Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Sarah Jane Fishback / This qualitative case study described the incidence of stress in the lives of Army officers, and its effect on their learning experiences at the Army‘s Command and General Staff College (CGSC). It described the experiences of officers who have completed multiple combat deployments and coped with the effects of combat related stress in an academic environment. The study further illuminated a number of issues surrounding combat related stress and learning, and framed them using the words of the eleven United States Army Command and General Staff College student participants. This qualitative case study combined the interviews of the eleven students with other members of the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Army community to include an Army psychiatrist, a Department of Army civilian psychologist, a CGSC faculty focus group, and an Army chaplain. All of the Army officers in the study are combat veterans with an average of over 23 months of combat. This case study confirmed that being in an academic environment increased the stress levels of even combat veterans. This research further confirmed levels of anger, alcohol usage, and sleeplessness among CGSC students and its effect on their learning. It identified the impact of transitions, dual enrollment, and social functioning in family settings, as well as confirming that there is still a continued stigma associated with Soldiers seeking assistance for mental health. The stigma is exacerbated by inaccurate reporting and a culture that reflects a lack of support within certain levels of the service. This study contributes to the current body of knowledge and provides additional information and insights on the effects of combat related stress on learning. Finally, this study is relevant, germane, and timely given the number of Soldiers who have been repeatedly exposed to combat operations. This exposure to combat exponentially increases the incidence of combat related stress in their lives.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Educational Leadership / Sarah Jane Fishback / This exploratory study investigated the level of satisfaction that faculty members have with their new faculty orientation experiences during their first year of employment at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, in Ft. Leavenworth, KS. The study solicited data from new faculty at this graduate-level military service college to help determine whether new faculty members were satisfied with their new faculty orientation experience; whether there were differences in the dependent variable, satisfaction, for any of the independent variables of campus location, teaching department, employment category, academic rank and educational level; and how the CGSC new faculty orientation program might be improved. Surveys were distributed to 297 new faculty members from January 2006 to December 2007. The survey instrument included Likert-scale questions to support quantitative statistical analysis. The study used non-parametric analysis methods to examine the dependent variable, satisfaction, with respect to independent variables. These results indicated that faculty members were satisfied with their new faculty orientation experiences and that there were no significant differences in satisfaction for campus location, teaching department, employment category, academic rank or educational level. Open-ended questions provided respondents an opportunity to add additional information; these comments were categorized by topic and then examined for themes or trends. Despite their overall satisfaction with the orientation program and processes, 84.80% of respondents indicated that inadequate institutional support was the greatest detractor to their success. They cited delays in meeting fundamental new employee needs such as providing a suitable work location, computer access, and information about institutional policies and procedures. Additionally, 35.67% of respondents indicated that either their sponsor was not helpful or none was assigned. Results of this study provided insight regarding unmet or inadequately fulfilled information and support needs of new faculty members at CGSC, informed further research in the area of faculty orientation, and highlighted areas for improvement of practice at CGSC and comparable institutions.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Educational Leadership / W. Franklin Spikes / To date, several academic studies have examined officer personnel leadership behaviors, while the leadership traits of enlisted personnel have largely been ignored. This dissertation investigates the leadership behaviors of active duty chief master sergeants (CMSgt) working on Randolph Air Force Base (AFB), Texas and offers conclusions concerning the acquisition of these behaviors. The main distinction between an officer and enlisted person is, enlisted did not have an undergraduate college degree when they first entered the Air Force. The enlisted population was selected because of the researcher’s background in the Air Force. The sample selection process consisted of obtaining a list from the Air Force of active duty CMSgts working on Randolph AFB. Next, several CMSgts were selected and asked to participate in the study. Those who chose to participate were asked if they knew of other CMSgts who could provide useful information for this study. Four of these participants were chosen to complete in the pilot study phase. Data was collected through the use of semi-structured interviews until thematic saturation was accomplished. Data analysis began with the first pilot interview and continued throughout all phases of this research study. This research found 12 significant leadership behaviors, which can be placed into eight categories. The eight categories are: Technical; Counselor; Problem-Solver; Manager; Networker; Communicate Vision; Eyes and Ears; Run Interference. The Technical category contains one sub-category: Assign Task / Communicate Expectations. The Counselor category is comprised of Influence, Supporter, and Facilitator, while the Manager category is made up of Decision Maker, Advisor, and Mentor.

