Digital Commons Network^™

Undergraduate Nursing Student Experiences With Faculty Bullying, Jason D. Mott

Dissertations

Incivility and bullying in nursing education has become an area of increased interest. Incivility literature has focused primarily on student-to-faculty incivility. Less focus has been placed on faculty-to-student bullying. This study examined the lived experiences of undergraduate nursing students with faculty bullying. Using descriptive phenomenology, this study discovered what these lived experiences are. The lived experiences of participants led to the development of themes including: bullying is an emotional experience, in order to gain respect, respect must be given, resilience and persistence are key in overcoming, the environment is everything, and that perception is reality.

Establishing A Student-Centered Culture: A Case Study Identifying Leadership Skills Of Exemplary School Principals, Katie Booth

Dissertations

Purpose: The phenomenological study identifies and describes how elementary school principals who have been recipients of the Terrel H. Bell Award develop a student-centered school culture.

Methodology: This qualitative study identifies and describes an elementary school principals’ ability to build guided coalitions and form strategic visions to ensure a student-centered culture. Participants were purposefully chosen based on specific criteria. The researcher collected data through semi-structured interviews, observations, and artifacts. Data was coded and themes were identified allowing the researcher to analyze findings and draw conclusions.

Findings: Analysis of data from 13 participants led to 10 major findings on how …

An Exploratory Study To Shape A Disaster Nurse Practitioner Scope Of Practice, Frances Dunniway

Dissertations

The impact and devastation from national disasters pose imminent risk to large populations. If trained in disaster response and following evidence-based practice standards, the Nurse Practitioner (NP) could be prepared to adapt to any setting or surrounding, utilizing their full educational and health care training. Currently there are no written guidelines during disasters to manage the various clinical conditions. Using a Delphi technique, this exploratory study investigated the multidisciplinary understanding about the disaster NP role. Key findings included: 1. Across four groups of disaster responders, there was confusion about the disaster NP role, indicating a need for role clarity. 2. …

Improving Depression Screening In Rural Transitional Care Facility, Stephanie Macon-Moore

Dissertations

Mental health screening may facilitate possible identification of depression and referrals to mental health care. At the project site, depression screening were not standardized or implemented standardly. The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental quality improvement project was to determine if the implementation of Pfizer's PHQ-2 depression screening tool would impact the identification of problem symptoms related to mental health disorders and referrals to mental health providers among adult patients in a transitional care facility in rural Idaho over four weeks.

Self-Compassion And Experiential Avoidance: Potential Pathways To Posttraumatic Growth, Julia Sager

Dissertations

Social support has been identified as one of the most consistent predictors of posttraumatic growth (PTG). Although the role of social support in the process of PTG is informative, social support is intrinsically reliant on other people. Identifying internal, potentially malleable, factors that are associated with PTG is essential for developing preventative interventions to improve trauma-related outcomes and increase levels of PTG among trauma survivors. Internal processes such as self-compassion and experiential avoidance may promote, or interfere with, deliberate processing and the subsequent development of PTG; however, this has not yet been examined in the literature. Thus, the primary aims …

Grit And Leadership: How Exemplary Middle School Principals Use The Principles Of Grit To Accomplish Extraordinary Results, Gabriela Aldana

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify and describe how exemplary middle school principals use the five principles associated with grit (courage, conscientiousness, long-term goals, resilience, and excellence versus perfection) to accomplish extraordinary results in their organization.

Methodology: This phenomenological study described the lived experiences of exemplary middle school principals in Los Angeles and Orange County. The participants were selected through nonprobability purposeful sampling and met the criteria for exemplary middle school principals. As a member of a thematic research team of nine peer researchers and three faculty advisors, we developed a semistructured interview protocol for data …

A Multiscale Linkage Between Riverscape And Fish Community Coevolution, Loren W. Stearman

Dissertations

Sediment dynamics are foundational to stream and watershed morphology. Yet aquatic ecologists have relied on an oversimplified model of sediment dynamics characterizing sediments as agents of stream bed burial, and which fails to describe many types of aquatic habitat evolution. In this dissertation I employ both fluvial geomorphic and ecological frameworks to gain a deeper understanding of how sediment dynamics shape stream morphology and fish community evolution at multiple scales. Using a paired historic and contemporary approach, I analyzed geomorphic evolution and fish community change in the Bayou Pierre, Mississippi, from the 1980s to recent. Patterns of erosion due to …

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, Increasing Surveillance In Newborns, Lindsey N. Clark

Dissertations

The purpose of this project was to improve nursing staff's knowledge of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, identifiable risk factors, how to screen for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, and how to report positive findings from the Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome screen. The goal for implementation of this intervention was to improve the rates of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome screening in the newborn nursery.

