Establishing and enhancing standards of practice is important in any profession, and particularly so in a new and emerging domain such as sport psychology. Accordingly, this thesis draws on literature from teaching, medicine, and parallel disciplines such as clinical and counselling psychology to propose a Professional Judgment and Decision Making (PJDM) approach to the evaluation, reflective practice, and training of applied sport psychologists. Methods and mechanisms already utilised in these more established professions are considered alongside empirical data, generated from long-term programmes of sport psychology consultancy, as potential means to further enhance the performance of professionals in this developing field. As such, the thesis highlights gaps in current process, proposes an original conceptualisation of practice, and illustrates the possible outcomes and implications of this PJDM approach. In addition, the emergent PJDM principles are illustrated in practice through a reflection-in-action case study, and trained and evaluated in novice applied sport psychology practitioners as a basis for the effective development of PJDM expertise.

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This diploma thesis goes into a problem of the legal interpretation of the term lex artis, which some authors describe as well-known term of unknown content. Generally, this term relates to the activities of doctors and other health care professionals within taking care of patients, and usually we can meet with the ablative lege artis, which is used to denote a professionally correct action. This term is in common usage also in the reference books and case law where the breach of the duty to act lege artis is considered to be a precondition for liability of physician or health care provider for injury to the patient. Certain difficulty of using the term lex artis lies in the fact that the legislation in force does not mention not even define this term and its meaning must therefore be inferred from legislation by interpretation. For the legal definition of lex artis is from 1st April 2012 considered the provision of s. 4 (5) of Act No. 372/2011 Sb., about Health Services and Terms (the Health Services Act), as amended, which defines appropriate professional standard of providing health services and which is from the early beginning criticized by the part of professionals for its alleged conflict with patients' rights guaranteed by the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine. The aim of this...

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The general purpose of this national study was to document career services director use of the CAS professional standards by institutional size, career services experience level, director experience level, director degree level, CAS standards awareness, CAS standards possession, and barriers to use. Also considered were the types of CAS standards use and satisfaction from use. There were significant differences in CAS standards awareness by years of experience in career services and by years of experience as career services director. No differences were found with regard to perceived barriers to CAS standards use. Significant differences were discovered by institutional size, as well as by director degree level, regarding the extent of use and satisfaction from use of the CAS standards. Finally, key factors identified with regard to predicting CAS standards use included level of awareness, and the degree to which both previous CAS standards use had not been helpful and fear of finding non-compliance were perceived as barriers. This study suggests that future research should concentrate on the reasons why practitioners are either satisfied or dissatisfied with use of the CAS standards and how the self-assessment guide is perceived and used. Additionally, an examination of how the different types of use influence perceived barriers merits consideration. / Ph. D.

The George W. Bush Institute (2016) stated the following: "Across the United States, as many as 700 principal preparation programs are preparing and certifying principals to lead our nation's schools. The methods that preparation programs use to train principals vary nationally and are a source of concern among policymakers, university faculty, and educators (p. 2)." The purpose of this quantitative study was to analyze administrators' perceptions of the program components they perceived prepared them to be effective school leaders, and whether their preparation program components were aligned with the Professional Standards of Educational Leaders (PSEL). The literature review findings indicated that the PSEL, in addition to program components, are necessary for an effective program. A non-experimental quantitative Likert-style scale survey was used to collect data from a snowball sampling of 46 school leaders pursuing or having completed their doctoral degrees. Doctoral students have developed research skills that can be used to apply new knowledge to the education field; therefore, reflecting upon their initial administrative experiences may provide insight into Principal Preparation Programs (PPP). The research findings indicated that school leaders perceived that their program experiences were aligned with the PSEL and they were prepared for administrative assignments after completion of their PPP. The findings also indicated despite being prepared for their assignment, changes were suggested to improve their PPP. Implications for practice for improving their PPP are included in this study, as well as, suggestions for future studies. / Doctor of Education / The purpose of this quantitative study was to analyze administrators' perceptions of the program components they perceived prepared them to be effective school leaders, and whether their preparation program components were aligned with the Professional Standards of Educational Leaders (PSEL). The literature review findings indicated that the PSEL, in addition to program components, are necessary for an effective program. This non-experimental quantitative study used a Likert-style scale to collect data from current and past doctoral students who were administrators. Doctoral students were selected as survey participants because they have developed research skills that can be used to apply new knowledge to the education field; therefore, reflecting upon their administrative experiences may provide insight into Principal Preparation Programs (PPP). The sampling technique of snowballing was used and resulted in 46 survey participants. The research findings indicated that school leaders perceived their program experiences were aligned with the PSEL and they were prepared for administrative assignments after completion of their PPP. The findings also indicated despite being prepared for their assignment, changes were suggested to improve their PPP. Suggested changes to PPPs included curriculum/coursework, practicum/internship, faculty, and method of instructional delivery. Implications for practice for improving PPPs include such considerations as a process to systematically assess graduates to determine what changes should occur to their principal preparation program. Suggestions for future research were also addressed in this study.

