Clinical Instructors’ Perceptions of Effective Student Behavioral Characteristics Among Respiratory Therapy Students in the State of Georgia

Clinical Instructors’ Perceptions of Effective Student Behavioral Characteristics Among Respiratory Therapy Students in the State of Georgia By Yousef Aldabayan (Under the Direction of Dr. Lynda T. Goodfellow) ABSTRACT Background: Student behavioral characteristics are perceived to be crucial factors in developing and nurturing desirable qualities of future professionals. Similar to how respiratory therapy (RT) clinical instructors (CIs) are expected to possess great teaching skills, it is significant to determine the effective student behavioral characteristics among RT students in order to identify what motivates them and what qualities influence their clinical success in relation to the perceptions of RT CIs. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to identify and acknowledge the effective behavioral characteristics of RT students based on what the RT CIs in the State of Georgia perceive to be most and least important. METHODS: A descriptive survey was used to collect data. The survey was modified and later emailed to all RT CIs and registered proactive members of the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC), according to their website. The descriptive survey was composed of four main domains, including professional competence, relationship with the CI, personal attributes, and the perceptions of CIs and its role in their motivation to teach. Forty-one behavioral characteristics were revealed on a five-point Likert scale based on importance. RESULTS: One hundred eighty-four responses were received out of the eight hundred surveys emailed to the CIs, with a response rate of 23%. Most of the respondents specified a bachelor degree as their highest degree. From the list of student behavioral characteristics, “Show genuine interest in patients and their care” in clinical was perceived as the most important student behavioral characteristic (M 4.67, S.D ± .57). However, the RT students’ need to “be honest and direct to the CIs” was determined to be the most important behavioral characteristic (M 4.40, S.D ±0.70). In addition, to “demonstrate effective communications skills” was determined as the most important characteristic in the personal attributes domain (M 4.5, S.D ±0.56). Lastly, the “CIs stay motivated to teach and assist students when faced with acceptable student behaviors” was the most important domain of CIs’ perceptions of student behavioral characteristic that motivates them to teach, (M 4.38, S.D ±0.67). CONCLUSION: RT CIs from the list of active AARC members agreed that showing genuine interest in patients and their care was the most effective student behavioral characteristic among RT students in the State of Georgia. According to these findings, it is highly suggested that RT clinical students should work hard in improving their behaviors and attitudes toward their CIs to increase their motivation in achieving their goals in clinical learning

Risk management in independent Water and Power Plant (IWPP) projects in Saudi Arabia : a grounded theory study to improve effectiveness

The global demands for water and power services are rapidly increasing. In this context, Saudi Arabia (SA) has one of the highest water consumption rates per capita worldwide, and its energy requirements continue to grow. In terms of producing drinking water, SA ranks first, representing 22.4% of world capacity. However, that production is not unproblematic, and typically, the Water and Power Plant (WPP) projects following the Independent Water and Power Plant (IWPP) approach have involved a plethora of risks, as they rely on long-term arrangements to transfer project risks traditionally borne by government, to the private sector. Additionally, some risk factors apply generally to all construction projects, others are specific to WPP projects, and yet others apply only to IWPP projects. Unfortunately, three of four IWPP projects in SA have failed to meet their specified objectives; hence, there is an urgent need to implement effective risk management (RM) within these projects, as this represents an important success factor in their on-time delivery. In this study, water and power practitioners in the Saudi public and private sectors, were interviewed as key informants, and related their experience. The Grounded Theory (GT) approach was adopted whereby three rounds of semi-structured interviews were performed to establish factors causing the poor implementation of RM in IWPP projects in SA. Whilst the research focused on IWPP projects, it also explored WPP projects (undertaken by government), due to the state’s long experience of such activities. After analysis, the interview data was presented in propositional diagrams, fully grounded according to the practitioners’ experiences. The findings indicate that all practitioners agree on the importance of RM in IWPP projects since these are complex undertakings that require effective RM for their success, but that currently, RM knowledge within this industry is lacking, and where RM is implemented, it is done so informally. Practitioners identified three clear factors that affect the behaviour of every single IWPP stakeholder in respect of risk, these being: the uniqueness of the Saudi Arabian culture, the high subsidies paid by the government to consumers and organisations, and the low attention paid to RM by top managements. An emergent model is proposed expressing the complex reality of IWPP projects in SA, and illustrating three major phenomena, nine categories, and 26 sub-categories affecting RM implementation in these projects. This provides a strong foundation for further research aimed at securing the effective RM implementation in IWPP projects, and developing greater insight into the risk factors involved

Enhanced multi-level block ILU preconditioning strategies for general sparse linear systems

AbstractThis paper introduces several strategies to deal with pivot blocks in multi-level block incomplete LU factorization (BILUM) preconditioning techniques. These techniques are aimed at increasing the robustness and controlling the amount of fill-ins of BILUM for solving large sparse linear systems when large-size blocks are used to form block-independent set. Techniques proposed in this paper include double-dropping strategies, approximate singular-value decomposition, variable size blocks and use of an arrowhead block submatrix. We point out the advantages and disadvantages of these strategies and discuss their efficient implementations. Numerical experiments are conducted to show the usefulness of the new techniques in dealing with hard-to-solve problems arising from computational fluid dynamics. In addition, we discuss the relation between multi-level ILU preconditioning methods and algebraic multi-level methods