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The Tacit Dimension Of Organizational Learning, Thomas Reeder Robinson

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This research was conducted to observe the self-reflections of an organizational participant group to further understand the organizational learning phenomenon. The participant group consisted of the 15 managers, spanning three levels of management, of a large engineering group in the southeastern United States.

The intent of the research was to generate theory, rather than to test theory. To accomplish this objective, a qualitative research methodology in a participatory action framework was modeled from Keating's (1993) Organizational Learning Process (OLP) to co-construct participants' organizational reflections. The methodology included individual interviews designed to elicit spontaneity that co-generated organizational perspectives. These perspectives were …

Prolonged Teacher Stress As A Function Of Teachers' Perceptions Of Principal Leadership Style Adaptability And Teachers' Belief Systems, Pamela Pare

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among prolonged teacher stress (or burnout), teachers' perceptions of leadership style adaptability, and teacher irrational belief systems.;The York County School Division was chosen because of the relative availability of subjects. Three surveys measuring teachers' perceptions of leadership style and style adaptability, teachers' irrational belief systems, and prolonged teacher stress, were disseminated among elementary classroom teachers in the county. Out of 100 elementary school teachers surveyed, there were 71 responses.;Three dimensions of burnout were measured: Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment. It was hypothesized that there would be no significant relationship …

An Analysis Of The Usefulness Of Graduate Education To Contracting Professionals As Perceived By Graduates And Their Supervisors, Ursula J. Woodson, Kimberly L. Yoder

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to assess the usefulness of graduate education to contracting professionals as perceived by graduates and their supervisors. Based on a list of 22 skills used by contracting professionals, graduates and their supervisors were surveyed to determine to what extent graduates possess these skills, developed these skills in their graduate degree program, and use these skills in the performance of their jobs. Air Force Institute of Technology Contracting Management Graduates since 1988 and contracting professionals with masters degrees within the Air Force Materiel Command were identified for this study. As a result of this study, …

The Effects Of Public-Posted Feedback On The Use Of A Photocopy Machine By Faculty In An Academic Department, Shijing Hu

Masters Theses

This study assessed the effects of a public-posting intervention on photocopy machine use by faculty members in an academic department. Public posting included posting of a chart that displayed number of copies made each week by individual faculty members along with the average cumulative rate of copying for previous weeks for each person. The intervention was applied in an A-B-A reversal design where data were collected prior to the intervention under usual conditions (A), during public posting (B), and after the public posting intervention was removed and usual conditions were restored (A). The results indicated that: (1) number of copies …

Developmental Changes In Predictors Of Job Satisfaction For Female Elementary School Teachers, Donna Owens Collier

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Management

The purpose of this study is to examine predictors of job satisfaction for female elementary school teachers. Specifically, how do personal variables and career variables affect job satisfaction at various age levels?

The subjects in this study were 386 females who teach kindergarten through sixth grade in an urban public school system. A survey was used to collect information about age, personal variables, career variables, and current level of job satisfaction. Personal variables included marital status, number of children and educational level. Career variables included number of years in the teaching profession, number of positions held during the teaching career …

Reducing Teachers' Levels Of Stress: A Comparison Of Two Counseling Treatment Models, Andrew Charles Elgort

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Teachers are experiencing heightened levels of stress throughout the school day the impact of which may be seen in increased absenteeism, turnover, poor performance and waste. This study taught classroom teachers cognitive-behavioral methods to reduce and manage their professional stress comparing a Group Counseling (GC) approach with a Cooperative Professional Development (CPD) approach.;Participating classroom teachers were randomly selected for each treatment condition. The participants in the GC approach met for ten 2-hour consecutive weekly sessions. The CPD treatment initially met as a group for a {dollar}6{lcub}1\over2{rcub}{dollar} hour inservice. at the end of the inservice, the participants formed dyads which met …

The Use Of Humor To Relieve Stress In Psychiatric Nurses, Joanne Kwandt

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of humor as a coping mechanism to relieve work stress of psychiatric registered nurses (RNs).;The population was selected from 31 volunteer RNs who worked thirty-two to forty hours a week in psychiatric hospitals in the Norfolk-Tidewater-Williamsburg-Richmond areas of Virginia. The RNs completed three pretest self-report measurements on stress. The Social Readiness Rating Scale (SRRS) was given to assess preexisting life stress. The Work Environment Scale (WES), and the Psychiatric Nurses' Occupational Stress Scales (PNOSS) were given to measure for pre-treatment work stress.;The RNs were then randomly assigned to one of …

