Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

Many school districts in the United States struggle to retain assistant principals (APs), thus losing the opportunity to prepare and promote quality internal candidates for the principalship. The purpose of the critical participatory action research study was to add to the limited research on AP experiences and how to support their professional development in a way that successfully leads APs to the principalship. The research aimed to add qualitative data from APs employed in public school districts in Ohio to provide much-needed insight into how to better retain school administrators and create an internal candidate pool of highly qualified school principals. The research questions centered around providing insights into AP on-the-job socialization and experiences that impacted their career path decisions and gathered their recommendations for school districts when creating a principal pipeline program or other intentional supportive professional development opportunities for APs. Purposive, stratified/cell sampling was used to collect data from homogeneous participants who share a geographic location (state) and the same biographical background of making lateral career moves as APs of one school district to another, but are considered representative of various demographic groups. The APs shared their experiences through semi-structured interviews and made recommendations for how school districts could better support APs and prepare them for a future principalship. The questions encouraged interviewees to employ a systems thinking approach and DSRP metacognitive process to reflect. I used a critical constructivist grounded theory methodology to analyze the data collected through an iterative inductive process of initial and focused coding and memoing combined with input from participants to uncover, compare, and synthesize common themes. Four APs were interviewed, which provided insights into their on-the-job socialization and experiences. Two (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Higher Education Administration

The intent of this study was to understand the impact of rapid changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic on graduate students' professional socialization, Due to the recency of the pandemic, few published studies have examined the extent of the pandemic's impact on the experiences of graduate students seeking degrees throughout 2020 and 2021. This descriptive-interpretive qualitative study was conducted to examine the experiences shared by members of a cohort of master's degree-seeking students enrolled in a student affairs master's degree program at a regional state-funded university in the Midwest during the pandemic. This study relied on a semi-structured interview with participants from the 2021 graduating cohort, conducted via a focus group interview session. This study demonstrated the widespread changes to professional socialization caused by the pandemic, and offers suggestions for future studies to examine the interconnected elements that make up the academic, assistantship site, and extracurricular aspects of professional socialization through the pursuit of graduate education.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, Communication Studies (Communication)

This dissertation explores how socialization around medical uncertainty is managed within medical education through the lenses of Uncertainty Management Theory (UMT, Brashers, 2001), Anticipatory Vocational Socialization (Jablin 1985), and Narrative Sensemaking (Charon, 2006). Using an interpretive framework and crystalized methodological approach, I worked with Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine (OUHCOM) to conduct 12 in-depth interviews guided by narrative maps, observed 24 standardized patient interactions, and penned auto-ethnographic reflections. This project was informed by three research questions: When, where, and how do students encounter uncertainty in medical school? How do students learn to understand, appraise, and manage uncertainty? What is the role of narrative pedagogies in preparing students to understand, appraise, and manage uncertainty? In chapter one, I offer an introduction to uncertainty focusing on the sources of uncertainty, how uncertainty was influenced by COVID-19, and uncertainty in medically under-resourced areas. In chapter two, I provide the theoretical sensibilities for this project drawing on UMT, Vocational Anticipatory Socialization, and Narrative Sensemaking in Healthcare Context and how these three theoretical frameworks are relevant for understanding how the negotiation of medical uncertainty within the organizational structures of medical school. In chapter three, I provide an overview of the methodology I used to address my research question. Chapter four is an auto-ethnographic perspective on the intersection of medical knowledge uncertainty and the global pandemic. In chapter five I highlight four themes that arose from my data collected with medical students and faculty that represented the ways OUHCOM as a medical education organization socialized medical students to manage uncertainty. Finally, in chapter six, I conclude with a discussion of the research questions and offer limitations, practica (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2021, Psychology

Parental ethnic racial socialization (ERS) includes messages that parents convey to their children regarding race and ethnicity. Over recent decades, a body of psychological literature has focused on ERS practices within families of color. However, much less is known regarding what White parents teach their children about race and ethnicity, particularly in the context of increased public discourse surrounding racism, social movements such as Black Lives Matter, and national and international protests. In the current study, we recruited 30 White parents of White children ages 7-17 years residing in the Midwest. Semi-structured interviews explored whether parents have conversations regarding race/racism with their children, why/how they approach the topic, and whether this process differs from middle childhood to adolescence. Qualitative content analyses (Braun & Clarke, 2006) identified 51 themes that were organized into nine domains. Contextualized within the racialized social system in the United States that privileges White Americans, findings from this study contribute to developing theoretical frameworks surrounding ERS in White families by helping to understand how White racial identity may be developed and how White parents talk about concepts like privilege. The findings have implications for developing resources for White families regarding how to talk to children about race/racism.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Educational Studies

