Typescript, etc. / Digitized by Kansas State University Libraries

<p> Spirituality in the workplace has received increased focus over the past two decades. This heuristic study examined how religious spirituality informs and/or influences individual perceptions of meaningful work experiences. A literature review on the subject found a dearth of research. </p><p> The primary research question was the following: What is the relationship between religious spirituality and meaningful work for the co-researchers in the study? The eight co-researchers were members of a United Methodist congregation in Washington, DC. The co-researchers ranged in age from 30 to 53 years old. All identified as African American. Six discussed meaningful work experiences that involved paid work, while the other two mentioned meaningful work experiences as unpaid volunteers. Semi-structured interviews were used as the primary means of collecting data. </p><p> The researcher analyzed and synthesized the data using Moustakas&rsquo;s (1990) approach. The co-researchers&rsquo; experiences shared four themes. The first, seeking God&rsquo;s purpose, relates to the co-researcher&rsquo;s desire to do work considered pleasing in God&rsquo;s sight and in pursuit of the fulfillment of a higher purpose or calling. The second theme involves placing a priority on the mission of the work versus the monetary benefit. The third, growing spiritually through meaningful work, describes the intangible benefit co-researchers received through their meaningful work experiences. Finally, the fourth theme, impacting the lives of others, is described as a key component of all of the co-researcher&rsquo;s meaningful work experiences. Based on the results, a creative synthesis was developed, and implications and recommendations are suggested.</p>

<p> Many colleges and universities have expanded their mission to include adult learners. Programs range from scheduling traditional courses in the evening to designing new programs tailored to meet the needs of working adults. Program designers have relied on theorists such, as Mezirow (1991), Houle (1996), and Knowles, Holton, and Swanson (1998), to develop programs that apply adult learning theory. Lindenwood College, now Lindenwood University, established The Lindenwood College for Individualized Education (LCIE) in 1975 to serve adult students in the St. Louis metropolitan area. The program has evolved over the course of 40 years, and this program evaluation evaluated the program effectiveness in its current delivery format.</p><p> This program evaluation employed a mixed-method design to answer one main research question and two sub-questions. The main research question asked, How does LCIE, in its current incarnation, address the ideals of adult learning theory, the needs of busy contemporary adult students, and the requirements of the accrediting agency? Sub-question #1 asked, How have LCIE learning processes evolved since 1975? Sub-question #2 asked, Is there congruency between LCIE mission and practice?</p><p> The outcome measurement data was gathered through a comparison of pre-test and post-test data collected by the university to assess critical thinking skills of entering and graduating students. The university employed the ETS Proficiency Profile, and a sample of 30 students was extracted from that data set for comparison for this study. The findings showed that the differences between pre-test and post-test scores were not significant.</p><p> The process measurement data was gathered through interviews with volunteer faculty (3) and students (9) from the program. A series of interview questions was posed, and the responses coded to identify three emerging themes. The three themes were general satisfaction, the importance of job preparation and career mobility, and program rigor.</p><p> The program evaluation found that LCIE is currently applying adult learning theory and there is congruency between the program mission statement and the program practice. The answer to sub-question 1 concerning the changes in the program was inconclusive as the students had not experienced the changes and therefore felt unqualified to comment.</p>

<p> Using semiotics theories as a guide, the qualitative examination of storytelling literature and current storytelling practitioners provides research support for a list of storytelling components. Analysis of story building components discovered from literature in comparison to the results from research questionnaire responses by current storytellers confirms the existence of a historic list of regularities in storytelling practice. The analysis of current storytelling literature, narrative research literature, and historic Western European literature enables the development of five descriptive statements guiding the formation of a story. The comparison of the beliefs and practices of current storytellers to the five descriptive statements guiding the formation of a story provide a research method confirming regularities in storytelling practices across historic and ethnic boundaries. The resulting list of story components support the central research question.</p>

