GEIS, MARY J.; PHD

                         UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 1985
 
                         SOCIOLOGY, GENERAL (0626)
 

                         Examinations of the adoption and diffusion processes relative to innovations have focused on a variety
                         of factors including the characteristics of the environment, the adoptive unit and the innovation itself.
                         Utilizing the framework of the epidemiological approach encourages attention to the important attributes
                         of all three elements as well as the influence on the adoption and diffusion processes of interactions
                         among the actual and potential adoptive units. This study explored the relationship between
                         environmental factors, organizational characteristics, and innovation type and the spread of two year
                         registered nurse education programs among junior colleges in the U.S. Data were secured from census
                         materials, educational directories, junior college catalogs, various other documents and interviews with
                         community college representatives. Results indicated that such factors as population heterogeneity,
                         change and wealth, and various measures of the need for nurses and nursing education were not useful
                         predictors of the prevalence of associate degree nursing (ADN) programs among the population of junior
                         colleges in a state. Two year colleges that operated ADN programs were larger, wealthier, offered more
                         occupational programs, and were more likely to be publicly controlled and less likely to be located in rural
                         areas than were junior colleges that had not adopted the ADN program feature. Two types of ADN
                         programs were identified: those offering a 'traditional' or medical-model based curriculum, and programs
                         utilizing a more innovative or 'integrated' framework. Junior colleges offering the more innovative form
                         tended to have higher scores on those variables that discriminated the adopters from non-adopters.
                         Analysis of case materials suggested that at the community level hospitals and hospital-sponsored
                         nursing schools were important factors in the community college's decision to adopt or reject the ADN
                         program feature. Exnovators, or institutions that had adopted and later abandoned ADN programs, were
                         found to resemble non-adopters. Further explorations could focus on applications of Evan's organization
                         set concept. A critical incidents approach could be utilized in identifying social and political forces that
                         could affect the adoption-diffusion experience. The relationships between innovation form, exnovation,
                         and organizational characteristics merit additional attention, also.
 

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