This study investigates the uniqueness and importance of the Australian National Competency Committee (ANCI) competencies to nurses and other health professionals. Very few Australian studies (Battersby, 1994; Hearn, Smith, Southerly & Close, 1995) have addressed this issue. Although there is widespread confusion of the term "competency", professional bodies regard competency standards as a process for supporting the integrity and control of their respective professions. The problem is that there is confusion across the health professions about competencies and their agenda. ANCI suggest that the nursing competencies reflect unique characteristics of nursing as well as those common with other professions. However, competencies that are unique to nursing have not been identified. ANCI have also not identified how competencies can enhance the development of nursing as a profession. The identification of differences in perceptions of uniqueness and importance of the ANCI competencies within nursing and across health professional groups may contribute to the debate on what is needed to achieve competence and those factors that may influence nursing autonomy, education, and future professional development. This study is important to assist in the identification of nursing as a profession in its own right. It will assist the arguments for and against economic reform in professional education courses and transfer of skills and competence across professions. This study compares the perceptions of nurses, physiotherapists, speech pathologists, and occupational therapists about the uniqueness and importance of the ANCI competencies to their professions. Participants completed a questionnaire that listed the ANCI competencies. They were asked to rate each competency first on uniqueness to their profession, and second, on importance to their profession. Two surveys were conducted; one in 1997 and the second in 2000. Surveys examined any change in perception over time by different cohort groups. The study takes a quantitative approach to data collection and analysis. Inferential analysis determined statistically significant differences and similarities of the four participating health professional groups. The differences are examined in relation to the characteristics that define a profession and implications for nursing are examined in relation to research, autonomy, and patient advocacy within an evidence-based practice framework. Eight hundred and thirty-one of questionnaires distributed were used in this study. The results showed that nursing emerged as significantly different to the other three health professions on perception of uniqueness of the competencies. Nineteen of the sixty-five competencies were perceived by nurses to be more unique to the nursing profession. This perception of uniqueness was found across all the four domains of the ANCI competencies. Although ANCI (2000) claimed that the competencies reflect the unique characteristics of nursing these characteristics have not previously been identified. This finding provides some support for the claim made by ANCI by identifying those competencies nurses perceive as more unique. The study findings showed also that the four participating health professions rated the ANCI competencies as important. However, there was a significant difference between nurses and the other three professional groups on the ratings of importance of the competencies of professional and ethical practice. The study found that nurses rated the competencies of this domain as more important than the other three professions rated these competencies. The findings indicate that the rank orders of importance of the competencies are different across the four professions. This reflects and indicates the different priorities and work roles of each of the four professional groups. It is interesting as well as being of concern to nursing that the participating nurses ranked research and management of care as being the least important of all of the competencies. This finding may help to explain why nursing research has been slow to develop in spite of changes to nursing education. Nurses have a subordinate past and are often described as doers rather than thinkers. It appears that this may not have changed. Current practice also reflects a dependency on other health professions such as the medical profession (Adamson & Harris, 1996). Finally, the study found that there was no change in nurses' perceptions of uniqueness over time. However, there was a slight increase in the nurses' ratings of importance of Critical Thinking and Analysis. There were no statistical significant differences for age, gender, year of graduation, state of residence, and employment status. The discussion chapter commences with an outline of the perceived importance of the competencies across the different health professions. Discussion compares the findings and methods of two important Australian studies of competencies (Battersby, 1994; Hearn et al. 1995, 1996) to this study. Discussion examines professionalism and identifies areas where nursing's perceptions of the competencies meet the criteria of a profession and where the four health professions have similar and different perspectives and qualities. Six characteristics of a profession that are discussed in relation to the perceptions of the ANCI competencies are: high intellectual functioning, special body of knowledge, responsibility and accountability, code of ethics, autonomy, and collegiality. The third part of the discussion highlights the implications of this studies' findings in relation to ANCI competencies as an evaluation tool, the empowerment of nurses, generic courses, scope of nursing, professional development, and curriculum development. The thesis concludes by arguing that 1) The ANCI competencies have the potential to increase the professionalism of nursing; 2) Nurses value accountability and responsibility, the code of ethics, and collegiality; 3) Nurses appear uncomfortable with the concept of autonomy; 4) Nurses undervalue high intellectual functioning and the importance of a body of knowledge; and 5) Perceptions are influenced by the context of competencies. The final chapter highlights a number of recommendations for nursing practice that include the need for further investigation of the uniqueness of the ANCI competencies. It is argued that there is a need for a number of changes to the ANCI competency list as well as a greater emphasis on research and management of care and support for discipline specific courses.It is apparent from the findings of this study that nursing education and clinical practice would benefit from the placement of more emphasis on the importance of research. Furthermore, nurses need to take better responsibility for pursing opportunities and funding for research and practice management. It is concluded that nursing research will increase the body of knowledge for the profession and will also increase professional autonomy with an outcome of better client care. Nurses need encouragement from administrators and educators to value management of care and the nursing process, as this will also encourage independence and quality of care provision. It is argued that commonalities in the perception of uniqueness and importance of competencies are not grounds for politicians to suggest the implementation of generic health professional courses. The commonality of the competencies being important to all four professions can be attributed to the complex nature of nursing practice, which captures aspects of other health professional roles and many of the competencies contribute to the characteristics that define a profession. There are differences in the rankings that can be attributed to the nature of knowledge, context, and priorities of the different professions. Each profession has its own governing body that ensures its members obtain an acceptable standard of professional competence and education. It has, and always will be, the responsibility of the profession to shape the service it provides (Pyne, 1998). This study highlights nurses' perceptions of competencies. The recognition of these perceptions could be used to guide nursing's strive toward autonomy, professional development, and recognition as a profession in its own right.

