Bullying is a serious problem that can interfere with children's developmental and learning processes but can be difficult to manage and diffuse. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine teachers' perceptions and experiences with managing student bullying in a middle school in central Georgia. Olweus's effective classroom management model served as the conceptual framework to guide this study. The research questions focused on teachers' perceptions of their current practices of diffusing bullying situations and their experiences with bullying occurrences. A case study design was used to capture the insights of 10 middle school teachers through interviews, and purposeful sampling was used to select the participants. The participants were middle school teachers with 1 or more years of teaching experience who have experienced student bullying. Emergent themes were identified through an open coding process, and the findings were developed and checked for trustworthiness through member checking, rich descriptions, and researcher reflexivity. The findings revealed that teachers manage student bulling in independent ways based on their own experiences, that teachers should identify and share a unified definition of bullying, and that teachers would benefit from professional development to help them better manage student behavior consistently within the school. This study may influence positive social change by providing teachers and administrators with crucial information needed to implement an organized, systematic approach to reduce student bullying occurrences and to provide students with a safe learning environment.

Many researchers have concluded that teachers' frustration with the lack of quality teacher professional development can be addressed by acknowledging teachers' voices and involving them in the planning and design of their professional development. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore 3rd through 5th grade elementary teachers' experiences with professional development in their schools or in their district in Southern California. Hargreaves and Fullan's concept of professional capital and Shulman's construct of knowledge growth in teaching provided the conceptual framework for this study. The research questions that framed the interview protocol for this study focused on teachers' experiences and ideas for professional development. Open coding of interviews with 8 teachers determined common words, phrases, or sentences and constant comparison determined emergent themes. Findings that emerged were that district professional development lacked continuity and was experienced as overwhelming, ineffective, inadequate, and often insufficient. Teachers perceived that their needs were seldom met and their involvement in the planning and design of professional development was limited. The elementary teachers desire reflective processing time to become masters of their craft, as well as active involvement in planning and designing their professional development. This study may contribute to positive social change by providing insight to professional development designers that teachers desire involvement in planning training with more engagement and higher levels of learning which can contribute to improved student outcomes. Collaboration such as that found in professional learning communities could accomplish this goal.

This descriptive study used preexisting student and parent surveys to examine cyberbullying in two rural middle schools. This study was guided by the social dominance theory, which says that individuals establish themselves in social hierarchies, and by the social-ecological framework theory, which suggests that behavior is influenced by many related systems. This study identified the rates of occurrence of methods used for cyberbullying, types of Internet access available, parental awareness, intervention, and resolution of cyberbullying issues. A simple random sample of 162 parents and 213 students completed the survey. Compared to national results, more local students (9.9%) admitted cyberbullying in the past 30 days, and more local survey students (14.1%) reported being cyberbullied in the past 30 days. For 9 of the 18 methods of cyberbullying examined, chi-square tests revealed that the local usage rates were significantly higher than national rates. Results from the parent survey suggested that parents were aware of the use of social media and that cyberbullying was taking place. Of those surveyed, 24% reported some knowledge of cyberbullying, and 75.6% of parents were concerned that their children could be cyberbullied. Results of this survey study helped in designing a project action plan to educate, to provide professional development for teachers, and to offer parent workshops to assist with preventing cyberbullying. Efforts to accomplish a positive social change may evolve after successful implementation of anti-cyberbullying programs in the middle schools.

Students who struggle with understanding the alphabetic principle often develop difficulties in reading. Play is known as a key element of early learning, but its perceived value among teachers and parents has declined over the years. This study investigated the relationship between parents' levels of agreement about the value of play and kindergarten students' levels of mastery of the alphabetic principle. The theoretical foundation included the views of Montessori and Piaget, who believed that a classroom with a play-based environment encourages independent thinking and learning. The study's research questions concerned the relationship between 53 parents' levels of agreement about the value of play in two categories, play support and academic focus, and their currently enrolled kindergarten students' Georgia Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills alphabetic mastery levels. The outcome of this study revealed that a majority of the parents supported play, but there was not a significant correlation between parents' levels of agreement about the value of play and kindergarten students' levels of mastery of the alphabetic principle. The findings of this study clarify the connection between parents' levels of agreement about the value of play and kindergarten students' levels of mastery of the alphabetic principle and suggest that lack of play opportunities may not be a factor in children's school success. Implications for positive social change derived from this study include general evidence of parents' support for play and the suggestion that a play-based kindergarten curriculum similar to that advocated by Piaget and Montessori might be supported by kindergarten parents.

The high school dropout rate in the United States has historically been and continues to remain a persistent concern. The dropout epidemic has primarily been studied through a quantitative lens focused on the final decision to dropout rather than the complex sequence of events that factor into the dropout decision. The purpose of this study was to explore the pull/push factors that influenced a student's decision to drop out of high school. In this qualitative study, attention was given to both understanding how students described their reasons for dropping out of school and identification of any factors that could have led them to remain in school and earn a diploma. The conceptual framework was based on pull/push factors related to students dropping out. Through a case study design, 10 participants, classified as dropouts by the selected research site, were interviewed about the influence of the push/pull factors of poverty, absence, and engagement in their decision to drop out of school. Data were analyzed through an iterative process wherein patterns were discerned appropriately. The findings support 4 central influences that serve as both pull and push factors in the decision to drop out: disinterest/disengagement, teacher connection, a sense of hopelessness, and an end to any desire to succeed in school. Furthermore, the findings support the development of school and district-wide identification and intervention programs that make relationships with students the foundation and guide educators and local policy makers in making decisions that support student success and increase the likelihood a student at risk for dropping out would remain in school and earn a high school diploma.

