In an effort to immerse learners in the target language, many IEPs in the U.S. hold fast to inflexible English Only policies (Auerbach, 1993; McMillan & Rivers, 2011). However, research has identified several shortcomings of such a rule, such as (1) the benefits of the L1 in L2 learning, and the lack of research supporting the exclusion of the mother tongue (Atkinson, 1993; Brooks-Lewis, 2009; Butzkamm, 2003), and (2) psychological, sociocultural, and linguistic factors that diminish the effectiveness of English Only and contribute to a negative learning environment (Shvidko, Evans, & Hartshorn, 2015). This body of research has prompted a large IEP in the U.S. to replace its English Only policy with initiatives that encourage English use, foster learner autonomy and create a more positive learning environment. This study evaluated this IEP's initiatives and found that this new perspective on language policy has created a viable alternative to English Only. These initiatives' intended objective to encourage English use was met while preserving learner autonomy and without sacrificing a high standard of excellence.

There is a growing demand for accountability of nonprofit organizations, and nonprofit business leaders are increasingly under pressure to demonstrate operational effectiveness. The problem is that some business leaders of nonprofit organizations lack strategies for identifying and selecting actionable performance measures of operational effectiveness. Using the plan-do-study-act conceptual framework, this single case study of a nonprofit organization located in the mid-Atlantic region of United States was conducted to explore strategies that 3 of its business leaders used to identify and select actionable performance measures of operational effectiveness. Using thematic analysis of data collected from semistructured interviews, documents, and public sources, emergent themes included: (a) usefulness of measures, (b) customer experience, and (c) workforce education. The findings of this study may have implications for social change by helping nonprofit business leaders achieve consensus on measures of effectiveness beyond financial measures. Additionally, the findings could support the usefulness of transparency in reporting performance outcomes, encourage a shift in focus from program spending and ratios to effectiveness, and prompt external stakeholders to expect performance measures that demonstrate effectiveness in nonprofit program operations.

Research on high-performing nonprofit boards has indicated a positive relationship between a board's strength and an organization's effectiveness; however, how boards achieve success remains relatively unknown. The Kirton adaption-innovation (KAI) theory was used to examine board members' cognitive styles in relationship to facilitating problem solving and decision making. This nonexperimental, quantitative study included archived nonprofit board data from 2 American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) studies that had addressed the high performance of boards and factors associated with organizational success. A total of 102 randomly selected, high-performing nonprofit board members completed the KAI Inventory, which was used to measure cognitive style on a continuum; participants also answered questions from the second ASAE study to indicate board performance. Correlational and regression analyses were used to determine whether cognitive style on problem solving and decision making predicted high performance of boards. Results showed that cognitive style was not a significant predictor of problem solving; however, participants with an innovation cognitive style provided answers to the decision-making performance questions that were noticeably lower than participants who were classified as adaption. Findings might be used by nonprofit board members to enhance individual growth, increase organizational agility, and improve problem solving for effective decision making to ensure nonprofit board excellence.

Nonprofit organization leaders increasingly encounter social burdens and financial difficulties, jeopardizing ongoing success and organizational sustainability. The purpose of this single-case study was to explore revenue diversification strategies used by 3 leaders of a small nonprofit organization in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States through the conceptual lens of modern portfolio theory. Data were collected via in-depth semistructured interviews, and member checking was used to facilitate accuracy, consistency, and integrity. Methodological triangulation included a document review and analysis of financial statements, tax returns, strategy objectives, the organizational website, social media, and nonprofit data reports. Data from documents and interviews were manually coded, and themes were identified using thematic analysis. Six themes emerged related to process strengths and opportunities for improvement including capitalizing on a mission-driven workforce; using a systematic strategic planning process; building relationships with partners, suppliers, and collaborators; integrating performance measures to areas of importance; and developing and implanting systematic methods to assess customer satisfaction and workforce engagement. The findings from this study might contribute to positive social change by providing revenue diversification strategies and the supporting processes that leaders of small nonprofit organizations can use to enhance existing services, expand community programs, and create ongoing organizational success.

