Since federal legislation in 1917 and the widespread program growth in the 1930’s, agricultural mechanics has been a major part of the high school agricultural science and technology curriculum. Local programs integrated individual problem -solving, practical applications of mathematics and technical science skills in to the curriculum. However, recent financial constraints and a perceived lack of interest have led to reductions in course offerings in agricultural mechanics in some universities that are responsible for the maintenance and future of the disciplinary area. These curricular issues gave rise to a research problem examining the perspectives of successful agricultural science and technology teachers of agricultural mechanics and the education and experiences that were associated with their success. This study used qualitative measures to identify factors that enabled certain agricultural science and technology teachers who were more noted in teaching of agricultural mechanics to be more successful than their peers. It examined factors that motivated teachers to excel and examined the influences that determined what portions of the curriculum were included or deleted. Finally, this study focused on the recommendations of experts regarding improvements for future teaching of high school agricultural mechanics. Data were collected, analyzed, and reported using accepted a qualitative protocol to develop emergent themes. Successful agricultural science and technology teachers agreed that their undergraduate course work did not adequately prepare them to teach the current curriculum. Unanimously, the respondents expressed a concern for the lack of depth, scope, and technical skills in agricultural mechanics currently being taught to future agricultural science teachers. This concern for the pre-service curriculum led teachers to agree that the three-week agricultural mechanics certification workshop is essential for successful instruction of agricultural mechanics. Furthermore, teachers espoused a formal mentoring program to aid the professional development of agricultural science and technology teachers. The respondents alluded to the need for more quality workshops on the part of the Texas Education Agency, the VATAT professional organization and the agricultural education community as a whole to improve the quality, scope, depth, and technical skills in the instruction of Agricultural Science and Technology in the high schools of Texas.

Originating in, and framed by, warfare, the term strategic management first appeared in the business literature in the 1950s (Carter et al., 2008). The term then started to gain more importance as organisations’ needs for implementing strategic changes increased significantly. Despite this importance, the concept is still considered to be under-developed, with complications arising from a wide variety of disciplines. In the early literature two major schools of thought could be identified: Porter’s economic deliberate content (Porter, 1979), and Mintzberg’s emergent process view (Mintzberg, 1979). The literature has shown that the majority of studies have mainly focused on large organisations, taking the traditional Porter’s content approach. However, relatively few cases have considered smaller organisations and/or explored cases from the contemporary process view, which is considered more realistic in today’s dynamic world, where extra flexibility and speed are paramount. This thesis builds on the work of Pettigrew (1987), who viewed strategy implementation (SI) as a process. His work is extensively analysed and some recommendations are made to strengthen his ‘Triangle Model’. These recommendations allow for the development of a primitive framework for SI. The framework provides a deeper understanding of contemporary SMEs and their surrounding contexts, and can be useful for future exploratory studies of undiscovered contexts and/or for organisations of differing sizes. The paucity of research on SI in SMEs in general, and particularly in the non-Western context (e.g. Middle East, and Gulf Cooperation Council), is the major motivation for this research adopting an interpretive, qualitative and exploratory approach. Using inductive semi-structured interviews, data have been collected on the SI process of SMEs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). SMEs represent 96% of the country’s enterprises and contribute to almost one third of the national economic activity (Bokhari, 2013). Their development is a major concern of the Saudi government, which aims to reduce the dependency on the oil sector (Bokhari, 2013; Sfakianakis, 2014; McKinsey Global Institute, 2015). In addition, SMEs have the potential to contribute to reducing the accelerating unemployment rate among the ever increasing youth population (Bokhari, 2013).Theoretically, this thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of SI and its enablers/ barriers in the SME sector. Following the approach suggested by Stacey (1996a), Mintzberg et al. (1998), and Okumus (2001), this research provides a more holistic understanding of the SI process. It sheds light on the individual dynamics of strategy implementation, as well as the organisational and external environment perspectives. By exploring these factors over the longitudinal process of SI (including initiation, process, and outcome), this research contributes a SI framework based on Mintzberg’s (1979) and Pettigrew’s (1985a) emerging process view. In so doing, this research adds to the SI process literature at the individual level, as an epistemological tool, and does so in order to consider the dynamic nature of SMEs and the impact that non-controllable events have on their daily routines, on ontological ground (Hart, 1992). At the methodological level, evidence from multiple cases in different Saudi industries is provided, reflecting a developing country context, rather than the dominant Western views (Okumus, 2003; Van der Maas, 2008). From the empirical research, lessons are identified to inform owners of SMEs, policy makers and future research.

