Does the Baccalaureate Make a Difference?: Differentiating Nurse Performance by Education and Experience

Abstract

The nursing profession continues to debate the question of whether level of education matters in performance once the nurse is oriented to a particular setting, or whether the assumed advantages of baccalaureate education can be substituted by on-the-job experience. In this study, nurses with a baccalaureate degree demonstrated more nursing competencies when compared with their associate degree or diploma colleagues. Results also suggest that education promotes a broader range of abilities than does experience.