ATTRIBUTION, AFFECTIVE REACTIONS, AND EXPECTANCIES OF BACCALAUREATE NURSING STUDENTS IN THE CLINICAL SETTING: A TEST OF THE WEINER MODEL.
Contributors: University of Maryland, College Park.
Published: 1988
Number of pages: 158
Subjects: Psychology, General.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Educational Psychology.
Description: The purpose of this study was to test the Weiner model for its applicability to a special achievement-related setting, that of the clinical component of baccalaureate nursing courses. The study examined student attributions, affective reactions, and expectations for future success.

It was hypothesized that students who succeed tend to attribute their success to internal causes and experience certain affects namely, happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, and "goodness". Prevalent emotions in success associated with internal ascriptions are pride, competence, and satisfaction while in unsuccessful outcomes controllability is linked to guilt and uncontrollability to shame. Furthermore, successful students with stable attributions have a higher expectancy of future success. Deviating from Weiner, it was hypothesized that controllability would evoke differences in the expectancy of success apart from stability.

A four-part questionnaire measured the students' perception of success, expectation for future success, causal dimensions of attributions using the Causal Dimension Scale (Russell, 1982), specific attributions, and affective reactions. The volunteer subjects were 90 baccalaureate nursing students registered in clinical nursing courses at a mid-Atlantic state college.

Results included the following: (1) a positive but weak relationship between perceived success and internality of the causal locus dimension; (2) affects of happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, and "goodness" have a moderately positive relationship to overall success; (3) in success, although causal locus was positively related to the self-esteem affects, there was no significant difference between successful and unsuccessful students; (4) contrary to the Weiner model, unsuccessful students whose ascriptions were uncontrollable reported significantly more guilt than students whose ascriptions were controllable; (5) unsuccessful students with uncontrollable ascriptions reported greater shame than students with controllable ascriptions; (6) perceived success was the only variable that reached significance on expectation of future success; and (7) neither controllability nor stability significantly explained expectation of future success.

Conclusions from this study indicate that the Weiner model partially explains the attributions, expectations, and affects of clinical nursing students. There is some evidence to suggest that the external aspect of the causal locus dimension may be more influential in this setting than in previously tested settings.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-08, Section: B, page: 3421.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK, 1988.

School code: 0117.