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Special Education Teachers’ Perceptions Of Teaching Effectiveness When Working With Students With Emotional And Behavioral Disorders, Ernest J. Fruge

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This qualitative study examined how special education teachers perceived their teaching effectiveness in supporting students identified with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). The study addressed a gap in the literature by examining the factors that influence special educators’ sense of self-efficacy when working with this population. Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy served as the conceptual framework. A generic qualitative research design was employed, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews with eight participants from two central Texas school districts. Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis guided the coding and interpretation process, supported by MAXQDA software. Analysis of the data revealed seven key …

Strategies To Prevent Employee Turnover And Revenue Losses Resulting From Workplace Bullying, Sylvester Doby Jr

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Workplace bullying is a serious issue that can lead to high employee turnover and significant revenue loss. To maintain a healthy work environment and support their employees, business leaders need to develop and implement effective strategies to prevent bullying. Grounded in the transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry study was to identify and explore the successful strategies that U.S. business leaders used to prevent workplace bullying. Six business leaders who have successfully implemented strategies to combat workplace bullying were purposively recruited and interviewed using semistructured interviews. The reflexive six-step thematic analysis of the interview transcripts and …

Treatments Of Ordinal Scales In Latent Profile Analyses: A Comparison With Monte Carlo Simulations, Chongming Yang, Joseph Olsen, Caleb Carlyle

Chinese/English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation | 教育测量与评估双语期刊

Person-centered approaches to analysis/modeling provide certain advantages and methodological possibilities. Ordinal psychological scales have been used differently in latent profile analysis (LPA), including sums, means, standardized scores, and factor/latent scores, meanwhile it was uncertain to what extent these treatments would yield equivalent class proportions and univariate differences. This study simulated LPA of different treatments of ordinal scales (unweighted and weighted means, sums, standardized sums, and latent factor scores) with different response options (2, 3, 5, and 7) at different sample sizes (N = 240/300 or 600) under maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian estimations. Compared to other treatments of ordinal …

Top-Down Instruction Outweighs Emotional Salience: Nocturnal Sleep Physiology Indicates Selective Memory Consolidation, Laura B.F. Kurdziel, Carie Fiedler, Alex Gajewski, Caroline Pongratz

Psychology Faculty Publications

Introduction:

Sleep plays a crucial role in memory consolidation, not only stabilizing newly encoded information but also potentially supporting forgetting. Yet it remains unclear how sleep prioritizes what is retained or discarded when multiple salience cues, such as emotional valence and top-down instructional goals, compete for consolidation.

Methods:

In two studies, we examined how emotional content and intentional memory instruction interact to shape memory performance across a 12 h interval that included either nocturnal sleep or wakefulness. Participants completed a directed forgetting paradigm with neutral and negatively valenced words, followed by immediate recognition and delayed free recall.

Results:

In both …

Proactive Aging: A New Aging Programming Framework For Cooperative Extension, Jeong Eun Lee, Eunbea Kim, Yulri Kim, Eva Kahana

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

Traditional Extension programs for older adults often adopt a reactive approach, focusing on addressing age-related challenges after they arise. While these programs can be beneficial, a proactive aging model offers a more comprehensive and empowering approach. The concept of proactive aging, emphasizing preventative strategies for maintaining and improving wellbeing, has been well-established in the literature (Kahana et al., 2014). By adopting this model, Cooperative Extension can significantly enhance its services for older adults. This paper proposes innovative program ideas grounded in the proactive aging framework. Such programs are more engaging as they foster self-efficacy and empowerment, encouraging participants to actively …

The Psychology Of Collegiate Basketball: A Review Of The Literature, Paige Ashlyn Bordenkecher

Senior Theses

This literature review aims to further the understanding of the psychological factors that impact the performance of collegiate basketball players. Past reviews have focused on specific performance elements of basketball (e.g. free throws) or how a singular psychological factor affects sports performance; none have focused specifically on the collegiate level of play. The present review systematically collected thirty studies from the databases PsycInfo and SportDiscuss. The following psychological factors were the focus of the literature: player qualities, motivation, feedback, location of play, mood/emotional states, mental fatigue, preshot routine, momentum, sleep, self-talk, self-modeling, leadership, choking, flow, touch, and color. Performance was …

Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosed In Adulthood And The Factors That Can Lead To A Late Diagnosis, Camila Velez De Jesus

College of Liberal Arts

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects an individual throughout their entire life. The condition is typically diagnosed in childhood, and the rate of children diagnosed with it has been increasing over the years. Cases of adults being diagnosed with autism have also been on the rise. A popular theory to explain this occurrence is the broadening definition of autism spectrum disorder; however, there are other factors that should be taken into account. The use of the Medical Model of Disability in autism diagnosis could have led to certain individuals not being diagnosed in adulthood, but with the …

Remorse For Discrimination: The Role Of Group Dominance In Judging Hate Crimes Against Subordinate Group Members, Andrés Gvirtz, Patrick F. Kotzur, Andrew Stewart, Felicia Pratto

Psychology

Power, especially in the court system, is a potent determinant of intergroup relationships. Blind justice being only an ideal, public opinion can influence whether harm to low power groups is considered criminal and should be prosecuted. Our experiments investigated the impact of social dominance orientation (SDO) on the perceived appropriateness of punishment for harm to subordinate group members by dominant group members. Further, we examined the moderating role of a remorseful apology. We argue that perpetrators who do not show remorse towards their less powerful victim might be judged less harshly by those scoring high in SDO. Apologizing for the …

Cross-Cultural Validity Of The Ppi-R In U.S. College Students, Cassidy Liang

Student Theses

Psychopathy has traditionally been studied using Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) but self-report measures like the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) have gained popularity due to comparative ease, speed of administration, and its broader applicability to the general population. However, the validity of the PPI-R across cultures has produced mixed results, particularly in non-Western and non-English speaking participants. This study examined racial/ethnic and gender differences in the PPI-R in a diverse sample of 536 college students. The internal and external validity of the PPI-R was good. The PPI-R correlated with the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM), as well as trait anxiety, and empathy …

The Natural Agent Of Change: The Therapeutic Power Of Play To Children Who Have Experienced Aces And Trauma, Jingyu Chen

Orphans and Vulnerable Children Senior Capstone

The power of play lies in its natural expression which children speak. When engaged in safe play, children are allowed to explore, comprehend, connect, and communicate in a developmentally appropriate way without criticism. Yet those who are impacted by ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experience) often find play foreign as they are stuck in survival mode, missing the developmental benefits of safe play. This paper examines the role of play in childhood development, explains the relationship between ACEs, trauma and play, and suggests that play is a natural agent of change that carries therapeutic power. The paper supports play as a medium …

Anterior Cingulate Cortex Connectivity And The Role In Neuroticism: A Diffusion-Weighted-Imaging-Based Investigation Of Limbic And Prefrontal Circuits., Jake Cox Ii

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Neuroticism is a trait which has been shown to significantly predict psychopathology. Investigating its neurobiological underpinnings may uncover a brain-based relationship that allows clinicians to conceptualize a shared predispositional factor across multiple psychopathologies, implicating treatment protocols. Inter-connectivity network and structural variation has been shown to be implicated in neuroticism, more specifically the frontoparietal network, default mode network, salience networks, and limbic networks. These networks tackle executive, salience, and emotional information, respectively. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a brain region nested between and functionally related to various networks stated above that are implicated in neuroticism. As such, it was hypothesized …

Examining Choices Of Sarcastic Responses In Dialogue With Virtual Interlocutors, Samantha Langley

Theses and Dissertations

We report the results from three experiments examining people’s preferences for using sarcasm in conversation as a function of: 1. whether their interlocutor uses sarcasm during the conversation; 2. Their knowledge about whether the interlocutor has used sarcasm in a previous conversation; 3. The presence of prosodical and visual cues for interlocutors’ sarcasm. In each experiment, participants took part in two conversations, and we manipulated whether the interlocutors were sincere or sarcastic and whether they remained the same or changed from one conversation to the next. Experiment one used written conversations and experiment two and three used pre-recorded video clips …

Reliance, Support, And Caregiving Among Married Lgbtq+ Americans: Spousal And Family Relationships, Abbie E. Goldberg, Julianna Z. Smith, Brad Sears

