Browsing by Subject "qualitative research"
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Item African American Students in a Middle Income, Urban School District: Five Successful Secondary Teachers? Beliefs and Practices(2013-12-03) Williams Jefferson, Rhonique LiaThis research study was conducted as a qualitative case study of five successful teachers of African American students in a middle income, urban school district. The study was designed to hear the ?muted? voices of successful teachers concerning their beliefs and practices when they effectively provide learning opportunities for African American students in their classrooms. Ethic of Care and Equity Pedagogy created the theoretical framework for interpretation of the powerful narratives and counter-storytelling that influenced this group of successful teachers. Data were collected by conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Constant comparative method and narrative analysis were used to code and categorize the data. Analysis was conducted after each interview to discover emergent themes. Teachers conducted member checks throughout the process. The findings from the study yielded the following: (1) teachers developed an educational approach that informed their instructional practices, (2) teachers displayed a high level of efficacy and care when working with their students, particularly African American students, (3) teachers build relationships with students that required students to work at higher levels of rigor and meet more demanding expectations for performance. Themes that emerged included: care, parental involvement, culturally responsive pedagogy and ?life skills?.Item Mission Travelers: Relationship-building and Crosscultural Adaptation(2012-10-19) Lee, Yoon JungSince 1992, the number of short-term mission (STM) travelers has exponentially increased for more than a decade. The purpose of STMs is to spread religious messages to local residents. In order to spread the word of God, STM travelers attempt to interact with local residents. They want to communicate with local residents in the host community and build a relationship with them. Therefore, for STM travelers their relationship with local residnets really matters. Many tourism scholars have argued that hosts-tourists interaction heavily influences both tourists and hosts. In spite of the increased popularity and the importance of host-tourist interaction in the context of STMs, STMs have received relatively little attention from the tourism research field. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to understand short-term mission travelers' interaction with local residents within four existing theories: the theory of leisure and tourist motivation, the theory of cultural hegemony, the gift-exchange theory, and the integrative theory of cross-cultural adaptation. To reach this research aim, this study used a qualitative research design rooted in the constructivist paradigm. A total of 43 STM travelers participated in the interview of this study. Considering the concept of the cultural distance between the participant's home culture and the host culture, American and Korean STM travelers who visited Cambodia or Thailand were recruited. Also, to understand the process of participant's relationship-building and cross-cultural adaptation, both pre- and post-interviews with 26 participants were conducted. The results showed that STM travelers sought personal and interpersonal rewards from the trip, which supports the theory of leisure motivation. Also, this type of travel had similarities with alternative, mass, and volunteer tourism in terms of tourist motivation. Regarding the theory of cultural hegemony, hegemonic power was exercised through STM travelers' work. STM travelers took advantage of an opportunity to provide what locals wanted as an opportunity to spread their religious message. Furthermore, identified conflicts between Christianity and the local culture support the existence of cultural hegemony. Concerning the relationship-building process of STM travelers, the results suggested that STM travelers built their relationship with local people and God by providing a gift to them and positively evaluating receivers' responses. In terms of the theory of cross-cultural adaptation, this study found support for this theory as successful intercultural adaptation led to a personal transformation in travelers. Finally, cultural distance was considered as a dimension of the intercultural adaptation theory. Regarding the perceived cultural distance, American mission travelers reported cultural distance with the host culture whereas Korean mission travelers expressed a cultural similarity to the host cultures rather than cultural difference.Item Perceptions of aggression in mental health clients(2008-06-23) Cathy Leigh Hueske; Dr. Kathleen Lucke; Dr. Ruth Levine; Dr. Peggy Landrum; Dr. Elnora Mendias; Dr. Carolyn PhillipsIn mental healthcare identifying factors including those that exist within the client-caregiver alliance is important so that aggression can be eliminated or minimized. The naturalistic inquiry method answered the following research questions: 1) What factors do licensed and unlicensed mental health workers perceive as triggers of aggressive behavior responses in hospitalized mental health clients? and 2) How do licensed and unlicensed mental health workers perceive their actions and behaviors influence the precipitation of aggressive behaviors among hospitalized mental health clients? A purposive sample of 15 mental healthcare workers was necessary to obtain saturation and redundancy. Demographic data were collected from caregivers with an average of 15 years of mental health experience working in nursing and social service departments. The purposes of this study were to: 1) describe the perceptions mental health workers have of the causes of aggressive responses in hospitalized mental health clients, and 2) explore mental health workers perceptions of how their actions and behaviors influence the precipitation of aggressive behaviors among hospitalized mental health clients. Participants interviewed were audiotaped to gather rich thick descriptions of the phenomena understudy. Audiotapes of the interview were transcribed for data analysis. Guided by the theoretical framework of Symbolic Interactionism, the overarching concept of aggression as an interactive process emerged from the participants’ descriptions. The supporting constructs were building, exploding and recovering from aggression. The categories for the constructs were knowing, managing, resulting outcomes and procession aggression emerged from several subcategories and themes. The findings of this study provide direction for further research involving triggers of aggression in the mentally ill and the influence of caregivers’ actions and behaviors on the hospitalized mentally ill.