Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Antecedents To Work Engagement And Psychological Well-Being Within A Canadian Provincial Ministry, Kris Ellis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A gap exists in organizational development strategies on why some individuals remain disengaged with their work. This study addressed whether a combination of specific contextual factors could support individuals, teams, and leaders to demonstrate the attitudes and behaviors consistent with work engagement. The theoretical frameworks of social constructivism, the conceptual framework of symbolic interactionism, and a hermeneutic inquiry approach were used to address how individual psychological traits/abilities of employees support work engagement. Nineteen employees of a Canadian provincial government ministry completed an engagement survey, MSCEIT, MBTI, and SDI assessments. They also participated in focus groups. Survey results showed high engagement …

Community College Leaders' Experiences In Adapting To Changing Student Demographics, Joyce Hewett

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The demographics of community colleges are rapidly changing. The culture composition of the student population in community colleges has expanded, and includes larger percentages of African Americans, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans than are found in other higher education institutions. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the lived experiences of 10 community college leaders, consisting of 4 administrators, 5 faculty members, and 1 faculty/administrator, in their attempt to adapt to the changing demographics of the student population. Multicultural lens, the conceptual framework for the study, helped guide leaders in assessing their levels of multicultural sensitivity …

Qualitative Case Study On F-35 Fighter Production Delays Affecting National Security Guidance, Monique Marie Maldonado

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Approaching $400 billion for its establishment and production, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the Department of Defense's (DoD) largest acquisition program in U.S. history. Unfortunately, significant delays have immobilized the program's production rate, and little research has examined whether and how such delays directly affect national security. The purpose of this study was to determine whether and how production delays in the JSF program directly affect national security. The theoretical foundations for this qualitative case study were Condorcet's modernization theory and Giddens's globalization framework. Data were collected from interviews with 15 senior DoD civilian, military, and JSF officials …

Retention In Nursing Programs: Factors Contributing To The Success Of Esl Students, Patience Jegbefu Mbulu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem addressed in this project is the high attrition rate among English as Second Language (ESL) students in a local community college associate degree nursing program. If the retention problem is addressed, the increase in the number of ESL nursing student graduates could result in a more diverse nursing workforce, reflecting the diversity of the community. The purpose of this study was to examine student and faculty views regarding factors that contribute to the academic success and retention of ESL students. To that end, a qualitative case study approach was used, guided by the theoretical frameworks of Cummins's contextual …

Predicting The Perceived Importance Of Professional Advocacy Among Counselor Educators, Rebecca Diane Nate

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The goal of this nonexperimental quantitative research study was to determine if the professional identity of a counselor educator (CE) predicted their perceived importance of professional advocacy. Social identity theory (SIT) constituted the framework for this study, which asked whether CEs would follow the established norms of the dominant professional group and thus consistently perceive the importance of professional advocacy. The Professional Counselor Advocacy Inventory (PCAI) was used to measure CEs' perceptions. The data of 92 participants were analyzed in SPSS 21 using an ordinal regression. Specialization, age, gender, primary setting, and years of experience were the predictor variables, and …

An Examination Of Tribal Nation Integration In Homeland Security National Preparedness, Donald J. Reed

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research has established that national homeland security policy requires a whole community or all-of-nation approach to national security preparedness. What is less clear is whether all stakeholders are integrated into or benefit from this collective effort. This narrative policy analysis examined the relationship between a federally-recognized group of Native American tribal nations and homeland security national preparedness to explore whether tribal nations are effectively integrated with the collective effort for national preparedness. The theoretical framework stemmed from a convergence of social contract theory and conflict theory. Interviews (n = 21) were conducted with preparedness authorities from government agencies, and from …

Concept Mapping As A Tool For Enhancing Self-Paced Learning In A Distance Scenario, John Allen Richbourg

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers have determined that concept maps serve as effective tools in the traditional science classroom. The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate concept mapping as a tool for student knowledge acquisition in 10th grade science for students in distance learning situations. Research questions were designed to investigate the influence of concept mapping on rate and quality of student knowledge acquisition and retention. This study was a pretest-posttest 2-group comparison study, constructivist in nature and based on the theory of cognitive learning. Participants included 36 students in the 10th grade at an inner-city school in the United States. Control …

Factors Influencing Job Satisfaction Among Child Welfare Staff, Meresa L. Stacy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Child welfare has been part of American society since the early 1900s and continues to play a pivotal role in response to troubled families. Although there is a need for qualified child welfare staff, the process of maintaining staff is a constant struggle for many child welfare agencies. Many states are experiencing high turnover rates within the child welfare system, and Florida has been acutely impacted. Researchers have demonstrated that the nature of the work, supervision, and other organizational factors continue to contribute to job satisfaction among child welfare professionals. Guided by the social exchange theory as the theoretical framework, …