Psychology

When LGBTQ+ people get married, they enter into a union that promises mutual reliance and caregiving, such as in the event of financial need or health care crisis. This mixed-methods study explores how 484 married LGBTQ+ individuals in the United States (192 cisgender men, 186 cisgender women, 106 trans/nonbinary) (a) negotiate disability (38% of couples) and illness in the context of unpaid and paid labor divisions, (b) provide care for each other, and (c) receive support from family in the face of health or financial needs. Findings revealed diversity in the ways that disability and illness shaped household and paid …

Aligning Climate-Energy Policies With Citizen Beliefs, Scientific Findings, Health And Economic Benefits, And Geopolitical Stability, A. R. Mcconnell, Tyler P. Jacobs

Psychology Faculty Works

Recent and abrupt deviations in U.S. climate and energy policies are shifting the United States away from a more sustainable future toward greater fossil-fuel use that will accelerate global warming. These new priorities go against the wishes of the American people as measured by many nationally representative surveys, and they ignore the scientific consensus regarding climate change and its deleterious consequences. This new agenda will harm the physical and mental health of Americans, imperil the U.S. economy, weaken American leadership in science, and increase geopolitical instability. Despite the frightening nature of these unprecedented departures from past climate-energy policies, successfully combating …

Leveraging After School Programs As Resources To Support Adolescent Health And Wellbeing Within Underserved Communities: A Qualitative Study, Olivia Staples

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade, youth have shown a consistent rise in stress, major depression, anxiety, and suicide, with underserved youth (low-income, minoritized communities) at greatest risk of exposure to chronic stress, related outcomes, and less access to health services (APA, 2017). Afterschool programs (ASPs), which serve as important resources in underserved communities, can be a critical support for youth health and well-being (Afterschool Alliance, 2019). However, few studies have examined ways in which ASPs address the challenges underserved youth face across their ecosystem to promote youth resilience (Jones & Deutsch, 2011). Using qualitative interview data from staff and youth across …

Beyond The Bipolar: Allowing Satisfaction And Dissatisfaction To Coexist, Dustin J. Souders, Yixiu Yu

Publications

Copyright © 2025 Souders and Yu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

Parent Perspectives On Contemporary Adolescent Concerns, Allyson Worthy

Theses and Dissertations

Adolescence is a critical developmental period that marks the transition between childhood and adulthood. Psychopathology is known to emerge during this time, in which many internalizing and externalizing disorders have their onset. The assessment of adolescent psychopathology involves use of questionnaire measures to obtain perspectives from the adolescent themselves, their parents, and their teachers. Parents have been found to be especially important informants of adolescent functioning. With new challenges that arise for present-day adolescents (e.g., social media use), parents can provide insight into the different areas that need to be evaluated when assessing domains of contemporary adolescents’ development and psychopathology. …

The Behavior Assessment System For Children Third Edition (Basc-3)’S Classification Accuracy For Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (Adhd) In College Students, Angela Lucas, Luis E. Aguerrevere, Nina Harness

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that frequently persists symptoms into adolescence and adulthood. Diagnosing ADHD in college-aged individuals poses a challenge due to the lack of consistent strategies among clinicians for effectively evaluating adult ADHD. The purpose of this study was to determine the classification accuracy of the Behavior Assessment System for Children (Third Ed.; BASC-3) Inattention/Hyperactivity composite t-score in predicting the diagnosis of ADHD among college students. Results indicated that the BASC-3 Inattention/Hyperactivity composite demonstrated predictive power, high specificity (94%) and moderate-to-high sensitivity (70%), supporting its utility as a predictor of ADHD. Further analysis was conducted …

The Role Of Prelimbic Projections To The Rostromedial Tegmnetal Nucleus In Cue Discrimination, Emma Lane Carlson

Theses and Dissertations

Maladaptive decision-making, such as persistent reward seeking despite negative consequences, is a hallmark of substance use disorder (SUD) and related psychiatric conditions. These behaviors are thought to arise from impairments in aversive learning and disrupted neural signaling that normally supports behavioral inhibition. The prelimbic cortex (PL) plays a critical role in encoding cue–outcome associations and exerting top-down control over behavior, while the rostromedial tegmental nucleus (RMTg) serves as a GABAergic inhibitor of midbrain dopamine neurons in response to aversive stimuli. Although both structures have been implicated in reward and avoidance processes, little is known about how direct PL-RMTg projections contribute …

