Faculty facing challenges of teaching students in a post-Katrina environment used learning-centered approaches to restore educational opportunities to its populations of hurricane-displaced students, the growing population of Hispanic students, and the business community. The study sought to determine if the faculty members had made progress toward implementing learning-centered activities and strategies into the classroom after attending seminars and workshops that covered the learning-centered principles. Additionally, the research sought to determine if there were differences among academic disciplines in the implementation of the learning-centered principles in the classroom at the college. The study used quantitative research methods. To collect the quantitative data, the researcher used a learning-centered rubric along with specialized worksheets. The rubric assessed the five learning-centered principles: (a) function of content, (b) role of the instructor, (c) responsibility for learning, (d) purpose and processes of assessment, and (e) balance of power. Participants had the option to assess themselves at four levels of implementation for each of the learning-centered principles. The four levels were (a) the use of learner-centered approaches, (b) higher level of transitioning, (c) lower level of transitioning, and (d) the use of instructor-centered approaches. The results of the study revealed that the majority of the faculty members were at the higher level of transitioning for four of the learning-centered principles. The study indicated that the majority of faculty members were at the lower level of transitioning in implementing the balance of power. The findings also indicated that there were differences in the way faculty members implemented the learning-centered principles across three disciplines.

Person-centered care (PCC) has been recognized by the Institute of Medicine as a critical element in the redesign of our nations healthcare system. Evidence suggests that the physical environment contributes to a more person-centered inpatient healthcare experience. This study explored the relationships among demographic characteristics of individuals receiving care in skilled nursing facilities, satisfaction with nursing care, perceived ambiance of the healthcare environment, and the perception of PCC. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, Spearman’s rho, and hierarchical linear regression were used to analyze the data and answer the research questions. In addition, content analysis was used identify possible themes from the comments by the participants regarding the overall care experience. The sample consisted of 71 individuals (48 women) between the ages of 38 and 97 (M = 71.34, SD = 11.51) having received rehabilitation and/or nursing care in fourteen short-stay SNFs in Texas. A small positive significant relationship was found between the perception of personalized care and years of education (r = .27, p = .012). Moreover, a strong positive significant relationship was found between satisfaction with nursing care and PCC (r = .76, p <. 001), perceived ambiance and PCC (r = .57, p < .001), and satisfaction with nursing care and ambiance (r = .52, p < .001). Hierarchical linear regression only included years of education, satisfaction with nursing care, and ambiance since they were the only variables that had a significant relationship with the outcome variable. The analysis showed that satisfaction with nursing care was the strongest predictor of PCC accounting for 53% of the variance. In addition, ambiance was identified as a significant predictor of the perception of PCC after controlling for education and satisfaction with nursing care. Overall, the three variables accounted for 64% of the variance in the perception of PCC. This was the first study to explore the relationship between perceived ambiance of an inpatient healthcare setting and the perception of person centered care. These findings indicate that the physical environment is an important element that can influence the perception of personalized care in a short-stay SNF setting. / text

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Today, the credibility of the international development community is increasingly being called into question. At the root of the problem are the extremely unequal nature of recent growth, the end of the Cold War, economic recession in the North, and the lacklustre record of foreign aid in reaching those left behind. By the 1990s, the notion of Sustainable Human Development (SHD) or what is sometimes called People-Centred Development (PCD) was being hailed as a possible framework for building a newly-invigorated system of international development cooperation based on genuine North-South partnership, holistic, equitable, participatory, empowering and sustainable development. This thesis explores the implementability and transformational potential of the SHD/PCD paradigm by analyzing how a multilateral development agency (UNDP) and an international NGO (Action Aid) put it into practice both globally and in Uganda. Its main argument is that despite both agencies' contributions to service-delivery and training, and their genuine efforts to reorient their work towards SHD/PCD approaches, in the final analysis neither UNDP or Action Aid realize the more transformative goals of the SHD/PCD agenda or seriously challenge the status quo. This is partly due to the excessively abstract, unfinished, ideologically confused and contradictory nature of the SHD/PCD paradigm itself, (i.e., the Baroque Science Phenomenon). However UNDP and Action Aid, both of which adopted SHD/PCD to enhance their profiles, must assume much of the responsibility blame for subordinating core SHD/PCD goals to their own organizational interests (i.e., the River Pollution Phenomenon) . The thesis also demonstrates how both agencies undermine their effectiveness by making a series of fallacious assumptions about both poor communities' and their own catalytic potential in an effort to reconcile the gap between their agencies' SHD/PCD aspirations and the real-life constraints facing their goals.