Mid-level managers (MLMs) operate from the center of an organization, and must regularly navigate relationships with peers, supervisees, and organizational leadership. As MLMs enter new positions, their success depends on their ability to make sense of not only their individual job role, but also the culture of their department, division, and institution (Mather, Bryan, & Faulkner, 2009). Because the midlevel role is varied, fluid, and complex, these staff members face significant challenges during this transition (Clegg & McAuley, 2005). Although the field of student affairs offers intensive socialization support to entry-level professionals through graduate coursework, assistantships, and initial job training, this practice declines sharply at the mid-level. Operating concurrently with organizational decision-makers and ground level staff, new MLMs are often in the position of having to guide meaning making for their supervisees before they have fully formed an understanding of organizational norms and values (Mather et al., 2009). However, employee onboarding for MLMs is not widely addressed in student affairs literature (Carpenter & Stimpson, 2007; Mather et al., 2009). The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how new mid-level managers in student affairs experience the socialization process. Theory surrounding socialization, organizational culture, and professional identity was applied to the literature on sensemaking as the conceptual framework for studying this phenomenon. By designing intentional socialization processes that encourage dialogue at multiple levels, student affairs units can engage new MLMs in the co-creation of meaning regarding job role and organizational culture to ensure the success of these professionals.

Doctor of Education, Ashland University, 2017, College of Education

This study was done as a qualitative, phenomenological case study into the lived experiences of 10 English Language Learners (ELL) in a suburban high school in Ohio. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of ELL high school students in order to learn how their school experiences impacted their perceived successes and future goals. Specifically in this study, I looked at ELL students at the high school level. I believed I would have the opportunity to look at students' goals and plans for after graduation and what defined success for them. This study contributes to teacher awareness and literature in the areas related to ELL students and how to better help them adjust socially, and to help them succeed. The data revealed three primary themes, each with subthemes that describe the phenomenon experienced by the students.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, East Asian Languages and Literatures

Language socialization is the process of using language to construct social events and acquire language competence through socialization (Schieffelin & Ochs 1986a, 1986b, 1990, 2011). The process reveals two layers of language socialization: participants gain language ability through interaction with a community, and participants use language as a medium to socialize in the community. The process of language socialization can help learners of a foreign language gradually acquire a competence in the language, while achieving membership in that community. Virtual world, constructed by social media, has become a crucial part of people's daily life. It establishes a community with its own cultural and social norms. Teachers of Chinese as a foreign language can facilitate their students functioning effectively in the context of social media. For Chinese pedagogy, the central concern is how to facilitate non-native speakers of Chinese to be socialized into the important Chinese online virtual communities. The virtual community constructed by WeChat is one of the most active social media in nowadays China. This study takes WeChat as an example among various applications of social media and explores the value of using social media as a venue for Chinese language learners to socialize in a vast community that is not restricted by place or time, but nonetheless, constrained by culture and social norms. The process of language socialization through WeChat contains two layers of socialization. The first, through interaction on WeChat, Chinese language learners can acquire and exercise language competence. Second, the learner can use such language competence to effectively socialize, and thus, integrate himself/herself into the WeChat community. The study is based on interviews with native speakers of Chinese who interact with non-native speakers of Chinese on WeChat. The study will adopt the concept of performance as a major framework to analyze the examples interviews prov (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2014, Communication Studies (Communication)

Sexual orientation/identity is unique in comparison to other forms of difference within organizations in that it is not visibly apparent. Thus, individuals who identify as gay or lesbian have the ability to negotiate their differentness in distinct ways. Grounded in co-cultural theory (CCT) and organizational socialization I examine how individuals who identify as gay or lesbian "negotiate their cultural differentness" during the process of joining, participating in, and exiting organizations (Orbe & Spellers, 2005, p. 174). Drawing on forty-two semi-structured interviews with individuals who identify as gay or lesbian, I explore how individuals navigate and story their experience in the workplace. The data was analyzed through constant comparative thematic analysis which had overarching influence on each of the three research questions. I report the findings in three chapters. First, I used a thematic analysis to uncover the ways in which individuals who identify as gay or lesbian communicatively navigate and experience the workplace: personally, organizationally, and relationally. Then, I offer six narrative cases to magnify the heteronormative discourse in the workplace as storied through my participants' voices. Finally, I highlight the intersection of privilege and marginalization using poetic sensibilities. By providing varied representations of individuals who identify as gay or lesbian in the context of the workplace, I strive to contribute meaningfully to complicating and extending our understanding of difference in the workplace.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Communication

