Background: There is a growing need for skilled gerontological nursing care. Nursing students often fail to appreciate the importance of implementing gerontological nursing competencies. Purpose: The problem is that nursing education research on students' attitudes about gerontology has been hampered by a lack of valid and reliable instruments. Theoretical framework. This study is based on and tests the propositions of the theory of planned behavior. Methods. Qualitative interviews were conducted to determine the terms used to describe the constructs by the target population. Using these terms, an instrument was developed and subjected to tests for psychometric estimates. A pretest-posttest design was used to test the impact of an educational intervention on students' attitudes. Results. The instrument demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity. Students' scores increased significantly for attitude, subjective norm and behavioral intention regarding implementing gerontological competencies from pretest to posttest. Attitude and subjective norm predicted behavioral intention in the regression model. Conclusions: The results support that an educational intervention can positively impact nursing students' intent to implement gerontological competencies.

In spite of the relative ease of accessibility to reliable contraception, unplanned pregnancy continues to be a major social problem for both society and for those individuals personally involved. The growing furor over adolescent unplanned pregnancy has not only led to arguments over abortions on legal, financial, and moral levels but has resulted in studies pertaining to non-use of birth control among all ages. Contraceptives are not being used as widely and effectively as they could be. The primary goal of this research is to explore the male's role (or lack of it) in family planning. A further goal is to increase awareness among practitioners in the field and among the general public, regarding the importance of male involvement.

Internships provide students with the unique opportunity to experience what working for a particular organisation will entail, while simultaneously giving the organisation a chance to evaluate the students' work capabilities and cultural fit before offering them a full-time employment contract. As a result, internships have necessitated deeper understanding, from researchers and employers alike, of what impacts intern conversion rates within host organisations. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) this study explored the intention toward conversion into full-time employment within host organisations of the South African intern. The study employed a quantitative design to test the hypotheses that behavioural beliefs (attitudinal beliefs, subjective normative beliefs, and perceived behavioural control beliefs) would influence the intention to convert. A total of 210 respondents completed an online survey. The sample consisted of interns from three South African organisations. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of the measurement and structural models found that the hypothesised models fit the data moderately well. Results of the regression analysis showed that both attitudes and subjective norms were significant in determining intention towards converting into full-time employment, however, perceived behavioural control and perceptions of COVID-19 were not significant determinants of conversion behaviour. The study makes three contributions to the literature. First, TPB can be a useful framework to explain interns' intention to convert. Second, the utility of the TPB framework for conversion intentions was established. Third, this study contributes to limited research on the topic and the findings call for longer-term research on intern conversion in the South African context with larger sample groups.

Much work has been done in communicating environmental messages about climate change to promote pro-environmental beliefs and behaviours, yet individual-level behavioural changes are not occurring rapidly enough to make meaningful reductions in environmental harm. Studies have shown that although information-based and scientific means of communicating about climate change are the most common strategies, they are largely ineffective in encouraging pro-environmental behaviour. As an alternative to these fact-based narratives, stories are proposed as effective tools for environmental communication and promoting behavioural change. To determine the impact of the narrative structure of climate change communication on behaviour, this study examined how exposure to fact-based and story-based narrative structures of environmental messages differentially influence the extent of engagement in pro-environmental consumption behaviour. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was used as a framework to examine the attitudinal and behavioural responses to the story-based and fact-based communication conditions. Specifically, we examined the relationship between non-consumption attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, behavioural intentions, and non-consumption behaviour, and explored how narrative structure influences the TPB processes for non-consumption. Participants (n=291) were randomly assigned to read a story or factsheet about the environmental consequences of overconsumption of material goods, or a non-relevant text. Pre- and post-test measures of pro-environmental consumption behaviour were conducted 14 days apart. Post-test attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, and behavioural intentions towards practicing non-consumption were also measured. Results demonstrated that both story-based and fact-based narratives were effective tools for promoting pro-environmental consumption behaviour, providing some support for the information deficit theory. Four domains of pro-environmental consumption behaviour were determined as non-consumption, reuse, activism, and green shopping behaviour. The story-based narrative was more effective than the fact-based narrative and the control narrative in increasing non-consumption and green shopping practices, while activism and reuse behaviour were not influenced differently by narrative structure. The TPB was found to be a useful model for assessing non-consumption, such that non-consumption behaviour was predicted by attitudes, perceived behavioural control and subjective norms through the mediating role of behavioural intentions. Non-consumption attitude was the strongest predictor of intentions, and subjective norm was the weakest predictor of intentions. Narrative structures did not have significant effects on the participants’ reported non-consumption attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control or intentions, nor on the relationships between the TPB constructs. The findings suggest that story-based narrative structures are effective tools for delivering climate change information to broad audiences and encouraging pro-environmental behaviour. However, the role of information-based communication should not be discounted. The findings also contribute to the body of research on pro-environmental consumption behaviour by providing a deeper understanding of the psychological mechanisms of non-consumption, an essential yet understudied domain of sustainable behaviour. / Graduate / 2023-01-12

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(エネルギー科学) / 甲第21188号 / エネ博第362号 / 新制||エネ||71(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院エネルギー科学研究科エネルギー社会・環境科学専攻 / (主査)教授 石原 慶一, 教授 東野 達, 教授 吉田 純 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Energy Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

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Higher education today faces a conflict between increasing societal demands and decreasing budgets. Innovation and change in higher education occur in the face of limited institutional resources. Meeting the challenges confronting colleges and universities is best accomplished by applying planned change efforts that recognize tacit culture (underlying assumptions and beliefs) and incorporate these cultural components into the change process. To date, however, change theory in higher education provides limited insight into institutional culture and how culture interacts with change. This is complicated by the fact that there are very few acknowledged methods for revealing tacit components of culture in higher education. This study provides the fields of change theory and institutional culture with, first, knowledge about revealing culture in higher education and, second, a model of change grounded in a single institution’s assumptions and beliefs. Using a variation of Sackmann's (1991) open-ended, issue focused interview method for uncovering tacit components of culture in corporate organizations, this study reveals cultural assumptions and beliefs about a planned change project in a two-year community college. Further, a model of change is constructed from the revealed assumptions and beliefs that explains the role of this tacit culture in the probable outcomes of the change project. / Ph. D.