The Relationship Between Information Technology And Organizational Effectiveness As Perceived By Health Care Providers, Christian Chikwem Ukaga

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The U.S. Congress has made health information technology a central component of the national quest to improve health care delivery. The problem addressed in this study was the uncertainty among healthcare providers regarding the benefits of health care information technology adoption relative to healthcare delivery processes and outcomes. The purpose of the study was to understand the effectiveness of information technology as perceived by healthcare providers. The research questions were designed to investigate the relationship between health information technology and organizational effectiveness, exchange of information, organizational process, organizational productivity, and direct personal care. Sociotechnical systems theory and Donabedian's framework for …

Delphi Study Of Ecosystem Characteristics And Inclusion Of Elementary Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Kimberly M. Walker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Recognizing characteristics that improve inclusion in general education classrooms allows educators and parents to make conscious decisions regarding how students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can be included most appropriately. The purpose of this qualitative Delphi study was to understand the opinions of individuals with expertise in the fields of autism and inclusion as to the characteristics and behaviors within the environmental constellation that support or inhibit inclusion of elementary students with ASD. The conceptual framework was based on tenets of applied behavior analysis, multiple intelligences, and ecosystem characteristics. Research questions addressed characteristics and behaviors of general and special education …

Measuring Dimensions Of Professional Learning Communities To Predict Secondary School Climate, Patrick A. Ward

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Schools are experiencing many reform initiatives, yet creating positive school climates as a way to promote increased student achievement has been omitted from the policy discussion. Whether the professional learning community (PLC) construct can predict school climate is a gap in the current literature. Using change theory and distributed leadership as a framework, the purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationships between the dimensions of a PLC (shared values and vision, intentional learning and application, supportive and shared leadership, supportive conditions and shared personal practice) and school climate variables (academic emphasis, initiating structure, consideration and morale). Four …

An Assessment Of Sexually Transmitted Disease Knowledge Among 7th Grade Students, Racquel D. Weaver

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) continue to remain a public health concern in the United States, especially among young people. Levels of knowledge with regard to STDs have been investigated in prior research; however, these investigations have been limited primarily to older adolescents and young adults. Grounded in the social cognitive and subjective culture theories, this quantitative, cross-sectional study assessed STD knowledge (other than HIV/AIDS) among 7th grade students attending a public middle school in the United States. Demographic differences (age, gender, and ethnicity) in STD knowledge were examined to determine if these demographic variables predict STD knowledge scores and if …

Disruption And Deference, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Online video streaming applications enable users to watch over the-air broadcast programs at any time and almost on any device. As such, they challenge the pertinence of traditional video distribution law and the broadcast network system on which it is based. Congress enacted the Transmit Clause of the 1976 Copyright Act to resolve the high-stakes tussle between broadcasters and cable providers. But, today, that provision is ill-suited to resolving whether unauthorized streaming infringes on broadcasters’ copyright to perform works publicly. Its scope is ambiguous enough that judges across the country were notably divided on whether it reaches online video distribution—that …

Strengthening Charity Law: Replacing Media Oversight With Advance Rulings For Nonprofit Fiduciaries, Linda Sugin

Faculty Scholarship

This Article considers three urgent challenges facing the charitable community and its state regulators: too little fiduciary duty law for nonprofits, the rise of media enforcement of wrongdoing in charities, and an inherent tension in the state’s dual role as enforcer and protector of the nonprofit sector. It analyzes whether the scarcity of law is really a problem by comparing nonprofit organizations with business organizations and concludes that charities lack the selfenforcement mechanisms of businesses and therefore need more government guidance. It evaluates whether the media has made governmental supervision obsolete and expresses skepticism about the press displacing state oversight. …

Dictionaries 2.0: Exploring The Gap Between The Supreme Court And Courts Of Appeals, James J. Brudney, Lawrence Baum

Faculty Scholarship

The remarkable rise in dictionary usage by the Supreme Court since themid-1980s has been a subject of considerable scholarly and media interest. Wepublished an article in November 2013 that explored the Court’s new dictionary culture in depth from empirical and doctrinal perspectives. In a Yale Law Journal Note one year later, John Calhoun embraced some of our findings, criticized others, and—importantly—broadened the inquiry to identify asizeable gap in overall frequency of citation to dictionaries between the Supreme Court and the federal courts of appeals.

