Graduation Year

2004

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Granting Department

Psychology

Major Professor

Michael T. Brannick, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Walter C. Borman, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Geoff P. Fabri, M.D.

Committee Member

Carnot E. Nelson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Douglas Rohrer, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Toru Shimizu, Ph.D.

Keywords

organizational change, organization development, readiness to change

Abstract

This purpose of the study was twofold: to create and assess factors affecting organizational preparation for change and to assist the USF College of Medicine's administrators in developing and implementing an initiative in order to comply with regulations of the accreditation board. Randomly selected program directors participated in three training modules between September and November 2002. The training was targeted toward the development and implementation of learning objectives for medical residents. A panel evaluated the learning objectives developed by both trained and control directors to see whether the training resulted in the development of superior objectives. Additionally, program directors, residents and faculty were surveyed to determine if there was any impact of changes in learning objectives. More specifically, the three groups were surveyed before and after the development of the learning objectives on perceptions of organizational readiness to change and satisfaction with the current resident evaluation system. Respondents included 20 program directors, 56 residents in training and approximately 52 faculty members in the various programs at the USF medical school.

Three sets of analyses were conducted. The first of the analyses concerned the immediate outcome of the training. This analysis was based on an expert panel's judgments of the quality of learning objectives generated by the program directors. The second and third analyses concerned more distal outcomes of the training, and focused on (a) perceptions of organization readiness to change and attitudes about resident evaluation, and (b) perceptions of whether any change actually occurred.

For both readiness to change and perceptions of resident evaluation, the design was a 2X2X2X3 mixed ANOVA design. A single factor (trials, pre and post intervention) was within participants. The two main factors of interest for the study were between participants; the first between factor was the training program (experimental vs. control group); the second between factor was time pressure (facing more time pressure vs. facing less). The last independent variable, position, was included in the analyses to reduce error from the individual's position with the organization (i.e., program director, faculty, resident). The dependent variables included attitudes concerning resident evaluation procedures and organization readiness for change.

For the third analysis, perceptions of whether any changes actually occurred served as the dependent variable. Because such perceptions could only be taken meaningfully at posttest, the design was a 2X2 between participants analysis in which the independent variables were training (trained vs. control) and time pressure (more vs. less).

Results indicated that there was no difference in the quality of learning objectives between trained and control groups and no difference in the changes that were reported by residents, faculty and program directors. The training intervention did not have the intended effect as attitudes toward resident evaluations and perceptions of readiness to change did not improve as a function of the treatment. Time pressure did have an effect on perceptions of readiness to change but in the opposite direction from what was hypothesized; programs under less pressure had more positive perceptions of readiness to change. There was a change from time 1 to time 2 based on position; residents perceptions of readiness to change improved over the course of the study while faculty perceptions became more negative and program directors remained the same.

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