Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, ED Physical Activities and Educational Services

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships among perceived effectiveness of NBTAs, extent of advice networks, and perceived job outcomes in a semiconductor manufacturing company in Korea, using a mixed method. The data for the quantitative study were collected from an online survey questionnaire. The population consisted of all employees (N=15,000) who were working in production facilities of the company or branch offices in Korea. The total number of respondents was 188 out of 375 employees randomly selected, with an overall response rate of 50.13%. The data for the qualitative study were gathered from semi-structured interviews with eight employees who responded to the online survey. Canonical correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were utilized to analyze the survey data. Additionally, content analysis was employed to analyzed and interpret the interview data. The results showed that on-the-job training approaches and training approaches within a business unit were perceived to be more helpful than common training approaches to develop advice relations. Yet, no relationships were found between advice networks and the perceived effectiveness of NBTAs. The results also indicated that no mediation occurred between the perceived effectiveness of NBTAs and perceived job outcomes. Although the study failed to reveal the mediation between the perceived effectiveness of NBTAs and perceived job outcomes, the findings from the quantitative and qualitative studies provided evidences that NBTAs helped individuals develop advice networks, and the development of advice networks through NBTAs had an impact on individual job performance and job satisfaction. In addition, the results of this study identified four processes which create advice networks through training approaches: 1) developing advice networks based on job-relatedness, 2) sharing a common interest among others, 3) spending time doing group activities with others, and 4) spending (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ronald Jacobs PhD (Advisor); Joshua Hawley EdD (Committee Member); Larry Miller PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Adult Education

PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

This doctoral dissertation examines Simplification and Explicitation translation shifts within the context of simultaneous conference interpreting from Arabic to English. Traditionally considered distinct alterations in linguistic features, these shifts are redefined in this study as adaptive strategies that interpreters might employ to manage the inherent challenges of real-time language transfer. Simplification, typically characterized by reduced sentence length and simpler vocabulary, and Explicitation, the explicit rendering of implicit information, are the focal points of this research. By integrating advanced machine transcription and corpus analysis tools, the research systematically quantifies these shifts, providing a rigorous examination of their frequency and impact. Four key indicators were employed: Average Sentence Length (ASL) and Lexical Density (LD) to assess Simplification, and Wordcount (WRDC) and Readability (READ) scores to measure Explicitation. The findings reveal that, for Simplification, there were no statistically significant differences between the R-corpus (reference) and T-corpus (target) in terms of ASL or LD. For Explicitation, the WRDC comparison between the T-corpus and S-corpus (source) similarly showed no significant difference. However, a statistically significant difference was observed in the READ scores, with the T-corpus demonstrating lower readability, indicating that the target texts in the T-corpus are generally easier to read and more accessible compared to the texts in the S-corpus. These findings complicate the expected patterns of Simplification and Explicitation in simultaneous interpreting. While translation studies often link Simplification to ASL and lower LD, the T-corpus did not show significant differences. For Explicitation, the significant difference in READ scores suggests that interpreters in simultaneous interpreting may prioritize readability and accessibility, rather than increase complexity. T (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Said Shiyab (Advisor); Michael Carl (Committee Member); William Bintz (Committee Member); Abed el-Rahman Tayyara (Committee Member); Ryan Miller (Committee Member) Subjects: Adult Education; Comparative; Education; Foreign Language; Language; Language Arts; Linguistics; Social Studies Education

Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis, Youngstown State University, 2024, Department of Psychological Sciences and Counseling

Applied Behavioral Analysis is a growing and more prominent field. Previous research has indicated that parent training can be beneficial, and the progress moves more quickly with the client when the parent is interactive in the treatment as well. In this research study, the researcher analyzed to see if providing brief ABA training; would increase the knowledge of the parents. In the brief training, the following topics were covered, positive and negative reinforcement, positive and negative punishment, functional behavioral assessments, and behavioral intervention plans. Over 100 flyers were sent out to the families that receive services and 15 responded to participate, however only 14 attended the sessions. The participants took a pre and post-test to determine if knowledge was gained after the classes. It was determined that knowledge did increase after receiving the class based on the post-test. However, it was disclosed by the participants that they would attend more if they were provided. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief ABA training provided in a community behavioral health center to teach basic ABA terminology that may be utilized during treatment with their child.

