Title

Correlates of nursing faculty attitudes toward professionalism and their perceptions of organizational climate

Date of Completion

January 1990

Keywords

Education, Administration|Health Sciences, Nursing|Education, Higher

Degree

Ph.D.

Abstract

One way that the recognition nursing as a profession may be accomplished is through the baccalaureate education of new practitioners. The nursing faculty person has the responsibility for providing those learning experiences directed toward learning the theory and skills expected of the nursing practitioner as well as toward socialization to the role expectations. To accomplish these, the nursing faculty member needs herself to be socialized to the professional role.^ The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of perceptions of a designated environment, specifically the organizational climate, and attitudes toward professionalism of nursing faculty in a program granting the first professional degree. Data were collected from 226 full time nursing faculty members associated with 23 collegiate nursing programs located in the New England states. Instruments utilized for this data collection included Hall's Professionalism Scale, Stern's Organizational Climate Index, and a researcher developed questionnaire containing items which contributed to three of the five categories which were used as independent variables. The categories of independent variables included educational, situational, and professional productivity. The fourth and fifth categories consisted of perceptions of organizational climate-Development Press and Control Press.^ The major statistic utilized to analyze the data was hierarchical multiple regression. Data from Hall's Professionalism Scale were categorized into five attitudes toward professionalism. Five separate regression equations were run, each having a designated attitude as the dependent variable.^ Findings of this study indicate that the addition of perceptions of organizational climate, entered as Development Press and Control Press at steps four and five, after educational, situational, and professional productivity categories had been entered into the equation, resulted in significant change in the variance in the following attitudes toward professionalism: Professional Organization as a Major Referent; Belief in Self Regulation; Sense of Calling to the Field, and Autonomy. The only attitude toward professionalism for which the addition of organizational climate-Control Press made significant change was Autonomy. ^

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