Is It Enough? Investigating The Effectiveness Of Adhd Accommodations For College Students, Sreekavya Mekala

Senior Theses

This study explores the effectiveness of accommodations given by the University of South Carolina (USC) for students diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A total of 435 students completed a survey divided into three groups: those diagnosed with ADHD (n = 74), those not diagnosed but familiar with someone with ADHD (n = 321), and those not diagnosed and unfamiliar with ADHD (n = 40). Results showed that while most students with ADHD were aware of accommodations, far fewer used them, and many reported inconsistent faculty understanding and hesitation due to stigma. Students familiar with ADHD viewed accommodations as generally fair …

Investigating Driver Perceptions Of Semi-Autonomous Vehicle Sensing And Response Characteristics, Molly Mersinger

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

As semi-autonomous vehicle (SAV) technologies become increasingly integrated into modern transportation, understanding how the public perceives their capabilities is essential for ensuring safe and effective human-automation interaction. This study examined drivers’ perceptions of SAV detection and discernment abilities across 28 driving conditions and how those perceptions related to expected vehicle behaviors in 17 corresponding scenarios. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified three perceptual dimensions: Traffic Infrastructure and Vehicle Recognition, Dynamic Roadway Hazards and Vulnerable Road Users, and Human Interaction and Contextual Cues. Moderate overlap between the first two dimensions suggested that participants viewed certain structured and dynamic roadway features as …

Dissociation Of Subjective And Objective Measures Of Trust In Vehicle Automation: A Driving Simulator Study, Samuel Petkac, Tetsuya Sato, Kun Xie, Yusuke Yamani

Psychology Faculty Publications

Trust is a crucial factor that influences human-automation interaction in surface transportation. Previous research indicates that participants tend to display higher levels of subjective trust toward lower-level automated systems compared to high-level automated systems. However, administering subjective trust measures via questionnaires can interfere with primary task performance, limiting researchers' ability to measure trust continuously in a real-world manner. In the current driving simulator study, 25 drivers using an advanced driving system (ADS) were randomly assigned to either an active (L2) or passive (L3) automated driving condition. Participants experienced eight near-miss driving scenarios with or without obstructions in a distributed driving …

Volumetric Differences Of Thalamic Nuclei Are Associated With Posttrauma Psychopathology, Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Previous investigations of whole thalamus and thalamic nuclei volumes in posttrauma psychopathology have been sparse and limited in scope and have yielded inconsistent results. To address this, volumetric estimates of whole thalamus and thalamic nuclei were obtained from structural brain magnetic resonance imaging scans from 2058 participants across 20 worldwide sites in the ENIGMA (Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) working group.

Methods

Thalamic volumes were compared in trauma-exposed participants with PTSD (n = 238), major depressive disorder (MDD) (n = 184), and comorbid PTSD+MDD (n = 618) and in trauma-exposed …

The Role Of Temporal Predictability In Sustained Attention, Miho Kato, Harun Yörük, Thomas S. Redick

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Attention requires sustaining focus on information and goals over time. Sustained attention performance is affected by time and temporal predictability. Specifically, previous research showed that performance in sustained attention tasks decreases when the focus of attention is required to be sustained over a longer period of time, and performance increases when the duration to sustain attention is predictable (known as temporal predictability). The current research examines the relationship between the duration of sustained attention and temporal predictability with two cognitive tasks. In the Sustained Attention to Cue Task (SACT), participants were required to sustain their focus of attention on a …

Eeg And Media Multitasking: Adhd As A Moderating Factor, Xiaoying Guo

Theses and Dissertations

Media use has become an integral part of everyday life. It has risen dramatically over the past century with the advent of television, computers, and digital platforms, and more recently, it has been characterized by individuals using multiple devices simultaneously (Bushman & Anderson, 2001; Nielsen Media Research, 1998; Rideout & Robb, 2019, 2021). Media multitasking (MMT) has been linked to cognitive control challenges and attentional difficulties. This study examined EEG workload (Fz theta/Pz alpha ratio), survey accuracy, and ADHD traits (ASRS v1.1) in 33 adult participants across baseline and single-versus dual-media conditions. Results indicated that mental workload was significantly higher …

