Research has documented the need for school districts to recruit and retain qualified school leaders capable of navigating the organizational challenges for school improvement, particularly in high-poverty, low-achievement contexts. Recently, scholars have studied principal pipeline structures implemented by school districts to recruit and retain effective principals. A key finding of this research is that clearly-defined standards and performance criteria can inform school districts' strategic identification and development of individuals with the potential to become effective principals. Further research is needed to understand and define potential and readiness for the principalship in assistant principals, commonly the largest candidate group in a principal pipeline. I used a qualitative case study design to investigate veteran principals' perceptions about potential and readiness for the principalship in assistant principals. Six principals in one urban school in Texas were purposefully selected based on their experience with supporting, developing, and/or endorsing former assistant principals for promotion to the principalship while under their supervision. I collected data through questionnaires and in-depth interviews to understand this phenomenon through the informants' lived experience. I found that the principals view professional competence and personal dispositions as indicators of potential and readiness for the principalship. They believe an assistant principal's potential to perform as a principal is evident in the processes and products of their work, but they don't believe all high-potentials are necessarily ready to become principals. Shared leadership was instrumental to developing readiness for the principalship in their assistant principals, and developing capacity by building on strength and targeting weakness worked equally well in their experience. Using these findings and existing research, I identify state and district-level policy implications for the field. I also make recommendations for further study of this topic in the future. / text

A new group of primary school deputy heads has emerged as the new rank, SPSM, has been created for deputy heads of primary schools in Hong Kong with effect from 1 September 2008. On becoming teacher leaders, these deputy heads are serving significant roles in primary schools. The literature reviews that there are few local studies in this area. This study has recognized the research need to understand the needs of novice deputy heads. 489 invitation letters were sent to all SPSMs in ordinary aided and government primary schools in Hong Kong in March 2011 and five SPSMs participated in this study. A qualitative approach was adopted, including focus group interviews, individual interviews, shadowing, and analyses of relevant documents. Results of the study indicate that underlying the needs that they have voiced out (such as the need for more time and ‘space’, collegial support, appropriate professional development and training) are two fundamental issues, namely, their readiness for leadership responsibilities and their capacity for the multiple roles of a deputy head. This study also indicates that their needs are varied and personal. Their needs are affected by their major roles and responsibilities, different situations in schools, the decision and attitude of their principals, relationship with fellow staff, personal background, experience, mindset, and values, and situations in the local context. Implications on the ways in which their needs could be met indicate that besides issues related to other parties and provisions from external sources, more fundamental is the transformation from within, that is, a switch of mindset from being a teacher, a manager, to a leader. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Despite its potential to enhance the mental health of college student populations, the efficacy of gatekeeper programs in connecting suicidal students with professional help is unclear. Potential negative side effects of peer helping programs, such as gatekeeper training, are rarely examined and there is not a sufficient body of evidence documenting the efficacy or safety of peer helping programs, despite their widespread use. The challenge of implementing a safe and effective peer based gatekeeper campus suicide prevention effort lies in balancing the benefits of connecting suicidal students to professional help more often and sooner, with the potential adverse mental health impacts of participation on gatekeepers. This study examines how a gatekeeper training program might increase suicidal student help seeking and measures the mental health impact of participation on Resident Assistants (RAs) trained in suicide prevention. This study will explore whether a more intensive helping role by the RA amplifies the effect of referring and securing professional help for suicidal students. This study also measures how differing the intensity of help provided by RAs impacts the gatekeepers’ own stress and suicidality levels. RAs will be trained under high versus low intensity helping conditions. RAs in the low intensity helping condition will be trained to identify potentially suicidal students and refer them for professional help. RAs in the high intensity helping condition will be trained to identify potentially suicidal students, engage them in a quasi-professional helping role, and refer them to professional help. This study will also explore whether promotion of telephone counseling as a helping resource will impact referrals to and utilization of professional help, either in-person or through telephone counseling. / text

