Class of 2007 Abstract / Objectives: To conduct a survey instrument on a pharmacists’ knowledge of and attitudes toward dispensing narcotic medications for the management of chronic pain. Methods: A focus group of 39 pharmacy managers for a local chain drug store reviewed 6 knowledge questions and 10 attitude statements for content validity, clarity and readability. The results of their responses to the survey and other comments were tabulated and analyzed. Results: The focus group sample was small and results were not statistically significant. Pharmacists were highly confident about their training, yet most did not score well on the test, especially those questions designed to distinguish between addiction, pseudo-addiction and tolerance. This limited knowledge may have been related to age since many of the wrong answers selected were based on older definitions. Several questions and statements were identified as ambiguous, plus having unclear directions or incorrect information. Focus group discussions confirmed the limited knowledge found in the survey and clarified pharmacist's responses to the attitude statements. Conclusions: What is clear from the literature and our study is that pharmacists' knowledge about chronic pain and the uses of opioids strongly influences their attitdues. Therefore, the survey questions and statements need to be reworded and restructured to specifically evaluate the relationship between pharmacists' knowledge and their attitudes.

Class of 2007 Abstract / Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the demographics and attitudes of Arizona pharmacists regarding provision of smoking cessation services. Methods: Paper-based surveys were distributed to pharmacists attending the 2006 Arizona Pharmacy Alliance (AzPA) Annual Meeting in Tucson, Arizona. The instrument allowed collection of 12 demographic points from subjects for data cross-sectioning. Opinions of the pharmacists were collected for 35 statements of agreement level on a four-point Likert-type response scale. Association between the demographic and opinion variables was analyzed using either Kruskal-Wallis’ rank-sum or Spearman's correlation tests. Results: Of 350 surveys distributed, 78 subjects returned them and 63 (18%) met inclusion criteria. Respondents agreed to all barriers of smoking cessation, particularly lacks in time (82.5%), patient demand (79.7%), smoking cessation program availability (68%), and documentation system (56.6%). Participants’ demographics including age, gender, practice setting and position, time since completion of education, specific smoking cessation education received, time spent counseling a patient, and number of general and smoking cessation counsels were significantly associated with pharmacists’ perceived demand and resource barriers to provision of smoking cessation services, faith in a patient’s ability to quit or try, self-perception as a valuable and effective resource, comfort level approaching patients regarding smoking cessation, likelihood of intervention, and feelings of reward (all p-values < 0.05). Conclusions: This study identified several associations between pharmacists’ demographics and their thoughts towards provision of smoking cessation services, though causation is undetermined.

Class of 2017 Abstract / Objectives: To first educate undergraduates involved in social sororities about prescription stimulant medications and to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention in influencing the attitudes and beliefs regarding prescription stimulant medication use of undergraduates involved in a social sorority. Methods: The intervention, an educational session, was presented to undergraduates involved in social sororities. Questionnaire that included demographic data of gender, age, ethnicity, race, undergraduate year, grade point average, type of member, history of an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis, and previous or current non-medical use of prescription stimulants were collected. The participants’ beliefs on nine statements regarding prescription stimulants were queried pre- and post-intervention using a four-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. To analyze change in attitudes and beliefs, Mann-Whitney test was used. Results: One hundred sixty-three sorority members participated in the study. The average age of participants was 19 years with the majority of respondents identifying as an active sorority member (81%) and in their first year of undergraduate study (69%). There was a statistically significant change in beliefs regarding the safety (p < 0.01) and health risks (p = 0.02) associated with prescription stimulants. There was no significant difference in topics relating to addiction, legality, emotional and academic outcomes from the use of prescription stimulants. Conclusions: The education session was effective in changing participants’ beliefs on safety and health risks of nonmedical use of prescription stimulants.

