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A Narrative Exploration Of Personal Factors And Organizational Contexts In The Development Of Local Leadership, Kristine Leigh Chadwick

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation analyzed the factors contributing to the development of leadership in voluntary community organizations, created as part of a community-level substance abuse prevention project known as the Partnership, and explored the role of intermediary support organizations in nurturing the development of community leaders. Through interviews with team leaders and staff from the support organization, and analysis of program records, this research examined the empowering of individuals and the development of empowering organizations. The development of local leaders in neighborhood, grassroots, or other voluntary organizations has received little attention until recently. Previous studies of empowerment of local leaders have noted …

A Multi-Level Approach To Individual Readiness To Adopt Entreprise Resource Planning Software, David Edouard Desplaces

Open Access Dissertations

This study seeks to expand our understanding of individual readiness to change and its antecedents. Individual readiness to change is explored and measured as a three dimensional attitudinal construct. Antecedents to change are explored including both the objective and subjective context of change. Participants were faculty members at a university in the northeast part of the U.S. who were scheduled to use E-Campus, an internet-based portal application designed to assist them in managing their courses including grade submission, class rosters and access to student specific information. Data were collected using a mailed questionnaire. The results indicated no relationship between objective …

Organizational Climate For Diversity, Cultural Comfort, And Professional Relationships: Predicting Perceptions Of The Workplace Among Employees Of Color, Ivory Roberts-Clarke

Open Access Dissertations

Very little empirical research has been conducted to understand the unique experiences of employees of color. This study analyzed the perceptions that employees of color have about their places of employment. The total sample included 204 participants, 83 African Americans, 51 Caribbean/West Indians, 32 Latinos/Latinas, 15 Asians, 12 Africans, 8 Multi-ethnic individuals, 1 Native/Indigenous Subgroup, and 1 Middle Eastern. There were 133 women, 70 men, and 1 participant who did not identify his or her gender. Participants were recruited at professional conferences and via the internet where they anonymously completed a questionnaire at a website that was created for this …

Teacher Collaboration: Learning From Inclusion Dyad Dialogues, Carol Ann Frisk

Open Access Dissertations

Research on teacher collaboration since the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142) in 1975 has increased the efforts in the field of education to improve the practice of collaboration. This is especially important as it applies to the collaboration, or co-teaching, of a special education teacher and a general education teacher in an inclusion classroom. Many textbooks and teaching guides have presented techniques for improving collaborative practice. Researchers have shown a strong interest in broadening the knowledge base about this best practice of collaboration in the educational field, but a continued reliance on surveys and …

The Birth Of Bizdames: A Rupture In The Conversation, Engaging The Body In Decision-Making, Kathleen Mallon

Open Access Dissertations

Organizational studies consistently find that managers spend more time talking than any other activity (Mintzberg, 1973; Simon, 1945), that strategic decisions are developed and enacted through interactive talk (Perlow, 2003; Shaw, 2002), and that a diversity of perspectives has a positive effect on decision-making and organizational performance (Agyris, 1977). Conversely, the evidence suggests that cultures that perpetuate silence are less effective (Bourgeois, 1985; Enz & Schwenk, 1991; Morrison & Milliken, 2000; Ryan & Oestreich, 1991). Thus, knowledge about the inter-relationship of the micro-mechanisms of silence and talk and their effect on organizational performance is critical to management theory and practice …

Parents' Descriptions Of Ideal Home Nursing Care For Their Technology Dependent Child, Themselves, And Their Families, Michele A. Mendes

Open Access Dissertations

Home care for technology dependent children is one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. health care industry, but the nursing literature lacks clear directions to guide home care nurses in planning a family-centered practice. The purpose of this study is to address this gap in the literature by eliciting descriptions of ideal home nursing care for technology dependent children from the perspective of their parents, and to compile a comprehensive list of helpful and supportive nursing interventions. A qualitative, descriptive design was used to examine the following research questions: (1) How do parents of technology dependent children describe …

