Competency Evaluations Research Articles

How Implementing a Digital Competency Management System Reduced Nurse Training Cost and Improved NPD Practitioner Satisfaction in a Pediatric Hospital.

Traditional competency evaluations and manual tracking created a problem within one organization. Subjective competency assessments and inconsistent recordkeeping resulted in increased organizational costs. These factors increased the workload of nursing professional development (NPD) practitioners, leading to job dissatisfaction and turnover. The project lead evaluated how implementing a digital competency management system (CMS) affected nurse training costs and assessed NPD practitioners' satisfaction after the digital CMS conversion. A cost analysis compared training costs before and after implementation of a digital CMS. A pre- and postsurvey compared NPD practitioners' satisfaction before and after digital implementation. A digital CMS provided a centralized repository and educational platform, which saved $500,000 in training costs and increased NPD practitioners' job satisfaction by decreasing workload and creating meaningful mechanisms to accurately assess staff knowledge and skills. The NPD practitioners showed tangible outcome measures and return on investment by combining adult learning and technology. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2024;55(5):239-245.].

The influence of self-esteem on interpersonal and competence evaluations: electrophysiological evidence from an ERP study.

Using event-related potentials, this study examined how self-esteem affects neural responses to competence (interpersonal) feedback when the need for relatedness (competence) is thwarted or met. Participants with low and high self-esteem acted as advisors who selected one of two options for a putative advisee. Subsequently, they passively observed the advisee, accepted, or rejected their advice (i.e. interpersonal feedback) and received correct or incorrect outcomes (i.e. competence feedback). When interpersonal feedback was followed by competence feedback, high self-esteem participants showed a smaller P3 following incorrect than correct outcomes, irrespective of whether the advice had been accepted or rejected. However, low self-esteem participants showed this P3 effect only when the advice was rejected, and the P3 difference disappeared when the advice was accepted. When competence feedback was followed by interpersonal feedback, both low self-esteem and high self-esteem individuals showed a larger P2 for rejection than for acceptance and a larger late potential component for incorrect than correct outcomes. These findings suggest that when interpersonal feedback is followed by competence feedback, low self-esteem and high self-esteem individuals have a desire for self-positivity. When competence feedback is followed by interpersonal feedback, they may have motives for self-change. Our findings shed light on the motivational mechanisms for self-esteem and feedback.

Effects of Attractiveness and Occupation Type on Attitudes toward Working Women and Men

Extending previous research, we analyzed across two preregistered studies (N = 761) the differences in cognitive evaluations, emotional reactions, and behavioral intentions depending on the physical attractiveness (low vs. high) of a potential coworker (woman or men), which applies for a gender-neutral job (Study 1) or a male-typed occupation (Study 2). Studies 1 and 2 showed that attractiveness mainly influenced participants’ attitudes toward female candidates. Pooled analyses confirmed that women’s evaluations at work depended on their physical attractiveness as participants showed less positive attitudes toward less attractive women versus highly attractive women. Occupation also affected the evaluations of competence of women: they were considered more competent when applying for a computer science occupation than for an administrative occupation.

Seeking empathy or suggesting a solution? Effects of chatbot messages on service failure recovery

Chatbots as prominent form of conversational agents are increasingly implemented as a user interface for digital customer-firm interactions on digital platforms and electronic markets, but they often fail to deliver suitable responses to user requests. In turn, individuals are left dissatisfied and turn away from chatbots, which harms successful chatbot implementation and ultimately firm’s service performance. Based on the stereotype content model, this paper explores the impact of two universally usable failure recovery messages as a strategy to preserve users’ post-recovery satisfaction and chatbot re-use intentions. Results of three experiments show that chatbot recovery messages have a positive effect on recovery responses, mediated by different elicited social cognitions. In particular, a solution-oriented message elicits stronger competence evaluations, whereas an empathy-seeking message leads to stronger warmth evaluations. The preference for one of these message types over the other depends on failure attribution and failure frequency. This study provides meaningful insights for chatbot technology developers and marketers seeking to understand and improve customer experience with digital conversational agents in a cost-effective way.

