Technology engages and increases academic achievement for K-5 students, but teachers face attitudinal, social/cultural, and pedagogical barriers when they integrate technology for student learning. Although some teachers overcome these barriers, it remains unclear how they do so. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to analyze the attitudes and behaviors of 3 groups to determine how some teachers successfully overcame barriers to technology integration. The conceptual framework included Bandura's social cognitive theory and Ertmer's theory on second order barriers to technology integration. Participants were drawn from each of 3 schools in the northeastern United States. Data included interviews from 3 groups of 2-3 classroom teachers, 1 administrator, and 1 technology integration person. Data were analyzed using open coding to identify rich themes and patterns. The findings showed that a triadic force of administrators, technology support, and teachers worked together to positively influence technology integration. Strategies included providing appropriate professional development, building collegial support and sharing among teachers, training teachers to locate relevant technological resources, and establishing value and support for the use of technology for learning. The present study may contribute to positive social change by increasing the knowledge of barriers preventing integration of technology into K-5 classrooms, and by providing information that will allow teachers, administrators, and technology integration personnel to implement strategies that reduce and overcome these barriers.

Terminally ill patients often have difficult choices at the end-of-life, and electing to receive hospice services is one of them. Hospice has been linked to improved quality of life and death and is accessible to terminally ill patients. Despite the accessibility, African American patients often make the decision to forgo hospice services. The purpose of this descriptive study was to explore perceptions and beliefs of nurse practitioners (NPs) regarding the lack of utilization of hospice for African American patients and the feasibility of NPs for initial referral for terminally ill African American patients. The research questions addressed whether an NP's perception, beliefs, and past experiences with hospice influence their decision to refer terminally ill African American patients to hospice. This project was guided by the theory of planned behavior to identify perceptions and beliefs of NPs about referrals for African American patients as well as knowledge to develop an awareness education program. Data were collected using a modified online survey administered to 8 NPs who practiced in Georgia or were members of a NPs' Facebook social group. Descriptive statistics demonstrated that the 8 NPs viewed hospice as a valuable service and cost-effective. Microsoft Excel was used to manage qualitative content, which demonstrated that NPs felt education was important for increasing African American patients' use of hospice. The implementation of an awareness education program can benefit NPs by educating them on the possible connection between their beliefs and perceptions about African American terminally ill patients and their decision to refer African American patients to hospice. Additionally, this project has the potential to improve end-of-life care.

This study examined the role of stress on irrational health beliefs and health behaviors among individuals 18-45 years old. Previous research has shown that this age group reported higher stress levels, more physical symptoms of stress, and the highest level of negative health behaviors. The theoretical frameworks were health belief model, the transactional model of stress and coping theory, and Ellis's concept of irrational beliefs. A survey using 3 published instruments measured the perceived stress level, irrational health beliefs, and health behaviors of a sample of 97 individuals aged 18-45. The data were quantitatively assessed using a mediation model to test a significant relationship between the predictor variable, perceived stress, and the criterion variable, health behaviors, using the mediating variable of irrational health beliefs. Findings suggest that higher stress levels are related to health behaviors (p ˂ .001), while stress did not make a significant contribution to irrational health beliefs (p = .092). Moreover, findings indicated that greater irrational health beliefs are related to more negative health behaviors (p = .010). Irrational health beliefs were not found to mediate the relationship between perceived stress and health behaviors. This research supports and extends the current body of research examining the relationship between stress, irrational health beliefs, and health behaviors. The results of this study can provide insight into how stress is related to thoughts and behaviors, specifically focusing on health. This study may aid health psychologists by providing information that can contribute to the development of interventions to reduce stress, reduce irrational health beliefs, and improve health behaviors.

The purpose of holistic spiritual care is to assess and provide for the spiritual needs of patients. Current literature indicates that holistic spiritual care is important to the healthcare of patients. Researchers suggest that nurses who practice holistic spiritual care are more aware of the attributes of caring, respect, and emotional support. This project study addressed a problem at the research site reported by local community nurses and holistic spiritual care experts of nurses not practicing holistic spiritual care. Mezirow's transformational learning theory was used as the theoretical foundation for this qualitative study, which was designed to examine the attitudes and beliefs of nurses about practicing holistic spiritual care. The study's participants were comprised of a mixed-gender convenience sample of 21 local registered nurses, aged 22 to 64, who were retired or who worked for a registry, and were recruited on Facebook to participate in a qualitative online questionnaire. Hand and computerized open coding and thematic analysis were used to analyze the data. Participants indicated that they believed practicing spiritual care nursing was beneficial as it could improve patient outcomes. The themes that emerged from the data included personal insecurities of nurses, little support, and lack of training in practicing spiritual holistic care. These findings were used to develop a 3-day workshop series designed to increase awareness and improve understanding of the benefits of holistic spiritual care of nurses, nurse educators, nurse leaders, and administrators. This study promotes positive social change by providing healthcare stakeholders at the local site with better understandings of the benefits of holistic spiritual care programs.

