<p> This study examined the impact of dialogue-based group instruction on student learning and engagement in community college meteorology education. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare lecture-based instruction with dialogue-based group instruction during two class sessions at one community college in southern California. Pre- and post-tests were used to measure learning and interest, while surveys were conducted two days after the learning events to assess engagement, perceived learning, and application of content. The results indicated that the dialogue-based group instruction was more successful in helping students learn than the lecture-based instruction. Each question that assessed learning had a higher score for the dialogue group that was statistically significant (alpha &lt; 0.05) compared to the lecture group. The survey questions about perceived learning and application of content also exhibited higher scores that were statistically significant for the dialogue group. The qualitative portion of these survey questions supported the quantitative results and showed that the dialogue students were able to remember more concepts and apply these concepts to their lives. </p><p> Dialogue students were also more engaged, as three out of the five engagement-related survey questions revealed statistically significantly higher scores for them. The qualitative data also supported increased engagement for the dialogue students. Interest in specific meteorological topics did not change significantly for either group of students; however, interest in learning about severe weather was higher for the dialogue group. Neither group found the learning events markedly meaningful, although more students from the dialogue group found pronounced meaning centered on applying severe weather knowledge to their lives. Active engagement in the dialogue approach kept these students from becoming distracted and allowed them to become absorbed in the learning event. This higher engagement most likely contributed to the resulting higher learning. Together, these results indicate that dialogue education, especially compared to lecture methods, has a great potential for helping students learn meteorology. Dialogue education can also help students engage in weather-related concepts and potentially develop better-informed citizens in a world with a changing climate.</p><p>

<p> This qualitative study was designed to explore the perceptions that adult Spanish-speaking English as a Second Language learners have on their language learning. Half of the participants have experienced getting stuck on a learning plateau, while the others continued to make progress. </p><p> The rationale arises from the researcher&rsquo;s desire to help students who struggle learning English. It was the researcher&rsquo;s assumption that adding critical reflection to one&rsquo;s learning would help language learners make progress again. The participants were purposefully selected and consisted of 18 Spanish speakers who were studying in an intermediate-level English as a Second Language course in a noncredit program at a community college. </p><p> Data collection methods included in-depth interviews with 18 participants as the primary method, focus groups, and document analysis. All participants had been enrolled in an intermediate-level ESL course at the time of the data collection. The research questions guided the coding and organization of the data. Two analytic categories formed the basis of the analysis and interpretation: (a) Progress is dependent upon extent to which acculturation facilitates language acquisition, and (b) Progress is dependent upon the extent to which participants engage in Self-Directed Learning. </p><p> The research revealed that English language learners perceive the language to be the largest barrier in their acculturation to the United States. The research also showed that the majority of participants seek out others to help them when they have difficulty and that they reported taking classes as helping them the most to learn the language. </p><p> Recommendations offered to learners are to begin the learning of English sooner rather than later to lessen the shock with which the language confronts them. This aids in faster acculturation. Another recommendation is for learners to engage in self-directed learning with a purpose. Engaging with a purpose allows learners to reflect on their learning and develop ways to that they can interact more with others who speak the language.</p>

In a country, which has recently acquired its democracy, education for all citizens is of primary concern. During this time when South Africa finds its self in a period of transition and of prioritising items on its agenda, education in general and in particular education of those who had a little or no education at all, is high on the priority list. Women in the past have been discriminated against and thus deprived of equal access to educational experiences and the accumulation of skills and qualifications – aspects that affected their daily lives. Therefore, many women have not had opportunities for personal development, choice of work and the capacity to influence political decisions. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences that women learners encountered within an ABET programme. Due to the limited research done on women's learning within ABET programmes in South Africa, women learners have been isolated and marginalised in all levels of education. Despite this, women, who head up a third of the world’s households, are not often identified as vital role players for the sustainability of communities especially in relation to issues concerning health, social welfare and economic activities. In order to obtain a greater understanding of the experiences of women learners within ABET programmes, this study was designed to elicit the views of women in an ABET programme. Qualitative methods of data collection and analysis were utilised in this process and I used the constant comparative method of data analysis to search for recurring themes and patterns The most prominent findings emerging from the study was that women felt advantaged as members of a community of learners. It was also evident that numerous factors restricted effective learning for women. In addition, academic progress and self-confidence that would serve as a foundation for future learning also emerged as an important finding. This study has shown that although ABET programmes such as the one in which this research took place, are vital and fulfil a very real need especially for women, there are a number of factors in the programmes themselves and within society in general which hampers optimal learning by women in the programme. / Mrs. N. F. Petersen

