M.Phil. (Economics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Narrative analysis of high school leavers' individual backgrounds examines both positive and negative reasons that; students terminate their secondary education and experiences, and return to pursue a GED- General Equivalency Diploma. This analysis examines goals for the future of these students including extended education, career choices and family situations. The goals of this study are to determine why informants leave high school before graduation and to examine these reasons across racial, cultural and gender lines. This report analyzes why students returned to receive their GEDs and how they believe the receipt of the GED will affect their goals in regards to education, family and career choices. Five themes about “high school leavers” are evident: Reflection - Why the students dropped out of school; Outside Forces - the negative and positive forces that influence the decisions the student makes; Focus - why the students finally decided to go back to school; Emotion - the role that self esteem played in relation to job status prior to and following the receipt of the GED and finally; Collaboration - the support systems that were available for the individual participants. This research follows the efforts of nine students in their struggle to understand why they became candidates for the general equivalency diploma from their reflection on leaving school, their understanding of the outside forces that aided them in their flight from high school, their focus on opportunities life offered assuming they returned to get a general equivalency diploma, the collaboration of family and friends required to ensure their future success and the overall emotion of achieving the general equivalency diploma that would awaken in them a new reason for life. In the end, it would be the general equivalency diploma that would change them and the lives of their families forever.

<p> There exists a need for instructional designers to understand how to incorporate supportive interventions in online developmental pre-algebra/math course designs. College students at the undergraduate level who require remedial assistance and academic supports in mathematics must successfully complete developmental pre-algebra/math courses. The study describes instructional strategies for procedural, active learning, and cognitive constructivist instructional strategies in problem-based learning. The study included six volunteer instructional designers who shared their perspectives for design practices, supportive interventions, and procedures to assist learners. A sample of convenience purposive sampling strategy was used to allow access to the volunteer participants through public social media. The six participants responded to the 16 related guided interview questions and the data was analyzed. Eighteen individual themes emerged related to supportive interventions used in instructional design regarding, instructional strategies, motivation, learning theories, and interaction by students within the courses. The participants shared seven design models and practices for successful learning, seven supports, and 12 developmentally appropriate design practices, used in their instructional designs. The findings of this study support the premise that by combining cognitive constructivism, social constructivism and confidence builders, to effect motivation and self-efficacy for supportive interventions, the learner could potentially successfully complete the requirements for undergraduate online developmental math courses.</p>

This qualitative case study sought to expand what is known about training methods that improve interpersonal communication skills for mid-level leaders in corporate settings. It looked at a training methodology, Behaviour Analysis (BA, Rackham & Morgan, 1977) conducted in the context of a year-long leadership development program in a biopharmaceutical company in the United States. Interviews with 16 program participants, and post-program survey data from 83 participants across 5 years, responded to three research questions: 1. How, and in what ways, did mid-level leaders perceive the interplay between thinking about how to communicate effectively and behaving in an interpersonally effective way? (perception) 2. How did mid-level leaders apply BA post-program? (application) 3. What were the reported perceptions of mid-level leaders about a relationship between BA and perspective transformation? (meaning) The researcher had unique access to and history with the client as a facilitator and member of the program design team. A qualitative case study approach was appropriate, given the consistent program content and profiles of participants year over year as well as the availability of additional program documents for analysis. Data insights were varied and clustered by cohort. Findings were interpreted using two theoretical frames: (a) Mezirow’s (1978, 2003) work with perspective transformation, and (b) the study’s conceptual framework, based on Argyris and Schön’s (1974) seminal work on action science and single-/double-loop learning. Key findings included: (a) the element of time on learning to balance advocacy and inquiry; (b) BA acting as a disorienting dilemma and menu card for expanded communication strategies; and (c) the placement of the disorienting dilemma in the process of perspective transformation. Four conclusions were drawn: 1. Making a shift in communication skills to balance advocacy and inquiry is additive and transformative. 2. Group and/or peer learning is an important component for increasing self-awareness in corporate L&D programs. 3. Disorienting dilemmas can be engineered and are valuable for bringing unconscious behavior patterns to consciousness for skill-building in a training setting. 4. Time and reflection play critical roles in making conscious connections between espoused theories and theories-in-use to build communication skills.

This qualitative case study was designed to explore how mentors in a formal mentoring program perceive their experience. The study is based upon the following assumptions: (1) mentors have experienced challenges; (2) mentors have had positive experiences in a mentoring dyad; (3) mentors will share their experiences; (4) the organization evaluates mentoring efforts by analyzing the mentees’ outcomes only; and (5) the organization offers support to the mentor. The site for the study was a global retailer located in New York, New York that had a formal mentoring program. The primary sources of data were: in-depth interviews with 19 former mentors, a focus group, and a document review. Mezirow (1990) proposed a process that one undergoes in a transformative learning event. In his model, individuals must have a dialogue with trusted others for support as they examine their prior roles. Therefore, it can be assumed that having a mentor could be instrumental in one’s transformative learning experience (Brookfield, 1987). Daloz (2000) proposed that for a transformative learning event to occur, there must be “the presence of the other, reflective discourse, a mentoring community, and opportunities for committed action” (p. 112). These concepts provided a construct for analysis and synthesis of the research findings. Although this study sought to examine how mentors perceived their role, a key finding revealed that participants were motivated by the desire to gain visibility. This impetus shaped their experience greatly. Further, the findings identified three categories of mentors: (1) those who accepted the role to appease management and possessed no desire to be a mentor, hence termed the Disgruntled: (2) those who were invested to the organization and had a desire to help others, and thus are Believers; and (3) those that were invested in the relationship, but had personal agendas for being in the role, called the Politicos. The primary recommendation from this study is that human resources need to be thoughtful in how they structure and monitor the mentoring dyad. This includes allowing participation in the program to be voluntary, providing training, and checking in with each member throughout the duration of the engagement.