Freedom's Children: Fifth Graders' Perceptions Of The Effects Of Peace Education In The Form Of Kingian Nonviolence, Sylvia Carolle Spears

Open Access Dissertations

This ethnographic study examines students' perceptions of the effects of peace education in the form of Kingian Nonviolence. Nine fifth grade students and seven parents were interviewed using life-story methods to elicit participants' perceptions regarding how the students' study of nonviolence affected their beliefs and behaviors. Data were coded and then analyzed utilizing constant comparison methods. Analysis of interview transcripts resulted in two categories of data--the fifth grade experience and social and personal change. Analysis of interview transcripts revealed that the fifth grade experience had three distinct phases--a phase of initial anxiety and concern, a middle phase during which the …

The Factors That Influence Middle-Level Teachers To Incorporate Community Service-Learning Into The Curriculum, Andrea J. Hainey-Turcotte

Open Access Dissertations

This study examined the factors that influence middle level educators to incorporate community service-learning into the curriculum. Eleven participants, each a teacher of middle level students, were interviewed to determine the extent to which they were influenced by intended outcomes for students, the community, and themselves. Findings suggest that participants were influenced to include community service-learning in the curriculum by anticipated benefits to students and community members. Participants hoped that by engaging in community service-learning activities, their students would become better scholars, leaders, citizens, and/or people. It would seem that participants were also driven to the implementation of community service-learning …

Individual, Organizational, And Contextual Determinants Of Realized Strategy In Not-For-Profit Organizations, Henry T. Ulrich

Open Access Dissertations

This study addresses organizational direction form the perspective of organizational strategy. It explores the factors that influence realized strategy and especially the degree to which realized strategy is deliberate or emergent. A model is offered that proposes both direct and indirect factors as determinants of realized strategy. Specific direct and indirect factors are hypothesized and the relationships are statistically examined. The sample is composed of twenty nonprofit organizations with a primary base of operations in southern New England. Data was collected for multiple respondents within each organization representing the various levels of management. Most participating organizations were mid-sized, social service …

Nursing Practice In A Magnet Hospital: A Descriptive Study, Kathleen M. Stolzenberger

Open Access Dissertations

The organizational context of hospital nursing practice has gained international attention as a growing body of research demonstrates its significance as a factor affecting the supply and performance of registered nurses and the quality of patient care. Studies of organizations designated by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) as magnet hospitals demonstrate significant and positive relationships among organizational, nurse, and patient variables. However, knowledge about the nursing work environment as an influence on practice is limited by the absence of studies exploring the actual practice of staff nurses and the nursing unit as the more immediate context in which it …

Sociocultural Contexts Of Asian American/Pacific Islander Women's Hiv Risk Enhancing/Reducing Responses, Jennifer C. Huang

Open Access Dissertations

HIV prevention issues for Asian American and Pacific Islander (API) women are complex and multifaceted. Comprehending the risk enhancing/reducing responses of API women in heterosexual relationships requires an examination of various sociocultural influences, such as gender roles, cultural expectations, community, economic conditions, acculturation and public policies that shape API women's decision-making and HIV risk enhancing/reducing responses. In order to address these issues, a mixed method study (i.e., qualitative and quantitative) was conducted to elucidate these sociocultural factors. Additionally, this study sought to investigate the various ecological levels that are associated with API women's sexual risk enhancing and reducing behaviors. Participants …

Culture Of Summer Flounder Paralichthys Dentatus: Environmental And Endocrine Synchronization Of Growth And Settlement In Larvae And Identification Of Stressors In Juveniles, Steven Gavlik

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the variability in settlement behavior, growth and development during metamorphosis of summer flounder. There were three objectives: (1) Expand basic knowledge of hormonal and environmental factors that regulate timing of metamorphosis, (2) develop hormonal and environmental techniques that promote synchronization of metamorphic growth and settling behavior in order to eventually reduce cannibalism in juveniles, and (3) identify stressful culture practices and evaluate their long-term effects on growth in juvenile flounder. The first and second objectives were accomplished through manipulations of cortisol and thyroxine and of rearing salinity. Endogenous whole-body cortisol concentrations increased through the late larval stages, …