Which Information Matters? Using Policy Capturing to Understand Psychological Recommendations of Civil Competency

ABSTRACT Courts rely heavily on the recommendations of mental health evaluators when making decisions about competency (e.g., Zapf, Hubbard, Cooper, Wheeles, & Ronan, 2004), including civil competency (e.g., Quickel, Demakis, & Reeve, 2017); however, very little is known about how evaluators arrive at their opinions regarding an individual’s capacity. The current study assessed clinical decision-making using a policy capturing methodology. An ecologically valid sample (N = 47) of predominantly white (87.23%) and female (55.30%) clinicians who were eligible to conduct civil competency evaluations in North Carolina were recruited to examine the degree to which five key factors (functional test data, cognitive test data, personality test data, hospitalization history, and/or medication compliance) influenced clinician competency determinations. Personal insight into one’s decision-making process was also measured. Consistent with previous research, functional test data was weighted most heavily in evaluator decisions, though all five factors were considered. Further analysis suggested variable levels of self-awareness of one’s decision-making policies by participants depending on the factor. In addition, there was high agreement among clinicians when cases were straightforward, but perfect disagreement (half recommending competency, half recommending incompetency) among clinicians when cases were more complex. Implications for civil competency assessment and decision-making are discussed.

Group boundary salience and nonaccommodation between healthcare workers and community members in Ghana

Over the past decades, public health policy and initiatives have shifted away from individual interventions to focus more broadly on community-based and social determinants of health. Community-based health initiatives are health programs developed to be implemented at the community level, especially amongst poor rural populations and urban slums that may be excluded from traditional healthcare models. However, evidence regarding the success of community-based health initiatives remains mixed, perhaps due to lack of research focused on the social identity and communication experiences of community members and healthcare workers. Mobilizing communication accommodation theory, the current study analyzes healthcare discourses in the context of Ghana's Community-Based Health Planning and Service initiative. Critical discourse analysis of forty-four focus group interviews revealed significant tensions regarding patient-practitioner roles and expectations, organizational role constraints experienced by healthcare workers, and ethnolinguistic group boundaries. As a result, community members frequently express feelings of nonaccommodation from healthcare workers, leading to poor evaluations of healthcare workers' communication accommodation competence. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Evolution of conflict management style during first year of paediatric residency.

First-year residents frequently encounter conflict during their training. Residents' conflict management strategies can influence patient safety, quality of care and perceptions of performance on competency evaluations. Existing literature inadequately describes how first-year resident conflict management styles evolve over time. The objective of this study is to assess if and how conflict management styles change during first year of paediatric residency in the United States. In 2021-2022, we conducted a non-experimental, longitudinal, survey study of first-year residents from 16 US-based paediatric residency programmes. Using the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, we scored first-year residents' use of five conflict management modes twice, 6 months apart. We calculated the percentage of first-year residents who experienced a change in predominant conflict management mode and assessed for changes in score and variance for each conflict management mode. Fifty-seven (18%) first-year residents participated in the first survey. Of those, 45 (14%) also completed the follow-up survey. Nonresponse bias analysis showed no significant difference in scores for early and late respondents or for second-survey respondents and non-respondents. Half of respondents experienced a change in predominant conflict management mode, but the distribution of predominant modes remained largely unchanged. When residents changed modes, they typically moved from one low-assertiveness mode, such as avoiding or accommodating, to the other. Only the use of the compromising conflict management mode significantly decreased. Variance did not significantly change. The overall lack of change in conflict management style may suggest the need for specific and focused educational interventions to help residents adjust their conflict handling strategies.

Juvenile Competency Complications: Protocol, Unmet Needs, Developmental Immaturity, FASD, and Comorbidity.

This Article focuses on unifying the protocol for state competency evaluations, but with special concerns about undiagnosed FASD and developmental immaturity in adolescents. States do not mandate any process whereby psychometric tests are first performed prior to psychiatric mental status evaluations, often causing disparities in evaluations which might easily be avoided in court proceedings. Adding to the complications in current competency evaluations are recent studies from Canada and Australia identifying exceptionally high rates of FASD in incarcerated adolescents following multi-disciplinary teams' studies directed at identifying FASD. If these studies' rates of FASD turn out to be similar for children in the U.S. juvenile justice system, then systemic reform is called for as we are failing to identify this congenital condition when adolescents enter the system and then continue on into the adult criminal system without recognition of their prenatal exposure to alcohol.

