| Summary: | This study explored student nurses' images of nursing from their point of entry to training through their early experiences of clinical nursing. The research approach was based on Glaser and Strauss's principles for the generation of grounded theory, and the techniques of comparative analysis and theoretical sampling were employed. Student nurses from three intake groups at a single Scottish nursing college provided the population from which subjects were chosen. Following a short exploratory questionnaire administered to each student cohort, the primary means of data collection was through informal in-depth interviews, and twenty-four students were selected for this purpose. Among the twenty-four, all four branches of nurse training were represented (general nursing, mental handicap nursing, mental nursing, and sick children's nursing). Ages of interviewees ranged from seventeen to thirty-six years, and three of the students were male. Three rounds of individual interviews were conducted, the first being undertaken prior to the students' clinical experience, the second during their second clinical placements, and the third during their fourth or fifth clinical placement. Analysis of the first interviews revealed five major themes in the students' initial images of nursing: 'pictures of nursing', 'the good nurse', 'what nursing entails', 'occupational labels for nursing' and 'being a student - becoming a nurse'. These themes were pursued in the later interviews and the characteristics of the students' experience-mediated images were identified. In addition, the processes through which students' images developed were analysed. These included the process of affirmation, when initial images were congruent with experience, and processes of accommodation and non-accommodation to disparity when image and experience lacked congruence. Associated processes which either facilitated or inhibited perceived affirmation or accommodation of the image included identification, disillusionment, and extenuation.
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