The aim of this study is to trace the history of the development of adult education in the United States from the close of World War I to the beginning of World War II as it is revealed in the Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association for this period. The treatment of the data was thorough reading of the source materials and supplementary materials to discover the origin of the programs, why they were advocated and instituted, and when and if they were changed and for what reasons. It was found that there were three definite stages of development. Each reflected the economic, political, social, and intellectual characteristics of the nation at that time. / Typescript. / "August, 1950." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Nita K. Pyburn, Professor Directing Study. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-77).

Background: Continuing professional education (CPE) for nurses is deemed an essential component to develop, maintain and update professional skills and practice in order to ensure that nurses respond effectively to care requirements and provide a high standard of patient care. However, there is little empirical evidence of its effectiveness or factors which may influence its application into practice. This thesis explores a continuing professional education programme on the safe administration of medication and how new knowledge and skills are transferred into clinical practice. Design: Realist evaluation provides the framework for this research study. Realist evaluation stresses the need to evaluate programmes within "context," and to ask what "mechanisms" are acting to produce which "outcomes." The realist evaluation cycle for this study had four distinct stages. Firstly, I built initial theories as conjectured CMO configurations (Stage 1 and 2), then these CMO conjectures were tested (Stage 3) and then they were refined (Stage 4). Methods: Data was collected and analysed separately for each of Stages 1, 2 and 3. However, as realist evaluation is iterative, I often returned to a previous stage to clarify meaning or understanding. Document analysis and interviews were used in Stage 1 to commence the process of building CMO conjectures. Realist interviews took place in Stage 2 to refine the conjectured CMO configurations. Stage 3 involved the testing of the conjectured CMO configurations through three embedded case studies which involved interview, clinical observation, analysis of further documents and analysis of data from reported critical incidents and nursing care metric measurements. Findings: This study has shown the significant role of the ward manager in the application of new learning from the safe medication administration education programme to practice. Local leadership was found to enable a patient safety culture and the adoption of a quality improvement approach in the local clinical area. The multi-disciplinary team at both organisation and local level was also found to be a significant context for the application of the safe medication administration education programme into practice. Reasoning skills, patient identification and receptivity to change were identified to be key mechanisms which were enabled within the described contexts. The exploration of the context and mechanisms and their relationship allowed for further exploration of outcomes associated with the context and mechanism constructs. Recommendations: The conjectured CMO configurations put forward at the end of the thesis should be further tested utilising a different CPE programme. These theoretical propositions could inform policy and practice on the factors required to ensure learning from CPE is applied in practice. The realist evaluation framework should be applied when evaluating CPE programmes as the rationale for providing CPE programmes is to maintain and improve patient care.

<p> Early childhood education (ECE) teachers often lack the experience and skills to provide children with supports necessary to foster academic and social skill development. Professional development can improve ECE teachers&rsquo; skills, but ECE trainers often lack understanding of adult learning principles, known as andragogy. Knowles&rsquo; conceptual framework of andragogy was used to explore the knowledge and use of andragogical principles of 8 ECE trainers selected via criterion-based purposive sampling. The research questions focused on ECE trainers&rsquo; knowledge and use of andragogical principles. Three cases, each consisting of 2 or 3 live professional development trainings for early childhood educators, were used in this study. Data sources included (a) observations of ECE trainings, (b) semi-structured interviews with ECE trainers, and (c) content analysis of ECE training materials. Thematic analysis revealed that although participants were not formally trained in andragogy and were unfamiliar with the associated verbiage, most had a strong grasp of andragogy and used andragogical principles to drive the development and presentation of their training materials. The 3 main themes that emerged were (a) lack of training/background in andragogy, (b) training strategies employed, and (c) training design. Findings from this study provide an original contribution to the limited existing research on the professional development of early childhood educators and expand the existing body of research on andragogy. This study contributes to social change by revealing that trainers may benefit from formal andragogical training, which may then improve the education provided by ECE teachers to young children.</p><p>

<p> Little is known about what attracts men to the counseling profession and what their experiences are in counseling programs and the profession post-graduation. This qualitative case study examines what attracts men to the counseling profession, recruitment strategies, and proposed recruitment strategies that could affect prospective male students. It also reveals the experiences of males in counseling programs and the counseling profession, after graduation. Findings indicated men are attracted to the field for various reasons. Most participants did not notice any specific recruitment strategies directed toward males. The participants shared ideas for future male recruitment. Findings also indicated there are benefits and challenges associated with being a gender minority in counseling programs and the profession. Implications for counselor preparation programs are presented.</p><p>

<p> This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of elementary school teachers who were engaged in teacher-coach partnerships to discover the influence of instructional coaching on the teaching practices of elementary school teachers. Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations, and a compilation of documents and artifacts. The findings are discussed through the three main themes that emerged from the analysis of qualitative data and interpretation. The three main themes that described how instructional coaching influences the teaching practices of elementary school teachers were: (a) relationship building, (b) self-reflection and goal setting, and (c) coaching perceived as evaluative rather than individualized professional learning. </p><p> Overall, the factor acknowledged by all participants as being the most influential in making instructional changes to their teaching practices was the importance of building relationships with an instructional coach. This study adds to the body of literature regarding instructional coaching and the influence instructional coaching has on teaching practices.</p><p>