1941 research outputs found
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Heartland Sonshine: A Thriving Rural Church and Community
No full textxi, 236 leaves. Advisor: Dale Patrick
Professional Growth and Development: A Study of Exemplary Middle School Principals in Iowa
Get PDFvi, 125 leaves. Advisor: Annette LiggettThe problem. The problem of the study was to describe the professional growth activities of exemplary middle school principals and to document what they perceived were conditions that influence their active participation,and the
factors that influence their effectiveness.
Procedures. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with fifteen exemplary Iowa middle school principals who were nominated by their peer as having good understanding of middle school concepts, the change process, and child-centered schools. Qualitative research methodology was used in analyzing interview information and deriving conclusions of the study.
Findings. Three broad-based research questions guided this inquiry. The findings addressing those questions are:
a) Professional growth experiences that effectively contribute to the development of exemptary middle school principals typically are
activities that: 1) meet the needs of the school district needs; 2)
provide opportunities for principals to design their own activities; 3) allow for small group dialogue about middle school issues.
b) Conditions which influence active participation in processional growth activities center around supportive interaction with other administrators and family members, a principal's ability to deal with the change process, and maintaining a positive attitude toward the professional growth of themselves and their staff.
c) Other influential factors include: commitment to middle level education, enthusiasm for education, a strong work ethic, risk-taking,
intuitive knowledge of what works for students, and promoting positive interpersonal relationships among staff and students.
Conclusions. Data from this study support the conclusion that collaboration with others is an effective professional growth strategy for middle
school principals. Also, this study confirms previous research findings that indicate that situational context, dynamics of change, and personal characteristics, contribute to the success of school leadership.
Recommendations: This study suggests in-service providers examine the nature of collaboration in providing professional growth experiences and
that district administrators encourage the professional growth of middle school principals as well as consider the leadership styles and personal characteristics of prospective middle school principals
Teacher Selection: Use of Demonstration Lessons
Get PDFvi,84 leaves. Advisor: Annette M. Liggett.The problem: This study examined the use of a teacher demonstration lesson (TDL) as a component of one district's teacher selection process by determining if differences existed between evaluation ratings, as measured by the Summative Evaluation Report (SER), for teachers who were selected with the TDL and those who were selected without the TDL.
Procedure: The evaluation ratings of 101 teachers hired in a Midwest district were analyzed. The SER was divided into four performance areas and a total composite score. A Chi square test was used to identify significant differences for each area and the composite score between the 53 teachers hired from 1980 to 1983 and the 48 teachers hired from 1985 to 1988.
Findings: The research found no significant values for the four categories on the Summative Evaluation Report (SER) or for the composite score comparing the teachers selected using the TDL component and those selected without using the TDL. Therefore, the data failed to reject the null hypothesis.
Conclusions: The research identified that evaluation ratings of tenured staff did not discriminate sufficiently to identify differences among staff. The results of the study did not indicate that better qualified teachers were identified through the use of a TDL within the selection process. A review of the literature indicated that the selection process continues to be based primarily upon subjective criteria rather than objective criteria and that teacher performance evaluation might be improved through the use of authentic assessment methods.
Recommendations: Future studies regarding teacher selection procedures involving the TDL should investigate the evaluations for probationary teachers and the number who continue to be employed as tenured staff. In addition, a qualitative study regarding the perceptions of those involved in the selection process should be completed
Democracy and Education: Is This Marriage on the Rocks?
Get PDF144 leaves. Advisor: A.P. Johnston.The problem: This dissertation investigated the relationship between democracy and education for the purpose of contributing to the on-going dialogue regarding those concepts. It attempted to illustrate the dynamics of that relationship based upon early and contemporary American interpretations.
Procedures: Through qualitative documentary analysis, this study examined the ways in which democracy and education were related through the eyes of historical authors-Thomas Jefferson, Horace Mann, John Dewey, Benjamin Barber-and contemporary educational policy documents-A Nation at Risk, Goals 2000. Comparisons were made first among the selected authors and then between the documents, followed by a comparison between the two bodies of data themselves.
Findings: The authors viewed the relationship between democracy and education as reciprocal, considering the concepts mutually supportive and essential to each other's actualization. They specifically saw education crucial in active citizenship, which included participation primarily in a democratic and secondarily in a vocational sense. In contrast, the documents focused on the relationship between democracy and education to a much lesser degree, stressing instead the relationship between education and economics; citizenship was more vocational in nature.
Conclusions: Democracy and education exhibit a dynamic, reciprocal relationship, but more than that. They both involve an intellectual process which requires judgments to justify the perpetual balancing of tensions between competing societal goods. Democracy and education also mutually support the preservation of American values since they, when taken together, potentially protect the existence of fundamental human rights. Finally, democracy and economics, both ever-present in America's enactment, demand education. The critical question raised by this analysis is whether the shift indicated in the policy documents from democracy to economics constitutes a difference in degree or a difference in kind.