<p> This mixed-model study utilized the qualitative and quantitative data from high school teachers of one middle Tennessee school district and high school teachers of the Tennessee High School Speech and Drama League to determine if differences existed amongst the learning preferences of high school teachers in adult learning environments. All participants completed the Canfield Learning Styles Inventory to provide quantitative data. Members of an executive board completed a focus group questionnaire to provide qualitative data for the study. The study led to a recommendation that developers of professional development and school officials consider learning preferences because significant differences existed amongst the participants. Accounting for these differences could lead to more effective implementation of professional development content. </p>

<p>The growing diversity of museum visitors has shifted art museums? educational goals towards developing new ways for visitors to create meaningful experiences. Currently, the predominant method of instruction for adults relies on the lecture based format. The argument made in this study suggests that the interactive strategies used for children could be equally beneficial if applied to adults, provided these activities are designed specifically for adults. Based on the research, when interactive activities are made available to adults it is usually done through a ?multi-generational? approach, inherently geared for adults accompanying children. To address this concern, the study surveyed the educational departments and programs of eight museums in Southern California. The results explore current educational trends and conclude with suggestions how museums can begin modifying and implementing interactive strategies for the adult visitor.

<p> Behavioral aspects of learning and emergent cognitive state are known to influence team effectiveness. In practice, agile project management is employed to address certain behavioral aspects of teaming with an emphasis on communication and social interaction. Software development teams have widely adopted the scrum framework for agile over the past decade, yet research on agile software development has produced a limited amount of work covering scrum. In addition, quantitative empirical support for links between socially situated learning, learning conditions, and organizational learning in agile software development teams have not been established. This dissertation study used a quantitative survey research design to examine effects of social interaction and learning conditions on transactive memory and the influence of social interaction on transactive memory among agile teams practicing scrum. A one-time quantitative survey was conducted, collecting data from 114 agile software developers on research panels. All participants were currently or recently working in the US on agile teams practicing scrum. This dissertation study proposed learning conditions as a socio-cognitive mediator in the relationship between social interaction and transactive memory. Support was found for three hypotheses (a) social interaction positively influences learning conditions among agile team members; (b) learning conditions positively influence transactive memory among agile team members; (c) social interaction influences transactive memory among agile team members. Evidence of mediation was also found using the Sobel test and a joint test of significance with percentile bootstrapping. This dissertation study found that agile software teams demonstrate enhanced group memory under certain learning conditions. The results indicate that positive learning conditions can strengthen the relationship between social interactions and transactive memory in an organizational setting.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was 1) to examine the significance of a patient&rsquo;s active or passive role in terms of his/her health management; 2) to determine if a relationship exists between one&rsquo;s active and passive scores and his/her self-directed learning readiness, and 3) to identify if his/her view of one&rsquo;s self as a patient (when diagnosed with a chronic disease) impacted his/her own personal health management. Utilizing the quantitative analysis of The Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale and the Vanderbilt Pain Management Inventory, 81 individuals&rsquo; descriptive statistics were analyzed. Self-directed learning was found to positively influence an individual&rsquo;s ability to be an active patient. The moderated demographic characteristics of age, ethnicity, education level, and gender did not have a direct relationship between selfdirected learning readiness and active/passive coping groups.</p>

<p>Military adult learners enrolled in intensive language courses such as the Arabic Basic Course at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center may need to utilize specific learning strategies in order to reach high proficiency language achievement. These strategies are established in the literature as contributors to high language proficiency achievement. The problem addressed in this study was that the desired high proficiency levels defined as 2+/2+/2 on the Defense Language Proficiency Test remains unrealized. In order to understand how to help students excel in foreign language learning, this study compared self-regulated learning scores of students who met the proficiency goal of 2+/2+/2 to those who did not. The 2+/2+/2 are the scores of the listening, reading and speaking measured by Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale. The Motivated Strategies for Leering questionnaire was used to compare the self-regulated learning strategies of the high and the low language proficiency achievers. Interviews of the Arabic learners to understand what self-regulated learning strategies these learners used and how they developed their self-regulated learning strategies were necessary to determine what the high achievers did and what the low achievers did not do so that this information can be used to improve the way that the foreign language learners are taught. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS and Interviews were analyzed following the Powell and Renner&rsquo;s (2003) five steps of data analyses. The results of this mixed-methods study showed that using more self-regulated learning strategies increased the students&rsquo; language proficiency levels and also revealed how the students developed and used these strategies to increase Arabic language proficiency levels. </p>

