| Abstract: | The University of San Francisco is conducting a 5-year evaluation of its new baccalaureate professional nursing education curriculum. Graduates of the old and the new curriculum are being compared, and one class (1972) is being followed from the freshman year to one year following graduation. There are approximately ninety students in each class (1969-1974) . The Q-technique is one of the devices being used to assess student perceptions of the curriculum. The 72-item Q-sort is administered to each class (sophomore, junior, senior) in the spring of each year and is sorted twice by each respondent at one sitting: first, in terms of the curriculum as it is; second, as the students would like it to be. This double sort at one sitting is unique. A rank ordering of the items by mean scores and intercorrelations of cluster findings are presented. Use of the double Q-sort as a research tool appears to be an effective device for measuring the degree of agreement and diversity of student perceptions of the curriculum. |