Ethical codes and principles, and laws govern the behavior of health-care professionals. Yet, the impact that ethical codes and laws have on the actual moral behaviors of health-care professionals is relatively unknown. A survey on the ethical beliefs and practices of health-care professionals was sent to the United States membership of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. AAPB's heterogeneous membership offers a unique opportunity to compare the ethical beliefs and behaviors of professionals across various health-care professions, educational levels, licensure and certification statuses, age, years in practice, and gender. The survey examined the respondents' ethical beliefs and practices in the domains of confidentiality, dual relationships, and professional practice. Five hundred thirty-six surveys were returned completed. The results of the survey indicate that all respondents have substantially the same reported ethical beliefs and practices across the three domains. There were no statistically significant differences between the reported ethical beliefs or practices when compared across disciplines, educational levels, licensure or certification statuses, age, or years in practice. Statistically significant gender differences were found.

Bereavement beliefs and practices in the modern, American culture have been well documented. However, virtually no research has been conducted on traditional and contemporary death, dying, grief, and bereavement beliefs and practices among native tribes, such as the Lakota. The present study was conducted with the Lakota, and fulfilled two goals. iii First, the contemporary and traditional death, dying, grief, and bereavement beliefs and practices of the Lakota were documented and summarized. Such documentation may help bereaved Lakota tribal members who are experiencing problems with death and bereavement, and may help preserve traditional knowledge, beliefs, and practices. Second, the consensus of opinion among Lakota tribal elders about death, dying , grief, and bereavement practices and beliefs was qualitatively evaluated and compared with that of mental health and substance abuse workers who serve the Lakota. Two main theoretical conclusions to this study were reported. First, the Lakota elders' preferred interventions for bereavement for their people included family, social, community, tribal , and ceremonial activities. These findings likely resulted from the functional aspects of these types of culturally appropriate practices not only to help the bereaved Lakota individual, but also to help "fill the hole in the circle" left by the death of a tribal member. A cultural mechanism for continued tribal unity and wholeness is provided by these tribal bereavement practices. Second, the ancient historical Lakota ceremonies used to ameliorate grief within the tribe appear to have been fragmented over time, but these rituals still exist and their derivatives are used in various contemporary forms. Two main clinical findings were reported. First, a careful clinical assessment of the bereaved Lakota client's level of acculturation is required as a prerequisite to treatment planning. Second, intervention with grieving Lakota clients should include informed attention to both "western" bereavement treatment methods and traditional Lakota family, community, and social bereavement practices. The relative value of various Lakota family, social, community, and tribal bereavement practices and a rank ordering of various Lakota ceremonies were provided. These ceremonies and Lakota tribal practices were compared to modern "western" bereavement treatment methods.

