THE EFFECT OF MODELING INSTRUCTION AND BACCALAUREATE NURSING STUDENT COGNITIVE STYLE ON EXPRESSED EMPATHY AS MEASURED BY THE NURSE EMPATHY CHECKLIST.
Contributors: University of San Francisco.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 114
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This study's focus was a communication problem reported by nurse educators and nurse hospital administrators who claimed that some nursing students displayed less empathic behaviors than others in nurse-patient relationships. The study's purpose was to investigate the effect on expressed empathy of modeling empathy communication behaviors given to baccalaureate nursing students called field dependent or field independent.

The experimental study used a 2 x 2 factorial design. The independent variables were: (1) modeling instruction, two levels, audio and audiovisual demonstrations; and (2) cognitive style, two levels, field independent and field dependent as measured by the Group Embedded Figures Test. The dependent variable, nurse empathy behavior, was measured by the Nurse Empathy Checklist (NEC). After five hours of modeling treatment each subject was posttested by videotaping the subject interacting with a simulated client. A content analysis, of verbal and nonverbal behaviors, was made of the video posttests by four trained, expert, and independent judges using the NEC to measure and score expressed empathy skill. The effects of subject ethnicity and age on expressed empathy were also examined. The subjects were 47 sophomore baccalaureate nursing students attending an urban public university in Northern California. Data were analyzed by predicted effect sizes, a two-way ANOVA, a stepwise multiple regression, and a NEC item analysis.

There were no significant differential effects or interactions for instructional treatment or student cognitive style. The single modest predictor for success on nurse empathy behavior was ethnicity and accounted for about 12% of the variance among the NEC scores. Subjects called West obtained higher NEC scores than did the subjects called East.

With NEC mastery level set at 75%, 45% of the subjects achieved mastery and 55% did not. The difference between Master and Nonmaster groups was ethnicity. More master scores were achieved by the West subjects. The NEC item analysis revealed that seven criterion behaviors produced difficulty for all subjects despite treatment and cognitive style.

The study concluded that matching type of modeling instruction to student cognitive style did not cause an increase of expressed empathy.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-03, Section: B, page: 1195.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1989.

School code: 6019.