We are what we read. People read for many different reasons and outcomes. We may read for information, affirmation, escape, or inspiration. We may read to get in a better mood. Various studies have shown that readers are more apt to be empathetic, to understand that their experience is not the only experience. Through Scholarly Personal Narrative, I trace my own evolution of reading and my curious preference for Young Adult (YA) literature. Contemporary YA literature offers a unique combination of viewpoint, emotion, and transportation which allows for a deeper understanding of diverse backgrounds, and I explore whether a program of purposeful choices can influence perspective.

Although education theory in general includes important insights related to the relationship between multiculturalism and pedagogy, a critical analysis of what are considered culturally responsive western adult education methods, such as Experiential Learning Cycle & Dialogue Education (ELC) suggests significant adaptations should be made when applied in settings with non-western learners. This paper highlights the challenges and opportunities of utilizing adult education methods as a framework in delivering learning opportunities in non-western settings or for non-western, new American communities in western settings. Specifically, the author discusses her experience in one Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Darfur, Sudan, presenting her findings from her critical analysis of ELC, as well as her experience designing and facilitating financial capability curriculum for Somali-Bantu women in Chittenden County, Vermont with the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Financial Futures Program. Implications from this analysis are also addressed, including the importance of further exploring assumptions held by the conceptual underpinnings of culturally responsive adult learning methods (including Dialogue Education and ELC) and adapting training-of-trainer (TOT) models and financial capability workshops to account for significant cultural differences between learners and the methods intended for use with diverse audiences.

Postsecondary English language education is a growing industry in the United States. While there has been considerable research on international student mobility in higher education, there is limited research on the population’s participation in U.S. English language programs (ELPs). The purpose of the study was to apply existing theories and data analysis to understand postsecondary English language program participation and create a foundation for future studies. This exploratory study examined the characteristics of international students enrolled in U.S. postsecondary ELPs. The researcher investigated the relationship between ELP enrollment with U.S. higher education enrollment as well as the relationship between ELP enrollment by destination location, ELP provider type, gender and country of origin. Finally, the researcher analyzed the completion rate of international students in U.S. postsecondary ELPs by gender and country of origin. Data from 2004-2014 were collected from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System and the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors Report. Data analysis was conducted through quantitative methods. Findings of this study may help educators reflect on the form and function of current English language programs to improve the quality of future ELPs.

Community college graduation rates are low, and community colleges have been tasked with producing more graduates to meet workforce needs. Research has determined that engaged students remain at their institutions and complete their degrees. Service learning has been identified as a high-impact practice that engages students with their learning and builds connections between students and campus personnel. The majority of service-learning research, having been conducted with 4-year colleges and universities, may have limited applicability to the community college population. This qualitative descriptive case study describes how institutionalized service learning on 1 community college campus is structured, supported, and operated. The study used the framework of student success, service learning, and institutionalization to determine how the college provided resources and opportunities for service learning. Participants for the study were selected using mixed purposeful sampling to identify individuals recently involved with service learning at the college; data came from document reviews, campus and Internet observations, college staff interviews, and student group online discussions. Data were collected and analyzed using a spiraling technique. Findings indicated that the college's curricular and cocurricular service-learning activities were integrated throughout the campus in many departments and with different groups. While the service-learning coordinators made distinctions between curricular and cocurricular service learning, student participants did not make such distinctions. Students in this study were engaged with their service learning. These findings have applicability for all community college educators, demonstrating that institutionalized community college service learning might lead to greater retention through graduation.

The quest to comprehend how cultural differences can impact learning is one of those intriguing challenges that continue to beguile some scholars and educational leaders even at a time that is characterized as globalized. This dissertation is a qualitative case study about teaching to culturally diverse populations and is primarily based on the interviews of seven accountants designated as instructors and the direct observation of those instructors while teaching accounting principles to other accountants. The English language was used despite the fact that all participants, including the instructors, spoke English as a second or third language and came from diverse cultures around the world. It brings to light how an American company (American World Trade or AWT) felt they succeeded in teaching to the diverse population of students though not purposely providing accommodations for the diverse cultural differences in the classroom. During the year 2009, AWT took the materials USU developed around the world and presented conferences in regional offices of Bangkok, Budapest, Santo Domingo, Pretoria, and San Salvador. The pilot study interviews took place at the end of 2009. This study was based on the conference that took place in February 2010 in which 16 of the 70 countries were represented. This dissertation does several things: First, it looks at the cultural dimensions of students and instructors from 16 different countries, in an international setting, and examines if lack of knowledge about cultural dimensions and accommodating for them could interfere with learning. Second, it looks at the strategies and behaviors used by the instructors who were not knowledgeable of cultural dimensions to reveal if they were unconsciously adapting their teaching for the culturally diverse. Third, this study offers an in-depth look at several additional factors, including cultural intelligence (CQ), which could explain their ostensible teaching successes.

