Digital Commons Network^™

College Readiness And Digital Badges: A Middle School Approach, Blake C. Nemelka

Open Access Dissertations

Post-secondary education attainment results in higher salaries (Pew Research Center, 2014) and an increase in positive societal benefits (Baum, Ma, & Payea, 2013). Nevertheless, only 31% of U.S. citizens over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). While tradition would dictate the preparation for going to college begins in the later high school years (Gaertner & McClarty, 2015), a recent push has emerged for shifting the beginning of such conversations to middle school (Curry, Belser, & Binns, 2013; Gaertner & McClarty, 2015; Mattern, Allen, & Camara, 2016; Nemelka & Nemelka, 2016). Furthermore, advances in educational …

Facebook Engagement On College Students' Interpersonal And Intrapersonal Functioning, Scott S. Deatherage

Open Access Dissertations

In recent years college students have incorporated social-networking sites, and more specifically Facebook, into their daily lives. Facebook has received empirical attention; attention focused on what students are doing on Facebook, who its users are, and, more recently, why students access Facebook. However, researchers who have assessed motivations for accessing Facebook have emphasized how motivations are associated with certain activities, and have not simultaneously and directly examined how activities and motivations are associated with both maladaptive and adaptive factors of students’ interpersonal and intrapersonal functioning. The purpose of the present study was to examine how Facebook engagement is associated with …

Measuring Motivation In Children Served By Head Start, Andres Sebastian Bustamante

Open Access Dissertations

There is a well-established achievement gap between children from low income families and their middle to high income counterparts. One avenue towards narrowing the achievement gap is improving domain-general school readiness skills, such as motivation, persistence, and preference for challenge which support learning regardless of content area. Motivation orientation, one example of a malleable domain-general construct, encompasses two approaches at opposite ends of a continuum: mastery and performance motivations. The former is characterized by viewing failure as an opportunity for growth, while the latter views failure as a confirmation of a low innate ability level. Interventions targeting motivation orientation have …

A Structural Model Of Physiological And Psychological Effects On Adolescent Male Singing, Craig Denison

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of Motivation, Affective State and Physiology on the vocal outcomes of Range, Registration Fluency, and Vocal Quality. Participants were members of community boys’ choirs from four states (N = 196). Surveys on motivation and mood provided the psychological data. Height, weight, and lung capacity measures provided physiological data. Sound data consisted of glides, speech and messa di voces. Data analysis included Pearson correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis and two-step maximum likelihood structural equation modeling. Results indicated a strong effect of Physical Maturity on Registration Fluency. Correlations among observed variables height, …

The Efficacy Of The Protection Motivation Theory In Predicting Cruise Ship Passengers' Intentions Regarding Norovirus Disease Incidence, Jeff Fisher

Open Access Dissertations

The cruise industry is the fastest growing segment of the travel industry. Concurrent with its growth is the challenge of mitigating the risk associated with shipboard outbreaks. Norovirus is the leading cause of shipboard outbreaks. This study examined the efficacy of the protection motivation theory for predicting passengers’ intentions towards healthy behaviors in regard to norovirus disease incidence. Outbreaks of norovirus have serious health and economic consequences. Presently there is no vaccination available; however, handwashing and social distancing can have significant impact upon the course of an outbreak. The respondents of this study completed a scenario-based questionnaire regarding norovirus disease …

Preservice Teacher Motivation, Jennifer Moss

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation project highlights some positive news about college students who have chosen to become teachers, also known as preservice teachers. Two studies were conducted: one that examined the students’ open-ended answers to the direct question of why they want to become teachers; the other that examined the preservice teachers’ motivations overall, in the context of becoming a teacher, and in the situation of their education coursework. The findings in both studies suggest that students are choosing teaching for positive reasons including for the social utility value of the profession and their intrinsic interest in teaching. In addition, when examining …

The Effects Of A Humorous Instructional Video On Motivation And Learning, Hans P. Aagard

Open Access Dissertations

This study examines the effects of humor within an instructional video on student learning and motivation. Humor in education has been shown to improve students' perception of the instructor and learning environment, with mixed results on gains in actual learning. Humor has been suggested as a strategy to gain and maintain attention, improving motivation to learn. With the dramatic increase of online multimedia instruction, research on the use of humor on multimedia instructional materials can help us determine if it can be used to improve learning and motivation.

In a pretest-posttest controlled design, students viewed a short multimedia instructional video. …

New Insights Into Corruption: Paradoxical Effects Of Approach-Orientation For Powerholders, Mindi Sara Rock

Open Access Dissertations

Does power lead to corruption (Kipnis, 1972), and if so, why? Here, a novel mechanism is proposed for understanding the complex relationship between power and corruption by incorporating recent work on morality (Janoff-Bulman, Sheikh, & Hepp, 2009). By bridging the power, self-regulation, and morality literatures we proposed that powerful individuals, because of their approach tendencies, are oriented more towards moral prescriptions or “shoulds” and thus focus more on moral acts and moral intentions while minimizing the importance of moral proscriptions (neglect pathway). We proposed an alternative path to corruption for powerholders via moral self-regard. Powerholders, because of their …

The Role Of Motivation To Change In The Treatment Of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Christopher M. Spofford

Open Access Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the role of motivation in the treatment of individuals hospitalized for severe OCD, specifically, the extent to which an individual’s motivation for treatment and motivational orientation (intrinsic or extrinsic motivation) predict OCD treatment response. The sample consisted of 142 individuals diagnosed with severe treatment-refractory OCD participating in an intensive treatment program. Patients completed a measure assessing overall motivation and motivational orientation at admission (TSRQ), and measures assessing depressive severity (BDI) and OCD symptom severity (Y-BOCS) at admission and discharge. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed in which admission levels of overall …