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Strategies For The Improvement Of Healthcare Through Simulation, Roger Lankheet

Dissertations

Title:Strategies for the improvement of healthcare through simulation

Background: Medical errors continue to plague the healthcare industry. The annual rates of morbidity are approximately 2.69 million (AHRQ, 2019), while mortality rates exceed 400,000 per annum (Makary & Daniel, 2016). There may be no panacea to combat these egregious rates. However, simulation of patient care events may better prepare healthcare professionals to prevent medical errors as it has been proven to be an effective learning strategy (Kirkham, 2018), enhancing skills while gaining experiential knowledge, without risk to actual patients.

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain a …

Emergency Department Visits And Hospital Admissions For Adult Cancer Patients Post Outpatient Chemotherapy: Does The Oncology Nurse Navigator Make A Difference?, Sunny L. Stirling

Dissertations

Background: Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States and worldwide. Oncology related hospital visits account for over $88 billion annually; 35% of this cost is attributable to inpatient hospital stays even though most cancer treatments are given outpatient. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services introduced the Chemotherapy Measure which tracks Emergency Department visits and hospitalization within 30 days of any outpatient chemotherapy treatment. The Oncology Nurse Navigator (ONN) has offered some benefit in cancer care, but its role in ED visits and hospital admissions is unknown for adult patients with cancer post outpatient …

When Asca And Mtss Merge: A Case Study On Counselor Capacity And The Implementation And Monitoring Of Tier Two Interventions, Tram "Nikki" Dang

Dissertations

The national average student-to-counselor ratio is currently 477 students to one counselor; almost nearly double the 250:1 ratio that the ASCA National Model (2005) recommends. With the existing ratios as high as 1000 students per counselor, counselors and their respective counseling programs provide minimal impact (Carrell, S. E. & Carrell, S. A., 2006). In the Silicon Valley High School District (a pseudonym), high schools with high student-to-counselor ratios may result in subpopulations of students whose needs are not being served and or met. Although counselors express wanting to incorporate additional Tier Two interventions, counselor participants feel they do not have …

The Effectiveness Of California's System Of Support: Dashboard And Differentiated Assistance, As Perceived By County Office Of Education, Court And Community School Administrators, Jennifer Izant Gonzales

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to: (1) describe the perceptions of County Office of Education Court and Community School administrators on the accuracy of the California Dashboard/Dashboard Alternative School Status; (2) describe the perceptions of County Office of Education Court and Community School administrators about the efficacy of California’s System of Support, specifically Differentiated Assistance, on impacting equity-focused change in California County Office of Education Court and Community Schools; and (2a) describe the most impactful actions taken by County Office of Education Court and Community Schools related to California’s System of Support. This study was conducted using an integrated …

The Effects Of Academic Performance, Demographic Characteristics, Work, And Personal Experiences On Admissions To A Clinical Laboratory Science Training Program, Mara Williams

Dissertations

In this study, I sought to discover factors that contributed to candidate success in gaining admission to the San Jose State University Clinical Laboratory Scientist (CLS) Training Program. Social Cognitive Career Theory suggests that the interplay between an individual’s personal characteristics and life experiences lead to self-efficacy expectations, learning experiences, and goal setting which crystalizes their choice of career. To understand these phenomena in the context of CLS candidates, I used quantitative methods to explore the influence of race, gender, age, work, and personal experience on the probability of a candidate gaining an interview or placing for clinical internship in …

Unresolved Issue In Education: Disproportionate Disciplining Of Hispanic Students In Education, Richard Ruiz

Dissertations

The disproportionate disciplining of Hispanic students has been a reoccurring issue that has persisted for decades. With the rising Hispanic populations nationwide and in the state of California, this issue must be addressed. Therefore, to contribute to the scholarship of this phenomenon, the author critically examined teacher and administrator perceptions and attitudes about students who embody a stereotypical urban street subculture. The purpose of this convergent parallel mixed-methods study was to examine the interplay of race, cultural capital, community, and communication, with the disproportionate disciplining of Hispanic students in schools where they are a minority population. The findings of this …