This study investigated the links between the family and peer systems by examining whether mothers ' beliefs about social skills and management practices of peer interactions were related to their children ' s social relations with peers . The sample was comprised of 185 mothers of preschool children , ranging in age from 44 to 81 months , who resided in Seoul , Korea. Children of the participating mothers were enrolled in center- based preschool programs. Mothers were asked to complete the Maternal Beliefs Scale, the Mothers ' Management Strategies Scale, and demographic measures. Using the Child Behavior Scale, teachers rated the social competence of each child whose mother returned a set of questionnaires. The findings suggested that most Korean mothers in this sample highly rated the importance of preschoolers' social development. They believed that social skills were amenable to modification , rather than innate. Whereas mothers in this study were frequently involved in direct or indirect monitoring of children ' s social activities, they infrequently engaged in direct management of peer relationships. The results also showed that mothers who assigned greater importance to social skills and believed that the social skills of their children could be obtained by direct parental teaching were more likely to manage their children ' s social activities. In addition , mothers who made more efforts to enhance their children ' s social skills were more likely to have socially competent children with peers. Additionally , younger mothers attached greater importance to social skills than older mothers and were more likely to attribute the experience factor to these skills. Employed mothers , as compared to nonemployed mothers , also made more external attributions for the development of social skills.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In accord with the cognitive model of poor functioning in schizophrenia, defeatist performance beliefs, or overgeneralized negative beliefs about one’s ability to perform tasks, have been linked to poor functional outcomes, cognitive impairment, and negative symptoms in schizophrenia and are a suggested therapeutic target in Cognitive Therapy for Schizophrenia. However, there is a paucity of research investigating these beliefs in schizotypy, or those exhibiting traits reflecting a putative genetic liability for schizophrenia. This study had three aims: to examine whether defeatist performance beliefs 1) are elevated in schizotypy compared to non-schizotypy, 2) are associated with functioning-related outcomes (i.e., quality of life, working memory, negative schizotypy traits), and 3) mediate the relationships between working memory and both negative schizotypy traits and quality of life. Schizotypy (n = 43) and non-schizotypy (n = 45) groups completed measures of schizotypy traits, defeatist performance beliefs, quality of life, and working memory. Results revealed that the schizotypy group reported significantly more defeatist performance beliefs than the non-schizotypy group. Within the schizotypy group, defeatist performance beliefs were significantly positively associated with negative schizotypy traits and significantly inversely associated with quality of life. No associations were observed between defeatist performance beliefs and positive schizotypy traits and working memory. Further, defeatist performance beliefs did not mediate the relationships between working memory and either quality of life or negative schizotypy traits. Findings are generally consistent with the cognitive model of poor functioning in schizophrenia and suggest that defeatist performance beliefs may be an important therapeutic target in early intervention services.

This study was undertaken to explore and understand the attitudes and beliefs of audiology students about Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. The problem of practice was that some audiologists continue to advise parents not to sign with their Deaf or Hard of Hearing children. This problem was studied using the conceptual framework of General Systems Theory, looking at the problem through the lens of Critical Disability Theory, to determine if audiology students view Deaf and Hard of Hearing people from a medical model or from a social/cultural model. Using a qualitative case study methodology, I interviewed six first-year doctor of audiology (AuD) students at a university on the west coast of the United States to delve deeply into their attitudes and beliefs about Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. This study found that these audiology students had overall social/cultural attitudes about Deaf people on the Attitudes to Deafness Scale. Yet, in case-study interviews, which provided a more in-depth look at the views of the students, the terminology the students used demonstrated some institutionalized audist attitudes and beliefs. Every student showed a mixture of medical and social/cultural beliefs. The students made a distinction between the words “Deaf” and “Hard of Hearing.” All the students believed that parents of Deaf children should be offered “communication options” – (signed or spoken language). The four students who had studied American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf culture were more open to the use of ASL. The two students who had the lowest scores on the Attitudes to Deafness Scale had no experience or background in ASL and demonstrated a preference for amplification technology and spoken language. The students believed that Hard of Hearing children should be raised with spoken language only. The students had a positive attitude about ASL but demonstrated a preference for spoken language. The audiology students understood their role in the medical system, but did not yet understand their part in the Deaf education system. They believed that parent-to-parent support is important but did not understand how audiologists might collaborate with the Deaf community and with teachers of the Deaf as families journey through the process of raising Deaf and Hard of Hearing children.

Although previous research on singlehood has often focused on middle-class career women, little is known about the life experiences of non-career path single women. This study examined the core marriage beliefs of never-married and once-married child-free, midlife women and the ways in which those beliefs have evolved over time. The sample consisted of 10 women, 5 never-married and 5 once-married between the ages of 35 and 48. For the purposes of this inquiry, non-career path was co-determined on the basis of occupation and educational background. The theoretical framework that guided this study combined a life course approach with a feminist perspective. Respondents were recruited through extensive networking and the sampling technique of snowballing. A qualitative methodology was employed utilizing the research strategy of in-depth interviewing. Data were analyzed on the basis of emergent themes and patterns. This study produced 3 salient findings. First, the process of forming core marriage beliefs is similar between never-married and once-married women. Although an experience of marrying (or an experience of not marrying) may change the way a woman views herself within the context of her marital beliefs, those core marital beliefs do not necessarily change. Second, whether never-married or once-married, single midlife women live ambivalent lives: acknowledging their singlehood status while simultaneously remaining hopeful of attaining a marital union. Finally, women made a clear distinction between getting married and marrying successfully. While most believed that getting married was a choice, having a successful marriage was a result of chance. Despite this appraisal, the ideal of marriage remained pervasive regardless of age or past experience. / Master of Science