Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Examining The Relationship Between Toddler Self-Regulation And Maternal Self-Efficacy, Yu-Chuen Huang

Masters Theses

The present study examined the relationship between maternal self-efficacy and child self-regulation during the toddler years. Using a local database, the current study focused on specific dimensions of maternal self-efficacy in an effort to move beyond global descriptions of the construct. The results showed that maternal self-efficacy was negatively associated with child dysregulation ratings. In addition, the instrumental care dimension of maternal self-efficacy was the most influential predictor of child dysregulation ratings. Moreover, negative emotionality and sensory sensitivity have stronger associations with maternal self-efficacy than the other aspects of child dysregulation. However, this study found no gender or socioeconomic differences …

Paternal Involvement With Special Needs Children, Emily Lauren Furst

Masters Theses

The focus of this study is paternal involvement of fathers with special needs children. Role salience, parental satisfaction, reflected appraisals, and contextual variables were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between empowerment and paternal involvement. It was also hypothesized that financial strain would moderate the relationship between empowerment and paternal involvement, as mediated by the identity theory variables and contextual variables. The researcher additionally hypothesized that empowerment would be more important to men facing higher levels of financial strain. These hypotheses were investigated using data from the Pathways Research Project, which evaluated Tennessee’s Early Intervention System (TEIS). TEIS provides services to …

Relationships Among Parenting Styles, Ethnicity, Gender, And Adolescents Internalized Distress In Impoverished Families, Tao Liu

Masters Theses

The principal objectives of the study were to examine the concurrent and long-term effect of parenting style and its interaction with the ethnicity and gender on adolescent internalized distress in low income families. The data were from the first two waves of the Three City Study. Nine hundred and fifteen mothers from Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio reported their parenting behaviors on authoritative, harsh, permissive, and disengaged parenting; and their adolescent children responded to the Brief Symptom Inventory 18 to indicate their internalized distress. The results of the study indicated that disengaged and harsh parenting were significantly associated with adolescent …

Failure To Launch: A Study Into The North American Soccer League And The Women’S United Soccer Association And Their Factors Of Failures Through Michael Porter’S Models Of Strategy Formation, Fraser John Boyd

Masters Theses

Many international sports such as soccer and rugby believe the future growth and prosperity of the sport would be secured, if they can become established within the US sports market. However, many sports leagues/organizations have attempted to enter into this competitive marketplace with a good number of them failing to either establish themselves or are no longer in existence.

The purpose of this research study is to investigate the factors of failure behind the North American Soccer League and the Women United Soccer Association utilizing Michael Porter’s Models of Strategy Formation. An analysis of the two failed leagues will be …

Factors Affecting The Use Of Appalachian Children’S Literature Titles In Libraries Located In The Central Appalachian Region, As Offered By Librarians In The Central Appalachian Region, Jamie Lynn Osborn

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research is to describe, with the aid of a survey, the factors Library and Information Science professionals working in the Central Appalachian region believe influence the use of Appalachian Children’s Literature titles in Central Appalachian libraries. Primarily, what do librarians in the region feel affects the use of these titles to their library patrons? To thoroughly examine this issue the following research questions will be explored: Specifically, at what point in their lives, if at all, were librarians in this study exposed to Appalachian Children’s Literature? Did this exposure take place in a K-12 setting or …

Subadult Sexual Dimorphism In The Luís Lopes Collection, Miriam E. Soto

Masters Theses

Previous works on subadult sexual dimorphism have focused on the pelvis, cranium, or dentition. The results of these studies have been inconsistent regarding the existence of significant sex differences prior to puberty. For the most part, subadult long bone dimensions have been ignored in previous studies. This study evaluated subadult sexual dimorphism in long bone dimensions using a sample from the Luís Lopes collection. The results of MANCOVA tests and logistic regressions indicate that subadult long bone dimensions are significantly sexually dimorphic and hold some promise for sex determination. Clavicle measurements proved to be fairly accurate sex predictors for subadults. …

Living In The Low Country: Modeling Archaeological Site Location In The Francis Marion National Forest, South Carolina, Jason M. O'Donoughue

Masters Theses

The Francis Marion National Forest, located in the Lower Coastal Plain of South Carolina, has a rich archaeological record generated from years of compliance-based research. Much of the cultural resource management activity in the Forest has been guided by a probabilistic model of archaeological site location. This model is an invaluable tool for Forest Service personnel conducting land-use planning and resource management, but it has seen only limited testing. This study examined the spatial location and environmental associations of the entire sample of archaeological sites in the Francis Marion National Forest to evaluate the extant probabilistic model and develop an …

Testing The Effectiveness Of Cognitive-Behavior And Medication Therapy In The Acute Treatment On Unipolar Mood Disorders: Processes And Case Histories, Alyssa H. Kalata