Perceptions Of The Influence Of Cell Phones And Social Media Usage On Students’ Academic Performance, Anne Tran

Dissertations

Cell phones, ubiquitous in many high schools, are often credited with helpingstudents connect with people and learn new concept. However, literature indicates that problematic cell phone and social media usage are negatively associated with student academic performance and mental well-being. As cell phone technologies continue to evolve, they become an integral part of today’s learning environment. Through the use of the documentary exploratory research method, this dissertation investigates stakeholders’ perceptions of the influence of cell phone and social media usage on high school students’ academic performance. Additionally, this study explores the current policies and practices regarding cell phone use in …

An Evaluation Of Timing Of Discharge Instruction And The Impact On Patient Satisfaction, Donald L. Tanner

Dissertations

Ambulatory surgical patients face unique challenges with discharge instruction comprehension and retention. The volume of information provided to patients, frequently combined with sedatives and narcotics, leads to failure to retain this crucial information needed for home care. At one healthcare facility, this failure to retain was reflected in the Outpatient Ambulatory Surgery- Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (OAS-CAHPS) survey scores which were below the facility goal of 75th percentile nationally. This project implemented a preoperative teaching intervention to provide written and verbal discharge instructions in the preoperative area prior to the administration of anesthetic agents to improve patient …

Expanding Consciousness Across Disruptions: Developmental Leadership Coaches Growing Together Through Action Inquiry, Ilaria Distefano

Dissertations

The planetary, societal, and personal challenges of our times call for the expansion of leaders’ consciousness. More comprehensive and integrated ways of making meaning of self and systems are required to navigate the current levels of complexity. Based on constructive-developmental theory, developmental leadership coaching supports leaders in this evolution.

The literature on developmental coaching converges on the relevance of the coach’s meaning-making to coaching outcomes and processes. The purpose of this study was to explore how seven developmental leadership coaches, including the researcher, could evolve their consciousness, capacities and skills using action inquiry. Seven meetings were held, and knowledge and …

Head Of School Retention In Independent Schools, Kevin Yaley

Dissertations

According to the National Association of Independent Schools (2020), independent schools across the country continue to experience an increasing number of head-of-school vacancies, both expected and unexpected. Save for the departures by heads who are retiring or obviously chasing greener pastures, the reasons why an increasing number of heads are departing at a disquieting rate are as enigmatic as the departures themselves.

As part of its governance responsibilities, the board has unconditional authority over the employment of the head, including, most especially, the ability to influence the retention of the head. Unfortunately, since these boards of trustees operate independently, there …

Leadership Development In Saudi Arabia’S Private Sector: A Mixed Methods Approach, Khaled Hanaky

Dissertations

There is currently a proliferation of business-focused leadership development programs in Saudi Arabia. These programs represent a reaction to the shortage of qualified leaders who can drive and sustain both recent and future advances introduced by Saudi Vision 2030, the national transformation program that is introducing social and economic reforms. Importantly, business leadership development has not been studied in this context of contemporary Saudi Arabia.

This study examined the state of Saudi leadership development programs by employing an explanatory sequential case study design that focused on a particular leadership development program. Through the use of surveys and participant interviews, results …

Understanding The Benefits Of Experiential Learning For Executive Leader Development: A Mixed Methods Approach, Bruce Loveless

Dissertations

This study sought to understand the benefits of using experiential learning methods (such as outdoor activities) for executive leader development from the perspective of senior corporate, government, and nonprofit leaders. Increasingly, executive development programs are embracing “learning by doing” by incorporating experiential activities. Although most programs are influenced by developmental psychology (such as stage theory), this study integrated perspectives from adult, transformative, and experiential learning with common practices in outdoor adventure education into a new conceptual framework for experiential leader development with four types of experiences: intrapersonal, interpersonal, managerial, and environmental. This study fills a gap in research literature regarding …

Strategies Superintendents Use To Build Leadership Capacity With Executive Teams, Andrew Leonard Giannini

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative, multiple case study was to describe how exemplary superintendents build leadership capacity with their executive teams using Kirtman’s (2014) Seven Competencies for School Leadership.

