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Approximately one in five high school student and 1 in 20 middle school students currently use e-cigarettes. The burgeoning number of e-cigarette users from 2017 to 2018, 1.5 million more, prompted the U.S. Surgeon General to declare an e-cigarette epidemic among teens. Serious health problems, such as bronchiolitis obliterans, DNA damage, increased risk for developing asthma and COPD, seizures, anoxic brain injury, elevated blood pressure, elevated heart rate, and myocardial infarction has been associated with exposure of toxic chemicals in the e-liquids that is heated to produce an aerosol and inhaled into the lungs. The long-term effects of e-cigarettes is unknown with research still in its infancy with only a little over 10 years since first introduced in the U.S. Despite a recent decline in the estimated users in 2020, adolescents and young adults continue to use e-cigarettes. The purpose of this scholarly project is to educate teens and young adults about the harmful effects of e-cigarettes in an effort to reduce e-cigarette use among current users. Objectives were to evaluate participants knowledge of perceived harms, implement e-cigarette education, and determine if the education encouraged a reduction in use or promote e-cigarette cessation. A quasi-experimental pre-posttest intervention quality improvement project was implemented at a rural family practice clinic in the southeastern region of the U. S. Participants were between the ages of 13 – 24 who vaped daily, randomized between an intervention group and control group, and administered 3 questionnaires (Initial Questionnaire, PESCDI, and E-cigarette Reasons for Use Scale). Intervention group viewed an educational video on the harms of e-cigarettes. PESCDI was administered as a posttest 2-4 weeks following appointment in the clinic. Initial Questionnaire results revealed that 76% of participants were female and the top 2 reasons for use were curiosity/peer-pressure/friends that use and flavors/tastes good. Majority believed that e-cigarettes were equally harmful (41%) and less harmful (41%) than tobacco cigarettes. Wilcoxon signed-rank test analysis of the PSECDI did not show that the educational intervention was statistically significant, however, median scores in the intervention group decreased indicating an overall decrease in nicotine dependency. Median scores in the control group did increase on posttest denoting a higher nicotine dependence on follow-up. Fisher’s exact tests compared pre and posttests according to categories, although not statistically significant, revealed that the intervention groups posttest PSECDI dependency decreased in the medium and low dependency categories and increased in the not dependent category representative of a clinically significant decline in nicotine dependency. One participant progressed from not dependent to low dependency. Limitations of the project include a small sample size due to small rural family practice and COVID-19 pandemic limiting the number of patients in the office. Future implications include replicating project at multiple sites for larger sample size to determine a statistical significance.
Small, private colleges provide an essential element to the landscape of higher education, offering intimate class sizes and high touch experiences for traditional college populations. The president of a small, private college must wear many hats, both to the internal campus and external community. Presidents set the tone for leadership and communication, devise strategic plans, and select staff to accomplish those initiatives. With fewer layers of administration, the president of a small, private college also has greater influence on day-to-day operations than their counterparts at larger institutions. Athletics at the small, private college is an important component for enrollment, campus life, and budget. At institutions that do not provide athletic scholarship money, student-athletes account for significant portion of undergraduate populations. NCAA Division III institutions, mostly small, private colleges, incorporate athletics into campus life and position the student before the athlete. The presidents of these institutions are poised to thoroughly understand how athletics influences the small, private college landscape. This research was designed as a multiple case study, examining five presidents of small, private colleges. Each president served as a case, and research was conducted through two semi-structured interviews and document collection. Following individual case analysis, cross-case analysis occurred where three overlapping themes emerged: the president’s influence over managing tension with faculty, winning builds a foundation for success, and agility is necessary to respond to changes. The implications of the research project demonstrated that small, private college presidents must make decisions about athletics in alignment with institutional missions and the strategic plan, allowing a strong connection to the organization’s culture.
Whether urban, suburban, or rural or from different United States (US) geographic regions, communities expect public officials to guide them to better prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and recurring natural hazard threats. Natural hazard preparedness conditions characterize the compilation of resilience and vulnerability conditions and incorporate prior response decisions into state and local natural hazard planning, policies, and practices. Many different options are available to empower vulnerable regions with the right resiliency tools; what is essential to understand is these communities' capacity to influence natural hazard resiliency planning effectiveness.
