Pursue Graduate Education Research Articles

The Value Proposition for Graduate Education of Emerging Nurse Leaders: Immediate Benefit to Organizations

The economic impact of higher education on the individual has been widely documented, with benefits measured in terms of lifetime earning power, accumulation of household wealth, lower unemployment, access to healthcare coverage, and overall better health across all ages and income levels.1–6 The economic impact within the workplace, to the employer, is less precisely defined. Overall benefits include a better prepared workforce, which can lead to increased economic benefit to the employer and to society as a whole. Specific benefits related to investing in the education of current and future health systems nurse leaders may have an early, as well as a sustained, impact on the organization. Using case studies, this report explores the beneficial economic and quality impact on healthcare agencies and institutions during, as well as after, the completion of degree requirements when emerging nurse leaders pursue graduate education in health systems management.

Department of Primary Education Students’ Opinions Regarding the Necessity of Graduate Education

Today, increa sing importance of knowledge and not considering teacher as the only source of knowledge, changes the role of teacher dramatically. Teachers need to improve themselves continuously to match the demands of the roles future brings them. To improve oneself as a teacher requires pursuing life-long learning as a principle, and attaining professional skills like providing more student-centered educational cond itions and environments to students and contributing to their multi-dimensional development. Higher education, especially graduate education has a great role to help the teacher with this task. The aim of this research is to obtain primary teachers' opinions regarding the necessity of graduate education. The sample of the research consist s of 82 pre- service teachers who were enrolled to Dumlupinar University department of primary education during t he 2010- 2011 academic year. The research using the survey analysis methodology is descriptive in nature. Dat a were collected through the survey, as developed by the researcher. Based on the results, 43.9% of the candidates believe graduate education is somewhat necessary while 35.4% believe the reason for pursuing a graduate education is to continue professional development and 45.1% of them would like to pursue graduate education. On the other hand, 48.8% of the candidates want to pursue graduate education to develop their higher-order thinking skills and 45.1% of them want to receive graduate education to obtain old/new knowledge and skills in their own field. These results are important in terms of understanding the base of the criteria which primary teacher candidates' point of views are being shaped by regarding graduate education as well as measure the level of their desire to pur sue graduate education.

Motivations and Expectations for Pursuing Graduate Education in Mathematics and Science Education

KEYWORDS Motivation. Expectation. Graduate Education. Mathematics Education. Science Education ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to reveal the reasons behind the decisions of individuals for pursuing graduate education in mathematics and science education. In this paper, candidates were investigated in terms of their explanations for the necessities of graduate education, their motivational factors for pursuing higher education and their expectations from it. Being qualitative in nature this study was a case study and the case being examined was graduate candidates' motivations for and expectations from graduate education. The sample consisted of 49 graduate candidates (teachers and recent college graduates) applying to a university in Turkey. Among the results of the study were that graduate candidates' explanations for necessities for graduate education were mainly gathered under themes of academic development, professional development and social development; that the same themes were also found in their expectations from graduate education; that motivations were consisted of internal and external motivation factors; and that motivations generally caused academic expectations, especially ISCSR and PAS.

François Abboud

See Editor’s Preamble, p 418 Francois Abboud How the central nervous system receives signals from the peripheral circulation and then regulates cardiac output and vascular resistance accordingly has been the focus of Francois Abboud’s research for several decades. His contributions to this large field began with investigations at the integrated systems level.1–4 But, work soon progressed to the molecular and genetic level, with Abboud’s particular focus being the form and function of baroreceptor neurons.5–9 As Abboud explained in a recent interview, however, research is just one third of his professional passion. He is also, in equal parts, a dedicated physician and mentor. Abboud, who is Professor of Medicine, Molecular Physiology, and Biophysics, and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Iowa, has been living in the United States since 1955, but he was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. Abboud spoke to Circulation Research about the Egypt he remembers, his move to the United States, and his career in cardiology ever since. Where do I begin? My mother ran a private school at our house. The school was on the first level, and we lived on the second and third floor. My mother worked very hard and managed both the school and our household. She actually hired my father and one of her brothers to teach. My father was an English teacher and had a second job with the telephone company, but wanted to continue to pursue graduate education. So, when I was going to medical school he was going to Journalism School at the University of Cairo. We often met as students on campus. After his graduation, he became an editor at the major Egyptian newspaper, Al Ahram . In our house there was also my sister and my 3 …

Teacher Research as a Practical Tool for Learning to Teach

Teacher research has a long, rich history. However, teacher research is primarily limited to practicing teachers and those pursuing graduate education. It is only beginning to be used as means of understanding the instructional needs of English Learners. In this article, a preservice teacher and her university instructor describe the role of inquiry in an early literacy course. They tell the story of a semester-long teacher-research project in which the preservice teacher learns about the role of inquiry and native language in responding to the instructional needs of a young English Learner. It is a story in which thinking about teaching and learning as inquiry emerges as a powerful guide in finding one’s way as a preservice teacher on unfamiliar ground, one in which the practice of teacher research becomes a practical tool for seeing, valuing, and responding to difference.

