Inadequate student-teacher interactions in undergraduate courses have been linked to poor student performance. Researchers have noted that students' perceptions of student-teacher relationships may be an important factor related to student performance. The administration of a Mid-Atlantic community college prioritized increasing undergraduate biology student performance. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between students' biology achievement and their perceptions of interpersonal teaching behaviors and student-teacher interactions in introductory biology courses. Leary's theory on interpersonal communication and the systems communication theory of Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson served as the theoretical foundation. The Wubbel's Likert-scale questionnaire on student-teacher interactions was administered to 318 undergraduate biology students. Non-parametric Spearman's rank correlations revealed a significant direct correlation between students' grades and their perceptions of teachers' interpersonal teaching behaviors. The relationship between student achievement and students' perceptions of student-teacher interactions prompted the recommendation for additional study on the importance of student-teacher interactions in undergraduate programs. A recommendation for local practice included faculty development on strategies for improving student-teacher interactions. The study's implications for positive social change include increased understanding for administrators and instructors on the importance of teacher-student interactions at the community college level.

This study focuses on an arts integration professional development approach for K-12 teachers that is collaborative, long-term, and sustainable. The question that drove this work is: What are the key elements in a professional development model for arts integration in a teacher/teaching artist partnership that best support growth in teacher efficacy and internalization of drama strategies? To answer this question, I modified an arts integration model that was long-term, used drama-based instruction in core subject areas, and involved the teacher in the execution of the lessons in addition to the teaching artist. The model for this project was implemented with two middle school math teachers, data was collected, results were analyzed and recommendations were developed. / text

Inactive lifestyles and poor eating habits are the main culprits of the present increase in childhood obesity, diabetes, heart problems, and cancer. In order to counterbalance this deterioration of children's health, it is imperative that children are educated about good nutritional practices. Unfortunately, parents are not always well-informed about nutrition themselves, leaving teachers to be the necessary link between children and good nutrition.This study investigates what teachers understand about nutrition concepts, as this knowledge would be the necessary precursor to aiding students toward better health. Due to the limited research on nutrition education in the elementary classroom, this study was preceded by three pilot studies that lent themselves to the advancement of the researcher's understanding of nutrition and its place in the elementary school setting. Initially three preservice teachers were interviewed in order to examine the preparation of elementary teachers for teaching nutrition.In order to assess what teachers understand about nutrition it was necessary to create an instrument that would assess teachers' nutritional knowledge. Through several trials a nutrition content survey was created and modified. The final version was administered to three hundred and seventeen teachers. While creating the nutrition content survey, the researcher also compiled a proposed list for the "big ideas" in nutrition. These statements describe the nutritional concepts that elementary students should understand. The "big ideas" were used to create lesson plans that were taught to forty-four fifth graders. These students provided insight into the content of the lessons through pre-post assessments and gave interest feedback using anonymous questionnaires.While the nature of this study was exploratory and descriptive in nature, its quantitative and qualitative data provided insight into teachers' understanding of nutritional concepts. Along with these findings were some preliminary examinations into how preservice teachers are prepared for teaching nutrition, what elementary age students understand about nutrition and what interests them, and how teachers feel about teaching nutrition. This study provides many possible avenues for future research in the area of nutrition education.

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The author’s previous research into the learning experiences of mature, workingclass students undertaking a professionally endorsed qualification in Community Education, was overly negative in its view of the students whilst underplaying the role of curriculum in their learning. Reinterpreting their undergraduate experience more positively leads to thinking about how their educational needs could be reconciled with the programme’s aim to produce critically competent graduates. Four principles derived from the Habermasian concept of communicative action can inform thinking about an appropriate pedagogical approach. The first directs attention to the acts of reciprocity that underpin learning. The second focuses attention on how knowledge can be constructed through redeeming claims. The third signals the necessity of safeguarding participation and protecting rationality in argumentation, and the fourth points to the idea of competence as a constructive achievement. Taken together, the four principles express the ideal of a discursive pedagogy in which teachers and students socially construct knowledge appropriate to the subject area. Because it involves active participation based on a commitment to open communication and argumentative reasoning, approximating the ideal conditions of a discursive pedagogy could address the student’s learning needs whilst meeting the programme’s aim. Anticipating and considering the likely issues and challenges involved in attempts to realise these idealised conditions suggests ways in which a discursive pedagogy could be given practical form.

