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This thesis analyzes three American housekeeping books—Lydia Maria Child's The American Frugal Housewife, Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe's The American Woman's Home, and Helen Campbell Stuart's The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking—as historical examples of technical writing. The study follows current recommendations for historical research in the field, namely, to analyze technical writing texts in consideration of their historical context. This involves determining what constituted technical writing in the nineteenth century; considering the publishing context of the study; and applying this definition to analyze three housekeeping books as technical manuals. These texts exemplify technical writing based on their functional purpose, to help readers perform work. Additionally, they incorporate verbal and visual rhetorical strategies distinctive of technical writing. Since the majority of women in the nineteenth century worked in their homes, these books served as their workplace manuals.

The current study examined the impact that professional development has on teaching history. A total of nine middle school and high school teachers, with varying degrees of teaching experience and content backgrounds, participated in the study. Through an artifact analysis, field notes, interviews, dilemma analysis, and lesson plans, the study asks two questions: (1) What characterizes the approaches to professional development at one cultural institution, and how do teachers respond to that professional development? (2) To what extent and in what ways does the professional development impact teachers’ approaches to teaching history? Findings suggested that there was almost no impact from the professional development on their teaching. For example, only two of the teachers showed the potential to be influenced by the professional development. Additional findings suggested that the professional development almost exclusively adopted the exposition-recital approach and teachers saw the professional development as a source of content knowledge and not teaching. In examining the impact that the professional development has on teaching history, these findings have implications for the developers of professional development, for teachers and teaching, and for future research on the influence that professional development can have on teaching. / Literacy & Learners

The American education system must utilize collaboration to meet the challenges and demands our culture poses for schools. Deeply rooted processes and structures favor teaching and learning in isolation and hinder the shift to a more collaborative paradigm. Professional learning communities (PLCs) support continuous teacher learning, improved efficacy, and program implementation. The PLC provides the framework for the development and enhancement of teacher collaboration and teacher collaboration develops and sustains the PLC. The interpersonal factors that influence collaboration make it difficult to implement and preclude the use of any systematic directions to develop a PLC successfully. However, research has identified emerging strategies that could guide the development of collaborative cultures for school improvement. The researcher designed this case study to describe collaboration in the PLC of an elementary school. The study focuses on collaborative behaviors, perceptions, influences, barriers, and strategies present in the school. The researcher utilized the Professional Learning Community Organizer (Hipp & Huffman, 2010) in the analysis of the data. Hipp, Huffman and others continued the research started by Hord (1990) and identified PLC dimensions and behaviors associated with those dimensions. The PLCO included behaviors aligned with the initiating, implementing, and sustaining phases of each dimension of a PLC. Structure and process, trust and accountability, and empowerment emerged as important themes in the observed PLC. The sequential path to teacher empowerment began with the development of structure and process. Teachers developed trust in each other by demonstrating accountability required by those structures and processes. Trust provided opportunities for risk taking and leadership to emerge. The teachers and administrators demonstrated their commitment to the vision and worked collaboratively for the learning success of all students. The data provided evidence of administrators and teachers making decisions to solve problems and improve instruction based on the vision. The PLC of the elementary school observed demonstrated development at the implementing and sustaining levels. The teachers and administrators worked collaboratively over time to improve teacher practice resulting in improved student learning. The opportunity to utilize the PLC for continuous growth by challenging the new norms and embracing risk taking remains. / Ed. D.

Experts have suggested that the primary purposes of teacher evaluation systems are to promote the professional development of teachers and to provide information on their strengths and weaknesses so that appropriate training might be planned. It is important for teachers to have ownership in such planning and to be provided options for their professional development. The primary focus of this study is a professional growth plan which includes options that are designed to provide opportunities for teachers' continuous growth; assist teachers with instructional planning; empower teachers to be responsible for analyzing their performance; and empower teachers to facilitate learning for themselves. The purpose of this study is to examine the differences in the views of teachers under the four different options of the Henrico County Professional Growth Plan (structured, individual, collegial, and peer observation). A survey was the primary instrument for data collection. The sample for this study consisted of 58 schools (39 elementary schools, 9 middle schools, and 10 high schools). For each of the primary options, a proportionate sample of teachers was drawn from each level, i.e., elementary (kindergarten through grade five), middle (grades six through eight), and secondary (grades nine through twelve), with the sample proportion being equal to the proportion of the total group. From this group, teachers were randomly selected for participation. The actual sample consisted of 574 teachers who returned the completed survey instrument used in the analyses. This number represented a response rate of 80.6 percent. Major findings revealed that teachers on the collegial and structured growth options indicated the greatest satisfaction with regard to continuous growth. With regard to instructional planning, an important factor to be considered in the professional development of teachers, elementary teachers who participated in the collegial option indicated the greatest satisfaction. Specific staff development activities offered by the school division were viewed as creating the greatest satisfaction among the many professional growth factors examined. These factors, developed through exploratory factor analysis process, included satisfaction with opportunities for growth in instructional planning, the role of and interaction with the principal, commitment to the profession, increase in knowledge base, peer support and interaction, and educational conferences. Other findings indicated that teachers valued the advice from and work with their peers and principal as a form of professional development more than other factors. Teachers who participated in the collegial and structured options, in particular, responded positively in this regard. On the whole, elementary teachers expressed higher satisfaction with professional development activities as related to their professional growth plans than did middle or high school teachers, regardless of the plan option with which they were associated. Although a major objective of the professional growth plan was to empower teachers to facilitate their own learning, teachers indicated less satisfaction with this factor than with other factors examined. Teachers, in general, did indicate that they were empowered to analyze their own performance, with teachers participating in the structured option indicating the greatest satisfaction with opportunities to analyze their performance. / Ed. D.

