No abstract included.

Historically speaking, many of the social skills necessary to prepare young people for their transition into adulthood occurred through informal tacit learning systems. While an observed practice, scholarly analyses of the role of narrative as an educational tool in the social practices of multigenerations of cultural sharing females is nonexisitent in academic literature. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the role of narrative in the intergenerational transmission of life learning among Jamaican females from a basket weaving community. Narrative inquiry was the research method used to capture the lived experiences of Jamaican females from a basket weaving community. The conceptual framework for this study was narrative learning (storytelling) along with an adult development life cycle model and informal adult learning theories. The sample population included females age 18 to 69 years old from a Jamaican basket weaving community. Data collection involved informal and semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Reflexivity and peer review guided the data analysis process. An interpretative content analysis included open, axial, and descriptive coding. The results of this study confirmed that intergenerational relationships still exist and flourish among Jamaican females in a basket weaving community. Findings from this study can be used to improve female mentoring relationships, implement intergenerational partnerships between individuals and community-based organizations, and contribute toward social change for disenfranchised women and girls through the expansion of nontraditional adult and Other Education programs.

National movements for greater quality in education have increased concerns about student learning and the effectiveness of teaching for the community college. Faculty are responsible for student learning, yet criticized for using ineffective teaching methods despite limited data on community college teaching practices. The purpose of this study was to gain a descriptive understanding of current teaching practices in three community colleges. This single-phase study used a concurrent mixed-method exploratory research design. A purposeful sample of 185 community college faculty across three colleges in the southwestern United States were surveyed about what methods they use, how they perceive their teaching effectiveness, what motivates them to change, and why they teach as they do. This study was grounded in the framework of Bandura's self-efficacy theory to enhance an understanding of the faculty's perspective of improving teaching and learning. Descriptive statistics and inductive analysis of mixed-method data led to key findings indicating that faculty were incorporating diverse and learner-centered strategies and using a variety of assessment methods. Despite feeling that good teaching is not rewarded by their colleges, faculty found participating in professional development and trying new methods beneficial to their teaching. The data indicated that better ways to evaluate teaching effectiveness are needed, along with better ways to evaluate student success at community colleges. This study benefits students, faculty, and community colleges nationally by providing research data to help inform and encourage administrative vision, support, and policies relating to faculty development and learner-centered programs to increase student engagement and success.

The purpose of this interview based qualitative study was to explore the influence that a plurality of social contexts, represented through United Methodist congregations in the Virginia Conference, have on the formation of ministers' occupational activities.;The study used a typology developed by Larry Blazer (1987) to identify the occupational activities practiced by parish ministers. The investigation weighted clergy's professional practice using Judith Hackman's (1985) concepts of power and centrality in her study institutions of higher education's budgeting process. Congregational representatives identified occupational activities that were central and peripheral to their congregation's mission. Clergy identified the occupational activities that received more and less time (i.e., "power" in their time resource budgeting process) in their current appointment compared to their previous appointment.;Using an ethnographic analysis, the study found that ministers generally organize their occupational activities according to the mission of their present congregational appointment. Second, the diverse plurality of congregations are remarkably consistent in their missions: to provide for a nurturing fellowship. Third, ministers' activities are grouped in functionally (versus conceptually) in response to this coherent mission of United Methodist congregations. Fourth, these functional groupings form a hierarchy of overall importance for minister's occupational activities, with implications for the timing of skill acquisition during clergy's careers.;The study concludes with implication for ministers' professional education. Included is a comprehensive professional education proposal to equip ministers with the knowledge and ability to be context sensitive in the performance of their occupational activities.

The study gathered data and compared professional opinions which were used to identify appropriate assignments, selection criteria, training procedures, and supervision of paraprofessional personnel for community college counseling services. A related purpose was that guidelines might be developed for the appropriate utilization, selection, preparation, and supervision of paraprofessional workers.

A steady rise in the number of nontraditional students combined with high attrition has raised questions about whether postsecondary institutions have been effective in creating environments that facilitate adult student success. This concern led to the current study which investigates whether adult undergraduate perceptions of environmental support and responsiveness to student needs affects persistence patterns.;Tinto's (1993) Academic and Social Integration Model and Schlossberg, Lynch, and Chickerings' (1989) ecological perspective have guided this study. Students' perceptions play a critical role in their willingness to become engaged or involved in the educational environment and therefore affect persistence. Schlossberg, Lasalle, and Golecs' (1990) Mattering Scales were used to measure perceptions of the degree of mattering on five dimensions of postsecondary education; administration, advising, peers, multiple roles, and faculty. It was hypothesized that adult students who perceive the educational environment as a welcoming and supportive place will be more likely to persist toward obtaining their educational goals.;The population samples were drawn from a large urban doctoral granting university located in the southeast. An analysis of covariance was used to determine whether the differences among mean scores (for each of the five mattering subscales) were statistically different. In addition, the test mathematically corrected for the extraneous variables of gender, age, marital status, number of dependents and hours of employment.;Results of this study indicate persistence of adult students is not affected by their perceptions of the educational environmental support and responsiveness to student needs (i.e. mattering). The lack of empirical evidence may suggest that the construct of mattering does not adequately conceptualize the environmental issues important to adult undergraduates or the Mattering Scales' instrument does not accurately operationalize the construct. However, gender differences and employment demands were covariates identified that influenced the degree of mattering perceived.;Creating a community that establishes a sense of mattering for adult students may not have the expected impact on persistence. Further research is indicated in the area of adult students' interaction with the educational environment and its subsequent effect on persistence.