Recommendations: Educational and political philosophers and policy makers should join forces to create a new social awareness of the choices we make. If we believe Jefferson, Mann, Dewey, and Barber, these choices link directly to the American way of life. The implication given the public attention to the policy documents is that the democracy-education marriage is being guided, perhaps inadvertently, towards the rocks
An Assessment of Clinical Decision Making Skills Across a Physical Therapy Curriculum
Get PDFv, 96 leaves. Advisor: Thomas S. Westbrook.The problem: Physical therapy faculty state as an
objective that graduates will be competent in clinical decision making. As students progress through the curriculum, and out into the profession, clinical decision making skills should increase. The problem is assessing these skills. The purpose of this research was to assess the clinical decision making of students across a curriculum.
Procedures: The participants were four physical therapy classes (162 students). For the study, the Class of 1994 was one year post-graduation, the Class of 1995 had just graduated, the Class of 1996 had completed half of the curriculum, and the Class of 1997 had just enrolled in the program. The Class of 1997 was retested after two semesters.
The Clinical Decision Making Scale(CDMS)(Jenkins, 1985)was administered to the students. The CDMS
consisted of 40 items designed to measure the decision-making process. The scale yielded a total score and four subscale scores.
Findings: No significant differences were found between CDMS total scores for the four classes. The Class of 1995 scored significantly higher on Subscale A (Searching for Alternatives and Options) than the Class of 1997. The Class of 1996 scored significantly higher than the Classes of 1994 and 1997 on Subscale D (Searching for Information and Unbiased Assimilation of New Information). The Class of 1997 exhibited a near
significant increase (p = -051) in total CDMS scores between enrollment and retesting. There were no significant relationships between CDMS scores and grade point averages (GPA) or clinical instructors' ratings.
Conclusions: (1) Students at different levels of the curriculum did not exhibit differences in overall clinical decision making. (2) Students at different levels of the curriculum did exhibit differences in subsets of clinical decision making. (3) Students exhibited growth in clinical
decision making across the first year of the curriculum. (4) Students' clinical decision making could not be predicted from GPA or clinical
instructors' perceptions of students' clinical decision making.
Recommendations: Research should be undertaken to
gather longitudinal and normative CDMS data on
physical therapy students and graduates to track development over their education and career
The Superintendency: An Analysis of Leadership Roles and Gender Differences
Get PDFvi, 133 leaves. Advisor: Eunice M. Merideth.The problem: Against the background of transformational leadership research indicating the need for superintendents to reexamine their leadership roles, this study describes the leadership roles superintendents currently perform, what they believe is important to their job, and the differences in perceptions of leadership roles between men and women superintendents.
Procedures: Survey methodology obtained data from a questionnaire sent to 101 female and 99 male, randomly selected, K-12 practicing superintendents across the nation. Responses from 37 males and 20 females provided usable data for descriptive analyses of superintendent leadership roles. Furthermore, there were significant differences at the .05 and .01 level of significance between the performance of managerial, instructional leadership, and transformational leadership roles using a chi-square test on 495 leadership role descriptions.
Findings: Findings indicate that male and female superintendents identify budget/finance and public relations as most important to their job. However, females also describe performing a broader array of leadership roles reflective of transformational leadership than males who describe performing managerial roles more often than females. Male and female superintendents identify an effective superintendent as a transformational leader, but indicate that board and community expectations, time, and paperwork prevent them from being a transformational superintendent. Respondents, however, describe a need for professional development related to transformational leadership: strategic planning, autonomy and interpersonal relationships, communication, consensus building, delegation, and risk taking, futuristic thinking.
Conclusion: Results of the study may help guide educational institutions that offer superintendent educational institutions to develop transformational leadership curricula that will encourage more equal gender representation at the superintendency level of recognizing feminine leadership styles and focusing less on traditional management activities
Effects of a Combined Didactic and Experiential Death Education/Empathy Training Program on Death Anxiety and Empathic Ability of Medical Students
Get PDFiv, 140 leaves. Advisor: George S. LairThe problem. The majority of medical students are not being adequately prepared to communicate empathically with dying patients. Students' personal anxieties and fear of death may lessen and their empathic interpersonal skills increase with formal academic preparation This study examined the effects of a death education course which included empathic communication skills training specifically related to interaction with the terminally ill patient.
Procedures. The research design was an experimental pretest-posttest comparison group design. The experimental treatment group consisted of 12 randomly assigned second-year medical students who were given a combined didactic and experiential death education/empathy
skills training program in conjunction with 10 weekly videotaped relationship-building sessions with a terminally ill cancer patient. The comparison group consisted of 11 second-year medical students who attended the 10 weekly relationship-building sessions with a terminally
ill cancer patient but received no educational intervention or feedback. The dependent measures were students' ratings of empathic understanding
on the BCRI Empathic Understanding Subscale (MO-Form), patients' ratings of their student's empathy on the BLRI Empathic Understanding Subscale (0s-Form), and two trained observers' ratings of students' communicated empathy displayed on videotape using the Truax and Carkhuff Accurate Empathy Scale. A 2 (Group) x 2 (Testing Occasion) repeated measures ANOVA was used to statistically analyze each dependent measure.
