Without education, many South Sudanese will continue living in poverty. There are numerous factors that limit their educational opportunities including tribal warfare, colonialism, missionary malpractice, civil wars, a high illiteracy rate, low government funding, and threats of war. These factors have left a substantial deficiency in available training for teachers. The purpose of this study was to determine the pedagogical needs of the teachers of South Sudan. Within a conceptual framework of participatory action research, this qualitative study examined educators' view of the effectiveness of the teacher education that they had received, the pedagogical needs of teachers, and the ideal training models for teachers given the country's current situation. The research design was a case study focusing on 5 primary and secondary schools. The mode of data collection was interviews and observations among 15 K-16 educators and educator leaders selected by snowball sampling. Observations and interviews took place in school classrooms and campuses, best suited for data collection as South Sudanese are, for the most part, a preliterate people who value listening and storytelling. Themes found related to classroom management, lesson planning, differentiated instruction, and motivation to teach. Key results indicated that the teachers had little to no preparation, varied in their motivation to teach, and perceived challenges and needs differently based on their level of education. A 5-day teacher-training project was developed. Social change will be achieved by improving teachers' ability to successfully educate the next generation of leaders for South Sudan.

Following a 2011 audit a school district in the south central United States clarified the role of the literacy coach. However, there were still differences among the literacy coaches as to how they were performing their duties. As a result, the purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the role of the literacy coach in the participating school district. The theoretical foundation of this study addressed adult learning and was based upon Kegan's constructive development theory and Knowles's theory of androgogy. A case study design was used to explore how 5 literacy coaches implemented literacy staff development with over 100 elementary school teachers and what aspects of literacy instruction were focused upon. Data were collected through interviews and daily coaching logs kept by the coaches. Each interview was recorded, transcribed, and analyzed through a system of coding based on repeated readings, from which themes, concepts, similarities, and differences became apparent. Similarities and differences were highlighted, and tables were created to track them. Coaching logs were collected and analyzed in the same manner. Two themes emerged from analysis of the data: identifying themselves as staff developers and needing more teacher collaboration. Based upon these themes, professional development training sessions were developed to strengthen the professional development already in place, and the creation of professional learning communities was recommended. Participation in these activities will strengthen individual literacy teacher's professional knowledge regarding the teaching of literacy. As a result literacy teachers' practices will improve, and in turn, positive social change will occur when the children they teach become more literate, increase their learning, and stay in school.

In the African American community, the Black Church and its clergy have served as gatekeepers to formal mental health treatment. Little is known about the beliefs of African American Christian senior pastors about mental health treatment and their personal views influencing their counsel to congregants seeking support through the church. This transcendental phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of African American Christian senior pastors in relation to how they understand mental health treatment and provide it to their congregants. The research questions explored three areas: (a) the senior pastors' experiences in rendering mental health treatment, (b) the senior pastors' personal experiences with mental health treatment, and (c) the senior pastors' views on their effectiveness in rendering mental health treatment to congregants. An emergent hand coding analysis of participant narratives collected from 6 participant semi-structured interviews generated 3 main themes and 14 sub-themes related to participant experiences. The results showed the senior pastors not wanting to do harm when congregants sought mental health support through the church; hence, the pastors referred congregants to formal treatment when issues were beyond their scope. Also most of the senior pastors felt comfortable participating in formal mental treatment as needed because it was beneficial for addressing personal and professional challenges. This study can assist the mental health community in making positive social change via the development of relationships and/or partnerships with African American Christian senior pastors looking to refer congregants to formal mental health treatment.

Many Americans lack the skills required to use public access computers and the Internet at public libraries (PLs). Staff members of a PL in the Midwestern United States provide basic computer training to support patrons' Internet and public access computer use. However, adult patrons who are beyond the basic skills level and those with sensory-disabilities are underserved. The purpose of this qualitative single-case study was to understand how an academic library's information literacy e-resource affected the PL's adult patrons' learning based on the perceptions of adult patrons at a PL. Kling's social informatics served as the study's conceptual framework and the research questions centered on how academic library's e-resource affected the participants' learning. Purposive homogeneous sampling was used to identify 10 participants over the age of 18 who were patrons at the target site. Data were collected using observations, semi structured interviews, and document review. The data were analyzed using coding and structural analysis. Themes supporting the findings of an academic e-resource affecting the participants' learning included standards-based e-resource sharing across library types, digital exclusion, digital inclusion, change, and innovation. A white paper was developed including a summary of the findings and the recommendation that library leaders adopt the academic library's e-resource system to improve access and to support individuals who have sensory disabilities as well as patrons beyond the basic skills level at the study site. The implications for social change include enhanced e-services and the potential expansion of the patron base to include underserved stakeholders within the urban PL community.

In general, doctoral programs in counselor education and supervision (CES) have low minority enrollments. Faculty members in clinical mental health counseling (CMHC) master's degree in science (MS) programs primarily come from CES doctoral programs; therefore, faculty members do not generally reflect the diversity of the MS student population. Using the theory of planned behavior and the bioecological model, the purpose of this research was to determine the extent to which age, gender, faculty support, income, level of parents' or primary caregivers' education, and the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) accreditation status predict White and racial minority MS students' decisions to pursue CES doctoral studies and to see if there were differences between the factors for White and minority students. A demographic questionnaire and the Perceived Faculty Support Scale were used to measure the variables through multiple regression, Spearman rho, t tests, chi square, and the Mann Whitney U analyses. No variables were significantly predictive for either student groups. Because there were no significant differences between White and minority MS students choosing CES programs, an approach to increase the number of minority faculty members in CMCHC MS programs as a way of promoting positive social change might be for program administrators and faculty to recruit more minority students into MS programs in order to expand the pool of potential CES students. An additional recommendation is for current CES faculty to encourage more minority students who do choose CES doctoral programs to pursue faculty positions after graduation.

As online education grows, institutions must develop and evaluate student services to meet the needs of adult online students. The university at which the study was conducted had growing online enrollment, but no systematic examination of services from the students' perspective to drive service development and improvement. This represented a gap in self-evaluation, and the research confirmed gaps in student service offerings at the university compared to field standards. The purpose of this project study was to drive improvement of online student services based on analysis of student-driven data. The research questions asked how important academic and support services were to the university's online students and how satisfied the students were with the services. This quantitative study used the Priorities Survey for Online Students based on the expectation disconfirmation theory to collect data. The survey was sent to all of the university's 477 online undergraduate and graduate students. Descriptive statistics were used to compare the university's student responses to national data, report areas of service challenge, and assess variation in satisfaction according to previous online education experience. Key findings included lower than national mean satisfaction with career and tutoring services, challenge areas related to Blackboard preparedness, clarity of program requirements and communication channels, and lower levels of satisfaction with the most experienced online students. A presentation and white paper project were created for the university leadership with recommendations for using study results to improve and develop online student services. Social change is expected through improved and expanded online student services as a result of the project study.

Considerable research has been conducted regarding the usefulness of placement testing in community colleges. Many stuides show that using the COMPASS exam may lead to students' unsuccessful course completion. To better identify the factors that may result in reduced attrition, the relationship between attrition and placement testing was studied. Using Tinto's student retention model and employing qualitative methodology, this study explored the perceptions of students and faculty regarding whether COMPASS placement assessment predicted future student success in first year courses at a community college that reports higher rates of attrition when compared to other area community colleges. After completing interviews with the 10 students, 6 faculty, and 2 administrators, the data indicated that using the COMPASS placement scores did not contribute greatly to attrition. Rather, the findings from the data analysis revealed that work ethic, family obligations, and test stress factored greatly in first-year student attrition. As a possible solution, 3 retention programs identified at comparable institutions address the findings of this study: An Alternative Learning Program, a Summer Bridge Program, and use of peer mentoring. In other sites, use of these retention programs have resulted in a 15% reduction in first-year student attrition. Reducing first year student attrition provides implications for social change. By adopting these retention initiatives, the community college in this study may improve overall first-year student retention, increased funding for the college, and better serve the local community.

