Thesis (BA.(Hons))--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

<p> Social workers in all care venues are increasingly responsible for clinical and case management services for people being treated with sophisticated medical interventions. Unfortunately, opportunities to aid in the promotion of quality of life (QOL), mental health, and informed consent are often not understood by social workers, other care providers, or patients. These missed opportunities may lead to attenuated effectiveness of medical interventions and negative impact on patients&rsquo; QOL. One such technological treatment is the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), a lifesaving therapy which carries risk to patients&rsquo; QOL. Moreover, patients frequently do not accurately understand the benefits, limitations, and possible risks associated with ICD therapy. A small body of literature exists addressing experimental and demographic groups at risk of QOL decrements among the ICD patient population, including those who have been shocked more than five times, older adults, female patients, and those who have experienced a life threatening cardiac event. A much more limited body of literature addresses the quality of some forms of patient educational activities and materials. No research to date has attempted to characterize potential relationships between patient information acquisition, treatment knowledge, and QOL/mental health outcomes in this patient group. </p><p> Using a cross-sectional survey of ICD patients being treated at the University of Colorado Hospital (UCH), this dissertation project uses a social-ecological approach to describe the media through which ICD patients learn about device therapy, how well they understand their treatment, QOL and mental health outcomes, and any relationships between these constructs. The project was conducted in iterative phases, including the creation of two new measures assessing patient informational media history and ICD treatment knowledge, a pilot survey of 100 randomly selected patients to assess the quality of the new measures, and a larger survey of the remaining 655 potential ICD patient participants. </p><p> A total of 205 ICD patients responded to the survey, with a mean age of 60.7 years (sd=14.53), 34.1% of whom identified as female, 10.2% of whom are African American, and 37.5% of whom live in a household with an annual income of less than $40,000. Findings from survey responses revealed both the viability of the new informational media history and ICD treatment knowledge measures, as well as broad use of a number of specific forms of media to learn about treatment. Older adult patients illustrated significantly lower treatment knowledge and use of fewer forms of informational media than their younger counterparts. Multiple regression analyses revealed significant relationships between patient history of having been shocked, health related depression, and QOL, but failed to replicate earlier findings linking these problems to demographic indicators. Each of these findings highlight opportunities for improved social work research and practice with ICD patients, including the need for improved patient education processes for older adults with these devices, and the importance of mental health status, particularly depression, to patient QOL.</p>

<p> The purpose of this project was to create a grant proposal to fund the development of resource materials that could be used by foster parents, kinship caregivers, and child welfare workers to help the youth in their care graduate from high school and increase opportunities for higher education or vocational training. The emotional, social, and cognitive stages of adolescent development are complicated by the circumstances that caused separation from their parents and then additional challenges that arise from going to live with relatives or joining foster families. Resource materials are needed so that foster parents, kinship caregivers, and child welfare workers can help young people overcome the obstacles and be advocates for them to complete high school. This project describes a potential host organization, staffing, implementation steps, budget, and a potential funder. Actual funding and submission of this grant proposal were not requirements for the successful completion of this project.</p>

<p> The purpose of this project was to develop a grant proposal seeking funds for the implementation of a youth-led nutrition and education program utilizing the development and maintenance of a community garden. The participants will be youth from low income and minority backgrounds in San Diego, California. The service partners of San Diego Youth Services TAY Academy will have the opportunity to participate in this community garden program to learn about healthy eating habits, the risks of obesity, and food desert communities. </p><p> Through a review of the literature on obesity, food deserts, and community gardens the writer proposed and designed a youth-led community garden program. The writer explored potential public and private funding sources, which yielded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a potential funding source. </p><p> The actual submission and/or funding of this grant proposal were not a requirement for the successful completion of this project.</p>

<p> Students with disabilities face a variety of challenges that are not experienced by their able-bodied peers. Literature reveals that these students are less likely to succeed in higher education, earn their degrees, and often take more time to earn their degrees than the able-bodied majority. These students face stigma related to their disability and lack of acceptance among their peers and professors. Additionally, these students are tasked with the additional responsibility of disclosing their disability and requesting accommodations often without adequate preparation. The goal of this project was to write a grant proposal to fund a training program for students with disabilities pursuing postsecondary education. This program is designed to empower these students to become their own advocates and lead to their successes in higher education and beyond. Actual submission and funding of the grant are not required for the completion of the project.</p>

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Lehigh University, 2000. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 198-221).

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-124).

