Shaping nursing praxis : some registered nurses' perceptions and beliefs of theory practice : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Educational Administration at Massey University

This thesis investigates the beliefs and perceptions of registered nurses in relation to the theory practice gap. In order to discover these perceptions and beliefs, this qualitative study used critical ethnography, a framework and process in which the paiticipants share in the journey of discovery which sets out to explore, describe and transform these beliefs and perceptions of theory-practice. The theory-practice debate has been highlighted in nursing for some time and is interpreted in many ways. This multiple interpretation causes confusion and has an impact on the development of the discipline of nursing. The participants were six nurse clinicians and six nurse educators from a large metropolitan hospital and a School of Nursing and Midwifery within a tertiary educational institution. Within the critical framework, the research methods used were interviews, observation, paiticipants' personal logs and triangulation between methods and within methods. Data analysis was through content analysis using themes, patterns, and categories arising from the data. The analysis of data indicated that through reciprocal dialogue, the paiticipants' theory-practice perceptions and beliefs had been transformed. This transformation was being premised on an assumption of the existence of a theory-practice gap to an acceptance of the theory-practice relationship as an integrated concept where nursing praxis is shaped by an ongoing development process. Empowering strategies and recommendations for the development of nursing praxis include coaching, clinical supervision, mentoring, case management, ongoing education, research, faculty practice, joint appointments and reciprocal advisory groups. These strategies provide opportunities for nurses to come together, and reflect on practice in that by becoming aware of their beliefs and perceptions, they gain the confidence and knowledge to begin transforming conditions of power and control, thereby promoting change which results in praxis and professional autonomy

Decrypting The Java Gene Pool: Predicting Objects' Lifetimes with Micro-patterns

Pretenuring long-lived and immortal objects into infrequently or never collected regions reduces garbage collection costs significantly. However, extant approaches either require computationally expensive, application-specific, off-line profiling, or consider only allocation sites common to all programs, i.e. invoked by the virtual machine rather than application programs. In contrast, we show how a simple program analysis, combined with an object lifetime knowledge bank, can be exploited to match both runtime system and application program structure with object lifetimes. The complexity of the analysis is linear in the size of the program, so need not be run ahead of time. We obtain performance gains between 6-77% in GC time against a generational copying collector for several SPEC jvm98 programs

Youth Decline in Church Growth and Attendance

Youth attendance in the church has declined in the recent past. The reason for their decline is that they no longer find a church to be socially and spiritually relevant to their lives. The paper seeks to provide a solution to the problem through spiritual formation and increasing the depth of youth programs so that they can remain socially relevant to the lives of the young people. This will be done by encouraging youth people to know who Jesus is and how to have a personal relationship with him through faith

Criteria for the Evaluation of Health, Physical Education and Athletics at I. M. Terrell High School of Fort Worth, Texas

Authorities generally agree in developing the curriculum in many schools, health and physical education, occupy a position of relatively less importance to other subjects in the total school program in respect to class scheduling, time allotment, and testing and evaluation. The physical education teacher is sometimes accused of not asserting himself in matters concerning curriculum, thus contributing to this position. The coach Is often guilty of placing the importance of some other duty before participation in curriculum construction which lessens his influence in matters of curriculum development. If physical education is to assume an equal position of importance, the coach, the physical educator, and the health teachers should participate in curriculum development, and strive to make the program strong in aspects of instruction and evaluation, which are two major factors in justifying the existence of health and physical education program. If a program does not measure up to the standards it sets, the inevitable conclusion to be drawn is that it is not worth-while. Its worth can be proven, however, through a comprehensive criteria for evaluation, based on an ideal program and the objectives set up for the health, physical education and athletic program of the school being evaluated. The I. M. Terrell High School does not have such a program as shall be proposed by this writer, whose objective will be, to evaluate the present program in light of the objectives set up for the program that exist at I. M. Terrell at present. The I. M. Terrell High School was the only Negro Senior High School in Fort Worth until the beginning of the 1954-55 school year, when three of the five junior high schools became senior high schools by retaining their highest grades for the next three years. With the acquisition of more Senior High Schools in the community a greater need is now felt for a good program of Health, Physical Education, and Athletics for all the high schools concerned. In order to meet this need, a more concentrated effort for improvement must be made through unbiased evaluative procedures. The I. M. Terrell Senior High School has an enrollment of seven hundred and seventy-three students which are now drawn from two junior high schools in two neighborhoods. One on the South side of town where the residential area seems to be quite adequate, economically and socially, and a number of the professional people live. The other Junior High School is located near the East end of the down town area and seem to have fewer professional people in its residential area, but a large housing project increases the number of people in the average Income bracket. We receive approximately the same number from each Junior High School, and the competition within the school is very keen between the students from these two Junior High Schools. The curriculum includes trades and distributive education. These students are not required to take physical education because of scheduling difficulties. All other students are required to take health and physical education one hour daily, five days a week