Call number: LD2668 .T4 1953 C3 / Master of Science

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1953 L53 / Master of Science

This research sampled a group of 261 nurse managers to test the relationships among organizational structural variables and the utilization of nursing practice innovations. Subjects completed instruments that measured organizational complexity, centralization, formalization and the utilization of nursing practice innovations. Pearson correlations revealed a significant positive relationship between utilization of nursing practice innovations and individual perception of autonomy in decision-making. Within organizational centralization the decision-making components of organizational centralization entered into a multiple regression equation which explained 27% of the variance in utilization of nursing practice innovations, with total decision-making contributing the greatest amount of variance. Organizational complexity variables entered into a multiple regression equation which explained 2% of the variance in utilization of nursing practice innovations with the certification variable explaining the majority of the variance. Five variables related to organizational centralization and complexity together explained 28% of the variance in utilization of nursing practice innovations with the total decision-making variable explaining the majority of the variance.

<p> This dissertation investigates the relationship between marital history and individuals&rsquo; retirement resources, namely Social Security, employer-sponsored pensions, and non-housing wealth. Prior research provides a foundation for understanding marriage&rsquo;s positive relationship to retirement security, and suggests that marriage is financially beneficial and can even lessen some external factors that would otherwise damage a family&rsquo;s financial situation. Yet changing demographics, with fewer people in first marriages and rising numbers of individuals experiencing divorce and choosing to remain unmarried, suggest our understanding of this relationship for today&rsquo;s retirees may be limited. The purpose of this research is to identify which aspects of complex marital histories are associated with individuals&rsquo; retirement security, paying particular attention to gender differences. Using data from nine waves of the Health and Retirement Study (1992-2008), four facets of marital history are examined: marriage type, frequency, timing, and duration. Currently married and currently unmarried respondents are separated during the analyses in order to adequately capture the association between previous marital events and retirement resources. The results indicate that marital history is associated with Social Security, employer-sponsored pensions, and non-housing wealth differently, and that these relationships vary by gender and current marital status. The findings provide support for the argument that marital history, and in particular marital duration, has a strong relationship to retirement resources. Contrary to expectations, currently married women with longer marriages have less Social Security and pension income than married women who experienced shorter marriages. Marital history has no relationship to the retirement security of married men. For the unmarried groups, never married men have the lowest odds of receiving an employer-sponsored pension and have less non-housing wealth than both divorce and widowed men. Unmarried women&rsquo;s retirement security is associated with the type of disruption experienced; women with multiple past marriages have more resources if they are currently widowed but less if they are currently divorced. Further study is needed to understand how and why complex marital history factors have a relationship to retirement finances, and to expand our knowledge about certain understudied populations such as remarried women and never married men.</p>

<p> By now scholars, practitioners, government officials and others in the global community have witnessed a number of countries and their populations going through extreme destruction and trying to rebuild in the aftermath. Country case studies are invaluable for their in-depth, continuous look at how a nation-state collective and the individuals who make up that collective recover, regroup, develop, but also remain very harmed for a long time. They must live among and beside their former enemies.</p><p> Studies of the resettlement of refugees in a third country offer a different view: there are varied populations arriving with different socio-cultural and economic histories and experiences, and different definitions of a normalcy to which they aspire. They are in a setting that is much different than what characterized their pre-war experiences, and they do not have to rebuild out of ashes in the place that they were born.</p><p> Refugees from various countries resettling in a third country have so much in common with each other from the experience of extreme violence and having to resettle in a foreign land that one key informant suggested that we think about a &ldquo;refugee ethnicity.&rdquo; Though they would not have wished for them, they have gained numerous new identification possibilities not available to those in the country of origin: U.S. citizen, hybrid, diaspora, cosmopolitan global citizen; refugee/former refugee survivors.</p><p> But the &ldquo;fit&rdquo; of these identities vary, because the receiving society may perceive individuals and families along a continuum of belonging vs. &ldquo;othering.&rdquo; In the post-9-11 era in the U.S., the &ldquo;belonging&rdquo; as a citizen and member of the imagined community of the nation that a refugee or former refugee is able to achieve may be precarious. Will refugees resettling turn out to be vectors of socio-political disease, infecting the new host? Or will they be vectors of development and agents of host revitalization as they realize adversity-activated development in a new environment?</p><p> The U.S. &ldquo;host environment&rdquo; has changed considerably since the modern era of resettlement began in the 1970s and then passed through the dramatic incidents of 9-11. The &ldquo;hosts&rdquo; have now also undergone an experience of extreme political violence. U.S. institutions are responding to the events and subsequent wars, and have themselves been changed as they adjust practices and policies in response to the trauma experienced by the people they are meant to serve.</p><p> Much is in play. The times beg for a better understanding of refugees&rsquo; social experiences of resettlement in a new country, the forms of suffering and marginalization they face, and the healing processes in which they engage. We need a far better understanding of what it takes to assist refugees as they work to re-constitute social networks, recover economically, find opportunity and meaning, pursue goals, and&mdash;with receiving communities--express solidarity across social dividing lines.</p><p> This dissertation calls out this problematic; and analyzes it at the multi-stakeholder site of refugee resettlement.</p>