Committee: Kristopher Brown PsyD, BCBA-D (Advisor); Desirae Thompson LPCC-S, BCBA (Committee Member); Joseph Corpa MS, BCBA (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Nursing Practice, Mount St. Joseph University , 2024, Department of Nursing

Heart failure is the leading cause of readmissions among chronic illnesses in the United States (Oh et al., 2021). Patients with chronic disease need correct knowledge and understanding about maintaining, monitoring, and managing their illness in their daily lives. However, patients with low health reading ability have a more challenging time with comprehension (Oh et al., 2021). It is imperative for acute care nursing staff to gain the ability to properly educate heart failure patients on the disease process to increase the patient's quality of life while decreasing their chance of hospital readmission. This project aimed to increase nursing knowledge related to heart failure and disease-specific education using smart-phrase technology to reduce heart failure 30-day readmission rates. After initial stakeholder meetings, staff education and training, and project implementation, the project did show a decrease in hospital admissions within the 12-week utilization period. The readmission data is under review to ensure the smart-phrase is still effective in current practice. The project achieved its goals, including improving nurse competency in heart failure and simplifying patient education.

Committee: Monica Warde (Advisor) Subjects: Health Care; Health Education; Nursing

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Cross-Cultural, International Education

This research study focuses on exploring the parental struggles that parents of children with disabilities go through when trying to access special education for their children in the educational system of Kenya. The study documents the perspectives of parents through analysis of data anchored within their struggles and experiences as they navigate the system of education to access quality education for their children with disabilities. Based on a phenomenological approach, the study focuses on a sample of eight parents of children with disabilities. Hogan's (2019) Social Model of Disability and Medical Model of Disability help frame the study within the discussion of the experiences of parents of children with disabilities. The findings of this study are presented through specific themes, describing the personal challenges and experiences of these parents followed by an analysis of the same themes. These findings underscore systemic challenges in special education, cultural and societal attitudes and educational outcome and well-being issues faced by parents and their children with disabilities.

Committee: Audrey Roberts Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Chris Willis Ed.D. (Committee Member); Christy Horner Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Leadership; Special Education

DNP, Kent State University, 2023, College of Nursing

Unintended pregnancies cost an estimated $12 billion annually in publicly funded benefits, contributes to intergenerational poverty, and results in lower educational attainment for mothers and their children. Several professional organizations recommend all health care providers counsel women regarding contraception at every visit regardless of the reason for the appointment. However, contraceptive services provided in any setting is considered inadequate overall (ACOG, 2022; CDC, 2016). This quality improvement project used the plan, do, check, act methodology to assess patient satisfaction with a provider assisted digital contraception education tool. Assessment was also done to ensure that it does not create any type of burden for the provider. Data collection included patient surveys regarding satisfaction with tool use at the conclusion of the visit. Provider perception of helpfulness of bedsider.org will be assessed using a survey at the end of the data collection period. Support staff perceptions of disruptions in office workflow will also be assessed via a one question survey at the end of the data collection period. The convenience sample included 100 patients scheduled for an appointment for the purposes of contraceptive counseling during the designated data collection periods. The provider sample was limited to the physician provider and the nurse practitioner in the office setting. Ancillary staff (medical assistants, secretaries, schedulers) were also be asked to complete a survey regarding the extent of office workflow disruption. The digital contraception educational tool was found to be satisfactory for patients, providers, and ancillary staff.

