Digital Commons Network^™

The Blended Learning Experience Of Community College Students, Anita Bleffert-Schmidt

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Blended learning has sometimes been calledthe best of both worlds, combining the advantages of face-to-face instruction with the advantages of online learning. It has been in existence for over a decade, and more research needed to be done to determine its efficacy and desirability for community colleges. The goal of this dissertation was to document the ways in which blended learning has changed the community college learning experience.

The investigation took place at Ulster County Community College, a small rural college in upstate New York. A mixed method, triangulation design was used. Quantitative data were collected from the college's student …

The Impact Of The User Interface On Simulation Usability And Solution Quality, Bruce Ray Montgomery

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This research outlines a study that was performed to determine the effects of user interface design variations on the usability and solution quality of complex, multivariate discrete-event simulations. Specifically, this study examined four key research questions: what are the user interface considerations for a given simulation model, what are the current best practices in user interface design for simulations, how is usability best evaluated for simulation interfaces, and specifically what are the measured effects of varying levels of usability of interface elements on simulation operations such as data entry and solution analysis. The overall goal of the study was to …

The Effect Of A Hybrid Continuing Education Course On Outpatient Physical Therapy For Individuals With Low Back Pain, Gilbert M. Willett, Grace C. Johnson, Katherine Jones

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

This study used an augmented version of Kirkpatrick’s four-level model of training criteria as a theoretical framework to evaluate a hybrid teaching approach to continuing education (CE) for physical therapists who treat patients with low back pain. This model provides a framework for relating changes in practitioner knowledge to changes in practice. Forty-three orthopedic physical therapists who attended a CE course on evidence-based practice participated in the study. The hybrid CE course consisted of online (reading assignments and quizzes) and onsite components (traditional lecture and skill review laboratory). It addressed evidence for application of a clinical prediction rule to identify …

Comparison Of Wetland Assessment Methods, Kerstin Green

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

After many decades of being considered useless and often destroyed wetlands have become valued for the many functions they provide. To make informed wetland management decisions biologists have to develop practical, rapid, and inexpensive ways to assess biological conditions and functions. Ideally these assessment methods have to measure more than one attribute of the wetland to represent the overall condition of the biological community. For this project I conducted field assessments at mitigation sites in Pembroke Pines, Florida, to see how the newest method used in the State of Florida, the Uniform Mitigation Assessment Method (UMAM), compared to the older …

Wiki Behavior In The Workplace: Emotional Aspects Of Content Development, Deborah A. Gears

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Wikis have been found to be an easy-to-use, low-cost, and Internet-based technology useful in creating and mobilizing knowledge. Wikis hosted within firms (corporate wikis) have become a popular way for employees to share information and collaborate.

Preliminary research suggested that as few as 6% of wiki consumers contributed to the development of wiki pages. Conventional approaches argued that employees judged the costs of participating in wikis (e.g., authoring or changing material, reading messages, following an argument, and posting responses) to exceed the benefits of participating in wikis (e.g., recognition, reputation etc.) - thus many people "lurked" but did not post. …

The Relationship Between Personality Type And Software Usability Using The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Mbti®) And The Software Usability Measurement Inventory (Sumi), William H. Lindsey

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This study attempted to determine if there is a relationship between user's psychological personality types, measured by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) and distinct measures of usability measured by the Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI). The study was expected to provide an answer to the following basic research question: When interacting with a typical user interface, do different users perceive usability differently? Specific hypotheses were formulated to answer this research question. Hypotheses were tested to determine if there was any statistically significant relationship between specific MBTI® personality types and individual measure of usability as measured by the SUMI.

Each …

Graduate Catalog And Student Handbook 2011-2012, Nova Southeastern University

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice Graduate Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

H. Wayne Huizenga College Of Business And Entrepreneurship Graduate Student Catalog 2011-2012, Nova Southeastern University

Huizenga Postgraduate Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Regulating For Sustainability: The Legality Of Carrying Capacity-Based Environmental And Land Use Permitting Decisions, Richard Grosso

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Stop The Beach Renourishment: A Case Of Macguffins And Legal Fictions, Sidney F. Ansbacher

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Act Deux: Confidentiality After The Florida Mediation Confidentiality And Privacy Act, Fran L. Tetunic

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nova Law Review 36, #1

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

2011 Survey Of Juvenile Law, Michael J. Dale

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Florida's Suspicionless Drug Testing Of Welfare Applicants, Jeffrey Widelitz

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Management Of Decubitus Ulcer Using Gentamycin Sulphate Iontophoresis - A Case Study, Ayodele Teslim Onigbinde, Kehinde Foyeke Olafimihan, Adesola Ojoawo, Joyce Mothabeng, Olufemi Opeyemi Ogundiran

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Most infective organisms have developed resistance against antibiotics. There is need to find other means to deliver antibiotics locally. There appears to be limited studies on the use of gentamicin sulphate iontophoresis in wound management. The participant in this study was a subject diagnosed with mild head injury secondary to motor vehicle accident who later developed a unilateral pressure sore on the left gluteal region. The subject received 15-minutes of gentamicin sulphate iontophoresis (Interrupted Direct Current) three times a week for five weeks. The case report showed that there was a 65.7% reduction in wound surface area of the decubitus …

