Dissertation Defense Announcements

Effective discharge teaching for caregivers of newly diagnosed pediatric oncology patients can reduce unplanned medical utilization, health care costs, and incidence of relapse and treatment complications. Challenges to providing effective instruction for this population include reduced initial hospitalization time, caregiver receptiveness, and consistency of content. While there is little evidence-based best practice for related educational methodology, video delivery of patient education is increasingly popular. Two videos, linked to QR codes, were developed to accompany the standard discharge teaching tools for pediatric oncology patients. Intervention effectiveness was evaluated in three areas, each at a different timepoint: caregiver feedback, skill acquisition, and decision-making. Caregiver feedback, evaluated through QDTS scores, rated the quality of discharge teaching favorably (mean 8.46, SD 1.58). Following the education and hospital discharge, all caregivers demonstrated us of the appropriate skills/behaviors to be ready for the first outpatient clinic visit as assessed by the clinic readiness tool. The 30-day post-discharge survey revealed that all caregivers experienced an unexpected medical concern at home. Appropriate medical utilization decision making (emergency department, triage, clinic) was engaged to resolve the concerns. Further, high use of the QR codes outside of the hospital setting (52 times outside the initial teaching, with 37 from unique IP addresses) indicates the videos were referenced or shared with others who needed education to help care for the child. This is particularly noteworthy given post-pandemic visitor restrictions which hinders normal education pathways for extended caregivers. Overall results were positive, and further exploration of this innovative educational strategy is warranted.

Higher education leadership demographics contrast sharply with formulaic narratives of
college campuses filled with gender and racial diversity, especially in intercollegiate athletics.
Black women occupy only 2% of athletic director positions at predominantly White institutions
and are vastly underrepresented in other leadership roles (National Collegiate Athletic
Association, 2022). Often overlooked and underrepresented in current intercollegiate athletic
literature, this qualitative, narrative inquiry aimed to provide an opportunity to both examine the
experiences and magnify the voices of Black women within intercollegiate athletic leadership
and explore how they access leadership opportunities. Ten in-depth, semi-structured narrative
interviews were conducted with Black women representing all levels of administrative leadership
within Division I, II, and III collegiate programs. Findings revealed the work experiences of
these Black women in athletic leadership were impacted by their need to maintain their
uniqueness/individuality as Black women, the devaluing of Black womanhood in college athletic
workplaces, and their motivation for persistence/survival in the industry. Understanding the
experiences of Black women who were successful in navigating the leadership hierarchy is
useful for higher education leaders to examine and revise current hiring, training, and
professional development programs to create a more diverse and inclusive environment in
intercollegiate athletic leadership.

Historically, male students have been known to score lower than their female counterparts in reading and writing on standardized measures of academic success. While scholars, teachers, and even policy makers have attempted to explain and mitigate this gender gap in reading and writing scores, the male students themselves have had little opportunity to offer their insight into the research. Moreover, there is limited research about the causes of the perceived gap in reading and writing scores, or the potential ways in which the high school English classroom could be reimagined in order to provide a solution. This qualitative multiple case study explores how the experiences outside of the classroom in the lives of high school male students enrolled in an alternative education program mediate their reading and writing in the high school English classroom. Furthermore, this study explores how high school male students enrolled in an alternative education program perceive pedagogical elements in the high school English classroom. In particular, this study focused on the experiences outside of school of three high school male students enrolled in an alternative education program. These stories were told through individual, narrative portraits composed by the researcher which were composed based on the analysis of data from two focus group sessions and two semi-structured one-on-one interviews. Findings from the study indicate that there is a need to expand the understanding of literacy skills, as well as how they are recognized, practiced, and assessed, in the high school English classroom.

The purpose of this exploratory descriptive case study was to understand the experiences of faculty learning community members practicing active learning strategies in virtual learning environments (VLEs) to discover how teaching in virtual spaces for an extended period of time impacted the use of active learning strategies in physical classrooms. Ten faculty interviewed in this study experienced an abrupt and forced transition from active learning classrooms (ALCs) to VLEs in March 2020 and continued teaching virtually until August 2021. Through interviews conducted at the case study institution, three overarching themes emerged about practicing active learning strategies in VLEs and subsequent changes when participants returned to physical classrooms: (1) Working the Room highlighted how participants adapted existing active learning models designed for physical spaces to fit the VLE and replicate physical elements from ALCs. (2) It’s Not in the Syllabus reframed Lewin’s (1947) change model and included a “pivot” that provided faculty the flexibility needed to address unpredictable challenges. Finally, the emergence of (3) Virtual In-Person Classrooms (VIPCs) that included tools that transferred from VLEs allowed participants to imagine new ways of practicing active learning strategies in physical classrooms and helped to overcome learning space barriers and ALC shortages.