<p> In the current health care environment, caring for the increasing numbers of seriously ill patients require novice nurses to use advanced, intuitive clinical decision-making skills like those of more experienced nurses. Educators are charged with developing instructional strategies to enhance clinical decision-making skills. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between simulation as an instructional strategy and the use of intuition in clinical decision making among associate degree nursing students. In addition, the influence of age on student performance during simulation and the use of intuition in clinical decision making was examined. An explanatory, correlational design was conducted to examine the relationship between simulation, as measured by the Creighton Simulation Evaluation Instrument (Todd et al., 2008) and the use of intuition in clinical decision making, as measured by Rew&rsquo;s (2000) Acknowledges Use of Intuition in Nursing Scale. Results from the study found a slight but statically significant relationship between simulation and the use of intuition and no relationship between age and the use of intuition. Indications for future research include further analysis of the concept of intuition and its role in clinical decision making.</p>

Neuroblastoma is considered a pediatric malignancy as over 95% of cases are diagnosed in patients less than or equal to 10years old. This cancer is extremely rare in elderly patients. We conducted a Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database analysis in the USA between 1973-2007 that revealed only 35 elderly patients (>60years of age) with neuroblastoma of whom only 2 patients had primary mediastinal neuroblastoma. There is a paucity of treatment and survival outcomes data for the elderly owing to the rarity of neuroblastoma in this population. Currently there are no standard guidelines or protocols for treatment of adult neuroblastoma. We report a rare and challenging case of an 86-year old patient presenting with mediastinal neuroblastoma and syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (SIADH) successfully treated with resection. Herein, we also provide a review of the literature and updated survival data on neuroblastoma based on results of our SEER database review.

This PhD. research is devoted to producing a comparative study of educational policies in two Latin American countries, under the military governments of Argentina [1976-1983] and Chile [1973-1990], and to explain the differences and similarities in their educational policies, based in the following working hypothesis: Military education and professional expertise have strong similarities in South America. This fact facilitates similar patterns of action in most of their professional activities, but strong differences show up when they rule a country, and seemingly the biggest ones appear to be in the educational field. This hypothesis is based on the strong pattern of characteristics of armed forces officers, a pattern that marks heavily their life, culture and way to solve problems. Despite the fact that their education is the most successful, in order to obtain its goals, among all educational systems, being able to produce patterns of conduct that last for life. Nevertheless, when they become rulers, they can differ heavily in producing and elaborating ideas that afterwards are transformed into governmental policies for their countries. This fact does not diminish their ability, in the military field, to act in similar professional patterns. The working hypothesis proved to be wrong, along the development of this research it became evident that similarities in wide scope educational policies were marked by a common set of values. The differences were mainly a product of constitutional, political and cultural issues. Besides, the military had to accommodate, negotiate, or transact their set of values with other social actors due to these differences. The level of these accommodations, transactions or negotiations produced the main differences between both military regimes in relationship to their educational policies. This research is divided in three parts: I. A characterization of both military regimes by means of using the most relevant theoretical trends and the state of the art in this field. In this stage analysed are: (a) the essential authors used as sources and cited by most scholars in this field, from the point of view of the usefulness of their work to Explain Armed Forces governments in the countries under study; (b) The contributions made by a sample of a second generation of researchers, their different trends, and their usefulness to explain similarities and differences in educational policies in these two Armed Forces governments; (c) A general review and characterization of both governments in the fields of economic development, human rights conflicts, and general policy designed for both countries, as a general background of their educational policy; (d) Based in the study of the Armed Forces literature, and the general background a theoretical framework based on military values was developed. As a result of this first part of the research a profile of the Argentinian and Chilean military was compiled and individualized a set of values that characterize both. It was evident that the most helpful theoretical trends were the ones developed by authors that have become classics in this field: Huntington and Janowitz. Later trends of research have proved of little used for this study, thus raising more questions than answers. As an exception it could be stated that the 'developmentalist school' was helpful in-at least-to produce a balanced an impartial view of the military as rulers. II. The second part is devoted to analysing main educational policies in both governments, from the perspective of the theoretical frame previously developed. Included in this analysis were their political statements, goals, and underlying values, together with the planning, laws, decrees and documents; at the same time, a complete discussion and evaluation of a bibliography is given. From the analysis and reviews were isolated the intervening factors in the formulation of the educational policies emanating from both Armed Forces governments, their points of contact and of divergence, in agreement with the theoretical framework. The main emphasis was given to explain the marked differences found in the educational field. The main trends in educational policy developed in the period under study are: (a) Introduction of order into the educational system, perceived as chaotic by the military, using decentralization of management as the main feature; (b) Reinforcement of the sense of nationality, sovereignty, and belonging to their respective nations, by means of education; (c) Reformation of universities, as a tool of economic development by means of training good professionals in quantities relevant to the needs of their countries, and to produce high quality research. We can assert that: (a) The working hypothesis worked properly in the first part related to their professional expertise and patterns of action; (b) The second assertion proved to be wrong, it was assumed that strong differences would be found when ruling a country, due to their cultural, economic and social settings. On the contrary, we found the existence of strong similarities in the educational policies developed in both countries. These similarities, according to the theoretical framework, were due to a clear set of military values, different from the civilians in degree rather than in kind. III. Two chapters were devoted to discuss different social, economic, human rights and other aspects-not strictly related with education of Argentinian and Chilean society from the point of view of scholars, international institutions and the press. This part of the research aimed to present some distortions about the real work performed by the two governments under review, and to produce some enlightenment concerning the profile of the public and self perception of Argentinian and Chilean military.