Domestic Violence Screening By Nurses In The Primary Care Setting, Karen Hetzel

Open Access Dissertations

Domestic violence is one of the most important health care issues in the United States. One of every four women is a victim of domestic violence each year and thirty-one percent of women have a lifetime prevalence of domestic violence. Since most women receive their health care in primary care settings, nurses can play a critical role in decreasing the cycle of violence through screening and intervention. Although the research literature on domestic violence is voluminous, little is known about nursing practice related to routine screening of women for domestic violence or intervention in primary care settings. This study examined …

Evaluation Of A Child Abuse Awareness Program, Jacqueline Jackson Kikuchi

Open Access Dissertations

Archived data from the Sexual Assault & Trauma Resource Center of Rhode Island (SATRC) was used to evaluate the effectiveness of their abuse awareness programs for fourth grade students. The goals of the program included helping children recognize potentially abusive situations so the abuse can be avoided, decreasing the length and extent of abuse through early disclosures, increasing disclosures so victims can received needed services and offenders can be arrested and convicted, decreasing the guilt and shame the victims feel when abuse happens, deterring juvenile offenders, and teaching children and adults how to discuss abuse and help victims. Fifty percent …

Preschool Teachers' Sense Of Teaching Efficacy: Scale Development And Correlates, Leah Alison Whynacht

Open Access Dissertations

The current study developed a scale to measure preschool educators' sense of teaching efficacy and then used the scale to explore relationships between efficacy scores and program and teacher variables. Participants were preschool educators from eighteen states and one country outside of the US (n = 131). A 121-item scale was used in data collection. A series of Principal Component Analyses with Varimax rotation resulted in a 36-item scale with factor loadings ranging from .82 to .58 (Cronbach's alpha = .97). The scale was comprised of the following four factors: Efficacy for Working With Children With Varying Abilities and Needs, …

Development And Validation Of The Proactive Health Lifestyle Measures, Norma Jean Perez

Open Access Dissertations

This research project targets the three leading causes of death in the U.S., cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke through the successful development and validation of six culturally sensitive Proactive Healthy Lifestyle measures (Stage of Change, Decisional Balance, Self-Efficacy, Skills, Relapse, and Processes of Change) targeting diet, exercise, and smoking. 574 college students were recruited and completed self-report surveys. Data from 418 non-Hispanics was used to develop (N = 209) and validate (N = 209) each of the measures. Data from 155 Hispanics was used to further successfully validate the measures, and explore differences in this group with the non-Hispanic group. …

A Meta-Analytic Examination Of Decisional Balance Across Stage Transitions: A Cross-Sectional Analysis And Cross-Sequential Cross-Validation, Kara L. Hall

Open Access Dissertations

Interventions to decrease unhealthy behaviors and to increase healthy behaviors are crucial for health promotion and disease prevention. Computerized tailored interventions provide a promising approach for creating positive health behavior change. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) delineates a way to conceptualize behavior change, provides the foundation for developing assessments of an individual's readiness to change, and is utilized in tailoring interventions for actualizing behavior change. To produce optimally tailored interventions: (1) theory that guides interventions needs to be comprehensively tested; and (2) empirical data that drive the tailored interventions needs to be systematically generated. This program of research tests theoretical assumptions …

Smoking And Stress: Exploring Patterns Among High School Youth In Bulgaria, Milena D. Anatchkova

Open Access Dissertations

Bulgaria has recently emerged as one of the countries characterized by strikingly high death rates due to stroke, heart disease and different types of cancer. No serious attempt at dynamic analysis of the behavioral factors contributing to these high disease rates exists. It is clear that in order for this trend to be changed, the group within the age range of onset of most unhealthy behaviors needs to receive special attention. These facts and the lack of systematic exploration of the behavioral health risks of adolescents underline the importance of the proposed study.

