Of the RN participants, approximately half had completed a BSN (n = 78) and 49 others had completed a Master’s degree. Six held a doctoral degree in Nursing. Only one ADN and one diploma nurse participated in this study. RN respondents were primarily working in hospital settings (n = 64) and in Schools of Nursing (n = 50). Nurses who participated reported a variety of specialties. The largest specialty represented was Medical/Surgical nursing (n = 38), with the next most represented specialties being Critical Care (n = 14) and Maternal/Newborn (n = 13).
Materials and procedure
In this study, participants completed domain-specific and domain-general measures of preference to use intuition. Participants also completed a survey about their experience in nursing and basic demographic information. All materials were administered in a fixed order and responses were recorded via a secure website. Participants received the web address for the study via email and completed the study from a location of their choice. The duration of the study was approximately 45 minutes. Details on each measure are provided below, including data on their reliability using the current sample.
Rational Experiential Inventory (REI; Pacini & Epstein 1999)
The 20-item experiential subscale of the REI was used in this study. Experiential refers to preference for processing in the experiential, intuitive mode. The subscale consists of two sets of 10 items: ability (α = 0•805) and favourability (α = 0•850). Ability items measure belief in the ability to be successful in the use of experiential processing. An example of an Experiential Ability item is ‘I hardly ever go wrong when I listen to my deepest gut feelings to find an answer.’ Favourability items tap preference to use the processing mode. For example, an Experiential Favourability item is ‘I like to rely on my intuitive impressions.’