Growth mindset is an important component for a journey towards self-actualization. It is unknown if whole-person learning can assist development of that growth mindset for first-generation learners. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine if exposure to whole-person learning positively influences a growth mindset by exploring the relationship between whole-person learning and a growth mindset in first-generation learners. Whole-person learning was presented as a vehicle for developing that growth mindset towards self-actualization. Dweck's Mindset Survey scores were collected from first-generation learners who participated in orientation courses either with or without whole-person learning in 4 institutions (n = 177) using a pretest/posttest control group design. A mean analysis of the overall pretest and posttest score was conducted using a factorial ANOVA. No significant change in mindset was detected from the pretest (first week of orientation courses) to posttest (last week of orientation courses) based on exposure to whole-person learning. It was discovered through one-way ANOVA demographic analysis that Black first-generation learners had a significantly higher mindset mean score (7.1) than White first-generation learners. While it is still unknown if exposure to whole-person learning pre-disposes first-generation learners towards growth mindset, there was a positive implication in that Blacks appeared more pre-disposed to a journey of self-actualization when exposed to whole-person learning. The social change benefit for this implication is that an increased focus on affective learning may lead to higher success rates within academics, career, and personal satisfaction for Black first-generation learners. Future researchers should include faculty engagement with whole-person learning and the development of an instrument more conducive to measuring mindset for adult learners.

Students enrolled in face-to-face and online business administration courses at a Midwestern Christian college were provided faith-integrated opportunities; however, the challenge was to maintain consistency in providing the online courses with similar faith integration as the face-to-face courses. It was unknown whether the same faith-integrated opportunities were provided in face-to-face and online courses. Kohlberg's cognitive moral development and Fowler's spiritual development theories grounded this qualitative bounded case study. Research questions focused on whether instructors taught the same faith-integrated content in online and face-to-face classes, and whether online and face-to-face students received the same faith-integrated experiences. A purposeful sample was gathered of 3 freshman, 3 sophomores, 3 juniors, and 3 seniors who completed both faith-integrated online and face-to-face business administration courses; in addition, 4 instructors were recruited who taught faith integration in online and face-to-face business administration courses. Open-ended questionnaires were collected from students and observations were collected using online course shell interactions between students and instructors. All data were open coded and thematically analyzed using a visual model process. Instructors integrated faith more in the face-to-face courses than in the online courses. A white paper containing recommendations to integrate faith in all business administration classes included building collaborative faculty groups, student-focused rubrics, and faculty course-based rubrics. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change by providing faculty with the necessary tools to equitably provide faith integration in business administration online and face-to-face courses and to develop students' ethical decision making through faith-integrated lessons.

Primary care is in a state of crisis due to the lack of clinicians and increasing numbers of insured patients. Encouraging more students to go directly through school for their doctor of nursing practice degree and nurse practitioner (NP) certifications is one proposal to alleviate this crisis. However, this approach would deliver graduates with minimal leadership and clinical experiences directly into practice. One resolution to mitigate this concern would be an NP residency program. Evaluating the knowledge and attitudes of stakeholders prior to the implementation of a NP residency program is an important first step to this implementation plan. The purpose of this project was to assess the knowledge and attitudes about NP residency programs of 2 stake holders: administrators and NPs at a rural upstate New York health care system, Bassett Healthcare, and to compare responses of those fiscally with those clinically oriented. Using literature less than 6 years old about NP residencies, a 28-question survey tool was created to assess knowledge and attitudes of NP residency programs. Content validity was established by 6 hand-selected NPs and administrators who had expert knowledge of residency programs. Once validity was established, the tool was distributed to a convenience sample of NPs and administrators at Bassett Healthcare Network via e-mail. The sample included 20 administrators and 44 NPs. A Mann-Whitney U test revealed no statistical differences between the 2 groups on any item. However, a majority of both groups felt the programs should be mandatory for all NPs. This project may be the first step in formation of a NP residency program that could alleviate transitional stress, decrease turnover, and produce better clinically-prepared NPs, thus benefitting the profession and society.