Even the best laid plans sometimes go askew: Career self-management processes, career shocks, and the decision to pursue graduate education.

Drawing on career self-management frameworks as well as image theory and the unfolding model of turnover, we developed a model predicting early career employees' decisions to pursue graduate education. Using a sample of 337 alumni from 2 universities, we found that early career individuals with intrinsic career goals, who engaged in career planning, who were less satisfied with their career, or who experienced impactful positive career shocks were more likely to intend to go to graduate school. In contrast, individuals with extrinsic career goals who were highly satisfied with their careers were less likely to intend to go to graduate school. Graduate education intentions, career planning, and the impact of having one's mentor leave the organization positively related to actual applications to graduate school. However, having extrinsic career goals, an impactful sooner than expected raise or promotion (a positive career shock), and a negative organizational change (a negative career shock) negatively related to the likelihood of applying. The career shocks' direct relationship to applications to graduate school, regardless of one's intentions, suggests that "the best laid plans" can sometimes be altered by unplanned events. This study contributes to the literatures on career self-management and graduate education and extends the application of the shock construct from the unfolding model of turnover to other career-related decisions.

Kenya and distance education: A model to advance graduate nursing

Africa is faced with a myriad of challenges, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and a variety of political and historical complications that have affected the educational system for advanced nursing practice. In Kenya, the current situation in the higher education sector does not give nurses an opportunity to pursue graduate education after they have acquired the basic diploma in nursing due to limited government support and the type of education system existing in the country today. Although distance education has been available in Kenya for professionals such as teachers, in public universities, this kind of opportunity is unreachable for nurses who are working and need to further their education. Nurses desire to have access to advanced practice education to equip them with the relevant knowledge to cope and address the complex health issues arising in the management and care of patients. A collaborative model is presented as a potential solution for this need. Four major constituents are identified including hospitals and agencies, communities of interest, Kenyan universities and international education partners. Each has a part to play including contributions to information, communication of opinion and expertise, money and support, infrastructure and in-kind resources. Distance education is cost-effective and will help in building capacity at various levels of nursing including leadership in clinical practice, teaching, administration and research.

Application Guidelines for Graduate Schools in the United States and Canada

This article provides guidelines for those interested in pursuing graduate education in the United States and Canada towards M.S. and/or Ph.D. degrees in science and engineering. Suggestions are provided to strengthen such applications, thereby increasing the probability of success.

Race, Business Cycles, and Investment in Graduate Education

This paper examines how macroeconomic factors influence decision making behavior with regard to human capital investment. Using a panel data set, we establish a causal relationship between macroeconomic indicators and the decision to pursue graduate education. Overall, we find that graduate school enrollment is counter-cyclical with the business cycle and that the magnitude of the relationship between macroeconomic indicators and the specific type of graduate school programs varies. Moreover, we find differential racial effects of the business cycle on graduate school enrollment. The magnitude of the counter-cyclical effect of the business cycle on graduate school enrollment is greater for minority groups.

Stereotyping in Graduate Education: An Insight of Women’s Participation in Malaysia

An equal access to the higher education in terms of gender has been successfully promoted in Malaysia. An increasing number of women succeeded in having secured places and graduating from local private and public universities in this country. This shows that more and more women have gone through higher education, and a significant number of them are now holding high posts both in the private and the public sectors. This is the result of various government policies n human capital development. Consequently, the previously ‘denied’ right of women to higher education because of gender is now a history in this country and more women are pursuing graduate education. This paper attempts to analyze an involvement of women in higher education in Malaysia with particular reference to graduate study in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. The study shows an increasing interest and access to programs related to sciences and technical field by women, as opposed to the art and education which were previously associated with women. This trend signals a positive development of women’s involvement in higher education in preparing knowledgeable human resources to the nation, and thus provides a strong support to the women empowering strategy in Malaysia.