Understanding The Ethical Decision-Making Processes Of Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy Practitioners, Lisa Krystosek

Dissertations

Equine-assisted psychotherapy is a unique field in which interdisciplinary teams of practitioners provide mental health services to clients. These teams are comprised of at least two practitioners, one licensed mental health specialist and one certified equine specialist. While ethics and ethical decision-making are significant issues in the mental health industry, there exists a significant gap in the literature pertaining to the ethical decision-making processes of interdisciplinary teams of equine-assisted psychotherapy practitioners. This dissertation aimed to address the gap through the development of an understanding of how teams of equine-assisted psychotherapy practitioners engage in ethical decision making. Further, the researcher sought …

Use Of The Bedside Mobility Assessment Tool To Improve Emergency Department Safety, Tracy M. Abrams

Dissertations

Falls are a common occurrence in the emergency department and can lead to unintended patient harm and work-related injury. Fall rates at the site remained a concern, so an evidence-based approach was sought. The purpose of this quantitative, quasiexperimental quality improvement project was to determine if or to what degree the translation of Boynton et al.'s research on the use of the Hillrom bedside mobility assessment tool (BMAT) used in conjunction with current evidence-based bedside practices would impact fall rates when compared to the current practice among adult patients in an emergency department in Southern California over four weeks. Nola …

Negotiating Emotional Order: A Grounded Theory Of The Survivorship Process In Women Who Have Completed Treatment For Breast Cancer, Jennifer A. Klimek Yingling

Dissertations

Decades of research focusing on treatment and detection of breast cancer has promoted better outcomes in treating the disease and longer survival rates. Despite this there is a significant gap in the literatures regarding the survivorship process. Breast cancer survivorship needs to be fully understood by nurses and health care providers (HCP) in order to obtain optimal health outcomes for this ever growing population.

Exploring Prelicensure Undergraduate Nursing Students' Lived Experience Of Engagement In Synchronous Online Learning, Heidi A. Little

Dissertations

The continued uncertainty of nursing education pedagogy during a worldwide pandemic has brought heightened awareness and preparation to synchronous online teaching strategies that bolster student success and engagement. The identification of barriers to effective teaching strategies and techniques that foster student engagement is needed in synchronous online learning. Furthermore, building on past synchronous online learning teaching strategies will improve nursing students' overall success and engagement.

Transportation Managers’ Perceptions Of The Diffusion Of Innovation Within Logistics Clusters, Stephen Mcdonald Puryear

Dissertations

The human capital capacity for innovation is crucial for business success. Cluster theory posits that this capacity for innovation is enhanced by industrial clustering geographic proximity. The innovative capacity is expected to be facilitated by institutions for collaboration, informal knowledge flow, short feedback loops, and collective action regimes. Research on logistics clustering has supported this supposition. Still, no research has explicitly examined whether being physically located in a logistics cluster enhances a company’s human capital capacity for innovation.

This study uses the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach to determine the innovative operational processes involved in the diffusion of innovation within …

Please Don’T Stop The Music: A Quantitative Content Analysis Of Black Protest Music Released Between 2013-2022 As A Response To #Blacklivesmatter, Melissa Williams

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to conduct a quantitative content analysis to determine if protest songs produced by Black musicians in response to police brutality since the development of #BlackLivesMatter reflect the traditional use of semiotics, narrative language, and collective identity within the verses of lyrics released between 2013-2022.

The findings of the study revealed that there were fewer references to religion than seen in spirituals or during the Civil Rights movement. The police received more attention than other conventional institutions. The lyrics did not describe the daily microaggressions that Black people face, yet there were several references within …

Medical Floor Confusion Assessment Method: Implementation And Assessment Of Risk Factors, Michaelynn R. Paul

Dissertations

An estimated 50% of older hospitalized patients experience delirium. This has created significant complications costing an estimated $164 billion or more per year worldwide. The ability to identify patients developing delirium would allow the implementation of specific interventions to decrease or eliminate the adverse effects of delirium. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to provide high quality delirium education to determine if medical unit nursing staff could successful implement the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) screening tool to identify patients experiencing delirium as the first phase of an overall plan. Implementation of the project followed Roger's diffusion of innovations …

Perceived Gender Norm Adherence In Women As Function Of Sex-Typical Facial Features And Surname Decisions, Kelsey Drea

