PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

The purpose of the qualitative study was to explore clinical mental health counseling practicum students' experiences counseling sexual assault (SA) survivors at a college counseling center. Transcendental phenomenology was the methodology used to explore this phenomenon. I recruited and interviewed 10 participants and utilized the modified van Kaam model of data analysis (Moustakas, 1994). Findings of this study included three major themes: awareness of inadequacy, knowledge synthesis, and an emotional reaction. Based on these findings, implications and recommendations according to the five core areas of counselor education and supervision are included.

Committee: Cassandra Storlie (Committee Co-Chair); John Rainey (Committee Co-Chair); Maureen Blankemeyer (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Clinical Psychology; Cognitive Psychology; Counseling Psychology; Psychology; Social Psychology; Social Work

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

This dissertation was an exploration of equitable praxis in social work field education, focusing on the experiences of minoritized students compared to their white counterparts. The study was guided by the Council of Social Work Education standards, which emphasize field education as the signature pedagogy for social work programs, integrating theory and practice to ensure students are competent in the profession's values, ethics, and skills. The research was a means to determine if minoritized students receive the same support and constructive feedback as white students during their practicum experiences. This was an investigation of whether there are discrepancies in practicum evaluations based on race, using qualitative and quantitative secondary data from a U.S. Midwestern university's social work program between 2016 and 2022. The findings indicated that students belonging to minority groups frequently received feedback that was less constructive and were subjected to a higher number of disciplinary actions, leaving them with insufficient time to address these issues. In contrast, white students had more opportunities to rectify their behavior. Additionally, strengths-based feedback was inconsistently provided, with white students receiving more detailed and competency-focused encouragement. The study underscores the need for social work programs to provide more equitable support, including targeted training for field instructors on working with minoritized students. Integrating antiracist principles and culturally responsive teaching methods is recommended to enhance the practicum experience for all students. Secondary data should be more accessible and utilized to inform and improve educational practices. This dissertation advocates for a more inclusive and equitable approach to social work education, emphasizing the need for systemic changes to support minoritized students effectively.

Committee: Cynthia Tyson (Advisor) Subjects: Minority and Ethnic Groups; Multicultural Education; Social Work

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.

Committee: Kenneth Borland Ed.D. (Committee Chair); Brian Snow Ph.D. (Committee Member); Patrick Pauken Ph.D. (Committee Member); Maureen Wilson Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Adult Education; Education; Educational Leadership; Educational Technology; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2022, Counselor Education and Supervision

The relationship that academic entitlement and professional identity have with self- efficacy has been studied in previous research, but how these constructs are associated within the counseling literature is lacking. The present study investigated whether academic entitlement (as measured by two subscales of the Academic Entitlement Scale) and/or professional identity (as measured by three subscales of the Professional Identity Scale in Counseling – Short Form) are predictors of counseling self-efficacy (as measured by the Counselor Self-Efficacy Scale) among a sample population (N = 97) of counselor trainees from across the United States. Results of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that two traits of professional identity, Professional Knowledge and Attitude toward Profession, were significant positive predictors of counseling self-efficacy. These results indicated that when counselor trainees are knowledgeable about and/or possess a positive perspective regarding the counseling profession, it is associated with stronger beliefs in the ability to effectively counsel a client. However, the traits of academic entitlement examined in the present study were not significant predictors of counseling self-efficacy. Implications for self-efficacy theory, counselor trainees, counseling practice, counselor educators and supervisors, and future research were discussed.

Committee: Robert Schwartz (Committee Chair); Varunee Faii Sangganjanavanich (Committee Member); Seungbum Lee (Committee Member); David Tefteller (Committee Member); Yue Dang (Committee Member) Subjects: Counseling Education

PHD, Kent State University, 2020, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Lifespan Development and Educational Sciences

This phenomenological study looks at the impact of clients who cry in session on students enrolled in a CACREP Accredited Masters Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program. The results indicate students are under prepared for clients who cry in session due to a large part in lack of experience with emotion during childhood related to family. Additionally, results indicate that master's clinical mental health counseling students bring biases into the counseling room, which are mostly gender specific, with the bias that men do not cry and women are expected to become emotional. This study delves into these results to bring forward a better understanding of how clinical mental health counseling students process clients crying in session during their practicum and internship experiences. Lastly, this study provides insight into clients crying in session and how to better prepare our clinical mental health counseling students in understanding and responding to crying.

Committee: Jason McGlothlin (Committee Co-Chair); Martin Jencius (Committee Co-Chair); Sonya Wisdom (Committee Member) Subjects: Counseling Education

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2019, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

This dissertation explores how a group of first-year graduate teaching associates (TAs) at Bowling Green State university (BGSU) accounts for embodied performance in teaching first-year writing (FYW). Guided by a feminist community-based teacher-research methodology, I conducted a mixed-methods case study of BGSU's Fall 2017 composition practicum course, ENG 6020: Composition Instructors' Workshop, in order to understand how TAs performed embodiment as they taught for the first time locally, and for some, for the first time overall, in BGSU's FYW program, General Studies Writing. By analyzing TAs' teaching portfolio documents, including teaching philosophy statements, performance narratives (a video-recording of the TA teaching plus a written reflection), and observation memos, plus individual interview conversations with four TAs, I hoped to learn how first-year TAs representing a range of English sub-disciplines and experience levels demonstrated embodiment and performance, as well as teacherly identity construction, in their teaching portfolios. Through this study I concluded that my TA co-researchers practice what I term rhetorical embodied performance in their FYW instruction—they perform their bodies so as to construct themselves as the teacher. Moreover, I identify three modes through which the TAs demonstrate rhetorical embodied performance in their teaching: embodied engagement, embodied authority, and embodied reflection; and I explore how each of my co-researchers individually cultivates their teaching identity by referencing their rhetorical embodied performance in their teaching philosophy documents. I use this analysis to propose a pedagogy of rhetorical embodied performance for TA education, which would contribute to scholarly conversations in rhetoric and writing surrounding the theoretical and practical divide in TA preparation and development. Therefore, this dissertation project contributes to disciplinary conversations on the intersections of tea (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lee Nickoson PhD (Advisor); Daniel Bommarito PhD (Committee Member); Sue Wood PhD (Committee Member); Radhika Gajjala PhD (Other) Subjects: Composition; Pedagogy; Rhetoric; Teacher Education

