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The Relationship Between Eating School Lunch and Overweight or Obesity in Elementary School Children
Doret Ledford
Childhood obesity has become a grave concern in the U.S. and globally today. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of school lunch on overweight or obesity in elementary school children. The results revealed that eating school lunch was significantly related to increased risk of overweight or obesity in school children.
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Burnout, Secondary Trauma, & Compassion Fatigue in Disaster Mental Workers
Susan Marcus and Catherin Barmore
This phenomenological study of Disaster Mental Health counselors will include interviews with 25 participants. The themes to be explored include: secondary trauma as a primary, proximal experience; compassion fatigue as a "solo" phenomena; and burnout experienced as response to administrative processes.
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Parent Perceptions of their Participation in Teaching Children Letter-sound Association
Kat Morrison
Children enter kindergarten with a range in early literacy skills that may be due to differences of language experiences in their home environment. This qualitative study explored parents’ perceptions of their involvement in teaching their children letter-sound association skills. As a result of parent responses to a survey, a parents-as-teachers workshop was developed to enhance parents’effectiveness in this role.
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Fear as a Predictor of Life Satisfaction for Retirees in Canada
Satoko Nguyen
Laslett’s theory of the Third Age regarding postretirement life satisfaction was tested from the social participation perspective in Canada by a quantitative method. Fears about growing old negatively significantly predicted both life and retirement satisfactions after adjusting for significant activity theory co variates. Canada’s eminent poverty preventing strategies supported retiree life satisfaction.
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Compassion Fatigue and Emotional Intelligence in Physicians
Jennifer Peterson
Literature reveals that healthcare professionals, like physicians, experience compassion fatigue (CF) as a result of exposure to patient trauma. Research also demonstrates that leaders, like physicians, with higher emotional intelligence (EI) are more effective. This study proposes to identify if there is a correlation between CF and EI in physicians.
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Initial Environmetric Studies of the SETA-Form C
Daniel W. Salter
The Salter Environmental Type Assessment (SETA) was designed to measure the “personalities” of behavioral environments and to work in conjunction with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®. The Form C revision of the SETA, which launched in 2012, involved increasing the number of scored items and moving the assessment to online administration. Initial results from environmetric studies of scores from Form C show that the SETA’s measurement properties remain consistent with previous versions and support its overall utility.
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Determining Writing Readiness: Effects on Retention, Persistence & Academic Success
Jennifer Smolka, Kelley Jo Walters, Laurel Walsh, Annie Pezalla, and Nicole Holland
WRITING READINESS INITIATIVE RESEARCH PLAN
Phase I: The Impacts of the Writing Readiness Initiative Phase I examines the relationship between Writing Readiness and Retention, Persistence and Academic Success. (FRIG 2012 Grant)
Phase II: The Student Experience Impact of the Writing Readiness Initiative. Phase II of the Impacts of Writing Readiness Initiative study will be surveying and interviewing students to determine their perspectives on this initiative as well as their perceived impact on their writing.
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Student Wellness and the Residency Experience
Joseph Spillman, Laura R. Simpson, and Michelle Perepiczka
This project surveys MS Mental Health/Marriage Couple and Family /Career residency students. Data has been collected over the course of one year of residencies in a variety of geographic locations to determine students’ perceptions of how the Walden University residency experience impacts personal wellness. Preliminary results will be reported. The goal is to use the information to assist Walden faculty in the training, education, and personal support of counseling students in their professional and personal growth and development.
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Live-Fire Training Fatalities and the Degree of Adherence to National Fire Protection Association Standards (NFPA 1403)
Christina Spoons
A review of literature revealed a gap in research on the relationship between firefighter fatalities that take place during live fire training and adherence to the guidelines outlined in a national standard published by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). In this mixed-methods study, quantitative data were collected from fire department training officers through an electronic survey. Qualitative data were collected through document review and interviews with leaders in fire service training and were coded to reveal emerging themes. Findings indicated a relationship between the disregard of NFPA 1403 and the fatalities, with the improper use of fuel found to be a factor in each fatality case. Findings also indicated that NFPA 1403 makes live fire training safer when applied properly, but, when not applied, can lead to fatal consequences.
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Encouraging Education in Kpanlori, Ghana
Christina Spoons and Mark Gordon
A review of literature revealed a gap in research on effective ways to promote education in the far eastern rural areas of Ghana where the village of Kpanlori is located. This case study used purposeful sampling of eight key informants in a food security program designed to increase enrollment in primary school in Kpanlori. Findings revealed the importance of addressing food insecurity issues and tradition in order to increase regular school attendance.
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Students’ Research Skills and Self Efficacy Gained in an Online Laboratory
Lee Stadtlander, Martha Giles, and Amy Sickel
Stadtlander and Giles (2010) showed the feasibility of an online psychology research laboratory. The proposed study extends their work by examining whether students’ research skills and self-efficacy improves in an online lab, as has been reported in land based research labs (Love et al., 2007).
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Planned Behavior and Physician-Patient Communication: Predicting Adherence to Anti Hypertensive
Mayon Sylvain
Lack of adherence to treatment contributes to unmanageable high blood pressure and satisfaction with physician-patient communication enhances adherence to treatment. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) guided the research questions in this quantitative study to determine the effects of a communication program for vulnerable population with implications for social change.
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CAFAS Profiles: Canonical Correlation Analysis of Behavioral and Performance Dimensions
Reginald Taylor and Sabrina Swope
Psychosocial disturbances are pervasive mental health illnesses affecting 1 out of 10 children in America. The Child and Adolescent Functioning Assessment Scale (CAFAS) is a benchmark instrument assessing adolescent impairment in day-to-day functions. This study will examine the extent to which subsets of the CAFAS behavior dimension may be correlated with subsets of the performance dimension.
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Mentoring and Student Perspectives in Online Graduate Education
Alice A. Walters and William Barkley
Effective social change relies upon successfully educating professionals. This qualitative study will integrate rapid expansion of online learning with best practices in graduate education. An innovative pilot mentoring program for graduate students will be assessed. The study addresses a gap in the literature on student perceptions of the mentoring process.
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The Genre of Instructor Feedback in Doctoral Programs: A Corpus Linguistic Analysis
Kelley Jo Walters and Michael Vinella
Providing transparent written feedback to doctoral student may be essential to the learning process and preparation for the capstone. It may be even more critical in an online environment where face to face interaction is limited or confined to academic residencies. The researchers examined instructor feedback provided to online doctoral students on scholarly writing assignments throughout their program. The Corpus for this Analysis includes 237 doctoral level written assignments that include feedback from approximately 50+ faculty members.
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The Impact of Theory-Based Trainings on the Level of Creativity of Family Day Care Providers
Olga Zbarskaya
The purpose of this quantitative study was to evaluate how two interventions, based upon two substantially different theories of creativity, impact 125 Latina female childcare providers and their assistants’ level of creativity. The age range of the participants was 27 – 71 years old, and the experience of the participants varied from 1 to 32 years as a child caregiver. This secondary data analysis study was based on a post test only, true experimental design. This study contributes to understanding of how to reverse the decline of creativity in Latina childcare providers with high cultural sensitivity, and fidelity.
