About Discount Houses

About walk into a store and ask the dealer How much are your portable radios? He shows you some models, and then quote s you the list price. Then when you hesitate, he says, but I can give it to you at wholesale for five dollars less. You know he has to make a profit, so it isn\u27t really wholesale. But what about this business of discounts? How do discount houses operate

Imagination + Independence Encouraged By Honors Program

Scholastically superior students may meet the challenge of individual study and research as a part of the Home Economics Honors Program

People Without a Country

Ladislav is 10 years old. He is a promising and intelligent boy who ordinarily would have a bright future. Yet Ladislav\u27s future doesn\u27t look very bright, for he was born and lives in a refugee camp

The Prairie House a Dean Calls His Home

Nearly a century ago, a large red brick house served as stage coach stop in the middle of Iowa\u27s prairie. Today, the same building, now covered with gray stucco, serves as the home of Iowa State\u27s dean of agriculture

A phenomenological study investigating faculty developing as scholarly writers

This presentation discusses a hermeneutic phenomenological study with 12 nursing faculty that uncovered their experience developing as scholarly writers. Five themes of scholarly writing development emerged and will be shared

Addressing leadership challenges

Session presented on Saturday, July 25, 2015: The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The future of nursing: Leading change, advance health has recommended the following changes to improve health care quality: 1) fostering professional collaboration of the healthcare team, 2) increasing the percentage of nurses with baccalaureate degree, 3) doubling the number of nurses with doctorates by 2020, and 4) advocating nursing leadership at every level of the profession (IOM, 2010). This call for leadership exists across a variety of health care settings including clinical practice, education, and administration. Nurse leaders struggle with continuous uncertainty, change, and chaos (Grossman & Valiga, 2013) regardless of their practice setting. Many of their daily challenges often surround concepts such as values, integrity, failure, attitude, adversity, and criticism. Nurse leaders need to understand how these principles influence their professional role and decision making process, and make appropriate decisions to foster positive outcomes. This presentation will discuss common challenges in nursing leadership. Evidence-based principles that can be incorporated into daily activities to promote leadership success will be shared. The presentation will focus on assisting nurse leaders to use reflection and deliberative practice to make the right character, action, and investment choices to be successful in their personal and professional roles

More and More Pancakes

There\u27s a new fad in restaurant eating... it\u27s pancakes and more pancakes. Restaurants which serve pancakes exclusively are aptly termed Pancake Houses. Last year hundreds of newly built Pancake Houses across the nation served over 100 million pancakes. They featured many new varieties along with the traditional hot buttered pancake with maple syrup

Doctoral nursing students\u27 use of evidence-based knowledge, skills, and attitudes of scholarly writing

Purpose: Scholarly writing is required for doctoral program graduates who plan to disseminate their work and advance the discipline of nursing. However, nurses enter doctoral programs with varying ability and experience with scholarly writing (Gazza, Shellenbarger, & Hunker, 2013). Further compounding this issue are the curricular differences noted amongst programs. Additionally, there may be differences in students, their educational and experiential backgrounds, and whether they are enrolled in a PhD or a Doctor of Nursing Practice program (AACN, 2014). Nursing faculty may expect that doctoral students have advanced scholarly writing ability due to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes developed at the baccalaureate and masters level. Doctoral nursing students often face challenges with writing and may struggle to write proficiently at the expected level (Ryan, Walker, Scaia, & Smith, 2014). This causes frustration for both the student and the faculty. Prior studies have suggested that scholarly writing develops throughout nursing education and requires that students learn the requisite knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to writing at each level of nursing education (Gazza, Shellenbarger, & Hunker, 2013). Limited information is available that can guide faculty and students to develop their writing. Most of the information available is not evidence based (Hawks et al, 2015). The purpose of this study was to assess doctoral nursing students use of an evidence-based set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes specific for scholarly writing. Methods: After obtaining IRB approval, an email invitation was sent to nursing program administrators of doctoral programs in the United States that were listed on the Discover Nursing website. Administrators were asked to distribute the email invitation along with an electronic link to a self-assessment to all enrolled doctoral nursing students. Consenting students completed a 35- item tool using a 5- point Likert scale assessing evidence-based knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA) of scholarly writing (Hunker, Gazza & Shellenbarger, 2014). Respondents used ratings from 1- Never, 2-Rarely, 3-Sometimes, 4-Usually, to 5-Always. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Seventy-three doctoral students enrolled in PhD and DNP programs responded to the self-assessment. Seventeen PhD students from six different states completed the tool. They were primarily female, Caucasian, and enrolled part-time in their doctoral program. PhD respondents had a mean age of 44. PhD program delivery was diverse with traditional, hybrid, and online program represented in the sample. Using Fisher s Exact test, data analysis revealed no associations between self-assessment of KSAs and gender, age, enrollment status, GPA, or mode of delivery. While students responding to the self-assessment were at different points of completion of their PhD program, all were at least half way through their program. Analysis of the mean for each item on the electronic self-assessment revealed that PhD students either sometimes or usually used all of the KSAs. Fifty-six DNP students representing 11 states also responded to the self-assessment. They were primarily female, Caucasian, and enrolled full-time in their doctoral program. They had a mean age of 37. Program delivery was primarily a hybrid format. Using Fisher s exact test, there was a positive association between age and item response (P=.0378) suggesting that students who were older in age tended to rate the items higher on the self- assessment. The investigators were unable to determine where the DNP students were in terms of program completion. Analysis of the mean for each item from the electronic self-assessment revealed that DNP students, like PhD students either sometimes or usually used the KSAs. However, within the DNP student sample, there were two items that had a mean score less than 3, indicating they rarely used the KSA. Those items were: I create abstracts and written summaries of written material that has already been published , and I serve as a mentor and role model for undergraduate and master s students, and colleagues about scholarly writing . The two items identified are both skills typically acquired at the BS level; therefore, it appears that the DNP students have the knowledge and attitudes but lack some of the skills identified at the beginning level. Conclusion: All of the evidence-based KSAs for the PhD students and all but two of the KSAs for the DNP students were at least sometimes used. This suggests that most doctoral students at least recognize scholarly writing KSAs from their earlier programs. Often times student success in a doctoral program hinges on the ability to write well. Strategies are needed for purposeful learning activities that will help to promote scholarly writing development and further enhance student writing. More specifically, recommendations for faculty at the doctoral level include assessing KSAs at the time of entry into the program, and tailoring writing assignments, guidelines and rubrics to help support and develop writing at the doctoral level. Nursing programs should plan to provide general writing support and build curricula that offer sequential writing assignments that work to develop the students scholarly writing development over time. Based on the study results, it can be inferred that DNP students are rarely creating abstracts or written summaries of written material. As expert clinicians, they may need to provide those written summaries to share with others. Nurse educators should be encouraged to consider assignments and learning activities that allow DNP students to develop abstract writing and summarize work. Data also suggests that DNP students are not role modeling scholarly writing for others. As emerging leaders, they may be expected to use those role modeling skills to lead others during writing activities. Nurse educators need to further explore this issue and provide opportunities for DNP students to develop this essential skill. This small convenience sample of doctoral students provides beginning information about scholarly writing knowledge, skills, and attitudes; however, further study with a larger more diverse sample is needed. By effective development of doctoral student writing, faculty can support and promote the transformation of knowledge and practice to advance global health and nursing