This research identifies the experiences, behaviours, attitudes, values and beliefs of Australia's most successful franchise owners in order to understand the reasons for their outstanding success in a business environment designed to encourage replication and uniformity. In this study, twelve of Australia's best franchisees have been interviewed to find out their personal qualities that have enabled them to succeed in the franchise business environment. A qualitative methodology within a constructivist ontology and interpretivist epistemology has been used. Interviews were conducted, coded, analysed and models developed using NVivo software. The coding and analysis led to the development of six key characteristics or behaviours of successful franchisees. Australia's best franchisees are successful because they are highly motivated, have outstanding business skills, are committed to franchising, demonstrate remarkable personal qualities reflected in highly ethical leadership with exceptional communication skills and create a business environment that has real customer focus. Human qualities are difficult to isolate and quantify. This research highlights those necessary to succeed in franchising and business generally. The findings from this research have been presented as a framework for franchisee success. The framework provides the basis of human characteristics and elements to consider in franchisee selection and business skill development. The title of this research is in many ways its conclusion. The contribution of franchising to Australia's entrepreneurial spirit is the growth and development of the business skills of franchisees, many of whom are entrepreneurs in the making.

Recent studies have suggested that the diagnostic reliability and accuracy of breast ultrasonography in place of mammography in women with dense breast tissue results in more accurate breast cancer screening in this population. Since breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among United States women, a more accurate and reliable breast cancer screening tool is needed (American Cancer Society [ACS], 2014). This process starts with describing breast screening practice patterns of nurse practitioners and analyzing their attitudes and beliefs of alternative screening modalities gathered from the survey results obtained from this DNP project. The purpose of this study is to determine the attitudes and beliefs of if nurse practitioners towards the use of ultrasonography alone in lieu of mammography followed by sonography in women aged 40-74 with mammographically dense breast tissue. A survey consisting of 23 questions was sent to nurse practitioners in Arizona through the Coalition of Arizona Nurses in Advanced Practice listserv, and through an email list provided by the president of the Allied Health Providers of Yuma. Analysis of survey responses indicated that the majority of respondents believe that it is difficult to detect cancer using mammography in women with dense breast tissue, and more than half of respondents believe that ultrasounds are more accurate and reliable at detecting cancer in women with dense breast tissue. The results also demonstrate that the majority of nurse practitioners surveyed are not familiar with current literature regarding ultrasonography screening in women with dense breast tissue.

No description available.

College reading programs are traditionally remedial or developmental in nature and often take a decontextualized skills based approach to reading and to supporting college readers (Holschuh & Paulson, 2013). Skills oriented deficit-based approaches to reading provide deficit-based frameworks for readers to construct self-perceptions. TLS 239 Literacy Tutoring is an undergraduate service-learning course where students learn about reading process and theory and develop strategies to tutor in community schools for twenty-four required hours. Coursework frames literacy as a socially constructed process and students engage in a miscue workshop, strategy presentations and in exploring the reading process. In this study, I examine the coursework of 38 students enrolled in TLS 239 and students' reports of shifting their perceptions and self-perceptions of literacy through coursework that challenged their literacy conceptualizations. In this study, I conceptualize Ken Goodman's (2003) theory of revaluing as restorying through a construct of story (Bruner, 2004; Short, 2012) and a semiotic theory of inquiry (Peirce, 1877), a process of fixating new belief. This struggle, or inquiry into reading provides a framework for students to renegotiate and restory their perceptions of literacy and their self-perceptions as literate. Findings indicate that conceptualizing reading as a socially constructed process including the construct of a reading transaction (Rosenblatt, 1994) and the construct of miscue (Goodman, 1969) was anomalous to college students' perceptions of literacy and caused students to doubt previously held misconceptions about reading. Students reported shifts towards conceptualizing reading as the construction of meaning, shifts towards positive self-perceptions as readers, and shifts in their literacy engagements. Students reported an increase in confidence, reading differently, reading more effectively, becoming metacognitive, reading more assigned readings in college, reading more for leisure and feeling more actively engaged in their other courses. Implications include conceptualizing literacy learning as social and emotional learning and the pedagogical implications of literacy instruction framed within a construct of inquiry.