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

This study examines the design, processes and instructional effects of principle-based, student-directed reflective assessments on students’ conceptual understanding and collaborative inquiry in a computer-supported knowledge building environment. Premised on socio-constructivism, knowledge building and classroom learning theories, this study (1) designs a knowledge building environment, informed by knowledge building principles and reflective assessments, and evaluates its effects on students’ conceptual understanding, approaches to learning, and conceptions of collaboration; (2) investigates the role of engagement in Knowledge Forum on students’ conceptual understanding; (3) examines the role of portfolio assessment and other reflective assessment strategies in facilitating deep learning and knowledge building; and (4) characterizes the socio-cognitive dynamics of collaborative knowledge building. Participants of the study were 60 first-year Chinese tertiary students enrolled in a Sino-British joint educational program at a university in Shanghai, China. In a quasi-experimental design, one group of students experienced a knowledge building environment which was informed by knowledge building principles and highlighted concurrent, transformative assessment (reflective assessment strategies). The other group was exposed to a technology-based environment without the mediation of knowledge building principles. Multiple source of data were employed, including surveys, domain tests, academic performance assessments, Knowledge Forum engagement indices, e-portfolio notes, online inquiry threads, student classroom reflective presentations, and end-of-program interviews. Major findings include (1) students in the principle-based environment outperformed their peers in terms of conceptual understanding and deep approaches to learning; (2) student online participation and community connectedness increased over time, and contributed to students’ conceptual understanding over and above their prior domain knowledge; (3) qualitative e-portfolio analyses identified different kinds of student reflection strategies that were correlated with academic performance; (4) analysis of online inquiry threads showed students’ different levels of engagement with four knowledge building principles and suggested knowledge building might be manifested by meta-discourse; (5) Student reflective presentation and interview study further addressed the role of epistemic reflection and collective assessments in scaffolding collaborative knowledge building. This study addresses the problem of aligning social-constructivist theories of learning and assessment. Assessment takes on a new meaning of both assessing and scaffolding group learning and knowledge building. This study may advance current literature on how socio-cognitive principles and social-constructivist assessment can be designed and aligned with learning, collaboration and instruction to promote conceptual understanding and knowledge building. This study also has pedagogical implications for how computer-supported knowledge building inquiry can be designed in the context of 21st century Chinese tertiary classrooms. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This study aimed to develop a holistic understanding of knowledge-building discourse supported by Knowledge Forum among primary-and secondary-school students in Hong Kong. It is argued that prior studies of knowledge building did not adequately address the important question of how ideas are progressively improved because these studies employed cognitively oriented approaches that discarded the sequential, structural, and situational information about the process of group interactions. To better understand this question, the author applied methods from qualitative traditions to the study of knowledge-building discourse. The study was part of a five-year professional development project, “Developing a teacher community for classroom innovation through knowledge building”. The author and other project members collaboratively analyzed more than hundreds of Knowledge Forum views to gain an initial understanding of productive group interactions. The selection of data set for the study utilized purposive sampling. The author evaluated the online discourses of several dozens of classes, with the criteria of productive group interactions. Three classes from different schools were selected: Grade 5 Science, Grade 10 Liberal Studies, and Grade 10 Visual Art. These classes offered diverse examples to enhance the transferability of the findings. The data set comprised 764 Knowledge Forum messages, which were examined in great detail by a four-stage qualitative method. The first stage was a thematic analysis at the thread level to pre-process the online discourses for the subsequent analyses. The second stage was a qualitative coding at the action level to characterize the discourse components of the threads. The coding utilized 7 main codes that were adapted from van Aalst (2009): community, information, question, idea, linking, agency, and meta-discourse. This coding scheme formed a foundation of the data analysis, and this study extended the scheme in two ways. First, it gave the main codes a more theoretically solid foundation by conducting a literature review to further conceptualize or re-conceptualize the main codes. Second, it went beyond conducting the qualitative coding to seek for general patterns of interactions in the third-stage analysis. The third stage was a narrative analysis at the episode level to identify discourse patterns. Eleven patterns were identified to demonstrate productive and unproductive group interactions. The findings from the three stages of analysis were then interpreted to provide a comprehensive profile of the class discourses in the final-stage analysis. The relationship between the discourse profiles and idea improvement was explained. Finally, a validity check was conducted and the findings suggested that the discourse patterns could be used as a heuristic device to provide a basis for understanding other discourses. The implications of this study are threefold. Methodologically, the study has identified eleven discourse patterns that can be conceived as an extensive classification scheme allowing researchers to understand different types of group interaction in asynchronous online discussion forums. Theoretically, the discourse patterns contribute to the literature concerning the process of computer-mediated group interactions. Pedagogically, it is hoped that the discourse patterns can be used as conceptual tools for scaffolding students toward productive group interaction and can be used in teacher professional development. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy