Paper
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
714
Comparison of Role Model Behaviors of Nursing Faculty in the United States and Japan
Kumiko Hongo, RN, MNs1, Naomi Funashima, RN, DNSc2, Tomomi Kameoka, RN, DNSc3, Hiroe Miura, RN, DNSc4, Nobuko Yamashita, DNSc4, Patricia Ann Gorzka, PhD5, Toshiko Nakayama, RN, DNSc3, and Midori Sugimori, RN, BLL6. (1) school of Nursing, Saniku Gakuin College, Tokyo, Japan, (2) School of Nursing, Chiba University, Chiba, Chiba, Japan, (3) Nursing Education, National College of Nursing Japan, Kiyose, Tokyo, Japan, (4) School of Nursing, Gunma Prefectural College of Health Science, Maebashi, Japan, (5) Continuing Professional Devlepment, University of South Forida, Tampa, FL, USA, (6) Gunma Prefectural College of Health Science, Gunma Prefectural College of Health Science, Maebashi, Gunma, Japan
OBJECTIVE: To explore the similarities/differences between role model behaviors of nursing faculty in the U.S. and Japan.METHODS: To compare role model behaviors of nursing faculty between the U.S. and Japan, a cross-cultural survey was conducted. The participants were nursing faculty in both countries. They completed two instruments. The first instrument was the RMBNF developed to measure the role model behaviors of nursing faculty. It has 35 items with 5-point Likert-type scale(from1“almost never” to 5“always”), and the items were grouped into 5 subscales. The second one was the FAQ developed to examine the 23 attributes of nursing faculty. There were English and Japanese version for each instrument(RMBNF-E/J,FAQ-E/J). The internal consistency and content validity of each version were well-established. The data were compared statistically.
RESULTS: Fifty-three faculty in the U.S. and 65 in Japan participated. There was significant difference between the total score of RMBNF-E(mean=153.2,SD=9.2) and that of RMBNF-J(mean=129.6,SD=21.4)(p<.001). The scores of 5 subscales obtained from the U.S. were significantly higher than those from Japan(p<.001). Arranging five subscales in score order from highest to lowest, the result in RMBNF-E and RMBNF-J was almost identical. The first was “Behaviors that shows respect to students”, the last was “Behaviors oriented ongoing professional development.”
IMPLICATIONS: The results showed faculty in the U.S. self-evaluated their role model behaviors higher than Japanese faculty. This maybe associated with that the participants in Japan were younger and had less teaching experience than those in the U.S. Furthermore, there was a wide difference in the academic background between the faculty in the U.S. and Japan. Further study is needed to explore the factors associated with the differences of the role model behaviors. The results indicated faculty in both countries have to improve their role model behaviors in the same area, that is, “Behaviors oriented ongoing professional development.”