My research provides context and insight about how regional natural hazard preparedness conditions may bolster community planning and capital across the urban-rural continuum. This study evaluates contiguous US county-level natural hazard resilience and vulnerability with a measurement tool developed at the University of Missouri entitled the Missouri Transect Project (MTP). It reflects a gap in the peer-reviewed research as the MTP has yet to be field-tested. I examine the MTP via a mixed-method approach. My two quantitative analyses, a categorical regression, and a spatial cluster/outlier statistic inform my qualitative interview questions with the 10 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) region Community Preparedness Officers (CPO) about the value of the MTP. I use triangulation to test the degree of external validity of the MTP community preparedness tool.
My research serves as a useful heuristic to understand why natural hazards do not just bring damages but provide pre-disaster planning insight and the ability to examine post-disaster aid as a community-building versus property re-building opportunity.
Through a qualitative multiple case study, the researcher’s goal in conducting this study was to investigate and understand the experiences of five upper elementary teachers in grades three through five who transitioned from traditional grading practices to standards-based grading (SBG) practices at one elementary school. Using Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) as a framework, this study examined how the five teachers experienced the initial training and subsequent implementation in their transition from traditional grading practices to standards-based grading practices. The researcher also aimed to understand teacher self-efficacy toward the new grading practice based on the training received at the onset of the implementation. A recruitment survey was sent to 79 certified teachers at the study site, chosen based on its convenience and recent implementation of SBG, and yielded the minimum of five participants meeting the criteria to participate in the study. Two of the total five study participants were part of a pilot study conducted in the fall of 2019. The researcher conducted semi-structured face-to-face interviews using an interview protocol established in the pilot study. In order to identify underlying themes present in the five interviews, the researcher used a constant comparison method of analysis (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2007). Common themes present in the five case studies include grades as communication, frustration with SBG transition, support from colleagues as useful or not useful, and lack of preparation at the pre-service level. Findings from this study align with the current body of knowledge on the inequities present in the use of traditional grading, the lack of specific grading instruction in teacher preparation programs as well as continued support at the district or school level, and the positives of SBG moving teachers toward best practices. Findings from this study also support teachers’ self-efficacy being tied to the quality of training they receive when making a change in practice.
Excellence in education is based on a curriculum that is true, relevant, and appropriate, and on educational processes that are humane and democratic. A pervasive problem in U.S. schools is a curriculum that perpetuates cultural hegemony, lacks multiple perspectives, and adheres to scripts to accommodate education policy. “Re-membering” history by producing and studying democratized knowledge can counter master narratives. Applying critical race theory and Afrocentricity, this research explores curriculum development, culturally responsive pedagogy, and student outcomes in the context of urban education. Using case study methodology, content analysis, and historical detection, this qualitative multiple article dissertation explores three curricular omissions that can expand multicultural education discourse. Findings show that culturally responsive pedagogy combined with a curriculum that is accurate, relevant, and appropriate can yield improved student outcomes. This has implications for practitioners and scholars in U.S. schools.
Over the past several years the connection between entrepreneurship and digital technologies has transformed the way business is conducted. This, coupled with reactions to the coronavirus outbreak that have caused interruptions to significant economic and business activities, has exponentially accelerated the implementation of digital technologies. Yet intentions to pursue digital entrepreneurship remain understudied, while an increasing number of small and medium-sized businesses continue the adoption of digital technologies unabated. Do strategic processes that are the basis for decision making and actions play a role in the intention to pursue digital technologies?
This dissertation examines the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and intention to pursue digital entrepreneurship, and whether this relationship is moderated by opportunity evaluation. Data was gathered from entrepreneurs (N=240) through a cross-sectional survey approach, and regression analysis was used to analyze the data. A confirmatory factor analysis was also performed. The results indicate that entrepreneurial orientation is positively linked to intention to adopt digital technologies. The study found evidence of interaction effects between two opportunity evaluation constructs: loss estimation and perceived feasibility and entrepreneurial orientation. The results signal the importance of studying moderators of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial intention to adopt digital technology.