The study explores the complexity of female literacy from the live experiences of women. The purpose of this qualitative research is to describe rural women's perceptions about literacy to assess how it impacts their lives. Female literacy is exceptionally low in Nepal. In spite of the efforts to raise women's educational status through literacy programs, women have rarely benefited from them. Most literacy programs are top-down, short-term, often organized by outside literacy providers, usually males. These programs are resource intensive, keeping their services from reaching a multitude of illiterates. In addition, the teaching methods, materials and program strategies used in most adult literacy programs hardly reflect, in particular, the interest, needs and concerns of women. Since there are few studies describing women's perceptions about literacy, we have little understanding of the complexity of female literacy. What did literacy mean to rural women? What did the women perceive as benefits from literacy? What types of literacy programs are beneficial to them? The study sheds light on these fundamental questions. Using the participants' observation, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, this study collected qualitative data from 150 hours of observation, 15 individual in-depths interviews and six focus group discussions with 48 rural women. The data was collected from twelve sites across the country over a period of two years. The study indicates that rural women need literacy skills for fulfilling their needs as expressed in social, cultural and economic practices. The need for literacy to actively participate in economic activities was, however, felt strongly by most of the rural women. Changes in women's lives were indicated by their increased knowledge, positive attitude and new behavior. Rural women's abilities to articulate their concerns, participate in decision-making, and to organize themselves for collective actions were some of the examples that entailed a change in their lives. Even for those who did not become fully literate, these experiences were empowering. The study also indicates that rural women benefited from literacy programs that focused on both functional and liberating elements.

Agencies providing literacy education have sought to introduce program innovations that more closely reflect learners' everyday lives. A growing number of studies have documented the situated nature of literacy practices and their implications for program design. The concept of learning is at the periphery. Despite innovations and new insights into literacy practices, practitioners are more attuned to diverse content than learning or literacies. Researchers are more attuned to the concept of multiple literacies and their socially situated nature than learning. The Women's Economic Empowerment and Literacy (WEEL) program integrates literacy and numeracy education, savings and credit group concepts, and livelihood training for Nepali women. This dissertation is a case study of the WEEL program, focusing on staff members', participants', and facilitators' perspectives on learning. The research questions were designed to elicit research participants' narratives of their learning experiences. Four themes emerged as the most salient: the powerful role of aspirations; the meaning of education; learning as change; and the life-long, long-term, and life-wide nature of learning. The aspirations are closely associated with Scribner's (1984) conception of the metaphors of literacy: as adaptation, as power, and as a state of grace. Education is interlinked with issues of the women's social identity; gender and caste; concepts of modernization; and the women's hopes for the future. Descriptions of learning are associated with access to knowledge, "doing" or activity, and seeing from a different perspective. An understanding of learning beyond the program's boundaries is found in the themes of life-long, long-term, and life-wide learning raised in the interviews. This research confirms and supports the movement towards more localized programs that is occurring in the field of adult literacy education. Program staff provided evidence to this effect, as the findings show how they consider a perspective of literacy and learning oriented to life-long, long-term, and life-wide learning as they engage in program design. The final chapter develops strategies to bring insights from a conception of literacy as metaphor and from adult learning theories to help strengthen program design and ensure programmatic responsiveness to learners' lives.

Nursing students face many stressors throughout their nursing education. These stressors include course assignments, exams, and clinical experiences. At graduation, nursing students face additional stressors due to the requirement of passing the national exam to become licensed as well as finding and starting a job as a graduate nurse. This stress can impact their academic performance, mental health, and the care they deliver to patients. Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to the present moment that can help reduce stress. Nursing students should learn coping skills that they can also use as they transition to practice. This quality improvement project aims to evaluate the implementation of an evidence-based mindfulness-based intervention program to reduce stress in an Undergraduate Nursing Program. Participants will rate their satisfaction with the program, state whether they used exercises for home practice, prefer an in-person or online program, and whether or not the program reduced their stress. Four mindfulness sessions will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube where participants will be able to watch. Once participants have completed the four sessions, they will complete a demographics survey and program evaluation. A foreseeable barrier is participant time and availability. Nursing students are historically busy and may feel they do not have the time to participate in mindfulness.

Problem: To determine the relative effectiveness of four methods of contacting non-attending adult students with an invitation message to return to class. The four methods used to contact students were (1) personally, (2) by telephone, (3) by letter, (4) no contact (control). Purpose: The major purpose of this study was to analyze (1) the proportion of classes students attended after being absent and then being contacted by a volunteer, {2) the dropout rate of students after being contacted by a volunteer, and (3) the reenrollment rate of students after being contacted by a volunteer.