Operationalising Feminist Pedagogic E-leadership-as-practice in Enterprise Learning and Development:An Autoethnographic Bricolage

This thesis explores synergies between three theoretical pillars – feminist pedagogy, Leadership-as-practice (LAP), and e-Leadership – applied in an enterprise learning and development (L&D) setting. I argue that uniting these concepts in an intentional, sustained, and reflective leadership practice contributes to individual growth, higher performing teams, and improved organisational outcomes. The research aims to examine critically the experience of leading a global virtual team (GVT) as an L&D middle-manager commencing with the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic in protracted, real-time. As a complete member researcher (CMR), my objectives include depicting my lived experience and identifying discrete themes specific to the research context. This thesis addresses calls in literature for greater cross-disciplinary research in educational leadership, development, and praxis and empirical study of how the mechanics of leadership coalesce to produce meaningful human-centred results. It illuminates how L&D practitioners, both in business and educational settings, can apply theory and scholarship to reshape leadership as more inclusive, empowering, de-hierarchised, and collaborative. Autoethnographic narratives anchor the research, augmented by interviews and reflections contributed by ten participants. Bricolage, an emergent qualitative method, was employed to respond to participant reflections of the current zeitgeist vis-à-vis leadership practice. Findings support that feminist practices embedded in quotidian activities can profoundly impact individual, team, and organisational objectives. I offer a leadership framework representing the symbiotic relationship between the three pillars. The research also discusses challenges of adopting feminist pedagogic e-leadership-as-practice (eLAP). The outcomes are significant in that they contribute to the advancement of the L&D profession, including developing praxis and applying theory. They offer an insider view of educational leadership within a business context, a relatively unexplored subject. Finally, I demonstrate how to utilise and craft bricolage as a qualitative method of inquiry. I suggest recommendations for future research, including further study of LAP across other staff levels, feminist pedagogy as a counter to implicit leadership beliefs, and challenging the suggested framework in additional contextual settings

Quality of life: The dyad of caregivers and lung transplant candidates

Informal caregivers are essential members of the healthcare team providing care, valued at over $250 billion each year, to millions of individuals who require assistance with health and daily care. It is important to examine caregiver QOL within various patient populations including lung transplantation, when patients\u27 illness necessitates both acute and chronic care. Patients assigned to the transplant waiting list are required to have an identified caregiver, so nurses need to be informed about the patient-caregiver dyad, and their QOL. The study of caregiver QOL is important to enhance nursing knowledge and design nursing interventions that support caregiver-candidate dyads during the lung transplant waiting phase. This descriptive, comparative study, guided by the Roy Adaptation Model, examined the QOL of lung transplant candidate-caregiver dyads from a multidimensional perspective. The purposes were to (a) describe the QOL as perceived by caregivers of LT candidates, (b) compare the caregiver\u27s perceived QOL with the LT candidate\u27s perceived QOL, and (c) describe the relationships among health status, reaction to caregiving and QOL

Teaching in an EFL Program in Second Life: Student Teachers’ Perspectives and Implications

Educational researchers have paid considerable attention to the use of multi-user vir­tual environments (MUVEs) to support learning across curricula. Among those MUVEs, Second Life (SL) is one of the most popular. This paper reports on a study of student teachers’ experience of teaching English in an experimental EFL (English as a Foreign Language) program in Second Life (SL) with students in China. This study was a collaborative effort of faculty members and graduate students of both a state university in the USA and a provincial university in China. The study took a case study approach to reveal student teachers’ perceptions of their teaching in SL, what they have learned and discusses the implications for teaching in similar EFL programs in SL

An invisible fork in the road : The autoethnography of a female social scientist

Research has shown that girls' confidence and ability perception are critical to their beliefs, attitudes, and interests concerning the pursuit of mathematics and science. In historically male-dominated fields, females often have a tenuous relationship with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) disciplines. This autoethnographic study explores one girl's trajectory away from a keen interest in mathematics and science in favour of social sciences. Four central themes were identified as critical to females' interest, pursuit, and advancement into STEM careers, including gender-based socialisation; confidence, ability, and achievement; classroom environment and school curriculum; and family 'curriculum making'. The findings that impacted the divergence from STEM are revealed through interviews with the author's parents and expressed through a reflexive narrative. The findings in this paper suggest several actions that families and schools might take to support the STEM aspirations of young female students

Pilot Study Evaluates Nutrition for Patients Receiving Mechanical Circulatory Support in the Intensive Care Unit

Establishing a nutrition protocol with an accompanying algorithm allows a multidisciplinary team to make decisions to maintain or improve nutrition-related outcomes during the intensive care unit (ICU) stay. This descriptive pilot study included subjects (N = 11) recruited from a convenient sample of patients admitted for surgical implantation of a mechanical circulatory support device. Nutritional and strength measures were compared across 3 time intervals: preoperatively, postoperative day 3, and within 48 hours of transfer from ICU. The mean age of the sample was 60 ± 8 years. Overall, subjects maintained preoperative nutritional status demonstrated by a nonsignificant change in the nutritional and strength measures from the preoperative period compared to transfer from ICU. The nutrition protocol with algorithm provided a step-by-step approach to ensure a consistent nutritional plan of care. It also standardized nutritional care while ensuring safe practice.</jats:p