The problem that was addressed in this study was the curriculum planner's lack of knowledge of actual educational tasks performed by family planning practitioners. There was a need to specifically identify family planning educational tasks to determine the basis for developing training programs for family planning educational practitioners. / The overall purpose of the study was to investigate the educational job tasks being performed by a select group of family planning practitioners in Florida and to explore how the results of the study would be applicable in other parts of the world. More specifically the objectives of the study were: (1) to determine the nature of the educational tasks being performed by non-physician family planning practitioners, the extent to which these tasks were performed, their perceived importance and where competence to perform these tasks was acquired; and (2) to determine the extent to which selected background factors influenced the nature and extent to which educational tasks were performed, the perceived importance of these tasks and where competence to perform these tasks was acquired. / Questionnaires were mailed to a sample of 108 subjects. Subjects included 54 Nurse Practitioners and 54 other non-physician family planning staff who performed clinical and educational activities of family planning. Data were collected on background variables and task inventory ratings. In the task inventory portion of the questionnaire, 50 educational job tasks were listed and for each task, respondents were asked to answer three questions: (1) How often do you perform this task, (2) How important is this task to successful job performance, and (3) Where did you learn to perform this task? / Percentages, average scores, means of average scores and rank order were the descriptive statistics used in the analysis of data. Chi-square was used to test the first twelve hypotheses which investigated the association between three measures of task performance and four background variables. To test the last two hypotheses, the Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient was computed to determine whether a significant relationship existed between frequency of task performance and importance of task performance. / Findings of the study indicated that out of 50 tasks, 25 (50%) were performed by 70% or more of the respondents, were frequently performed (with average frequency scores (GREATERTHEQ) 2.21) and were perceived by respondents to be important to successful job performance (with average importance scores (GREATERTHEQ) 2.74). These were identified as core educational tasks which would form the basis for developing training programs for family planning educational practitioners. / On-the-job training was the predominant source of competence to perform 29 (58%) of the tasks while competence to perform 20 (40%) of the tasks was predominantly acquired from formal training. / The largest proportion (47.3%) of the respondents acquired competence to perform task predominantly on the job. A substantial proportion (41.9%) acquired competence to perform task from formal training while 10.8% of the respondents acquired competence to perform task from "other training." Nurse Practitioners acquired competence to perform task predominantly from formal training. For Nurse Supervisors, Clinic Nurses, Public Health Nurses and "Other Staff," the predominant source of competence to perform task was on-the-job training. / Statistical results of the study indicated that there was an association (1) between frequency of task performance and job title, (2) between predominant source of competence to perform task and job title, and (3) between predominant source of competence to perform task and licenses held. A significant relationship (p < .05) was found to exist between frequency of task performance and importance of task performance. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-10, Section: A, page: 4254. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74312 |
| Contributors | MSIMUKO, ARTHUR KAZUMBA., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 234 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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