The major purpose of this study was to investigate the satisfaction clients obtain from counseling. Satisfaction was determined by means of the degree of fulfillment of expectancy utilizing the Inventory of Fulfillment of Client Expectancy (IFCE). The fulfillment of expectancy was compared between three groups of counselors with different degrees of professional preparations in two domains--cognitive and affective. The total fulfillment of the two domains were also compared among the three groups. Other purposes of the research were to identify the expectancies clients have when they enter counseling, and to determine if a difference exists as to the expectancies of clients within the three counselor groups in regards to the cognitive domain, the affective domain, and the total of the two domains.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, 1976. / Vita. Date on t.p.: 1975. Bibliography: p. 256-273.

M.A. (Clinical Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

An extensive body of literature supports the clinical utility and feasibility of client-centric goal-setting techniques in neurorehabilitation. However, such techniques are seldom used and difficult to adopt in mainstream clinical practice. Two primary barriers that limit uptake and adoption of individualized goal-setting techniques into routine practice include: (1) lack of an operationalized framework susceptible to variations in the characteristics of the user and constraints of a medical setting and (2) limited knowledge on the part of clinicians and clients to confidently engage in goal-setting conversations. The eGAS app was designed to address the need for a semi-structured client-centric goal-setting framework for clinicians engaged in neurorehabilitation. This study used a single-subject design to investigate the effects of using eGAS in an outpatient hospital setting on clinician behavior and client responsiveness. A nonconcurrent, multiple-baseline design was used across three clinicians to determine if use of eGAS would result in functional changes in collaborative interviewing behaviors, validity of generated goal scales, and reliability of the process. Results revealed that using eGAS had strong functional effects on collaborative interviewing behaviors and validity of goal scales, and a weak effect on reliability. Another noteworthy finding was that eGAS could be implemented with relatively high fidelity within the constraints of a clinical context despite variations in the characteristics of the end-user, i.e. clients and clinicians. I discuss support for ecological validity of eGAS in terms of implementation barriers and facilitators that affected outcomes, methodological limitations, and future steps to improve design validity and implementation integrity.

The qualitative case study reported in this dissertation outlines the principal findings of an investigation on four teachers' understandings of the concept of learner-centredness in the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) in two Durban township high schools. The RNCS as the name suggests, is a revised National Curriculum that is both implemented and trialed in the General Education and Training band of schooling in South Africa. One of the features of the RNCS is its learner-centred pedagogy. The purpose of the research was to investigate teachers' understandings of the concept of learner-centredness in the context of outcomes-based education and the RNCS. The ways in which the meanings they assign to the concepts, as well as their perceptions of theirroles and identities in enacting learner-centred pedagogy in their classrooms as shaped by the context in which they operated was investigated A major finding of the study is that teachers' understandings of the concept of learner-centredness tend to be influenced by the context in which they work in terms of the school culture, as well as their understandings of their new roles and identities in the context of the RNCS. This means that, in part schools' cultural and social processes play a major role in shaping and reconstructing both the experiences and roles of teachers in the context of educational innovation. This has implications for the content and processes of teacher professional development and in-service education programme, as well as the organisational development of schools in preparation for curriculum change. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

A reliance on a teacher-centered model of instruction presented the foundation for my research. I chose to investigate constructivist theory and to implement constructivist teaching practices within my art education classroom to determine if constructivist teaching practices would facilitate a shift to a more student-centered learning environment, and to determine if constructivist strategies positively impact student learning. I collected my raw data using autoethnographic recording, documenting my results over a two month period in January and February of 2007 from my experiences as an art educator at a public, Metro-Atlanta elementary school. A positive impact on student learning was observed and the constructivist teaching strategies did produce student-centered learning environments. Based on my experiences constructivist teaching strategies may be beneficial to the creation of student-centered learning environments and assist in broadening student inquiry and investment with lessons.