Methodology: This multiple case study used purposeful criterion sampling and recommendations from a panel of experts to identify seven superintendents throughout the United States to participate in the study. Each superintendent was interviewed with questions developed and field-tested by the researcher and provided artifacts. Collected data was coded using case-based, cross-case analysis to identify themes in how superintendents build leadership capacity with their executive teams.

Findings: The findings identified 21 …

Impact Of Diabetes Self-Management Education On Adults With Diabetes And Mental Illness, Brooke Tullis

Dissertations

Approximately 9.4% of the population of the United States, or 30.3 million Americans, has diabetes mellitus. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death and places a significant financial strain on the healthcare system with approximately $327 billion in estimated expenditures. In Ohio, 13.5% of the population has diabetes, which represents a 4.1% increase above the national average. Additionally, individuals with mental illness are at an increased risk for diabetes due to lower self-efficacy and limited performance of self-care activities compared to the general population. This results in poor glycemic control and leads to an increased risk for diabetes complications. …

Social Support Among Family Caregivers Who Attend Hospice Virtual Group Counseling Sessions: Facilitators And Barriers To Attending These Sessions, Katherine M. Hertzfeld

Dissertations

The National Hospice and Palliative Care organization has identified that a majority of its estimated 1.43 million patients in 2016 were cared for by family members. Studies show that these family caregivers often suffer poor health outcomes if they do not receive enough social support during the grieving process following their family members' death. Attending group counseling sessions can provide social support if the family caregiver is willing to attend. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) indicates changes in health behavior and can facilitate individuals to attend group counseling sessions. The purpose of this evidence-based practice project is to identify the level …

Use Of Comprehensive Care Coordinator Telephonic Outreach To Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening In Primary Care, Sarah N. Klotz

Dissertations

Colorectal Cancer (CRC) is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the United States. More than 140,000 patients in the United States will be diagnosed with CRC in 2020. Despite clear benefits to timely CRC screening only 63% of eligible patients in the United States are screened appropriately. The Target Health System has identified that under-screening for CRC posess a significant patient care outcome and quality reimbursement concern. This evidence-based practice (EBP) quality improvement (QI) project was designed to improve the CRC screening rates in primary care. The EBP QI project used the existing care coordinator program to expand …

Community Foundations As Community Leaders, Colton Strawser

Dissertations

Community foundations claim to play an integral role in fostering philanthropy at a community level all across the United States. Community foundations have three distinct operational roles, including asset building, grantmaking, and community leadership. While asset building and grantmaking have methods available to quantify and measure their impact, community leadership has remained an elusive concept for community foundations for many years.

This study investigates the idea of community leadership in the context of 81 community foundations based in California. The first part develops a conceptual framework of community leadership based on existing studies and practical guidelines, including the use of …

The Perception Of First-Generation Community College Students With Regards To The Academic Impact Of Student Support Services: A Phenomenological Study, Rubinder Garcha

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe the perceptions first-generation students (FGS) have of the academic impact of student support services (SSS) received while attending community college (CC) in the areas of student academic achievement, student engagement, student persistence, student satisfaction, and development of academic skills.

Methodology: The methodology used for this study was a phenomenological approach in which FGS’ perceptions about the academic impact of SSS while attending CC in the northern region of California were explored. The FGS who were interviewed for this study were consistently participating in the SSS. The study’s findings revealed the …

An Exploration Of The Two-Generation Approach For Single Mother Degree Or Certificate Attainment, Chiquila N. Dolison