Some agents are more similar than others: customer orientation of frontline robots and employees

PurposeThe impact of frontline robots (FLRs) on customer orientation perceptions remains unclear. This is remarkable because customers may associate FLRs with standardization and cost-cutting, such that they may not fit firms that aim to be customer oriented.Design/methodology/approachIn four experiments, data are collected from customers interacting with frontline employees (FLEs) and FLRs in different settings.FindingsFLEs are perceived as more customer-oriented than FLRs due to higher competence and warmth evaluations. A relational interaction style attenuates the difference in perceived competence between FLRs and FLEs. These agents are also perceived as more similar in competence and warmth when FLRs participate in the customer journey's information and negotiation stages. Switching from FLE to FLR in the journey harms FLR evaluations.Practical implicationsThe authors recommend firms to place FLRs only in the negotiation stage or in both the information and negotiation stages of the customer journey. Still then customers should not transition from employees to robots (vice versa does no harm). Firms should ensure that FLRs utilize a relational style when interacting with customers for optimal effects.Originality/valueThe authors bridge the FLR and sales/marketing literature by drawing on social cognition theory. The authors also identify the product categories for which customers are willing to negotiate with an FLR. Broadly speaking, this study’s findings underline that customers perceive robots as having agency (i.e. the mental capacity for acting with intentionality) and, just as humans, can be customer-oriented.

Eğitim Yönetiminde Sürekliliğin Sürdürülebilirliğinin Eğitsel Araçlarının İncelenmesi

In this study, it is aimed to examine the educational tools of the sustainability of continuity in educational management. In this context, the works of leading scientists who stand out in the development of educational tools for the sustainability of continuity in educational management will be mentioned. As it is known, the main dynamics in the TQM approach are individuality, subjectivity, freedom and democracy. The criteria related to the quality of teaching are the field knowledge of instructors and administrators, the intellectual development levels of students, cooperation, the use of materials that support teaching, the classroom management skills of instructors, getting feedback from the student, encouraging students to learn independently, developing competent evaluation methods. There are working groups that produce alternative ideas about education in teaching organizations that practice TQM. In-service educational programs for corporate managers focus on creating a vision, ensuring environmental-institutional integrity, participatory management thinking, cooperation, teamwork, developing individual resources, motivation, problem solving, developing creativity and increasing productivity, competent managerial and instructional leadership. In this context, it is of great importance to redefine teaching in line with the dynamics of community development and to bring teaching organizations into a functional structure for the purpose. Teaching should be perceived as a collection of subjects that contain conditions that can meet the individual's curiosity for development and knowledge, creativity and productivity. The main condition for the establishment of this understanding is to be able to make competent use of individual resources on the teaching level. It is difficult to reach the intended level with authoritarian policies and understandings that alienate the community and the world. At this point, the flexible structuring model of TKI, which is open to development, is also suitable for the structure and functioning of educational organizations. Key Words: Educational Management, Continuity, Sustainability, Educational Tools

Threatened by the immoral, challenged by the incompetent: Cardiovascular responses to intragroup morality vs. competence evaluations

In group contexts, moral judgments are used as social influence tactics to regulate the behavior of group members. We argue that communicating moral disapproval with the aim of adapting group members’ behavior might backfire because it elicits (negative) threat rather than (positive) challenge. In two experiments, we examined the motivational consequences of negative morality (vs. competence) evaluations in group contexts. Participants worked on a group task while cardiovascular indices of challenge and threat motivational states were measured following the biopsychosocial model (Blascovich & Tomaka, 1996). In Experiment 1, participants recalled their own prior behavior evaluated as immoral or incompetent; in Experiment 2, participants were exposed to an ingroup member’s prior behavior evaluated as immoral or incompetent. As predicted, in both experiments, reminders of immorality induced a state of threat rather than challenge in a novel group context. These results suggest that moral disapproval intended to motivate group members to adapt their behavior might actually be counterproductive.

Competence for physician-assisted death of patients with mental disorders: theoretical and practical considerations

Physician-assisted death (PAD) of patients whose suffering does not stem from terminal conditions has become more prevalent during the last few decades. This paper is focused on decision-making competence for...

Videoconferencing analytic psychodrama in treating young adults' psychological suffering: preliminary results.

The study aims to explore the effects that videoconferencing Analytic Psychodrama (AP) has on the psychological wellbeing and emotional competence of young adults who are suffering from mental health problems. Twenty-two undergraduate students, asking for help at the Psychological Counselling Service of the University of Bologna for anxiety-depressive problems, took part in the three online groups that met weekly from October 2020 to July 2021. The Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation Outcome Measure, the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire Short Form, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and the Group Climate Questionnaire were used as test-retest questionnaires for clinical outcomes, emotional competence, and group climate evaluations. There was a statistically significant difference between the pre-test and 10-month scores for patients in clinical outcomes. Alexithymia significantly decreased and emotional intelligence and group engagement increased post-intervention. Videoconferencing AP sounds promising for alleviating psychological problems and to improve young adults' emotional competence.

