The author created an experimental model workshop for group marital preparation in a university setting. Eight couples attended the April 16-17, 1984, workshop, and nine couples attended the March 25-27, 1985, workshop. All persons, with the exception of two couples, were university students. Each couple was contacted by a form letter which contained questions about their expectations and invited them to take a temperament test. A participant evaluation was done after the workshop. A great majority of responses support the need for marital education. The workshop enabled the participants to better understand their intended spouses. The basic divisions of commitment, compatibility, communication, conflict and cooperation met the primary needs of the participants. Greater need for the topics of finance and theology was exposed.

Surveys were sent to the 182 school superintendents in the public schools of Kentucky in order to identify the teachers of exploratory foreign language programs. The survey dealt with three areas: (1) the foreign language program in grades 5-8, (2) the foreign language program in grades 9-12, (3) plans to implement an exploratory program. 153 superintendents (842) returned the surveys and 25 districts (14%) were identified as having a foreign language program in grades 6-8. No foreign language program below grade 6 was identified. Seven new programs were initiated in the 1975-76 school year and five additional school districts plan to implement an exploratory program in the 1976-77 school year. The names of 79 teachers were riven by the superintendents as foreign language teachers in grades 6-8. More extensive surveys were then sent to these teachers and a total of 51 surveys (65%) were returned. From the surveys, 36 teachers were identified as foreign language exploratory teachers. :he teachers' surveys had two parts. Part I asked for personal data while Part II dealt with the foreign language program in grades 5-9. From the section labeled "Personal Data" it was learned that 85% of the foreign language teachers in grades 6-8 were female and 61% were between the ages of 21 and 30. 76% had a major or minor and 61% were non-tenure teachers (less than four years of experience). Results from Part II of the teachers' surveys indicated that a great deal of variety exists in the organizational patterns of exploratories and in the type of foreign language experiences offered. Five languages, Spanish, French, German, Russian, and Hebrew were taught in grades 9-12 while Spanish, French, German, Russian, and Italian were taught in grades 6-8. Criteria for the selection of exploratory students varied a great deal from one district to another. 65% of the programs permitted any interested student to register for a foreign language class. 65% also indicated that enrollment in foreign languages in grades 6-8 was the same or higher than last year. The lack of basic materials, such as textbooks and language labs, was the chief concern of the majority of teachers. Foreign language exploratories are in their infancy in Kentucky. Little agreement exists on how they should be offered and how they should be taught. However, most of the teachers who taught exploratories praised the programs for giving the students an opportunity to discover his potential for language learning. They stated that exploratories enabled the students to make an intelligent decision about languages in the high school and helped revive sagging high school foreign language enrollments.

Professional burnout refers to the development of negative emotions, cynical thoughts, and physical and mental exhaustion as a response to stressors associated with one’s career. Within the teaching profession, professional burnout has been associated with an increase in teacher attrition. In an effort to promote a positive school environment where teachers feel supported and committed to the profession, many administrators have implemented structured collaborative opportunities within their buildings. While personal relationships within the school network can provide a mitigating effect against professional burnout, the possibility exists that teacher leaders can be overcentralized and negatively impacted by the maintained relationships. By potentially forcing centralization on critical team members and emphasizing them as the “go-to” person for collaboration, schools may be inadvertently putting their best at risk for burnout. Using a mixed-methods design, the following study investigates the perceived benefits and constraints of centrality within the school network on reported burnout. The social networks at four elementary schools were analyzed to determine the level of connectivity for each certified staff member. Participants were asked to identify the colleagues with whom they collaborate. Using Social Network Analysis, the level of centrality (as measured by number of network connections both received and directed) was calculated for each participant based on number of network ties both received and directed. Centrality scores were included with previously identified variables associated with teacher burnout including level of perceived stress, perception of school environment, principal support, and other demographic data in a series of hypothesis tests to assess the relationship between network connectivity and reported burnout. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with a selection of participants to further explore the impact of network connections on participant burnout. The results of this exploratory study found that not all collegial relationships are beneficial. A significant positive relationship between number of collaborative ties directed toward a teacher and their depersonalization score on the Maslach Burnout Inventory was identified, indicating that individuals who are frequently identified as a collaborator report higher burnout. The findings from this study produce a unique perspective on collaboration within the school network. As has been reported previously, level of connectivity within the school network as measured by the number of teachers one can identify as collaborators appears to mitigate (or not significantly increase) a teacher’s risk of professional burnout. However, being identified as a collaborator by a large number of teachers (in-degree) significantly increases one’s risk for depersonalization behaviors.

