Purpose: This study was conducted to determine the achievement orientation of nursing and midwifery students and to examine some factors that may affect their achievement orientation.
Material/methods: The descriptive sample of this research was created by 209 first-year students voluntarily attending and studying in the Department of Nursing and Midwifery at the Faculty of Health Sciences of a public university in Turkey. The data were collected with "Student Presentation Form" and "2x2 Achievement Orientation Scale". Mann Whitney-U test and Kruskal Wallis test were used with frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean and standard deviation in evaluating the data.
Results: The students were found to have 3.39±0.54 in the learning-approach orientation sub-dimension, 3.27±0.75 in the learning-avoidance orientation sub-dimension, 2.73±0.76 in the performance-approach orientation sub-dimension and 2.74±0.74 points in the performance-avoidance orientation sub-dimension. A significant difference was found between the students' gender, their reasons for choosing a career, and the factors that led them to succeed and the mean of the learning-approach orientation score. On the other hand, there was no statistically significant difference between the achievement orientation of the students and the variables such as age, high school type they graduated, and department preference order.
Conclusions: According to the results of the study, it was seen that nursing and midwifery students have predominantly learning-approach orientation. Moreover, it was determined that female students, who selected their profession because of their interest and who expressed that the factor motivate themselves for the achievement is themselves, had higher learning orientation.
Keywords: midwifery; achievement orientation; nursing.