Committee: Eldora Lazaroff (Committee Chair); Constance Cottrell (Advisor); Karen Mascolo (Committee Member); Lynn Gaddis (Committee Member) Subjects: Nursing

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2022, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

Sex is an integral part of human nature and identity (Sanabria & Murray, 2018), yet many clinical psychology programs may not offer adequate sexuality training. This study explored clients' needs for support surrounding sexuality, clinical competence in human sexuality, and the availability of human sexuality training in doctoral psychology programs across the United States. In an effort to create a large sample size, I randomly chose 25 doctoral psychology programs to examine the nature of their sexuality trainings or sex education. Only two of these programs offered classes or trainings, though neither of the programs required the courses for program completion. Due to the qualitative nature of this study and availability of subjects, I chose to interview six locally based individuals who sought therapy from a clinical psychologist within 10 years of this study. Most subjects reported that while sex and sexuality were important factors in their therapeutic endeavors, their therapists lacked awareness or comfort around discussions of sexuality. The findings in this study suggest that the (a) lack of human sexuality training in doctoral psychology curriculums and (b) overall dissatisfaction of the six individuals I interviewed may indicate a need for further studies examining quality and availability of human sexuality training in doctoral psychology programs, and (c) the lack of training offered by doctoral psychology programs may limit clinicians' clinical competency.

Committee: Chris Heffner PsyD,PhD (Committee Chair); Dug Lee PhD, ABPP (Committee Member); Sara Beth Lohre PsyD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Psychology; Psychotherapy; Therapy

Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis, Youngstown State University, 2022, Department of Psychological Sciences and Counseling

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is the one of the most effective treatments for the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Registered Behavior Technicians (RBTs) are the primary paraprofessionals who deliver ABA services to individuals with ASD. To become certified, RBTs complete a 40-hour online training, pass a competency assessment, and standardized examination to obtain the certification. In addition to demonstrating competency, ongoing supervision (5% of hours worked) and training from a certified behavior analyst is required for RBTs to maintain the credential and practice effectively with clients. This makes effective training and supervision critical, especially for technicians working with children who exhibit severe behaviors. Colombo, Taylor, and Hammond (2020) surveyed board certified behavior analysts (BCBAs) who practice with clients who engage in severe problem behavior in the home setting and identified several areas for improvement. However, they did not assess the needs and ongoing training offered to RBTs who frequently provide ABA services to individuals with severe problem behavior. Thus, the purpose of the current study is to extend Colombo, Taylor, and Hammond (2020) by surveying RBTs for their training experiences for working with children with severe problem behavior. Results indicated that many RBTs do not receive initial formal training or ongoing training for severe problem behavior cases. Increasing the amount of effective training for RBTs will increase the effectiveness of implementation of interventions and decrease the number of work-related injuries for RBTs and clients. Increasing the amount of effective training for RBTs will increase the effectiveness of implementation of interventions and decrease the number of work-related injuries for RBTs and clients.

Committee: Kristopher Brown PsyD (Advisor); Mary Brown MS (Committee Member); Cecelia Stacchiotti MS (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Psychology; Behavioral Sciences; Developmental Psychology; Health Care; Health Care Management; Health Sciences; Organizational Behavior; Psychology; Special Education

Ph.D., Antioch University, 0, Leadership and Change

Preceptors play a vital role in supporting nursing/midwifery students and new employees' transition and assimilation into their new role. Furthermore, with the increasing focus on educating more qualified nurses and midwives to meet health-related United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, there is a need for a more standardized and coordinated approach to preceptorship training. As former Head of the Nursing/Midwifery Training Institution in Ghana, I observed first-hand that the system of preceptorship needs improvements. Published literature on preceptorship has shown that the practice plays a vital role in healthcare delivery. However, most of the existing literature preceptorship is from developed countries, with little research from developing countries like Ghana. This study explored the practice of preceptorship in selected nursing/midwifery and healthcare institutions in Ghana. Situational analysis was used to examine the complex dynamics of the preceptorship program. It consists of three main procedural tools: situational maps, social worlds/arenas maps, and positional maps. Several important factors were found to impact preceptorship in Ghana. Key ones were motivational (monetary) challenges, lack of training of preceptors, politicking related to the development of preceptorship manuals, supervision, and outdated procedure guidelines for on-the-job teaching students. The study offers a series of recommendations to improve preceptorship practice at micro, meso, and macro levels. Additionally, they may enable regulators and policy makers in Ghana to formulate policies leading to a more robust preceptorship program to strengthen the skills of nursing/midwifery profession. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Committee: Aqeel Tirmizi Dr. (Committee Chair); Elizabeth Holloway Dr. (Committee Member); Mary Asirifi Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Adult Education; Nursing

