title: Studying the careers of nurse diplomates: the importance of branch-specific questionnaires.
abstract: Questionnaire design is considered in the context of a longitudinal panel study focusing on the careers of people qualifying from all four branches of the UK nurse diploma course. Separate, but comparable, questionnaires were developed for each branch in order to produce information which reflected the differences between branches, and the experiences of the cohort as a whole. This approach ensured that participants from the smaller branches did not feel their interests and concerns were overshadowed by those of the largest (adult) branch, as is often the case during the diploma course's Common Foundation Programme. The elements that needed to be tailored to each branch emerged during a three-stage piloting process used to develop and test the questionnaires. Differences were found between branches in their use of terminology; in certain issues being more relevant to some branches than others; and in questions which concerned all branches benefiting from the inclusion of branch-specific examples. The effectiveness of this approach to questionnaire design is borne out by the study's high response rates.
authors.affiliation: Nursing Research Unit, King's College London, UK.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hardyman
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tingle
mesh_terms: D002321:Career Choice; D002322:Career Mobility; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate; D004739:England; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013041:Specialties, Nursing / Q000193:education / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D009626:Terminology as Topic