Anonymizers based on an intermediate computer (a set of them) located between the sender and the receiver of an e-mail message have been used for several years by senders of e-mail messages who do not wish to disclose their identity to the receivers. The job of the computer in the middle (the mediator) is to receive the message from the sender, delete the sender's address and other personal data from the header of the message, and forward the message to its final destination. In this paradigm, there are no means to hide the identity of the user from the mediator simple because the message sent arrives in the middle computer, with information that easily leads to the identity of the sender. The origin of this problem is that the sender uses a computer identified by an IP-address that unambiguously leads to the identity of its user. In fact, the sender discloses his identity to the mediator computer from the very moment lie sends his message in the hope that the mediator will protect it. Because of this, in this paradigm the strength of the system for protecting the identity of the sender depends on the ability and willingness of the mediator to keep the secret. In this dissertation we propose a novel approach to sending truly anonymous and confidential messages over the Internet which does not depend on a third party. Our idea departs from the mediator approach in that we do not use an IP-addressed computer to send anonymous messages, we use an IP-addressless computer instead, to be specific, we use a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) which is IP-addresslessly connected to the Internet with the support of a Mobile Support Station (MSS). The PDA is identified by the MSS by a temporary, non-personal, random identifier (TmpId) which is assigned by the MSS and is valid only for one communication session. Thanks to the use of the TmpId, the sender of the anonymous messages does not need to disclose his identity to the MSS or to anybody else; thus, the strength of the system does not depend on any mediator. Having observed that a public telephone box provides complete anonymity when operated by coins, we took its functionality as a paradigm for our system. Thus, the main idea of our approach is to make the PDA, the MSS, and the Internet communication infrastructure imitate the work of a public telephone box connected to the telephone network. For this to be possible the PDA user uses anonymous electronic cash to pay for his anonymous message. To prove the feasibility of our approach and its correctness, the protocol of the proposed system was designed, specified in Promela specification language, and its basic safety properties and proper end-states were validated using the Spin validator.

Thesis (EdD) -- Australian Catholic University, 2006. / Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. Bibliography: p. 202-211. Also available in an electronic format via the internet.

BACKGROUND: Substance use disorders are highly prevalent and highly stigmatized. They are defined as conditions in which the use of one or more substances, in spite of negative consequences, leads to a clinically significant impairment or distress. Stigma is a characteristic deemed undesirable by society. Stigma is dependent on the relationship between the specific discrediting or undesirable characteristic and the social context. LITERATURE REVIEW FINDINGS: The various manifestations of stigma include public or external stigma, provider stigma, and internal stigma. External stigma is the negative beliefs that society holds about people in stigmatized groups, for example patients with substance use disorders or HIV. Another type of stigma is provider stigma, referring to the negative beliefs that providers hold about patients belonging to these stigmatized groups. Internal stigma is defined as the devaluation that people in stigmatized groups hold about themselves in relation to society. Stigma is continued when there is a lack of familiarity and education with a stigmatized condition or group. PROPOSED PROJECT: The proposed project aims to address and decrease provider stigma in physician assistant trainees before they begin their clinical training through an educational intervention. This thesis will propose the development and evaluation of a new curriculum to educate physician assistant students on substance use disorders and their treatments, frame substance use disorders as chronic diseases, and aid physician assistant student trainees on recognizing their attitudes and biases, or prejudices, toward working with patients with substance use disorders. The project will assess attitudes before and after the education intervention to analyze if attitudes toward patients with substance use disorders have changed as a result of the educational intervention. The goal of the educational curriculum is to improve physician assistant student attitudes toward working with patients with substance use disorders before they encounter this population in clinical practice. SIGNIFICANCE: Physician assistants are clinicians who diagnose illness, develop treatment plans, manage their own patients, and often serve as the primary clinician for patients. Physician assistants will encounter a number of patients with substance use disorders throughout the course of their careers. Addressing provider stigma in this group will help improve treatment outcomes in this patient population and give the students the confidence and knowledge to manage patients with substance use disorders. As a result of completing this curriculum, physician assistant students will have decreased stigma and better attitudes toward working with patients with substance use disorders.