Masters Theses

The present study sought to investigate two areas of interest: (1) the process issues involved in conducting a randomized controlled trial with low-income individuals being seen at community mental health agencies and (2) patterns in case histories of individuals who participated in depression treatment outcome research at community mental health agencies. This study gives a detailed analysis of conducting a randomized controlled trial for unipolar mood disorders in two community mental health agencies in the Southwestern Michigan region. Process issues at the levels of identification and recruitment of participants, attendance and retention of participants, project implementation, and broader systemic issues …

Organizational Culture And Change: Understanding The Western Herald's Newsroom Culture, Sarah Ling Wei Lee

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore organizational culture and change in a college newspaper's newsroom. Student journalists often use college newspapers as a means to get editorial experience and also to get published. Even so, the college newspaper newsroom is unlike a typical metropolitan or local community newspaper's newsroom in the way that it experiences change. College newspapers encounter organizational change as part of the newsroom's inner workings constantly because of frequent turnover and other factors. As a result, they are suitable for understanding how staff members make sense of newsroom culture in a dynamic, changing environment. Two …

Effectiveness Of Improving Performance With The Bigger Faster Stronger In-Season Training Program, Alicia D. Crelinsten

Masters Theses

This study investigated the effectiveness of improving performance of adolescents with the in-season Bigger Faster Stronger (BFS) program. Thirty seven high school athletes were divided into three groups; BFS (n=l4 ), traditional weight training (n= l0), and control (n= 13 ). Each participant went through a battery of seven performance pre-tests and post-tests ( estimated 1 ORM incline bench, broad jump, one minute sit-up test, t-test, line drill, 40 yard sprint, 1.5 mile run). Following the pre-testing, the control group continued to participate in their sport. The BFS group participated in the in-season BFS program (30 minute supervised session consisting …

Analysis Of Spatial Distribution Of Hazardous Wastes In Semcog Region, Michigan, Junfang Chen

Masters Theses

This research is devoted to an increasingly recognized issue: environmental injustice, that is, the distribution of environmental risks and/ hazards are disproportionably distributed in the space in terms of the effects on the victims. Specifically, this thesis focuses on an analysis of the spatial distribution of hazardous materials from fixed incidents and the characteristics of neighborhoods living near the incident sites, so as to test the hypothesized relationships that poor people and minority people live near the incident sites. SEMCOG region, Michigan is chosen as the study area due to its frequent occurrence of incidents involving environmental hazards. It is …

Economic Development And The Absence Of Democracy In China, Megan Whipp

Masters Theses

My research will look at the reasons for China's lack of democracy. China has become increasingly developed giving the Chinese people greater wealth, improved education, and better access to healthcare. Based on Seymour Lipset's 1963 study which finds economic development fosters democracy, China should have become democratic. But, China is not a democracy.

The methodology employed in this study is a case study. A case study ensures an in-depth analysis of the relevant factors which could affect China's prospects for democracy. This study advances the understanding of China's continued authoritarian rule finding two factors especially influential. The first factor is …

Mobile Phone Communication Competence (Mpcc): Development And Validation Of A New Measure, Emil Bakke

Masters Theses

More than two billion people around the world have adopted mobile phones for communication. Interpersonal communication research has found that communication competence is an essential human need required to fulfill interpersonal objectives to achieve physical and psychological satisfaction (Spitzberg and Cupach, 1984), however, mobile phone communication competence has yet to be studied. The purpose of this study is to develop and validate a new scale designed to measure Mobile Phone Communication Competence (MPCC); a principal component factor analysis uncovered the structure and dimensionality of the MPCC measure. The results from the factor analysis in this study identified six constructs: asynchronous …

Watching Satan’S Daughters: A Visual Analysis Of Lesbian Pulp Fiction Cover Art, 1950-1969, Carrie Shaver

Masters Theses

This research analyzes the historical social construction of identity through the visual reiteration of the norms of "woman" and "lesbian" as represented on the cover art of lesbian pulp fiction novels from 1950-1969. A subgenre of pulp paperbacks, lesbian pulps were sensationalistic and best-selling, reflecting the public lesbian image in the popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s (Keller, 2005). Their success in large part was due to popular mainstreaming of the fields of sexology, psychology, and psychiatry. The "normality" of female sexual behavior was a subject of great curiosity, especially after Alfred Kinsey's study of female sexuality was released …

A Comparative Analysis Of Pixel-Based And Object-Oriented Image Analysis Methods Using Landsat Imagery, Jason Joseph Delisio

Masters Theses

Pixel-based and object-oriented image analysis methods are two popular techniques for classifying satellite imagery. Pixel-based analysis is typically used for coarser resolution imagery while object-oriented analysis is ideal for high resolution imagery. However, the ability of object-oriented image analysis to segment images based on factors such as shape, color, texture, and spatial attributes suggest that it can perform as well or better than pixel-based analysis in classifying medium resolution imagery. A comparative analysis of the two methods was performed using Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper imagery from September 2006 to classify grassland quality and land cover in Da'erhanmaoming'an (DaMao) Banner, Inner …