In post-conflict Liberia, more students are returning to schools and moving to urban areas resulting in overcrowding and class sizes that surpassed recommended and legally-sanctioned limits. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore educational stakeholders' perceptions of the factors (e.g., organizational leadership, social, and environmental) contributing to overcrowding and the challenges and opportunities of overcrowding. The conceptual framework was based on Bolman and Deal's theory of reframing organization and Bertalanffy's theory of general systems. The research questions centered on educational stakeholders' perceptions of the effects overcrowding has on elementary school students' achievement and the opportunities available for reducing overcrowding. Twelve participants, all stakeholders connected to a single school, were purposefully selected for the study. Data collected included individual interviews, a focus group discussion, and documents. A constant comparative analysis of the coded data was undertaken to identify themes and patterns. Participants stated that the national government's statutory and constitutional responsibilities obligate it to provide services including equitable education to its citizens. They also expressed willingness as community stakeholders to form partnerships with other private and public organizations to ensure that the issue of overcrowding is addressed. The findings may contribute to positive social change by providing evidence of stakeholders support for government initiated school construction and by informing leaders of the possible role that engaged stakeholders, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, can undertake in enforcing class size policy.

Since 2011, 45% of high school seniors have not been graduating from a rural central Georgia high school, with the majority of them failing U.S. History. As of 2013, only 32% of seniors in Georgia passed U.S. History, which is a core course. Although the local school board mandates that U.S. History teachers use Common Core Georgia Performance Standards to improve passing rates, the low proficiency rates for U.S. History suggest that a gap in practice exists, thus indicating the need for further research. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore U.S. History teachers' experiences with and perceptions of Georgia's Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the teaching of U.S. History. This study was guided by the Biggs model of constructive alignment, which advocates that there should be coherence among assessments, teaching strategies, and intended learning outcomes in an educational program. Four U.S. History teachers were conveniently sampled and served as participants. Individual, in-depth interviews were conducted, and the interview data were transcribed, open coded, and thematically analyzed. The findings, which are limited to this study site, revealed that the teachers perceived a misalignment between their curriculum, instruction, and assessments and the CCSS. This research promotes positive social change for the local site by providing data to assist in the restructuring of the U.S. History curriculum, assessments, and instructional practices for proper alignment with Georgia's CCSS. It is expected that when there is proper curriculum alignment, teacher training, and an aligned assessment system, student performance in U.S. History will improve and the graduation rate in Georgia's high schools will increase.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an empirically based psychological intervention established as effective in the treatment of a number of clinical problems. ACT has been utilized with parents in a variety of contexts, thus creating a need to assess ACT-pertinent factors within parenting frameworks. However, a psychometrically sound measure designed to assess parental psychological flexibility is currently unavailable. The present study sought to develop a reliable and valid measure that is for use with parents rooted in the six primary processes theorized to contribute to psychological flexibility. One hundred eighty-two participants were recruited from a public elementary school located in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah. Findings from the project yielded an overall internal consistency value of .84 and an average of .73 among ACT processes measured by the Parental Acceptance Questionnaire (6-PAQ). Results of the confirmatory factor analysis using items included in the final version of the 6-PAQ instrument suggested an exceptional overall fit: CFI = .97, TLI = .96, RMSEA = .06 (90% confidence interval = .05-.08), and WRMR = 0.86. Taken together, these results provide preliminary support for the 6-PAQ as an effective measurement tool to assess parental psychological flexibility. Empirical and clinical implications of results as well as limitations and future directions are discussed.

Delay discounting is the process by which delayed outcomes lose value. Different types of delayed outcomes (e.g., food and money) lose value to different degrees. Higher degrees of delay discounting are related to a wide variety of psychosocial maladies. Chapter I provides context for the studies described in Chapters II-IV. Specifically, cigarette smokers routinely discount delayed money to a greater degree than nonsmokers. Chapters II and III explore the generality of the relation between cigarette smoking and delay discounting by examining how different types of delayed outcomes are discounted. The data presented in these chapters indicate that smokers show a pervasive tendency to steeply discount various types of outcomes when compared to nonsmokers. Across both smokers and nonsmokers, the degree to which a person discounts one delayed outcome is correlated with how they will discount other outcomes. The additive utility model is a recently proposed model of delay discounting that provides potential mechanisms of delay discounting to explain the findings of Chapters II and III. Chapter IV describes the results of empirical test of the additive utility model as it relates to qualitatively different delayed outcomes. In this study, the additive utility model described delay discounting data as well as a more standard model of delay discounting, the hyperbolic model. This study provides tentative support for the additive utility model of delay discounting as an explanatory model. Finally, Chapter V provides a summary of all three studies.

Department of Social Work School of Human and Community Development Faculty of Humanities University of Witwatersrand In partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree MA (Occupational Social Work) February, 2016 / Supervision in the social work profession is fundamental to training, as it helps social workers to develop theirprofessional capabilities and improves their skills and knowledge of rendering quality services to clients. Lack of supervision for newly qualified social workers may compromise the quality of services received by clients.Effective supervision is associated with good quality service to clients, increased professional development and greaterjob satisfaction for social workers. A qualitative study was conducted with a sample of 20 newly qualified social workers employed at the Department of Social Development in Waterberg District of the Limpopo Province where individual supervision is the most commonly used method of supervision. The aim of the study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of newly qualified social workers regarding supervision at their workplaces. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews, using semi-structured interview schedule, and analysed using thematic content analysis. The non-probability and purposive sampling was applied. The main findings were that the newly qualified social workers recognisedmany of the strengths of the Department of Social Development Supervision Framework which included: ethics, a supervision contract, professional development and compliance with the Framework. The data analysed also revealed that supervision within the DSD is not conducted in compliance with the Supervision Framework and various factors affecting the quality of supervision in the Department were highlighted. This report concludes with a brief discussion of the findings and recommendations.