Grandchildren and grandparents were the participants in this study of the ways grandparents socialize their grandchildren about love and marriage. One-hundred ninety young adult grandchildren and 107 grandparents completed separate questionnaires regarding their own attitudes and beliefs about love and marriage, and the frequency of ways the grandparents socialized and taught about love and marriage. A subset of the participants, 74 grandchildren and their own grandparents, were also studied as matched dyads. Five grandparent socialization practices were found including grandparents' advice-giving, grandparents' story-telling (and others' stories about the grandparents), grandparents' expression of affection, observation of grandparents' positive behaviors, and observation of grandparents' negative behaviors. The Love Attitude Scale was used to assess the participants' six attitudes about love including Eros, Ludus, Storge, Pragma, Mania, and Pragma. The Relational Dimensions Instrument was used to assess the participants' beliefs about marriage, and the Sharing and Assertiveness marital dimensions were analyzed. Results revealed that grandparents' socialization practices and teaching were interrelated and were associated with grandchildren's attitudes and beliefs about love and marriage. Grandchildren's and their grandparents' reports about the grandparents' socialization practices were all associated. Grandchildren generally noticed that their grandparents' taught more often about love and marriage than their grandparents reported teaching. Grandchildren's attitudes about positive love such as Eros, Storge, and Pragma was predicted by the grandchildren's own perception of their grandparents' advice-giving and teaching about Eros love. Sharing in marriage was related to all the socialization practices. Affectual solidarity between grandparents and their grandchildren interacted with socialization to enhance the effects for predicting grandchildren's Eros love and S (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2008, Communication Studies (Communication)

Traditionally, organizational scholars examining the socialization process new organizational members experience have done so from a post-hire viewpoint. Generally, these studies examined traditional, post-hire corporate contexts with full-time employees who have already gone through some level of organizational socialization. While technology in relation to socialization is also discussed, it is often done as part of posthire, organizationally-driven socialization tactics and many studies investigating the impact of technology rarely venture outside of this boundary.This study examined the pre-hire socialization process and the impact of the virtual world, specifically virtual communities, on the process. Qualitative interviews grounded in two research questions explored the use of virtual communities by teachers of English as a Foreign Language classes in Thailand. The resulting themes include developing a process, how to live abroad, how to work abroad, the (mis)match, left to their own devices, and individual-within-community. Taken together, these themes provided the foundation to build a better understanding of organizational anticipatory socialization processes of English as a Foreign Language teachers in Thailand and the ways in which virtual community interaction and participation relate to the socialization and training efforts by educational institutions in Thailand. The teachers descriptions of their organizational anticipatory socialization processes gave rise to three different implications regarding the use of virtual communities in the organizational anticipatory socialization process. First, is the need to re-conceptualize virtual communities as realistic job previews. Second, traditional definitions of socialization as a linear process are challenged by this study. Finally, the themes raised career development and vocational organizational socialization issues as a result of the teachers interactions with the virtual communities.

MA, Kent State University, 2010, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

This applied, phenomenological study explored how 20 midcareer transition women experienced their socialization into traditional fulltime graduate study. Participants were asked about communication socialization processes they recalled in their academic departments during their first semester adjustment. Qualitative thematic analysis of e-mail interviews revealed six interrelated themes: department fit, identity losses, interactive stress reactions, internal success strategies, positive proactive communication and sink or swim survival communication. Departments' socialization tactics influenced midcareer transition women students' interpretations of good or bad department fit. Participants' adjustment experiences within their departments were also strongly influenced by pre-entry identity losses related to jobs they had voluntarily given up before graduate school. Participants responded to socialization messages from academic departments through non-instrumental interactive stress reactions, instrumental proactive internal success strategies, and positive proactive communication. Participants who perceived bad department fit reported a distinct type of negative proactive communication labeled sink or swim survival communication. Findings suggested that department divestiture tactics, specifically a lack of faculty support and identity affirmation, led to a perception of poor department fit and subsequent sink-or-swim communication. Findings have theoretical implications for communication socialization processes and practical implications for academic departments wishing to recruit, socialize and retain midcareer transition women students.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Educational Studies