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2021, Leadership and Change

School districts spend millions of dollars each year to provide training and learning to staff working in direct and indirect service to students (National Council on Teacher Quality, 2021). This financial commitment says nothing about what is even more important: the need for school employees and the systems in which we work to serve students more effectively. Despite vast allocations of time and money and presumably best intentions for better social and academic outcomes for students, very little data exist that reflect regular transfer and application of training/learning into professional practice (Nittler et al., 2015). By and large, schools and school systems look the same today as they did 50+ years ago despite the fact that the world looks very different and so much more is known about the cognitive process and contextual contributors involved in erudition development. Teacher application of critical competencies such as cultural responsiveness, trauma informed practices, social emotional learning and basic neuroscience in the ways they conceptualize and implement instructional practices may not be easily apparent during casual observation, yet they are inextricably linked to positive academic and social outcomes for students, thus imperative to effective professional practice. This study investigates the ways in which professional educators make decisions about the transfer and application of professional learning centered on critical competencies (soft skills) in their daily work. Narrative Inquiry (NI) provided the methodological frame for this exploratory study that through thematic analysis surfaced five key factors influencing learning transfer: Instructor/Presenter/Facilitator; Connection to Lived Experience; Relevance to Job Assignment; Alignment with Self-Identity; and COVID–19. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu ) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Committee: Jon Wergin PhD (Committee Chair); J. Beth Mabry PhD (Committee Member); Leann Kaiser PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Continuing Education; Education; Educational Evaluation; Educational Leadership; Inservice Training; Instructional Design; Organizational Behavior; School Administration; Teacher Education; Teaching

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2020, Speech Pathology and Audiology

This study analyzed the effects of training on the interrater reliability of auditory-perceptual analysis of voice and laryngeal videostroboscopic ratings as well as training influence on rater confidence. Twenty-nine speech-language pathology (SLP) graduate students were trained in audio-perceptual and laryngeal videostroboscopic ratings. Pre-training and post-training questionnaires assessed participant experience in clinical voice evaluation and confidence using rating tools. Audio samples of dysphonic and normal speaking voices were rated by participants using the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V). Following initial ratings, the participants were trained on auditory-perceptual analysis and the CAPE-V using textual and auditory anchors consisting of voice samples that were selected to exemplify each parameter. Participants then completed post-training ratings without the use of anchors. Laryngeal videostroboscopic recordings of pathologic and normal patients were then rated by SLP graduate students using a standard form for commonly evaluated parameters. Following initial ratings, participants were trained on visuo-perceptual analysis using textual and visual anchors of pathologic and normal videostroboscopic samples. Participants completed post-training ratings without the use of anchors. Outcomes reveal training increases accuracy for certain parameter types. While confidence increased significantly, no formal conclusions can be drawn. No relationship between rater confidence and reliability was observed.

Committee: Renee Gottliebson Ph. D., CCC-SLP (Advisor); Susan Baker-Brehm Ph. D., CCC-SLP (Committee Member); Courtney Robinson M.S., CCC-SLP (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Computer Science and Engineering