Findinqs. There were no statistically significant differences between the experimental and comparison groups (p > .05) on the self-report
measures of students' death anxiety, students' ratings of empathic understanding, or on the patients' ratings of student empathy. However, the objective trained observers rated the experimental group students as displaying significantly more empathic communicative behaviors (p < .05) than the comparison group students.
Conclusions. The present study demonstrated that medical students who receive trainina in empathic communication skills 1s specifically related to interaction with terminally ill cancer patients display significantly higher levels of communicated empathy than untrained medical students.
Recommendations. Due to the inconclusive results from the patients' ratings of students' empathy, further research is necessary to substantially support the inclusion of such a training program in the medical curriculum
The Effects of Effleurage as a Nursing Intervention to Promote Prenatal Attachment
No full textvi, 118 leaves. Advisor: Sandra Sellers.The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of effleurage on prenatal attachment. A quasi-experimental research design was used for the study. A group of 49 pregnant women who
attended childbirth education classes at a medical center in the Midwest participated in the study. The experimental group consisted of 16 pregnant women who were taught the intervention of effleurage. The control group consisted of 33 pregnant women who were not taught the intervention. Three research hypotheses were posed for the study. The first research hypothesis was: Pregnant women in the experimental group who use the intervention of massage will demonstrate a
significantly greater increase between pretest/posttest PAI scores than pregnant women in the control group. With an alpha set at .05, an independent t-test of the mean differences between
the pretest/posttest scores for the experimental and control groups revealed t = 1.634, p = 0.056. This hypothesis was not supported. The second research hypothesis was: Pregnant women in the
experimental group who use the intervention of massage will have significantly higher posttest scores than women in the control group. With an alpha set at .05, an independent t-test revealed
t = 1.11, p = 0.14. There was no significant difference between the posttest PAI scores of the experimental and control groups. The third hypothesis was: There is no relationship among the
demographic variables of maternal age, marital status, education level, perceived social support, number of other living children, and race/ethnicity and PAI scores. Social support was the only moderate correlation noted (r = 0.311). There was no statistically significant relationship between PAI scores and the demographic variables of maternal age (r= -0.105), marital status (r= -0.006), educational level (r= -0.015), number of children (r= -0.113), race/ethnicity (r= -0.008), or gestational age (r = 0.028) .
The literature revealed a lack of prenatal attachment intervention studies and conflicting results of studies correlating prenatal attachment and demographic variables. Recommendations were made for more studies that test a variety of
nursing interventions that promote prenatal attachment. Conceptual clarification is needed, which would enhance both tool refinement and prenatal attachment theory development.
Implications of the study for advanced nursing practice include incorporating emerging prenatal attachment interventions into general nursing practice, nursing education, and childbirth
education. Intervening through social support as a way to promote prenatal attachment was discussed.
Supportive care during pregnancy and beyond is best accomplished with the help of an advanced practice maternal-child nurse. With a focus on the developing attachments throughout pregnancy, the nurse can "mother the mother" throughout her
pregnancy and significant contributions can be made to the health of society by strengthening families
Senescent Changes in the Kidney of the Yellow Mud Turtle Kinosternon flavescens
Get PDF[iii], 30 leaves. Advisor: James L. ChristiansenCurrent literature suggests that reptiles do not undergo senescence. This study addresses age-related changes that occur in the kidneys of reptiles and compares them to senescent changes in mammalian kidneys. Kidney sections from a wild population of turtles ranging in age from 6 to 35 years were examined histologically by light and electron microscope. Kidney tubules of the older turtles showed a statistically significant greater
deposition of a pigment believed to be lipofuscin or ceroid than did young turtles.
Glomeruli in the oldest turtles had significantly fewer glomerular arterioles, and a significant increase in connective tissue in the glomerular tuft. Electron microscope studies indicated that glomeruli became smooth and simplified with advanced age. Foot processes lost their regular arrangement and became wider. Pedicels became irregular or degenerate. Fine structures of reptilian kidney appeared to be simpler and more organized than mammal kidney, but age-related changes were similar
Instructional Design Strategies Utilizing Interactive Program Materials For Adult Learners: A Content Analysis
No full textvii, 115 leaves. Advisor: Charles Greenwood.Interactive technology – encompassing a variety of teaching tools that have in common the attempt to engage the learner in beneficial response to content materials – is the focus of this qualitative study based on content analysis of four interactive programs. The programs selected for review were all designed for adult learners in or training for professional roles. Interactive programs included in this study are compact disk-interactive (CD-i) with full motion video and CD-i without full motion video (one program with a study guide, one without); and a textbook packaged with workbooks and study aids, but currently no CD-i. Programs were compared on the basis of utilization of unique characteristics, individualization to learners, level of cognitive involvement, interactivity style, and feedback style. This study sought to establish the instructional strategies employed by these interactive programs and how those strategies compare to methods suggested by standards based on current research literature. In addition, a formative analysis was conducted on the textbook/no CD-i package, editing materials as needed to create interactive portions of a developing computer-assisted instructional program