become a Nurse?
What were the influences on my decision?

11. Narrative Theory Narrative as a Theoretical Approach
"...the self does not know itself immediately, but only indirectly by the detour of the cultural signs of all sorts…. and, among them, the narratives of everyday life."
Paul Ricoeur (1991, p.80)
Narrative as a Theoretical Approach
Explore human experiences
Gives meaning to experience
Means to understanding past life events
Draws actions & events into unified, meaningful whole
Experience is rendered meaningful
Paul Ricoeur (as cited in Wood, 1991, p. 198)
Cognition of life events which unifies identity
Expression of identity through storied texts
Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology examines how human meanings are interpreted through life stories and language.
Narrative is the primary experience in which human experience is made meaningful (Polkinghorne, 1988). According to Polkinghorne, “experience is meaningful and human behavior is generated from and informed by this meaningfulness” thus the study of human behavior must include an exploration of meanings (1988, p. 1). Narrative meaning draws together human actions and events and meaning is created by recognizing the contributions of these actions and events to a specific outcome and then configures these parts into a unified, meaningful and coherent whole. Ricouer views the interpretation process in part the phenomenon to be interpreted and the phenomenon of telling the story. Interpretation is viewed as the dialectic of explanation and understanding. According to Ricoeur, “interpretation is the process by which disclosure of new modes of being …gives to the subject a new capacity for knowing himself”
Methodology is the philosophical framework that must be assimilated in order to guide the inquiry and demonstrates that the researcher is clear about the assumptions of the approach. The method must be defended within the philosophical and epistemological positions of the study.
In narrative inquiry – people are viewed as embodiments of lived stories; individuals are viewed as composing lives that are shaped by social and cultural narratives (clandinin)
 As I continue to explore narrative inquiry as a theoretical approach in which people are viewed as embodiments of lived stories; individuals are viewed as composing lives that are shaped by social and cultural narratives

12. Narrative Methodology
"...the self does not know itself immediately, but only indirectly by the detour of the cultural signs of all sorts…. and, among them, the narratives of everyday life."
Paul Ricoeur (1991, p.80)
Interpretive Narrative (Polkinghorne, 1997; Beiter, 2007)
Focus on Narrative Configuration & Emplotment
3 stages: Pre-narrative; Emplotment; Reconfiguration
Interpretation
Temporality
Attention to language & personal, social, cultural contexts
Experience is rendered meaningful
Temporal nature is central in that the emplotment may reveal a story that is different than the one that is lived.
Cognition of life events which unifies identity
Expression of identity through storied texts
Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology examines how human meanings are interpreted through life stories and language.
Narrative is the primary experience in which human experience is made meaningful (Polkinghorne, 1988). According to Polkinghorne, “experience is meaningful and human behavior is generated from and informed by this meaningfulness” thus the study of human behavior must include an exploration of meanings (1988, p. 1). Narrative meaning draws together human actions and events and meaning is created by recognizing the contributions of these actions and events to a specific outcome and then configures these parts into a unified, meaningful and coherent whole. Ricouer views the interpretation process in part the phenomenon to be interpreted and the phenomenon of telling the story. Interpretation is viewed as the dialectic of explanation and understanding. According to Ricoeur, “interpretation is the process by which disclosure of new modes of being …gives to the subject a new capacity for knowing himself”
Methodology is the philosophical framework that must be assimilated in order to guide the inquiry and demonstrates that the researcher is clear about the assumptions of the approach. The method must be defended within the philosophical and epistemological positions of the study.
In narrative inquiry – people are viewed as embodiments of lived stories; individulas are viewed as composing lives that are shaped by social and cultural narratives (clandinin)
 As I continue to explore narratibe inquiry as a theoretical approach in which people are viewed as embodiments of lived stories; individuals are viewed as composing lives that are shaped by social and cultural narratives

13. PhD Research
Purpose
To understand the experience of choosing Nursing as a career among individuals of the Millennial generation.
Based on existing gaps in relation to professional socialization research and theory, the role of early socialization in career choice, and the need to further understand the unique characteristics of the future generational cohort of professionals, it is hypothesized that early professional socialization experiences will have an impact on the career decisions and career outcomes of the future generation of nursing professionals. The purpose of this study will be to explore career choice experiences of the Millennial generation of nurses, examining personal, social, organizational and political influences on their decision to enter the profession.
To understand how Nurses from the Millennial generation came to choose Nursing as a career.

14. Research Questions
How do participants explain, account for, and make sense of their choice of nursing as a career ?
How do participants describe personal, social, and organizational influences within their career choice narratives ?
How do these narratives reflect an understanding, or create images of, nursing as a career; as a profession?
How do individuals explain, account for, and make sense of their choice of Nursing as a career?
How are personal, social, and organizational influences recognized within their stories/narratives?
What do people choose to draw on in a narrative account of their career choices?
How do these narratives reflect an understanding, or create images of, Nursing as a profession?
How do members of the Millennial generation talk about careers?

15. Methodology & Methods Methodology:
Interpretive; Narrative (Polkinghorne, 1997; Beiter, 2007)
Sample:
10-16 Millennial BScN Students; Pre-entry
Nursing is preferred Career Choice
Setting:
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS
Methods:
Repeat Interviews; Participant Journals
Narrative Analysis; Emplotment

16. Significance
Insight into early influences on career choice for the Millennial generation.
Provide an understanding of the career choice process.
Provide insight into Millennial generation’s perceptions of nursing & career expectations.
May inform recruitment, education, socialization and retention initiatives

17. Funding Acknowledgements
Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing
Canadian Nurses Foundation
Ontario Graduate Scholarship
Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (IHSPR)

18. Questions ? Sheri Price Thank You
Contact Information:
Sheri Price
Doctoral Student
Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing
University of Toronto
Thank You