Genderbias Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Genderbias - Essay Example 2234). According to the 2011 US census, women accounted for 91.6 percent of registered nurses (Landivar, 2013). The lessened interest of female nurses in working in critical care has thus had a major impact on the availability of nurses for work in critical care. The conceptual definition of the proposed research is that specific characteristics of critical care work can be identified and then show that they contribute significantly to the lower interest of female nurses. With better understanding of the key job characteristics that correlate to female nurses’ interest in critical care, it should be possible to develop programs designed to overturn this perception and lead to more graduating female nurses being willing to consider work in critical care. This could have a major impact on addressing the acute shortage of nurses willing to work in critical care. For the purposes of this research proposal it is assumed that the â€Å"total rewards† model used by HR professionals to modify employee attraction can be applied to modifying a graduating female nurse’s perception of critical care nursing as a future career path. This HR model believes that job attributes can be strategically altered to change a nurse’s level of interest. (â€Å"WorldatWork,† 2007). Accordingly, the research question is the following: What are the key characteristics of work in critical care with a strong correlation on the perceptions of graduating female nurses of this field as a viable career alternative? A quantitative survey of graduating nurses from West Coast University will be used to measure the total reward factors that correlate to the relatively low perception of critical care as a desired career path. The study conducted by Halcomb et al. (2007) examined the relationship between student experience, socio-demographics, and overall interest in seeking work in critical care. The proposed research