High employee turnover in higher education has been an issue for decades, and successfully integrating newly hired staff (NHS) into their new job and the organization can be challenging for human resources and leadership. New employee orientation and onboarding programs can assist NHS. The author of this paper conducted a Utilization-Focused…

Principal burnout and churn negatively impact teacher retention and student achievement. The principal retention problem has led to programs to help principals gain resilience and reduce burnout. This program evaluation aimed to discover the effectiveness of the Principal Impact Collaborative (PIC) over time and which strategies reduce principals'…

This study responds to a national conversation about the role that Career Technical Education (CTE) might play in meeting workforce demand for soft skills. It is challenging for CTE programs to offer soft skills for several reasons. Both educators and employers tend to associate CTE with hard skills, or technical skills and therefore the programs…

Do federal policies influence program offerings for career and technical education (CTE)? Often the implication of compliance and the expectation of connecting compliance to funding is considered a tactic to leverage expectations on a large scale. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if the CTE programs located in a singular…

Barriers to education and training can have a generational impact on socioeconomic status and economic development. Post-traditional students have been shown to experience a variety of barriers to education and family-sustaining employment. Social capital has been shown to help alleviate some of the barriers for students, resulting in stronger…

Communications Officers, the core of law enforcement emergency centers, are the first point of contact in an emergency. It is imperative to provide effective training and support geared towards retention and success in a comfortable environment. The purpose of this study was to create a training program evaluation supportive of persistence,…

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the impact of a quality improvement strategy to implement an RN clinical learning and development specialist (CLDS) with the intent to reduce high turnover in novice nurses and low nurse engagement. The CLDS served as expert, role-model, coach, and mentor. Benner's model of novice-to-expert was used as…

To maintain international competitiveness U.S. national and state educational agencies recognized, the prerequisites for high schools and secondary educational institutes would require a more rigorous and relevant Career and Technical Education (CTE) program. This study utilized a prospective causal-comparative research design to examine and…

In 2012, the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) published the Blue Book that identified a framework for the Inspections and Evaluations (I&E) sub-community to the greater federal oversight community. These standards, or competencies, are the criteria for this applied research, which is designed to assist the…

Shawnee State University (SSU) founded Project BEAR: Building Emerging and Achieving Readers, an AmeriCorps program, to support literacy development and improve school readiness in the Appalachian region. After the first 2 years of program implementation, areas for growth including enhanced service member recruitment, member onboarding, and…

Conversations about workforce development in the construction industry are centered around improving the construction trade skills of displaced workers or other unskilled or untrained individuals. Rarely will that conversation focus on the administrative skills necessary for contractor success, particularly in public works construction where…

Tennessee's future will be determined by the number of post-secondary credentials of its residents to support economic development. Additionally, Tennesseans must earn living wages to support their livelihoods. Finally, the psychological development of Tennesseans must be supported, which allows individuals to reach their fullest potential. While…

Purpose: The military medic/paramedic population has desired to seek further education in healthcare with a program that provides earned credit for their prior learning and experiences. The population specifically wants to become a registered nurse (RN). As the nursing shortage continues, these military medics and paramedics are an untapped…

This study sought to better understand present-day relationships between institutional and programmatic characteristics and their impact on student outcomes at postsecondary career and technical schools. This is critical given: (a) the existence of a significant middle-skills gap impacting the U.S. economy; (b) a lack of research and guidance for…

Since their inception in the 1960s, federally funded workforce development programs have promised a solution to unemployment, labor market skills gaps, and income inequality. However, until recently, lack of data and methodological challenges have made evaluation of these programs difficult. Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor in response to…