AN ANALYSIS OF THERAPEUTIC STUDENT-FACULTY INTERACTION AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT (NURSING).
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1983
Number of pages: 163
Subjects: Education, Health.
Description: Learning is facilitated when teachers establish quality relationships with students. In nursing education much emphasis is placed on therapeutic communication in nurse-client relationships, but there is limited evidence that faculty interact therapeutically with nursing students. The purposes of this descriptive correlational study were (1) to determine if generic baccalaureate nursing students and clinical nursing faculty perceived faculty interactions with students in the clinical area as therapeutic, and (2) to examine the relationship between student perceptions of faculty interactions and student achievement in the clinical setting.

The hypotheses stated that junior and senior nursing students will rate faculty differently on levels of therapeutic interaction, clinical faculty will perceive themselves differently than either student group, students who rate clinical faculty high on levels of therapeutic interactions will have higher grade achievement, a statistically significant linear relationship exists between years of teaching experience and student perceptions of teacher interaction in the clinical setting, and faculty members responsible for both classroom and clinical experiences during the same semester will be perceived less therapeutic in their interactions than faculty with only clinical responsibilities.

Eighty-seven junior and senior nursing students and twelve clinical nursing faculty from a selected large university baccalaureate nursing program completed the Clinical Facilitative Relationship Inventory (CFRI). The tool, developed for this study and intended to measure empathy, congruence, and positive regard was administered at the end of the academic year. Grade achievement was measured by clinical grades.

The data were analyzed by frequency statistics, t-tests, one-way analyses of variance, multivariate analysis of variance, and Pearson's product-moment correlations. As measured by the total scale on the CFRI, the findings suggested a weak linear relationship existed between therapeutic interactions and the facilitation of student achievement; the findings also showed evidence that those students achieving "A" grades in their clinical experience rated their faculty as more therapeutic than the lower achieving students. A statistically significant negative linear relationship was found to exist between the length of years in teaching experience and the student perceptions of faculty therapeutic interactions.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-04, Section: A, page: 1045.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1983.

School code: 0227.