Continuing professional nursing education and the relationship of learner motivation, the nature of the change, the social system of the organizational climate, and the educational offering : a reliability study

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Authors
Elkins, Sharon P.
Advisor
Brigham, Carole J.
Issue Date
1998
Keyword
Degree
Thesis (M.S.)
Department
School of Nursing
Other Identifiers
Abstract

Dr. Ronald Cervero (1985) identified learner motivation, the nature of the change, the social system of the organizational climate, and the educational program as factors affecting the application of learning to professional practice. A repeated measures research design was used to measure stability over time of instruments developed to measure variables in Cervero's model. Participants, N=27) graduate students, completed the instruments, "New Ideas and You" which measures learner's motivation to change, "The Nature of Change" which measures the learner's perception of the proposed change, and "Organizational Climate of the Social System" which measures the learner's perception of the social system's affect on the implementation of change. Staff nurses (N=27) completed the instrument "Continuing Education Offering Evaluation" which measures the learner's perception of the educational offering. Participants then completed the instruments again in three weeks. Procedures for the protection of human subjects were followed. The test-retest reliability coefficients were: "New Ideas and You," r=.72 L)-.01; "The Nature of Change," r.84 p=.01; "Organizational Climate of the Social System," r.83 p=.01; "Continuing Education Offering Evaluation," r.91 p=.01. The significance of this study was the initial establishment of stability over time of instruments developed to measure specific factors that affect the application of newly gained knowledge to nursing practice. Establishing reliability coefficients of instruments to measure the variables in Cervero's model is a step forward in the investigation of the larger question, "Does continuing education change practice?"

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