Dissertations

Women’s retention of their surname following marriage has become increasingly common despite pervasive stereotypes of this stereotype as leading to relational failure. It could be possible that women’s physical appearance could buffer them from these stereotypes, particularly if that appearance is sex-typical. This study investigated how feminized facial structures could buffer women from negative perceptions of their abilities in relationships. Participants assessed a woman described as having changed or kept her surname. This woman’s face varied in her sex typicality (i.e., feminized, masculinized, unaltered). Feminine women appeared more modest when they kept their surname. Hostile sexism predicted less relational success …

Nursing Students Strengthening Resiliency Through Educator Relationships: A Basic Qualitative Study, Sandra Mcdade

Dissertations

Nursing school attrition rates are steadily on the rise. Attrition rates are related to high course failure, program drop-out, and burnout. Resiliency is a critical quality that baccalaureate nursing students must attain to cope with nursing school stressors successfully. Nursing student resiliency is in the infancy stage of research investigation; however, literature shows the nurse educator-nursing student's influence on student resiliency; how do senior-level baccalaureate nursing students strengthen resiliency through the nurse educator-nursing student (NE-NS) relationship? The nursing student perspective is often overlooked; therefore, this dissertation focused on bringing forth the perspective of nursing students. Senior-level nursing students have 2 …

Action-Logics Of Veterans Health Administration Magnet Nurse Executives And Their Practice Of Supporting Nurses To Speak Up, Bonnie R. Pierce

Dissertations

Health care organizations typically have a hierarchical structure, with physicians dominant and nurses subordinate. The challenge to open and honest communication between doctors and nurses is real, and communication errors contribute significantly to undesirable patient outcomes. Nurse executives (NEs) have a responsibility to help lead transformation of health care organizations to support nurses to speak up and communicate all critical information.

NEs are challenged to improve safety and quality, decrease costs and increase access to care. Combining health care expertise with business ability can support these goals. Rooke and Torbert found correlations between successful business leaders and postconventional action-logics, or …

Nurses' Experiences Of The Traditional Clinical Learning Environment For Nursing Students, April Rowe Neal

Dissertations

Nursing education is unique in its integration of theoretical and experiential learning and yet this integrated approach presents a number of challenges. One nuanced challenge in nursing education is the overlap of the students' clinical learning environment (CLE) with the clinical nurses' work environment. It is believed that the clinical nurse plays an important role in clinical learning, but it is not well understood how the clinical nurse understands and contributes to the CLE. The framework for this study was based on Benner's (1982) Novice to Expert model, transformative learning theory, and the AACN (2005) Healthy Work Environment framework. The …

How Exemplary Title I Elementary School Principals Lead With An Infinite Mindset, Lindsey Rae Gatfield

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe how exemplary Title I elementary school principals perceive practices of Sinek’s infinite mindset framework are embedded in their organization to inspire achievement of extraordinary results. A further purpose of this study was to understand organizational supports and barriers exemplary Title I elementary school principals perceive affect infinite mindset development. Methodology: This phenomenological study explored experiences of exemplary leaders and their perceptions of how the five practices of infinite mindset are embedded in their organization. The target population for this study was exemplary Title I elementary school principals in Orange …

Overcoming The Impostor Phenomenon: Exploring The Strategies Special Education Charter School Leaders Used To Cope During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Damaris Ocasio Owens

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this descriptive mixed method study was to explore and describe the coping skills used to overcome the nine behavioral characteristics by special education charter school leaders who identified as experiencing impostor phenomenon (IP) by the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (Clance,1985), while leading the transition to distance learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: This descriptive mixed-methods research design used quantitative and qualitative data to identify special education leaders with IP and explore the coping skills they used during distance learning. The first phase of the study was a quantitative 20-question survey, the CIPS, used to …

Student Success Navigators: The Keys To Intrusive Advising, Student Supportive Services, And Academic Success, Kathryn Joyce Stanley-Dietzman

Dissertations

This study investigated the connections between intrusive academic advising, student success and retention, and growth within an institution. The study was conducted to demonstrate that intrusive advising is beneficial to students, especially to students who are considered to be at-risk. Student Success Navigators, and the Director of Student Success and Retention were interviewed and data were collected from the institution’s internal research department. These interviews and data demonstrated that intrusive advising was critical to student success. The presented data also demonstrated that the institution was able to generate additional funding to create new employment opportunities and increase student success and …

Educator Perceptions Of Teacher Leadership And Its Impact On School Culture, Colter T. Rantz

Dissertations

Teacher leadership has been viewed as a way for educators to address their unmet professional needs (Bond, 2021). Teacher leaders ultimately have the means to create a positive school culture overall (Kiral, 2020). This mixed-methods study included a substantial look at the perceptions of educators, from one school district in Southwest Missouri, in regard to teacher leadership and its effect on school culture. The study was also designed to analyze factors that contributed to developing teacher leaders and to positively benefit the school’s atmosphere. Focus group interviews were conducted to gain insight regarding the perceptions of instructional coaches and administrators …