This study surveyed 435 commercial fishermen across eight coastal regions of the United States where commercial fishing takes place. The regions of the study included: Northeast Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, Southern Pacific, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska. Participants were asked to complete the Commercial Fishing Worker Survey (CFWS), which is a survey instrument consisting of an approved, adapted version of the Index of Learning Styles instrument (ILS) combined with a demographic section which included questions designed to obtain data regarding the four variables of the study: age, education level, captain's license status, and method of fishing. The instrument was designed to provide data sufficient to answer the three research questions of the study. 1. What are the learning preferences of commercial fishermen? 2. Are there differences in the learning preferences of commercial fishermen across the eight geographical regions of the study? 3. Are there differences in the learning preferences of commercial fishermen based on the demographical variables? The commercial fishermen showed obvious inclinations toward specific learning preference dimensions. The fishermen indicated that they preferred the active (rather than the reflective) dimension, the sensing (rather than the intuitive) dimension, the visual (rather than the verbal) dimension, and the sequential (rather than the global) dimension. The participant's responses were similar across the eight regions. Where differences existed, they were related to the sensing/intuitive and sequential/global learning preferences dimensions. Region 8 Alaska appeared to have stronger sensing and sequential learning preferences than the other regions. Age did not appear to influence the learning preferences of the fishermen. The majority of the respondents indicated they were high school graduates. However, education did not appear to affect the learning preferences of the fishermen. Captain's license status had no influence on the learning preferences of the commercial fishermen, since the majority of the respondents did not possess a captain's license. Respondents indicated that the largest percentage of commercial fishing used net fishing methods as their primary means of fishing. For the majority of the commercial fishermen, method of fishing did not appear to influence the learning preferences of commercial fishermen. However, net and trap fishermen exhibited significant differences related to the sensing/intuitive and sequential/global learning preference dimensions and reported more preference for the sequential/global learning preference dimensions then fishermen using other methods of fishing. Implications and recommendations for further study are enumerated in the last chapter.

Safety culture has been demonstrated to be a key factor in high-reliability organizations (HROs), yet healthcare has not achieved a safety culture as seen in HROs despite decades of effort. Student nurses are enculturated into their profession during their pre-licensure education. This period offers an excellent opportunity to teach students the values, norms, and practices of safety culture. However, little is known about the state of safety culture in schools of nursing. The purpose of this study was to examine the state of patient safety culture as perceived by students in pre-licensure nursing programs in the US using a modified version of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC). The School of Nursing Culture of Safety Survey (SON-COSS), the modified instrument created for this study, was administered electronically to a sample of pre-licensure nursing students (N=539) drawn from membership in the National Student Nurses Association (NSNA). The SON-COSS was found to maintain its reliability and validity for use in pre-licensure nursing students. Perceptions of patient safety culture ranged from 81.6% to 23% positive for the 10 dimensions of patient safety culture measured by the SON-COSS. The highest percent positive dimensions for this study were Faculty Support for Patient Safety (81.6%), Teamwork Within Groups (78.3%), and Faculty Expectations and Actions Promoting Patient Safety (68.6%). The lowest percent positive dimensions for this study were Frequency of Events Reported (47.3%), Communication Openness (34%), and Nonpunitive Response to Error (23%). Participants in this study perceived patient safety culture significantly lower for eight of the 10 dimensions measured by the SON-COSS compared to aggregate national data from the HSOPSC (AHRQ, 2016). Only Faculty Support for Patient Safety (81.6%) was significantly higher than the corresponding dimension in the HSOPSC. The results of this survey indicate that students recognize the importance of safety to their faculty, but they do not perceive the presence of a just culture, an essential prerequisite for a culture of safety. This study provides a reliable and valid instrument to measure safety culture in schools of nursing and baseline data to understand the state of safety culture in this population.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Donald G. Hackmann. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-164) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Global competencies, with differences in terminology by various researchers, had been frequently investigated, primarily from an American-biased perspective. Little or no defining research existed that identified requisite, universally agreed upon global competencies, or identified what affective components were perceived to be important cross culturally. This research study answered the following questions: 1. What affective components are perceived to be important from a cross-cultural perspective? 2. Are there differences in these perceptions of affective components from a cross-cultural perspective? The purpose of the study was to explore the extent to which individuals in different GeoCultural regions view and identify affective components perceived to be important in today's global society. Affective components relate to emotions, values, and beliefs. The research entailed the development of two instruments for placing individuals within a primary region (the background information form) and for identifying and rating affective components perceived to be important in today's global society from a cross-cultural perspective (the affective component questionnaire). The study used four expert panels to perform content validation. Both instruments were developed by global experts from eight GeoCultural regions. As a result of the panel process, nine affective components were identified. Two instruments were administered, through intermediaries, to individuals in all the GeoCultural regions and subcategories. Of the responses, 423 were usable. Affective competence appears to be a complex construct that involves more than one component. Based on this study, there are at least nine different affective components perceived to be important in order to be a culturally competent individual in today's global society. All of the nine affective components were perceived to be important in all GeoCultural regions and subcategories. Repeated measures ANOVA and Dunn's pairwise comparisons tests were used to assess differences between the affective components and the GeoCultural regions/subcategories. There were differences found in three of the affective components indicating that there may be some differences between GeoCultural regions and subcategories. The Caribbean respondents did not value three affective components as highly as some of the other GeoCultural regions. Repeated measures ANOVAs were also used to determine if there were any significant differences between the subcategories of Asia and the subcategories of Oceania. Since no significant differences existed in either GeoCultural region, it lends support to the notion that the subcategories are not needed for research dealing with affective components.

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