It is well established in the literature that the morbidity and mortality rates due to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes in the U.S are alarmingly high. Likewise, there is ample data which demonstrates that participating in physical activity can help prevent and control many types of chronic diseases. Though the benefits outweigh the risks of participation in physical activity, the risks must be acknowledged. Published standards and guidelines in the health fitness field have been established to address operational practices of fitness facilities, increase safety of participants and mitigate these risks. The present study was a national investigation conducted to determine adherence to published standards and guidelines for self- and professionally-guided pre-activity health screening procedures (PHSP) across various settings (i.e., Hospital/Clinical, Community, Commercial, Corporate, University, Government). Additionally, this study obtained perspectives from study participants regarding familiarity with, importance of adherence to and legal liability associated with published standards and guidelines. As the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) is considered the gold standard in health and fitness, only ACSM's published standards and guidelines, specifically those related to pre-activity health screening, were included in the present study. A survey instrument was developed and validated to obtain the data for this study. The link for the web-based survey was sent from the ACSM's Certification Department to all ACSM Health Fitness Specialists (HFS) who lived in the US (n=9,433); a total of 1,246 (13.2%) responded to the survey. The survey instrument consisted of 54 questions including 14 participant related (i.e., Q1, Q3, Q34-Q45), 32 facility related (i.e., Q2, Q4-Q33, Q46), seven demographic related (Q47-Q53), and one open-ended question (Q54). Exclusion criteria removed any HFS who was not currently working part- or full-time in a fitness facility, which left 677 usable responses for data analysis. Special measures were taken to remove duplicate responses for any given facility which resulted in a lower number of usable responses (n=656) for those 32 questions. As hypothesized, the Hospital/Clinical setting had significantly (p<.006) higher percentages of fitness facilities (93%) which require new participants to complete a pre-activity screening device than all other settings (i.e., University (56%), Community (54%), Commercial(40%), and Government (67%)). Additionally, the Hospital/Clinical setting was also found to be significantly higher than Corporate relative to this same variable. Regarding the second research hypothesis, the Corporate setting was found to have significantly (p<.006) higher percentages (78%) of fitness facilities which require new participants to complete a pre-activity screening device than the Community setting. Twenty-six percent of respondents indicated they their facility conducted self-guided, 43% professionally guided, and 31% offered both self- and professionally-guided PHSP. High percentages of fitness facilities (73%) required new participants to complete a pre-activity screening device with 47% and 87% of these facilities requiring medical clearance for at-risk new participants for self- and professionally-guided screening procedures, respectively. At-risk was defined in the study as someone with known disease (e.g., cardiac, pulmonary or metabolic) or with signs/symptoms and/or risk factors associated with cardiac, pulmonary, or metabolic disease. Also, participants with other medical conditions (e.g., pregnancy, orthopedic injury) may be considered at- risk. The majority (86%) of facilities offered personal training and nearly all of these (99.6%) required clients of personal trainers to complete a pre-activity screening device. Additionally, 84% of these facilities required medical clearance for at-risk clients. Data regarding other aspects of PHSP for facilities were also obtained such as frequency of completion for participants, privacy, confidentiality, and security of information obtained, participant refusal to complete, and waivers for guests. Regarding their familiarity, 69% of respondents indicated that they were very familiar with the ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription (ACSM's GETP); however only 52% indicated they used the ACSM's GETP for development and implementation of their facility's PHSP. Of these facilities, the results regarding the inclusion of the GETP criteria on their screening device were: (a) 96%, 91%, 87% for known CV, pulmonary and metabolic disease, respectively, (b) 44-95% for each of the nine signs/symptoms with dizziness/syncope the highest (95%) and intermittent claudication the lowest (44%), and (c) 64%- 99% for each of the nine CV risk factors with smoking the highest (99%) and high-density lipoprotein the lowest (64%). Although 52% of respondents reported