The project had three goals: 1/ Measurement …

Visuoconstructional Impairment: What Are We Assessing, And How Are We Assessing It?, Jessica Somerville Ruffalo

Open Access Dissertations

Visuoconstruction (VC) is a commonly-assessed neuropsychological domain that involves the ability to organize and manually manipulate spatial information to make a design. Tests used to measure VC are considered multifactorial in nature given their multiple demands (e.g., visuospatial, executive, motor), and therefore, interpretation of VC impairment can be difficult. Additionally, a wide variety of tests and methods are used to measure VC, further complicating interpretation of results. Although clinicians and researchers spend a great deal of time studying "VC," there has been much confusion about what it is, what is being measured, and how to best measure it. The following …

Suicide Assessment By Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses: A Phenomenographic Study, John M. Aflague

Open Access Dissertations

Suicide is the eleventh leading cause of mortality in the United States. This study explored suicide assessment by psychiatric nurses. The primary aims of this study were to gain an understanding of nurses' conceptions regarding suicide and suicide assessment, describe the strategies of suicide assessment adopted by psychiatric nurses, and contrast these to contemporary standards and practice guidelines of suicide assessment.

The research design was an inductive descriptive phenomenographic study. The nurse participants consisted of a snowball sample of six psychiatric nurses practicing in two psychiatric settings. The data were collected through participant observations of nurses' assessing patients and semi-structured …

Testing A Model Of Unwanted Pursuit And Stalking, Leila B. Dutton-Greene

Open Access Dissertations

Unwanted pursuit and stalking are common, especially among young adults attending college. Cupach and Spitzberg (2004) developed their relational goal pursuit theory to explain unwanted pursuit and stalking. They theorize that unwanted pursuit and stalking develop out of a disjunctive relationship in which one person wants a type of relationship that the other does not. They propose that the interrelated and co-occurring processes of rumination, emotional flooding, and rationalization serve to disinhibit a pursuer' s idea of what is appropriate behavior. Thus, the object perceives the pursuer's behavior as excessive, inappropriate, and perhaps threatening.

I tested a model of unwanted …

Queer Times: Christopher Isherwood's Modernity, Jamie M. Carr

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation maps Christopher Isherwood's intellectual and aesthetic reflections from the late 1930s through the late 1970s. Drawing on the queer theory of Eve Sedgwick and the ethical theory of Michel Foucault, I illuminate Isherwood's post-war development of a queer ethos through his focus on the aesthetic, social, and historical politics of the 1930s in his novels Prater Violet (1945), The World in the Evening (1954), and Down There on a Visit (1962), and in his memoir, Christopher and His Kind: 1929-1939 (1976). Though he was a leftist writer in the 1930s, after this decade Isherwood comes to reflect on …

Extensions And Application Of The Modified Large-Sample Approach For Constructing Confidence Intervals On Functions Of Variance Components, Kye M. Gilder

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to present extensions and applications of the modified large-sample approach (MLS) for constructing approximate confidence intervals on functions of variance components. Manuscript 1 proposes a MLS approach for constructing confidence intervals for intraclass correlation coefficients. Two particular intraclass correlation coefficients are studied from an interrater and intrarater reliability study in which both raters and subjects are random effects in a balanced two-factor design, with and without subject-by-rater interaction term. A simulation study is conducted to investigate the confidence interval coverage proportions. In general, the MLS method provides satisfactory performance. Manuscript 2 considers the problem …

Life Experiences Of Cambodian-American Refugee Women: Segmented Life Stories, Jane A. Mccool

Open Access Dissertations

Of the estimated 50 million international refugees and displaced persons (U.S. Committee for Refugees, 2003), 80% are mothers with children (Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, 2003). There is a paucity of research that explores refugee experiences with organized violence and healing following such events. Available research typically addresses acts of domination and oppression rather than life stories of individuals. Individual health and healing responses are ordinarily examined through the lens of psychotraumatology. A socialized view proposes that exposure to trauma is not a private experience and that the refugee experience of organized violence, the flight to safety, and …

