The Operational Development for Discipline Enhancement among Nursing Students at Boromarajonani College of Nursing, Suphanburi

Abstract

This research and development aimed to investigate the current conditions and problems of the nursing students’ disciplines, to develop guidelines for discipline enhancement, and to follow up and evaluate the results of the operational development for discipline enhancement among nursing students in Boromarajonani College of Nursing, Suphanburi. The samples of this study were 147 1st-3rd year nursing students, 6 co-researchers, and 40 key informants. The research instruments composed of a questionnaire with the reliability of .86, an in-depth interview guide, and an observation form. The 2-cycle implementation was conducted from May to September, 2015, according to 4 steps—planning, action, observation, and reflection. Data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and content analysis.

The research results were summarized as follows:

1. The undesirable current conditions of the nursing students’ disciplines composed of 3 issues—punctuality (23 nursing students’ were not complete on schedule), the dress violation (10 nursing students was not in line with the rules and regulations of the college), and cleanliness (7 nursing students lacked of the assigned maintenance of cleanliness). Additionally, the problems of discipline enhancement operation rooted from 2 aspects, an organizational aspect and a personal aspect.

2. The proposed guidelines to enhance nursing students’ disciplines included: 1) increasing awareness toward the important of rules and regulations of the college, 2) adjusting behaviors, 3) promoting positive thinking toward rules and regulations, 4) admiring good role models, 5) implementing the strict penalty, and 6) continuous providing discipline-related activities. After the operational development, nursing students had better discipline performances. Nevertheless, there were still undesirable behaviors—6 for punctuality, 5 for the dress violation, and 2 for cleanliness.

3. From monitoring and evaluation in the 2nd cycle, the findings revealed that nursing students had better discipline performances than those in the 1st cycle. However, there were still undesirable behaviors—2 for punctuality and 2 for the dress violation.

This study suggested that to highly achieve in discipline enhancement among nursing students, a clear policy, increased problem awareness, a good role model, and regular discipline instillation should be taken into account.