INTERACTION OF COGNITIVE STYLE AND RESPONSE ADAPTATION TRAINING IN THE PERFORMANCE OF CLINICAL ASSESSMENTS OF NURSES (VIDEOTAPES, TRANSFER).
Contributors: University of San Francisco.
Published: 1984
Number of pages: 253
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Statement of the Problem. Appropriate assessments are defined as assessment responses made by a nurse to identified critical cues presented by the patient or the patient's environment. This study investigated the factors, cognitive style (field-dependence/independence) and instructional strategy (Response Adaptation Training), as they influence a nurse's performance of an appropriate patient assessment, relative to varying clinical assessment situations. Clinical situations vary in their cue source along a continuum from the structured situations (most given cues), to the change-in-status situations (less given cues), to the emergency situations (least given cues).

Procedure and Methods. Twenty-six registered nurses (R.N.'s) enrolled in a continuing education course were involved in the study. Course content included lecture, demonstration and practice of various assessment skills, with each student demonstrating skill proficiency prior to treatment administration. Additional study population data were collected including (a) demographic information, (b) score on the Group Embedded Figures Test (test of cognitive style), (c) pre-course evaluation of assessment skills via responses to written patient situations. Based on the pre-course test of assessment skills, students were stratified and randomly assigned to one of the two treatment groups. Both treatment groups were presented, via 40-minute videotapes, with identical realistic clinical assessment situations. Both treatment videotapes demonstrated the matching of critical cues to appropriate assessment responses, with the Response Adaptation Training (RAT) treatment simultaneously verbalizing the matching.

Following treatment administration, each nurse performed an assessment of three simulated hospitalized patients and recorded their findings. Each of the simulated patients were actors trained in the performance of a specific patient role, and represented a different type of nursing assessment situation. A score for each assessment was obtained by observation of student performance according to weighted-item checklists.

Analysis of the data focused on (a) treatment effects, using an unpaired t-test of means between treatment groups in each clinical situation, (b) differences in performance based on the type of clinical situation, using a repeated measures ANOVA, (c) correlation of the single and collective effects of cognitive style and treatment on performance in the three types of clinical situations, using multiple regression analyses.

Results. The major findings of this study demonstrated: (1) No significant differences between types of instructional treatments, RAT versus non-RAT, for each of the three types of clinical assessment situations. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-03, Section: B, page: 0797.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1984.

School code: 6019.