Frøydis Vasset

Dyadic Relationships and Exchanges in Performance Appraisals

Background: Previous research indicates that quality of dyad exchanges related to performance appraisal (PA) vary across organizations and across occupational groups. Leader-member exchange theory (LMX) is often used to explain such dyad relationships. The aim: This article focuses on manager-employees dyad relationships related to performance appraisals, and explores the different effects of high and low quality on dyadic exchange through PA in municipal health service. Method: Questionnaires were distributed to a representative sample of 600 health personnel, both from nursing homes and home care, with a response rate of 62 %. The LMX-7 scale was used to measure dyad quality. Findings: Employees in nursing homes are more participating and report higher exchange quality with the manager in PA than employees in home care. All subordinates report more constructive discussion with higher exchanges in PA than managers do. Auxiliary nurses are more satisfied with feedback and exchange in PA than nurses. Managers experience more thorough feedback with higher quality exchanges in PA than nurses. Conclusion: Health personnel in municipal health services experience LMX in PA differently. That is, employees in home care and nursing homes are experiencing different LMX in PA. They experience therefore different effects of PA. PA = Performance appraisal LMX = leader-member exchange

University teachers’ views of interprofessional learning and their role in achieving outcomes - a qualitative study

ABSTRACT Over the past decade, there has been a rapid increase in higher education institutions offering opportunities for interprofessional learning (IPL) to their students. The literature presents a number of factors that contribute to effective IPL, including having trained facilitators that help optimise the learning process. Many of these IPL facilitators are university teachers and the literature provides us with some insight into their views of IPL. However, little is known about university teachers’ views about IPL and their role in supporting students in achieving outcomes linked to IPL during their own teaching; this paper explores these areas. University teachers, working with students in Norway and England who contribute to patients’ care pathway were purposively invited to join focus groups. Data collected from the teachers’ conversations during these focus groups were analysed to elicit the main themes. Findings show that university teachers have a wide range of views about IPL, its potential to enhance collaborative practice and care, and their role in helping students achieve outcomes linked to IPL. A key challenge appears to be whether IPL is “worth the struggle,” which emphasises the need for strong leadership in order to align pedagogical approaches in education and practice that strive to achieve agreed outcomes.

Health and social care students pursuing different studies, and their written assignments from workshop and online interprofessional education:

Interprofessional education (IPE) is of central importance to health and social care students if they are to acquire the ability and willingness to collaborate across professional boundaries. There is disagreement about when such an educational intervention should be introduced. The aim of this study is to examine how students from different studies, or student groups at different stages in their study, describe their experiences with workshop and online IPE. This qualitative study consists of two sets of data. The dataset from the first year of study consists of data from 92 health students, and the dataset from the second year of study comprises 20 health and social care students. The intervention consists of a workshop and online IPE. Students’ discussions online and their assignments were the basis for text analysis. The findings show that students describe IPE somewhat differently. Students in their first year of study seem to have acquired knowledge of the roles of the professions involved. Students in their second year give more positive and conscious descriptions of IPE, compared with first-year students.