Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Risk Factors Of Cyberbullying Victimization: The Impact Of Developmental Trauma, Yuliya Mykytyn

Dissertations

Trauma has been considered as one of the significant causes of psychological distress, especially if the traumatic event occurred in the childhood. At the same time, due to wide popularity of social media as a source of communication, cyberbullying emerged as a new way to harass someone, with specific focus on adults and young adults. The area of focus of this research project is to investigate whether experienced trauma, specifically developmental trauma might serve as a risk factor for cyberbullying victimization. Additional focus was on the differences in traumatic experiences and their impact for people with diverse cultural and ethnic …

The Utility Of The Test Of Everyday Attention For Children (Tea-Ch) For Attention-Related Referrals, Ewelina Lakomy

Dissertations

The Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) is a commonly used, UK-normed test to assess diverse attentional capacities in children and adolescents. Currently, there is insufficient evidence for the diagnostic utility of the TEA-Ch with ADHD in a U.S. population. The focus in this study was to investigate the relationship between the TEA-Ch scores test authors found to be most sensitive to ADHD in UK samples as well as the relationship of TEA-Ch scores to other measures typically used in the diagnosis of ADHD, including rating scales. Archival and prospective analyses of 121 subjects with mixed-clinical/ADHD diagnoses (ages 6–16; …

A Re-Examination Of The Motivations For Using Substances Questionnaire: Motives For Alcohol And Simultaneous Alcohol And Marijuana Use, Taylor Altenberger

Dissertations

The growing body of research examining simultaneous alcohol and marijuana (SAM) use suggests motivations for alcohol-only, marijuana-only, and SAM use, especially among college-aged people, warrant further examination to ultimately tailor interventions to not only specific substances but also the underlying motivations for using those substances. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to test the measurement invariance of a novel broadband motives measure, the Motivations for Using Substances Questionnaire (MUSQ), across alcohol-only, marijuana-only, and SAM users and further test motivations’ relationships to use-related problems. However, due to insufficient sample sizes of marijuana-only users (n = 175), the MUSQ …

Development Of A Scale To Measure School Psychologists' Self-Efficacy For Working With Gifted Populations, Brittany Marie Dodds

Dissertations

School psychologists are specialists in educational assessment, consultation, youth mental health, and social-emotional-behavioral development. As a result of their training, school psychologists are positioned to serve students with exceptionalities, including gifted students. However, research indicates that school psychologists' familiarity with gifted issues is lacking and that information regarding school psychologists' self-efficacy for working with this population is nonexistent. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to create a tool to assess school psychologists' self- efficacy for working with gifted populations. The Dodds Inventory of Gifted Self- Efficacy for School Psychologists (DIGS-SP) was developed and administered to 229 practicing school …

Examining The Effects Of State Anger On Self-Reported Psychopathic Trait Inventories, Olivia C. Preston

Dissertations

Research indicates that experiencing anger is linked to social undesirability and temporarily induces a host of significant changes within an individual, such as hostile attribution bias, lower trust, increased impulsivity, poorer decision-making, and preferential recall. Such changes theoretically may inflate psychopathy scores due to a greater ability or willingness to endorse attitudes, behaviors, cognitions, and emotions that are regarded as reflective of psychopathic traits and may potentially introduce random error variance into measurement. Such distortion due to mood may bear important implications for applied settings where one individual’s scores are measured at a single time point, rather than research where …

Psychometric Properties Of The College Athlete Psychological Screening Tool: Validation Of The Depression And Anxiety Subscales, Joseph C. Case

Dissertations

The aim of the present study was to gain a better understanding of the descriptive psychometric properties of the College Athlete Psychological Screening (CAPS) measure. The CAPS is a newly developed assessment screening measure designed to assess 14 common problem areas for college athletes. For the present investigation, 395 participants completed the 108-item CAPS measure. To establish criterion validity, participants also completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). The present study had three research questions. Question one discussed the descriptive psychodynamic properties (Cronbach’s alpha, means, and standard deviations) of the 14 CAPS subscales. Question two …