This study explored teachers' emotion socialization practices when children experienced negative emotions and their impact on children's emotion regulation outcomes in Early Head Start classrooms. The data involved classroom video recordings from four teachers and 18 consented children in three classrooms within two Early Head Start centers. I developed a new video coding scheme to identify children's negative emotions, teacher responses, and children's emotion regulation outcomes within consistent episodes. Data were coded using NVivo 14 software, and sequential analysis was employed to identify teacher responses following children's negative emotions, as well as children's emotion regulation outcomes following teacher responses. The results indicated that teachers predominantly used emotion coaching and problem-solving coaching, with fewer instances of emotion dismissing. Specifically, teachers tended to apply problem-solving coaching when children exhibited anger during peer conflicts, while emotion coaching was more commonly used when children were crying or fearful. The findings also suggested that both emotion coaching and problem-solving coaching were associated with more effective emotion regulation in children or a transition toward effective emotion regulation. In contrast, emotion dismissing by teachers led to ineffective emotion regulation outcomes in children. Overall, this study offers insights into the dynamic interactions between children and teachers when children express negative emotions, highlighting the importance of teacher supportive strategies in promoting children's emotional development.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1969, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1969, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2024, Communication Studies (Communication)

This dissertation centers the lived experiences of N = 43 American millennials who during their adult lives, have deconstructed, disidentified, and exited from organized evangelical Christianity in the United States. In order to investigate this context, I implemented a methodological bricolage (Levi-Strauss, 1966) of semi-structured interviews, iterative analysis (Tracy, 2013), and autoethnography (Ellis et al., 2011) to quilt together a data corpus that provides a partial yet comprehensive insight into the experiences of the individuals interviewed in this study, as well as my own. Theoretically, this dissertation is grounded in the organizational socialization (Van Maanen & Shein, 1979; Jablin, 1982, 1987, 2001), organizational identification (Cheney, 1983, 2001, 2004; Mael & Ashforth, 1992, Cheney et al., 2014), and the social identity/identification (Burke, 1959; Tajfel & Turner, 1986, 2004) literatures, which provides a framework and opening for this research. Findings from this dissertation add to the faith-based voluntary exit and religious communication literature through the proposal of four theoretical contributions: The Triad of Control, The American Millennial Evangelical Christian Exit Model, The Duality of Deconstruction, and lastly, The Millennial Resistance to Exclusionary Binaries.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, EDU Teaching and Learning

Chinese heritage language learners are individuals who are raised in homes where a non-dominant language is spoken, who speak or merely understand the heritage language, and are, to some degree, bilingual in their dominant language and the heritage language. They possess varying degrees of proficiency in both their dominant language and the heritage language, often straddling the line between two cultures. This position often leads to identity-related issues, which in turn can complicate heritage language learners' language development and participation in certain contexts. This study is a qualitative multiple-case study of five Chinese-Indonesian students in a study abroad environment in Taiwan, exploring the students' language socialization practices, academic adaptation, and identity shifting and maintaining processes. Considering several problems faced by Chinese heritage language learners, this study aims to obtain a greater understanding of how Chinese heritage language learners report shaping and being shaped in their socialization and adaptation processes across foreign academic and non-academic contexts after studying for their bachelor's degrees in different universities in Taiwan. More specifically, this study will try to understand how those heritage language learners got involved in Taiwanese academic and non-academic contexts. Based on reported data, this study investigates if those heritage language learners' identities have been shifted or maintained, and how those learners' identities guide their language socialization and academic adaptation processes. This research uses case study methodology to investigate Chinese heritage language learners' academic and non-academic adaptation processes through a language socialization lens. Five Chinese heritage language learners are interviewed and recorded based on self-reported retrospective data and language proficiency records. Data collection is focused on six types of data: a background questionna (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