Speech is the most important means of human communication. In real environments, speech is often corrupted by acoustic inference, including noise, reverberation and competing speakers. Such interference leads to adverse effects on audition, and degrades the performance of speech applications. Inspired by the principles of human auditory scene analysis (ASA), computational auditory scene analysis (CASA) addresses speech separation in two main steps: segmentation and grouping. With noisy speech decomposed into a matrix of time-frequency (T-F) units, segmentation organizes T-F units into segments, each of which corresponds to a contiguous T-F region and is supposed to originate from the same source. Two types of grouping are then performed. Simultaneous grouping aggregates segments overlapping in time to simultaneous streams. In sequential grouping, simultaneous streams are grouped across time into distinct sources. As a traditional speech separation approach, CASA has been successfully applied in various speech-related tasks. In this dissertation, we revisit conventional CASA methods, and perform related tasks from a deep learning perspective. As an intrinsic characteristic of speech, pitch serves as a primary cue in many CASA systems. A reliable estimate of pitch is important not only for extracting harmonic patterns at a frame level, but also for streaming voiced speech in sequential grouping. Based on the types of interference, we can divide pitch tracking in two categories: single pitch tracking in noise and multi-pitch tracking. Pitch tracking in noise is challenging as the harmonic structure of speech can be severely contaminated. To recover the missing harmonic patterns, we propose to use long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to model sequential dynamics. Two architectures are investigated. The first one is conventional LSTM that utilizes recurrent connections to model temporal dynamics. The second one is two-level time-frequency (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: DeLiang Wang (Advisor); Eric Fosler-Lussier (Committee Member); Alan Ritter (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science; Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1971, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Educational Studies

This dissertation consists of an introduction to the dissertation and a statement of problem (Chapter 1), a comprehensive literature review exploring strategies for training teachers to conduct behavior analytic interventions in school settings (Chapter 2), two single-case studies evaluating the effectiveness of using published practitioner journal articles for training special education teachers on preference assessments (Chapter 3) and the system of least prompts (Chapter 4), and a general discussion summarizing the findings and describing future directions for research (Chapter 5). In Study 1 (Chapter 3), the results of a multiple probe design across participants showed that performance of all 6 participants during simulated (role-played) sessions increased to mastery criterion levels with both preference assessment procedures (paired-stimulus and multiple-stimulus without replacement) following the introduction of a published article. Acquired assessment skills generalized to actual assessment situations involving students with and without disabilities. In Study 2 (Chapter 4), I conducted a replication of Study 1 on a different behavior analytic procedure, the system of least prompts. The results showed that a published article improved performance for all 6 participants, although 2 of 6 needed self-monitoring to reach criterion. Findings are discussed with respect to the strategic use of published practitioner journal articles in staff training.

Committee: Nancy Neef (Advisor); Moira Konrad (Committee Member); Laurice Joseph (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Special Education; Teacher Education

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Wright State University, 2015, Computer Science and Engineering PhD

In this thesis, we discuss two issues in the learning to rank area, choosing effective objective loss function, constructing effective regresstion trees in the gradient boosting framework, as well as a third issus, applying learning to rank models into statistcal machine translation. First, list-wise based learning to rank methods either directly optimize performance measures or optimize surrogate functions of performance measures that have smaller gaps between optimized losses and performance measures, thus it is generally believed that they should be able to lead to better performance than point- and pair-wise based learning to rank methods. However, in real-world applications, state-of-the-art practical learning to rank systems, such as MART and LambdaMART, are not from list-wise based camp. One cause may be that several list-wise based methods work well in the popular but very small LETOR datasets but fail in real-world datasets that are often used for training practical systems. We propose a list-wise learning to rank method that is based on a list-wise surrogate function, the Plackett-Luce (PL) model. The PL model has convex loss to ensure a global optimal guarantee, and is proven to be consistent to certain performance measures such as NDCG score. When we conduct experiments on the PL model, we observe that it is actually unstable in performance; when the data has rich enough features, it gives very good results, but for data with scarce features, it fails horribly. For example, when we apply the PL with a linear model on the Microsoft 30K dataset, it gives 7.6 points worse NDCG@1 score than an average performance of several linear systems. This motivates us to propose our new ranking system, PLRank, that is suitable for any data sets through a mapping from feature space into tree space to gain more expressive power. PLRank is trained based on the gradient boosting framework, and it is simple to implement. It has th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Shaojun Wang Ph.D. (Advisor); Keke Chen Ph.D. (Committee Member); Xinhui Zhang Ph.D. (Committee Member); Michael Raymer Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Computer Science and Engineering