Identifying The Most Effective Stimulus To Promote Wayfinding In Elders With Dementia, Allison A. Jay

Masters Theses

When nursing home residents with dementia experience difficulty locating their bedroom, it can create problems for other residents and staff. This study investigated the ability of four elders with severe dementia to recognize various self-referent stimuli (i.e., young adulthood photograph, middle adulthood photograph, current photograph, and printed name). Two of the three participants who were able to complete the assessment recognized their photographs from earlier in life and their printed names but were not able to recognize their current photograph. These two residents then participated in an intervention in which the recognized stimuli were posted outside their bedroom doorway during …

Distribution Of Fluoride In Groundwater In Selected Villages In Northern Red Sea And Anseba Regions Of Eritrea, Filmon Tsegay Fisseha

Masters Theses

The aim of the study is to describe the fluoride concentration of water samples primarily from sources used for household needs in selected villages of Eritrea, with emphasis on the most severely affected parts of the country. Water sample quality data were collected from The Water Resource Department of Eritrea and water quality reports indicated that high levels of fluoride content were found for some villages' groundwater sources. The highest concentration was found in Aquar, 7.7 mg/L; Northern Red Sea region, above the 1.5 mg/L Maximum concentration recommended by The World Health Organization.

Waters with high fluoride concentrations occur in …

Black Women, Beauty, And Labor: Towards An Archaeology Of African-American Women In Indianapolis, Indiana, Genesis M. Snyder

Masters Theses

For two consecutive summers (2002 and 2003), I conducted fieldwork in the Ransom Place Archaeology neighborhood on the near Westside of Indianapolis, Indiana. I found myself increasingly drawn to the material culture left behind by the African-American women who had lived in the area roughly 100 years ago. Such material culture begs many questions: What social and political forces influenced the construction of African-American women's understandings of self in the early twentieth century? Who was responsible for the construction and dissemination of beauty ideals, notions about women's work, and how did those ideals differ across the color line? Using as …

Ferro Ingenio: An Archaeological And Ethnohistorical View Of Labor And Empire In Colonial Porco And Potosi, Brendan J. M. Weaver

Masters Theses

Porco, Bolivia, is known as the source of silver which ornamented the Inca temple of Coricancha, and as the seat of the earliest Spanish mining operations in the Andes. The colonial silver processing site of Ferro Ingenio, on the outskirts of Porco, is comprised of domestic and industrial structures, constructed and used over multiple occupations. Ferro Ingenio is the best preserved and most complete site of its kind in the Porco region and the first Andean stamp-mill ever to be excavated. This investigation uses ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence to examine the organization and the changing social roles of colonial labor. …

Newspaper Coverage Of The South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement: A Framing Analysis, Yeonah Park

Masters Theses

This study compared how four English-language newspapers in the United States and South Korea covered the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). A content analysis using QDA Miner was conducted for 354 articles from the New York Time, the Washington Post, the Korea Herald, and the Korea Times to determine how each paper framed the topic. Overall the newspapers’ media framing aligned with their national concerns and interests.

The literature review supported the idea that identifying frames in natural language articles and investigating the relative highlighting of issues was important in analyzing news coverage. The two Korean …

On-Air Weather Forecasters' Educational Backgrounds, Vincent Graham Walker

Masters Theses

Weather is important to local television newscasts, so it is becoming important to expand research regarding this area. It is important to understand why certain people are chosen to present the weather on-air. Currently, three different kinds of degrees seem to be the choice for the people who are presenting the weather on television. On-air weather forecasters who work for the local affiliated stations of ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC networks tend to have degrees in meteorology, communications, or broadcast meteorology. Which one of these degree categories is preferred and why?

Two predictors come to the forefront to answer this …

Controversy In The Coalfields: Evaluation Of Media And Audience Frames In The Print Coverage Of Mountain Justice Summer, Amanda B. Womac

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the media and audience frames used in print media coverage of Mountain Justice Summer and mountaintop removal. The study synthesizes aspects of framing theory of media effects as described by other media scholars in an attempt to create a working model to evaluate media and audience frames. As this study will show, the media use an overall negative frame in the coverage of Mountain Justice Summer, but also have an overall negative frame in the coverage of mountaintop removal. Based on these findings, the study suggest activists with Mountain Justice Summer helped …

Perspectives Of Rural Library Managers/Directors Regarding Professional Education: A Qualitative Study In Northwest Georgia, Christina E. Tracy