more than adequate academic preparation, 70% reported being very confident in conducting professionally-guided pre-activity health screening procedures and that adherence to published standards and guidelines was very important. However, only 28% of respondents reported more than adequate academic preparation regarding legal implications involving PHSP. Other data from the HFSs regarding PHSP were also obtained such as their perspectives of the importance to management to adhere to and familiarity with published standards and guidelines as well as their knowledge of legal issues related to PHSP. In the open-ended question, respondents provided comments and challenges (n=509) that they encountered while conducting PHSP. These data were analyzed, coded and then categorized into three major themes: 1) medical clearance related issues, 2) administrative/procedural related issues, 3) member related issues. Compared to previous research, adherence to published standards and guidelines, as evidenced by the percentage of facilities which require new participants and clients of personal trainers to complete a pre-activity screening device, seems to be generally increasing. Additionally, relative to the requirement of medical clearance for personal training clients also seems to demonstrate an upward trend. However, the requirement of medical clearance for at-risk new participants remains about the same as previous studies (ranging from 49%-82% of the facilities) and the current study (47% for self-guided and 87% for professionally-guided). For facilities that were not conducting PHSP (27%), the major reasons why were reinforced by the comments to the open-ended question and were similar to those found in a previous study that investigated the same. The findings from this study indicated that there are areas that may need to be addressed within the profession to help increase adherence to published standards and guidelines especially in Community, Commercial, University, and Government settings. For example, these facilities might need a more simplified approach and additional guidance from the ACSM for more effectively and efficiently conducting PHSP. Additionally, academic programs could contribute by more comprehensively integrating PHSP into courses and practical learning opportunities for students. Given the importance of conducting PHSP, future research in PHSP focused on issues specific to individual settings may help establish the framework and provide direction for stakeholders to address this relevant issue in the field.

The purpose of this study was to explore whether National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) professional standards is applicable to Taiwan teacher education policy. Based on review of literatures on NCATE professional standards and evaluation items of institution for teacher education in Taiwan, the researcher constructed four accreditation fields, nine professional standards and fifty-two professional indicators for accreditation standards of institutions for teacher education in Taiwan. The Delphi method was adopted to acquire experts¡¦ opinions and suggestions about the fitness of accreditation standards and indicators. The study used purposive sampling. The samples were made up by the chiefs, teachers, and administrative staffs from the institutions for teacher education and the scholars of teacher education, 15 samples in sum. Each of them had to fill out three waves of Delphi questionnaires. According to documentation and the Delphi questionnaires, the conclusions of this study were as follows: I.Accreditation system 1.Lack of professional organization and internal unit for the accreditation system of Taiwan teacher education. 2.Lack of effective tracking mechanism in evaluation of institution for teacher education. 3.Lack of sufficient time for evaluation members to do on-site visit. 4.NCATE uses the ¡§quality¡¨ method to execute the accreditation process. 5.The result of the accreditation is difficult to achieve the purpose of improving school effectiveness. II.In terms of professional standards 1.The professional standards of accreditation system include the four fields, ten professional standards and forty-one professional indicators. 2.¡§A-Input indicator¡¨ is the most important in the important rank. 3.¡§A-1-Education goals and features¡¨ is the most important in the important rank. 4.¡§A-1-1Education aim and vision¡¨,¡¨ A-1-3institution features¡¨, and ¡§A-2-3 Improvement measure¡¨ are the most important in the important rank. 5.The accreditation system of teacher education needs a set of standardized and specific standards, indicators, and criterions. 6.Lack evaluation items of ¡§Candidate performance¡¨, ¡§Faculty professional practices in teaching¡¨, and ¡§diversity¡¨ in the evaluation of institution for teacher education. 7.The cooperation between the institutions for teacher education and institutions for intern teachers were less concerned.