Easy Exam is web-based educational software which allows professors to take and students to give exams. This project focuses on making an effortless process for professors to make an exam, to grade exams for all students, and to create class statistical analysis reports about all exam-taking students. At the end of the exam, students can see their report with analytics based on topics in the exam. This web-based software will help students to identify their weaknesses and strengths. So, students can focus on their weaknesses and improve their knowledge. Furthermore, this software will help the professors to identify which students are weak in which sections in their studies. So, professors can focus on those areas and make their student understand more. This project works on multiple choices questions. However, this project has extensive unique opportunities and abilities that will be covering many different types of questions such as programming questions in the future stages of this project.

It is a basic premise of this thesis that an environmental crisis exists in the world today and has been worsening at least since World War II. The crisis is evident in the population explosion, the deteriorating air and water quality, and the depletion of our natural resources. With the feeling that all persons must become aware, concerned, and involved with the environmental crisis if the trend is to be reversed, this study is concerned with one segment of the population – high school students. Sociologists, and especially human ecologists, have not been concerned professionally with the environmental crisis, but instead with spatial distributions of phenomena in cities. They have developed no theory that has been pertinent to helping mankind resolve his environmental problems, although potentially the field of human ecology could do so. Because of the lack of such needed theory, suggestions made to alleviate the crisis have been disorganized: population control, political action, economic action, and education. Education, with the intent to generate data to guide curriculum development, is the focus of this study. This exploratory study investigated the awareness, concern, and involvement of high school students with the environmental crisis. Two groups of students were interviewed: those who had taken an ecology course (informants), and those who had not (random). A total of 98 students and 5 teachers were interviewed at two Portland high schools, Reynolds and Aloha, in the spring of 1971. The interviews consisted of three parts: a ranking of the importance of ecological problems by the students using ecological pictures, followed by a discussion of the reasons for the order; an interview using direct questions; and a questionnaire asking background information. All interviews were tape recorded. The data was coded, and statistically analyzed by a computer. The data indicate that the ecology courses did influence the informants. The Reynolds informants tended to view attitude change as the most important task to alleviate ecological problems, whereas the Aloha informants saw the major task as reducing population growth. Each of these views reflected the major emphasis of the respective courses. The courses, each with different activities also influence the ecological involvement of the informants in different ways. In background characteristics the informants tended to come from smaller families, more often had no religious preference, camped more, and spent more time in wilderness areas than the random students. The informants were similar to the random students in the following ways: educational backgrounds and occupations of their parents, length of time lived in their present home, enjoyment of outdoor leisure activities, and extent of travels. There is a difference in the awareness, concern, and involvement of the informants as compared to the random students. Both groups see an ecological crisis in the world and in the Pacific Northwest, and both are concerned about man’s chances of survival on earth, but they differ in the reasons they give and the problems they see. Informants were also more actively involved in ecological activities in school and outside of school.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the leadership behavior of principals as perceived by the teachers and principals of one suburban school district. Research questions asked were: (1) Are there significant differences between the perceptions of principals and teachers concerning principals' leadership behavior on the twelve subscales of the LBDQ-XII? (2) Are there significant differences in viewing the leadership role when teachers' age, gender, teaching experience, level of training, or teaching assignment is considered? This descriptive study invited 350 randomly selected teachers and all of the principals from 35 elementary, intermediate, and high schools in one suburban school district to participate on a voluntary basis. The perceptions of the principals' leadership behavior was measured by the twelve subscales of the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire--Form XII: Representation, Demand Reconciliation, Tolerance of Uncertainty, Persuasiveness, Initiation of Structure, Tolerance of Freedom, Role Assumption, Consideration, Production Emphasis, Predictive Accuracy, Integration, and Superior Orientation. A biographical data questionnaire was also used. Results obtained from the LBDQ-XII were displayed in tables with the twelve subscale means and standard deviations of teachers and principals' perceptions of the principals' leadership behavior. The teachers' perceptions according to age, gender, years of teaching experience, levels of training, and teaching assignment subscale means and standard deviations were also calculated. A multivariate analysis of variance was performed for each of the teacher characteristics and the teachers and principals as independent variables. The subscales of the LBDQ-XII served as the dependent variables. All hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance. The following conclusions were based upon the data collected and analyzed in the study. The perceptions of teachers of their principals' leadership behavior did not differ significantly according to gender, age, years of teaching experience, level of training, and teaching assignment. On all perceptions of twelve subscales tested, principals tended to rate themselves higher than the teachers. There were four areas in which principals and teachers differed significantly on the LBDQ-XII. They were Tolerance of Freedom, Consideration, Predictive Accuracy, and Integration. Recommendations for further study using a larger population sample and different instruments to assess the areas in which principals and teachers differ in their perceptions of principals' leadership behavior were suggested.

