Social Work Commons^™

Data Visualization: Graphical Representation In The Evaluation Of Experimental Group Therapy Education Outcomes, Randall E. Basham

Doctoral Dissertations

Introduction: An important methodological consideration in the social sciences is the evaluation of the effectiveness of groups and specific group interventions. There is an increasing demand for service accountability in practice settings both in social services and public health services. Group services are rising as a practice modality. Emerging technology shows promise of providing the means for practitioners untrained in advanced research methods to gain useful information and improved decision- making capacities related to groups and group services. Computer based graphical representation of data patterns at multiple levels of analysis can provide the bases for data exploration and lead to …

An Examination Of The Relationships Between Value Conflict, Quality Of Worklife, Job Satisfaction And Job Retention Among Employees Working In Urban And Rural County Human Service Departments In The State Of Ohio, Laurie Gracheck White

Doctoral Dissertations

Public human service settings are highly bureaucratic organizations with tight centralization of policy decision-making. They can be inhospitable places for conducting professional work and most appropriate for performing routine tasks based on standardized procedures. Against this backdrop of control, human service workers are asked to respond to the unique and unpredictable problems of people struggling unsuccessfully in society. The inconsistency between work structure and professional responsibility can generate value conflict for public human service employees. There are conflicts of loyalty to employers, laws, clients, colleagues, funding sources, regulations, and the community at large. These conflicts can have profound implication for …

A Formative Evaluation Of An Empathy Training Model, Beverly Mckee

Doctoral Dissertations

Statement of the Problem: No specific, short term model of empathy has been developed and tested with the general adult population even though researchers have established a link between empathic skills and the art of helping and caring for others. Additionally, as a major component of "emotional intelligence," it is argued that empathy enhances successful living in general (Gibbs, 1995). A large body of research suggests that more empathic people tend to engage in more altruistic behaviors, are less aggressive, are more affiliative, score higher on measures of moral judgement, and are more pleasant to be around (Mehrabian, Young, and …

An Exploratory Examination Of The Interrelationships Among Parenting Beliefs, Parenting Stress, And Parenting-Child Interaction In The Context Of Maternal Polydrug Addiction And Prenatal Drug Exposure, Darlene Grant

Doctoral Dissertations

The focus in this dissertation was on the interrelationships among parenting beliefs, parenting stress, and parent-child interaction. It was hypothesized that mothers' addiction status moderated these interrelationships when controlling for the effects of income, levels of education, race, age, number of children, and child's prematurity status.

Data from a program evaluation of a residential addiction treatment program and comparison data from five day care centers were collected from August 1991 to August 1993 using the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory, the Parenting Stress Index, and the Parent-Child Interaction Form. The sample included 39 polydrug-addicted and 31 non-drug-addicted mothers of infants and young …

Authorities On Ourselves: Being Lesbian In Heterosexist Culture -- Can Personal Meaning Inform Social Work Practice?, Sue Cover Wright

Doctoral Dissertations

This study was designed to explore the social reality of lesbian women. Its theoretical base lies in the social constructionist theory that the social context interacts with personal experience to create social meaning. Professional social science literature presents a confused account of lesbianism. Clinical studies have diagnosed and labeled lesbianism as a disease, a dysfunctional personality disorder, or poor social adjustment. Recent studies viewed them as an oppressed minority group. Few studies have gone to the source and asked the women to define themselves -- what it is like to be lesbian in our culture; what their experience means to …

Social Validation Of A Creativity Measure, Elizabeth Kay Bennett

Masters Theses

A series of three rating forms, based on the Developmental-Ecological Model of Creative Potential in Young Children (Moran, Sawyers & Tegano, 1987), and a checklist were designed to assist preschool teachers in identifying creative children. The rating forms and checklist were completed, one per day for four consecutive days, by 15 teachers who were unaware that they were rating creative behaviors. The Multidimensional Stimulus Fluency Measure (MSFM), measure of young children's creative potential, and an IQ test were individually administered to the 40 children involved. Correlations were computed to assess the relationships of IQ and creativity, as measured by the …

The Social Reality Of A Group Of Rural, Low-Status Appalachian Women: A Grounded Theory Study, Judith Ivy Fiene

Doctoral Dissertations

This study was designed to develop a deeper understanding of the social realities of low-status, rural Appalachian women. Its methodological base is to be found in phenomenological philosophy which points to the power of the social context in the construction of social meanings.

Existing studies of low-status Appalachian women present conflicting pictures of the women and contain little information regarding the women's point of view. Some observers have portrayed the women as members of a traditionalist subculture -- unable to adapt to the modern world -- exhibiting dysfunctional personality characteristics (Looff, 1971; Photiadis, 1970; Polansky, 1972; Weller, 1965). Other observers …

Southville Revisted, Marvin A. Rubenstein, Cynthia T. Soloway

Masters Theses

Southville Revisited is a quantitative-descriptive study which examined (1) the extent to which Jews in Memphis identify with traditional Jewish values; (2) the effectiveness of current goals and objectives of the Memphis Jewish communal agencies in satisfying the needs of the community; (3) the comparison of the 1979 sample of the population with the respondents in the Southville Survey of 1959; and (4) new directions in planning and in expanding Jewish communal services to meet changing needs evidenced in the current study.