This study investigated the impact of the Malcolm Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence (HCPE) on effectiveness in health care organizational performance. The quality of health care has tremendous social and economic consequences for the United States (U.S.), including lost wages, reduced productivity, higher legal expenses, and lower confidence in the health care system. Increasing health care productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, and quality offers critical means to reducing cost and improving U.S. economic performance, which is an objective of the Affordable Care Act enacted by Congress in 2010. This study compared Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipients to competitors in their geographic markets using Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) performance measures to determine if there was a relationship between the use of the HCPE as a business model and the performance of health care organizations. This study included an analysis comparing 34 hospitals using the HCPE as an organizational business model to 153 hospitals in their geographic markets not using the HCPE. There were 42 CMS measures classified into 2 major categories focused on (1) patient experience measures and (2) clinical processes and outcome measures. The results showed that the study-identified hospitals that used the HCPE had values representing higher performance on all 10 patient experience measures than the non-HCPE hospitals, and that 9 of the 10 measures were statistically significant. Although the group mean differences were not statistically significant, the study results showed that HCPE hospitals had performance outcomes with mean values representing higher performance than the non-HCPE hospitals in 38 of the 42 (90%) of the study measures. These results should provide leadership with confidence that the HCPE serve as a valid model to align organizational design, strategy, systems, and human capital to create long-term effectiveness in an institutionalized high performance culture. / acase@tulane.edu

This study is concerned with the identification of the factors in management systems which contribute to business excellence in an organisation. Considering that every organisation regardless of sector and size want to achieve business excellence, and every organisation is made up of multiple clusters of management systems, this is a highly interesting topic for the researchers and the case company, Veoneer Sweden AB. However, despite the prominence in the importance of a management system and goals to achieve business excellence, there is a lack of contemporary research on how management systems contribute to business excellence. To fill this gap, a case study was conducted identifying factors of management systems through benchmarking three organisations that have achieved business excellence and conducting interviews at Veoneer Sweden AB. Through drawing upon data from the interviews with 14 people at Veoneer, it was found that management systems contribute to business excellence through systemic and cultural factors. A mix of cultural and systemic factors was found to be important in a management system’s contribution to business excellence. Additionally, feedback systems and a diverse management system team were identified to be important for the implementation of a management system.

There has been much debate over many years in the Australian Federal Parliament on the implementation of a national curriculum in mathematics. In 2004, the Government, under the direction of the then Minister for Education Brendon Nelson, initiated a national mathematics program for students in lower secondary high schools and primary schools. The Australian International Centre for Excellence was commissioned to implement a pilot program and called for expressions of interest to participate from high schools across the nation. At that time I was working as the Acting Head of the Mathematics Department at a senior high school in a large Western Australian country centre. I was concerned with the content and level of difficulty in many of the textbooks that were available for our students and also the processes used in these textbooks (or by teachers) to assist students to gain mastery of the basic mathematical concepts in the Outcome Number. I decided to apply to participate in the pilot program on behalf of my school, and my application was accepted. In the first stage of the program two classes of both Year 8 and Year 9 students were selected. One of my cooperative colleagues and I found out very early that the Year 8 ICE-EM textbook was too difficult for many of these students as they lacked the skills to do much of the work in the Outcome Number. These students had very different learning experiences in their primary school mathematics, with schools and teachers placing different emphases on each of the Outcomes in mathematics. The opportunity to modify our school's Year 8 program and to implement change in the high schools' feeder primary schools occurred with the second stage of the pilot program's Transition Phases 1 and 2, due for implementation in 2007. / Twelve teachers and 329 students from the high school and feeder primary schools became involved at the second state of the pilot program. All students were provided with a textbook, and teachers were free to choose how or when these books would be used with their students. Surveys were administered to teachers and students at the beginning of the year and end of the first semester. Tests were designed and administered throughout the study and comparisons were made with the student's WAMSE (Western Australian Monitoring Standards in Education) score. WALNA (Western Australian Literacy and Numeracy Assessment) and the Department of Education and the University of Western Australia's WAMSE scores were used to investigate changes in students' achievement and progress. Interviews with teachers and students were conducted to review the pilot program and investigate anomalies in students' results. The study found differences in students' Achievement and Progress based on WAMSE scores. Most teachers who adopted the program believed that it led to improved student learning and understanding of Number concepts in mathematics. All teachers at the high school and its feeder primary schools have continued to use the ICE-EM textbooks as part of their teaching and learning program. Increased uniformity among the primary schools was beneficial for the high school's Year 8 mathematics program. The results also indicated the need for caution when using State and National testing to report on student progress and achievement.

