How Does COVID-19 Pandemic Influence the Sense of Belonging and Decision-Making Process of Nursing Students: The Study of Nursing Students’ Experiences

Abstract

Financial consideration, internal and external influence, personal goal, and educational achievement always influence the decision-making process and behavior of individuals. Using nursing students as the population, the researcher employed the Social Cognitive Career Theory as the theoretical framework to examine the nursing human resources shortages and how would the COVID-19 pandemic influence the experiences, sense of belonging, and career decision-making process of 58 nursing students in South Korea. The researcher categorized the sharing into two groups, which were before the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results indicated that financial consideration was the significant reason why South Korean nursing students decided to study nursing regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, almost all participants decided to leave the nursing profession due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the consideration between financial factor and personal sacrifice. The outcomes of this study provided a blueprint for human resources professionals, government leaders, policymakers, school leaders, and hospital managers to reform their current curriculum and human resources planning to overcome the potential human resources gaps in the soon future due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Developing Bilingualism in Nursing Students: Learning Foreign Languages beyond the Nursing Curriculum

“…Social cognitive career theory was originally developed with three major factors, including (a) interest in career development, (b) achievement of education and career goals, and (c) academic interest. However, due to the development of social communities and the changing human behaviours, different researchers and scholars have edited and revised the theory with different perspectives over the decades [ 40 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. Currently, the researcher employed social cognitive career theory with five different factors of influences, including (a) interest in career development, (b) achievement of education and career goals, (c) academic interest, (d) financial considerations, and (e) personal considerations [ 35 , 43 , 44 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 ].…”

The Outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic and its Social Impact on Education: Were Engineering Teachers Ready to Teach Online?

“…In addition, workers in other fields have seen their professional careers interrupted and anxiety over their professional future is increasing as a result of the associated economic crisis [ 16 ]. Finally, a change in the most sought-after university careers has even been observed [ 17 ], in so far as students appear to be leaning towards courses of a social nature [ 18 ].…”

The Challenging Experiences of Nursing Students in South Korea: A Qualitative Inquiry of International Students

“…There is, therefore, a need for an investigation of how these international students make sense of and describe their experience in Korea. Given the large number of different courses that universities offer, and in order to concentrate our results on a particular group, the current study focused on international students studying subjects related to nursing [5].…”

“…First, nursing is one of the most popular majors in Korea [5]. Every year, a large number of male and female students decide to enrol at one of the nursing programmes at Korean universities.…”