Dissertations

Investments in student support services that encompass single mother needs can influence postsecondary degree attainment and increase earning potential that can lead to benefits, including economic self-sufficiency and poverty alleviation (Alssid et al., 2002; Gault, Milli, & Cruse, 2018; Gault, Noll, & Reichilin, 2017; Graham & Bassett, 2011; Kruvelis, Cruse, & Gault, 2017). Despite the benefits of single mothers' college degree attainment, they are least likely to earn them (Gault et al., 2018). In the United States, 8% of single mother undergraduates earn a postsecondary degree within six years of enrollment compared to the 49% of women who are not …

Semantic Classification Of Multidialectal Arabic Social Media, Tom Rishel

Dissertations

Arabic is one of the most widely used languages in the world, but due in part to its morphological and syntactic richness, resources for automated processing of Arabic are relatively rare. Arabic takes three primary forms: Classical Arabic as seen in the Qur’an and other classical texts; Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as seen in newspapers, formal documents, and other written text intended for widespread distribution; and dialectal Arabic as used in common speech and informal communication. Social media posts are often written in informal language and may include non-standard spellings, abbreviations, emoticons, hashtags, and emojis. Dialectal Arabic is commonly used …

Professional Counter-Strike: An Analysis Of Media Objects, Esports Culture, And Gamer Representation, Steven Young

Dissertations

Esports are growing in popularity at a rapid pace worldwide. In contemporary society, individuals watch esports broadcasts as part of their normal media consuming practices. This dissertation focuses on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), which is currently the most recognized first-person shooter esport worldwide and the third most popular game across all esports genres (Irwin & Naweed, 2020). Interested in how the cultural knowledge and experience of esports and gamers who populate the scene are represented in media, I explored professional CS:GO esports broadcasts from two prominent professional leagues, ESL Pro League (EPL) and ELEAGUE. A thematic analysis of …

The Religion Beat Gets Beat: The Rise And Fall Of Stand-Alone Religion Sections In Southern Newspapers, 1983-2015, Tara Yvette Wren

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

THE RELIGION BEAT GETS BEAT: THE RISE AND FALL OF STAND-ALONE RELIGION SECTIONS IN SOUTHERN NEWSPAPERS, 1983-2015

by Tara Yvette Wren

February 2021

This paper explores the religious news coverage of five southern newspapers in Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas. The newspapers researched in this study are among those that published a stand-alone religion section. Newspapers surveyed include – The Clarion-Ledger (Mississippi), The Charlotte Observer (North Carolina), The Dallas Morning News (Texas), The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Georgia), and The Tennessean (Tennessee). The period researched focused on stand-alone religion sections published from the papers mentioned above between 1983 …

Barriers And Enablers To Building Entrepreneurial Ecosystems As Perceived By Change Agents In The Workplace, Shanda Barrett

Dissertations

This study explores factors that influence entrepreneurial ecosystems. Clifton (2010, 2015) recommends entrepreneurship, better business models, and new business startups as a solution for economic renewal in the United States and specifically identifies disengaged workers and low-energy workplaces as the starting point. The recommendation does not address how to make workplaces conducive to entrepreneurial activity, nor does the recommendation address how to engage entrepreneurial employees.

Existing literature outlines the known tensions between theory, anecdotal evidence, and the professional practice of building entrepreneurial ecosystems. To date, the term entrepreneurial ecosystem exists as a metaphor in the extant literature. While scholars have …

The Relationship Between School Principals’ Servant Leadership Attributes And Teacher Morale, George Larry Johnson

Dissertations

Teacher morale in schools has a profound impact on the school and the level of student achievement. Low teacher morale cases high teacher turnover and causes teachers to be resistant to change, while schools with high teacher morale boast better teacher attendance, higher student achievement, and a sense of cohesiveness in the school. A principal’s leadership style has a significant effect on the level of teacher morale in schools. Servant leadership is a theory of leadership, first developed by Robert Greenleaf, where the leader leads by serving and puts followers first. Servant leadership theory has proven to be an effective …

Comparison Of Manipulatives Effect On Academic Achievement In Preschool Math, Ashley Stewart