This gap in dictionary usage is our primary focus here. Previously we analyzed nearly 700 Supreme …

Less Is More In International Private Law, Susan Block-Lieb, Terence C. Halliday

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judge Jack Weinstein And The Allure Of Antiproceduralism, Howard M. Erichson

Faculty Scholarship

In one sense of the word proceduralist — a person with expertise in procedure — Judge Jack Weinstein is among the leading proceduralists on the federal bench. But in another sense of the word proceduralist — an adherent of proceduralism, or faithfulness to established procedures — he falls at a different end of the spectrum. Looking at four examples of Judge Weinstein’s work in mass litigation, this Article considers what it means to be an antiproceduralist, someone unwilling to let procedural niceties stand in the way of substantive justice. The allure of antiproceduralism is that it eschews technicalities in favor …

Confronting The Peppercorn Settlement In Merger Litigation: An Empirical Analysis And A Proposal For Reform, Jill E. Fisch, Sean J. Griffith, Steven D. Solomon

Faculty Scholarship

Shareholder litigation challenging corporate mergers is ubiquitous, with the likelihood of a shareholder suit exceeding 90%. The value of this litigation, however, is questionable. The vast majority of merger cases settle for nothing more than supplemental disclosures in the merger proxy statement. The attorneys that bring these lawsuits are compensated for their efforts with a court-awarded fee. This leads critics to charge that merger litigation benefits only the lawyers who bring the claims, not the shareholders they represent. In response, defenders of merger litigation argue that the lawsuits serve a useful oversight function and that the improved disclosures that result …

Toward A Therapeutic Use Of Spirituality Among Individuals With Mild To Moderate Intellectual Disabilities, Tony Terrell Lee

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Toward a Therapeutic Use of Spirituality among Individuals with Mild to Moderate Intellectual Disabilities

by

Tony Terrell Lee

MS, William Carey University, 2005

BS, University of Southern Mississippi, 1992

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Clinical Psychology

Walden University

May 2015

Research has shown that community employment, different levels of independent living, and advocacy groups are factors that influence self-esteem in individuals with mild to moderate intellectual and developmental disabilities (ID). One gap in the literature is whether there is a correlation between spirituality and self-esteem in individuals with mild to …

Decision Making And Pediatric Bipolar Disorder Assessment/Diagnosis: A Phenomenographic Study, Kristen Davies

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prior to the 1990s, bipolar disorder, a behavioral disorder characterized by severe mood fluctuations, was not considered an suitable diagnosis for children. However, in recent decades, an increase in pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD) diagnosis has occurred in the U.S. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and lived experiences of licensed mental health clinicians regarding their decision-making processes used during assessment and diagnosis of PBD. This phenomenographic study utilized individual, semi-structured interviews to explore the perceptions and lived experiences of 14 licensed clinicians in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who assess and diagnose PBD. Data were collected with …

Mental Health Therapists' Attitudes On Adoption Of Evidence-Based Practices And Organizational Culture, Jennifer Guerguis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Evidence-based practice (EBP) in mental health was initiated in the United States due to state legislation. The EBP implementation process is complex due to multiple factors related to organizational culture. Mental health agencies implementing EBP processes can expect significant personnel changes due to higher turnover rates, which may have a negative effect on the quality of services. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between providers' attitudes toward the adoption of EBPs and organizational culture. The theoretical framework for this study was organizational culture theory and the Denison organizational culture model. This correlational and predictive study examined …

African American Male Community College Completion And Mode Of Instruction, Lisa M. Harper

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite innovative policy and pedagogical transformations, postsecondary achievement gaps continue to exist between African American males and other students. Low college credential completion rates by African American males have prevented an East Texas community college from meaningful participation in the President's 2020 postsecondary education attainment goal of increasing U.S. college graduates by 5 million. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate a hypothesized connection between the independent variable, mode of instruction, and the dependent variables, mathematics course completion and college completion by African American males. Guided by Ogbu's cultural-ecological theory of minority school performance, a chi-square test of …

Learning From The Un Preventive Deployment Mission In Macedonia: Nothing Fails Like Success?, Mary Frances Rosett Lebamoff

Dissertations

Preventive deployment as a conflict prevention tool has not recurred in the past decade-plus, despite the broadly acclaimed success of the United Nations Preventive Deployment in Macedonia (UNPREDEP 1995-1999; and its predecessor mission, UNPROFOR/Macedonia, UNPROFOR/M 1992-1995). The United Nations in particular has continued with mainly first- and second-generation peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding actions. What may best explain why has there has been no other engagement in preventive deployment missions, when there has been much emphasis placed formally and informally on early warning, detection, mitigation, and prevention of conflict? There have also been an increasing numbers of violent conflicts worldwide, so …

