Behavioral competencies of older college students: a self-efficacy approach

Feeling Weary? Feeling Insecure? Are All Workplace Changes Bad News?

Prior research indicates that workplace changes can have both positive and negative consequences for employees. To explore the mechanisms that trigger these different outcomes, we propose and test a mediation model, which builds on the premises of the challenge-hindrance model of work stress. Specifically, we suggest that whereas workplace changes can engender positive outcomes (e.g., learning outcomes) through an increase in learning demands, they can also enhance negative outcomes (e.g., emotional exhaustion) through increased perceptions of qualitative job insecurity. While we made these specific assumptions, we also analyzed the reversed causation relationships. Two-wave data obtained from 1366 Dutch employees were used to test the study hypotheses. The results showed that the reciprocal causation model had the best fit for the data. However, whereas emotional exhaustion was only mediated by qualitative job insecurity, no mediation was found by learning demands. In addition to the hypothesized effects, several reversed causation effects emerged from the analyses, indicating that the relationships between workplace changes and employee learning and strain are not unidirectional. This underscores the need for a broader view on the causes and effects of workplace changes, as the traditional causation relationships (i.e., perceptions of workplace changes impacting employee learning and strain experiences) are insufficient to explain the complex dynamics between the studied phenomena.

Assessing Occupational Self-Efficacy Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults

Four studies, involving 314 middle-aged and older adults were conducted to develop and validate the Occupational Self-Efficacy Index (OSEI). The OSEI assesses adults' beliefs (in the latter half of their working life) in their continued ability to learn, adapt, and be productive in a changing workplace. OSEI scores reflect three factors: Performance Ability, Learning Ability, and Organizational Skills. The instrument is reliable (alpha = .94). Evidence of construct validity included positive conelations with general self-efficacy, intrinsic job motivation, a history of previous job successes, retirement income sufficiency, health status, and a negative correlation with job stress.

Differential effects of pretraining influences on readiness to change

Training and development are integral to organizational change but are difficult to accomplish effectively in dynamic and complex work environments. Such environments can lead to nonoptimal training conditions that reduce individuals' readiness to change and training effectiveness. On the basis of the transtheoretical model of change (J. O. Prochaska, C. C. DiClemente, & J. C. Norcross, 1992), the authors examined pretraining influences (choice, social support, and motivation to learn) on readiness to change under nonoptimal training conditions. They examined specific dimensions of readiness to change rather than a global readiness to change construct. Participants were 183 driving under the influence (DUI) offenders participating in a court-mandated, alcohol-related Weekend Intervention Program. Perceived choice to attend training, social support, and motivation to learn affected readiness to change when individuals were resisting, considering, acting on, or maintaining behavior or attitude change. These effects were also dependent on age. Results suggest how training effectiveness could be improved when trainees are least likely to learn.

A model of involvement in work-related learning and development activity: the effects of individual, situational, motivational, and age variables

Eight hundred employees from across the U.S. work force participated in a detailed 13-month longitudinal study of involvement in learning and development activities. A new model was posited and tested in which the hypothesized sequence was as follows: worker age --> individual and situational antecedents --> perceived benefits of participation and self-efficacy for development --> attitudes toward development --> intentions to participate --> participation. The results depict a person who is oriented toward employee development as having participated in development activities before, perceiving themselves as possessing qualities needed for learning, having social support for development at work and outside of work, being job involved, having insight into his or her career, and believing in the need for development, in his or her ability to develop skills and to receive intrinsic benefits from participating. Given the aging work force, a detailed treatment of age differences in development is presented. Implications for new ideas in practice and future research are discussed.

Predictors of the use of memory improvement strategies by older adults

This study examined the ability of depression, health, and memory self-efficacy scores to predict the use of internal and external memory strategies by cognitively impaired and cognitively intact older adults. There were no differences between the groups on memory self-efficacy scores and on the extent of their use of the external memory strategy of place. The cognitively intact group used strategies to aid memory more often than did the cognitively impaired group and used more external than internal memory strategies. The cognitively intact group used the internal strategies of elaboration and rehearsal more often than the other group and were less likely to expend effort than the other group. Memory self-efficacy scores were the sole predictor of use of external memory aids by the cognitively intact group, and age was the sole predictor of use of external memory aids by the cognitively impaired group. No variable was able to predict the use of internal memory strategies by either group.