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ABSTRACT Prioritizing Diseases, Disorders and Disabilities and the Relative Importance of Skin Cancer: A Public Health Faculty Survey By James Thomas Sandwich, MD April 21, 2016 INTRODUCTION: Academic faculty in public health have diverse career interests and occupy positions of considerable influence. They play an important role in setting curriculum and training the future public health workforce. However, there is little published scholarly information regarding which public health diseases, disorders, and disabilities are most important to them. Skin cancer is a major public health problem that has been declared an epidemic. AIM: The Aim of this study is to discover which public health disorders are of highest concern and to determine the relative priority of skin cancer to public health faculty. METHODS: The primary design of the study was that of a non-experimental opinion based survey. Subjects were faculty members of national academic, public health programs. To obtain the broadest distribution, primary and secondary faculty as defined by the ASPPH were included. A 19 question survey document was administered electronically through Qualtrics. There were 15 questions on the importance of specific disorders and five questions on skin cancer. Responses were categorized ranked and compared. RESULTS: Obesity ranked the highest among all concerns with cardiovascular disease and cancer also receiving high priority. Cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease led in secondary outcomes. Tertiary outcomes were nearly evenly split between cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental health. Priorities varied by regions, age, gender and race. The majority placed skin cancer in the second quartile of importance and believed it to be appropriately ranked. CONCLUSION: Public health faculty prioritize disorders similarly in spite of diverse interests with minor differences across regions and demographics. National Funding as a proxy for importance does not cleanly align with faculty priorities. Public health faculty express familiarity with skin cancer, however, do not generally considered it of highest priority compared to other disorders. Increased faculty emphasis on interventions that prevent skin cancer may improve awareness and reduce negative sequela.

Faculty Perspectives on Factors Impacting Work as Nurse Educators by Sharon Shockness MS, Mercy College, 2007 BSN, Mercy College, 2005 AAS, Helene Fuld College of Nursing, 1996 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education Walden University June 2015 Job dissatisfaction among nursing faculty could have a significant impact on nursing faculty retention and student enrollment in nursing programs. The purpose of this qualitative instrumental case study was to gain insight into the perspectives of faculty members who teach nursing education in a university program. This study used Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman's motivation-hygiene theory to explore employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the workplace. The research question focused on the perspectives of nursing educators and challenges they face. Data were collected through individualized interviews with 15 nurse educators, using open-ended questions and reviewing relevant documents. The data were analyzed by sorting and highlighting the participants' responses and using codes to categorize and develop themes. Six overarching themes (expectations, motivations, benefits, job fulfillment, challenges, and job dissatisfaction) and 3 subthemes (remuneration, excessive workload, and funding for advancing education, recruitment, and mentoring) emerged. These themes and subthemes identified critical aspects of job satisfaction that may help nursing faculty and nursing administrators strengthen the positive and diminish the negative aspects of the job for greater faculty satisfaction. Nursing leaders and health care administrators can use these findings to bring awareness to the nursing education community by creating realistic goals that address job satisfaction, retention, and recruitment of nursing faculty. These changes will improve student enrollment and increase the number of nurses available to provide quality care throughout the nurses' respective communities.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the range of consequences of a professional development workshop for two- and four-year college astronomy faculty. Its focus was how faculty participants chose to incorporate ideas and teaching strategies from the workshop with their own teaching ideas and practices. Data included pre- and post-workshop open-ended survey responses on teaching strategies from 126 faculty, follow-up online survey responses on reported teaching practices from forty-one faculty, semi-structured interviews and classroom observations with five faculty "heavy adopters" of the workshop teaching techniques, and surveys from their students. Analytical techniques used were both traditional, such as clustering, counting, and iterative descriptive coding (Miles and Huberman, 1994); as well as non-traditional, such as circle graphs (Aumann et al., 1999), and analysis of linguistic metaphors (Martin and Lueckenhausen, 2005). The main consequence of this study is that faculty development workshops can help support faculty as they create their own teaching path, and support their students in doing the same. Faculty participants reported incorporating workshop teaching strategies to their teaching practice following their participation. Interviews with and classroom observations with the five "heavy adopters" characterized how each individual retrofitted the techniques to suit his or her own teaching approaches, as revealed by their dominant teaching metaphor, as well as the metaphors used by their students to describe their classes.

The purpose of this study was to identify perceived barriers to faculty participation in distance education courses in a 4-year university. The literature review was divided into four general areas, each of which may act as a barrier to faculty participation; training, administrators, rewards/compensation, and faculty characteristics/demographics. The research population consisted of 570 faculty and 59 administrators from the eight UNT schools/colleges. Dr. Kristin Betts developed the survey instrument in 1998 for similar research conducted at the George Washington University. Analysis of the collected data revealed that there was no statistically significant relationship found between faculty characteristics and faculty participation in distance education. Faculty participants and administrators disagreed on which factors, from a list of 34 items, had motivated faculty to participate in distance education. Nonparticipants and administrators disagreed on which of the factors, if not available, would be barriers to faculty participation in distance education. Participants and nonparticipants disagreed regarding the level to which selected rewards and compensations had motivated faculty to participate, and the lack of which would inhibit faculty participation in distance education. Finally, 71% of the participants had participated or planned to participate in distance education training compared to only 33% of the nonparticipants. It is obvious that administrators and faculty do not place the same level of importance on motivational or inhibiting factors that may affect faculty participation in distance education. These results indicate that additional research should be accomplished to determine the basis for the disagreement among the three groups.