Published Article / This paper intends to argue that there are two inherent challenges and dilemmas that may incapacitate rising calls to develop a distinguished cohort of researchers at universities, including CUT. Firstly, it seems the episteme knowledge-base in research of the current cohort of staff members does invite a look in askance as to its depth and breadth. Do we sufficiently exude competence to develop budding researchers of note? Secondly, and deducing from my informal interviews and discussions with B.Ed Honours students since 2006; we somewhat fall short as lecturers to model the quintessential research expertise necessary to develop the students' phronetic research experiences - the success of which would reconcile with their practical reality in their diverse teaching and learning situations and circumstances. How then do we build a research capacity that catapults us from this somewhat research doldrums in the School of Teacher Education at CUT to become a School of Teacher Education recognised nationally and internationally as a School of Teacher Education which is enveloped in the validity and reliability of generating quality research? This paper explores various "givens' and "intellectual needs." And, quite academically, may rumble about conceptual and perceptual impediments and hurdles which under-gird the laborious exercise of undertaking research; though fulfilling to academic autarkical pride when done excellently.

Published Article / This paper argues for a professional ethic in research and the contribution of theological ethics thereto. The author points out that although theological ethics is poor at dealing with issues related to professional ethics and its application to research, theological ethics can nevertheless make a fundamental contribution towards a professional ethic for research. It is also emphasised that although there is very limited (South African) literature on this topic, some theological ethics studies can contribute towards the understanding of such ethics. The author works with a triple helix approach to (theological) ethics. This approach to ethics is built upon the concept of responsible acts (Douma), making decisions (Fisher) and a growth ethic (Burggraeve). The article concludes with pointers for a professional ethic in research from a theological ethics perspective.

Published Article / In this article I argue for the acceptance of artistic outputs as equivalent or congruent to research outputs when these artistic outputs are generated by lecturers at tertiary institutions. Central to the argument is the implementation of critical peer-review mechanisms. I argue that, whereas in research outputs the justification and substantiation of the research takes the form of an article, thesis / dissertation or book, for example, and the further justification and substantiation is confirmed in the publication peer review, for artistic outputs the presentation of the article equivalent - the artwork - requires the justification and substantiation to be carried out by the peer-review process itself. The article then suggests how this might be carried out in practice.

In recent years, students have been excluded from school at consistently high rates, even as school crime rates have declined. Moreover, students of color are excluded at disproportionately high rates compared to their White peers. Although researchers have found these patterns across a variety of contexts, there has been little research that examines school-level mechanisms that may contribute to the high overall rates of exclusionary discipline and the attendant racial disparities. This dissertation focuses on two possible mechanisms that have been theoretically linked to increased rates of exclusionary discipline: school resource officers (SROs) and zero-tolerance approaches to discipline. Study 1 used 14 years of data from Tennessee high schools to model trends in suspension rates before and after the implementation of SROs using a latent growth curve modeling approach. The findings indicated that SRO implementation was associated with lower overall suspension rates and lower suspension rates for Black students, and no changes for White studentsâ suspension rates or racial disparities in suspension rates. Study 2 examined the relation between the combination of SROs and a high zero-tolerance approach and schoolsâ rates of exclusionary discipline using a nationally representative sample of public high schools. A series of three-way interaction models with an ordinary least squares regression framework indicated that schools that had SROs in combination with a high zero-tolerance approach to discipline had higher overall rates of exclusionary discipline in schools characterized by higher proportions of racial minority students and other indicators of disadvantage. Together, these studies suggest that SROs and zero-tolerance approaches to discipline may not be universally appropriate mechanisms for reducing rates of exclusionary discipline. Instead, school context is an important consideration when forming strategies to reduce student exclusions.

Peer multiple victimization (PMV) predicts a range of negative behavioral, psychosocial, and school-related sequela. The processes through which an adolescent who experiences PMV develops negative outcomes has received attention, but processes that mitigate the impact of these negative outcomes are largely unknown. A lack of school connectedness has been robust predictor of subsequent negative developmental outcomes, and has been demonstrated to be associated with victimization. However, competencies from the social and emotional learning framework have been linked with developing positive social connections for adolescents. This study uses a series of multilevel models to investigate whether PMV is associated with school connectedness, and whether social and emotional learning competencies affects this relation. Participants were 6,401 (47.3% Female; 36.2% White) 9th through 12th grade students from 15 schools across a large urban public school district in a southeastern state. Results suggest that PMV is associated with a lack of school connectedness and that although social and emotional competencies are particularly relevant for adolescents who experience PMV, they do not significantly buffer this relationship. Thus, adolescents who experience PMV may benefit from social and emotional competencies in spite of overwhelming evidence of associations with negative outcomes. Research, theoretical and applied implications for this vulnerable group are discussed.