Australian Catholic University

About: Australian Catholic University is a education organization based out in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 2721 authors who have published 10013 publications receiving 215248 citations. The organization is also known as: ACU & ACU National.

Longitudinal associations between employees’ beliefs about the quality of the change management process, affective commitment to change and psychological empowerment

Abstract: Organizational changes are costly ventures that too often fail to deliver the expected outcomes. Psychological empowerment and affective commitment to change are proposed as especially important in turbulent contexts characterized by multiple and ongoing changes requiring employees’ continuing contributions. In such a context, employees’ beliefs that the changes are necessary, legitimate and will be supported, are presumed to increase psychological empowerment and affective commitment to change. In a three-wave longitudinal panel study of 819 employees, we examined autoregressive and cross-lagged relations among latent constructs reflecting change-related beliefs (necessity, legitimacy, support) and psychological reactions (psychological empowerment, affective commitment to change). Our findings suggest that psychological empowerment and affective commitment to change represent largely orthogonal reactions, that psychological empowerment is influenced more by beliefs regarding support, whereas affective commitment to change is shaped more by beliefs concerning necessity and legitimacy.

Basic psychological needs and work motivation: A longitudinal test of directionality

Abstract: Most work-related studies of self-determination theory (SDT) have focused either on satisfaction of basic psychological needs or on types of work motivation when studying motivational processes at work. The few studies that have considered both mechanisms have usually assumed that satisfaction or frustration of basic psychological needs is a prerequisite of different types of work motivation. Nevertheless, the directionality of this relation has not been explicitly tested in previous studies of the workplace. The current study explored the relations among managerial need support, basic psychological need satisfaction at work, and work motivation. It tested competing sets of hypotheses regarding the directionality of these three core constructs within SDT’s model of work motivation. A longitudinal analysis suggested that managerial need support was positively directly related to basic psychological need satisfaction but not directly related to work motivation. Further, results indicated that basic psychological need satisfaction was related to work motivation over time and not the other way around. In addition, it was found an indirect relation between in managerial need support and in work motivation through in basic psychological need satisfaction. These findings have important implications for future SDT research testing process models in the workplace.

The future nursing workforce in Australia: baseline data for a prospective study of the profile, attrition rates and graduate outcomes in a contemporary cohort of undergraduates

Abstract: Objective: To gather data from ten universities across two Australian states in order to: provide a descriptive demographic profile of undergraduate Australian nursing students; provide baseline data for a prospective analysis of attrition within undergraduate nursing programs; and to facilitate student recruitment into a prospective cohort study to examine graduate outcomes. Methods: Approval was sought from each Head of School to enable recruitment of undergraduate nursing students as a sub-sample of an ongoing large scale longitudinal e-cohort study involving Australian, New Zealand and United Kingdom nurses and midwives (http://www.e-cohort.net). Each nursing school nominated a contact person to become part of the research team; provide aggregate data on the quantity and demographic profile of currently enrolled undergraduate nursing students; and to facilitate recruitment of students into the cohort study. Results: Two of the ten universities could not supply any demographics of their undergraduate nursing student body and one university could not provide data on year levels. The remaining data revealed an interesting demographic profile in the following areas: the age range of students across both states was 17 to 68 years, with just under half the population of students aged over 25 years. Some universities had a younger cohort of students in comparison to others and this was potentially associated with universities which only offered their program in full-time mode. The high proportion of students choosing to enrol in their undergraduate program part-time in South Australia (22.5%) as well as the large number of international students at one Queensland university (28% in year one) may impact on the future graduate nursing workforce supply. Retrospective analysis of the average attrition rate in Queensland universities was estimated at 24.5% which is consistent with the findings of a recent systematic review of published primary studies. Conclusion: Whilst this preliminary data reveals some interesting issues, in general, there is a paucity of evidence about the demographics of the future Australian nursing workforce, attrition within undergraduate nursing programs and graduate outcomes. Clearly there is a need to systematically track undergraduates and new graduates to quantify student attrition, graduate retention and career plans and begin to build this evidence-base. A minimum demographic dataset of all undergraduate nursing students in Australia should be established to track trends over time that will inform future workforce planning.

Reflective Practice: A Focus for Caring

Abstract: Nurse education has long been plagued by a perceived disjuncture between theory and practice. This paper explores the use of reflection as a mechanism to enable students of nursing to overcome this problem. A grounded theory approach is used to study a group of first-year students undertaking a 3-year undergraduate nursing course. Results of the study indicate that the use of the reflective processes of clinical debriefing and journaling does impact on the environment, the process, and the focus of learning. Anxiety associated with the learning environment was reduced through peer support and cooperation. In addition, students moved from a passive to a more active mode of learning. The most significant finding was that, over time, reflective processes resulted in the emergence of the client as the central focus of care.