Leader-Member Exchange across two hierarchical levels of leadership: concurrent influences on work characteristics and employee psychological health.

Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory suggests that the quality of the leader-employee relationship is linked to employee psychological health. Leaders who reside at different hierarchical levels have unique roles and spheres of influence and potentially affect employees' work experiences in different ways. Nevertheless, research on the impact of leadership on employee psychological health has largely viewed leaders as a homogeneous group. Expanding on LMX theory, we argue that (1) LMX sourced at the levels of the line manager (LM) and senior management (SM) team will be differentially linked to employee psychological health (assessed as worn-out) and that (2) these relationships will be mediated by perceived work characteristics (reward and recognition, workload management, quality of relationships with colleagues and physical environment). Structural equation modelling on data from 337 manual workers partially supported the hypotheses. Perceptions of the physical environment mediated the relationship between LMX at the LM level and employee psychological health, whereas perceptions of workload management mediated the relationship between LMX at the SM level and psychological health. These findings corroborate arguments that leaders are not a uniform group and as such the effects of LMX on employees will depend on leadership hierarchy. Implications for expanding leadership theory are discussed.

Video game characteristics, happiness and flow as predictors of addiction among video game players: A pilot study.

AIMS: Video games provide opportunities for positive psychological experiences such as flow-like phenomena during play and general happiness that could be associated with gaming achievements. However, research has shown that specific features of game play may be associated with problematic behaviour associated with addiction-like experiences. The study was aimed at analysing whether certain structural characteristics of video games, flow, and global happiness could be predictive of video game addiction. METHOD: A total of 110 video game players were surveyed about a game they had recently played by using a 24-item checklist of structural characteristics, an adapted Flow State Scale, the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, and the Game Addiction Scale. RESULTS: The study revealed decreases in general happiness had the strongest role in predicting increases in gaming addiction. One of the nine factors of the flow experience was a significant predictor of gaming addiction - perceptions of time being altered during play. The structural characteristic that significantly predicted addiction was its social element with increased sociability being associated with higher levels of addictive-like experiences. Overall, the structural characteristics of video games, elements of the flow experience, and general happiness accounted for 49.2% of the total variance in Game Addiction Scale levels. CONCLUSIONS: Implications for interventions are discussed, particularly with regard to making players more aware of time passing and in capitalising on benefits of social features of video game play to guard against addictive-like tendencies among video game players.

Lecturers' and students' perceptions of portfolios in an English School of Nursing.

AIMS: This study was aimed at comparing perceptions of portfolios between student nurses at the early and latter stages of their training and how they compare with their lecturers' perceptions. BACKGROUND: Portfolios are used widely in nurse education. There has been research into how portfolios are perceived and understood, but there is little evidence into how student nurses and lecturers compare quantitatively in perceptions of portfolio use. DESIGN: Survey. METHOD: Forty-eight nursing lecturers and 413 nursing students, from a multi-centred School of Nursing in the UK, completed a questionnaire. Data were analysed with exploratory factor analysis, varimax rotation of the factor solution, internal consistency analysis, and analysis of variance. RESULTS: Five factors were extracted, which were labelled: (1) portfolios as a means of skills acquisition, (2) other means of teaching and learning beyond using portfolios, (3) processes of showing the portfolio to others, (4) having favourable attitudes towards portfolios and (5) lecturers' ability to share knowledge about portfolios. Scales developed from these five factors had high levels of internal consistency. Lecturers were the most positive of the three respondent groups in their views of portfolios, whereas third- and fourth-year students were the least positive. There were significant differences between student nurses and their lecturers, concerning how information on portfolios is communicated by the lecturer. CONCLUSION: There were significant discrepancies between lecturers and student nurses in their views on how portfolios are used. The value of portfolios becomes less salient to student nurses towards the end of their training. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Lecturers and clinical mentors need to look at students' perceptions and why some nursing students' views on portfolios deteriorate. There could be regular discussions with students to see how and why the students begin to see portfolios as less useful for their education and continual professional development.

Multicultural or anti-racist teaching in nurse education: a critical appraisal.

There are many conceptual and practical difficulties in teaching culturally sensitive issues to student nurses. There is little clear evidence about the most effective way that the subject of racism can be explored in the classroom setting. This critical appraisal is a collation of the evidence as a means of identifying current practice and the theoretical difficulties and debates that characterise this area. The evidence is based on English language material, largely if not exclusively, from the United States of America and the United Kingdom. We used CINAHL 1982-2003 and MEDLINE 1993-2003 using the search terms 'curriculum', 'education', 'nursing', 'teaching', 'minority groups', 'race relations', 'prejudice', and 'ethnic groups'. The central tension lies between a multicultural and an anti-racist approach, which reflects philosophically diverse opinions about what should be included in the nursing curriculum. The outcome of this tension is reliant on providing evidence about the experiences of students and tutors and whether the problem is one of difficulties in cross-cultural communication or racism. Recommendations from the literature for the teaching of multiculturalism and/or anti-racism are synthesised and discussed in light of the tension existing between the two philosophies.