This study investigated the effectiveness of a two-year faculty development program designed to assist faculty in making transition from a teacher-centered to a student-centered approach to instruction at a private university in China. One hundred full-time faculty participated in the program and ultimately 52 participants who attended entire two-year workshops were involved in the research. Seven point Likert Scale survey including open-ended questions as well as live classroom observation techniques were used to examine how the participants perceived the faculty program, whether they made improvement of their learning of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and whether the participants used what they learned after the completion of the program. The findings from this study indicated that the most of majority participants (93%) had significant positive reactions to the faculty development program; they made great improvement in their learning of knowledge, skills, and attitudes (t statistic is -6.163; p value is far small than 0.05); participants started using student-centered behaviors they learned in their teaching practice after completion of the program. The unintended outcomes regarding program improvement were also found through open-ended questionnaire in this study. The results inferred that trainer's ability strongly contributed to the high degree of overall evaluation of the program. A follow-up and longitudinal research is needed to track the impact on the organization and the impact on students' learning achievement over time. More types of university contexts including both private and public universities need to be addressed for future research. / School of Education; / Instructional Technology (EdDIT) / EdD; / Dissertation;

Job dissatisfaction among nursing faculty could have a significant impact on nursing faculty retention and student enrollment in nursing programs. The purpose of this qualitative instrumental case study was to gain insight into the perspectives of faculty members who teach nursing education in a university program. This study used Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman's motivation-hygiene theory to explore employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the workplace. The research question focused on the perspectives of nursing educators and challenges they face. Data were collected through individualized interviews with 15 nurse educators, using open-ended questions and reviewing relevant documents. The data were analyzed by sorting and highlighting the participants' responses and using codes to categorize and develop themes. Six overarching themes (expectations, motivations, benefits, job fulfillment, challenges, and job dissatisfaction) and 3 subthemes (remuneration, excessive workload, and funding for advancing education, recruitment, and mentoring) emerged. These themes and subthemes identified critical aspects of job satisfaction that may help nursing faculty and nursing administrators strengthen the positive and diminish the negative aspects of the job for greater faculty satisfaction. Nursing leaders and health care administrators can use these findings to bring awareness to the nursing education community by creating realistic goals that address job satisfaction, retention, and recruitment of nursing faculty. These changes will improve student enrollment and increase the number of nurses available to provide quality care throughout the nurses' respective communities.

The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which selected variables are related to scores on the Utah State University Faculty Evaluation Questionnaire (USU FEQ). The variables examined were size of class, level of class, college under whose auspices a class is offered and whether the class is required or elective. In addition, the relationship between total mean score and responses to question 23, a percentage ranking of instructors, was assessed. The fall quarter, 1975, FEQ results were used in this assessment. Employing the same procedures as had been followed in previous quarters, 315 courses were evaluated. Courses at all levels (100-700) and within all colleges of the University were sampled. Through multiple regression analysis, it was found that 87% of the variance in total mean scores was explained by the selected variables. Question 23 was the outstanding contributor; therefore, the analysis was repeated with this variable removed. As a result, 21% of the variance was explained by the remaining variables. Question 23 was highly related to total mean score. Reasonably accurate prediction of instructors ratings can be made from a knowledge of responses to this question. A small negative correlation was found between sample size and total mean score. Instructors of larger classes tended to rate lower than instructors of smaller classes. A small contribution to the explained variance was made by the variable of class size. This contribution has little practical significance. Instructors of different colleges received different average ratings. Those colleges most closely related to high total mean scores were Education, Family Life and Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Those colleges receiving lowest ratings were Engineering and Science. Knowledge of the college under whose auspices a course exists improves prediction of instructors ratings on the USU FEQ. Whether a course was required or elective and the level of a course had little relation to the ratings instructors received. The outcomes of this investigation may be limited by any one or a combination of the following: The results of this study were obtained from fall quarter evaluations. Ratings may relate to the quarter in which the course was evaluated. The USU population was the only university used in the sampling. Results, therefore, will be generalizable to USU alone. This study has been concerned with environmental variables, i.e., class size, level, college, required vs. elective. Student, class, or teacher characteristics have not been considered. Significant relationships may exist in these areas. Within University policy, professors are allowed to choose the quarter in which they will be evaluated. Therefore, some volunteer effects may be present in this study. However, extra encouragement to evaluate fall quarter was given to teachers to help control for these effects. From this study of the relationship between selected variables and total mean scores, the following may be concluded; Question 23 could be used to obtain a quick, easy estimate of student ratings of an instructor. The significant differences between ratings of instructors in different colleges receive presents an area of concern. When comparing instructors from different colleges, precautions may need to be taken. Differential norms for the colleges could be considered. The size of an instructor's class is of no significant concern when interpreting FEQ results. The results of this study show no basis for the employment of differential norms for differing class sizes. No basis for considering whether a course is required or elective and level of a course when interpreting questionnaire results is given. From the above summary and conclusions the following recommendations are made; The college under whose auspices an instructor teaches should be considered when interpreting FEQ results. College norm groups should be considered for inclusion on results printouts. The significantly higher ratings received by instructors in the College of Education should be investigated. The following questions arise; A. Do students rate instructors higher if instructors give them higher grades? (Grades received in Education are higher.) B. Are the students in the college more empathetic to their instructors and, therefore, more lenient in their ratings? C. Is the course content less demanding or more interesting so as to receive higher student ratings? D. Are, in fact, the instructors in the College of Education better teachers? If so, what are the characteristics that make them better? These questions and others should be researched. 3. Since relationships may vary according to the particular aspect of teaching performance that the student is asked to rate (Clark & Keller, 1954), a factor analytic study including the selected variables of this study and all of the questions on the USU FEQ may be profitable. 4. Scores on the USU FEQ may be related to the department in which the course is taught. Correlations might be determined for the departments which have a large enough N. 5. Determination of whether students' subjective criteria in rating faculty match the faculty members' goals in teaching may disclose some valuable information about the USU FEQ. 6. The benefits from student evaluation of instruction can only exist to the extent that ratings represent valid appraisals of classroom instruction. Research must be conducted in answer to the question, "Is the USU Faculty Evaluation Questionnaire a valid instrument?"

