Background: Currently, Japan must expand the field of nursing and its workforce in order to provide services for a super aging society, within a social background of a declining birthrate. However, qualitative changes are being made in nursing higher education and the specialized/certified nursing system. A report on career and vocational education was announced from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2011, and career education was promoted.
Methodology: We conducted a focus group interview with 2 groups of 7 students who would soon begin employment as nurses. We assessed their motivation toward their occupation and their thoughts about future careers, and then conducted a qualitative content analysis based on career theory.
Results: The analysis revealed that students felt the necessity to have clinically relevant skills, and that students who were highly conscious of the formation of their careers were thinking about obtaining degrees and future careers outside of clinical settings. College students had vague goals associated with future careers, but had chosen environments that might fulfill their ambitions. Though participants already experienced clinical training at a university, they experienced difficulty forming concrete images because their main source was real experiences and information from familiar people or the Internet. They also thought that relationships in the workplace greatly affected career development as a nurse. Based on this, participants had an positive attitude towards their profession and were motivated to think about approaches and skills to help them meet their career goals.
Conclusions:The training of practical skills is important in nursing, but students are seeking human relationships that can aid learning across educational backgrounds and age barriers. It may be necessary to enhance the diversity of career education in the field of nursing.
