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Assessing Knowledge Of Evidence-Basedpractice Among Nurses, Suja Merin John Jan 2016

Assessing Knowledge Of Evidence-Basedpractice Among Nurses, Suja Merin John

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is used worldwide to improve the quality of patient care to provide cost-effective care. EBP is a mandate for nursing practice combining individual clinical judgment with available expertise to generate a positive outcome for the patient. Investigators have documented that nurses have varying degrees of confidence and knowledge about EBP. The purpose of this project was to improve knowledge of EBP among registered nurses (RNs). The ACE Star Model of Knowledge transformation was used as the conceptual model. The key project question was to assess the level of knowledge and confidence about EBP among RNs in a …


Elementary General Education Teachers' Knowledge Of And Experience Teaching Students With Disabilities In Science And Social Studies, Diane Rice Jan 2016

Elementary General Education Teachers' Knowledge Of And Experience Teaching Students With Disabilities In Science And Social Studies, Diane Rice

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In Grades 3 to 5 at a suburban southeastern elementary school, the percentage of students with disabilities (SWDs) who do not meet state standards in science and social studies is greater than that of their nondisabled peers. To address this disparity, district administrators required that proficiency ratings increase for SWDs without providing general education (GE) teachers with training. A qualitative bounded case study was used to understand how GE teachers constructed their knowledge of and met SWDs instructional needs and to understand GE teachers' needs as they worked toward meeting the district goals. Piaget's constructivist learning theory served as the …


Examining Barriers To Retention Of Adult Learners In Rural Education Programs, Tiffany Minyon Spivey Jan 2016

Examining Barriers To Retention Of Adult Learners In Rural Education Programs, Tiffany Minyon Spivey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The retention of adult learners in rural educational settings throughout the United States is challenging for adult education instructors. Adult learners in rural areas encounter internal and external barriers, including lack of self-efficacy and minimal transportation. Research exists regarding the retention of adult learners, but little is known about the barriers to persistence among adult learners in rural areas, or the motivations experienced by students and instructors. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify perceived barriers to retention at a rural adult learning center in Georgia and to provide suggestions to improve adult education and literacy initiatives. …


Social Studies Teachers' Use Of Differentiated Instruction To Help Struggling Learners, Nicole Waid Jan 2016

Social Studies Teachers' Use Of Differentiated Instruction To Help Struggling Learners, Nicole Waid

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Students in a local rural northeastern high school have demonstrated decreasing academic performance in social studies courses for the past 5 years. The purpose of this bounded qualitative case study of the local social studies department was to investigate how social studies teachers and administrators for grades 7-12 describe differentiated instruction (DI) and professional development in DI. This study was grounded in the zone of proximal development, which stressed the importance of providing instruction at students' instructional levels, and DI, which emphasized tailoring instruction to address students' needs. Three research questions focused on how social studies teachers and administrators viewed …


Patterns Of One-Course Cohort Participation In Online Teacher Education Programs, Janeal Crane Smith Jan 2016

Patterns Of One-Course Cohort Participation In Online Teacher Education Programs, Janeal Crane Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Online higher education is a field that can benefit significantly from further research on innovative pedagogical methods designed to support students and decrease attrition rates. One method shown to improve engagement and retention of students in online environments is to include interactive engagement. This case study explored the patterns of students' interactions and assessment performance in an introductory teacher education one-course cohort. The study used a conceptual framework incorporating Bandura's social learning theory and Siemens' theory of connectivism. The study assessed archival data, from Adobe Connect recordings and records of competency pass rates, on the interactions and patterns of behavior …


Factors That Impact African American High School Equivalency (Hse) Students' Pursuit Of Higher Education, Jamiyla Chandler-Melton Jan 2016

Factors That Impact African American High School Equivalency (Hse) Students' Pursuit Of Higher Education, Jamiyla Chandler-Melton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African Americans account for a disproportionate percentage of students who pursue college education in comparison to European Americans. Indeed, a considerable number of African American High School Equivalency (HSE) students are not enrolling in college once they earn their HSE diploma. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine 3 African American HSE students' perceptions about factors that influenced their pursuit of higher education at the selected HSE study site. These 3 students were selected for their inclusion because of their ethnicity, enrollment in the HSE program, academic underpreparedness and lack of pursuit of higher education, and strong …


