As experienced fighter pilots leave the United States Air Force (USAF) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), there is a need to develop new competent pilots to meet national defense requirements. Fighter training programs are expensive for taxpayers, and the USAF and RAAF face significant resource problems developing and implementing these programs. Using policy feedback theory and punctuated equilibrium theory as the theoretical foundation, the purpose of this comparative, multi-case study of current USAF F-16 and RAAF F-18 fighter pilot training policies was to inform training policy development and efficacy of future USAF and RAAF fighter pilot training programs. Data were gathered from training policy documents and 12 interviews with F-16 and F-18 pilots. Data were deductively coded and analyzed using policy feedback and punctuated event themes. Findings indicate that policy feedbacks and punctuated events influence fighter pilot training policy. Best practices for training include optimum stress management, appropriate academic course timing, and phase-based training techniques. Optimal instructional approaches included a servant leadership philosophy and a need for improved kinesthetic flight preparation tools and procedures. The USAF and RAAF approach fighter pilot training differently. The positive social change implications stemming from this study include recommendations to the USAF and RAAF that may improve fighter pilot training policy at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayers.

Increasing numbers of Florida parents are withdrawing their children from traditional public schools in highly-rated school districts to enroll them in tuition-free, startup, charter schools. Since not all parents have equal access or are as equally motivated to elect school choice alternatives, the fiscal sustainability of the traditional public school system is at risk. Using Schattschneider's policy feedback process as a model, the purpose of this research was to gain an in depth understanding of the role policy perception plays on the decision-making process by parents. Data for this qualitative single-case study were collected through interviews with 8 charter school parents residing in a single top-performing Florida public school district. All data were inductively coded and then subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. Key findings indicated that participants elected school choice based on perceptions that diminished curricular rigor and diminished classroom safety are the direct result of the classroom compositions found in a general education classroom in a traditional public school. The participants opined that the inability of traditional public schools to adequately accommodate for the diverse abilities of students placed in general education classrooms in accordance with current policy results in higher-achieving students being disenfranchised. The social change significance is showing how parental perception of existing policy impacts school choice election, thus providing guidance to lawmakers about legislative reforms that could limit the school choice migration and secure the viability of traditional public schools for those children limited in school choice options.

The patient-as-consumer has emerged as a narrative in the government health care system that cares for beneficiary veteran patients, elevating the phenomenon of choice in health care legislation and administration. The problem of the submerged state of a health policy was the issue examined within the context of access to health care and what patients experience when choice is present. The purpose of this study was to explore the motivations of beneficiary veteran patients to choose a preventive care option, a seasonal flu shot, at a private sector retail pharmacy rather than at their government health care provider, with the goal of understanding what social marketing strategies supported their decisions, how they defined choice, and what they expected from their choice option. Research questions focused on reasons for patients’ decisions to choose outside preventive care within the context of a social marketing campaign and their interpretation of choice in health care policy. Drawing on the policy feedback theory, an interpretative phenomenological approach was employed. Purposive semistructured interviews of 7 patients were conducted. Data were analyzed using a 3 step process that included descriptive theme-centered coding, emergent sub-coding, and a clustered coding analysis. Two key themes emerged: first, choice in health care policy is relative to a patient’s individual circumstance, and in order to have choice, one must have options; and second, veterans value their earned health care benefits and trust their government provider. Implications for social change include policy maker awareness of the importance of social marketing as a tool for communicating a health policy and legislation so they can make more informed decisions and veterans can feel empowered as patients.