Academic integrity, while important for all students, is especially so for those enrolled in nursing programs. Nurses are entrusted by the public to care for those in need from birth through death. A nursing student who graduates through dishonest means jeopardizes the safety of patients in their care. Nursing faculty need to understand the scope of academic integrity violations and develop meaningful, targeted interventions to show students the harm their actions could cause. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore undergraduate nursing students’ knowledge and perceptions of academic integrity and to specifically look at their willingness to report peer violations. This dissertation study was a collaborative effort among three doctoral students. Using a research team-modified version of McCabe’s Academic Integrity Survey as well as a research team-created Knowledge Assessment, 442 nursing students were surveyed. Results confirm a hesitation to report peers for violations of academic integrity. Students’ ability to neutralize their behaviors as harmless, their desire to remain loyal to their peers, and age act as positive predictive variables for willingness to report peer violations. Additionally, participants’ perceptions of the severity of various offenses and their perceptions of their faculty’s support for academic integrity policies are positively correlated with willingness to report peer violations. Program improvement strategies, such as implementing an honor code, were supported by participants and may help foster a culture of academic integrity that promotes peer reporting. Lastly, a targeted intervention designed for nursing students to promote academic integrity and peer reporting is explored.

This was an exploratory case study which focused on international students' experiences in higher education. In particular, this study investigated the efficacy of uncertainty reduction theory in communication classrooms. The research asked four exploratory questions: (a) What are the students’ perceptions of the teacher/student relationship? (b) Do international students experience uncertainty in communication classrooms? (c) If uncertainty is experienced, what is its source(s)? (d) If uncertainty is experienced, do students seek to reduce it, and if so, how? A phenomenological perspective was utilized in this study as the organizing, theoretical framework. Relevant literature on uncertainty reduction theory was reviewed as well as literature specific to international education, the communication classroom, the role of the teacher, and teacher self-disclosure. Focus group interviews, individual interviews, and member checks were conducted with international students who had taken communication classes at Portland State University in the 1998-1999 academic year. Using a set of analytic measures, 21 initial categories were identified and subsequently collapsed into 4 key categories: international education, teacher/student relationship, uncertainty in the communication classroom, and approaches to managing uncertainty. Based on analyses of the data, this study revealed findings significant to understandings of both international education and uncertainty reduction theory. First, a model of classes within international education was derived from the data and served to deepen understandings of international education, in particular the international students’ perceptions of classes across countries. Second, this research tested the extant claims of uncertainty reduction theory and raised questions regarding its conceptualization. The data revealed that the students' definitions of uncertainty and uncertainty reduction differed from those previously postulated, resulting in the formulation of new definitions. Also, context was found to strongly influence students' experiences of uncertainty; the context of the classroom not only determined the sources of uncertainty, but also influenced how uncertainties were coped with when they were not reduced. These alternative understandings of uncertainty reduction theory are significant as they could aid in further research that explores the theory’s extant claims.

This study explores adult returning students' mathematical experience and ways of thinking prior to enrolling in a community college arithmetic review course. It further examines one student's experience of the course. The first part of the study documents everyday activities adult students perceive as mathematical using Bishop's pan-cultural mathematical activities (Bishop, 1994), and queries students' prior experience with mathematics in school. The second part examines students' ways of thinking about proportion prior to instruction, using a framework developed from previous research (e.g., Lamon, 1993). The third part of the study examines the interaction between informal ways of thinking about mathematics that adult students bring to school and the mathematics they encounter in the classroom. Findings include: (1) Adult students view a variety of activities from their everyday lives as mathematical, (2) adult students' reasoning about proportional situations varies along a developmental trajectory described in previous research on proportional reasoning conducted with younger students, and (3) one student's experience in the arithmetic review course illustrates that she typically suppressed contextual ways of reasoning about problems she brought to the course and, when she did share prior experience, it was not leveraged to support the development of her and other students' mathematical understanding. These findings suggest that adult students' experience of everyday mathematics and ways of thinking about proportion should be the foundation that support students as they build upon informal ways of thinking toward the more formal ways of reasoning expected in school.

Sixty first year students in the Portland State University School of Social Work were given the Baker--Schulberg Community Mental Health Ideology Scale. The resultant scores are reported for Community Mental Health Training Project (CMHTP) Students, Direct Service Students and Planning Students. The Scores are compared with each other and with the original norming groups for the instrument. CMHTP students were found to have a significantly stronger adherence to the community mental health ideology than other students, but all groups examined were found to be sympathetic to the ideology.

