Research indicates that increased knowledge about the menopause transition positively impacts a woman’s attitude about this stage in her life, and a more positive attitude leads to less distress during the transition. However, there has been no research regarding how women gain this knowledge about menopause, what factors in her environment may hinder or assist her, or how women’s knowledge of menopause is leveraged by health care providers to help facilitate her menopause transition. The purpose of this research was to explore the self-directed learning actions of women regarding their search for information about menopause, and to understand what factors, if any, may have helped or hindered her search. A convenience sample of women 35-55 years of age was invited to participate in an online survey; a total of 227 usable responses were collected. Answers were analyzed by utilizing a simple frequency distribution to illustrate more and less common responses. Chi-square tests of independence were used to examine bivariate relationships, and content analysis was used to examine free response answers. The results of this study indicated that most women did not seek information about menopause on their own. Women who sought information were primarily motivated by symptoms: what to expect, symptom relief, or validation that their experiences were normal. This study also indicated that the most utilized resource for finding information was the Internet. It also found that women need more information from the health care community than they were receiving. Findings from this study suggest a need to continue to connect adult education with health promotion. Additionally, women had a need for greater interpersonal support and beneficial interactions with the health care community. Finally, this study demonstrated that women may benefit from the normalization of menopause as a social construct. Perhaps this could best be achieved through education within larger conversations about human reproduction and about natural aging.

This research examined demographic factors and reported preferential learning mode among a sample of Florida Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) members compared to a national sample profile of OLLI members. This study was prompted by an earlier study of OLLI members conducted by the National Resource Center (NRC) for OLLIs, which produced a national profile describing OLLI members. Although there was a national profile for OLLI members, there were no existing profiles of Florida OLLI members that could be used by OLLI administrators and instructors. This study employed an online survey to compare data between the national OLLI member profile and the Florida profile. Demographic factors such as age, gender, marital status, educational level, employment status, and relocation after retirement, as well as reported preferential learning mode were compared. The data resulting from this comparison indicated that although the gender and marital status distributions of the sample participants were similar, a majority of the other demographic variables were different for the Florida and national OLLI samples. The reported preferential learning mode between national and Florida OLLI members also were significantly different, in contrast to earlier research, which suggested that OLLI members were a homogenous group. The findings from this study suggest that it is important for adult education field educators, administrators, and OLLI instructors to recognize the growing diversity and technical proficiency of current retirees in order to continue to promote effective lifelong learning practices.

This PhD thesis is concerned with the influence of sustainable design in further education (FE) college buildings on whole institutional change for sustainability. The research focuses on the first decade of the 21st century in England and Wales when increasing engagement with the sustainability agenda in the FE sector included linking sustainability criteria to the funds for new building projects. The original contribution of the thesis is twofold. Firstly, it reveals the extent to which these new buildings contributed to institutional change for sustainability in the FE sector and identifies ways to maximise future sustainable building projects as a resource for institutional change. Although there was substantial investment in new buildings and a growing interest in sustainability during the period of the study, no evidence exists of research into the links between sustainable design and institutional change in the FE sector. Secondly, the thesis develops an original research approach, contributing to the multi-disciplinary field of research into sustainability and sustainable development. The thesis adopts a biographical approach from social science research and adapts it to produce narrative accounts of the development of two buildings with recognised sustainability qualities, one in England and one in Wales. These biographies are then analysed for evidence of institutional change for sustainability using the systems perspective that underpins the view of sustainability presented in the thesis. The thesis establishes two frameworks, one for recognising sustainable design within FE college buildings and one for identifying change for sustainability in FE institutions. The biographies of the buildings were developed using data collected by biographical research methods and the focus of the analyses is on the relationships that existed around each building’s development and its physical presence on campus. The thesis reveals that even colleges with a reputation for sustainability have not fully exploited the introduction of a sustainably designed building onto a campus as a catalyst for institutional change. The outcomes from the research offer key points for maximising the influence of future building projects in terms of achieving institutional change for sustainability and identify areas for further research into the influence of sustainable design on institutions in the FE and other education sectors. The development of the research approach in this thesis presents an alternative for researching sustainability in education and other fields.