An Evaluation Of Personality-Environmental Factors Related To Job Satisfaction Of Secondary School Natural Science Teachers, George Newton Deshazo

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among certain personality traits, vocational interests, and demographic factors with job satisfaction among secondary school natural science teachers. Implications for future research and educational practice were explored.;Volunteers teaching secondary school natural science classes in seven Virginia public school districts primarily in the Hampton Rhodes area were subjects for this study. Subjects completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Vocational Preference Inventory, The Job Descriptive Index, and a biographical informational questionnaire.;It was hypothesized that (1) there would be a positive correlation between the predominant basic preference, INTJ, and job satisfaction, (2) there …

The Relationships Between Metacognitive Strategies And Learning Outcomes In An Adult Basic Skills Program, Bert Huggins

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Education

This study tested metacognitive strategies accounted for variance in learning acquisition and retention in an adult basic skills population. The study employed the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) to measure metacognitive strategy use, a standardized, individually-accessed basic skills curriculum, and a valid basic skills performance measurement.

The study population was young adult soldiers stationed in South Carolina, California and Hawaii. Sites selection assured uniformity in testing procedures, curriculum and delivery. Multiple sites assured a variety of soldier career fields for purposes of generalization.

Performance measurements were taken at the beginning of instruction, at the end of instruction and a …

The Effects Of Goal Setting And Supervisory Feedback On Staff Performance In A Human Service Setting, Michael D. Mack

Masters Theses

Goal setting and supervisory feedback were examined to determine their relative effects on the performance of direct care staff. The performance of five staff from a day treatment program for developmentally disabled adults was measured. The specific performance measure of interest was staff implementation rates of daily training programs with clients. The results demonstrated that adding performance feedback to goal setting had minimal impact on staff performance. Yet, goal setting alone as an initial technique was effective in improving the performance of staff. Unfortunately, the long-term effects of goal setting alone may be less desirable than these initial data indicate. …

An Analysis Of Urban Higher Education Ceo's Perceptions Of Critical Leadership Behaviors, Linda Ferguson Banis

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Education

The research question for this study asked if CEO's (Chief Executive Officers) of urban higher education institutions hold the same values and beliefs as those attributed to business and industry CEO's through the business literature. Through survey methodology, the analysis of urban higher education CEO's perceptions of critical leadership behaviors revealed very similar belief patterns. The primary discrepancies between the research group and their industry counterparts lie in the degree to which critical behaviors are espoused and in the acceptance of transformational leadership as a proactive model for effective organizational change. The responses to the open-ended portion of the questionnaire …

Improving The Performance Of Corporate Instructional Designers, Karolyn A. Smalley

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent the job aid developed by Brethower (1968) controlled instructional designers’ behavior so that they effectively and efficiently produced performance-based learning programs. This study consisted of developing and testing two iterations of the Analysis-Design Instructional Guide (job aid). Instructional designers who used either version of the job aid were able to meet a higher percentage of general criteria for performance-based learning programs than designers who did not. In addition, they took less time to develop programs than industry norms suggest. Even though the behavior of the designers was not completely …

The Relationship Between Occupational Choice And Perceptions Of Professional Nursing Functions And Characteristics, Ellis Quinn Youngkin

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Management

This study identifies the occupational interests and predominant vocational personality types of freshmen students (undeclared majors, nursing majors, and non-nursing majors), explores perceptions about selected professional nursing functions and characteristics among the students, and examines perceptual differences between groups (majors).

A non-experimental ex post facto design is used to analyze data from 312 students in a large urban university. Descriptive and inferential statistics are applied in data analysis. The following findings support the hypotheses: (1) Nursing continues to attract the traditional student who has Holland's Social vocational personality type as measured by the Self-Directed Search, although many Social types are …

Retirement And Re-Entry Decision-Making: A Faculty Perspective, Seth Zimmer

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Universities are faced with an aging workforce and threatened with deficits in number and quality of replacements for retirees. New policies and programs affecting retirement and workforce re-entry are taking shape. This points to the need for research on the factors used by faculty members in the retirement decision-making process.

