Gender Role Conflict and Male Nursing Students' Academic and Program Success.

BACKGROUND: Despite calls to increase the proportion of men in nursing, little change has occurred, and anecdotal accounts suggest poor retention of men in nursing programs. This study explored the role that gender role conflict (GRC) may play in men's academic success. METHOD: Men in a large nursing program (n = 123) in the United States were surveyed to explore their GRC upon entry to their nursing program and then again 1 and 2 years later. GRC results, academic test scores, and indicators of program success were analyzed to explore GRC patterns over time and the influence of GRC on academic and program outcomes. RESULTS: GRC did not significantly influence most measures of academic success, program completion, or NCLEX-RN results. CONCLUSION: GRC does not appear to influence academic or program success; however, additional research is needed. [J Nurs Educ. 2023;62(1):42-46.].

Gender-based barriers for male students in nursing education programs: prevalence and perceived importance.

To meet the recent call to increase the number of nurses by recruiting men, nursing education programs will need to reduce gender-based barriers. No study found has adequately quantified the prevalence and perceived importance of barriers to men in nursing education programs. These barriers create an academic environment that is unfriendly to men. As such, I defined a new construct, "male friendliness," as a function of the presence and importance of these barriers. The aims of this study were to describe the prevalence and perceived importance of barriers and to develop a tool to measure male friendliness in nursing programs. A pilot tool addressing 33 barriers, which were obtained from the literature, my experience, and a panel of nurse educators, was mailed to 200 male nurses. The findings revealed that seven barriers were importantly different in prevalence between different subsamples of male nurses, and no barrier was rated unimportant by more than 20% of respondents. The similarities in findings between groups of male nurses, diverse in geography, school attendance, and graduation dates, suggest that the barriers men face in nursing school are pervasive, consistent, and have changed little over time. From the findings, the Inventory of Male Friendliness in Nursing Programs (IMFNP) was developed.