The gap between increased diversity of students and the level of multicultural competence of preservice teachers at a local university was investigated in this qualitative case study. The purpose of this study was to describe preservice teachers' experiences with multicultural competence in teaching diverse students. The study's conceptual framework was based on Dewey's theory of experience, Knowles's theory of adult learning, Kolb's theory of experiential learning, and Gay's culturally responsive teaching. Two models incorporating cultural competence by Mason, Benjamin, and Lewis and Pedersen were used to frame professional practice and develop understanding, acceptance, and skills in working with diverse students. Inquiry into how preservice teachers characterized their multicultural competence in relation to their experiences teaching diverse students formed the guiding research question. Data collection included semistructured, individual interviews with 10 preservice teachers selected by purposeful sampling. Lesson plans, class profiles from participants, and handwritten notes of participants' nonverbal expressions during interviews were also analyzed. Inductive data analysis results indicated that preservice teachers perceived a need for additional multicultural competence including increased awareness, knowledge, and skills in working with diverse students. A 3-day professional development workshop training project was developed to address cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills among preservice teachers in grades K-12. Preservice teachers' experiences revealed the need to build and strengthen multicultural competence in order to bring about social change by improving educational outcomes for minority culture students.

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Background and Purpose: Evidence now links poor oral hygiene to systemic and infectious diseases such as pneumonia. Hospitalized patients, who now retain their teeth into older adulthood, often rely on nurses to provide oral hygiene care. Nurses have the potential to impact oral health outcomes and quality of life by controlling plaque. However, oral hygiene care practices of nurses in post-acute hospital settings are relatively unknown. The purpose of this study was to explore how nurses provide bedtime oral hygiene care, how they decide on interventions provided, and how certain factors influence their ability to provide oral care. Methods: A qualitative, exploratory multiple-case study was conducted with 25 nurses working on five inpatient units at different hospitals. Nurses were accompanied on their evening rounds to observe oral care practices, the physical environment, and workflow. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the case study data base including transcripts of guided conversations, field notes, and documents. Within-case analysis was followed by cross-case analysis. Findings: Findings indicate that: (a) nurses often convey oral hygiene care to their patients as being optional; (b) nurses are inclined to preserve patient autonomy in oral hygiene care; (c) oral hygiene care is often spontaneous and variable, and may not be informed by evidence; and (d) oral hygiene care is not embedded into bedtime care routines. Implications: Oral health history and assessment data are essential to the creation of individualized, feasible oral hygiene care plans that consider patient dignity. Knowledge of the health benefits of oral care, and skills related to assessment and approaches to oral care are required by nurses. Availability of effective products and supplies facilitates provision of oral care. The evidence for oral hygiene care practices, outcomes of nurse-administered oral care, and the role of nurses in influencing the oral health literacy of patients requires further study. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / When in hospital, older people often rely on nurses for help with oral care. Little is known about how nurses provide this type of care, but poor oral care can lead to pneumonia, gum disease, and other diseases of the body. In this study, nurses were accompanied as they provided bedtime oral care to patients. Findings showed that: (a) nurses let patients decide about doing oral care and do not encourage it, (b) nurses let patients do oral care themselves, even if they cannot do a good job, (c) the oral care given depends on the nurse, and (d) bedtime oral care, the most important time of day, is not part of the bedtime routine. Nurses should (a) ask patients about their oral health and inspect their mouths, (b) have the right supplies available so they can more easily provide effective oral care, and (c) teach their patients about the importance of oral hygiene.

