Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Idaho, Summer 2006. / Major professor: Martha C. Yopp. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-154). Also available online in PDF format.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Washington, 1985. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [211]-214.

D.Cur. / The purpose of this research study was to develop and describe a model for clinical accompaniment for learners who follow a distance education programme in nursing. The future of health services relies worldwide on programmes in nursing with a practical component which will equip the learner to provide safe and effective nursing care. In spite of attempts throughout the world to bridge the gap between theory and practice, there is still confusion about who is primarily responsible for clinical accompaniment of learners in nursing. South Africa is experiencing a shortage of nurses, and these numbers could be supplemented by distance education. The challenge arose to develop a scientifically based functional model that would be easily understandable. Such a model could address the gaps in clinical accompaniment and lead to better outcomes of nursing care. It could contribute to more nurses gaining access to possible further training.

COVID-19 forced all education online during Spring 2020 requiring face-to-face higher education faculty to immediately redesign their courses for an online modality. This dissertation studied faculty who used Canvas as their Learning Management System to investigate how faculty leveraged affordances and navigated constraints of the platform, specifically in Pages and Assignments, when they designed and redesigned their courses; how their pedagogical and Canvas training affected their choices; and the ways in which their experiences affected their workload and stress levels. This study employed a three-phase methodology: a) a Qualtrics survey with open and closed-ended questions; b) 11 faculty were interviewed; and, c) Canvas course sandboxes of the interviewees were observed via Zoom. The results indicate that although the majority of faculty had some kind of pedagogical or Canvas training prior to the pandemic, they felt extreme stress and higher workload during spring, but lower stress and workload during summer as they prepared for fall since they had more time to work. The majority of faculty worked nonstop throughout 2020, even during their Spring Breaks and summer vacations; they did so without additional pay while writing, designing, and redesigning courses, and only a few faculty were paid for additional summer training. The research was analyzed through a convergent framework of Critical Digital Pedagogy, Interface, and Affordance theories, which formed the Pandemic Teaching Cycle and development of a new educational affordance taxonomy.

The present study sought to examine the teacher-efficacy for literacy instruction (TELI) of instructors who teach in an online environment. The phenomenological methodology sought to answer the following research questions: (1) What pedagogical practices do instructors use to provide literacy instruction in an online environment? (2) How do instructors perceive their TELI in an online environment? and (3) What impact, if any, will a Professional Learning Community (PLC) focused on Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory have on TELI in an online environment? The study consisted of a group of seven online instructors. The researcher the acting as facilitator administered the initial interviews and exit interviews and adapted an Action Research PLC with activities modeled after those that influence self-efficacy. In initial interviews, the participants described their literacy practices as mostly dialogic conversations with students in which they provide examples and non-examples for students. They used some aesthetic strategies, but their practices were mainly efferent and low taxonomically. The initial interviews also revealed that instructors felt that they did not know their students well and that their literacy instructional practices were mostly silenced by the dominant role of the standardized curriculum. It was observed that teachers sourced their confidence in TELI in an online environment not from the practices they used in an online environment, but in the practices they once used in the traditional classroom which are now silenced in an online environment. During the Action Research PLC, the researcher and participants collaborated in creating questions and instructional resources that helped students take a more aesthetic stance while still meeting the standards of the curriculum through the use of aesthetic questions and discussions, semantic association, and narrative-centered learning. The PLC structure also incorporated the four influential experiences on self-efficacy. The results of the exit interviews revealed that the teachers either remained confident or increased in confidence in their TELI in an online environment. In addition, viewing TELI through Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory aided in closing the gap in transactional distance observed by the participants because they were able to engage in more positive dialogues with their students. The PLC provided a creative space for teachers to work and deliver their personalized instruction enabling them to voice their once silenced literacy instructional practices. It can be determined that the transactions that teachers have with students mediated in an online environment have a far greater impact on TELI. Viewing literacy instruction through Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory provides a reflective experience where teachers revisit whether or not an instructional practice can improve their teaching through more aesthetic dialogue thus improving their TELI.

The admission process at higher education institutions has not adapted for online distance education classes taken in high schools, such as those offered by the Florida Virtual School. The purpose of this study was to determine whether online distance education courses taken in high school can serve as an indicator of student success in post-secondary education. An honors program at a large public research university provided the data examined. This honors program stored online distance education information in a database, which allowed for analysis. Presently, the institution's primary undergraduate admission office does not collect or store this type of information. I used SPSS Statistics to calculate logistical regression on this data. My goal was to discover what effect the high school online distance education variables had on the outcome of graduating in four or six years. Graduation rate is a key metric for colleges and universities as an indicator of success. For this reason, I wanted to determine through this study whether high school online distance education assisted in predicting which students will graduate. At least two stakeholders will find this information useful. Admission officers and, more specifically, honors admission officers will gain more insight into the student selection process as this study examines students in the top 10% of the incoming class. The other group, future researchers, will learn from this study and other new studies for even more understanding on this topic. Although the results indicated that high-achieving Florida Virtual School students do not graduate at higher rate than students who have not completed distance education classes, more research is required to understand how the other 90% of student applicants are affected by distance education courses completed in high school.

This study examined the impact of video feedback (VF) as a teaching tool for responding to writing activities and assignments across disciplines and whether or not VF can help instructors facilitate dialogic exchanges between students and teachers. I conducted three case studies with three different instructors from three different disciplines: psychology, history, and nanoscience. To determine the potential of video feedback to facilitate dialogic pedagogies, this dissertation examined the presence of transformational leadership theory (Parkin, 2017), the voices of teaching and learning (Collison et al., 2001), and gesture theory (Bavelas et al., 2014; Peräkylä & Ruusuvuori, 2008) for the paralinguistic activity in the VF content to determine if the presence of these theories position students as what Buber (1965) referred to as a "Thou" and dismantle the authoritative discourses (Bakhtin, 1994) in higher education that hinder learning. This dissertation found that teachers experienced meta-reflection and self-dialogue from making videos, which is dialogic. This study also found that instructors can facilitate dialogic exchanges that undermine authoritative discourses if they can utilize their paralinguistic activity that video affords them. This study also revealed that using VF requires overcoming a significant learning curve, and that Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) can help teachers improve how they negotiate feedback variables like the assignment, discipline, pedagogy, and learning outcome that can lead to dialogic feedback.

The purpose of this study was two-fold, to understand student perception of the supplemental online courses and improve the online learning program at ABC Online Learning School. The study focused on students in Grades 6 -12 who belonged to the ABC School District and enrolled ABC Online Learning School high school credit courses to supplement their education. Student participants were asked to complete the Student Survey of Online Course Design. The data retrieved from the survey was analyzed using the Spearman correlation to establish the strength of the relationship between student perception of quality online course design and the importance of specific components of the online course. The results indicated that as student perception of quality increased, their perception of the importance of the component increased as well. Additionally, a logistic regression formula was used to test the ability to predict successful online course completions based on the developer of the online course (instructor-developed or vendor-developed) and the type of credit the student would earn based on completion (original credit or credit retrieval/recovery). The results of the analysis of the logistic regression showed that developer of the online course and type of credit earned did not have a significant influence on successful course completions. The study is significant because, in Florida, K-12 online courses are funded based on successful course completion and students are required to successful complete an online course to earn a high school diploma.

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