The Global Dystopian: Twenty-First Century Globalization, Terrorism, And Urban Destruction, Ryan Frank Peters

Dissertations

The new millennium has witnessed a staggering outpouring of literature, film and art which depict dystopian and post-apocalyptic societies. These stories have come in the form of massively popular films like the Matrix and Hunger Games trilogies; Emmy-winning television adaptations such as The Walking Dead; and Pulitzer Prize-winning novels like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, or Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker Prize-nominated Never Let Me Go. In the last five years, a wave of critically-lauded video games – The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, and Dishonored come immediately to mind—have depicted dystopian worlds while reaching mass audiences. Combined, The Last of Us and …

Mechanisms Of Estrogen Receptor Alternative Splicing And The Consequences For Aging In The Female Brain, Cody Lee Shults

Dissertations

The advances in healthcare and scientific knowledge have resulted in longer life expectancies in women. These advanced ages in women now means that they are experiencing the effects of age-related changes in the body for much longer periods of time, mainly reproductive senescence, resulting in the loss of circulating ovarian hormones. The age at which menopause occurs has not changed, resulting in women now living over a third of their lives in a postmenopausal state.

The major circulating estrogen produced by the ovaries, 17β-estradiol (E2), has many homeostatic effects in the body like neuroprotection and cardioprotection. Hormone replacement therapy (HT) …

Effects Of Aggregated Alpha-Synuclein On Cultured Neuronal Cells, David Freeman

Dissertations

α-synuclein dysregulation is a critical aspect of Parkinson's disease pathology. Recent studies have observed that α-synuclein aggregates are cytotoxic to cells in culture and that this toxicity can be spread between cells. However, the molecular mechanisms governing this cytotoxicity and spread are poorly characterized. Recent studies of viruses and bacteria, which achieve their cytoplasmic entry by rupturing intracellular vesicles, have utilized the redistribution of galectin proteins as a tool to measure vesicle rupture by these organisms. Using this approach, we demonstrate that α-synuclein aggregates can induce the rupture of lysosomes following their endocytosis in neuronal cell lines. This rupture can …

Surviving The Presidency: Presidential Failures In South America, Christopher A. Martinez

Dissertations

Since 1979, one out of six South American presidents have failed to complete their terms of office. These "failed presidencies" occur when democratically elected presidents are forced to leave office early, but without compromising the democratic order. This dissertation seeks to solve the puzzle of what drives presidents out of office. Previous studies have found that institutional and political factors, economic issues, and social mobilizations are powerful forces affecting presidential failures. In this research, I examine the impact these factors have on the likelihood of presidential failures.

Additionally, I argue that previous works have failed to find a significant relation …

Not The Whole Story: Narrative Responses To Contemporary Globalization, Sean Patrick O'Brien

Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes contemporary global fiction in English (and, in one chapter, new media literatures such as videogame-based narratives) to examine how individuals, communities, and globalized networks manage differences among historical interpretations, ideologies, lived experiences, and cultural and national traditions making competing demands. Cultural and media theorists like John Tomlinson, Anthony Giddens, Arjun Appadurai, Lev Manovich, and Ian Bogost have demonstrated the overwhelming complexity of life in an age of accelerating globalization. Building on their work and the narrative theory of Maggie Dunn and Ann Morris, I explore how literary narratives employ newly prominent composite narrative structures to represent and …

Teacher Mathematics Language: Its Use In The Early Childhood Classroom And Relationship With Young Children's Learning, Emma Whitman

Dissertations

Early mathematics instruction has been linked to children's later outcomes in both literacy and mathematics. One important component of this instruction, teachers' mathematics language in the early childhood classroom, has been connected to children's mathematical gains. However, this work is lacking in both scope and depth. The objective of this study was to provide a review of the use of math language by early childhood teachers and address the issues neglected in the current literature. The study looks at: the type of content that teachers' mathematics language emphasizes, the mediating effects of settings on the mathematics language that is used, …

Public Corruption In Liberian Government, Stephen H. Gobewole

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is a widespread public perception of corruption in Liberia's election process, yet there is little documentation on the characteristics of voters and their perceptions of electoral corruption. The purpose of this correlational study was to explore the relationship between gender, ethnicity, physical location, and perceptions about political activity during the 2005 national election. Roderick Chisolm's conceptualization of the internalist view of justification served as the theoretical construct. Data were acquired from the Afrobarometer survey (n = 1,200), which used a representative cross-sectional sample design, and were subjected to cross-tabulation analysis, a chi-square test, and a correlation analysis. The results …