When first‐generation students go to graduate school

AbstractThe author argues that first‐generation college students (FGS) have compounded challenges when they pursue graduate education. As a first‐generation college student, he was not able to gather advice from family or his job supervisor, who had no experience with graduate school. Drawing from his experience and the existing FGS‐related research, the author details practical advice for making a successful transition from college to graduate school. He concludes with a list of essential questions that prospective graduate students should ask themselves and their mentors when considering graduate study.

Classroom-based science research at the introductory level: changes in career choices and attitude.

Our study, focused on classroom-based research at the introductory level and using the Phage Genomics course as the model, shows evidence that first-year students doing research learn the process of science as well as how scientists practice science. A preliminary but notable outcome of our work, which is based on a small sample, is the change in student interest in considering different career choices such as graduate education and science in general. This is particularly notable, as previous research has described research internships as clarifying or confirming rather than changing undergraduates’ decisions to pursue graduate education. We hypothesize that our results differ from previous studies of the impact of engaging in research because the students in our study are still in the early stages of their undergraduate careers. Our work builds upon the classroom-based research movement and should be viewed as encouraging to the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education movement advocated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation, and other undergraduate education stakeholders.

Dental Hygienists’ Perceptions of Barriers to Graduate Education

To advance the profession of dental hygiene, graduate education is necessary to support growth in research, education, administration, and practice in the discipline and to sustain credibility in a climate in which other health professions require entry-level master's and doctoral degrees. The purpose of this study was to explore what dental hygienists perceive as barriers to pursuing a graduate degree. A survey was developed based on the literature and other national surveys. Data were collected from 160 respondents to the survey: 50 percent held an entry-level baccalaureate degree in dental hygiene, while the rest held an entry-level associate degree (48 percent) or certificate (2 percent) in dental hygiene. All respondents had completed a bachelor's degree. The top five barriers these respondents identified in pursuing graduate education were as follows: 1) cost of graduate education, 2) family responsibilities are too great, 3) concerns about personal funding to pay for graduate education, 4) finding time for graduate school while working, and 5) fear of thesis research. Dental hygiene is one of the few health professions that still have entry-level degrees at the associate and baccalaureate levels. The profession needs to reduce such barriers to enable dental hygienists to pursue graduate education and thus ensure an adequate supply of future leaders, educators, and researchers.

Learning to become graduate students: Japanese women's experience in the research unit in engineering

Based on the analysis of 16 interviews with women first-year master's students at two national engineering schools in Japan, this article examines the socialisation role of compulsory undergraduate research experience in Japanese women's decisions to pursue graduate education and choices of the programme. The findings suggest that research experiences in a small independent research unit within the major department convinced Japanese women engineering students of their academic and social success as graduate students in the current environment. Although participants generally adapted themselves to the research unit through their research, there is a variation in the degree to which they were smoothly integrated into the research unit, reflecting organisational and individual differences.

Incorporating a research apprenticeship model in a Canadian nursing Honors Program

In this article, we describe the development of a BScN (Honors) Program in a large Canadian university. We describe the elements of the program, including the application of a research apprenticeship model as the core of the program. We provide examples of student learning experiences culminating in the Honors project. Recruitment, balancing clinical and research interests, financial support, and manageability of the Honors project emerged as key challenges in our first offerings of the program. Overall, students perceived that experiential research learning enhanced their research skills, increased appreciation of the process and outcomes of nursing research, and inspired confidence to pursue graduate education. We conclude that an apprenticeship model providing students with experiential research learning with established faculty researchers is an effective and efficient way to deliver the Honors Program in the context of a research-intensive nursing faculty.

Motivating Registered Nurses to Return for an Advanced Degree

Master's-prepared nurses are required as faculty and educators in the hospital setting to meet the increasing demands of today's health care environment. A non-experimental, descriptive study design was used to examine nurses' preferences for organizational incentives and rewards that might motivate them to return for an advanced nursing degree. Using findings from this research study, a grant was developed and funded to address the need to both fill expected vacancies in the nursing work force and reduce the clinical nursing instructor shortage through a strategic academia and service partnership. A cohort model and mentorship program to identify nurses and then encourage and assist them in matriculating and completing an advanced degree in nursing was developed. One expected outcome of the proposed collaborative arrangement is to increase the number of registered nurses prepared at the graduate level to create a pool of individuals qualified to serve as clinical instructors, faculty, and preceptors while maintaining their hospital positions. Another expected outcome is to provide a path for nurses to pursue graduate education.