Faculty are critical players to advance institutional mission in higher education (Clark, 1972). Hiring faculty who have an affinity for mission and who understand and support Catholicism in the spirit of an institution's founding charism can be a significant challenge for academic leaders and for the longevity of institutional mission in Catholic higher education (Heft, 2021). Faculty across disciplines may find it challenging to grasp or apply the mission of their Catholic university because mission-related criteria are not always understood or prioritized in faculty hiring processes (Breslin, 2000; Briele, 2012; Heft, 2021; Steele, 2008). Currently, there is no standard mission focused guide for faculty hiring at the University of Dayton (UD), a Catholic Marianist University. Given that hiring priorities and practical knowledge of Catholic Marianist principles of education differ among faculty across the university, hiring for mission criteria may not be well defined among search committees. This practical action research study used qualitative methods to explore how affinity for the University of Dayton's Catholic Marianist mission is assessed in faculty searches. Results showed that search committee members consider mission principles at least moderately important, but these have not been consistently identified in candidate assessment criteria. Still, participants discussed six mission-based criteria with twenty component elements that have been operative in some way in recent faculty searches. This knowledge, coupled with the principles of Marianist education, informed Hiring Faculty to Engage Catholic Marianist Mission, a practical intervention plan to strengthen hiring for mission practices through articulating the purpose of hiring for mission; developing criteria and assessment rubrics; standardizing the hiring for mission search process; and fostering faculty stakeholder participation. Anticipated results of the action plan and challenges in project lead (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, East Asian Languages and Literatures

This thesis argues for the training of volunteer instructors working in Japanese language and culture classrooms across Japan to become able use a performance-based pedagogical approach with the aim of improving the overall linguistic and cultural competency of foreign-born residents living in Japan in the interest of having them become full and equal participant members of their local communities. The pedagogical approach supported in this thesis seeks to directly connect the methods being practiced in Japanese language and culture classrooms in local communities to the ultimate aims of helping foreign-born residents become participant members of their communities as stated by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), among others (MIC, 2020; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), 2023; Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA), 2019). To accomplish this, this thesis will offer a model for a specific training workshop in which volunteer instructors can be introduced to and given example models of a performance-based approach to acquiring linguistic and cultural competency based off of the Performed-Culture Approach (PCA) (Walker & Noda, 2000), and in which volunteer instructors can be given opportunities to practice participating in performance-based lessons themselves, gaining first-hand experience and receiving detailed feedback from a presenter experienced in this pedagogical approach. The performance-based pedagogical approach proposed here aims specifically to address the underlying cultural and social assumptions of the learner and aims to afford interactional opportunities between the learners and instructors, which is understood to be necessary for their socialization into the local ways of behaving and communicating. Through lessons based around identifying the underlying elements of context (see Appendix A) that inform proficient speakers in combination with active emulation of video models, volunteer inst (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Psychology

The embrace of Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African (MENA) Americans in the U.S. has oscillated between passive acceptance and outright disdain. Although this community is classified as White in the U.S. Census, their broader position in society is often one of a marginalized group. Thus, the present study aimed to examine how Arab/MENA caregivers discuss race and ethnicity with their adolescents, pass on cultural values, and prepare them for incidents involving biases and discrimination, processes known as ethnic-racial socialization (ERS). Using an open-ended qualitative approach, we explored (a) the content of Arab/MENA caregivers' ERS messages and the methods through which they convey these messages, (b) experiences of discrimination, and (c) how they cope with and discuss experiences of discrimination. We recruited 16 participants (n = 8 caregivers of adolescents, and 8 adolescents) who completed one-hour semi-structured interviews via secure video platforms. Based on thematic analysis, we identified 28 themes across four domains: 1) ERS messages content, 2) methods, 3) experiences of discrimination, and 4) coping. Findings highlight the role of cultural and religious socialization as closely intertwined, racialized experiences ranging from ignorance to physical assaults, and use of strategies such as pride in one's identity and forgiveness to cope.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Psychology

Using cross-sectional findings, predominantly from Western countries (e.g., Belgium), researchers have conceptualized parental socialization of adolescents' positive affect (PA) to be a predictor of adolescent depression. However, most studies have found that these responses do not directly predict depressive symptoms over time. Given interpersonal theories of depression, cross-sectional findings may be more reflective of depressive symptoms eliciting parenting behaviors. Additionally, given family systems theory, the relations between depressive symptoms and parental PA socialization may differ based on parents' own psychopathology. Therefore, the current study tested whether adolescent depressive symptoms predicted changes in parental PA socialization (i.e., dampening, enhancing, balancing) in a sample of families from India, and whether parental depressive symptoms moderated these associations. Adolescent girls (N = 318) and their parents residing in Bangalore, India, participated across two time points approximately five months apart. Using path analyses, neither adolescent depressive symptoms nor their interaction with parental depressive symptoms predicted changes in any parental PA socialization responses. Despite null longitudinal findings, concurrent relations revealed that both adolescent and parental depressive symptoms related to higher dampening and lower enhancing of adolescent PA. Clinicians providing family- based interventions for depression may consider gathering information on parent- adolescent interactions surrounding the adolescent's experience of PA.