This is a descriptive study of professional values in two different types of baccalaureate nursing students. The types include those enrolled in four-year, college or university programs in professional nursing and those transferring to a four-year program following completion of a community college or hospital diploma program in nursing. These two groups are designated in the study as "generic" and "transfer" students respectively. A total of 171 students were tested and the results compared for significant difference between groups.

The questions which the study addressed related to possible influence of age, cultural background, work experience and type of basic nursing program on the development of professional values in clinical nursing practice. It was assumed that professional values are learned behaviors which are developed in academic and clinical settings under the supervision of capable role models.

The instrument used to explore these questions was a 39 item, forced choice, situational, paper-and-pencil test known in the literature as the JAND (Judgements About Nursing Decisions). This instrument presents six controversial ethical dilemmas in nursing practice. Each item requires two separate responses; one, the Ideal response and the other the Real response which is a projection of peer actions in the workplace. The content validity of the instrument was based on the published Code for Nurses developed by the American Nurses' Association (1976).

The study revealed remarkable consistency between groups. The difference revealed by the study emerged between the Ideal and the Real responses for all students. Here, the mean scores for all samples dropped significantly, indicating the difficulty which nurses have in implementing personal values in the realities of the workplace.

Professionalism was operationalized in the study as those roles and behaviors which support nurse Autonomy, client Advocacy and Accountability in ethical dilemmas. These concepts were gleaned from a cluster model of professionalism (Johnson, 1987) which formed the theoretical framework for the study. Generic students were found to score higher in those issues involving Autonomy. Transfer students were found to score higher in those issues involving Accountability and both groups scored the highest in those issues involving client Advocacy.