COMMUNICATION SKILL PREPARATION NEEDS OF ACADEMIC NURSE ADMINISTRATORS.
Contributors: Peabody College For Teachers Of Vanderbilt University.
Published: 1983
Number of pages: 176
Subjects: Education, Administration.
Description: Communication permeates all processes of an organization, yet its very complexity prevents development of a comprehensive theory. Research in the field remains electic and, although communication skills have long been linked with the administrative process, scant literature exists about the topic in an educational organization.

Using Katz's Personal Skills Administrative Model for design direction, communication skills were conceptualized as a human skills component. This 3-group comparative design addressed two central research questions concerning the communication skill preparation needed by and the communication skills important to academic nurse administrators (ANA), the focal group of this descriptive study. I also surveyed two additional groups--second administrative officers (SAO), and nurse faculty (NF)--to generate respondent and university data for analysis.

I developed, pilot tested, and pretested the Communication Skill Questionnaire (CSQ) which was completed by 345 (98.57%) individuals from a national population of 50 universities. The CSQ contained a Communication Skill Importance to Administrator Scale (Cronbach's Coefficient Alpha = .891) used for analysis. While each item received a group importance rating by respondents, a one-way analysis of variance (F = 6.120, p < .01) revealed a significant difference among the three groups' composite communication score. Tukey's post hoc test (p < .05) showed the difference between ANAs and SAOs as well as SAOs and NFs. Generally, NFs viewed communication skills more important than ANAs, while SAOs rated communication skills lower than did ANAs.

Data support the need for ANAs to develop conflict-resolving and relationship-building skills. Significant differences exist among ANAs, SAOs and NFs' perceptions of the ANA as an effective communicator and of the ANA's need for further communication skill development. Some trends of influence were found between university and personal characteristics and the communication skill preparation needs of the ANA as well as the communication skills important to the ANA's position. From the data, I developed general curriculum guidelines to enhance ANAs' communication skills.

I recommend further studies to validate findings such as reasons ANAs believe ANAs need further communication skill development and reasons ANAs need to develop their conflict-resolving and relationship-building skills. I recommend programs preparing ANAs to evaluate the nature and effectiveness of the communication skill content in their curriculum.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-04, Section: A, page: 0948.

Thesis (PH.D.)--PEABODY COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS OF VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, 1983.

School code: 0074.