Trends in Accounting Student Characteristics: Results from a 15-Year Longitudinal Study at FSA Schools

This article updates the results from a continuing longitudinal study of characteristics of accounting students, sponsored by the Federation of Schools of Accountancy (FSA) since 1991. Specifically, it reports trends in student characteristics between 2000 and 2006 and discusses their implications to the accounting profession and to accounting education. Measures of student quality continue to rise. The percentage of minority students in undergraduate accounting programs increased; however, no similar increase occurred at the graduate level. There was a drop in the percentage of female students in graduate programs. More students are deciding to major in accounting later in their academic careers, with fewer making the decision in high school and more deciding during their sophomore years of college. Job availability is increasingly the most influential factor in students' decisions to major in accounting. Fewer students are taking the GMAT exam, and fewer master's students are joining Beta Alpha Psi. More students are completing internships. Although more are pursuing graduate education, fewer are planning on M.B.A. or Ph.D. degrees. Interest in careers in public accounting is high and increasing, while interest in industry is dropping.

Understanding Interventions that Encourage Minorities to Pursue Research Careers: Major Questions and Appropriate Methods

There is a long history of intervention programs to increase the numbers and enhance the participation of students in scientific research and the pursuit of scientific careers. Many federal agencies have supported these kinds of programs with a goal of enhancing the diversity of the scientific workforce. Most of these programs operate under the assumption that actively engaging students in research and related professional activities will stimulate their interest in and understanding of science and encourage them to pursue research careers. However, there has been little formal investigation of the shortand long-term effects of such programs and the efficacy of the various program elements. Even though there have been several evaluations of both the federal programs themselves (e.g., National Research Council, 2005) and of individual institutional programs subject to evaluation (e.g., Building Engineering & Science Talent, 2004), there has been little primary research focused on the variables that make particular interventions work for minority students—and why other programs are not successful. Since 2005, the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and its Division of Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) have made two sets of grant awards in response to the NIH’s Request for Applications (RFA) under the Efficacy of Interventions to Promote Research Careers program (RFA-GM05-009) and have recently received applications for a fourth round of awards (RFA-GM-08-005). These RFAs were established specifically to “support research that will test assumptions regarding existing or potential interventions that are intended to increase the preparedness for careers in biomedical research, with a particular interest in those interventions specifically designed to increase the number of underrepresented minority students entering careers in biomedical and behavioral research” (page 1). Undertaking research to study the efficacy of specific interventions in any human population is fraught with many challenges. With increasing expectations for accountability, people who may not have conducted this kind of research previously now must become familiar with new protocols (e.g., statistical), new research regulations (e.g., seeking authorization from Institutional Review Boards to work with human subjects), a different research literature, and new venues for communicating their findings. Many scientists may not have had to confront such a large number of variables, many of which cannot be actively controlled, before engaging in this kind of research. As a result, many scientific researchers are not fully prepared to do the kind of research that has been called for by the NIH RFAs. In an effort to promote the submission of high-quality grant proposals—and to encourage expanded and imaginative research in this area—the MORE Division asked the National Academies to organize a workshop that would examine the current state of research about interventions that could significantly influence the participation of underrepresented minorities in pursuing research careers in the biomedical and behavioral sciences and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The ultimate goals of this workshop were to help researchers develop appropriate kinds of research questions that measure the contributions of various factors to the success of DOI: 10.1187/cbe.07–06–0034 Address correspondence to: Jay B. Labov (jlabov@nas.edu).

Administrative Degree Options outside Pharmacy for Pharmacists Interested in Administrative Careers in the Health Care Field

A variety of challenges facing the health care system in general and the profession of pharmacy in particular creates a need for pharmacists who have completed advanced education and training in administration. Some may choose to look outside academic pharmacy for graduate degree programs in administration. Four types of administrative degrees — MBA, MHA, MPA, and MPH — are described. A list of factors to be considered by a person thinking about pursuing graduate education in this area is presented and discussed. The admission process is described as it may typically occur for such programs in order to familiarize pharmacists with what criteria are likely to be used. An informed evaluation of the alternatives available will help students select the program best suited to their career goals.

Evidence and Root Causes of an Inadequate Pipeline for Nursing Faculty

The North Carolina Center for Nursing (NCCN) examined the projected supply of nursing faculty in the state of North Carolina. Coupled with a longitudinal educational mobility study of the state's registered nurses, the forecast shows that the growing faculty shortage is real and that its root cause is a growing shortfall in the pipeline of RNs prepared educationally to pursue graduate education and assume faculty roles.