Managed Profiles: The Value Of Personal Information In Commercial Exchange, Patricia A. Norberg

Open Access Dissertations

The research objective of this dissertation is to empirically test factors that are believed to influence consumer personal information disclosure in marketing, using economic theory and social exchange theory as a foundation. Specifically, this research tests the effects of elicitation type (transactional, relational) and level of trust (low, high) on Actual Disclosure, using a 2 x 2 experimental design delivered via the computer. As well, this research examines the effects of fairness judgment, risk perceptions and benefit perceptions as moderating processes. These processes are examined using both pencil and paper questionnaire and cognitive response. Findings suggest that the effects of …

Predictors For Readiness To Engage In Low-Risk Hiv Behaviors In Men Who Have Sex With Men, Steven Lee White

Open Access Dissertations

The main purpose of this research was to investigate Transtheoretical Model (TTM) predictors of condom use in a sample of sexually active young men who have sex with men (MSM). A secondary purpose was to investigate the applicability of specific Multifaceted Model of HIV Risk (MMOHR) predictors of condom use and other interpersonal predictors of condom use in this sample of young MSM. A third purpose was to explore the impact of various behavioral factors and psychoattitudinal factors on condom use in this sample of young MSM. The sample (N = 185) was young men aged 18 to 30 who …

The Effects Of Distress And Depression On Exercise Behaviors Of Type 2 Diabetics: Applying The Transtheoretical Model, Kelly Lynn Fisher

Open Access Dissertations

Adherence to self-management regimens among individuals with type 2 diabetes is a major issue. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of adjustment distress and depression, in relation to the Transtheoretical Model constructs of stage of change, processes of change, decisional balance, and self-efficacy for exercise behavior. A convenience sample of 125 type 2 diabetics between the ages of 33 to 86 (mean age of 62.3), were from a diabetes outpatient education center. Data was collected by mailing the following instruments: demographic survey, Short Geriatric Depression Scale, Problem Areas In Diabetes Survey, and Exercise versions of Stages …

Creativity In The Time Of Accountability: Lessons From Three Middle Schools, Kevin Michael Hurley

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation presents findings relative to educational creativity in the time of accountability by examining changes in the delivery of English Language Arts instruction in the 7th and 8th grade classes of three high achieving Massachusetts public middle schools. "High achievement" was measured by the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System from its initiation in 1998 to the present. Data were collected through archival research and interviews with teachers and administrators. Discussion occurs regarding curricular adjustment and environmental change in creating a balance between curricula and climate within the middle school milieu. In this time of educational success merging with demands for …

Mystical Discourse As Ideological Resistance In Wordsworth And Whitman: A Transatlantic Bridge, Donald J. Moores

Open Access Dissertations

Despite both the recent trend in transatlantic scholarship and the central position Wordsworth and Whitman occupy in the Romantic tradition, there have been relatively few comparative discussions of the two poets. Although some critics have discerned solid connections between them, there is essentially a scholarly void in the critical record, and my dissertation fills this gap. A bridge between Wordsworth and Whitman is found in their privileging of a marginalized epistemology, which they expressed through a type of mystical rhetoric I call the "cosmic" mode. This epistemology entails the merging of self and other, a living cosmos endowed with consciousness, …

Assessing The Relationship Between Neuropsychological Constructs And Alcohol Use Among College Students, Louis Francis Ruffolo Jr.

Open Access Dissertations

This study investigated the relationship between alcohol use and the neuropsychological constructs of executive cognitive functions and visual-spatial abilities in a sample of predominately first-year college students. Previous research investigating the relationship between these functions and alcohol use in social-drinker populations is equivocal. For this study, N = 94 participants were divided into two groups (frequent heavy drinking and non-heavy drinking) based upon their self-reported drinking. They were assessed through a brief battery of neuropsychological assessment instruments, behavior rating scales, and alcohol-use measures. Results showed greater and more frequent alcohol use and related negative consequences for those students classified as …