The Lived Experience Of Late-Stage Doctoral Student Attrition In Counselor Education, Brad Willis, Karla D. Carmichael

The Qualitative Report

Doctoral student attrition occurs across academic disciplines and presents problems for noncompleting students and the programs from which they withdraw. The following research question guided the present study, "What is the experience of doctoral attrition in counselor education?" Six late-stage doctoral noncompleters from counselor education programs participated in research interviews that were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Results showed two distinct types of attrition. Five participants reported a negative experience of encountering barriers that acted against the internal desire of the participants to obtain the doctorate. One participant reported a positive experience of an internal change that altered the …

Communicating Qualitative Analytical Results Following Grice's Conversational Maxims, Jan S. Chenail, Ronald J. Chenail

The Qualitative Report

Conducting qualitative research can be seen as a developing communication act through which researchers engage in a variety of conversations. Articulating the results of qualitative data analysis results can be an especially challenging part of this scholarly discussion for qualitative researchers. To help guide investigators through this difficult communicative process, the authors suggest Grice's (1989) Conversational Maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner as general guidelines to follow when formulating and presenting findings in qualitative research products as well as basic assumptions to guide readers when judging the quality of result representations.

Interviewing The Investigator: Strategies For Addressing Instrumentation And Researcher Bias Concerns In Qualitative Research, Ronald J. Chenail

The Qualitative Report

Instrumentation rigor and bias management are major challenges for qualitative researchers employing interviewing as a data generation method in their studies. A usual procedure for testing the quality of an interview protocol and for identifying potential researcher biases is the pilot study in which investigators try out their proposed methods to see if the planned procedures perform as envisioned by the researcher. Sometimes piloting is not practical or possible so an "interviewing the investigator" technique can serve as a useful first step to create interview protocols that help to generate the information proposed and to assess potential researcher biases especially …

Incorporating Evidence In Clinical Education; Barriers And Opportunities In Allied Health, Clare Delany, Andrea Bailocerkowski

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Clinical education is a key component of health professional education. Clinical educators, like clinicians, are increasingly expected to access and apply evidence from clinical education theories to inform their teaching methods and approaches. Purpose: This study evaluated personal and organizational factors that influenced the ability to access and apply clinical education research evidence into clinical teaching in a group of allied health practitioners at one large metropolitan hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Method: A Cross-sectional survey based on a previously published survey of clinical physiotherapists was custom-designed to examine the factors that influence evidence based practices (EBP) of a range of …

The Effects Of Coursecasting In International Freshman Students' Perceptions Of Marginality And Isolation, Anxiety, And English Language Oral Proficiency And Comprehension, Alberto Fernandez

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The influx of international students attending American universities has put the U.S. at the forefront of international education, generating over $14.5 billion yearly.

International students often face adjustment issues impacting their level of satisfaction with their experience. These involve oral language proficiency, as well as feelings of anxiety and isolation resulting from language deficiencies, which increase their feelings of marginality. Engaged learning, which is dependent on comprehension, is affected by the anxiety students bring to class. It is believed that coursecasts may alleviate anxiety, thus improving student engagement in learning.

A pre-experimental research design investigates whether coursecasting mitigates feelings of …

Sem-Based Composite Reliability Estimates Of The Crisis Acuity Rating Scale With Children And Adolescents, Steven Thurber, Michael R. Bonynge

Archives of Assessment Psychology

A Likert-type rating scale of crisis acuity was completed by on-call clinicians with 227 children and adolescents admitted consecutively to a youth crisis unit of a rural community mental health center. Traditional methods of estimating reliability for the scale were precluded. In particular, the scale was not found to be unidimensional when subjected to confirmatory factor analysis. This rendered Cronbach's alpha coefficient inappropriate. A six-factor oblique model corresponding to apriori subscales was supported. SEM-based reliability estimates for this confirmed factor structure using a phantom composite was detailed. The results yielded a point estimate of .845 with a bootstrap (1000 samples) …

Prediction Of Mmpi-2 Clinical Scales For Incomplete Protocols: Comprehensive Short-Form Analysis, F. Scott Winstanley, Bradley N. Axelrod, Leif V. Lalone

Archives of Assessment Psychology

The MMPI-2 is a thorough tool for personality assessment that has substantial importance in the field of neuropsychology. However, there have been reported problems for many neurologically impaired individuals who do not complete the test because of the demands of its length. Incomplete protocols are of little value with no formal way of scoring and interpreting the completed items. The following study examined the clinical utility of short-form versions of the MMPI-2 validity and clinical scales. Raw score correlations between various short-form and full-form tests on all validity and clinical scales, as well as mean raw score differences between short-form …

Culture For Sale? An Exploratory Study Of The Crow Fair, Thomas D. Bordelon, Marie Opatrny, Wendy G. Turner, Steven D. Williams

