Honors and Nursing: Reasons for Enrollment, Persistence, and Withdrawal.

BACKGROUND: The intertwining of honors within collegiate nursing education can be rewarding and challenging for students. This study examined why students enroll in honors, why students persist in honors, why some students withdraw from honors, and what resources are beneficial to honors success. METHOD: An online survey was sent to 130 nursing students enrolled in an honors program at one midwestern university. RESULTS: Forty-six nursing students completed the survey. Students indicated they enrolled in honors programs to attend classes with fewer students, to achieve Honors College Distinction, and to gain skills in professionalism and leadership. Reasons for withdrawal from honors included lack of time, increased workload, and added stress. CONCLUSION: Nursing students face many challenges in successful completion of an honors program. The results from this study led to the development of Honors and Nursing: A Supplemental Honors Nursing Guidebook for Honors Student Success, a resource for nursing honors students at the university. [J Nurs Educ. 2021;60(6):333-336.].

Equine Caregiver Information-Seeking Preferences: Surveys in the Midwest.

Two surveys of equine owners/managers and professionals using convenience sampling via multimodal distribution were conducted on perceptions of equid health and well-being (n = 142) and equine nutrition and feeding practices (n = 151). Surveys were distributed in 2014-2015 (health and well-being) and 2016 (nutrition and feeding) to similar email lists and social media sites; both included questions regarding information-seeking preferences. Respondents were mostly female (62% health and well-being, 84% nutrition and feeding) and had over 20 years of equine ownership/management experience (47% and 61%, respectively). Participants in the Nutrition and Feeding survey reported seeking information from veterinarians (77%), books/magazines (42%), horse enthusiasts (38%), friends/family (35%), Internet/social media (28%), feed company representative (28%), farrier (25%), scientific publications (25%), trainer/instructor (21%), equine nutritionist (19%), equine dentist (7%), extension specialist (7%), and radio (1%). The Health and Well-Being survey requested information regarding participants' likeliness (5-point Likert scale) of trusting various sources for animal well-being information. Respondents from the Health and Well-Being survey indicated veterinarians/nutritionists (average = 4.5) and extension specialists/university personnel (average = 4.0) as their top two trusted sources of information, and local (average = 2.9) and national humane societies/rescues (average = 2.8) their least-trusted sources of information. These results elucidated the information-seeking preferences of horse owners from the Upper Midwest regarding two equine topics. Veterinarians are sought as a source of equine information in the Upper Midwest.