University education across history and contexts aimed for a myriad of purposes, from the advancement of knowledge to educating citizens and contributing to the social good. With the rise of universities functioning in a market economy, and navigating higher education institutions' public role, some of the university purposes are constantly debated, and often without accounting for the students' perspectives. The purpose of this qualitative multi-case study is to explore the students' perspectives on the purpose of enrolling in a higher education institution and obtaining an engineering higher education degree. Each case is focused on a higher education institution, for a total of four institutions across the U.S. and England. The embedded units of analysis focus on twenty (20) undergraduate chemical engineering students' narratives from the time they enroll in those institutions to the time they graduate to answer the following two main research questions: RQ 1: What are the perspectives of undergraduate engineering students towards the purpose of higher education? RQ 2: How, if at all, do undergraduate engineering students' perspectives of the purpose of higher education change throughout their degree? The Capabilities Approach is used as the main theoretical framing. The framework is concerned with the question of what a person is able to do and be. It also provides a perspective on thinking about the purposes of education in terms of instrumental, intrinsic, and social values. Results show a variety of perspectives and reasons why students pursue an engineering degree, mainly expressed in terms of career-driven purposes and personal-driven purposes. Fulfilling being good at math and science, seeking a job for purposes beyond individualistic reasons, and personal growth were some of the common purposes mentioned by the students. In addition, more students than not maintained a fixed perspective throughout their undergraduate years. This research is set to address the problem of the neglect of the students' voices in the literature and to address the lack of research on longitudinal studies, higher education, and capabilities approach within the engineering education space. / Doctor of Philosophy / University education across history and contexts aimed for a myriad of purposes, from the advancement of knowledge to educating citizens and contributing to the social good. With the rise of universities functioning in a market economy, and navigating the institutions' public role, some of the university purposes are constantly debated, and often without accounting for the students' perspectives. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the students' perspectives on the purpose of enrolling in a higher education institution and obtaining an engineering higher education degree. I focused my study on four institutions across the U.S. and England. Within each institution, I interviewed undergraduate chemical engineering students from the time they started their degree till the time they graduated to answer the following main research question: RQ: What are the perspectives of undergraduate engineering students towards the purpose of higher education? To help position the study, I used the Capabilities Approach framework. The framework is concerned with the question of what a person is able to do and be. It also provides a perspective on thinking about the purposes of education in terms of different values including seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge and helping in the community. Results show a variety of perspectives and reasons why students pursue an engineering degree. Fulfilling being good at math and science, seeking a job for purposes beyond individual reasons, and personal growth were some of the common purposes. In addition, more students than not maintained a fixed perspective on why they chose to enroll in university throughout their undergraduate years. This research is set to amplify students' voices and add to longitudinal research studies in the engineering education literature space.