Emotion Regulation, Distress Tolerance, And Experiential Avoidance In Adults With Trichotillomania (Hair-Pulling Disorder) And Excoriation (Skin-Picking) Disorder, Valerie S. Swisher, Emily J. Ricketts, Tara S. Peris, Grant Jones, Erin Dunning, Stephanie Valle, Elizabeth Cavic, Christine Lochner, Dan J. Stein, Darin D. Dougherty, Joseph O'Neill, Douglas W. Woods, Jon E. Grant, John Piacentini, Nancy J. Keuthen

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Trichotillomania (TTM) and skin-picking disorder (SPD) are body-focused repetitive behavior disorders (BFRBDs) associated with deficits in emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and experiential avoidance. Their differential relations to TTM, SPD, and their comorbidity, and relative importance in predicting BFRBD outcomes is unclear. Therefore, this study compared these constructs in adults (n = 311) diagnosed with TTM (n = 112), SPD (n = 87), comorbid TTM and SPD (n = 40), and healthy controls (n = 72), and examined their relative importance in association with BFRBD outcomes. Participants completed questionnaires assessing BFRBD severity and impairment, functional disability, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, experiential …

Emotion Recognition Accuracy With Fully Occluded Faces: Do Eye Gaze Patterns And Fixation Durations Shift When We're Wrong?​, Dominique Martinez-Driscoll, Michael Cicero, Malcolm Jasmin, Mary Radeke, Anthony Stahelski

Journal of the Symposium of University Research and Creative Expression

Project Mentor(s): Mary Radeke, PhD; Anthony Stahelski, PhD

Prior research on facial expression recognition (FER) has shown that the use of face masks significantly impairs the ability to correctly identify facial expressions, especially those that engage the lower regions of the face such as disgust and anger (Carbon, 2020; McCrackin et al. 2022). Not only does FER accuracy decrease with a masked or occluded face, but gaze patterns also shift and dwell time increases from those areas that are covered (mouth) to areas uncovered (eyes) (Rabadan, et al. 2022). In situations where both eyes and mouth are covered, the gaze …

Using Visual Imagery To Manipulate Recognition Memory For Faces Whose Appearance Has Changed, Michelle M. Ramey, Darya L. Zabelina

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Real-world recognition requires our memory system to accommodate perceptual changes that occur after encoding; for example, eyewitnesses must recognize perpetrators across changes in appearance. However, it is not clear how this flexible recognition ability can be improved: Standard encoding strategies not only tend to be ineffective,but can in fact be detrimental for recognizing people across appearance changes. Given the effectiveness of visual imagery in creating and modifying memory representations, we examined whether counterfactual visual imagery could be used to manipulate flexible recognition by simulating an increase in encoding-retrieval similarity. Across two experiments, participants (n = 317) encoded faces with neutral …

Plastic Makes Perfect: An Analysis Of Plastic Surgery As Rehabilitation In Early To Late 20th Century Prison Populations, Jack West

The Ozark Historical Review

As early as 1910, journalists from around the United States reported on the cause-and- effect relationship between a criminal’s physical appearance, their offenses, and the plastic surgeons willing to help them. These surgeons were interested in changing the physical “causes” of criminality to sever the mental roots of crime, inferiority, and anti-social attitude. This paper examines the use of plastic surgery programs as reform in prison through the lens of popular newspaper and journal articles and argues that public perception and reaction revealed in these articles shaped the prison program’s journey from its underground beginning to its eventual demise.

Prospective Associations Among Loneliness And Health For Servicemembers: Perceived Helplessness And Negative Coping Appraisal As Explanatory Mechanisms, Sarah N. Arpin, Cynthia D. Mohr, Todd Bodner, Leslie B. Hammer, James D. Lee

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Links between loneliness and health are robust, though evidence for associations with alcohol use is mixed. Previous research has supported perceived stress as a predictor of alcohol use and as a pathway through which loneliness impacts health over time. Yet findings are primarily limited to civilian samples, and less is known about how loneliness relates to stress and health among service members. The current study explores prospective associations among loneliness, stress, and health (i.e., sleep, alcohol misuse, and psychological distress) within a sample of mostly male service members. We examine two dimensions of perceived stress, perceived helplessness and negative coping …