The culminating recommendations of the United States Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings’ 2006 Commission on the Future of Higher Education report demand greater access, affordability, quality and accountability in higher education. Student affairs, as well as their academic counterparts, must show that they function effectively and contribute to student learning and development. A promising program review process for student affairs to fulfill this expectation is found in the Education Criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and its state-level equivalent, the Texas Award for Performance Excellence in Education Criteria. The purpose of this study was to determine the usefulness of the Texas Award for Performance Excellence Education Criteria, Progress Level, as the basis for a comprehensive program review in two diverse student affairs departments. Additionally, the study was to determine the potential usefulness of the Criteria as a management strategy for senior leadership in each department to focus on assessment, planning, improvement and change. The descriptive case study was conducted using naturalistic inquiry methodology with two student affairs departments. The researcher spent nine months in the field as a participant observer. Methodology included observations of training and team leader meetings; interviews with participants, department directors, and the Office of the Vice President; document review of both self-study reports; and the researcher’s reflexive journal. Student affairs departments are particularly well-suited for the quality concept of serving customers and, in this case, students as their primary customer. The researcher concluded that the Texas Award for Performance Excellence in Education Criteria serve as a useful basis for a comprehensive program review and as a management strategy for senior leadership under the following conditions: The department must be a mature and functional unit. Student affairs staff need a foundation in quality principles, in general, and the core values, Criteria and language of the Texas Award for Performance Excellence in Education before embarking on the self-study process. The Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Category and the Planning Category provided the most introspection and action planning for both departments. The Process Category was the most challenging for both departments.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether Swedish dental clinics apply parts of Business Excellence models in their business operations and whether or not they are aware of doing so. The framework for this survey will be based on the success factors that we identify in the Swiss dental clinic Frenkenklinik AG, which is known to effectively apply theories behind Business Excellence. Background: An extensive range of research has been carried out regarding Business Excellence and its effect on manufacturing, service companies and even healthcare. Still, there is a lack of studies on how Business Excellence can change and improve the dental care sector. However, there is a clinic in Switzerland that has not only implemented Business Excellence, but done it so well as to win the prestigious EFQM Excellence Award. Therefore, we want to investigate what Frenkenklinik AG does, that makes them so successful and if dental clinics in Sweden are applying Business Excellence and if they are aware of the fact that what they do could be considered Business Excellence. Method: In order to answer the purpose of our thesis we had to employ a mixed method approach. We required a qualitative approach, in the form of semi-structured interviews, in order to find the factors that make Frenkenklinik AG so successful in their application of Business Excellence. After this, we used a quantitative method when surveying whether Swedish dental clinics employ activities that are part of a Business Excellence approach. Conclusion: In conclusion, we have identified five factors that have made Frenkenklinik successful at using Business Excellence. We then have found that Swedish dental clinics are certainly using parts of Business Excellence; however, they are not aware of actually having a Business Excellence approach. And lastly, we found recommendations for Swedish dental clinics to improve their journey towards Excellence.

Assessment centers, although useful for assessing behaviors and competencies associated with a targeted construct, can be low in economic utility. The current study sought to validate a situational judgment test (SJT) that was developed as an alternate form of assessment for a leadership development program. The first study examined the content validity of the SJT by performing retranslation on item stems and calibration of the item responses. The second study examined alternate forms reliability between the two forms of the leadership SJT that were developed. The third and final study evaluated the relationship between assessment center performance scores and SJT scores by demonstrating their convergent validities. Results from Study 1 demonstrated that the SALSA© test was a content valid measure of leadership ability. Results from Study 2 demonstrated that all available items from SALSA© could be used to make two forms of the test that demonstrate good alternate forms reliability. Finally, Study 3 suggests a moderate correlation between the assessment center and situational judgment test. Future research should focus on the underlying issues pertaining to significant group differences between English as primary language and English as second language students. Alternate developmental procedures, especially with alternate form assignment, should also be considered.