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Lifespan Development and Educational Sciences

This paper aims to provide a position on the need for enhanced personnel preparation for special instruction in Early Intervention (EI). The need for specialized training is discussed, followed by the research, current issues, and needs. A framework for personnel preparation is provided: professional standards, competencies (knowledge, skills, and dispositions), six content areas, and program elements for instruction, which include coursework and field experiences. Specific emphasis is placed on structuring meaningful field experiences for learning, and a framework for the practicum is described. The practicum should be competency-based, provide multiple opportunities to practice skills, and supervision to support implementation and reflection. Recommendations for state EI systems and personnel preparation programs are provided. A case example illustrating one aspect of personnel preparation, in the form of an exploratory qualitative study, is presented. This study examined the process of how preservice professionals in an EI graduate personnel preparation program develop professional dispositions through their practicum experiences with families of infants and toddlers with developmental delays or disabilities. The author interviewed these practicum students to understand their views on the necessary dispositions for EI as well as to understand the experiences that influenced the formation of these dispositions within their practicum. Analysis of the interviews and participants' self-ratings provided a deeper understanding of their values, attitudes, and beliefs about EI and themselves, and of the specific practicum experiences that led to the development of dispositions. Implications for personnel preparation programs and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Committee: Sanna Harjusola-Webb PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects: Education; Special Education

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Education : Educational Studies

This research study was designed to determine graduate teaching assistants' (GTAs) perspective on their preparation to teach First Year Composition (FYC) in a multicultural teaching context and to determine the relevance of culturally responsive teaching to this experience. The study utilized the qualitative research methodology Portraiture and examined the experiences of three white, female English GTAs at a major urban university in the Midwest. The researcher found that each of the participants felt instruction about culturally responsive teaching would enhance their training, although it is not a concept that is a part of composition discourse. Moreover, they believed their training adequately prepared them to teach in a multicultural classroom context despite often feeling like they did not “know what to do” in their classrooms when issues related to cultural diversity arose. This seeming contradiction is discussed as the possible outcome of Shulman's (1994) notion of the “plague of nostalgia”—which suggests that novice teachers are most comfortable repeating the behavior(s) of those who taught them the respective subject matter irrespective of the potential problems that may cause—and only a partial commitment to culturally responsive teaching. The study thus concludes with the claim that GTA training as well as FYC instruction must commit to multicultural education and, thus, culturally responsive teaching in order to ensure that no student is denied full access to higher education.

Committee: Roger Collins PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects:

Master of Environmental Science, Miami University, 2012, Environmental Sciences

This paper reports on the production of a video documentary for the development of a Watershed Education and Research Center at Hueston Woods State Park. Miami University faculty determined a need for a short film depicting four primary areas: 1) the definition of a watershed, 2) the history of the Four Mile Creek watershed and Acton Lake reservoir, 3) the research being conducted on the Four Mile Creek watershed, and 4) the case for building a new education center at Acton Lake. The final product is a twenty-three minute documentary encompassing all four of these objectives. This paper presents the background of the education center and describes the process of creating the documentary. The video will be used as a promotional tool for garnering interest in the project and securing funding for the development of the center.

Committee: Ann Rypstra PhD (Advisor); Scott Johnston (Committee Co-Chair); Kevin Armitage PhD (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: Environmental Science

DNP, Kent State University, 2013, College of Nursing

The United States healthcare system is rapidly changing and patient safety and quality indicators continue to be of primary significance as the current paradigm emphasizes prevention of patient harm and quality improvement of healthcare delivery processes. As the nursing profession continues to make the necessary adaptations in response to these challenges, an education to practice gap has been identified. This gap, which is the inability of the graduate nurse to effectively transition into practice, has significant ramifications for all healthcare stakeholders and indicates that it is necessary for nursing education to undergo fundamental transformation. One specific component of nursing education programs, the clinical practicum, has been identified as providing a potentially effective and innovative way to facilitate the development of successful transition into practice. This Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) scholarly project evaluated the effectiveness of a practicum evaluation tool in measuring the nursing students' actual readiness for clinical practice. Data for this study was obtained from 47 Preceptor Contribution to Evaluation of Student (PCES) tools from an associate degree in nursing (ADN) program. An analysis of the data obtained from the index total results, the written comments frequency distribution and the correlation between the index total and written comments indicated that the current PCES tool is ineffective in providing the information related to students' ability to meet the practicum objectives and successfully transition from the education to practice environment. Based upon these results, a revised PCES tool was developed that will be trialed and evaluated for utilization in the ADN program in the future.

Committee: Connie Tezie DNP, NP-C (Committee Chair); Carol Drennen MSN, RN (Committee Member); F. Anne Freitas Ph.D., RN (Committee Member) Subjects: Nursing