Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Comparing Effects Of Praise Rates On Classroom Behavior, Brittany Pigg

Master's Theses

High-quality academic instruction, and, in turn, student success, are correlated with effective classroom management (Gage, Scott, Hirn, & MacSuga-Gage, 2018; Johnson, 1997; Stronge, Ward, & Grant, 2011; Wang, Haertel, & Walberg, 1993). Students are spending up to 50% of their instructional time engaged in non-instructional activities such as classroom procedures, transitions, and discipline (Codding & Smyth, 2008). However, academic activities should account for at least 70% of classroom time (Little & Akin-Little, 2008). Praise, a simple classroom behavior management procedure, includes statements commending behavior and is intended to increase the future probability of the behavior that warranted praise. Behavior-specific praise …

Stability Of Universal Screening Over Time: An Examination Of The Student Risk Screening Scale, Rebecca Wagner Lovelace

Master's Theses

Universal screening is a proactive method to identify students that are at risk for social-emotional and behavior (SEB) problems and provide information to schools to support early intervention for at risk children. Current recommendations for practice indicate screening should be conducted at three time points during the school year. Previous studies suggest that this recommendation is not empirically based and fewer screenings per year may be sufficient for identifying students at risk. The current study seeks to extend the literature regarding the stability and consistency of screening scores over time by analyzing ratings from the Student Risk Screening Scale (SRSS) …

Personality In California Sea Lions (Zalophus Californianus) And Harbor Seals (Phoca Vitulina): Methodological Convergence And Species-Specific Emotional Repertoires, Amber De Vere

Dissertations

Despite the wide acceptance of animal personality as a valid area of study, research on marine mammal personality remains remarkably scarce. What literature does exist predominantly focuses on bottlenose dolphins (Frick, 2016; Highfill & Kuczaj, 2007; Kuczaj, Highfill & Byerly, 2012; Lilley, de Vere, Yeatre & Kuczaj, 2018; Moreno, Highfill & Kuczaj, 2017). There is also strong evidence for individual differences in grey seals (Robinson et al., 2015; Twiss & Franklin, 2010; Twiss, Culloch & Pomeroy, 2011; Twiss, Cairns, Culloch, Richards & Pomeroy, 2012), and preliminary research has provided evidence of broad personality factors in pinniped species using behavioral coding …

Tootling With A Randomized Independent Group Contingency In A High School Setting, John Dylan Ken Lum

Dissertations

Tootling is a procedure where students report their classmates’ positive and prosocial behavior. The present study examined the effects of tootling on students’ disruptive and academically engaged behavior in three general education high school classrooms. An A-B-A-B withdrawal design was used to assess the effects of the intervention. Students wrote tootles anonymously on paper slips and placed them into a marked container. Unlike previous tootling studies, a randomized independent group contingency procedure was used to reward the students to reduce the number of steps required to implement the intervention. At the end of the class period, teachers randomly drew three …

Do Pinnipeds Have Personality? Coding Harbor Seal (Phoca Vitulina) And California Sea Lion (Zalophus Californianus) Behavior Across Contexts, Amber J. De Vere

Master's Theses

Personality has now been studied in species as diverse as chimpanzees (King & Figueredo, 1997) and cuttlefish (Carere et al., 2015), but marine mammals remain vastly underrepresented in this area. A broad range of traits have been assessed only in the bottlenose dolphin (Highfilll & Kuczaj, 2007), while consistent individual differences in a few specific behaviors have been identified in grey seals (Robinson et al., 2015; Twiss & Franklin, 2010; Twiss, Culloch & Pomeroy, 2011; Twiss, Cairns, Culloch, Richards & Pomeroy, 2012). Furthermore, the context component of definitions of personality is not often assessed, despite evidence that animals may show …

Towards A Better Understanding Of Zebrafish Sleep Behavior, Kanza Musarrat Khan

Master's Theses

Sleep serves many vital functions in humans, ranging from energy restoration to memory consolidation and information integration. Sleep deprivation is linked to worsened physiological states and psychological conditions. Zebrafish are an emerging model in neurobehavioral research and have recently demonstrated great utility in the study of sleep. This teleost species possesses several of the same neurotransmitter and neuropeptide systems that are involved in the regulation of sleep and waking rhythms in higher order mammals. Previous study of these animals has revealed a differential gene and proteomic expression following sleep deprivation through changes in environmental stimuli. The present study sought to …

Habitat Use By Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops Truncatus, In Roanoke Sound, North Carolina, Shauna Marisa Mcbride

Dissertations

Information on the habitat use of a species is important to develop conservation efforts and management strategies for that species. Roanoke Sound, North Carolina is primarily a seasonal habitat for bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, from late spring to early fall, but little information is known about how dolphins use this area. Transect survey data and opportunistic survey data collected by the Outer Banks Center for Dolphin Research from 2009 to 2015 were used to analyze dolphin habitat use. The objectives of this project were to: 1) identify areas that were important to dolphins, 2) determine which behaviors were observed …

The Effect Of Auditory Stimulation On Sleep Disruption In West Indian Manatee (Trichechus Manatus Latirostris), Natalija Lace

Dissertations

Florida manatees inhabit waterways where motorized boats are common. Although manatee mortalities resulting from boat strikes are well documented, the effect of boat noise on some manatee behaviors, including rest, has not been investigated. This study focuses on rest behavior and used a playback experiment with four manatees at the Lowry Park Zoo in Florida. We tested their responses to playback stimuli of either boat noise, silence, or manatee calls. A playback trial was initiated when the focal animal showed behavioral characteristics of rest.

Results showed that rest was interrupted in response to the playback of boat noise for each …

The Effects Of Tootling On Disruptive And Academic Behaviors In High School, John Dylan Ken Lum

Master's Theses

Considered the opposite of tattling, tootling is a procedure where students report their classmates’ positive behavior instead of inappropriate behavior. This study examined the effects of tootling on students’ behavior in three general education high school classrooms. An A-B-A-B withdrawal with follow-up design was used to assess the effects of the intervention on decreasing classwide disruptive behavior and increasing academically engaged behavior. Students wrote tootles anonymously on paper slips, and deposited them into a marked container. An interdependent group contingency procedure was used to create a class goal for the number of submitted tootles, which led to a class reward …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of The Good Behavior Game With General Education High School Students Utilizing A Changing Criterion Component, Rachel Ritter Mitchell

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the interdependent group contingency procedure known as the Good Behavior Game (GBG) with upper-level (i.e., 10th, 11th, and 12th grade) general education high school students utilizing a changing criterion design. The effectiveness of the GBG has been investigated with a variety of behaviors across many developmental levels; however, limited research has been done at the high school level. To date, only a few studies have examined the effectiveness of the GBG with a general education high school population, one with a single 9th grade classroom (Kleinman & Saigh, 2011) …

Evaluation Of Performance-Based And Pre-Set Conventional Criterion For Reinforcement In Check In-Check Out, Lauren Lestremau Harpole

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of two methods of criterion-setting, performance-based or pre-set conventional, as evidenced by improvements in children’s behavior. Participant behavior was evaluated through teacher reports of appropriate behavior and observed academically engaged behavior as well as decreases in problem behavior and disruptive behavior. Eight elementary school students in a Southeastern town referred for exhibiting behavior problems served as participants in addition to their teachers. The effects of the different methods of criterion setting on the dependent variables were evaluated. Teacher ratings of appropriate behavior were assessed through evaluation of Daily Behavior …