Faculty are somewhat unique in that their university roles and responsibilities often allow them to be professionally active simultaneously in other settings. The usual concept of retirement becomes somewhat blurred where faculty members are concerned.

The decision of when to retire and whether or not to re-enter the workforce must …

The Effectiveness Of Feedback Procedures On Machine Set-Up Time In A Manufacturing Setting, Connie J. Wittkopp

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment package designed to improve and maintain set-up time in the extrusion department of a rubber manufacturing company. Subjects were exposed to various behavioral techniques including training and a feedback system in the form of both written and verbal supervisory comments with an emphasis placed on improving performance through use of videotaping. An attempt was made to maintain treatment gains by teaching supervisors how to give information concerning set-up performance to their employees. Results indicate that average weekly set-up times for each machine were significantly below baseline …

The Effect Of Word Abbreviation On Decoding Speed And Accuracy, Frances Piccione

Masters Theses

An experiment was conducted to verify the existence and determine the magnitude of the human response latency differential between words and their abbreviations in a decoding task. Forty-eight Naval Officer Candidates learned a set of abbreviations obtained from operational aircraft cockpits. Abbreviations and corresponding words were divided into easy and hard difficulty levels. Subjects responded by saying the correct whole-word for both stimulus types. Response times measured by a voice key revealed a mean of 0.534 seconds for words and 0.662 seconds for abbreviations. An analysis of variance produced significant main effects (p < .05) for stimulus types and difficulty levels; the interaction effect was not significant. Also, t-tests for correlated scores revealed significant differences (p < .05) between difficulty levels within stimulus types.

Factors Related To Job Satisfaction Of Academic Faculty And Administrators In Higher Education, Sutin Somprakit

Masters Theses

Statement of the Purpose

The purpose of this study was to identify factors which are most likely to affect job satisfaction of academic faculty and administrators in higher education. Specific recommendations were proposed for college and university administrators' application to maximize academic faculty and administrator job satisfaction. These recommendations were to improve organizational effectiveness and productivity of higher education.

Procedure

The identification of satisfaction-producing factors affecting academic faculty and administrators was accomplished by the related research and literature in the private (business and industry) and the public (higher education) sectors in relation to the motivation-hygiene theory of Herzberg. The recommendations …

The Use Of Performance Data To Monitor And Support The Reorganization Of An Educational System, Ellen Spall Thompson

Masters Theses

The goal of this study was to determine the performance effects on staff and students following the reorganization of a special education facility. The organizational plan was based on the development of teaching teams where students were grouped together according to exit curricular goals. Four interventions were completed in order to assess the overall outcome of the reorganization project. At the student level, the rate of learning was monitored in order to determine whether the implementation of teams affected educational objective acquisition . At the team level, meeting agendas were surveyed to find out what effect they had on student …

A Study Of Principals' Perceptions Of Job Stress In The Six-County Region 11 Educational Service Region, East Central, Illinois, John Neiweem

Masters Theses

The purpose of the study was to investigate the degree of stress principals perceive in the work environment. Specifically this study compared the actual perceived stress experienced on the job with what principals deem to be a reasonable amount of stress. The study was predicated on the research findings that indicate that the amount of stress is relative to a given individual as opposed to being an absolute quality.

A review of the research and literature revealed that few publications have been targeted towards stress and the educational administrator. The implications of job related stress, as it impacts on the …

Completing Long-Term Undergraduate Projects: Some Critical Variables, Timothy K. Zoia

Masters Theses

Completion of long-term academic projects involves large amounts of behavior over long periods of time. Steady rates of task completion may be difficult. This study is concerned with the completion of long-term projects by undergraduates who have received a prestigious university scholarship. Project completion and hours worked were correlated with the amount of supervision that the students received. The correlation between frequent supervisory meetings and completing project on time was significant (r=.70; df=1; P<.001). Suggestions for maintaining steady student performance are offered.

Comparison Of Work Samples And A Psychological Test In A Vocational Evaluation Program, Charles Dircken

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Personnel Practices And Teacher Morale, Margaret Jeter Jeter

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.