An Historic Analysis Of The Operation Of A Truancy Court Conducted In An Urban Middle School, Lisa Gray

Dissertations

Truancy is a concern that most school districts around the country are familiar with. This study was to examine the development of a truancy court established in an effort to conquer this problem. There were several school districts, from inner city to rural, that believed truancy courts helped to reduce attendance issues. Data were collected and assessed from the observations of the existing truancy courts. It was determined from the data that truancy courts were only productive if the judge had the support from the parents. Some were repeat offenders, whereas some just needed a little guidance to get back …

A Correlational Study Examining The Teacher Candidates’ Performance In The Initial Teacher Preparation Programs Of A Private Midwestern University, Khitam Issa Yousuf Abdalla

Dissertations

This study explores and identifies the variables that affect teacher candidates’ performance in various stages of their study in the Teacher Preparation Programs at a Private Midwestern University. The researcher introduced the topic by providing a background of the study and its significance in maintaining the effectiveness of the Teacher Preparation Programs and its ability to prepare teacher candidates for state assessments and their field experience. One research question, five hypotheses, and 38 sub-hypotheses were formulated to tackle this study. The researcher provided literature on topics surrounding the history of teacher preparation programs and the curriculum offered by the Teacher …

Improving Interventions On Cardiovascular Disease And Diet: A Policy Incentive Analysis, Sandra Hurst

Dissertations

Introduction: Various cardiovascular diseases (CVD) can be catastrophic and can lead to irreversible outcomes. There are limited, improved regulations on awareness of primordial and primary preventions that may decrease CVD progression and mortality. Before policies and recommendations can be set, policymakers should understand CVD and the importance of maintaining a healthy diet to decrease the risk of CVDs and improve patient adherence. Therefore, this project aims to analyze federal healthy food incentive policies to promote healthy diet behaviors that reduce CVD risk.

Method: The method used was existing data for a comparative policy analysis that included a policy proposal process: …

Identification Of Students At Risk Of Low Performance By Combining Rule-Based Models, Enhanced Machine Learning, And Knowledge Graph Techniques, Balqis Mubarak Al Braiki

Dissertations

Technologies and online learning platforms have changed the contemporary educational paradigm, giving institutions more alternatives in a complex and competitive environment. Online learning platforms, learning-based analytics, and data mining tools are increasingly complementing and replacing traditional education techniques. However, academic underachievement, graduation delays, and student dropouts remain common problems in educational institutions. One potential method of preventing these issues is by predicting student performance through the use of institution data and advanced technologies. However, to date, scholars have yet to develop a module that can accurately predict students’ academic achievement and commitment. This dissertation attempts to bridge that gap by …

Exploring Attitudes Of Four Groups Of Stakeholders Toward Family Childcare And Recommending Best Practices To Promote Positive Experiences, Yvonne S. Williams

Dissertations

This research aimed to increase the awareness of licensed family childcare programs and use the viewpoints of four stakeholder groups to construct recommended best practices. These best practices are crucial for supporting effective business practices and providing high-quality services to their stakeholders. Online surveys and virtual interviews were used to acquire the stakeholders' perspectives. The collected data revealed three principal thematic codes: family childcare provider, family childcare business, and family childcare environment. Within these three codes, the family childcare program's areas of improvement, inconsistencies, and strengths were identified and evaluated to construct recommended professional and business best practices. Some of …

Evidence-Based Practice Sustainability And Nursing Professional Governance, Melora D. Ferren

Dissertations

Patient care that is not based on evidence-based practice (EBP) could be considered malpractice, and it threatens patient safety, quality, and fiscal performance. EBP implementation is complex, and sustainment of these practices is such a persistent challenge that up to 70% of organizational change fails to be sustained. Sustainment of EBP decreases healthcare costs and improves patient outcomes. Professional attributes that influence sustainability are not well understood. Nursing professional governance (PG) is a framework of professional attributes that includes accountability, professional obligation, collateral relationships, and decision-making. This framework includes attributes that are necessary for professionals to effectively govern their profession …

Nurse Educators' Consensus Opinion On Using An Academic Electronic Health Record: A Delphi Study, Darlene S. Hanson

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the opinions of nurse educators in the state of North Dakota (ND) who were using the academic Electronic Health Record (EHR) known as SimChart. In this dissertation research study, factors that either hindered or facilitated the introduction of SimChart in nursing programs in ND were examined. Additionally, opinions were sought from nurse educators regarding whether or not SimChart contributed to student learning.