This study explores an EFL practitioner’s teaching life story, with a focus on the development of personal and professional identities, and on the rationale for teaching principles and practices within a Japanese socio-educational context. The study is grounded firmly in the belief that “in understanding something so intensely personal as teaching, it is critical we know about the person the teacher is” (Goodson, 1992, p. 234). As a single participant study this thesis places particular emphasis on the importance of subjective and interpretive insights and understandings as opposed to the generalizability and objectivity of knowledge claims embodied in more traditional approaches to research in the field of TESOL. To elicit the participant’s teaching life story I used a taped monologue technique, whereby the speaker, without the presence of an interviewer, is in complete control of topic selection and has the freedom to determine the temporal and sequential course of their narrative. The resulting two-hour monologue is the primary data for the study, and working within a narrative research framework I analyzed the story for critical incidents and teaching perspectives that can be interpreted as having informed the participant’s practicing professional identity, which can be defined as a set of values, principles and practices which guide an individual’s present teaching philosophy and future directions. Through the lens of the Japanese socio-educational context I focus on the unifying themes of teacher development and education, critical cultural knowledge, humanism, and second language (L2) only classroom policy. Furthermore, I explore the narrative thread that runs through the participant’s story, connecting past and present experiences with future teaching life directions and goals as the narrator takes the opportunity to articulate the rationale behind her main principles and practices, and in so doing underscores her practicing professional identity in a way that demonstrates a strong sense of the narrator’s purpose, values, efficacy and self-worth. As such, this process engages the narrator not only in a meaningful and coherent narrative account of professional development, but also in the process itself of professional development as it demonstrates potentialities for self-revelation, affirmation, and even transformation. This thesis offers a distinctive contribution to the field of TESOL educational research in three particular ways. First, in exploring the sources of a teacher’s beliefs and practicing professional identity, it offers an exemplar of how to undertake interpretive research as reflective practice and professional development. Secondly, it widens our understanding of conducting single participant case studies in TESOL education. This thesis also points the way forward to possible research using an innovative taped monologue technique with other individual teacher case studies that can then contribute to building a body of knowledge in the field.

This study brings together many of the concerns elaborated by other educational researchers: teachers’ voice, teachers’ professional identities, teachers’ lives and work, and teaching professionalism in research in dance education. It aims to study the life stories of school teachers who were initially trained to be dance performers. Using a biographical approach, the life stories of nine Taiwanese secondary school teachers are collected to investigate the influences of their previous experiences, such as dance learning experience, initial teacher training experience, teacher role models, significant people and critical moments, in relation to their notions of professional identity. As this research is based on teachers’ accounts, it brings together nine individual life stories and allows us to compare the existing literature to contribute to educational research and research in dance education in a number of ways. First, the study takes a particular methodological approach, the narrative approach, to conduct a small scale study in a new area, research in dance education. Second, this study carries out empirical work, exploring the professional identity of dance specialist teachers, something not done before. Third, this study applies the existing knowledge from educational research to research in dance in education. Fourth, this study applies an already well-known theory, Wenger’s theories of identity in communities of practice and boundary encounters, but with a new interpretation to investigate the process of identity conceptualization. Fifth, this study tests an old issue – teachers’ professional identity – by exploring teachers’ notions of self that draw upon their previous experiences. Previous relevant studies, however, have been in a Western context; this study is within a Taiwanese context. The complexity of dance in education in the Taiwanese curriculum is highlighted, and the findings offer a picture of a developing sense of dance-trained teachers’ artist-self and teacher-self, and details of the different degrees of influences of previous experiences to the identity conceptualization. Importantly, the connections between the conceptions of the professional identity teachers have and their concepts of the teaching profession are explored. In particular, their voices on professional development are shown throughout the changes to their personal concepts of teacher professionalism, which leads to an argument for professional sharing as a key to supporting teachers in the profession.

This thesis explores how I have taken steps to improve my practice of leadership as a Chief Executive within a Third Sector Drug and Alcohol Support Service and to build professional identities for volunteers in the service. I studied how volunteers’ identities changed from that of ‘Volunteer’ to ‘Advisor’ and what I learned about myself as a leader. I noted the value of studying my own reflections as a leader and how change became embedded throughout the organisation as a consequence. As a result of this process, I developed a mnemonic that I consider to encapsulate key aspects of leadership. This is entitled ‘CAVEAT’ and identifies competency, visibility, empowerment and a therapeutic orientation as important qualities of a leader in positions like my own. The study is informed by in-depth focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews, personal reflections, questionnaires and surveys. It provides recommendations for Chief Executives of Third Sector organisations involved in leadership and the professional identity-building of a volunteer workforce in an era of outcome-based commissioning.