Nursing and nurse education within Britain are influenced by the legacy of the development of hospital based adult general nursing in the 19th Century. Discourses that emerged at that time identify nurses as ‘good women’: respectable, hardworking, loyal and obedient. Currently, nurse education is criticised for being less able to produce nurses who are fit to undertake their role than in the past. Taking the concept that discourse exerts a powerful influence on the way people behave, this thesis asserts that the 19th Century legacy is important and seeks to establish the discourses that shaped nurse education. The period 1945 -1955 is chosen as sufficiently distanced from early developments, but recent enough to be in living memory and prior to the relocation of British nursing from a hospital base into Higher Education. Six overlapping discourses are identified though the literature. An interpretative approach is then taken to data collected in three stages: a life story 1932 -1973, semi-structured interviews with nurses who commenced their training 1945 -55 and documentary analysis of nursing journals for the same period. The ‘good nurse’ is explored through discourses around the ‘right kind of girl’, the tension between vocation and profession and the transition from woman to nurse. Despite significant change of direction in educational theory and policy in the period 1945 -55 the thesis suggests that the power of the discourse meant that little changed in the practice of nursing or the conduct of nurse education. Furthermore, it is argued that whilst discourses have changed and contemporary nursing is establishing its place in Higher Education as an applied academic discipline, the current discourses embracing caring, reflection and emotional labour are equally gendered and controlling. Now, as then, this discourse is not imposed by outside forces, but is generated and controlled from within the profession. It therefore concludes that the pervasive influence of discourses surrounding the ‘good nurse’ and related discourses about control and care must be given full recognition when attempting to change nursing or to influence its policy and educational developments.

The number of adult learners entering or returning to institutions of higher education is increasing in general and in relation to the traditional student population, and projections suggest that the trend will continue. As automation and technology impact the labor force, educational access is becoming a national concern and a necessity for more adult learners. Access to higher education impacts minority and economically depressed populations disproportionally and increases the personal and professional success of adult students and the long-term prosperity of their families. Although Composition Studies has a history of recognizing and facilitating student populations as they enter the Academy, adult learners have been overlooked and marginalized within Composition Studies. Through analysis of the foundational disciplinary literature, my research establishes that adult learners played a pivotal role in the development of Composition Studies and argues that Composition Studies can and should play a pivotal role in the success of adult learners in higher education. Locating adult learners in the disciplinary literature and demonstrating their impact on the theories and practices of Composition Studies creates a collective resource of research on which to ground current approaches and from which to launch future research; connecting this literature to the larger literature on adult learners allows Composition to contribute to and benefit from Academy-wide efforts. Stated simply, the goal of this dissertation is to recognize and support adult learners in Composition Studies. Such work is imperative because Composition Studies is continuing to construct adult learners through deficiency narratives and overlook adult learners in the current literature and classroom practices, as evidenced by the research on student-veterans. As a result, I suggest addressing the disciplinary responsibility to adult learners immediately through programmatic responses to the needs of adults in Composition Studies and by using the acknowledgment of their presence to call for institutional resources in support of all adult learners.

The purpose of this study was to describe Registered Nurses’ attitudes toward death and their perspectives on education and training related to death and end-of-life patient care. A complementary goal was to determine whether nurses’ attitudes and perspectives are associated with background variables. The three attitudes toward death included anxiety, escape, and neutral attitudes. The background variables of the nurses included formal educational level, age, gender, ethnicity, years of nursing practice, state of residence, and area of nursing practice. A survey including four sections was used for data collection. The first section of the survey utilized an established 32-item survey based on the Death Attitude Profile Revised survey developed by Wong, Reker, and Gesser in 1994. The questions asked how nurses felt about the topic of death. The second section of the survey was about the extent of palliative care education and training, while the third section was concerned with the demographics of the respondents. Part four of the survey included two open-ended questions regarding attitudes toward death and how prepared respondents felt in meeting their patients’ end-of-life needs. The survey was sent to state nurses’ associations across the United States in 2015. Survey Monkey was the link for the survey and it was opened for a three-week period. The original responses totaled 248 participants. Responses with any missing values were excluded. The final dataset included 167 total responses. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis to determine the association between the variables of interest. The results of the study were most significant in relation to anxiety toward death. Nurses who were more experienced on the job, female, and with more formal education had lower anxiety levels, as did nurses with a higher confidence level in dealing with death. For the neutral attitudes, the best predictor was the rating of the nurses’ end-of-life preparation. The best predictor of the escape attitude was years of nursing experience. The results supported the need for college level end-of-life education and the significance role of nursing experience in relation to less anxiety towards death. The surprising result was that post-college end-of-life education actually increased the anxiety attitude toward death. More research is needed to ascertain if these results could be replicated. There is a need to determine what type of post-collegiate education would decrease death anxiety in nurses.