Impact Of Orientation Programs On Nontraditional Students' Perceived Academic Success In Adult Education Programs, Marsha Ann Webster Jan 2016

Impact Of Orientation Programs On Nontraditional Students' Perceived Academic Success In Adult Education Programs, Marsha Ann Webster

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many administrators and faculty within higher education institutions have grappled with identifying and employing effective strategies to facilitate student success and persistence. The current study focuses on assessing nontraditional students' self-efficacy beliefs and their perception of the orientation program at a 2-year continuing education program in a Caribbean nation. The study is important as the findings have the potential to increase nontraditional students' persistence and learning. Bandura's social cognitive theory and the theory of self-efficacy served as the theoretical frameworks of this sequential mixed-methods design study. The quantitative research questions examined the reported self-efficacy levels of 77 participants and nonparticipants …


Graduation Coach Program Effects On High School Attendance And Graduation Rate, Anya V. Miller Jan 2016

Graduation Coach Program Effects On High School Attendance And Graduation Rate, Anya V. Miller

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The rise in the number of students who drop out of high school has gained national attention. High school dropout rates in the state of Louisiana are a primary concern to school administrators in the state. The Graduation Coach Program is an intervention implemented in several high schools across Louisiana to assist students with completing their high school education. Many of the programs' attributes are based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, students' needs, and the presence of positive adult relationships that might improve student achievement. The purpose of this study was to compare archival attendance and graduation rates among independent …


An Evaluation Of An American Sign Language Interpreting Internship Program, Colleen Avilla Geier Jan 2016

An Evaluation Of An American Sign Language Interpreting Internship Program, Colleen Avilla Geier

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study was a program evaluation of an American Sign Language internship program that was established in 2006 at a 4-year private college in the Midwestern United States but had never been evaluated. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of this internship program in preparing students for employment in the field of interpreting. An expertise-oriented program evaluation case study was conducted using the lens of experiential learning theory. Research questions were used to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the program and the ways in which the policies, objectives, and assignments prepare students to work as …


Parent Support And Retention Of Rural First-Generation College Students, Edna E. Mcculloh Jan 2016

Parent Support And Retention Of Rural First-Generation College Students, Edna E. Mcculloh

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A small, private university was the focus of this study, where rural first-generation college (FGC) students withdraw at higher rates than their continuing-generation counterparts. An objective of the university leadership is to increase student retention to foster a greater likelihood of degree completion. The research problem was the inability to retain rural FGC students. The purpose of the study was to explore parental support that promoted rural FGC student retention. The research questions addressed the students' perceptions about parental support and their decisions to remain enrolled. The research methodology was a qualitative case study design. Data were collected through semi …


Effects Of Direct Instruction Common Core Math On Students With Learning Disabilities, Joseph Ifeanyi Monye Jan 2016

Effects Of Direct Instruction Common Core Math On Students With Learning Disabilities, Joseph Ifeanyi Monye

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

U.S. students with learning disabilities' math skills acquisition has been on the decline in recent years. Studies show that teachers using traditional methods of teaching math lack knowledge of task analysis, chunking, sequencing, mass practice, modeling, and repetition of instruction. These components of direct instruction or pedagogical activities are hallmarks of special education teaching and are collectively described as cognitive support pedagogy. The study evaluated direct instruction teaching strategies to teach Common Core math to middle school students with learning disabilities, to determine if the current downward trend in math skills acquisition amongst them can be reversed. The theoretical framework …


Characteristics Of Effective Reading Language Arts Teachers In Closing The Achievement Gap, Latasha Price Bassette Jan 2016

Characteristics Of Effective Reading Language Arts Teachers In Closing The Achievement Gap, Latasha Price Bassette

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study examined an urban school district in the southern United States that continued to experience student achievement gaps despite the implementation of initiatives as the African American Success Initiative. The school leadership needed a deeper understanding regarding what strategies were successful with closing the achievement gap. Using Gay's theory of cultural responsive pedagogy, the purpose of this study was to identify inward attributes, outward strategies, and professional development perceptions of teachers with no achievement gap among ethnically diverse students. Employing an instrumental case study design, 8 middle school reading teachers who closed the reading achievement gap were interviewed; these …


Instructors' Perceptions Of Connectivist Characteristics In Adult Undergraduate Courses, John Bannister Jan 2016