Fourth grade African American male students have the lowest rate of reading proficiency in the nation and are more likely to require remedial reading programs. Prior research suggested reading interventions that considered student ability, instructional practices, and curriculum rigor improved reading ability. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the influence of a remedial reading program, READ180, on 4th grade African American male students' reading comprehension as measured by 2 different standardized reading tests, TerraNova (TN) and Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) that are administered annually to all students. The theoretical framework was Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development. Research questions examined the differences in TN scores between students who received READ180 instruction compared to students who received traditional instruction as well as the effect on SRI scores of 7 students before and after participating in READ180. For data analysis, archival data were available for 2 years of SRI scores, but only a year of TN scores. An independent t-test for the TN scores between TN scores of READ180 students (n = 7) and traditionally instructed students (n = 19) showed no statistical difference (p = .092). A paired t-test indicated a significant (p < .009) increase in SRI posttest scores of READ180 students. The small number of subjects were under-powered and a result of available archival data, but the data met test assumptions. Implications for social change are that academically disenfranchised students may achieve reading proficiency when reading programs provide direct instruction that target, monitor, and intentionally support individualized learning needs.

Abstract Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a long term metabolic disorder characterized by high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and relative lack of insulin. T2DM is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease, blindness, kidney failure, lower-limb amputation, and other complications that are costly to patients and the U.S. health care system. Lack of knowledge and underdeveloped skills for self-management of diabetes continues to be the biggest problem for patients with T2DM. Using a team approach and Rosswurm and Larrabee's (1999) conceptual model as a framework, the purpose of this doctorate of nursing practice quality improvement project was to develop an evidence-based initiative for diabetic self-management that included a practice guideline/protocol for patients, and an educational curriculum plan for staff members including a pretest/posttest. Two nurse practitioners who are specialists in diabetes served as content experts to evaluate the educational curriculum plan. A dichotomous 5-item evaluation revealed unanimous agreement that the objectives of the curriculum were met. The content experts validated each 15 pretest/posttest items using a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not relevant) to 4 (very relevant). The content validation index was equal to 1.00 showing each of the test items were very relevant. This project will promote positive social change by facilitating staff commitment to evidence-based practice which will impact the physical, psychological, and emotional well-being of patients, families, and communities.

An urban elementary school in the northeast was lacking formal methods to evaluate its support systems for teachers. This formative evaluation of the school's support systems for new teachers and staff was conducted using a mixed methods design to address the problem. The purpose of this evaluation was to determine the indicators of progress or need of improvement of effectively supporting teachers through mentoring, professional development, and collaboration. The theoretical framework for the study was Kirkpatrick's 4 levels of evaluation: reaction, learning, behavior, and results. The evaluation was also guided by questions about the extent, perceived effectiveness, strengths, and weaknesses of the support systems. Data were collected using surveys from 33 teacher participants and interviews with 10 teacher participants. Qualitative data analysis involved emergent coding for themes and sub-themes. Inconsistent support emerged as a support weakness and a comforting school community emerged as a support strength. Frequencies and ratios of survey items were calculated and reported. Key findings were that 60% of the participants perceived the support systems to be adequate and 79% perceived the mentor and new teacher meetings to be effective. However, 36% of respondents reported that all support systems needed some improvements. A full report including recommendations was prepared for the stakeholders at the school and district levels. Implications for positive social change include higher retention and enhanced performance of beginning teachers, which may help to improve learning outcomes for students.

A credit recovery (CR) program was implemented at a rural high school in Texas to assist with high school completion. While graduation rates increased, the time for completion also increased for students in the CR program. The purposes of this correlational study were to examine factors that impact student learning in the CR program and to determine whether teachers were implementing student-centered instruction. Piaget's constructivist theory provided the framework for the study. The guiding question was to examine the relationships between student achievement and classroom environment, active learning, attendance, and student success from those enrolled in the credit recovery class at the target high school. A sample of 103 students in Grades 9-12 completed a 65-item Likert-scale customized form of the What Is Happening in the Classroom (WIHIC) survey with subscales in classroom environment, active learning strategies, student motivation, and student success. A correlational analysis was conducted using scores from the state assessment test, attendance data, and scores from the WIHIC. Results showed no statistically significant relationships among the variables. Based on these findings, a professional development program was crafted to assist teachers at the study site with writing CR curriculum to better align with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and to include more hands-on constructivist learning activities. Implications for positive social change include the potential to improve secondary students' academic outcomes.