Speech is crucial for human communication. However, speech communication for both humans and automatic devices can be negatively impacted by background noise, which is common in real environments. Due to numerous applications, such as hearing prostheses and automatic speech recognition, separation of target speech from sound mixtures is of great importance. Among many techniques, speech separation using a single microphone is most desirable from an application standpoint. The resulting monaural speech separation problem has been a central problem in speech processing for several decades. However, its success has been limited thus far. Time-frequency (T-F) masking is a proven way to suppress background noise. With T-F masking as the computational goal, speech separation reduces to a mask estimation problem, which can be cast as a supervised learning problem. This opens speech separation to a plethora of machine learning techniques. Deep neural networks (DNN) are particularly suitable to this problem due to their strong representational capacity. This dissertation presents a systematic effort to develop monaural speech separation systems using DNNs. We start by presenting a comparative study on acoustic features for supervised separation. In this relatively early work, we use support vector machine as classifier to predict the ideal binary mask (IBM), which is a primary goal in computational auditory scene analysis. We found that traditional speech and speaker recognition features can actually outperform previously used separation features. Furthermore, we present a feature selection method to systematically select complementary features. The resulting feature set is used throughout the dissertation. DNN has shown success across a range of tasks. We then study IBM estimation using DNN, and show that it is significantly better than previous systems. Once properly trained, the system generalizes reasonably well to unseen conditions. We demonstrate that our sy (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: DeLiang Wang (Advisor); Eric Fosler-Lussier (Committee Member); Mikhail Belkin (Committee Member); Eric Healy (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science; Engineering

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2015, Leadership and Change

This study explored the lived-experiences of 15 correctional officers and 5 sergeants working in adult state-operated prison facilities in Michigan. In particular, this qualitative grounded theory study revealed the impact that budget driven decision-making had on the lives of correctional officers: its effect on institutional custody, security, and safety. The study finds that many recent policy changes resulted in a sense of powerlessness expressed by the participants of the study. Participants found themselves in a precarious position, situated in between the prison population and the administration. Having an understanding of how correctional officers make meaning of their work in relation to powerlessness provides increased clarity regarding overall job satisfaction and organizational effectiveness. Perhaps the most significant finding involves the participants' foreshadowing prison riots based on a lack of resources and a return to a time when Michigan prisons were less safe. Participants reference low staffing levels, changes to the inmate security classification system, overcrowding, inadequate training, disengaged staff, low organizational commitment, inexperienced executive leadership, and poor food service as contributing factors to the participants' overall sense of powerlessness to prevent future prison unrest. Most participants have voluntarily deselected from consideration to assume future formal leadership roles; most of the sergeant participants have expressed regret for joining the ranks of management. These factors have significant implications for organizational leadership and change. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, http://www.etd.ohiolink.edu and AURA, http://aura.antioch.edu/

Committee: Elizabeth Holloway PhD (Committee Chair); Lize Booysen DBL (Committee Member); Nancy Hogan PhD (Committee Member); Travis Schermer PhD (Other) Subjects: Criminology; Management; Organizational Behavior; Public Administration

EdD, University of Cincinnati, 2014, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Counselor Education

