244 ■ III: ROLE FUNCTIONS OF DOCTORAL ADVANCED NURSING PRACTICE
full time in a tenure or nontenure track position at a school of nursing in a college or
university setting offering a minimum of a BSN. DAPRNs were included if they were
employed full time as a nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist, nurse- midwife, or
nurse anesthetist. DNP- prepared nurse executives were included who had full- time
employment as a nurse executive in a health care institution.
COLLECTION OF DATA AND METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS
The informants were interviewed in a place of their choice providing privacy and com-
fort. The in- depth interviews lasted up to one and one- half hours and no second inter-
views were requested by any informants or researchers for confirmatory purposes.
Thematic saturation of the data occurred after six interviews, and two additional infor-
mants were sought for confirmation of the data. Thematic saturation for this study
meant that there were no new surprises in the data and no new themes emerged (Bowen,
2008). Trustworthiness, credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability of
the data were achieved. The data were analyzed by one researcher and validated by a
second researcher during the process of data collection and analysis.
The interviews were audiotaped and the data transcribed verbatim for analysis.
Concurrent data collection and analysis occurred, allowing the data to guide the analy-
sis and further data collection. Analysis followed the procedures outlined by scholars
from the Dutch (Utrecht) school (Barritt, Beekman, Bleeker, & Mulderjif, 1984). The data
analysis process called for a two- part analysis of identifying common forms and shared
themes or themes. In using this method, the researchers constructed a thematic analysis
of the narrative through identifying the experiential (van Kaam, 1991). Nvivo 10 quali-
tative data manager was used to assist with the data analysis.
FINDINGS
The findings of this study are being presented according to the process of analysis.
There were eight informants who were interviewed for this study. There were eight
women in the study. The ages ranged from 51 to 63 years, with the median age being
57.6 years. The majority of informants ( n = 7) were from Pennsylvania and the remain-
der ( n = 1) from New Jersey. All the informants identified their culture or race as White.
All the informants received DNP degrees and all started as post- master’s students. The
focus of the DNP program for the informants included five with a focus in advanced
practice, and three in administration/ leadership. The major focus of the current job of
the informants was one nurse- midwife, one nurse practitioner, three nurse executives,
and three nurse educators, with one informant having a dual role of nurse practitioner
and nurse educator.
The focus of the analysis was on both description and interpretation of the phe-
nomena of interest. The first step was to identify common forms after an analysis of the
narrative (Barritt et al., 1984). The following were identified for this study:
- Dual role
- Emerging role
- Feeling different after the degree
- Keeping current
- Knowing the limits
- Nurses/ colleagues pushback