DTheses (Athabasca University)
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Sit to Stand Protocol in Long Term Care to Support and Maintain Stroke Recovery
Get PDFThis study examined if practicing sit to stand (STS) with stroke survivors (12 women (M age = 78) and 14 men (M age = 77)) over 12 weeks, as part of daily clinical practice, would improve STS performance, have positive effects on functional independence and perceived quality of life. Results showed significant improvement of STS independence (p < .001) reflected in the improved score on the STS item of the Motor Assessment Scale and significant improvement in the length of time to perform STS (p = .01) reflected in the improved score on the Five Repetition STS Test. The STS intervention was not related to any improvement of functional independence (p = .58) as measured by the Barthel Activities of Daily Living Index or perceived quality of life (p = .50). Results of this study suggest repetitive practice of STS by usual caregivers may be beneficial at improving or maintaining STS performance.2016 - Jun
Graduate students' experience with research ethics
Get PDFWhat graduate students learn about research ethics forms their perceptions and impacts how they apply ethics principles in practice. Research Ethics Boards review and grant ethical approval for student research projects, and may provide additional support to these novice researchers. Existing literature explains how curriculum content, teaching approaches, the learning environment, and research relationships influence students’ learning. However, a gap exists with regards to fully understanding students' experience with research ethics. Qualitative descriptive inquiry was used to investigate the experience of eleven masters and doctoral students in health disciplines. Semi-structured interviews provided rich description of four themes focused on curriculum, supervisor support, the ethics application process, and the students’ overall experience. Suggestions are made for enhancing curriculum, deepening students’ relationships with supervisors, and the role Research Ethics Boards could play in their learning. The study contributes to comprehension of research ethics by describing what graduate students’ value as novice researchers.2016-0
Technology acceptance, social influence, and Athabasca University staff Landing usage
Get PDFResearch demonstrates the importance of social networks and their role in our acquisition of information. Although, popular social network sites are easy to use, low site participation can diminishes their value to its users.
Staff participation is low for Athabasca University’s internal social network site, the Landing. This study asked: Do social influences contribute to AU staff acceptance and usage of the Landing? A sequential mixed methods design, consisting of a web-based questionnaire (N=41), and semi-structured interviews (N=5), was used, with AU staff as participants. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to assess adoption and usage.
Research using TAM in educational contexts, mainly uses quantitative data, and student participants. This is one of a few university research studies to include qualitative interviews and to use staff as participants. Results indicated social influence was the motivation for logging in to the Landing, but most staff did not return because the site was not perceived as useful or easy to use. To increase perceived usefulness of the Landing, and to increase its usage, this study`s recommendations include providing mentors for new users, and improving the site`s help section.2016-0
Examining the experiences of secondary school teachers with rural videoconference courses
Get PDFThis case study explored the experiences of secondary school teachers teaching a videoconference course simultaneously in four rural schools in one school district. The exploration encompassed positive experiences, challenges, and the personal attributes of the teachers that contributed to their success. Six teachers with experience teaching videoconference courses in rural schools completed an individual questionnaire and participated in a follow-up interview. The results of this study comprise a description of the experience of being a rural videoconference teacher in a particular school district, as well as a list of teacher attributes that participants identified as contributing to their success as videoconference teachers.2016-0
Large-Scale Deployment of Tablet Computers in Brazil: An Implementation Model for School Districts
Get PDFThe Brazilian economy faced a sharp growth between 2002 and 2012, provoking a skilled-worker shortage all over the country, which affected all the economy sectors and threatened the growth in its keenest period. The poor basic education indicators worked as an argument to identify the low quality of basic public education as being one of the main reasons for this problem. One of the initiatives of the Brazilian government to face this problem was the distribution of 600,000 tablet computers among teachers of public schools all over the country. The goal was improving teaching processes and boosting the student's learning outcomes significantly with the use of richer and more dynamic content. However, there were complaints about how the deployment was performed, resulting in refusal from teachers to use the tablet computers and criticism from scholars on the initiative.
Thus, this study focuses on the identification of the most important factors to be considered in such deployment in the Brazilian public schools, considering the standpoint of those professionals directly involved with the process and located all over the country, such as teachers, principals, managers, technicians and education policymakers. The study used the Straussian approach of Grounded Theory to analyze the data collected by online survey, interviews, and school visits done in five cities located in different regions of Brazil.
This dissertation presents a model that describes sixteen main factors to be considered in such large-scale deployment, as well as their relationships with each other, in order to improve the deployment process and mitigate potential problems. The findings also revealed the problems found in the deployment processes undertook in different cities of Brazil, exemplifying what must be done and what must not.
This study fills a gap of investigation on what happens before the tablet computers are implemented in the classroom, during their deployment phase, especially when it involves the large-scale number of devices. There is the expectation that the Large Scale Mobile Device Deployment (LMSDD) model, resulted from this study, can be a guide for future deployments of tablet computers in schools.2016-0
Workarounds and tension: healthcare workers' occupational experiences with workarounds
Get PDFThe purpose of this interpretive description study was to seek a better understanding of workers’ occupational safety experiences with workarounds. In recent years, the phenomenon of workarounds in healthcare has received considerable attention, but little of that attention has been directed at workers’ occupational safety experiences.
