Examining the perceptions of faculty

College of Doctoral Studies

Background Information

Clark and Springer (2007) conducted a qualitative study to examine the perceptions of faculty and students in a nursing program on incivility. Their key research questions were:

· How do nursing students and nurse faculty contribute to incivility in nursing education?

· What are some of the causes of incivility in nursing education?

· What remedies might be effective in preventing or reducing incivility?

They gathered responses from the Incivility in Nursing Education Survey (INE), which included both Likert-scale and open-ended questions from 36 nursing faculty and 168 nursing students. Each of the researchers reviewed all comments and organized them by themes.

For this PSY-850 class, you will design a “mock” replication of the Clark and Springer (2007) study on student and faculty perceptions of incivility in a university nursing program. However, the doctoral students will investigate student and faculty perceptions in undergraduate psychology classes in one university located in the northern United States.

You will use the Incivility in Higher Education (IHE) survey, developed by Clark (2007; 2011) for the purposes of this study. Questions on the survey measure faculty and student perceptions of uncivil actions (disruptive and threatening), how often those behaviors occur and strategies for improving civil behaviors in university settings. The IHE was adapted from the INE, with minor rewording, is similar in structure to the survey used by Clark and Springer, but is appropriate for any academic discipline within higher education (Wagner, 2014).

The IHE has three parts. Part 1 collects demographic information, such as major, gender, age, and years of teaching experience for faculty. Part 2 asks individuals to rank 16 different behaviors exhibited by students that both students and faculty may perceive as disruptive. Part 3 focuses on 20 faculty behaviors that may be perceived as disruptive. Both parts 2 and 3 also investigate how often the faculty has experienced the behavior in the past 12 months (often to never on Likert scale), and if the faculty members have experienced any of the 13 threatening behaviors (yes or no) by students or other faculty respectively. Five open-ended questions give the faculty member the opportunity to add contributing factors related to student and faculty incivility, and how students or faculty in particular contribute to incivility. A final question asked if the faculty member would like to add comments. The survey is designed in a manner that allows for gathering data from faculty and students or from only faculty or only students (C. Clark, personal communication, 2013 as cited in Wagner, 2014).

Week 2 Assignment: (Read the following article and construct a 10 key points document.)

GCU doctoral learners use the 10 Key Strategic Points document to outline the key components of a research study. For the Week 2 assignment, you will use the original Clark and Springer (2007) to identify and construct a 10 key points document in preparation for the mock study on incivility in psychology classes.

Steps:

1. Read Clark, C. M., & Springer, P. J. (2007). Thoughts on incivility: Student and faculty perceptions of uncivil behavior. Nursing Education Perspectives, 28(2), 93-97. Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=24776207&site=ehost-live&scope=site

2. As you read, highlight information that relates to the 10 key points, such as the purpose, problem, sample, research question, etc.

3. After reading and highlighting the components of the article, complete the 10 key points table based on the Clark and Springer (2007) study in nursing education.

Week 5 Assignment: In Week 2, you constructed a 10 key points document based on the Clark and Springer (2007) study conducted on incivility in nursing education. In preparation for the mock replication study to be completed by participants in undergraduate psychology classes, you now must construct a 10 key points document for your own study. This must meet GCU criteria in terms of problem, purpose, and research question format. This would be a descriptive case study at GCU.

Steps:

· Review the 10 key points constructed in Week 2 and the Clark and Springer (2007) study. Additionally, review the feedback provided by the instructor.

· Use the following template to develop 10 key points for your replication study in an undergraduate psychology program. Be sure to use resources in the DC network>Research/Dissertation tab> Prospectus templates to review the criteria for the purpose, problem, research questions and other key points.

· Use the prompts and suggestions contained in the template to guide your work.

Week 7 Assignment

You will analyze four transcribed interviews by inductively coding the data and developing themes. This will be a miniature version of what coding a large study would be like.

Directions

Perform the following tasks to conduct the analysis:

· Code the data: To analyze the data, you must first identify categories or themes that appear in the data. To accomplish this, do the following:

· Read the transcript of each participant’s responses and identify words that strike you as important. Mark the words in some fashion (highlight, circle, bold, underline).

· When you recognize words or phrases that appear frequently, make note of them. That is, circle or highlight them in the text.

· After reading all participants’ responses, review the words/phrases you marked or wrote down and identify a short list of useful codes. See Table 1 below.

· Collapse these codes into four or five categories or themes and name them. See Table 1, column 2, below.

· List the categories or themes and substantiate them with quotations from the online focus group participant transcripts. See Tables 2 and 3, below. You could put all of these in one table, or you could use a table for each theme, and provide several examples of quotes in the right-hand column for that theme.

· Present your results in a table (below) formatted according to the APA guidelines found in the “APA Style Guide,” located in the Student Success Center.

· Identify your coding process in an appendix (an example is included in the Appendix below).

Task 1: Code the transcript as described above, and color code the transcript using a color for each key code. Do this in Word.

Task 2: Create a codebook.

Task 3: Create a table of words or phrases that appear frequently. Display as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Words or Phrases that Appear Frequently

Task 4: Based on Table 1 and your coded transcript, create a table based on Tables 2 and 3. Create a table for each theme.

Table 2 Inductively Developed Themes

Table 3 Inductively Developed Themes

Note: You would put notes here if needed. See pages 130-131 of your APA manual.

Write-up the Results

A research report is not complete without a written summary of the research findings. To complete the research report, follow the instructions below and include the components outlined. Include the table and the chart you have created to show the data graphically/visually.

Introduction

Discuss the background information and the fact that this study was modeled after a study conducted by Clark and Springer in 2007. Discuss the data Clark and Springer collected and their results. Then discuss how your “mock or replication” study conducted in an undergraduate psychology program will add to these results.

Sample — discuss who participated in your study.

Instruments…describe the structure and purpose of instrument you used: the IHE (the interview transcript).

Data Analysis

Discuss your own initial analysis and the codes that you came up with. Collapse these codes into three to four themes as Clark and Springer did. However, this must be based on the “mock” data you collected (and we presented in a separate document).

Results

Write a summary of the themes that you identified when analyzing the faculty comments about in-class disruptions. Include the table and the chart you have created to show the data graphically/visually.

Recommendations

Compare your results to those of Clark and Springer (2007):

Clark and Springer (2007) conducted a qualitative study to examine the perceptions of faculty and students in a nursing program on incivility. Clark and Springer used the Incivility in Nursing Education survey along with open-ended questions to collect data from 36 nursing faculty and 168 nursing students.

Each of the researchers reviewed all comments and organized them by themes. Clark and Springer noted four major themes of responses:

· Faculty perceptions of in-class disruption and incivility by students

· Faculty perceptions of out-of-class disruption and incivility by students

· Student perceptions of uncivil behaviors by faculty

· Faculty and student perceptions of possible causes of incivility in nursing education

A total of eight codes were identified among the faculty comments on types of in-class disruptions. These were the following:

· Disrupting others by talking in class

· Making negative remarks/disrespectful comments toward faculty

· Leaving early or arriving late

· Using cell phones

· Sleeping/not paying attention

· Bringing children to class

· Wearing immodest attire

· Coming to class unprepared