Evaluations of competence to stand trial are evolving amid a national "competency crisis".

Across the United States, court orders for competence to stand trial (CST) evaluations and competence restoration services have been increasing much more rapidly than states can provide these services, prompting what has been called a national "competency crisis." The challenge in providing timely competence restoration services has, in several jurisdictions, prompted a change in competence evaluations. Evaluators are more often required to address broader clinical issues-such as recommending placement or addressing the urgency of hospitalization-rather than addressing only CST. This marks an evolving practice in forensic evaluation, which moves evaluators beyond the very narrow forensic question of competence and into more traditionally clinical recommendations. We describe several state examples of changing practice in order to highlight the initial barriers, and potential benefits, to addressing additional clinical issues in competence evaluations, amid a national competence crisis.

Justice as fairness or retribution? Citizen reactions to domestic trials of wartime violence

How do domestic trials addressing wartime violence affect public opinion of government? The legitimation functions of national courts are well studied in liberal democracies, but less is known about the effects of trials that address abuses committed during large-scale conflict. This article investigates how the extent to which such trials achieve procedural justice (fairness in process) and retributive justice (allocation of punishment) affects perceptions of political legitimacy. I provide survey-experimental evidence from post-conflict El Salvador that leverages the repeal of a longstanding amnesty law. Although a trial in general improves citizen evaluations of state competence, fairness and punishment serve crucial – and distinct – legitimation functions. Procedural fairness significantly increased citizens’ willingness to comply with state authorities, regardless of trial outcome. Yet, an unfair trial, when coupled with punishment, bolstered trust in politicians and the judiciary. This suggests a trade-off between public preferences for fairness and an ‘iron fist’ approach to violence. The findings reveal the limits of procedural justice in a post-conflict environment and furnish new insights on the multifaceted functions of human rights trials.

Foreign aid and its impact on Afghanistan s Economic Setup: Purposes and Implications

The notion that foreign aid harms recipient governments' economic autonomy and undermines citizens’ trust in political institutions and actors remain prevalent and paradoxical. The fact that foreign aid has come to mean development assistance has raised a series of questions that have been debated in the scholarly literature. Moreover, it is universally acknowledged that donors use aid to achieve objectives other than development and poverty reduction. This study assesses the impact of foreign aid on the economic autonomy of different regimes (2001–2021) in Afghanistan. The study opines that foreign aid supported economic growth and the longevity of the Afghan government. However, on the other hand, both on-budget and off-budget foreign aid funding had several ripple effects. This study offers a comparative analysis of foreign aid in the Karzai and Ghani era; and explores the knock-on economic implications of aid dependency in Afghanistan. The comparative analysis of regimes in the post-9/11 context illustrates that stringent conditions were attached to aid granted to the Ghani administration compared to the Karzai administration. The study has found that US aid has undermined the economic setup in Afghanistan. However, the leverage of US aid to influence decision-making is minimal. Afghanistan's strategic calculation and policymaking are determined by regional security conditions rather than US influence. Furthermore, it is pertinent to note that since 2014, a significant decrease in US aid has been witnessed due to divergence between the two states. The significance of assistance in US foreign policy towards Afghanistan is minimal. The study suggests that foreign aid projects harm institutional trust by lowering citizens' evaluations of government performance and administrative competence. Additionally, aid projects can incentivize rent-seeking behavior and hurt citizens' perceptions of political corruption. In mapping the future discourse on aid in Afghanistan, the current authorities need to be more oriented toward foreign aid. As a policy tool, support has not been confined to the roles that foreign and economic policy theorists have prescribed. Key Words: Afghanistan, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEoA), Taliban, Foreign Aid, Economic Autonomy.