In the Irish healthcare system ward staffing is not matched with client acuity. With the recession came a moratorium on staffing and this combined with reduced length of stay for clients impacted significantly on nursing staff. Added to this a large number of front-line staff took early retirement leading to burnout of existing staff. Clear guidelines have been laid down by HIQA (2012a, 2012b) on the appropriate governance structure to ensure that client care is delivered safely and is of a high quality. The environment where nursing students undertake their clinical placement can have a positive or negative effect on them depending on the ratio of staff nurses to clients. The undergraduate nursing degree programme has been in place in Ireland since 2002. Nursing students register their qualifications with Bord Altranais agus Cnáimhseachais na hÉireann (Nursing and Midwifery Board, Ireland) upon successful completion of the programme. Nursing students are supported and facilitated on clinical placement by a qualified staff nurse named a preceptor. The term “preceptor” is the term used in Ireland to refer to a registered nurse who supports, guides and assesses nursing students on practice placement; the terms “mentor”, “practice placement supervisor” and “clinical supervisor” are also used in the literature to refer to the same role (Mead, 2012). For the purposes of this study the term “preceptor” will be used throughout this document. The quality of the nursing programme depends on the experience and level of supervision the nursing students receive in the clinical learning environment. This qualitative study explored current standards of the preceptorship model of nursing, to determine how preceptors perceive their role and the values preceptees place on the level of support they receive from preceptors during their clinical placements. I also needed to determine the level of support and training preceptors received from lecturers in higher education and management in the teaching hospital. The theoretical frameworks I used in the study were the Legitimate Peripheral Participation Theory (Lave and Wenger, 1991), which describes how newcomers become experienced members and eventually old-timers of a community of practice, and Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977), which proposes that learning takes place as a result of social interaction with other staff, including preceptors, through both verbal and non-verbal language. The literature implied that the role of the preceptor is stressful and the training inadequate (Haggerty et al., 2012; Eley, 2010; McCarthy and Murphy, 2010). This study set out to explore the tripartite relationship between preceptors, nursing students and lecturers. Using a qualitative approach, I conducted 24 semi-structured interviews with nursing students (n=8), preceptors (n=8) and lecturers (n=8). The study findings suggested that the preceptor’s role is difficult owing to time constraints, ward acuity and lack of resources. Part of the remit of a nurse working on a ward necessitates working different shifts and preceptors identified that it can be difficult to match the duty of a staff nurse with that of a nursing student. Preceptors found it challenging to give enough quality time to the students. Client care is always a priority with staff nurses, and must come first; the time they can spend with nursing students therefore tended to be ad hoc in nature. According to the preceptors they need on-going support from management of the hospital and lecturers in higher education. Those interviewed suggested they loved their role but felt they could not give enough quality time to the students. They would like more support from clinical placement coordinators (CPCs), from lecturers in higher education, and from management of the hospital. The preceptors also suggested that the training they receive needs to be more comprehensive, and to include more refreshers on curricula, teaching and assessing nursing students and providing feedback. The nursing students valued the time they spent with their preceptor, but this was sometimes limited owing to resources, ward acuity and working different shifts. They latched on to any available nurse when their preceptor was busy elsewhere or off duty. Overall, they would much prefer to have their named preceptor with them for support and guidance and because the preceptor was their assessor for their final interview on the clinical placement. The lecturers acknowledged the wonderful work the preceptors do in facilitating the nursing students in the clinical area. They believed that the preceptors should be given more support in the form of refreshers and “protected time” to precept the students. The lecturers would like to be more visible in the clinical area, but because of their teaching, research and administrative role their time is limited to quick visits to the ward. Some lecturers acknowledged that to remain current it is important for them to spend more time in the clinical area. Preceptors, employed by health care institutions, undertake the responsibility of supporting nursing students without protected time or remuneration. The nursing students are also supported by clinical placement co-ordinators (CPCs) on a 1 : 30 ratio. CPCs are employed by health care institutions to co-ordinate clinical placements. They assist with teaching and learning of students but do not formally assess them. They were not included in this study as there were insufficient numbers to match the sample size. To conclude, if there is insufficient time to precept nursing this can be a lost learning opportunity for the students. The nursing students miss the direct support and feedback from their preceptor and their learning is limited. They can finish their clinical placement not having reached their potential and maximised their learning. Despite the current climate of austerity there is a need to retain our highly qualified and capable nursing workforce.

<p> Identifying students who may require additional assistance and coaching based on their self-concept score will also allow community colleges to provide additional support services for those students. If there is a difference in self-concept among students in a Mississippi community college, leaders might be able to use self-concept as a way of building additional services that help students improve their self-concept and subsequently reduce attrition. </p>