Examination of intern nursing students' ability to practice professional behaviors and their perceptions of professional competence

ÇELİK, Ayşe. Examination of Intern Nursing Students' Ability to Practice Professional Behaviors and Their Perceptions of Professional Competence. (Master's Thesis), Çankırı, 2025. This study aimed to examine the ability of intern nursing students to practice professional behaviors and their perceptions of professional competence. This descriptive, cross-sectional, and correlational study was conducted with a population of 190 fourth-year students enrolled in the Nursing Departments of Çankırı Karatekin University Faculty of Health Sciences and İzmir Democracy University Faculty of Health Sciences during the 2024-2025 academic year. Data were collected using the "Socio-Demographic Information Form," the "Scale for Determining Nursing Students' Ability to Practice Professional Behaviors," and the "Nursing Students' Self-Assessment of Professional Competence Tool." The data were analyzed using SPSS 21 software with frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U, and Spearman correlation tests. The average age of the participating students was 22.40±5.4 years. The mean total score of the "Scale for Determining Nursing Students' Ability to Practice Professional Behaviors" was 106.63±15.29, while the mean total score of the "Nursing Students' Self-Assessment of Professional Competence Tool" was 235.65±53.64. Furthermore, a positive correlation was found between the total and sub-dimension scores of both the "Scale for Determining Nursing Students' Ability to Practice Professional Behaviors" and the "Nursing Students' Self-Assessment of Professional Competence Tool" (p < .001). As a result, it was determined that intern nursing students had a moderate level of ability to practice professional behaviors and a good level of perception of professional competence, and that as their ability to practice professional behaviors increased, their perception of professional competence also improved. Keywords: Nursing, Student, Professional Behavior, Professional Competence