The Qualitative Report

This paper describes an ethnographically-oriented participant-observation study conducted during the annual Crow Fair, held in south central Montana. Data collected included audio-recorded interviews with participants, participant observations, photographic and video recordings. Narrative interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the constant comparison method. Multiple data sources improved the veracity of this study through triangulation, and four themes emerged from the data: commercialization, alcohol abuse, spirituality, and community. The researchers discuss these themes and their conclusions regarding the "selling" of Native American culture as a form of cultural transmission. Theme analysis revealed the researchers recognized that the principal researcher had changed his …

Female Drug Offenders Reflect On Their Experiences With A County Drug Court Program, James C. Roberts, Loreen Wolfer

The Qualitative Report

This paper examines the experiences of a group of female drug offenders who successfully completed a county drug court program in northeast Pennsylvania. Using the constant comparative method, we analyzed interviews with these women for thematic patterns in order to provide an evaluation of this program based on participants' subjective perceptions of its strengths and weaknesses. While other drug court evaluations identify rewards for good behavior and compassionate program staff as important contributing factors to participants' success, women in this study credited their recovery and successful completion of the program primarily to fear of punishment and program structure. Our analysis …

Work Experiences Of People With Mental Illness In Malaysia: A Preliminary Qualitative Study, Su-Lyn Boo, Jaymee Loong, Wai-Sheng Ng

The Qualitative Report

This is a preliminary qualitative study, using a basic interpretive approach, to investigate the work experiences of people with mental illness in Malaysia. Six females and four males (aged 30-70) from a residential home for the mentally ill participated in semi-structured interviews. Three inter-relating themes emerged, namely the experience of self at work, perception of work, and experience of others at work. All participants reported problems in either work or family relationships; most of which interfered with their work. In addition, findings suggest that the participants' self experience may be related to the extent of one's illness integration, experience of …

Facilitating Coherence Across Qualitative Research Papers, Ronald J. Chenail, Maureen Duffy, Sally St. George, Dan Wulff

The Qualitative Report

Bringing the various elements of qualitative research papers into coherent textual patterns presents challenges for authors and editors alike. Although individual sections such as presentation of the problem, review of the literature, methodology, results, and discussion may each be constructed in a sound logical and structural sense, the alignment of these parts into a coherent mosaic may be lacking in many qualitative research manuscripts. In this paper, four editors of The Qualitative Report present how they collaborate with authors to facilitate improvement papers' coherence in such areas as co-relating title, abstract, and the paper proper; coordinating the method presented with …

Utilizing Microsoft® Office To Produce And Present Recursive Frame Analysis Findings, Ronald J. Chenail, Maureen Duffy

The Qualitative Report

Although researchers conducting qualitative descriptive studies, ethnographies, phenomenologies, grounded theory, and narrative inquiries commonly use computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) to manage their projects and analyses, investigators conducting discursive methodologies such as discourse or conversation analysis seem to find such software packages not as useful. In our work with Recursive Frame Analysis (RFA), a systemic approach to the analysis of text and talk, we have taken a slightly different route by utilizing Microsoft® Office applications to produce and present our RFA findings. In the paper we describe RFA, explain how we use Word and PowerPoint to carry out RFA's …

Embracing The Visual: Using Timelines With In-Depth Interviews On Substance Use And Treatment, Lynda Berends

The Qualitative Report

People typically seek treatment for addiction only when faced with a major crisis. Understanding the trajectory of substance use and treatment seeking may assist in identifying points for intervention. In this study I explored the use of visual methods with in-depth interviews to represent people's substance use, critical events, and treatment pathways. Ethics approval was granted with the condition that only aggregate findings would be presented, although occasional quotes could be used for illustration. Typical timelines were developed, along with text vignettes describing hypothetical participants whose experience matched that shown in these timelines. Benefits of the timelines include the combination …

Comprehensive Treatment Of Women With Postpartum Psychosis Across Health Care Systems From Swedish Psychiatrists' Perspectives, Inger Engqvist, Arne Åhlin, Ginette Ferszt, Kerstin Nilsson

The Qualitative Report

Studies concerning the psychiatrist's experiences of treating women with postpartum psychosis (PPP) or how they react to these women are limited in the literature. In this study a qualitative design is used. Data collection includes semi-structured interviews with nine Swedish psychiatrists working in psychiatric hospitals. The audio-taped interviews are transcribed verbatim and analyzed using content analysis. The findings consist of the categories: Protection, Treatment, Care, and Reactions. The psychiatrists describe emotions such as compassion, empathy and distress. A conclusion is that the psychiatrists focus on protecting the women from suicide and/or infanticide. Given the degree of stress the psychiatrists can …

Mandatory Identification Bar Checks: How Bouncers Are Doing Their Job, Elizabeth Monk-Turner, John Allen, John Casten, Catherine Cowling, Charles Gray, David Guhr, Kara Hoofnagle, Jessica Huffman, Moises Mina, Brian Moore

The Qualitative Report

The behavior of bouncers at on site establishments that served alcohol was observed. Our aim was to better understand how bouncers went about their job when the bar had a mandatory policy to check identification of all customers. Utilizing an ethnographic decision model, we found that bouncers were significantly more likely to card customers that were more casually dressed than others, those who were in their 30s, and those in mixed racial groups. We posit that bouncers who failed to ask for identification did so because they appeared to know customers, they appeared to be of age, or they took …