Exploration Of Factors That Influence The Use Of Psychological Testing In The Treatment And Evaluation Of Children: Development Of A Clinical Decision-Making Model, Joy Bui

Dissertations

Mental health disorders are on the rise among children. Within the field of clinical psychology, psychological testing is considered a professional competency and a formative diagnostic tool. Simultaneously, testing can help clarify differential diagnosis, guide treatment for both medical and mental health conditions, and provide accurate monitoring of treatment over time. Although there is substantial evidence supporting the use of testing in practice, there is limited scientific data linking these same benefits to the assessment process. One explanation for this is that studying psychological assessments is a challenging task, given the complexities of the process. Subsequently, many have described conducting …

Functional Assessment And Treatment Of Elopement Occasioned By Transitions, Denice Rios Mojica

Dissertations

Elopement is a dangerous behavior in children with developmental disabilities because it greatly increases the risk of accidents that lead to serious injury or death. The dangers of elopement are especially high during transitions because these situations increase the chance that a child will gain unsupervised access outside, where the most serious accidents typically occur. Despite its severity, assessment methodologies that specifically evaluate the contextual variables found during transitions are not available. Additionally, treatment for elopement during transitions typically involves antecedent interventions which do not address function. Continued research on effective and efficient means for the assessment and treatment of …

Evaluating Recommendations Versus Utilization Of Essential Components Of A Functional Analysis Procedure, Alissa Conway

Dissertations

Functional behavior assessment (FBA) has been identified as an essential process for behavior analytic practitioners to identify the variables maintaining challenging behaviors (BACB Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts (PECC), 3.01ab, 2014). FBAs include a range of strategies, including indirect measures (e.g., interviews and questionnaires) and direct measures of behavior (descriptive and experimental strategies). Functional analysis (FA) is typically considered the most sophisticated of the options subsumed under FBAs in that it involves both direct measures of behavior and experimental manipulation of hypothesized controlling variables to identify controlling variables for challenging behaviors. The results of FAs allow practitioners …

Assessment For Mild Cognitive Impairment: Striving For Best Practice, Julie Leigh Dalmasso

Dissertations

This dissertation is a series of three studies aimed at determining the best assessment practices for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) that can employed by speech-language pathologists (SLPs). The first study was non-experimental and descriptive examining whether three commonly used assessment instruments yielded similar categorical results. The data were analyzed to determine whether the Eight-Item Interview to Differentiate Aging and Dementia (AD8), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and the Cognitive-Linguistic Quick Test (CLQT) identified the same participants from a neurotypical sample as having cognitive deficits. Very little agreement was found amongst the three tools.

Study two was modified to include two …

An Analysis Of Campus Violence Threat Assessment Policy Implementation At Michigan Community Colleges, Russell T. Panico Jr.

Dissertations

This dissertation evaluated campus violence threat assessment policy and procedure implementation at the community college level of higher education. The importance of this topic was to provide a manageable and collaborative initiative for leadership at institutions of higher learning to identify, develop, implement, and evaluate a policy that can effectively prevent acts of campus-related violence. A mixed-methods study approach using a Likert-scale survey with supporting open-ended questions was used to guide the exploration. Bardach’s (2016) Eightfold Path for Policy Analysis was the framework used by Michigan community colleges to apply to their own unique situations. This method determined the prevalence …

A Transdiagnostic Approach To Emotion Regulation: The Development And Validation Of Two Scales Of Emotion Regulation, Lauren M. Borges

Dissertations

To address limitations of existing emotion regulation measures, the goal of the present study was to develop new measures of emotion undercontrol and emotion overcontrol. These measures were created from 305 undergraduate participants who completed preexisting scales of emotion regulation. Analyses were applied to determine which regulatory strategies were most predictive of personality disorders associated with emotion overcontrol (i.e., AVPD and OCPD) and emotion undercontrol (i.e., BPD and ASPD). The variables most predictive of these disorders and related traits were included in the item pools for factor analysis. Exploratory factor analyses were implemented to determine which factors were associated with …

