INVESTIGATION OF CRITICAL CONSTRUCTS IN A CARING MODEL FOR NURSING EDUCATION: EARLY THEORY DEVELOPMENT.
Contributors: Widener University School Of Nursing.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 190
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Education.; Education, Higher.
Description: The purpose of this study was to investigate the critical constructs in the Sheston Model of Caring for Nursing Education by describing the relationship between: (1) Interpersonal Caring Processes and (2) Transformation. Additionally, the study investigated the academic milieu as an environmental and contextual correlate to the major model constructs. The relationship between the model constructs of Interpersonal Caring Processes and Transformation was studied from the perspective of the Nurse Student (NS). A purposive sample (N = 79) was obtained from two schools of baccalaureate nursing located on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The subjects were students enrolled in the senior classes of each school. Two established instruments from the behavioral sciences, and a demographic data form designed by the researcher, were used to provide data for analysis in this descriptive, correlational and comparative study.

The Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI) (Barrett-Lennard, 1962, 1978) was used to measure the model construct of Interpersonal Caring Processes. The Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) (Shostrom, 1974) was used to measure the model construct of Transformation. Academic milieu was included in the study as a categorical variable. A combination of statistical measures was used to test the study hypotheses, including bivariate and multivariate correlational models and one-tailed t-tests for independent samples. Empirical support was found for the theory generated from the Sheston Model. Interpersonal caring processes and transformation were positively related. Differences in the measures of transformation and interpersonal caring processes were found between the two schools of nursing and were in the anticipated direction. The academic milieu was found to be an important categorical variable relative to the caring constructs. A formalized caring academic milieu fosters and enhances interpersonal caring processes and the transformation of NSs. This study illuminated and described specific perspectives of the process of caring in nursing education between educators and students. The results expand the knowledge of care in the discipline of nursing and provide a pathway for further theory development and an important step toward the preservation of caring as an ideology in education, practice, and research.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-01, Section: B, page: 0170.

Thesis (D.N.SC.)--WIDENER UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NURSING, 1992.

School code: 0969.