This qualitative dissertation research explored the case studies of four novice special education teachers who were the primary instructors for English language arts for students in grades three through eight with an I.E.P. This study addressed the teachers' perspectives, beliefs, practices, and related induction needs concerning their construction of exemplary practice in the teaching of wtiting. Exemplary writing instruction is defined by the inclusion of (a) the professional standards found in the state of Illinois Professional Teaching Standards, Illinois English Language Arts Standards for All Teachers and (b) the Exceptional Needs Specialist Standards of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Data were obtained over the course of three months from audio-taped, semi-structured interviews, three full class period non-participant observations, and an open-ended written questionnaire addressing the following primary research questions: (1) How do the descriptions by special education teachers of exemplary practice in the instruction of writing align with the professional standards? (2) What do special education novice teachers percieve as the role of teacher educators, mentors, other teachers, administrators, as well as classroom and school contexts, in learning and applying the professional standards in their writing practices? (3) How do novice special education teachers' beliefs about the learning and instruction of writing influence their acquisition of pedagogical knowledge pertaining to the professional standards in their writing practices? All data were transcribed and analyzed from a theoretical perspective of socially situated constructivist learning first by open coding and then coded by research question through cross-case analyses. Data were then analyzed by open-coding, followed by the coding of each research question utilizing a case-by-csae analyses. Data were further analyzed by comparative analyses of data collected by interviews, observations, and open-ended questionnaires to determine emerging patterns, categories, themes, and discrepencies. Findings indicated five emergent themes or issues and associated sub-themes of teacher as learner as common across cases and within- case findings were distributed throughout. These five major themes were (1) k-12 experience in learning to write, (2) learning to teach writing in teacher education programs, (3) learning to teach writing as practicing teachers, (4) preferred ways to learn to teach writing, and (5) novice special education teachers' beliefs about the learning and instruction of writing. The novice special education teachers' need for professional development induction support networks pertaining to the acquisition of pedagogical content knowledge for writing was another emergent category that was addressed in the findings for research question two. The findings were presented and discussed to illuminate the novice teachers' perspectives, beliefs, practices, and needs concerning teacher education, induction, and professional development in constructing exemplary writing instruction. Implications for teacher education, induction, professional development and further research were also discussed.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to analyse the group reflection Wanda as an effective tool for teachers' professional development. It is divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part is firstly focused on aspects which influence professional learning. Furthermore, it describes its phases, processes, forms and conditions that teachers currently have. Secondly, it analyses and compares the available professional standards in the context of professional development and shows the benefits of using reflection. Thirdly, it analyses the Wanda method itself, which is based on Appreciative Inquiry and Balint group. The practical part examines the benefits and challenges of the method as well as the conditions which are necessary for the proper realization of the method. The data from questionnaires and interviews are analysed from the different perspectives of the facilitators and the participants - teachers and students. The detailed analysis of the data gathered in the focus group results in a proposal of the steps required for spreading the awareness of the Wanda method among teachers. Mainly, we focus on the conditions which are necessary for a successful implementation of the method within the framework Teacher Training of the Faculty of Education, Charles University. The data show...