Houle conducted one of the first studies about adult learner participation. In 1961, Houle wrote The Inquiring Mind, which describes three distinct learning types: goal-oriented, activity-oriented, and learning-oriented learning. For more than fifty years, The Inquiring Mind has been read, referenced, and reviewed. Several scholars during the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s have added dimensions to Houle’s typology including: Sheffield (1964); Burgess (1971); Boshier (1971); Houle (1983); Gordon (1993); and Brockett and Donaghy (2011). What is missing in the current research is that no one has synthesized all of the literature and directly asked learners of today if the typology is still relevant, or if additional dimensions are needed for relevancy. Houle’s typology has been widely applied to various adult learners and not just non-credit adult learners. This study was conducted to explore if Houle’s typology could be applied to credit seeking adult learners in contemporary doctoral programs. The participants were doctoral students in the College of Education at a large urban research university. Results of this study concluded that participants were representative of Houle’s three learner types (goal-oriented learner, activity-oriented learner, and learner-oriented learner). However, these doctoral students did not seem to require as many social interactions as Houle’s non-degree students. Additional findings indicated that participants were role models, had a desire to contribute to society, gained self-confidence, sought self-fulfillment, and used acting as a role model to their children as a motivator. Seven themes found through this research were goal-oriented learning, activity-oriented learning, learner-oriented learning, role modeling, contributing to society, self-confidence, and self-fulfillment. All the themes seemed to be very prevalent among participants except for activity-oriented learning. One implication of this research is the importance of incorporating motivations into program planning to help adult participation in both credit and non-credit programs. Further research might be conducted with multiple universities and with participants seeking advanced degrees in varied disciplines.