<p> Patterns from nature and bioculture lead us to become more ethical teachers and learners and can guide wise school design. The research asked if intrapersonal empathy, collaborative nature creativity, and wisdom education are the same phenomenon at different scales that might accurately be called regeneration. This dissertation reviewed the interconnected landscapes of sustainability education, regenerative design, permaculture, emergence, innovation, ecological intelligence, complexity, chaos, natural pattern, biomimicry, and creativity, to weave a complexity web research nexus using a transdisciplinary, feminist, decolonizing lens and Gaian methods. This regenerative fractal emergent inquiry studied four scales of regeneration with eighty participants using multi-level mixed methods with triangulation. The research found that engaging with the planetary system and dynamic living patterns catalyzed breakthrough learning for wisdom. Inspired by symbiotic nature and biocultural connection, learners and learning collectives accessed expanded states of emergent, creative metacognition and ecological intelligence, including level-jumping and scale-slithering as larger emergents. This Gaian emergence, including e/mergence and inmergence, birthed planetary-scale intelligence and creativity and generated sustained increases in regenerativity in designs and enhanced ethical action. Another outcome of this study was the development of a Transdisciplinary Regenerativity Index. Ecofractal patterns, including branching, radiance, flow, packing, vortex, and tapestry, mobilized learners for ecosocial, emergent, earth regenerative creativity. Such emergent creativity is at the heart of wisdom learning and wisdom school design. In earth regenerative education, learners, communities, and learning organizations can embody the living earth in regenerative self-organization for meta-species wisdom and earth innovations to continue to become a part of the living processes of the planetary unfolding.</p>

This study examines the lives of Black "professional" adult educators (both have PhD.s) as they reflect on their respective 20 years of work experience. The primary question to be answered is: How have these women shaped their own professional identity in adult education and to what extent has that process been affected by race and/or gender? A subsidiary and closely linked question is: What lessons are learned by shifting the methodological lens to contemplate the lives of two nondominant people in adult education? Four theoretical constructs bear directly on how the research problem was framed and how the "data" were perceived. Those constructs were: the concept of hegemony, the perspective of African American feminist theory, the perspective of a theory of women's history, and theories of professionalization. / A life history methodology, with a feminist influence, was used in this qualitative study; the data were analyzed using a grounded theory analysis. Two African American adult educators collaboratively engaged with the researcher in open-ended interviews and analysis of emerging concepts during 1992-93. Analysis revealed strategies used by the "co-historians" to overcome gender and racial barriers within their institutions and in the larger society. Findings indicate professional identity for these adult educators was not one of "conversion" to an externally defined symbolic model of an adult educator (no such model exists), rather it was an identity "melded" with personal beliefs and values colored by racial and gendered experiences. Another significant finding is the extent to which the lack of definition and professionalization of the field of adult education seems to affect the necessity for its members to create not only a professional identity but also the necessity to design opportunities for the application of their skills--this is referred to as "intrapreneuring." Life history, in this study, appears to be an important addition to adult education historiography because it accentuates the relationship of the degree of professionalization of the field to the individual practitioner's identity formation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-08, Section: A, page: 2247. / Major Professor: Peter A. Easton. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

For the past forty years, alternative methods and techniques have been researched and developed in light of reducing the burgeoning knowledge and memory requirements of individual workers. One such method is reliance on print-based job aids designed to reduce the amount of complex information that would otherwise be stored in working memory. Job aids are particularly useful where the transfer of skills and knowledge is critical, especially in high-risk industries, those industries in which task error can have serious consequences to property, environment, and life. This study focused attention on one specific format of job aids--the checklist. / Checklists are an invaluable resource and a virtual necessity in the aircraft cockpit. Paper checklists are commonly used in the aircraft cockpit for many of the normal and emergency flight procedures. Yet, there is contention within the aviation industry that checklists contain design flaws, are often misused, and sometimes ignored (Degani & Wiener, 1990, 1991; Turner & Huntley, 1991). / The question the aviation industry and governmental regulators must confront is whether the current design of checklists is a problem. Degani and Wiener (1990) and Turner and Huntley (1991) contend that traditional flight-deck checklist design and some of the checklist concepts in the aviation industry do contain problems. A model that would provide specific guidelines for aviation training personnel on the optimal methods for identifying the good characteristics of a checklist would provide a way to fulfill this need and at the same time address the problem. The model would assume that the checklist has already been developed and would evaluate it based on its content and characteristics. Therefore, the purpose of this study's model is to determine if the checklist contains the characteristics of a good checklist. / The intent of this study was to (a) document the practices and procedures that guide the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of checklists and job aids in some of the major airlines, and (b) to develop and field test a model for evaluating aircrew checklists. / A three phase development and validation approach was used in this study that included: (a) an analysis of the current status of aircrew checklist development in the aviation industry, (b) development of a model and job aid for evaluating aircrew checklists, and (c) validation of the model and job aid. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3424. / Major Professor: David F. Salisbury. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The purpose of the proposed study is to explore the contribution of different types of continuing professional education (CPE) to the upward career mobility of current health services administrators working in a hospital setting. The objectives of the study were to determine the pattern of participation in CPE of a sample of hospital administrators, to ascertain the degree of upward career mobility over a 10-year period and to investigate the degree of association between these two factors as well as respondents' opinions concerning the impact of CPE on upward career mobility. / Data were collected by mailing a self-administered questionnaire to a national sample of senior-level health services administrators and to the chairpersons of the board from the same institutions. The sample of health services administrators was selected in such a manner as to eliminate confounding variables of education, length of professional experience and age. Respondents reported spending an average of 83 hours per year in formal varieties of CPE and over twenty times as much, or 1,673 hours per year, in informal varieties. In the informal domain, the greatest amount of time was spent in personal discussions, followed by personal reading. Most of the formal hours of CPE were spent in training provided during professional meetings. / The level of participation in CPE--both formal and informal--turned out to be significantly but weakly associated with indicators of the actual upward career mobility of these health services administrators. At the same time, both they and the board members responsible for hiring and firing them accorded CPE participation low causal weight in career success. Its principal effects seem due to the chance it offers to improve administrative competencies that contribute to professional development and to "network" with colleagues and influential parties who may support career advancement. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-04, Section: A, page: 0831. / Director: Peter Easton. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This dissertation represents an instance of evaluation research and an embedded case study of a Catholic nonformal education and social action program in Vicosa, a city in the interior of Brazil. Named Associacao Assistencial e Promocional da Pastoral da Oracao de Vicosa (APOV), the program is devoted to the spiritual and temporal welfare of the poor inhabitants of the neighborhood of Nova Vicosa, 500 of whom currently participate in its activities. Founded in 1980 as a prayer group, APOV gradually evolved increasingly complex education and community development functions and has developed into a full-blown nonformal education strategy. / Data concerning the historical evolution of the program and concerning its current context, resources, processes, results and impact of the program are assembled in the dissertation through a combination of participant observation, document review and field surveys carried out by the researcher over a three-year period. This multiple evidence of APOV's operation is first analyzed from an evaluative or "internal" point of view to see how closely implementation and achievements fit with intentions, what factors explain discrepancies observed, and what lessons the program has learned in the process of its own growth and development. Next the results of the research are contrasted with insights and assertions about nonformal education in Latin American development and the dynamics of Catholic social action drawn from the abundant literature on these topics. / Though APOV follows no detailed and predetermined model, the program generally achieves its intended goals in the areas of individual religious and psychological development. In addition, an impressive quantity of social services is provided to its impoverished clientele, and--given the volunteer labor involved--this is done in a very cost-effective fashion. The program has to date been less successful at addressing the root causes of poverty, durably eliminating it in Nova Vicosa, or promoting full ownership or "empowerment" among its clientele. Recommendations are made in conclusion regarding possible improvements in the program's strategy and further research topics. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-12, Section: A, page: 4636. / Major Professor: Peter A. Easton. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This ethnographic, single-case study was conducted over a two-year period. It documents the changes that occurred in the life of a forty-two year old female as she gained reading and writing skills in a literacy tutorial. This documentation was based on numerous personal journals that she dictated and wrote. / Although her income level or economic status did not change significantly during the period of the study, her individual reading scores rose from lower elementary to post-secondary level. In addition, according to her, what changed in her life was her self-concept with respect to reading and writing, and her insight into the historical value of what she had learned outside of any educational setting. This change or growth process was paralleled to the Kubler-Ross model (1975), and was compared to the Belenky, et al. model (1986). / A ten-step program and process model for the Personal Reflexive Journal was developed and is included in this study for use with adult literacy students who are learning to express themselves through writing. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-01, Section: A, page: 0052. / Major Professor: Sydney R. Grant. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

Based on the cross-cultural adjustment, education, and job performance literatures, an international student performance taxonomy is proposed and tested with a sample of 272 exchange students from nine countries studying in Mexico. Results of confirmatory factor analyses provided tentative support for an eight-factor taxonomy comprised of performance dimensions labeled: Engaging in academic and nonacademic tasks, Communicating with host nationals, Writing and using the local language, Helping and cooperating with other international students, Developing social and personal relationships with host nationals, Adjusting to general conditions of living abroad, Demonstrating effort in an academic setting, and Maintaining personal discipline. Issues concerning the practical implications of these findings as well as the generalizability of the confirmed performance taxonomy to other educational and work contexts are discussed / acase@tulane.edu