This research investigates the impact of collaborative work between an Educational Psychologist (EP) and teaching assistants (TAs) delivering a wave 3 National Numeracy Strategy (NNS) intervention. The aim was to decipher whether EPs can play a distinctive role in addressing the stubborn and significant tail of underachievement in numeracy and, indirectly, the associated risks to an individual’s life opportunities, health, employability and social cohesion by providing consultative support for TAs. A multiple case study approach was adopted involving three case studies, each comprising one TA and three underachieving children, at different schools in the North of England. The EP modelled the use of the wave 3 NNS materials and supported/trained TAs in delivering this and other jointly agreed input over one academic term. Initial consultations were held with TAs to explore their experiences of mathematics and delivering numeracy interventions. Thereafter, joint planning and discussions took place on a fortnightly basis to identify what was working well and what input from an EP may be of use; EP input was provided as and when appropriate. Outcomes from the research were assessed using a standardized numeracy test, attitude questionnaires completed by TAs and children, interviews with TAs before and after the intervention and a research diary. The quantitative data gathered through the numeracy test and attitude questionnaires were compared pre and post intervention using descriptive statistics. The qualitative data from interviews and the research diary was analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. The results indicate that consultative support from EPs is welcome by TAs and schools and can be associated with positive outcomes for the children involved. TAs felt EP support was reassuring and acknowledged that it increased their knowledge and confidence and this directly affected the way they thought, felt and behaved in relation to the children’s numeracy difficulties. TAs reported positive observable changes in the children’s attitudes to numeracy lessons and there was a positive correlation between children’s scores on the numeracy test and the final attitude scores allocated to them by TAs, indicating that the intervention had a substantial impact on children’s attitudes and attainment in numeracy. TAs, parents and teachers attributed the positive changes seen in children to participation in the intervention and children’s progress was clearly linked to the numeracy topics covered by the NNS materials. A model for EP-TA collaboration with NNS interventions is proposed and significant factors include: consultation; modelling resources; conducting diagnostic assessments; shaping TAs’ pedagogical practice and providing training on instructional psychology methods. The research indicates that there is a potential distinctive role for EPs in raising the numeracy attainment and attitudes of children working with TAs on NNS interventions. The key element is successive EP consultations that target specific numeracy needs, effectively consider contextual factors and provide ongoing support for TAs. The proposed model could be applied to other numeracy interventions and provides an economical alternative to expensive SEN provision that EPs could usefully contribute to. Further research will be needed to ascertain more precisely the value added by the factors identified in this study to be associated with positive outcomes for children.

The flipped classroom structure is a new concept designed to accommodate current students in place of the traditional classroom structure. Instead of in-class lectures, students do the majority of learning outside of class and use in-class time to participate in interactive activities with peers and with educators. Most out-of-class learning materials involve use of lecture videos, online games, or lecture notes. Recent studies found success with flipped classrooms in a variety of settings and students. However, there are no studies regarding whether current students better retain information when providing lectures in digital media as opposed to traditional media. This study compares the mean difference of pretest and post classroom scores for pharmacology using NBME exams of PA students given study materials in digital form and those given study materials in traditional paper form. We hope the study can contribute to effective teaching for future students.

It is estimated that by 2020 there will be 2.8 million long-term care beds in residential facilities, staffed primarily with nursing assistants as the front-line care providers. The American Healthcare Association 2012 staffing survey showed that the median annual turnover rate for nursing assistants in the United States is 51.5%. High rates of turnover are associated not only with poorer quality of care but also with increased costs for facilities. The purpose of this project was to understand characteristics that are associated with long-term employment in the nursing assistant role by describing the personality characteristic of empathy in the nursing assistant population with career longevity. The practice-focused question focused on the level of empathy among nursing assistants in long-term care who have been in their role 3 years or longer. The purposive sample group included 60 nursing assistants from 10 long-term care facilities in New Jersey. Data were collected using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index instrument, which comprises 4, 7-item subscales that consider aspects of the global concept of empathy. The overall findings of this study did not establish a significant relationship between empathy and retention; however, notable shifts in the empathy subscale scores of participants related to gender and length of tenure were noted. The results of this study could promote positive social change by helping administrators select nursing assistants suited to working in long-term care facilities, which may result in lower turnover and improved patient outcomes among the population in long-term care.

This discussion begins with an introduction by faculty presenters currently on the journey toward tenure and those recently tenured. The panelists intend to cover topics including tips for surviving the first year, finding time for research, planning and preparing for your tenure review, and managing balance. How might faculty carve out the necessary time to cultivate an active research program, especially at teaching institutions? What materials should faculty collect for presentation in their tenure case file? How might faculty manage success in various professional expectations with regard to research, teaching, and service? How might faculty deal with the potential pitfalls of departmental and institutional politics? Ideas, experiences, and questions from discussion attendees are more than welcome.