Teacher Retention: Perceptions of the organizational factors that influence teacher transition from private school classrooms of individuals with autism to public school autism classrooms

Nine experienced certified special education teachers who chose to move from the private sector to the public sector were interviewed to gain knowledge and information that could be used to improve the private sector school for learners with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as the conceptual framework, this study explored the respondents’ beliefs about their workload, work responsibilities, compensation, and perceptions regarding their teaching experiences in private and public schools. Specifically, telephone or face-to-face interviews were conducted to ascertain the motivating factors that led the respondents to leave one private school, The Apple School, for teaching positions in the public sector. The timeframe was limited to the three-year period of 2012 to 2015. The study found that, for the four primary research questions and their sub-questions, all nine respondents referred to either a more favorable salary, working hour arrangement, workload, growth potential, or commute to work as a primary incentive to leave the private school and, once in the public sector, to remain at the public school. Of these findings, increased financial compensation was the predominant factor favoring the public school system, and private school’s longer required working hours along with a heavier workload were disincentives for the private school system. Recommendations were given to address the organizational factors identified in the study

Character Strengths and Type: Exploration of Covariation

Ninety-eight adult volunteers participated in this exploratory study of potential links between psychological type as determined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and signature strengths as identified by the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths. We examined participants’ types and signature strengths to test for covariation between specific signature strengths and individual type dichotomies or paired type combinations. We found significant covariations between 10 character strengths with single type dimensions namely, creativity (intuition), open-mindedness (thinking), love of learning (introversion), integrity (sensing and thinking), persistence (judging), vitality (extraversion), love (extraversion and feeling), fairness (sensing), and gratitude (extraversion). Love, integrity, and gratitude also covaried with multiple paired type combinations while curiosity covaried only with one paired type combination (introverted intuition)

National Evaluation of the Police Cadets: Summary

This report provides the findings from a national evaluation of the Volunteer Police Cadets (VPC) in England and Wales

National Evaluation of Police Cadets: Value of Cadet’s to Young People

The intention of this short paper is to highlight the value of the VPC to young people by drawing on the national evaluation, which includes a survey of 1,166 cadets, a survey of 413 cadet leaders, 11 focus groups with cadets and 11 semi-structured interviews with cadet leads in forces

National Evaluation of the Mini-Police: Summary

This report summarises findings from a national evaluation of the Mini-Police across England and Wale

The Impacts and Benefits of the Mini-Police: Evidence so far…

This short paper outlines some of the emerging evidence from the National Evaluation of the Mini-Police

Bringing Positive Psychology to the Footlights After-School Center

This paper is the report on a service learning project conducted by four students in 2006 as part of the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania. The paper describes a proposal for applying positive psychology at Footlights – a performing arts after-school center for underprivileged teenagers in Hartford, CT. The paper describes Footlights, including daily operations, instructors and participating teenagers. It then outlines a proposed application plan for introducing and using positive psychology at the center. It concludes with an overview of the relevant empirical research that constitutes the basis for the proposed application plan. Appendices give the plan in more detail and describe a particular exercise included in the plan