260 ■ III: ROLE FUNCTIONS OF DOCTORAL ADVANCED NURSING PRACTICE
■ METHODOLOGY
STUDY DESIGN
This prospective cross- sectional study is a follow- up from the initial “Report on a
National Study of Doctoral Nursing Faculty” published in 2012 (Dreher et al., 2012). This
study used the same descriptive survey conducted in 2009 via Survey Monkey to com-
pare and contrast the current perception of doctoral nursing faculty nationally with the
2009 data about issues specific to doctoral nursing education, doctoral nursing faculty
demographics, and their views on doctoral education, as well as on succession planning
in nursing academia. The survey titled, “A National Survey of Doctoral Nursing Faculty
and Succession Planning” (Dreher et al., 2012) remained fundamentally unchanged in
the current study. Data were collected during the year 2013. Qualitative findings are
not reported in this study due to the enormous number of responses that could not be
included in this chapter. The study authors are seeking to publish these rich findings in
the near future in “Outcomes” in The DNP e- Newsletter.
SAMPLING
A comprehensive list of all U.S. universities offering doctoral nursing programs (DNP
and PhD) was obtained from the AACN website. An e- mail invitation was sent to the
department chairs of all identified programs requesting that they and their doctoral fac-
ulty participate in a web- based survey. Individual faculty who were clearly identified as
having teaching appointments in either a DNP or PhD program and who had a public
e- mail, were also solicited. Participation was voluntary and open to doctoral faculty from
academic institutions offering a DNP, a PhD, or both degrees in the nursing discipline.
In the first study (due to the initial limited number of programs admitting students in
2009), faculty who were in the process of launching a new DNP program were included
in the survey, but not in this study. In order to be classified as “doctoral nursing faculty”
an individual respondent had to have met one of the following criteria: (a) had taught
in a PhD or DNP program in the past 2 years or (b) had been actively engaged in doc-
toral student supervision (normally PhD dissertation supervision or DNP project/ prac-
tice dissertation supervision). Responses were anonymous and personal identification
information was not requested. Clustering or stratification was not used in the sampling
frame. An electronic cover letter that included an explanation of the study, institutional
review board (IRB) approval, and information on providing informed consent accompa-
nied the e- mail sent to each prospective participant. By clicking on the Survey Monkey
link to the survey available at the end of the letter, prospective participants were able to
provide consent and begin.
Survey Questionnaire
The researchers developed a 32- item web survey, a National Survey of Doctoral Nursing
Faculty and Succession Planning in 2009, to determine the state of nursing doctoral edu-
cation from a faculty perspective. This is a follow- up study with the same population of
PhD and DNP faculty (with a different sample) to ascertain the current state of doctoral
nursing faculty and the future of doctoral education with respect to succession planning.
The same survey (minus 1 item), was used with only minor modification to the word-
ing of certain questions so that each first survey question could be compared statistically