Faculty members’ use of power: midwifery students’ perceptions and expectations

Abstract

Objective the power dynamics of relationships/interactions between faculty members and students are of crucial importance for positive student outcomes. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the perceptions and expectations of midwifery students in relation to the use of power by faculty members and bases of power. Design descriptive, quantitative study. Setting a school for health sciences in Turkey. Participants 122 midwifery students at the school. Measurement data were collected using a perceived leadership power survey, and analysed by frequency distribution, arithmetic mean, variance analysis and Cronbach's alpha. Findings the students perceived that faculty members used coercive power most often and used reward power least often. Students expected their instructors to use expert power. In addition, in the examination of relationships between power bases, it was determined that there were positive correlations between legitimate, referent, reward and expert power, but coercive power was only positively correlated with legitimate power. Conclusions this study found that students expect faculty members to use expert power, and faculty members need to reconsider their power bases. The factors affecting the perceptions of midwifery students regarding the use of power should be analysed in more detail.