Dissertations

Students in the United States tend to possess poor academic performance in mathematics compared to other developed countries. Despite the increased preschool enrollment and attendance, there are academic disparities among preschool students. Earlier exposure to mathematical concepts can positively affect student outcomes. Research supports the idea that early exposure and mastery of patterning skills and non-symbolic quantity knowledge are trajectories of math academic achievement during elementary and middle-level grades (Rittle-Johnson, Fyfe, Hofer, & Farran, 2016). Students who begin with mathematics deficiencies, without proper intervention, tend to continue to lack understanding of foundational math skills that are essential for proficiency in …

Decision-Making By Community College Administrators On Satellite Campuses Of Mississippi Community Colleges, Raymunda Barnes

Dissertations

According to Schindler (1952), the first off-site community college campuses were not named satellite campuses. They were referred to as “off-campus undergraduate divisions of higher institutions.” Over time, the satellite campus has evolved into a critical part of the higher education landscape. As a result, the administrators that are assigned to manage satellite campuses are responsible for making decisions that affect college personnel and students who attend the satellite campus. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine administrative decision-making on satellite campuses of Mississippi community colleges by satellite campus administrators. Eight satellite administrators participated in this study. …

Design And Modeling Of Bioinspired Polyelectrolytes With Controlled Architectures For Gene Delivery Applications, Kelli Stockmal

Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the development of a range of bioinspired polyelectrolytes with controlled architectures for gene and drug delivery applications. Glycans are ubiquitous in biological systems, and understanding the role of saccharide stereochemistry, as well as cationic charge, on polymer behavior in aqueous solution and the interactions with nucleic acids can provide insight into how synthetic polyelectrolytes can be used for non-viral gene delivery and other biological applications. The first chapter provides an introductory overview on how cationic polyelectrolytes can be used to aid the delivery of RNA for controlling gene expression in a variety of cell types, how …

Higher Education Business And Technology Leaders’ Behaviors That Drive Outcome Alignment, Katherine Lynch-Holmes

Dissertations

Higher education institutions (HEIs) face unprecedented challenges, including capacity alignment, financial sustainability, and even public confidence (Grajeck & Brooks, 2020; Grawe, 2019; Oblinger, 2019; Simone, 2020, Wheeler, 2020, Witt & Coyne, 2019). Financial challenges force HEIs to reduce costs by making decisions like cutting programs, laying off staff or merging institutions to reduce operating costs (Chen et al., 2019; Sellingo, 2017; Witt & Coyne, 2019). Higher education leaders (HELs) must act as trusted partners and broker technology to align processes, support, and outcomes (Luftman 2000; Petkovics, 2018; Reinitz, 2019). Unfortunately, higher education’s business-technology (BITA) alignment remains lower than other national …

A Performer’S Guide To Barbara York’S Four Paintings By Grant Wood, Allen Parrish

Dissertations

In 2012, Barbara York was commissioned by John Manning to write Four Paintings by Grant Wood for solo tuba. The work is based on four paintings by native Iowan painter, Grant Wood. The four paintings are Stone City, Iowa; Young Corn; American Gothic; and Parson Weems’ Fable. York included details from these paintings in each movement. This dissertation includes information about Barbara York, Grant Wood, the programmatic details of Four Paintings by Grant Wood, and technical considerations for the work. The performer should be better prepared to create a well-informed performance after reading this dissertation.

Using Native Ads In Public Relations Campaigns: A Study Of Instagram Influencers In Kuwait, Ahmad Alhaidar

Dissertations

Native advertising through online influencers is one of the fastest-growing online advertising formats that public relations practitioners use worldwide. However, there is a lack of research about how public relations practitioners utilize native advertising in social media in the Middle East. The current study focused on Kuwait, one of the areas with the most notable growth in Instagram usage in recent years.

This study examines the effects of persuasion knowledge, the congruence between influencer and product, and parasocial relationships on ad credibility, influencer credibility, sharing intention, brand interest, and purchase intention. The scholar utilized a 2 (persuasion knowledge: active vs. …