Micro-entrepreneurship constitutes undeniably an important development strategy in developing countries. Earlier empirical studies have shown it generates 20 to 45% of full-time employment and 30% to 50% of rural household income in Africa. However, when assessing employment growth through the expansion of existing microenterprises, data suggests that most small enterprises in rural Africa do not grow. This research seeks to examine the relationship between institutional trust and entrepreneurial orientation in rural Africa. The study investigates how external factors such as political connections, environmental uncertainty, munificence and kinship ties affect the relationship between institutional trust and entrepreneurial orientation. The research builds on an alternative approach to institutional theory as it relates to the African context. The research questions are addressed through both an exhaustive review and synthesis of the literature and using primary data gathered from surveys from microenterprise owners organized in cooperatives in rural communities of Angola. The data analysis tests the hypothesized relationships through ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with tests for moderation.
Abusive supervision is defined as the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact by a supervisor or leader. Research to date suggests that perceptions of abusive supervision may be driven as much as, if not more than, by subordinate characteristics than by supervisor behavior. The fundamental issue is that while abusive supervision is defined in terms of supervisor behavior, it is assessed via subordinate perceptions of supervisor behavior. While many studies have been conducted concentrating on the impact of specific subordinate characteristics on perceptions of abusive supervision, the literature has tended to focus on specific characteristics in isolation. Thus, the literature would benefit from a more comprehensive treatment that examines the collective effect of multiple subordinate characteristics and the relative importance with respect to ratings of abusive supervision. This survey-based study focused on several established subordinate characteristics. The results of these surveys were analyzed using regression analysis and supplemented by dominance weights analysis. This study found that collectively, subordinate characteristics accounted for 47% of the variance in subordinate perceptions of abusive supervision and that the "WUSI" scale dominated with 59% of this effect size.
Many endeavors in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) align themselves with the promise of the democratization of technology production, a promise that has yet to be fulfilled due to gaps in access and underlying power dynamics. HCI has recently seen new glimmers of the promise of democratized technology production in the making phenomenon. In this dissertation, I present a theory project grounded in my experience of starting and running a university makerspace that engages with the concept of democratization directly. I first derive a definition of democratization, develop a normative theory that suggests a shift in values to better meet that definition, and present a series of empirical studies to develop the theory. I then use feminist utopianism as a definition of democratization to evaluate the theory and reflect on the merits and challenges of this theory project in light of HCI's promise of democratization. Contributions include insights about the merits of the NTHCM as a reflective lens for maker leaders and HCI researchers, insights about the merits of feminist utopianism to guide maker leaders and HCI researchers towards the promise of democratization, and insights about underlying assumptions of HCI that may be in the way fulfilling the promise of democratization.
The purpose of the study was to investigate whether intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, task value, metacognitive self-regulation, self-efficacy for learning, and cumulative GPA predicts academic success among college students enrolled in remote, asynchronous Elementary Spanish I and II courses. The study was conducted during the Summer 2020 term at a large urban research university in the Southeastern United States. Data for this study were collected from students enrolled in Elementary Spanish I or II courses. One hundred and sixty-eight participants provided answers for five of the scales included in Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, and McKeachie’s (1991) Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Multiple regression was used to test the relationship between the predictor variables and the outcome variable. The results indicated that 41% of the variance in Spanish course grades was accounted for by the predictor variables. Three of the predictor variables were statistically significant, self-efficacy, metacognitive self-regulation, and cumulative GPA. Self-efficacy and cumulative GPA showed a positive relationship to course grade when examining correlation coefficients. Metacognitive self-regulation indicated a negative relationship to course grade when predictor variables were included in the model. When the predictor variables were not included in the model, there was a positive bivariate correlation between metacognitive self-regulation and class grade.
This research contributes to our understanding of the students’ perception of motivational constructs and metacognitive self-regulation during the COVID-19 crisis. As it pertains to Elementary Spanish classes, this study should be replicated once the pandemic abates to examine if there is a difference in perceptions of self-efficacy and metacognitive self-regulation in face-to-face, blended, and online classes. Academic coaching at the institutional level should be considered to support students whose self-efficacy and use of metacognitive self-regulation strategies may be underwhelming.