Introducción: El desempleo médico preocupa a los estudiantes sobre su futuro profesional y plantea la intención de emigrar. Las diferencias de los niveles de expectativas profesionales e intención de emigrar entre estudiantes de medicina de diferentes años no se ha establecido previamente. Objetivos: Establecer si existen diferencias en los niveles de expectativas profesionales e intención de emigrar entre estudiantes de primero, segundo y sétimo año de la UNMSM, 2015. Diseño: Observacional y transversal Lugar: Facultad de Medicina de la UNMSM. Participantes: Estudiantes de la Facultad de Medicina, UNMSM, que cursaron primero, segundo y sétimo año en el 2014. Intervenciones: Se aplicó una encuesta validada por el presente estudio, en febrero del 2015, previo consentimiento informado. Se compararon los tres grupos de años académicos y luego los dos grupos: primero y segundo año respecto al sétimo año con el coeficiente gamma (p=0.05). Principales medidas de resultados: Niveles de expectativas profesionales e intención de emigrar. Resultados: Hubo asociación negativa en: deseo de tener más de una especialización (p=0.005, p=0.007), deseo tener especialización en el extranjero (p=0.001, p< 0.001) y tengo en planes: ejercer la profesión en el extranjero (p=0.001, p< 0.001), así como intención de emigrar (entre los tres y dos grupos, respectivamente. Hubo asociación positiva en: anhelo un salario mayor de 6000 soles luego de egresar de la carrera de medicina (p < 0.001), tendré mi propio consultorio (p=0.023), tendré dos trabajos al mismo tiempo relacionados a mi carrera (p=0.010), y seré docente relacionado a mi profesión (p < 0.001), entre los tres grupos, así como, en: anhelo un salario mayor de 6000 soles luego egresar de la carrera de medicina (p< 0.001), trabajaré para el seguro social (p=0.047), seré docente relacionado a mi profesión (p< 0.001) entre los dos grupos. Conclusiones: Los niveles de las expectativas profesionales: deseo de tener más de una especialización, deseo tener especialización en el extranjero, tengo en planes: ejercer la profesión en el extranjero, anhelo un salario mayor de 6000 soles luego de egresar de la carrera de medicina, tendré mi propio consultorio, tendré dos trabajos al mismo tiempo relacionados a mi carrera, seré docente relacionado a mi profesión y trabajaré para el seguro social así como intención de emigrar son diferentes entre estudiantes de primero, segundo y sétimo año de medicina.

There are in excess of one million people across the UK people living with atrial fibrillation (AF), a long term condition that can lead to stroke and other complications, costing the NHS over £2,200 million per year. However little is known about the experience of living with AF and what patients' perceptions are of the support they receive from health professionals. In order to ensure that patients have the best possible experience of care, healthcare professionals need to have an understanding of how patients view their condition and the type of support they would like to receive from the professionals involved in their care. Although there has been a significant amount of work investigating social support for people with health conditions, there has been little work exploring support provided by healthcare professionals, defined in this study as professional support. This study aimed to investigate and assess the professional support needs of people with AF to develop knowledge and understanding in this field. A theoretical framework for professional support was developed based on the tri-dimensional model of social support and was used to direct the research. Using an exploratory sequential design, a two phase mixed methods study was undertaken. Initially, qualitative interviews were undertaken with patients recruited from outpatient arrhythmia clinics at one National Health Service (NHS) hospital and identified from the perspective of the patient how, when and where healthcare professionals did/did not provide support. Key components of emotional, informational and tangible professional support were identified from thematic analysis of the interview data and used to inform the development of a quantitative questionnaire. Physical activity, exercise and the impact of AF on activity levels were identified by participants as important and so were also included. The quantitative online questionnaire was completed by patient members of the Atrial Fibrillation Association (AFA). To examine relationships between variables, statistical analyses were performed using Fisher's exact test and indicated that people with AF had a range of emotional, informational and tangible professional support needs. Different subgroups of people with AF had different professional support needs: People with more severe symptoms needed more emotional support as well as more tangible support and people with paroxysmal AF needed more informational support. People undergoing ablation as treatment for their AF had specific informational and emotional needs for support. AF played a significant part in the lives of people with AF by modifying activities of daily living and shaping physical activity behaviour and choice of activities. People with AF therefore needed professional support in maintaining and/or increasing their levels of activity. Considering the specificity of professional support, GPs, cardiologists and arrhythmia nurse specialists were identified as most supportive, with GPs and cardiologists also considered as the least helpful at providing support, indicating a variation in professional support. The findings from this study contribute to the limited body of knowledge describing the experience of living with AF and provide healthcare professionals with a unique understanding of how best to provide professional support. The tri-dimensional model provides detailed knowledge of the components of informational, emotional and tangible support that people with AF would like to receive from the healthcare professionals involved in their care. The findings indicate there are differing support needs for different subsets of people with AF demonstrating a need for individualised professional support. The theoretical framework for professional support used in this study provides a model that could be used in future research studies to identify the types of professional support required by patients and to identify subgroups of patients who may require additional professional support. By accurately identifying the needs of patients, this will ensure that healthcare professionals are able to deliver effective patient centred services, leading to an improved patient experience and the delivery of high quality patient care.