Construction and evaluation of arithmetic readiness tests for beginning first graders.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Undergraduate nursing student situation awareness during simulation

Graduate nurses encounter complex and rapidly changing patient care situations that require attentiveness, careful surveillance, and the recognition of subtle changes and patterns that will lead to appropriate decisions. Many researchers concur that new graduates are ill-equipped to meet these challenges, resulting in significant risk to patient safety. Situation Awareness (SA) is a skill that has been taught in the field of aviation to facilitate decision-making in complex, dynamic situations; however, there is little known about how nursing students develop SA. This mixed methods explorative study contrasted sophomore and senior nursing students’ (n=33) measured levels of SA during simulations of deteriorating patients, and gathered information from the students regarding how they came to be aware of changes. The results indicate students do not have complete SA (avg. score 69%). There is also evidence of significant differences between sophomore and senior nursing students’ scores on the comprehensive scale (F(1,31) = 10.394, p = .002) with senior scores significantly higher than sophomore scores. Students described how they became aware of the situation through developing expectations, determining salience and processing the information to create a meaningful whole. These themes support the proposed definition of situation awareness specific to nursing. This study found that nursing students develop Situation Awareness during the course of their nursing program indicating the necessity for deliberate development of this important skill. These study results can be also used to improve nursing education by teaching students specific skills including recognition of changes in respiratory rate and habits of frequent reassessment for patients whose condition is changing. Together these skills will help address the lack of SA which impairs clinical judgment and contributes to unsafe nursing care. Recommendations include further study and measurement of nursing student SA as well as teaching strategies aimed at developing SA

Managing mental health in the multicultural construction workforce

The purpose of this study is to improve the mental health of construction workers in multicultural construction workplaces. Specifically, the aim of this research is to (1) examine the effects of personal and environmental determinants on construction workers’ mental health outcomes, (2) develop a positive coping approach in multicultural construction workplaces, (3) investigate the effect of positive coping strategies on the relationships between environmental stressors and mental health outcomes in multicultural construction workforces and (4) develop a model for managing mental health of workers in multicultural construction workplaces. To achieve these research aims, a quantitative approach and a survey research design were employed. The key findings of this study are as follows. First, construction workers’ mental health is not only influenced by stressors related to work environment, but also individual traits. Second, this study developed a positive coping approach, namely, intercultural coping. The results of this study confirmed that there is a positive relationship between intercultural coping and mental health. Third, the results confirmed the effectiveness of different types of coping strategies in managing different types of stressors in multicultural construction workplaces. Fourth, the model developed in this study presents a detailed and comprehensive perspective on managing mental health in a multicultural construction context. Overall management of mental health can be achieved by (1) reducing the identified work and cultural stressors of mental ill health in the workplace, (2) modifying vulnerable personal traits and matching personal traits with job demands, (3) improving intercultural coping and (4) designing effective intercultural coping strategies for specific types of stressors. The findings of this study contribute to the knowledge of mental health management by identifying the direct and interactive effects of person–environment determinants on mental health outcomes. The development of a positive coping approach, namely, intercultural coping, provides a new perspective on managing mental health. This study also uncovered the moderating effect of intercultural coping strategies on the relationship between stressor and psychological outcome. Furthermore, a model for managing mental health of workers in multicultural construction workplaces was established, which may serve as a framework for construction organisations to devise effective mental health interventions

Catalogue of Rollins College, 1927-1928

Rollins College catalogue 1927-1928 with academic calendar, general information, entrance requirements, photographs, list of faculty and students, and courses by department. Microfilm version of original

An annotated and classified bibliography of software metrics publications : 1988 to 1994

With the growth of the software industry, the measurement of software plays an ever increasing role. In order to provide software metric researchers and practitioners with references so they can quickly identify the references of particular interest to them, over 60 of the many publications on software metrics that have appeared since 1988 are classified into four tables that comprise, respectively, (1) Metrics through the Life Cycle, (2) Classic Metrics, (3) Programming Language Metrics, and (4) New Metrics. Table 1 serves as a complete list of all the classified publications while Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4 are subsets of Table 1. The subset tables present more detailed information than Table 1. The bibliographic reference section contains brief summaries of the publications in the classified tables. As a continuation of the 1988 survey done by V. Cote, P. Bourque, S. Oligny and N. Rivard through the paper, "Software metrics: an overview of recent results", this project was conducted to discover the current trends in software metrics practice, and to report the trend movement from the 1988 paper until now by comparison of the results from the two surveys. All the table comparisons from the two surveys are given in percentages. As a survey, we are fully aware of the limitations of our collection out of the wealth of the publications in the software metrics field, but we are confident that our survey is a good indicator of the practice in the software metrics field. [Résumé abrégé par UMI]

Development of a framework to understand the factors that influence software productivity in agile teams

Productivity improvement in the software industry is one of the major challenges facing many software development companies in this century. Most companies have adopted agile methodologies in order to profit from the benefits claimed for them. Agile methodologies are characterised by frequent software delivery, short feedback loops, quicker response to change, and problem identification earlier in the development process. The agile approach has been recognised as paving a way for companies to acquire higher software productivity, delivering good-quality and cost-effective software, enabling software development companies to respond to business challenges with their demands for high quality, high performance and high development speed in delivering the final product. For companies that adopt agile methodologies, understanding the factors that influence their teams’ software development productivity is a challenging task for management and practitioners today. In this research, an analysis is presented that identifies productivity factors that affect agile teams. It is a study of agile methods to identify common agile practices and/or values that have impact on productivity, and describes suitable metrics that could be used to measure agile team productivity. A qualitative research approach was used, and the case study was chosen as the research strategy. Two South African companies that are located in two different provinces and that adopted agile methodologies in their software development, were selected for the case studies. Qualitative content analysis was used in the research to permit subjective interpretation of factors that influence agile team productivity, and to analyse to what extent these factors affected productivity. This research has shown that an understanding of the factors that influence an agile team’s productivity gives significant insight into the way agile teams work, motivates team members to work together, and leads to uniform metrics in tracking each team’s progress. The study indicates that tracking an agile team’s work and providing adequate tools needed to execute their tasks results in improving agile team productivity. It should be recognised that using metrics to measure performance in agile teams is helpful in creating a team’s culture and trust. In this study, it was found that the factors identified in both literature and case studies affected productivity in the two companies under study, both positively and negatively. The study also found that applying the correct metrics in assessing, analysing and reviewing an agile team’s performance is important when monitoring productivity. Successful software delivery is only possible if individuals are committed to their work, are provided with the necessary tools and have access to a stable working environment. In addition, individual factors such as knowledge, skills, abilities, personalities and experience should be considered when forming agile teams. Consideration of these factors will result in grouping people that are able to work together and achieve a common goal, which is important in improving productivity. A conceptual framework for agile team productivity was proposed. The discussion of the findings is presented in more detail in this research.School of ComputingM.Sc. (Computing