Gender and students’ vocational choices in entering the field of nursing

As the demand increases for nursing professionals, existing theories borrowed from the field of industrial psychology may help employers and recruiters to identify appropriate candidates, train, hire and promote nurses in a more effective manner. An important component of these theories is understanding an individual’s motivation to choose a certain profession. This preliminary study examined gender differences in motivations to enter the field of nursing. Two theoretical points of view were offered to account for the differences: Holland and Row’s models of person-job congruence and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. One hundred and sixty (24 men and 136 women) freshmen from 3 nursing programs were asked to report their motivations to enter nursing. A new instrument based on the models mentioned above and representing 2 basic motivations, self-actualization and survival needs, was developed for the purposes of this study. While both genders mentioned self-actualization as their main motivation for entering nursing, men tended to give survival needs more weight than women did. The motivation patterns as well as the gender differences are discussed in light of recent trends in nursing and within the framework of personnel selection and training.