The purpose of this study was to investigate assistant principals', teachers', and principals' perceptions of their schools as professional learning communities. The researcher examined how assistant principals, teachers, and principals viewed their schools as characterized by each of the five dimensions of professional learning communities: (a) shared leadership, (b) a shared vision, (c) collective learning and its application, (d) shared personal practice, and (e) supportive conditions. Each of the schools selected for this study was in the 5th year of implementation of an intensive school improvement process aimed at enhancing, sustaining, and improving student learning. A comparative case study design was employed to investigate differences in the perceptions of assistant principals, teachers, and principals in the schools. The units of analysis for this study included one high school and its feeder middle school in the Commonwealth of Virginia that served as demonstration sites for a federally funded grant addressing literacy improvement for all students. The School Professional Staff as Learning Community Questionnaire (SPSLCQ) (Hord, 1996) was used to collect quantitative data; subsamples of administrators and teachers at each school were interviewed to add qualitative data to the study. A composite model gleaned from the literature on professional learning communities served as the conceptual framework for this study and consisted of five interrelated dimensions of professional learning communities: (a) shared and supportive leadership, (b) shared values and vision, (c) collective learning and its application, (d) shared personal practice, and (e) supportive conditions. Assistant principals, teachers, and principals were asked to describe their world, their work, and their experiences in their schools to create a picture of the schools as professional learning communities. Findings from the two sites are reported for each of the five dimensions of the professional learning community model. Findings for each of the five dimensions of the professional learning community model were analyzed and interpreted for each school as well as findings that compared the schools across each dimension. Conclusions are provided for each of the five dimensions of the professional learning community model. Recommendations for practice and future research are presented for each of the conclusions. / Ed. D.

There is considerable concern regarding the adequacy of rural health services in New Zealand, with much attention having been paid to issues of recruitment and retention of rural general practitioners. Rhetoric of 'crisis' is often utilised to raise political awareness of the problematic, but in fact, rural general practitioner recruitment and retention has been documented for about a hundred years. For about the same length of time nurses have been providing primary health care services in rural and remote places, often working alone. Using the notion of nurses as a 'stop-gap' in the provision of rural primary health care until problems with recruitment and retention of rural general practitioners are addressed, is a rhetorical device that facilitates the under analysis of the role nurses play and the contribution that they make. The longstanding practice of rural primary care nursing in its various guises over the last century challenges the notion of nursing as a stop-gap.Any investigation of health care in the contemporary moment needs to take account of the influence of biomedical dominance, an increasingly litigious mentality in relation to health care, a shifting focus towards primary rather than secondary health care, and the positioning and re-positioning of health professionals within the neo-liberal state. The very existence of nurses working as the first point of contact in the health care system, with success over time in so far as they do not provoke undue litigation, and appear to deliver an appropriate service must raise questions about who can claim the right to be a primary health care provider. Based on qualitative research conducted in New Zealand and the Western Isles with rural primary care nurses and Family Health Nurses respectively, this thesis explores the ways that nurses construct flexible generalist professional identities that challenge traditional inter and intra-professional boundaries. In the New Zealand case, rural primary care nurses negotiate the boundaries between nursing and medicine, those within nursing itself, and also those between nursing a paramedic work. Nurses perform this boundary work by negotiating self-governing 'appropriate' and 'safe' professional identities. In the Western Isles case, the introduction of the newly developed role of Family Health Nurse serves to highlight the problematic nature of inserting an ostensibly generalist nursing role beyond the rural.