In order to accomplish these goals, the researchers utilized approximately 75 percent of the questions derived from the …

A Survey Of Children Admitted To Church Of God Home For Children In Sevierville, Tennessee, January 1965 To December 1967, Dorothy Jones Farnham

Masters Theses

It was this study's purpose: (1) to determine if those children admitted to the Church of God Home for Children had legal residence within a 100-mile radius of the institution and (2) to learn if most admissions were referred by ministers of the Church of God.

A schedule was formulated for use in collecting the data. Table, taken from the schedule, were made so as to examine the hypotheses and indicated areas in which further research could be indicated.

The findings of this study would show that state of residence for those children accepted has changed to include a wider …

A Study Of Interpersonal Relationships Among Job Corpsmen--Tremont Conservation Center, Townsend, Tennessee, James Clair Richardson

Masters Theses

During the period August 1 to December 15, 1967, the Tremont Conservation Center's drop-out rate was 40 per cent. There had been considerable concern over the frequency of drop-outs at the Center and other Job Corps Centers had reported terminations exceeding 50 per cent. This study was undertaken with the intent of answering one question, that being, was the degree or quality of interpersonal relationships between one corpsman with his fellow corpsmen relevant to the length of time he would stay in the program?

The writer constructed and used two sociometric tests, one to measure the degrees of group acceptance …

A Study Of The Development Of Services, Facilities, And Professional Standards Of Catholic Charities Of Tennessee, Inc., 1962 - 1967, Louis Jules Junod

Masters Theses

The purpose of this paper is to study the development of the social welfare program of Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Inc., from 1962 to 1967 and to determine if development ha resulted in improved services, facilities, and professional standards.

The material for this study was gathered by personally interviewing the top executive at each agency. Also, except in East Tennessee, the locations were visited, employees talked with, and facilities observed. In addition, the central files of the Executive Office of Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Inc., the files of the area offices, and the central files of the diocesan chancery office …

An Examination Of A Maternity Home As A Setting For Milieu Therapy, Louise Greene Hartman

Masters Theses

Area of Investigation

Milieu therapy, defined as a scientific manipulation of the environment aimed at producing changes in the personality of the patient, has been used extensively in psychiatric hospitals, in work with children, and in various residential settings. This study was designed to explore the milieu and the services of the Florence Crittenton Agency, Knoxville, Tennessee, with emphasis on examining the maternity home as a setting for milieu therapy. The study of the milieu included: (1) the organization and functioning of the agency; (2) the residence; (3) the residential peer group; and (4) the services, including: (a) the social …

A Comparative Study Of The Degree Of Social Functioning Of Children In The Church Of God Home For Children, Sevierville, Tennessee, J. Delbert Mitchell, Edna Earle Pressley

Masters Theses

Purpose of the Study: It was this study's purpose: (1) to compare the degree of social functioning of a sample of children who reside in an institutional environment with an equal sample of children who reside in individual family situations, (2) to suggest guide lines for the development of an instructional program to aid the children in the Church of God Home for Children with improving their individual social development if the suggestion for such a program is indicated by this study, and (3) to generate interest in additional research studies as a part of this institution's program.

This study …

A Study Of School-Age Children For Whom Service Was Terminated With The Chattanooga Psychiatric Clinic Between July 1, 1961, And June 30, 1963, John Paul Baggett

Masters Theses

This study was designed to investigate the following hypotheses:

1. Referrals of children to the Clinic will tend to cluster around two time points--school entrance and the shifts from elementary to junior high school.
2. Proportionately, more school referrals than those referred by other sources will be of children in the lower socio-economic class.
3. Children referred by schools will terminate service earlier in the clinic process than those referred by other sources.
4. Proportionately, more children from one-parent families will be referred by other sources than by schools.
5. There will be more referrals of children who are the oldest child in the family …

A Study Of Factors Affecting Discontinuance Among Patients Attending The Chattanooga Psychiatric Clinic, Nancy Louella Alverson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Recognition Of Non-Financial Problems And Needs In Interviews With Applicants For Adc, Elizabeth Powers

Masters Theses

In no other way does a democracy more clearly demonstrate its conviction regarding its responsibility for the total welfare of its people than in its social legislation. And our present public assistance laws may be viewed as the highest expression of that conviction. The enactment of their most recent revisions, the 1956 Public Assistance Amendments to the Social Security Act, afford a very broad legal base on which the public assistance agency can act to convert the ideals of service to needy individuals and families into reality.

A Study Of The Educational Leave Program Of The Tennessee Department Of Public Welfare, Joseph Isaac Nicholson

Masters Theses

(From the Conclusions)

The administration of Public Assistance and child welfare services requires considerable skill, knowledge, and understanding. Public welfare agencies recognized from the beginning the need for trained personnel. Now and in the future it will be difficult to hire sufficient trained social workers without the stimulation of a program such as educational leave. Social work as a profession is young and the schools of social work are not producing enough trained persons to take care of replacements due to death, marriage, etc., and at the same time increase the number of trained persons available.

The Study Of The Child Training Practices Of Thirty-Five Families Of Pitman Center, Sevier County, Tennessee, Anna Mae Coldwell

Masters Theses

Purpose: 1. To discover the habits of eating, sleeping, elimination, and conduct control of a group of 2-3 year old children in remote mountain homes. 2. To learn what methods the parents used to promote such habits and their reasons for using them. 3. To compare in so far as possible the eating habits of these children with those of the adult members of their families.