Abstract
This article is Part I of a three-part series that reports the quantitative findings that investigated if an externship program had a long-term effect on new graduates' role socialization to the healthcare environment. Two groups were compared: a group of 26 registered nurses who had participated in the externship program and a matched cohort group of 26 nurses who had not participated in an externship program at this institution or any other clinical agency. No statistically significant differences were found between the groups on the variables of job satisfaction and sense of belonging. In contrast, the analysis did demonstrate significant differences in the mean scores for professionalism and role socialization between the two groups; however, the average score on each scale for those nurses in the cohort group was higher as compared to the average scale score of the nurses who had been nurse externs.