This dissertation is an examination of influences that have contributed to the retention of a group of minority students attending a predominately white postsecondary institution. The focus of the study is on the students' perspectives and the meaning and personal interpretation students draw from influences that impinge upon them and from their interactions with the college experience. From a sociological perspective this view and emphasis on meaning is described as the sociology of everyday life. The component of the sociology of everyday life which directed the methodology is symbolic interactionism. The data collection instrument was a focused interview. Variables from the Metzner and Bean (1987) Conceptual Model of Nontraditional Student Attrition and Tinto (1987) Student Integration Model served as the starting point for the formation of the open-ended questions. The selected group of students were participants in a collaborative program between a school district, a community college, and a state university designed to encourage minorities to pursue careers in education. Twelve out of 25 qualified participants volunteered for the study. They represented a heterogeneous group of African-American, Hispanic-American, and Asian-American students. The data indicated that while the students had divergent family and educational experiences prior to entering the college, certain circumstances took place that were in many instances similar. The findings were multifaceted and represent institutional, environmental, and personal influences. Institutional influences included the encouragement of faculty and staff, introduction of college as a choice either early in their lives or when they were ready to make career changes, academic supports, ethnic and multicultural studies, a familiar site on campus to go for assistance, and the availability of supportive administrators and faculty. Environmental influences included familiarity with the lack of employment opportunities without a college degree, and experience in racially integrated environments. Personal influences included assistance with college expenses from a family member, awareness of the economic limitations without advanced training, and personal commitment and determination to persist. Supportive relationships within the context of the students' families, educational experiences and the broader society of which they were an integral part all played influential roles in the persistence of the students.

According to a front page editorial in the Wall Street Journal of January 27, 1976, the major barriers to employment of eight million disabled people are attitudinal. Understanding of attitudes - their sources, and their dynamics - must be achieved in order to progress toward a goal of acceptance of handicapped persons as full and equal partners in our society.

Reality dating shows like "The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette," "Average Joe," "For Love or Money" and "Joe Millionaire" have recently attracted a growing number of viewers in the United States. As these reality dating shows pry into the most intimate corners of the lives of ordinary people, they have many people questioning their impact on society. However, there has not been extensive research on this subject. The purpose of the study was to examine the extent that exposure to reality television dating shows have on the cultivation of attitudes and perceptions of interpersonal relationships among college students in the United States. Exposure to reality television dating shows as measured by days viewed in an average week was found to be correlated with the acceptance of dysfunctional relationship beliefs. However, the effect of exposure was found to depend on the amount of perceived realism with the effect stronger for those who evaluated the shows as realistic. These results are more supportive of cognitive-functional theory, rather than cultivation theory. No effects of exposure were found on acceptance of unrealistic relational beliefs.

Empathy is the foundation of caring in the nursing profession. It is critical to an effective patient-nurse relationship and impacts decision-making in nursing care. This study aimed to investigate the impact of virtual simulation on nursing students’ empathy and the relationships of empathy to their demographic characteristics. A randomized pretest and posttest control group design was employed in the study with 140 participants from twelve undergraduate nursing programs across Canada. A virtual simulation scenario was created by the author regarding a patient with substance overuse in an acute care setting. Standardized patients were employed to portray the virtual characters to enhance realism and immersive experience. The participants in the control group reviewed a text-based case study, which consisted of an identical storyline of the virtual simulation scenario, while those in the intervention group experienced the virtual simulation activity. The Kiersma-Chen Empathy Scale-Revised (KCES-R), Substance Abuse Attitude Survey (SAAS), and a demographic survey consisting of age, gender, personal, family, and learning experiences related to substance overuse, were used in the study. The results indicated empathy was significantly increased after the learning activities in both groups, but nonsignificantly different between the participants in the text-based case study and virtual simulation groups before and after the learning activities. Meanwhile, the participants’ attitudes toward substance overuse did not change significantly after their learning activities. All demographic characteristics were nonsignificantly correlated to the participants’ empathy as well. However, the participants’ empathy toward the patients with substance overuse was significantly associated with their attitude toward substance overuse. This study is one of the few studies that employed virtual simulation to promote nursing students’ empathy. Although the study did not demonstrate a significant difference between the text-based case study and virtual simulation groups after the learning activities, it supports that virtual simulation is effective for promoting empathy in nursing education as a text-based application. Future studies will be needed to explore different virtual simulation designs and to determine how individual characteristics influence the cognitive process of perspective-taking in promoting empathy.

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