Katrin Arianta and Prof. Dr. Michael Goller were part of an exciting symposium on "Training dropouts - predictors and subsequent trajectories" at the GEBF (Society for Empirical Educational Research) conference in Potsdam on March 19, 2024. Our contribution focused on the development of vocational aspirations of trainees in nursing. 

Katrin Arianta's analyses of qualitative longitudinal data show various influences of interactions with those involved in training (e.g. colleagues, trainers) on trainees' career planning considerations and the associated intentions to leave and/or stay. In particular, the experience of the relationship with them and the experienced social and professional integration in the practical field have an impact here. The resulting dynamics can be categorized into four process variants: (a) the desire to arrive and stay, in which the social environment is experienced positively and the intention to stay is based on a feeling of being or becoming a fully-fledged member of the community; (b) the desire to stay, in which the social environment is experienced positively and the intention to stay is based on a feeling of being or becoming a fully-fledged member of the community. (b) staying on as a transitional passage, whereby staying on is seen as a temporary transition from the start of training and negative social experiences are responded to with a perseverance strategy; (c) looking to stay on, which focuses on the intention of looking for ways to avoid having to give up the nursing profession despite negative interactional experiences in the field of practice; (d) leaving as a short circuit, in which an exit plan is triggered by individual negative interactional experiences. The process variants are characterized by typical oscillations between the two poles of wanting to stay or wanting to leave, which will be presented in the planned article. The results indicate a very dynamic development of aspirations in the nursing profession during the initial training phase, which depends heavily on the subjective experience of the nursing field of work and the social interactions within it and is therefore difficult to predict.

We would like to thank the organizers of the symposium (PD Dr. Christian Michaelis from the University of Göttingen, Prof. Dr. Stefanie Findeisen from the University of Konstanz and Prof. Dr. Viola Deutscher from the University of Göttingen), the speakers of the other contributions and, of course, the participants. You can find more information about the symposium on the conference website.