<p> While the role of computers in the 21^st century has enabled organizations to become more efficient and effective, technology has also created problems for many of its users. The research literature on the use of workplace email indicated that email is causing several problems, including an interruption of workflow/productivity, email overload, stress, and work-life imbalance. The mobile market in 2015 was exploding and showed a significant growth trend and is expected to continue. In addition, working women are an increasing population in the workforce, and even more women are working virtually. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how an overload of workplace email was perceived by virtual working women to impact their stress levels and ability to maintain a reasonable work-life balance, in order for managers to better support and manage employee workloads. The theoretical framework for this study included Gilbert&rsquo;s (2007) Behavior Engineering model (BEM) and Ashforth, Kreiner, and Fugate&rsquo;s (2000) Boundary Theory. The basic qualitative method was utilized, in addition to nonprobability and purposeful, or convenience sampling. A total of 14 participants participated in the study and met the criteria to include (a) female, (b) age 25&ndash;65, (c) remote or virtual worker, (d) full-time employee, (e) work for a U.S. based organization, and experiencing or experienced overload from email. The research design included a combination of structured and semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that virtual working women&rsquo;s job performance was impacted and they experienced: (a) increased and decreased stress from workplace email; however, it was dependent upon the volume, tone and frequency of the emails (b) increased and decreased productivity from workplace email and (c) impacts on work-life balance, given the use of workplace email. Discovering virtual working women&rsquo;s self-perceptions, as it relates to workplace email, stress, and work-life balance, provided valuable insights for managers to develop strategies and performance improvement interventions for dealing with email overload. Recommendations for future research to expand the study include: (a) the &ldquo;millennial&rdquo; population or the non-telecommuter (b) a quantitative study, (c) text overload, (d) gender differences, and (e) mental and physical health effects.</p>

The collected papers represent a coherent body of research which enquired into a particular moment of educational reform in the Adult Literacies field in Scotland. The research is conceptualised as bricolage - an emergent process employing a variety of research methods and analytic frameworks to enquire into the reification of ‘the social practice approach', which, following the Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland (ALNIS) report of 2001, became a central tenet of adult literacies education in Scotland. Seemingly derived from the New Literacy Studies (NLS), the concept of ‘the social practice approach' implies a critical pedagogy. Its prominence in the discourses of adult education in Scotland might indicate critical practice. This research indicates otherwise. Appropriated by policy and practitioners within a web of power relations, the discourse of ‘the social practice approach' may have come to act on practice in ways which are antithetical to its theoretical origins. The research illuminates a complex process of transformation in an apparently radical educational discourse.

<p> The Responsive Parenting Program curriculum combines recent developments in neuroscience, mindfulness, child development and positive parenting to provide vulnerable families with information, guidance and a group experience designed to support them in adopting a responsive approach to parenting. Parents who have experienced adverse conditions in childhood and continue to experience difficulty in getting their needs met as adults, often have adopted a survival approach to living. It is especially important to support these parents in making sense of their own experience so that they may build the capacity to better understand, nurture and protect their own children.</p><p> It is intended that all of the materials for this curriculum will exist in the public domain. In addition to the curriculum handbook, this includes links to recommended video segments, information sheets related to child growth and development, and suggestions for supportive practices to nurture healthy development and relationships.</p>