This dissertation presents an essential faculty development program framework for teaching and learning centers in research extensive universities for introducing, enhancing, and improving faculty development programs. In this study, the Delphi method was used to gain consensus from the study experts on essential and model faculty development programs, key goals and biggest challenges for teaching and learning centers in research extensive universities. This study included two major phases: (1) creation of the original survey instrument, and (2) conducting the surveys with the identified experts. The first phase utilized three experts in the field of faculty development to validate the questionnaire instrument. The second phase was completed by a panel of 15 experts representing 14 states and was conducted in four iterations. The study answered five research questions: (1) What are essential faculty development programs for teaching and learning centers as reported by directors in selected research extensive universities? (2) What are model faculty development programs for teaching and learning centers as reported by directors in selected research extensive universities? (3) What programs will be essential for faculty development in the future as forecasted by faculty professional development experts on the Delphi panel? (4) What should be the key goals for teaching and learning centers as reported by directors in selected research extensive universities? (5) What are the biggest challenges for teaching and learning centers as reported by directors in selected research extensive universities? This dissertation study identified 18 currently essential faculty development programs and 28 future essential faculty development programs for teaching and learning centers in research extensive universities. Additionally, the Delphi panel members provided descriptions of model programs for identified essential faculty development programs that are considered as successful best practices to faculty development. The Delphi panel also provided insights into key goals and key challenges for teaching and learning centers that can be used by directors to plan essential faculty development programs. This dissertation is significant because the results are expected to serve as a means for evaluating existing faculty development programming and guiding the planning of new faculty development programs to enhance teaching and learning on research extensive university campuses.

This study explored the motivations of college faculty who teach social justice lessons through their service learning courses. In recent decades, universities have begun to respond to calls for a renewal in their civic missions, and educating students on civic responsibility and social justice issues (Boyer, 1994; Boyte & Hollander, 1999; Ehrlich, 2000). Faculty have been shown to be the critical facilitators in brining social justice topics to the curriculum through the use of service learning instruction (Buchanan, 1998; Ward, 2003). Given the emphasis in higher education today on social justice learning outcomes and the importance of the role of faculty, there is surprisingly no previous research on faculty motivation to teach social justice lessons through service learning. For this study, there were two guiding research questions: (1) what aspects of the faculty’s individual backgrounds influence their teaching of social justice topics? (2) What are faculty’s perceptions of the impact that service learning has on student learning? The setting of the study was a large research university in the southwest. Data were collected from 11 faculty through individual interviews and supplemented by course-related artifacts. Data were analyzed using coding procedures suggested by Strauss and Corbin (2008) from a grounded theory qualitative approach. Results indicated that faculty motivation to use service learning to teach social justice lessons was based on several core themes. These themes included: 1) the faculty’s personal background; 2) individual identity and role as faculty; 3) faculty’s perceived desired student outcomes; and 4) faculty reflection of observed student outcomes. In addition to the key themes, results showed that faculty did enjoy their teaching approach, an enjoyment that reinforced their motivation to continue to teach. Faculty in lecturer positions indicated that they believed they were adding special student experiences through social justice lessons that were void in other aspects of their education. Faculty with tenure indicated that although they were providing social experiences for students, they also tended to combine their social justice instruction with their research work. A model of faculty motivation for teaching social justice topics was presented. Implications for research and practice are discussed. / text