Masters Theses

Attempts have been made by several organizations, including the American Library Association (ALA), to provide greater access to professional education for library managers/directors; however, the rural environment presents unique challenges to education not addressed by many of the policies and programs currently in place. This study examined the perspectives of library managers/directors in rural Northwest Georgia about the factors that impede or facilitate professional degree attainment. Participants included twelve library managers/directors serving in rural communities. Qualitative interviews with the library managers/directors identified their experiences and issues including challenges and incentives to professional degree attainment. The principal findings include: the difference …

Land Use-Transportation Interaction: Lessons Learned From An Experimental Model Using Cellular Automata And Artificial Neural Networks, Steve R. Ahrens

Masters Theses

Land use and transportation interact to produce large urban concentrations in most major cities that create tremendous sprawl, noise, congestion, and environmental concerns. The desire to better understand this relationship has led to the development of land use–transport (LUT) models as an extension of more general urban models. The difficulties encountered in developing such models are many as local actions sum to form global patterns of land use change, producing complex interrelationships. Cellular automata (CA) simplify LUT model structure, promise resolution improvement, and effectively handle the dynamics of emergent growth. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) can be used to quantify the …

Comparing Frames Of Cancer And Heart Disease In American News Magazines, Courtney L. Craig

Masters Theses

This study compares and contrasts the way cancer and heart disease were framed in three major American news magazines from 1991-1995 and from 2001-2005. It is a partial replica of a 1992 study by Juanne Clarke titled “Cancer, Heart Disease and AIDS: What Do the Media Tell Us About These Diseases?” Every article about cancer and heart disease from these news magazines in these time periods was analyzed and coded into categories. The study concludes that cancer is a much more personal issue than heart disease; it is portrayed in a way that makes it more “serious” than heart disease. …

Skin Color Bias In The Immigration Process: A Multi-Methods Approach, Sarah E. Hendricks

Masters Theses

This study looks at the intersection of the literature on immigration and on phenotype and life chances. As immigrant populations in the United States have shifted from European countries of origin to Latin American and Asian countries of origin in recent decades, the phenotype of these populations of immigrants is increasingly distinct from the privileged mainstream U.S. population with European origins. Do darker shades of skin color lead to correspondingly different experiences in the United States immigration system?

This study uses data from the New Immigrant Survey 2003 to explore the relationship between skin color and the duration of the …

Weaver’S Method Reassessed: The Relationship Between Age And The Estimation Of Sex In Juveniles Using The Auricular Surface, Jaymelee Kim

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research was to test Weaver’s method of sex estimation using the auricular surface on neonatal skeletal remains of varying ages. The age of the individual was used to examine whether or not there existed a stronger correlation between age and elevation than sex and elevation. By assessing these relationships, it could be determined if Weaver’s method is more appropriate for individuals of certain ages more than individuals of other ages. Juvenile skeletons (n = 167) ranging in age from fourteen weeks post-conception to twenty years of age were assessed from two skeletal collections, and the results …

Attributions And Negative Affect As Moderators Of Ptsd Symptomatology And Aggression, Aaron J. Kivisto

Masters Theses

Interpersonal violence has been identified as one of our nation’s most important public health concerns and has been empirically linked with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In order to better understand the relationship between PTSD and violence, we used Chemtob’s (1997) Survival Mode model to examine the role of two potentially important proximal factors linking PTSD to violence; cognitive attributions and negative affect. Congruent with theory and previous research, we hypothesized that PTSD would be related to aggression, and that cognitive attributions and negative affect would moderate the relationship between these variables.

Undergraduate students (N = 628) completed an online screening …

Pitch Contrast In Meter Perception, Nigel O. Lay

Masters Theses

The role of large pitch contrasts in meter perception of three-pulse-train polyrhythms was investigated. Subjects were presented with several polyrhythmic configurations having both small and large pitch contrasts and were asked to tap the meter, or beat. Some subjects preferred meters based on the lower-pitch and slowerprogressing pulse trains, while others preferred unit-based meters. Results revealed that three-pulse-train polyrhythms with large pitch contrast do not result in notably different meter perceptions from those with smaller pitch contrast. These results support previous findings which showed that meter is determined by multiple factors, such as pulse-train pitch and relative pulse-train tempo.

The Application Of The Supervisory Options For Instructional Leaders Framework Within The Fields Of Agricultural, Science, Math, And English Education, David A. Little

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine specific types of supervisory methods used in diverse academic subjects to fulfill personal and professional growth in student teachers and interns. The study sought to compare agriculture, science, math and English teacher educator characteristics and the extent to which the three levels of the Supervisory Options for Instructional Leaders (SOIL) Framework—structured, moderately structured, and relatively unstructured—were used. Surveys were collected from 196 student teacher and intern supervisors throughout the United States. The study revealed that demographic associations appeared to have no bearing on the type of supervisory methods used with the exception …