Thesis (M. Ed.(Assessment and quality assurance))-University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

For the past 100 years, the prominent instructional model for all public education in the United States has been teacher/content centered with the intent of covering a discrete body of knowledge in a given period of time. As the end of the twentieth century approaches, natural, social, political, and economic forces are influencing community college instructors to transition from content centered instruction to a student centered approach to teaching and learning as part of the national education reform agenda. The purpose of this study was to document, through a case study, the experience of one community college instructor as she attempted to transition from a traditional content focused teaching model to an outcome-based/learner centered model. A literature survey provides a review of education reform as it relates to instructors in a community college. A learner centered training model from industry, is applied as a framework for outcome-based/learner centered instruction in community colleges. Participant observation, surveys, and interviews were the methods used to collect data. Six hypotheses were generated from the study: 1. Learner centered/outcome-based teaching is more complex and takes greater skill in basic teaching techniques than teaching in a traditional content framework. 2. An instructor whose teaching experience has been exclusively content focused may find it difficult to create authentic learning tasks. 3. Collegial influence is a major factor affecting the ability of one instructor to change instructional practices. 4. A single instructor's ability to change instructional practice in one course is limited by the way the program curriculum is designed. 5. Learning is enhanced by human relationships that foster trust and reflective practice. 6. Teaching and learning is complex and multifaceted in nature: it is not a logical linear process. / Graduation date: 1996

With increasing of economic scale, demography change, and life style improvement enhancement, the importance of civic education has been emphasized based on public issue aspect. It is essential for military training instructor to face the challenge to be more professional or make a transform for better change. The aim of the study is develop solutions for military training instructor to deal with the challenge of renew military class and civic education. Instead of image of authority, military training instructor should also learn how to empower self-concept and role function and obtain concurrence from both the students and society. The study participants were 600 individual who were recruited in the trial. The primary data for this study were obtained from random samples, conducted in three medical management junior colleges in the southwest Taiwan. Total 600 questionnaires were equally divided to three medical management junior colleges The gender was spilt by 134 male (23.7%) and 431 female (76.3%).Valid 565 responses for questionnaires for this program were from 600 students for a response rate of 94.2%. To investigate the issues of civic education and military class, the survey included sociodemographic measures and the concepts of cognition, emotion and affection, and behavior. Statistical analyses were performed by SPSS, Version11.5 statistic software, using frequency distribution, chi-square test, t-test, and crosstable analysis. Significance was accepted at the 0.05 level (two-tailed). Conclusions¡G 1.The investigation of the concept of cognition show that overall 41.6% of students acknowledged the background and history of military class. The majority of students (72.3%) would agree the roles function of military training instructor . 2.The investigation of the concept of emotion and affection showed that the majority of students (66.7%) agreed that military training instructors would assist student for medical assistances and accident management. However, overall 32.2% of students agreed that military training instructors have sufficient affiliations to keep a good relationship with students, because military training instructors were still lake of ability of consulting and stayed in the image of rectifying deviant behaviors. 3.The investigation of the concept of behavior showed that even the image of authority is so strong, only few students obtained strong influence from military training instructors in democracy (35.0%), personality empowerment (38.2%), and patriotism (32.2%) from military class. Suggestions¡G 1.To decrease loading of military training instructor by promoting effectiveness of civic education in the class. 2.The interaction between military training instructor and students should be more involved with expectation, appreciation, and forgiveness. 3.It is essential for military training instructor to empower in specialty of military and civic education to deal with the challenge of new century civic education.

Globalization is in highly competitive era, talents are company's most important assets, the especially fine one hits the managerial cadre of the steps and is managed with one of the key factors of growing up continuously continuously forever by the company even more, this research object restricts the trade (industry ) , restricts the department , the steps executive is research objects that direct against Chinese enterprise of areas of both sides of the Straits (Jiangsu and Taiwan ), collect and research and analyse samples. With the research of the management function, hope to find out the management function which the steps executive should possess in the company objectively, offer enterprises to recruit and select the just , reference foundation of fostering and forming talents, it set up select Human Resource Department , not educating, with, leave managerial talent the systems at, probe into the result tentatively , expect that can propose a nucleus administrator's function way for enterprise's firm name in most key key management functions needed. So study the steps executive's management function in enterprises , operate for improving enterprises with the theoretical foundation of having the essence of national competitiveness and discussion value. This research questionnaire investigation analysis result is found, in Taiwan in the steps administrator studies in the management function index , and ' mood control ability ' superior to continent managerial cadre of the steps among the district in innovate with learning ability , surmount ability oneself.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 148 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-122).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-94).

Thesis (MEd(Curriculum and instructional design and development))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 153-157). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

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