This qualitative case study examined the level of satisfaction among a group of adults ages 35 years and older enrolled in an online education program (OLEP) in a university in Puerto Rico. Although the current literature revealed that adult students 35 years and older are the fastest growing population enrolling in online college education programs in Puerto Rico, prior satisfaction studies conducted by this institution did not focus on this population. The theoretical framework of this study was guided by Holsapple and Lee's Post e-learning success model. The goal of this study was to understand students' satisfaction with the online program and determine if the program was helping them accomplish their goals. Data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews with 8 adult students, 35 years of age or older, who were currently enrolled at the institution. Data were analyzed using the category construction approach, open coding, and thematic analysis. Results indicated that the participants had a positive perception of the online program and its impact on their academic development and educational success. The data also revealed issues related to faculty-student communication and course design, which the participants believed needed to improve. The study's findings helped in the development of a best practice manual for the OLEP faculty. The manual will provide OLEP faculty with the tools needed to improve faculty-student communication and online course design, thereby increasing the student satisfaction among the fastest growing online student population. Improving its OLEP shows promise for the university to continue to be an agent of social change for Puerto Rico's economic growth and social progress.

Many students entering college in the United States need assistance in at least one academic area, causing remedial courses to be commonplace in higher education. This study evaluated the impact of video instruction in learning the content found in an online remedial math course. The instructional videos were created using the guidelines of Universal Design and cognitive load theory. A quantitative, quasi-experimental method was used to evaluate a dataset made available by a regionally accredited private New England college's online division. The online division offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certifications, and the students are located all over the world. The dataset started with 203 participants, with 78 completing the first module, 36 completing the second module, and 17 completing the third module. Paired t tests revealed that while both text and video instruction improved the scores between the pre- and posttests, there was no statistically significant difference between those two groups. However, the end sample size was small, with many students not completing all three modules. This limited the interpretation to the results of the pre- and posttest scores of the first module only. These findings inform faculty teaching remedial online math courses, as well as course designers, seeking to improve these courses and increase the success rate for students passing the course. This has implications for social change because student success in these remedial math courses may in turn increase persistence, retention and graduation.

Nursing workforce competency in informatics is crucial to providing safe patient care, improving quality, and reducing healthcare costs. Assurance of informatics competency in a workforce with increasingly diverse educational preparations, demographics, and informatics skills poses significant challenges. The question addressed was the lack of nursing informatics competency assessment tool relevant to bedside nursing. The purpose of this project was to develop and review a new nursing informatics competency assessment tool designed to address the individual educational needs of newly hired nurses. The tool was designed to measure nurses' competency in computer literacy, informatics literacy, and informatics management skills recommended in the American Nurses Association's Standards and Scope of Practice and Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform. This tool supports practices at the bedside by providing individualized education according to the results of a self-assessment. The project was guided by the Benner's model and the Rosswurm and Larrabee framework. Content validity was established by item analysis, relevancy scale, and validation by the identified experts from the organization's Nursing Informatics Department (n = 4); the Department of Education, Practice, and Research (n =8); the Clinical Outcomes Department (n = 1); and bedside nurses (n = 14). The administration recommended this tool be incorporated into its strategic plan. This project promoted positive social change by developing a tool to assess informatics competencies in newly hired nurses and guide educators in developing future educational strategies. These efforts will assist in creating a workforce that is prepared to deliver healthcare safely, efficiently, and cost-effectively in the increasingly technology-savvy environment of U.S. healthcare in the 21st century.

Nursing workforce competency in informatics is crucial to providing safe patient care, improving quality, and reducing healthcare costs. Assurance of informatics competency in a workforce with increasingly diverse educational preparations, demographics, and informatics skills poses significant challenges. The question addressed was the lack of nursing informatics competency assessment tool relevant to bedside nursing. The purpose of this project was to develop and review a new nursing informatics competency assessment tool designed to address the individual educational needs of newly hired nurses. The tool was designed to measure nurses' competency in computer literacy, informatics literacy, and informatics management skills recommended in the American Nurses Association's Standards and Scope of Practice and Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform. This tool supports practices at the bedside by providing individualized education according to the results of a self-assessment. The project was guided by the Benner's model and the Rosswurm and Larrabee framework. Content validity was established by item analysis, relevancy scale, and validation by the identified experts from the organization's Nursing Informatics Department (n = 4); the Department of Education, Practice, and Research (n =8); the Clinical Outcomes Department (n = 1); and bedside nurses (n = 14). The administration recommended this tool be incorporated into its strategic plan. This project promoted positive social change by developing a tool to assess informatics competencies in newly hired nurses and guide educators in developing future educational strategies. These efforts will assist in creating a workforce that is prepared to deliver healthcare safely, efficiently, and cost-effectively in the increasingly technology-savvy environment of U.S. healthcare in the 21st century.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

McGill management certificates are credit continuing education programs. Perceptions of the benefits achieved through participation were investigated, surveying 1424 students in four cohorts: entrants, graduates, alumni and withdrawn. / Goals of entrants factored into six categories: career development, gaining knowledge, fulfiling external requirements, personal development, personal fulfilment and networking. In almost all areas achievements matched expectations. Graduates reported significant improvement in career status, although somewhat less than desired. Irrespective of prior education, they were particularly appreciative of knowledge gained. In other areas, graduates without prior university education perceived more benefit than those with degrees. Women, though equally satisfied with the program's contribution to career development, reported slower progress in their careers than men. They experienced more personal development than men. Work experience and certainty of goals affected outcomes. Many withdrawn students attained their objectives without completing. Academic achievement did not correlate with career development or with graduates' perception of knowledge gained.

