Self-efficacy and critical thinking (CT) contribute to teachers’ successful performance in their profession and can ultimately develop the education system of society. The researcher designed a sequential explanatory mixed methods study to follow three objectives in exploring practical opportunities for EFL teacher development. First, it examined the relationship between SE and CT of novice and experienced teachers. Next, it investigated whether the two groups differed in the two variables. Third, it explored whether an instruction on CT skills could promote teachers’ thinking skills and self-efficacy. The results of Pearson’s r showed a positive correlation between the two dispositions. However, no statistically significant differences were found between the CT and self-efficacy of the groups. In the second phase, a quantitative study with a static group comparison design was followed by a qualitative study that investigated participants’ improvement after receiving training on thinking skills. The results of the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) indicated statistically significant differences between the groups’ self-efficacy and CT. At the final step, volunteers from the experimental group were interviewed to clarify the results obtained from the quantitative phase. The study has implications for teachers and teacher trainers.
ObjectivesTo explore the type of education needed for nurses when dealing with aggression from patients and their families.DesignA two-phase sequential mixed-methods study.SettingThis study was conducted in Japan, with phase I from March to November 2016 and phase II in November 2018.Main outcome measuresThe challenges faced by nurses when dealing with incidents of aggression from the neutral perspective of neither nurse nor patient/family and perceptions of the educational contents developed in this study. Descriptive analyses were used to examine the data retrieved from both phases.ParticipantsPhase I entailed semistructured interviews among 11 neutral-party participants who observed aggressive incidents between nurses and patients/families. Phase II consisted of a web survey conducted among 102 nursing students and 308 nursing professionals.ResultsPhase I resulted in the identification of the following five main educational components: understanding the mechanisms of anger and aggression, maintaining self-awareness, observant listening, managing the self-impression, and communicating based on specific disease characteristics. Each component was related to improved communication through self-awareness. The results of phase II indicated that participants positively perceived these educational contents as likely to be effective for dealing with aggression from patients/families.ConclusionsThis study clarified the type of education needed for nurses when dealing with aggression based on multiple viewpoints. Specifically, neutral-party interviews revealed that communication should be improved through self-awareness. A subsequent survey among nurses and nursing students showed that the identified educational contents were positively received.
While the environment is fundamental to humankind’s wellbeing, to date, social work has been largely focused on the social, rather than the physical, environment. To map how the broader environment is captured in the profession’s foundational documents, an exploratory sequential mixed methods study (QUAL → quan) analysed data from 64 social work codes of ethics. Findings indicate that although the environment is mentioned in the majority of these, there is a continued focus on the social, overlooking to some degree the physical, predominantly the built, environment. A more holistic understanding of the environment would enable social work to better fulfil its commitment to human rights and social justice.
Mixed-Methods Study Examining the Relationship of Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy to Breastfeeding Duration and Breastfeeding Exclusivity of Full-Term Infants in the NICU