Instructors' Perceptions Of Connectivist Characteristics In Adult Undergraduate Courses, John Bannister

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The enrollment of college students in the United States who are classified as adult learners will continue to grow, bringing new challenges to degree programs. Multiple studies have provided insight into how best to teach these learners. However, to maximize learning, institutions must now consider strategies that merge adult learning principles with the integration of technology and students' personal and professional networks. Connectivism, based largely on the work of Siemens, and andragogy, based on Knowles, provided the conceptual framework that guided this basic qualitative interpretive study that examined how instructors experience and interpret the characteristics of connectivism (autonomy, openness, diversity, …


The Difference In Attitudes Of Regular And Special Education Teachers Toward Inclusion, Janice Lorraine Brown-Oyola Jan 2016

The Difference In Attitudes Of Regular And Special Education Teachers Toward Inclusion, Janice Lorraine Brown-Oyola

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Inclusion has been introduced throughout the educational community as a method to increase math and reading scores of underachieving schools on standardized tests. The problem was that teachers were not effectively implementing inclusion. Guided by Bandura's (1994) self-efficacy theory, which hypothesizes that a person's sense of efficacy provides information of their capability and the ability to assess their performance, the purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental study was to determine if there was a significant difference in attitudes on inclusion between regular and special education teachers using the 4 subsections of the Scale of Teachers: Attitudes Toward Inclusive Classrooms through an …


"The Relationship Between Test Anxiety And Standardized Test Scores", Beth Ann Fulton Jan 2016

"The Relationship Between Test Anxiety And Standardized Test Scores", Beth Ann Fulton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The number of standardized achievement tests that students in the United States are required to take has increased significantly during the past decade. Researchers have found that test anxiety is often a problem related to the increase in testing. This correlational study investigated the relationship between anxiety levels of 50 4th grade students and their standardized test scores. Test anxiety questionnaires and pulse rates were used as a measure of the anxiety level of each of the 4th grade students just before the standardized test was administered, and standardized test scores were used as a measure of academic performance. The …


Nigerian Policy On Child Labor: An Evaluation Of The Education Sector Preparedness For Effective Policy Implementation, Samuel Effiong Ekong Jan 2016

Nigerian Policy On Child Labor: An Evaluation Of The Education Sector Preparedness For Effective Policy Implementation, Samuel Effiong Ekong

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A number of studies have been conducted about policy failures in Nigeria; however, little is known about the state of stakeholders' readiness to implement any government policy. Using the functionalist theory of Durkheim and the infrastructure theory of Frischmann, the purpose of this exploratory case study was to evaluate the level of preparedness of the education sector to implement the Nigerian policy on child labor, which was adopted on September 11, 2013, by the federal executive council of Nigeria. Preparedness in this study was conceptualized as the ability of the education sector to absorb children of school-going-age who quit all …


Examination Of Resource Allocation And Student Achievement, Jo Ann Neal Jan 2016

Examination Of Resource Allocation And Student Achievement, Jo Ann Neal

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite the raise in per-pupil expenditures, the achievement gap between economically advantaged and disadvantaged students continues to increase. Education proponents are scrambling to understand the complexities of local school funding. The No Child Left behind deadline stipulated that all students must be proficient in language arts and mathematics by 2014. The constructivist theory served as the conceptual framework for the study. Performance data were obtained from the State of New Jersey Department of Education and the United States Department of Education. This quantitative study determined whether a significant relationship exists between the allocation of fiscal resources and students' test scores. …


Persistence, Major, Vocational Technical Preparation, And Provisional Acceptance At A Private For-Profit Hospitality College, Joshua Luke Seery Jan 2016

Persistence, Major, Vocational Technical Preparation, And Provisional Acceptance At A Private For-Profit Hospitality College, Joshua Luke Seery

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

At a private for-profit hospitality college in Philadelphia, there are rising percentages of students not persisting to the sophomore year. The study was grounded by the theoretical framework of Tinto's model of student retention. The purpose of this causal comparative study was to examine the relationship between student persistence and the academic variables of major, vocational technical preparation, and provisional acceptance. The relationship was analyzed using a chi-square test of independence. The data collected for the study came from archival data based upon the sample of 162 full-time students enrolled during the August 2014 class start in the majors of …