The purpose of this dissertation is to determine the intra- and inter-group consensus on entry-level role expectations for an Associate Degree nurse-graduate among nurse-faculty and students. The secondary purpose of this exploratory study is to determine the extent to which selected demographic variables (i.e., age, income, educational level, work experience, and occupational status) may be related to these role expectations. The unit of analysis is inter/intra group consensus on role expectations.

The dependent variables on the instrument called Job Expectations for the Associate Degree Graduate Registered Nurse are drawn from a nursing practice framework and are described on three scales; (I) patient/setting, (II) nursing process and (III) management. The independent demographic variables were suggested by the literature as factors linked to the adult socialization process and consensus formulation. A stratified, geographically representative sample of respondents was selected by saturation sampling of ten (10) National League for Nursing (NLN) Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) Programs in New York State. This survey sample includes 118 nurse-faculty, 338 first year students and 408 second year students.

A multi-measure approach was used to determine consensus on role norms. An item by item (N = 44), column analysis was done by using Leik's (1966) dispersion score and the Mann-Whitney U non-parametric technique. The consensus pattern was high to medium for faculty and students on obligatory expectations. There was low consensus on non-obligatory expectations. A case by case (N = 864) row analysis was done by applying mean, standard deviation, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and the TUKEY parametric test. There was a significant difference between the faculty and the first year students on five of the six subscales. The faculty and second year students were significantly different on three of the non-obligatory subscales. The data describes a nurse-faculty group who have a closer consensus pattern to the second year students than the first year students on the three obligatory subscales. This study suggests consensus as a possible socializing agent for the nurse technician. An ANOVA and TUKEY test failed to identify a significant difference for the demographic variables. This data set did not support a relationship between demographic variables and perceptions of the identified normative domains.