DESIGN: Exploratory and correlational design

CONCEPTUAL FRAMWORK: The conceptual framework of this study included 20 attributes of nursing faculty as independent variables, and quality of teaching behaviors of nursing faculty in nursing skills laboratories as the dependent variable. The 20 attributes were selected based on a literature review of nursing skills laboratories.

METHODS: Participants completed The Faculty Attributes Questionnaire (FAQ) and The Self-Evaluation Scale of Teaching Behaviors in Nursing Skills Laboratories (TBNSL). The FAQ was used to examine the 20 attributes of nursing faculty, and content validity was validated by a pilot study and a panel of experts. The TBNSL was developed to measure the quality of teaching behaviors of nursing faculty in nursing skills laboratories. The TBNSL had 40 items grouped into 10 subscales with 4 items, and had well established reliability and validity (Miyashiba, 2006). The instrument packets were distributed to 1296 nursing faculty randomly sampled from baccalaureate programs, associate programs, and diploma programs in Japan. The answers were returned by mail and analyzed statistically.

RESULT & IMPLICATIONS: Six hundreds and seven (46.8%)nursing faculty responded, and 530 valid data were analyzed. The results showed that 8 of the 20 attributes related to the quality of teaching behaviors of nursing faculty in nursing skills laboratories(p<0.05). Those were, program type of one's workplace, position, years of teaching experience, job satisfaction, self-evaluated clinical competency, academic background, availability of access to research advisor, and member of academic society. The results suggested that teaching experience, clinical competency, postgraduate education, and self-directed learning are important to enhance the quality of teaching activities in nursing skills laboratories on campus in Japan.