Hersh (1986) states, "One's conception of what mathematics is affects one's conception of how it should be presented. One's manner of presenting it is an indication of what one believes to be most essential in it." In this research study, three hundred ninety-seven urban early childhood teachers were given a survey that examined their attitudes toward mathematics and mathematics teaching, their views of mathematics, views of teaching mathematics, and views of children learning mathematics. The purpose of this study was to identify the attitudes and beliefs of early childhood teachers in two urban school districts to determine if mathematics reform efforts made a difference in teachers' attitudes and beliefs about mathematics and its teaching. Questionnaires were mailed directly to teachers in one school district and principals distributed questionnaires in the other. Summary scores were calculated for parts of the instrument. The researcher performed descriptive statistics, comparative analysis, and conducted frequency distributions, t-tests, ANOVA, and Pearson Correlations. Findings revealed that teachers with 30 or more years of teaching experience had more positive attitudes toward mathematics than teachers with 1-3 years of experience. African American teachers had more positive attitudes toward mathematics and its teaching than other ethnic groups. Teachers who held a minor or major in mathematics had more positive attitudes toward mathematics and its teaching than teachers without a minor or major in mathematics. Teachers in District-A favored constructivist learning while teachers in District-B favored rote learning. Both school districts' teachers favored the problem-solving approach to teaching mathematics. If instruction is to be transformed, reformers need to understand teachers' beliefs about mathematics. Beliefs, which are essential for teachers' development, seldom change without significant intervention (Lappan and Theule-Lubienski, 1994). Therefore, school districts must be informed about the changes necessary for the reform of mathematics teaching and identify and implement through staff developments and other measures what they perceive mathematics to be and how it should be taught.

The aim of this study was to investigate the roles of year in teacher education program and gender on prospective elementary mathematics teachers&rsquo / knowledge of history of mathematics and their attitudes and beliefs towards the use of history of mathematics in the teaching and learning of mathematics. Moreover, the relationship between prospective teachers&rsquo / knowledge of history of mathematics and their attitudes and beliefs about the history of mathematics usage was examined. The data of the study were obtained from 1593 prospective teachers who were enrolled in first, second, third, and fourth years of Elementary Mathematics Education undergraduate program of nine universities located in seven geographical regions of Turkey through clustered random sampling. The scales used in the data collection were Knowledge of History of Mathematics (KHM) Test and Attitudes and Beliefs towards the Use of History of Mathematics in Mathematics Education (ABHME) Questionnaire. The two-way ANOVA results clarified that prospective teachers&rsquo / knowledge of history of mathematics improved as the years enrolled in the program increased. Results also revealed that males had significantly higher mean scores on KHM Test than females in the first two years of the program. In the third and fourth years, this situation reversed such that females had higher KHM mean scores, but this difference was not statistically significant. Results also showed that prospective teachers&rsquo / ABHME mean scores increased as years of enrollment in the program increased. More clearly, senior prospective teachers&rsquo / relevant mean scores were significantly higher than that of freshmen and sophomores, and juniors&rsquo / attitudes and beliefs were significantly higher than that of freshmen. In addition, females&rsquo / ABHME mean scores were significantly higher than that of males for all years. Lastly, a positive correlation between prospective elementary mathematics teachers&rsquo / KHM mean scores and ABHME mean scores was found through Pearson product-moment correlation analysis.

Obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and poor dietary habits are major healthcare problems in the United States. These issues are especially prevalent in the state of Kentucky and among at-risk populations such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) participants. Studies have found that whole grains play a role in weight maintenance, protection against type 2 diabetes, and lowering cholesterol. Interventions aimed at improving WIC participant dietary behavior and intake has been successful as well. This study assessed Kentucky WIC participants’ knowledge of the benefits of consuming grains, attitudes and beliefs regarding food purchasing and grains, and identified grains consumed in a two-week period. A survey, created with the input of Registered Dietitians and WIC staff, examined these factors. Results from the survey found that WIC participants might benefit from education on: purchasing nutrient-dense foods (especially whole grains), the nutrition facts panel, types of grains, nutrients such as calories, fat, sugar, and fiber, serving sizes, and how to get children to eat whole grains.