The arrival of the modern matron into the NHS acute setting in 2001 was in response to increased public and political concern regarding standards of nursing care and the quality of patient care. As a politically motivated initiative, the modern matron role and its relationship with the concept of the traditional matron has been extensively debated. The aims of this study were to explore: 1. How far the modern matron represents continuity between the traditional matrons of the mid 20th century and the present day. 2. What socio-political forces led to the development and establishment of the modern matron? 3. From the perspective of health professionals, what impact has the modern matron had on the quality of patient care? Adopting a case study design underpinned by realistic evaluation, the study involved interviewing patients and a carer, a focus group and interviews with staff and national policy leads. Documentary analysis was undertaken on a set of traditional matron archives. A number of key themes emerged from the research, including: the importance of uniform and visibility, patient expectations, the impact of policy processes and the political rationale for national policy change. Conflict between ensuring nursing quality and operational demands, which acts as a barrier to the modern matron role, was also found. Long-held assumptions about the functions and the positioning of the traditional matron are explored, with continuity and divergence between the traditional and modern matron roles revealed. Using a realistic evaluation approach, the findings were framed whilst considering the structural and generative elements, which resulted in social interplay or visible phenomena and provided an explanation for the predicament of the modern matron. The key conclusions were that national policy decisions appeared to be diluted once locally implemented. Modern matrons in part did positively impact on care quality. The introduction of modern matrons and the quality agenda may have been the start of a national discussion about how to continually improve patient care in an arena where intermittent care quality challenges which give concern. The effect of previous national policies that impacted on senior nurses may have diverted them away from their core purpose – patient care. The modern matron guidance may have been limited before publication by the inference within it about limiting the authority of the new post-holders. There was limited evidence of the modern matrons’ visibility to patients and this was reflected by the traditional matron’s accounts. The expectation of modern matrons’ physical presence may have been drawn from assumptions embedded in nostalgia and media portrayal of the traditional matron. The thesis concludes with implications for strategic nurse leaders and national policy leads to consider how the organisational arrangements for secondary care can best support and secure the ultimate aim of consistent provision of good quality nursing care.

This qualitative descriptive case study investigates four Chinese international students’ use of online resources for academic writing in a western Canadian university. This study has direct implications for English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language writing instruction as well as international students’ use of university library. Methodological triangulation was used to collect data. This included a semi-structured interview, a computer-based writing task, and a think-aloud activity. Data was coded and analyzed within cases and re-analyzed across the four cases. The salient themes that emerged from this analysis include: indispensable role of online resources in academic writing; a solution to language problems; ability of evaluation; a solution to plagiarism; influences of search habits; concerns about graduate students; and the importance of professors. Four major findings of the study include: important uses of online resources for solving language problems; students’ search skills in online databases; students’ use of the UVic library; and the importance of professors’ instruction. These findings will be helpful for educators to consider as they work to integrate online resources for international students’ writing instruction; and for academic libraries to consider as they offer services to assist EFL/ESL learners. / Graduate / 2017-12-05 / 0727 / 0399 / 0515 / ketien0421@gmail.com

Although awareness of cultural diversity is slowly occurring, the need for multicultural curricula is increasing more each day as even more ethnically and linguistically diverse students enter into United States classrooms. The education of English Language Learners is a controversial topic due to people's mixed beliefs on the amount of English and primary language instruction needed to aid students' English language development. Due to the shortage of bilingual teachers many English Language Learners in the Unites States are learning English through the regular education classroom instructed by monolingual English-speaking teachers. This case study implemented qualitative research methods in order to extend understanding of how a monolingual English speaking teacher can strategically incorporate Hispanic English Language Learner's primary language into the classroom setting and the teacher's experiences throughout this process. This case study will introduce a monolingual English speaking teacher to interventions that can foster the use of Hispanic English Language Learners' primary language in the classroom setting. The findings of this study include the experiences the participating teacher encounters throughout the intervention process. These findings include: heightened awareness, challenges, changes to interventions and enjoyment.

Despite over 50 years of software engineering as a formal practice, contemporary developers of bespoke software follow development practices that result in low-quality products with high development and maintenance costs. This qualitative case study sought to identify strategies used by software and enterprise architects for applying architectural best practices to improve bespoke software quality and lower the total cost of ownership. The study population was application and enterprise architects associated with delivering bespoke software for the enterprise architecture team at a large enterprise in the Nashville, Tennessee metropolitan area. Interview data were collected from 7 enterprise or solution architects; in addition, 47 organizational documents were gathered. Guided by the principles of total quality management, thematic analysis was used to identify codes and themes related to management of quality in software solutions. Prominent themes included focusing on customer satisfaction, collaborating and communicating with all stakeholders, and defining boundaries and empowering people within those boundaries. The findings from this research have implications for positive social change, including improved work-life balance, morale, and productivity of software and enterprise architects through streamlining development and maintenance activities.