Nursing student engagement: Researching the journey and its potential impact on transitions to practice

Nursing student engagement fundamentally contributes toward quality student advancement and future quality nursing care. This research evaluates students’ perception of their nursing education and their commitment toward practice. The findings provide a background for the development of solid nursing practices with high scores of engagement, in both class and clinicals. The scores for stress management and coping were the lowest and further point to a greater learning need in this area. Currently doing very well with the learning content, they simultaneously are suffering with challenging emotional responses to this complex education. Stress management, coping, and resiliency sessions are now acutely highlighted as extremely important and necessary (for high quality nursing students’ long-term emotional and cognitive wellness). Students can be functioning at higher emotional levels longer with this supportive reinforcement. When this emotion protection is developed, and implemented, students will provide a stronger and more resilient future nursing workforce. *Correspondence to: Kathleen Hudson, University of Texas at Tyler, Longview University Center, USA, Tel: 903-240-7040, E-mail: KHudson@uttyler.edu