DESIGN: Exploratory and correlational.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: The conceptual framework of the study includes 21 attributes of nursing faculty as independent variables, and quality of professional activities of them as the dependent variable. The 21 attributes were selected based on a literature review of professional activities of nursing faculty."

METHODS: Participants completed the Questionnaire for Faculty's Attributes (QFA) and the Professional Activities Scale for Nursing Faculty (PAS). The QFA was used to examine the 21 attributes of nursing faculty, and the content validity was validated by a pilot study and a panel of experts. The PAS was used to measure the quality of professional activities of nursing faculty. The items of the PAS describe the ideal professional activities of nursing faculty as identified by a qualitative study (Murakami, 2002), and participants rated the degree of achievement for each item. The PAS has satisfactory reliability and validity (Yamashita, 2004). The instrument packets were distributed to 1577 nursing faculty randomly sampled from baccaraureate programs, associate degree programs, and diploma programs in Japan. The answers were returned by mail and they were analyzed statistically.

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS: Eight hundreds and thirty one (52.7%) nursing faculty responded, and 546 valid data were analyzed. The results showed that 15 of the 21 attributes related with the quality of professional activities of nursing faculty. Those were, age, academic background, years of teaching experience, involvement in higher educational study, availability of access to research advisor, clinical competence, etc. To specify the important factors, which relate with the quality of professional activities of nursing faculty, the relationships among the 15 attributes should be examined in a further study.