Yn y traethawd hwn, trafodir prosiect doethurol a chanddo ddau brif nod, sef: (1) cynhyrchu cyfres o adnoddau dysgu Cymraeg ar-lein yn arbennig ar gyfer Canolfan Iaith a Threftadaeth Cymru Nant Gwrtheyrn; a (2) ymchwilio i ac ysgrifennu traethawd ymchwil mewn maes cysylltiedig. Penderfynais gyfuno’r ddwy elfen, a defnyddio theori ac ymchwil fel sail ar gyfer y dasg greadigol. Fy ngobaith oedd dangos ymagwedd egwyddorol tuag at ddatblygu adnoddau e-ddysgu newydd, ac ysbrydoli eraill i wneud yr un fath yn y dyfodol, yn enwedig yng ngoleuni galwad diweddar Mac Giolla Chríost et al. (2012, t. 182) i ymarferwyr ym maes Cymraeg i Oedolion rannu ‘ymarfer da’. Mae allbynnau’r Ddoethuriaeth hon yn gwneud dau brif gyfraniad at y maes. Y cyntaf o’r rhain yw’r gyfres o adnoddau e-ddysgu unigryw o’r enw “e-nant” a fydd yn dechrau cael traweffaith yn syth ar ddysgwyr sy’n mynychu cyrsiau lefel Mynediad yn Nant Gwrtheyrn o nawr ymlaen. Ar ben hynny, mae’r traethawd hwn yn dangos yn glir sut y gellir seilio datblygiad deunyddiau dysgu newydd ar egwyddorion ymchwil. Bydd hwn yn adnodd defnyddiol iawn i awduron deunyddiau’r dyfodol, oherwydd ei fod yn darparu enghreifftiau clir o’r byd go iawn o sut mae rhoi cysyniadau theoretig ar waith yn ymarferol. Drwy ymgymryd ag ymchwil cyfrwng Cymraeg, yr wyf hefyd yn gwneud trydydd cyfraniad, sef hwyluso trafodaeth o bynciau tebyg drwy’r Gymraeg yn y dyfodol, a chyfrannu at godi statws y Gymraeg fel iaith academaidd – un o amcanion strategol Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru (2010). Casglwyd rhestr o dermau perthnasol i feysydd Caffael Ail Iaith a Dysgu Iaith drwy Gymorth Cyfrifiadur, y bydd ymchwilwyr y dyfodol yn gallu cyfeirio ati’n hawdd, a bathwyd sawl term newydd, er mwyn galluogi trafodaeth o gysyniadau nad ydynt erioed wedi’u trafod yn y Gymraeg o’r blaen. This thesis discusses a doctoral project with two main aims: (1) to produce a series of online Welsh learning resources especially for the Nant Gwrtheyrn Welsh Language and Heritage Centre; and (2) to research and write a research thesis in a related field. I decided to combine the two elements, and to use theory and research as a base for the creative task. My hope was to demonstrate a principled approach towards developing new e-learning resources, and to inspire others to do likewise in the future, especially in light of Mac Giolla Chríost et al.'s (2012, t. 182) recent call for Welsh for Adults practitioners to share ‘good practice’. The outputs of this Doctorate make two main contributions to the field. The first of these is the series of unique e-learning resources called “e-nant” which will immediately begin to have an impact on learners who attend Entry-level courses at Nant Gwrtheyrn from now on. In addition, this thesis clearly shows how the development of new learning materials can be based on research principles. This will be a very useful resource for future materials writers, since it provides clear real-world examples of how to put theoretical concepts into practice. By undertaking Welsh-medium research, I also make a third contribution, namely to facilitate discussion of similar subjects through Welsh in the future, and to contribute towards raising the status of Welsh as an academic language – one of the Welsh Assembly Government’s (2010) strategic aims. A list of relevant terms was compiled for the fields of Second Language Acquisition and Computer-Assisted Language Learning, which future researchers will be able to refer to easily, and several new terms were coined, in order to enable discussion of concepts which have never before been discussed in the Welsh language.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the utilization of student support services and overall satisfaction in medical school. Utilization of services, and overall satisfaction were analyzed by gender, race/ethnicity, and medical specialty choice. In addition, the study identified the most utilized support service, and explored whether utilization of services and overall satisfaction were correlated with academic performance. Two medical schools in the state of Florida were used for the study, University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine (USF MCOM), and Florida State University College of Medicine (FSU CoM). Separate anonymous, three-part, on-line surveys were created and administered to fourth-year students. Data were collected on the utilization of the specific academic and psychological support services available at each school. Data were analyzed by medical school (n = 87; n = 71), and as a combined set (N = 158). Results of a multiple regression analysis, using each support service as predictors, indicated that the utilization of the primary service for academic counseling at both medical schools was inversely related to overall satisfaction. Results also revealed that no significant differences existed for utilization of support services and overall satisfaction by gender, race/ethnicity, and medical specialty choice. The most utilized service at USF MCOM was the Office of Student Affairs. At FSU CoM, the Office of Student Counseling Services was the most utilized. The findings indicated that utilization of USF MCOM services increased as academic performance decreased; however, there was no significant relationship between academic performance and utilization of services at FSU CoM. A significant relationship existed between academic performance and overall satisfaction; as students’ experience of academic difficulties increased, their overall satisfaction with medical school decreased. The implications from this study can help facilitate an initiative, at both medical schools, to broaden the scope and utilization of the academic and psychological support services to possibly increase their influence on student resiliency, and the overall medical school experience.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between learning styles and the choice of learning environment for Hospitality and Tourism undergraduate students. An anonymous two-part survey was sent to the instructors of Introduction to Hospitality and Tourism Management courses (both online and face-to-face) in four schools in the state of Florida. The survey was designed to gather information related to the following three research questions related to MBTI profiles for undergraduate students in attempt to identify differences between students enrolled in online classes and those in face-to-face classes. In order to determine the probability of predicting course choice behavior of undergraduate Hospitality and Tourism students, the following factors were controlled in this research: age; gender; enrollment status; employment status; university; whether they had taken an online course previously in high school, college, or other places; how many online courses they previously took; and who helped them select the delivery mode of their courses. There were 323 usable responses, which included a majority of the most common types as ESTJ. When the differences between online and face-to-face course students were analyzed through chi-square tests, the results showed significant differences between two groups for all four profiles. Overall, the most common profile for face-to-face students was ESTJ, while the most common profile for online students were ISTP. In order to examine the unique contribution of learning styles on Hospitality and Tourism students’ course choice, a hierarchical logistic regression model was used. The results of the model indicated that only profile one (P1) and profile four (P4) were significant predictors among the four profiles, along with the total number of online courses previously taken. The conclusions suggested that by looking at P1, P4, and toc1, with a 95% confidence level, the probability of students choosing face-to-face classes can be predicted if the students are extrovert, judging, and previously had taken less than five online courses. If learning styles can be determined ahead of time, students can choose appropriate courses, instructors can develop teaching strategies that will match students’ desirable learning styles, and the number of face-to-face and online courses can be adjusted in each program to offer an appropriate number of courses each semester.