Seven participants from a rural western Canadian health region, representing a range of nursing related positions, described their experiences via semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Data from these interviews was coded and subsequently categorized into four themes: being heard, meeting expectations, upholding values and finding a balance. From these themes, a proposed explanatory framework based on general systems theory is offered to healthcare stakeholders as a tool to better understand and manage workarounds in their workplaces. But most significantly, what the researcher offers in this study is insight into healthcare workers’ descriptions of tensions related to their experiences with workarounds.2016- 0
Montessori and autism: An interpretive description study
Get PDFThe rates of autism have increased dramatically in the last decade and more research is being conducted to find ways in which to help individuals diagnosed with autism, to function at their optimal developmental level. Montessori education, which has its origins in special education, has shown positive results in typically developing children and youth in the acquisition of cognitive and social skills. Montessori teachers who have practical experience working with a range of children on the autism spectrum were chosen for this study in order to learn from their teaching techniques. This is an area in which there is minimal research. In this research I asked the question “How do Montessori teachers adapt Montessori methods with children diagnosed with ASD?” An interpretive description methodology focused on the specific modifications participant teachers applied to the Montessori method when working with this identified group of students. This methodology will provide practical applications for Montessori teachers who do not have experience with children with ASD, as well as providing information for parents who are trying to decide whether or not to put their children with ASD in a Montessori learning environment.
Keywords: autism, ASD, Montessori, interpretive description2016-04-1
Online Instructional Group Work and Learning Retention: Perceptions From The Student’s Point of View
Get PDFThis study investigated student perceptions of online group work on their learning retention. Data collection included the Community of Inquiries (CoI) survey expanded with Likert and open-ended questions that directly addressed the study focus. ChiSq analysis defined correlations between the Likert questions and perceived connections between online group work and learning retention. Qualitative data were analyzed with the coding template used in development of the CoI survey. The open-ended questions explored participants’ perceived positive, negative and perfect online group experiences. Positive and perfect responses reported similar themes, which emphasized the importance of effective social and instructional communication within a well-designed and organized course for supporting learning retention. Negative responses included lack or dysfunction of the reported positive and perfect experiences. Participants often expressed anger and frustration when reporting negative group experiences, which included poor communication, unequal sharing of work, lack of clear instructional design and, unnecessary and outdated course materials.July 201
Employee Disengagement: The Impact of Role Discrepancy, Professional Identity and Organizational Justice
Get PDFPurpose: Employee engagement has become a popular topic of discussion in both the practitioner and the research literature, yet there is a paucity of empirical investigation. This paper explores the relationship between employee engagement, role discrepancy, professional identification and organizational justice.
Methodology: A national survey of Canadian librarians was conducted, exploring the relationships among the variables.
Findings: The study findings suggest that perceptions of organizational justice, professional identity and age interact to correlate with employee engagement.
Research limitations: The research was cross-sectional so any inferences regarding causality are limited. All responses are from self-report, leading to the possibility of bias. The study was conducted with one professional group so the level of generalizability is unclear.
Practical implications: Suggestions for organizations to improve employee engagement include: a greater emphasis on organizational justice, and options that would increase the level of professional identity.
Contribution: This study adds to the literature about both workplace and personal variables that correlate with employee engagement, and to the literature about the working environment of Canadian librarians.June 201
Using Learning Taxonomy to Enhance Understanding of Innovation Adoption
Get PDFInnovators, early adopters, majority and laggards are components of what is known as Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) and represent groups as they adopt a new innovation. Education professionals have likely heard of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (BRT), which represents the loose progression from basic to advanced cognition in a learning process. These two theories are rarely discussed together and that is unfortunate because of the time and cost significance of too frequent failed implementations of new innovations. IDT identifies training and knowledge transfer as important components in knowledge, persuasion and decision stages of the innovation adoption process. However, previous research did not answer an important question: How do different adopter groups demonstrate various levels of cognition in the process of the adoption of a new innovation?
In an attempt to investigate this issue, this research looked at the adoption of Reference Management software by academics to explore the possible relationship between IDT and BRT. A Canada-wide online survey was conducted with 462 participants consisting of graduate students and faculty. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, Principal Components Analysis and correlation procedures. A thematic analysis of qualitative semi-structured interviews with 12 respondents gave the findings additional depth.
Three significant findings emerged. One, demonstration by the respondents of higher order functions in the software was correlated to the demonstration to lower order functions as theorized by BRT’s progression of cognitive processes. Two, the degree of innovativeness of the participants’ correlates to mastery of both basic and advanced functions. Three, laggards, in terms of adoption, demonstrate less mastery of the basic features and functions of an innovation implying that different IDT groups respond differently within BRT cognition levels.
The implication of these findings is that training effectiveness in the supporting of the adoption of a new innovation is not solely dependent on either the training design or principles of BRT, nor is it solely influenced by the factors involved in the diffusion of an innovation. Together, these findings inform us to how we can use BRT and IDT in the knowledge transfer component of supporting the adoption of an innovation than commonly used current practices.2015-1