Nearly 100 Americans die by suicide every day, with countless others negatively affected. The range of suicide prevention models has dramatically expanded over the past two decades (Knox et al., 2004) with gatekeeper training becoming a popular approach (e.g., Capuzzi, 2009; Cross et al., 2011; Gould & Kramer, 2001, 2003; Isaac et al., 2009). Although this expansion may be interpreted as a positive step toward reducing suicide, little is known with regard to the evolution of existing suicide prevention training, the common and unique components within models, and how such components contribute to the development of new models. This study conducted a content analysis of 16 existing best practice gatekeeper training models listed on the SPRC registry (SPRC/AFSP, 2010). A coding scheme consisting of 138 preset training items was developed and applied by two raters independently. Percentage of agreement and Cohen's kappa were calculated to examine inter-rater reliability. The results showed adequate consistency between raters. Consensus procedures were used with discrepant rating pairs to reach final ratings. Global and localized prevalence statistics and referral to both formal and informal resources were common findings across models. Additionally, fourteen categories of risk factors/warning signs and seven types of learning strategies and materials were identified as common gatekeeper components. A pattern of unique findings relating to technology was identified. Three unique findings involved the use of social media for trainers, gatekeepers, and participants. Other unique findings pertained to a lack of gatekeeper responsibility for follow-up after referral and use of incentives as participant materials. Discussion of discoveries and recommendations for future inquiry about the taxonomy of gatekeeper training models is presented.

Committee: Mei Tang Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michael Brubaker Ph.D. (Committee Member); Keith King Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Counseling Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2013, Secondary Education

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how Q Methodology can be used as a needs assessment tool for a Biology graduate teaching assistant (GTA) instructional training program. GTAs are used as the instructors of an increasingly diverse population of undergraduate students. GTAs are a diverse population of students with varying amounts of pedagogical preparation, research abilities, and motivation to complete their graduate study. They are often expected to prepare and grade exams, write their own syllabi, design course curriculum, prepare and present lectures, monitor student progress, hold office hours, and assign final grades, all with minimal faculty supervision. Although not all GTAs will become professors, many will, and the teaching assistantship remains the major preparation for their roles as faculty members. Since the majority of science professors have been GTAs, this instructional training program is of critical importance. Approaches to developing instructional training programs for GTAs vary from departmental workshops to campus-wide instructional seminars. Program evaluation is an intrinsic part of assuring that such programs best serve GTA needs, and that GTAs can best fulfill their roles in their respective departments. Q Methodology offers a number of potential advantages over traditional survey techniques for assessing needs of GTAs throughout their graduate school career, allowing program supervisors to evaluate and modify the program relative to GTA needs. Q Methodology allows the researcher to identify and interpret various viewpoints the GTAs hold in regard to graduate school. This is not only important to the supervisors of GTA instructional programs, but to the GTAs. This Q Methodology study led to three GTA viewpoints (“The Emerging Teacher,” “The GTA Who Prefers Research,” and “The Anxious GTA”) that provide insight about GTA and programmatic needs. Q Methodology can provide predictor profiles, or “typologies” that are more usefu (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jennifer Milam Dr. (Advisor); Susan Ramlo Dr. (Advisor); Robert Joel Duff Dr. (Committee Member); Gary Holliday Dr. (Committee Member); John Nicholas Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Biology; Education; Teacher Education; Teaching

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2013, Antioch New England: Clinical Psychology

Personal therapy has never been a training requirement for clinical psychology in the American Psychological Association (APA). This became more evident when the field of Clinical Psychology at the Boulder Conference over 30 years ago in which personal therapy was omitted as a requirement of doctoral education because there was a lack of sufficient empirical evidence to support such a mandate in the United States. While there has been research in the field of psychodynamic theory on personal therapy, the stance taken during the Boulder Conference (and to some extent the Chicago and Vail Conferences thereafter) continues to be the standard in regards to the training of psychologists. This has resulted in new psychologists having limited understanding of themselves and, at times, difficult or impaired relationships with their clients. This dissertation will look at the original psychoanalytic writings on training analysis and will use these points to explain the more recent literature on the utility of personal therapy, particularly in countries that still require it. In addition to these main points, the arguments against personal therapy will also be included to help showcase both sides of the issue. Using three major studies on personal therapy, this dissertation will use the themes found in the literature review to see if there is still a justification for not requiring personal therapy, as well as providing personal opinions on why the field has moved away from self-understanding and towards a predominantly outcome-focused approach to psychotherapy.

Committee: Susan Hawes Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Lorraine Mangione Ph.D. (Committee Member); David Hamolsky Psy.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology