Our survey results reflect two aspects. Firstly, the career maturity and professional commitment scores of postgraduate nursing students were medium level, which showed that the graduate students were unprepared to enter the workforce. Based on this observation, we suggested the introduction of new courses in colleges and universities to foster decision-making skills among the nursing post-graduates, these soft-skills allow the students to re-establish their employment objectives and career planning strategies. The current courses were focused on professional outlooks, such as nursing education, nursing management, clinical nursing, etc., and were not beneficial to develop career goals. Although the school provided help in terms of career guidance, yet they couldn’t meet students’ need as their primary interest were on the overall placement of post-graduates. Due to limited direction, the employment goals of the nursing graduates were not clear[11, 12]. Indeed, most career education programmes embody objectives that endorse the acquisition of information related to both the self and career options, the salience of students utilizing available career information has also been affirmed by attempts to promote career information-seeking behaviours through a variety of interventions [13].
From the score of the career maturity scale, our study reported the highest score of career independence, i.e. 3.36 (SD 0.55), which indicated that the nursing graduates were no longer affected by parents’ decision, therefore the control over ones’ career choice was relatively high. The lowest score of career confidence was 2.63 (SD 0.52), which might be related to the lack of clinical practice, confusion about career orientation, and the lack of professional confidence among the students from grade one to grade three in this study [14]. Japanese research showed that nursing students with higher career maturity were more likely to continue pursuing the profession. The higher individuals' career maturity, the greater the likelihood they will show achievement in career development and facility in making insightful decisions about occupational selection. Likewise, it is necessary to improve the active initiative of nursing postgraduates and enhance their vocational decision-making ability from multiple perspectives, so as to improve their vocational maturity and further alleviate the shortage of nursing talents with high academic degrees [15–16]. From the point of professional commitment scale score, norm commitment 3.92 (SD 0.54) was the highest, which was consistent with the reported result [17]. Due to the recent development in nursing schools, the higher score normative commitment than ever before. The nursing students were willing to take professional learning related responsibility to strengthen their medical, and vocational ethics, which improved their professional identity. Continuance commitment to a minimum score of (3.06 ± 0.49) points, due to the higher nursing graduate student's career goals and career expectations, despite their significant knowledge and ideas are full of confidence, while in the clinical work their professional advantage and value can't give full play. Also they may affected by various influences, and hard to overcome these difficulties, in addition their clinical practice are limited, which lead them to produce career frustration and dissatisfaction and even thoughts of transition and resignation [18–19]. A study of South Korea confirmed that an awareness of the nursing profession does not guarantee full-time employment. Typically, the students did not invest time and energy on professional development, and they were not prepared to handle challenging job profiles in a clinical setting. More than 15% of the nursing staff at 56.6% of the hospitals were laid off work [14]. As evident, continued commitment has a profound impact on future career development, therefore, pre-employment vocational education is particularly important.
Secondly there is a positive correlation between the total score of professional commitment and the overall rating of career maturity (r = 0.19, P < 0.01), which indicated that the ideal dedication, normative commitment and affective commitment in the professional commitment scale were all positively correlated with the overall score of career maturity, whereas, the continuance commitment is negatively correlated with career maturity, which proved that professional commitment and career maturity influence each other. The professional commitment of nursing graduate students reflected their recognition, love, willingness to pay, and the level of excellent performance. These attributes has a positive impact on career maturity. We can further enhance the professional maturity of nursing graduate students by working on their professional commitment score. Research showed that in the process of graduate education, nursing educators could encourage students to better understand their major by creating a positive learning atmosphere which boosts their professional commitment and autonomy during nursing work. These aspects enhanced vocational maturity[20]. By educating the professional attitude towards learning of the graduate students, and taking the initiative and positive professional learning attitude to learn, they can effectively improve their professional attitudes, further affirm the majors they have studied, and improve their professional commitment. Besides professional commitment, vocational education for postgraduates also improved their self-confidence, cognitive ability, improved work efficiency, and thus enhanced their career maturity. Therefore, professional education in medical colleges was reported to be essential [10, 21]. In summary, we can take targeted educational measures to improve the vocational maturity of nursing postgraduates by understanding their commitment to nursing. To further cultivate nursing talents and reduce the turnover rate, it is suggested to carry out individualized vocational education.
Limitations
Several limitations shoud be considered. First, this study was conducted in Sichuan province. Although nursing graduates from other areas also participated in this study, their proportion was relatively small, and, hence, their representation did not wholly reflect the situation in China. Second, this was a cross-sectional study without longitudinal observation of the subjects,however, as opposed to longitudinal research, it is unable to provide an analysis of how these variables change over time. Due to time constraints, we only conducted a questionnaire survey and did not carry out any intervention. Additionally, the use of Likert questions forced respondents to choose an answer rather than providing an open response. However, as a part of our future research, we prepared a longitudinal study after conducting a questionnaire survey of the postgraduate nursing students, these scientific data could advance future career aspiration of the nursing post-graduate students.