3D Autonomous Surgeon’s Hand Movement Assessment Using a Cascaded Fuzzy Supervisor in Multi-Thread Video Processing

The purpose of the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) training is to develop laparoscopic surgery skills by using simulation experiences. Several advanced training methods based on simulation have been created to enable training in a non-patient environment. Laparoscopic box trainers-cheap, portable devices-have been deployed for a while to offer training opportunities, competence evaluations, and performance reviews. However, the trainees must be under the supervision of medical experts who can evaluate their abilities, which is an expensive and time-consuming operation. Thus, a high level of surgical skill, determined by assessment, is necessary to prevent any intraoperative issues and malfunctions during a real laparoscopic procedure and during human intervention. To guarantee that the use of laparoscopic surgical training methods results in surgical skill improvement, it is necessary to measure and assess surgeons' skills during tests. We used our intelligent box-trainer system (IBTS) as a platform for skill training. The main aim of this study was to monitor the surgeon's hands' movement within a predefined field of interest. To evaluate the surgeons' hands' movement in 3D space, an autonomous evaluation system using two cameras and multi-thread video processing is proposed. This method works by detecting laparoscopic instruments and using a cascaded fuzzy logic assessment system. It is composed of two fuzzy logic systems executing in parallel. The first level assesses the left and right-hand movements simultaneously. Its outputs are cascaded by the final fuzzy logic assessment at the second level. This algorithm is completely autonomous and removes the need for any human monitoring or intervention. The experimental work included nine physicians (surgeons and residents) from the surgery and obstetrics/gynecology (OB/GYN) residency programs at WMU Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine (WMed) with different levels of laparoscopic skills and experience. They were recruited to participate in the peg-transfer task. The participants' performances were assessed, and the videos were recorded throughout the exercises. The results were delivered autonomously about 10 s after the experiments were concluded. In the future, we plan to increase the computing power of the IBTS to achieve real-time performance assessment.

The Arabic Nurse Professional Competence-Short Version Scale (NPC-SV-A): Transcultural Translation and Adaptation with a Cohort of Saudi Nursing Students.

There is broad consensus that assessing and improving the competence of nurses is a crucial element of nursing education and practice. Numerous national and international nursing research studies have used the 35-item Nurse Professional Competence Scale (NPC-SV) to measure the self-reported competence of nursing students and registered nurses. To increase its usage in Arabic-speaking nations, however, a culturally adapted Arabic version of the scale with the same level of quality was necessary. The study aimed to develop a culturally adapted Arabic version of the NPC-SV and evaluate its reliability and validity (construct, convergent, and discriminant types). Methodological descriptive cross-sectional design was utilized. A convenience sampling technique was employed to recruit 518 undergraduate nursing students from three Saudi Arabian institutions. The translated items were appraised by a panel of experts, who considered the content validity indexes. The structure of the translated scale was examined using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling, and the Analysis of Moment Structure method. When utilized with nursing students in Saudi Arabia, the Arabic short version of the Nurse Professional Competence Scale (NPC-SV-A) was shown to be reliable and valid in terms of its content, construct, convergent, and discriminant validity. Cronbach's alpha for the entire NPC-SV-A scale was 0.89 and varied from 0.83 to 0.89 for each of the six subscales. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed six significant factors with 33 items that accounted for 67.52 percent of the variance. The scale was congruent with the suggested six-dimensional model, as confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The Arabic version of the NPC-SV, which was reduced to 33 items, showed good psychometric properties, with a six-factor structure accounting for 67.52% of the total variance. When used alone, this 33-item scale can allow for more in-depth evaluations of self-reported competence among nursing students and licensed nurses.

The stereotype content model and mental disorders: Distinct perceptions of warmth and competence.

This work investigates the perception of eight different mental disorders within the Stereotype Content Model (SCM). The presented study (N = 297) includes a sample representative for the German population in terms of age and gender. Results reveal distinct warmth and competence evaluations for people with different mental disorders, e.g., people with alcohol dependence were seen as less warm and less competent than people with depression or phobia. Future directions and practical implications are discussed.

What Is in a Name? Exploring Perceptions of Surname Change in Hiring Evaluations in Academia

The motherhood penalty reflects inequalities in the workplace based on caregiver status. A number of factors have been identified as potential triggers of motherhood penalty effects, such as becoming pregnant or taking maternity leave. However, little is known as to whether these effects could also be triggered by more subtle cues that may signal potential changes in caregiver status. The current study investigated the impact of surname change visible on publication lists in academics’ Google Scholar profiles on evaluations of competence, commitment, work–family balance, hiring, and promotion likelihood. Contrary to the predictions in our preregistration, the findings showed that women who have changed their surname received more favourable evaluations compared to those who did not. In addition, female participants favoured female academics who have changed their surname compared to those who did not and this was mediated by higher perceived competence and commitment scores. These findings were interpreted through the lens of social role theory and the role prioritisation model, suggesting that behaviours that are consistent with gendered expectations are evaluated more favourably.