Construing social dimensions of personality development: nurses as educators
Author
Holman, Deborah Ann.Keyword
Personality development--Social aspects.Personal construct theory--Social aspects.
Nursing--Study and teaching--Social aspects--Ontario.
Nurses--Social aspects--Ontario.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
A convenience sample of twenty registered nurses was recruited from two' general hospitals and two community college nursing schools. Kelly's (1955) Personal Construct Theory provided the theoretical framework to discover how nurses perceived themselves as educators. The nurses completed a self-administered Self-Perception Inventory (Soares, 1983) to determine their perception of self as nurse and ideal self as nurse. In an interview, each of the nurses constructed a rank-order repertory grid adapted from Kelly's (1955) Role Repertory Construct Test. Twelve constructs derived from the Self-Perception Inventory (Soares, 1983) were ranked according to a list of ten elements common to a teaching situation. Rank order correlations among the constructs were determined with Spearman's rho. Using a dependent samples t-test, significant differences were found between perceptions of current and ideal self for staff nurses. Significant differences were also found between nurse educators' perceptions of self and ideal self as nurse. No significant differences were determined in perceptions of self as nurse and ideal self as nurse between the staff nurse and nurse educator groups with an independent samples t-test. However, observations of single constructs revealed that although several constructs are shared between the groups in the perception of self in a teaching situation, both groups hold constructs that operate exclusively in their separate domains. The nature and strength of the relationships between the common and unique constructs are different for each group. Nurses I self-perceptions appear to be influenced by the historical development of nursing, role socialization during nursing education, social expectations and gender issues in the health care system.Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Global migration : patriarchy, propoganda and the well- being of women and childrenMcGowan, Annmarie J.; Department of Child and Youth Studies (Brock University, 2009-02-16)This critical analysis explores the conflicted position of women as ''trailing spouses" and the effects on families who relocate globally under the auspices of a multinational corporation, by utilizing a discursive analysis of two contemporary films and available literature. Current portrayals of women and children in contemporary media provide emotional yet conflicting images of the perfect woman, wife, mother, child and family. The basic tenets of a North American patriarchal economic system are being televised around the world. Technological advancements have made it possible to advertise political agendas on a global television screen. Much of what we see is propaganda couched in films and advertisements that are designed to romantic~e the practice of deriving profits from the unpaid labor of woman and invisibility of children and child rearing. I intend to show that the materiality of trailing a spouse globally conflicts with these romanticized images and supports feminist literature that asserts the notion that mothers and children are oppressed and managed for the benefit of capital.
-
Personal soundtracks on public transit : personal listening devices and socio-spatial negotiations of students' bus journeysHemsworth, Katie; Department of Geography (Brock University, 2010-10-26)One way of exploring the power of sound in the experience and constitution of space is through the phenomenon of personal listening devices (PLDs) in public environments. In this thesis, I draw from in-depth interviews with eleven Brock University students in S1. Catharines, Ontario, to show how PLDs (such as MP3 players like the iPod) are used to create personalized soundscapes and mediate their public transit journeys. I discuss how my interview participants experience the space-time of public transit, and show how PLDs are used to mediate these experiences in acoustic and non-acoustic ways. PLD use demonstrates that acoustic and environmental experiences are co-constitutive, which highlights a kinaesthetic quality of the transit-space. My empirical findings show that PLDs transform space, particularly by overlapping public and private appropriations of the bus. I use these empirical findings to discuss the PLD phenomenon in the theoretical context of spatiality, and more specifically, acoustic space. J develop the ontological notion of acoustic space, stating that space shares many of the properties of sound, and argue that sound is a rich epistemological tool for understanding and explaining our everyday experiences.
-
Patterns of Endocrine, Behavioural, and Neural Function Underlying Social Deficits after Social Instability Stress in Adolescent RatsHodges, Travis; Department of PsychologyAdolescence is a time of social learning as well as a period of heightened vulnerability to stressors and enhanced plasticity, compared with adulthood. Previous research found that repeated social instability stress (SS; daily isolation and return to an unfamiliar peer from postnatal day (PND) 30 - 45) administered in adolescent rats alters social function when tested in adulthood. The main goal of my thesis research was to characterize how SS in adolescent rats affects the development of social brain regions and social behaviour when tested soon after the procedure. In chapter 2, I found that SS potentiated corticosterone release in rats repeatedly paired with an unfamiliar cage-mate after isolation compared with rats that were paired with an unfamiliar cage-mate for the first time after isolation on PND 45. In chapter 3, I found that in social interaction tests (i.e., not in home cage), SS rats had lower social interactions despite having higher social approach with unfamiliar peers relative to control (CTL) rats. Social stimuli carried the same reward value for SS and CTL rats based on tests of conditioned place preference, and SS in adolescence impaired social recognition. Further, SS increased oxytocin receptor density in the nucleus accumbens and dorsal lateral septum in rats compared with CTL rats. In chapter 4, I found that the correlations between time spent in social interaction with an unfamiliar peer and Fos immunoreactivity (a marker of neural activity) in the arcuate nucleus, dorsal lateral septum, and posterior medial amygdala were in the opposite direction in SS rats to those in CTL rats. In chapter 5, I found differences in the expression of proteins relevant for synaptic plasticity and in dendritic arborisation in the lateral septum and medial amygdala. My findings of behavioural and neural differences between SS and CTL rats highlight the heightened vulnerability of the brain to the quality of social experiences during the adolescent period that may lead to long-lasting deficits in social function in adulthood.