In the field of postgraduate medical education- there is a need for baseline information on what factors influence physicians in their selection of Continuing Medical Education (CME). Furthermore, there is an ever-growing need to learn how practitioners prefer their CME to he delivered and in what venue it should be offered. CME should represent what is understood about how physicians change behavior.The purpose of this study was to describe what factors influenced members of the Indiana Psychiatric Society in their attendance and selection of a particular Continuing Medical Education event. Using archival data from the 2004 Indiana Psychiatric Needs Assessment Survey. this study examined demographic variables—such as gender and age—and their influences on Continuing Medical Education. Moreover, using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations. and Chi-square analyses. the research study also focused on the statistical relationships which existed between the nine various factors influencing attendance: price. location. interest in topic. outside attraction. personal invitation, speaker, deficiency of knowledge day of the week. and personal invitation. The 2004 Needs Assessment Survey was completed electronically by 80 members of the Indiana Psychiatric Society over a 60-day period during the summer of 2004.Several conclusions were derived from the major findings. Outside attraction was the most significant factor for participants selecting a CME activity. The mean average for outside attraction was 4.13 out of a possible five. This finding was the most important factor for both gender and age groups. Conversely, interest in topic was found to be the least significant value with an arithmetic mean score of 1.33 out a possible five. Using Pearson correlation analyses, a strong correlation was found to exist between interest in topic and speaker (.662. p<.01). The second strongest correlation was found between interest in knowledge and other colleagues attending. (.430. p<.01). Fifty out of 76 IPS members surveyed preferred (IMF to be delivered in a lecture format in a traditional one-hour format (31 out of 76).In recommendation as to future study, the researcher suggests employing qualitative research technique to better understand what can actually motivate physicians to change clinical behavior. / Department of Educational Studies

This study was designed to investigate the opinions of District 4 membership of the Texas Nurses Association concerning mandatory and voluntary continuing education and to see if there was a relationship between members views and specific demographic characteristics. With the enormous growth of scientific knowledge, health professionals are becoming increasingly aware of the need to require their practitioners to show proof of competence to practice and to keep their knowledge and skills up to date. Many states have proposed legislation to require nurses to participate in continuing education to maintain current registration of the license to practice. Even though the majority of nurses in the United States would attest to the value of continuing education, the subject is fraught with controversy as to whether the programs should be voluntary or mandatory. The reasons most commonly indicated for support of mandatory education were these: (1) Mandatory continuing education requirements would upgrade nurses and the nursing profession; and (2) Many nurses are not self-motivated and need encouragement from the outside before they will participate in the continuing education which they need to keep current.

abstract: ABSTRACT Professional Development (PD) is an important tool in the field of education. Successful PD programs are those that include adult learning methods and opportunities for experiential learning and discussion. The university where this action research was conducted does not offer formal training to adjunct instructors. The adjunct instructors are hired based primarily on their content knowledge. This research was conducted to understand, if the application of a blended training model for adjuncts influences the adjunct's perception of meeting their student's educational needs and the student's perception that their personal education needs are met. The blended learning included the delivery of a framework that incorporated Andragogy, Content Knowledge and Technology (ACKT). The purpose of the ACKT framework is to supplement adjunct's content knowledge expertise with adult learning methods and technology. The effectiveness of the framework was measured by using a quasi-experimental, pre to post intervention assessment. The treatment group and control group each contained twenty-two adjunct instructors from the university. The treatment group received training on the framework prior to commencing the class and participated in two focus groups during the semester. In addition, the treatment group was observed teaching in their classroom. The control group did not receive training, or participate in focus groups; however they were observed teaching in their classroom. The results of the action research showed significant improvement for the adjunct instructors in the treatment group. Specifically, knowledge of and application of andragogy showed a large improvement. In addition, the social influence of the adjuncts in the treatment group showed a large improvement. Less significant was the improvement in the efficacy of the students in the treatment group classes compared to those in the control group classes. However, the data suggests that the students in the treatment group better applied the content learned and they were more aware of other's educational needs than their peers in the control group. The study supports the need for adjunct instructor PD. Through a PD program adjunct instructors increase their own efficacy and this improvement translates into increased content transfer for the students in the classroom. Based on the strong evidence for adjunct instructor improvement this research will continue by expanding the blended learning model to more of the adjunct instructors at the university, and continuing to evaluate the effectiveness of the model in meeting student's educational needs. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Leadership and Innovation 2012

This research examined the reasons for participation in continuing professional education (CPE) and the predictive relationship of those motivational reasons to the perceived leadership effectiveness of first-line supervisors. For this study, 105 first-line supervisors were surveyed from four electric utility companies. Input was also collected from each supervisor's subordinate employees. Using the five motivational reasons for participation, collected via the Participation Reasons Scale and the effectiveness score collected using the Leader Behavior Analysis II®, regression techniques were used to asses the data. The five participation reasons of the PRS were regressed individually against the effectiveness scores to determine the extent to which leader effectiveness could be predicted by the participation reasons. In each case, the null hypothesis failed to be rejected. Regression of the five PRS reasons collectively on leader effectiveness also failed to reject the null, producing a p value of .800 and an R2 value of .023. An "all possible subsets" regression was conducted to determine whether a smaller subset of the five predictor variables might improve the predictive value of the participation reasons. No subset improved the predictive value. This study concludes that motivation to participate in CPE does not predict leader effectiveness. Thus, training organizations do not need to attempt to determine leader effectiveness based on underlying reasons individuals are motivated to participate, but rather should focus on the more traditional aspects of determining effectiveness most often associated with rigorous training evaluation processes. This study focused on the job role of first-line supervisor. Future research could be performed using: (a) populations of individuals from other traditional job roles including front-line employees (both unionized and non-unionized), mid-level managers, and executives; (b) leaders with and without prior training in situational leadership; and (c) effectiveness measure over time (i.e., a time-series method).