The main purpose of this thesis is to deepen the current understanding of how the teacher self is constructed. Specifically, the study intends to integrate into this understanding the way in which language personal, professional, and student teacher identities inform this process. A special emphasis is placed on the role that language teachers’ life histories play on the construction of teacher selves. Narrative research constitutes the research design for this thesis project since I strongly believe that selves are narratively constructed through stories. This study is focused on the storied self (Chase, 2005) that is co-constructed between the researcher and narrator that reveals how personal, professional, and student teacher identities resist and interact with discursive environments in order to create and recreate a language teacher’s self. Life histories constitute the source of data collection in this study. This facilitated the construction of a broader understanding of how six language teachers’ personal, professional, and student teacher identities are shaped throughout a lifetime and the way these impact the formation of the teacher self. The results suggest that language teachers’ selves are in close relation to emotions. Language teachers negotiate their identities and emotions in order to make sense of the different sets of values that the social context presents to them. This in turn leads them to create/recreate their own teacher selves that serve as sources of agency that generates new sets of social/moral rules or stagnation that leads to the preservation of the current status quo. The thesis concludes by providing a series of suggestions tailored to the needs of the teaching context where this research took place with the purpose of fostering a continuous engagement with individual actors and socio-cultural factors that motivate transformation through reflection.

The focus of this study was perceptions of professional school counselors' (PSC) graduate preparation in their roles as school counselors. The relationships examined were PSCs' roles and the number of hours completed in the school counselors' graduate programs, PSCs' roles and the level of their professional identity, and PSCs' roles and the number of school counseling specialty courses completed in their school counseling graduate programs. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 2005) and the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2001) have established standards for school counselors to master in their programs. These standards were used to develop the 30 roles identified in this study. Graduate programs referred to the number of hours PSCs completed in their graduate school counseling programs. Professional identity was defined as the certifications and licensures, the memberships in professional organizations, and the number of professional conferences and workshops PSCs attend. Specialty courses included school counseling courses taken by PSCs in their school counseling graduate programs. PSCs perceived themselves to be somewhat prepared in their overall preparation in their roles as school counselors. Results of the correlations between PSCs' perceptions of their preparation in their roles and the number of hours completed in the school counseling graduate programs, the professional identity of PSCs, and the number of specialty coursed completed were statistically significant but not practically significant. PSCs perceived themselves to need additional preparation in serving students with learning differences, seeking funding sources, and using technology. The factor analysis supported the construct validity of the survey instrument. It validated the roles of PSCs as outlined by ASCA standards (2005) and CACREP standards (2001). The factors included (a) Factor 1, Tasks/Advocacy/Professional Identity, (b) Factor II, Personal/Social/Career, (c) Factor III, Academics, and (d) Factor IV, Cultural/Legal/Ethical Issues. In conclusion, PSCs need additional training in student learning differences, seeking funding sources for school counseling programs, and on-going training in technology. PSCs want the term "educator" to be included in their description of their professional identity. PSCs also want additional specialty courses added to their curricula. They believe that the focus should be on the specialty of school counseling rather than a mental health focus.

Magister Scientiae (Occupational Therapy) - MSc(OT) / Professional socialisation is a key dimension within the professional development of an occupational therapy practitioner. Professional socialisation in the first year of practice involves a process of change within the individual with regards to knowledge, skills and reasoning. The process further involves the novice’s developmental induction into the culture of the profession and into the practice context. Novice practitioners who are not appropriately supported in their professional socialisation process may become demoralised as practitioners. It is necessary to explore professional socialisation from the perspectives of novice occupational therapy practitioners themselves, in order to generate an understanding of how professional socialisation can be supported in the first year of practice. This is of vital importance otherwise the profession may run the risk of attrition. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore and describe novice occupational therapists’ perceptions and experiences regarding professional socialisation during the first year of practice. A qualitative research approach and exploratory descriptive research design was utilised in the public health system in South Africa. Purposive sampling was utilised to select nine participants for the study. Data collection methods included two semi-structured interviews and a dyad interview discussion which were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed through thematic data analysis. The strategies of member checking, peer review, reflexivity, and an audit trail ensured trustworthiness of the study. Ethics clearance was obtained from the UWC Research Committee. Three themes originated from the findings of this study. The first theme, stepping into the unknown, illustrates a dissonance between the participants’ expectations for practice and the actual realities of practice that they encountered. The second theme, uncovering the occupational therapy culture, highlights power dynamics and inconsistencies within the profession as perceived by the participants. The third theme, becoming a professional, highlights how the participants responded to the challenge of transitioning from student to professional and started to internalise their professional identity. Recommendations to support the professional socialisation of novice therapists in the South African context are made in respect of occupational therapy education, continued professional development, support for novice therapists, transformation in the profession and future research.