Using Dynamic Lndicators Of Basic Early Literacy Skills (Dibels) Oral Reading Fluency Data To Predict Michigan Educational Assessment Program Outcomes, Lisa Lockman

Dissertations

Schools are under legislative pressure to ensure students make adequate progress each year, and therefore, must identify students in need of intervention at early grade levels. Educators use diagnostic tools to measure student progress, attempting to determine which children may be most at risk for future reading failure. The Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is widely used for early identification of students who have risk factors. This study incorporated a quantitative, correlational, ex post facto design to examine the relationship between students’ third grade scores on the spring DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) assessment and their fifth grade …

The Academic Library And High-Impact Practices For Student Retention: Perspectives Of Library Deans, Adam L. Murray

Dissertations

Dramatic declines in state appropriations for postsecondary education, the rise of performance-based funding models, and limitations on tuition increases have resulted in a focus on student retention as a matter of importance to institutions of higher education. Concomitantly, academic libraries face changes in service models brought about by technology and the rising costs of providing access to an ever-expanding field of literature required by academic programs and faculty. The value proposition of the academic library is reduced in the face of budget interests that impact recruitment and retention. Many researchers and university leaders have called on academic libraries to develop …

Clinician's Experience Of Suicide Assessment From A Qualitative Perspective, Eric W. Macleod

Dissertations

Using a qualitative research method, the researcher explored the lived experiences of 17 clinicians in southwest Michigan who assess the risk of their clients committing suicide as a part of their professional practice. A phenomenological approach was used to interpret and understand the results. In-person interviews were conducted at a place chosen by the participant. Four broad interview questions with several subquestions within each created a semi-structured format. The questions explored the way clinicians assess suicide, the professional impact of suicide assessment, the personal impact of suicide assessment, and any changes in participants’ worldview as a result of suicide assessment. …

Emotional Response Patterns And Emotional Numbing In Adult Female Victims Of Sexual Assault With Ptsd, Tristan A. Robinson

Dissertations

DSM symptoms of emotional numbing appear to have a major impact on the course and outcome of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), yet the construct definition of emotional numbing itself has not been clearly established. Two opposing conceptualizations of this construct have been proposed in the traumatic stress literature. One holds numbing to be a form of non-effortful emotional avoidance, akin to dissociation, that results in diminished responsiveness to emotional stimuli in general (Foa, Zinbarg, & Rothbaum, 1992; Foa & Hearst-Ikeda, 1996). The other suggests that numbing entails a deficit in responsiveness to positive emotional stimuli but not to negative emotional …

Organizing For Change: An Assessment Of Organization Development Activities Of Training Consultants, Katherine Waller Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine and analyze the background and training of consultants involved in organization development activities, the client organizations served by these professionals, the types of organization development interventions most commonly employed by the training consultants, and the resources utilized by internal and external consultants conducting organization development activities. The data were collected from a review and analysis of organization development research literature and from a descriptive survey questionnaire utilized to obtain information from a sample of 102 practicing consultants from a variety of institutional settings throughout the United States. Both qualitative and quantitative information …

The Identification Of Spanish-Speaking Children With Speech And Language Handicaps: An Analysis Of Current Assessment Practices In Speech And Language Therapy Programs With Proposed Assessment Guidelines, Lawrence Joel Mattes Edd

Dissertations

Problem The objectives of this study were (1) to examine the procedures used by speech-language pathologists in identifying Spanish-speaking students with speech and language handicaps, (2) to determine the extent to which practicing speech-language pathologists are qualified to conduct these evaluations, and (3) to develop a comprehensive set of assessment guidelines. Procedure A 27-item survey instrument constructed by the researcher was distributed to 408 individuals in Los Angeles County, selected from the 1980 membership directory of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the 1981 directory supplement. A total of 285 (69.85%) of the surveys were returned, but 44 of these surveys …