Digital Commons Network^™

Overall Nasalance Versus Trimmed Selection Of Stable Syllable Repetition, Jackson Peebles

Honors Theses

Objective: To evaluate the difference between nasalance measured using overall nasalance for the full set of syllable repetitions in a speech sample contrasted with syllable repetitions selected (trimmed) from the overall sample.

Method: Participants included 24 males and 34 females between 18 and 30 years of age who participated in a normative study of nasalance in Michigan’s lower peninsula. Participants produced 14 syllable stimuli. Each syllable sequence was repeated at least 8 times. Three trials of each repetition were recorded together with other speech stimuli. Overall nasalance was calculated for each syllable repetition sequence (whole) and compared with the mean …

Bullying Prevalence In Mississippi: A Comparison Of Urban And Rural Schools, Valarie Mccaskill

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study examines the prevalence of bullying in urban and rural schools in Mississippi. Students at eight middle schools completed the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire to identify bullies and bully victims. The results of the study showed that approximately 50% of students in both urban and rural schools were identified as being bullied once or more during the current school term. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of bullying at urban and rural schools based on students who attended the eight middle schools who participated in the study. However, there was a significant difference in the prevalence of bullying …

Experiences Of Male Saudi Arabian International Students In The United States, Molly Elizabeth Heyn

Dissertations

Despite the increasing presence of Saudi Arabian international college students in American higher education, the literature regarding the experience of Saudi students in the United States is limited. This qualitative study explored and described the lived experiences of 9 male Saudi Arabian international college students studying in the United States. All the participants had studied in the United States for at least 2 years and were regularly admitted international students at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Moustakas’s (1994) phenomenological data analysis approach guided the data collection and analysis. The participants shared their lived experiences and the meaning of those …

Simpatia And Perceptions Of Healthcare Mistreatment Among Latino And Anglo Women, Andres Gilberto Mendez

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Past research has examined perceptions of mistreatment in the context of healthcare professional-patient relationships, but the majority of the literature has focused primarily on racial and ethnic differences. Guided by Betancourt's Model for the Study of Culture, the aim of this research was to examine the role of culture and its association with perceptions of healthcare mistreatment among Latino and Anglo women. Specifically, this study investigated ethnic differences in perceptions of healthcare mistreatment through the investigation of simpatía, a cultural script that stresses interpersonal harmony and personal characteristics such as being likeable and easy going. The study also found ethnic …

Experiences Of Latina First Generation College Students: Exploring Resources Supporting The Balancing Of Academic Pursuits And Family Life, Hercilia B. Corona-Ordoñez

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This study used a qualitative interview approach and thematic analysis (Braune and Clark, 2006) to interview first generation college student Latinas, exploring their experiences with higher education, their navigation/negotiation of resources for academic success and for wellness of self and family, and barriers they face as they attempt to both safeguard self and family wellness and reach their academic goals. It also directly explored the potential resources participants would find useful and ways in which colleges/universities might support them in these pursuits.

With this method, this study identified 6 major themes in the lives of first generation college student Latinas: …

Former Students' Perceptions Of How Theatre Impacted Life Skills And Psychological Needs, Tia Cowart

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate former high school theatre students' perceptions of how theatre education addressed their psychological needs and impacted life skills. Participants were graduates of a large metropolitan high school, located near Atlanta, GA. A focus group, individual semi-structured interviews and collection of artifacts were the data collection procedures utilized to discover students' perceptions. Pseudonyms were used to protect the identities of the participants. The data analysis process included initial coding, axial coding and memo writing. Based on the information from the interviews, this case study showed the benefits of offering youth opportunities …

Educational Services For Tibetan Students With Disabilities In India: A Case Study, Britany Anne Barnes

Theses and Dissertations

This case study describes services for students with disabilities at Karuna Home in Bylakuppe, Karnataka, India. Karuna Home is a residential rehabilitation center for students with cognitive or physical disabilities whose parents are Tibetan refugees. The study triangulated data from interviews, observations, and school documents to describe educational policies and procedures, and cultural attitudes toward disability. Results show that the Karuna Home program is undergirded by Buddhist thought and theology regarding care and concern for those in difficult circumstances. The school serves students with a range of mild to severe disabilities and is fully staffed, but teachers and other service …

What The Unglamorous Side Of Study Abroad Taught Me, Kathryn E. Bucolo

SURGE

I’ve been gallivanting around this beautiful planet posing as a study abroad student taking classes and writing papers for the past academic year, one semester in England and one in Argentina (where I still am) and, just like all the brochures, promotions, and panels of study abroad survivors say, it has been absolutely chock-full of amazing experiences, people, places, foods—I think “transformative” is the proper term.

But transformative can mean many things. It doesn’t just mean that you “find yourself” or “change your life”—it means you see the less glamorous stuff about yourself, too. [excerpt]

Developing Resilience In The Elementary School Classroom, Ellen Ferrin

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Explores the ways in which elementary school teachers can help their students develop the skills associated with resilience. For this study, an extensive literature review was conducted and surveys were completed by twelve elementary school teachers in Washington, Oregon, California, and New York.

How We Understand Intelligence And Why It Makes A Difference : A Literature Review, Maya Golden

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Investigates theories of intelligence and examines the educational implications of contrasting views. Following a personal reflection on the subject, the author conducts an extensive review of the related literature. The author indicates that the quality of a student's educational experience is greatly impacted by the view to which his or her teacher subscribes.

The Role Of Gesture In Spatial And Non-Spatial Learning In Children And Adults, Gwendolyn Marrin, Amanda Olsen

Psychology Student Work

The purpose of this study was to identify whether gesture differentially affects spatial or non-spatial language comprehension and memory in both children and adults. Previous research (i.e. Goldin-Meadow, 1996, 2001; McNeill, 1992, 2005) examines only the role of gesture in learning without addressing development. For this study, participant’s baseline gesture rate is recorded and then stories containing either spatial or non-spatial components are read to the participants. Participants then receive factual and convergent comprehension questions. While answering, they either gesture naturally, are required to gesture, or are told not to gesture. A three-term inference problem task (Knauff & Johnson-Laird, 2002) …

Semantic And Phonological False Memories In Adults' First And Second Language, Amber Victoria Sapp

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

I explored second language acquisition in adults by examining false memories for semantically and phonologically related word lists in both the participants' first language and second language. I expected less proficient bilinguals who are initially acquiring their second language would make more phonological false memory errors, like children learning their first language. In contrast, I anticipated that more proficient bilinguals would make more semantic false memory errors in the DRM paradigm as the semantic stores for their two languages overlap more fully. Forty-one English-Spanish bilinguals (High Proficiency: n = 17; Low Proficiency: n = 24) completed a false memory task …

Effortful Control As A Mediator Of Long-Term Declarative Recall In Toddlers., Cassandra Valerio

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study investigated the relationship between effortful control and long-term memory (LTM) in toddlers. It was hypothesized that children high in effortful control would demonstrate better long-term recall. Participants were 43 children who visited the lab at 18 and 21 months. A word-learning task and an elicited imitation task were administered to assess children’s LTM. Effortful control was assessed using the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ). The results of this study showed that children high in effortful control did not demonstrate significantly better LTM than children low in effortful control on either the word-learning or the elicited imitation task.

The Initial Development Of A Measure Of Cultural Competence In School Psychology: The Madison Assessment Of Cultural Competence In School Psychology (Maccs), Nicholas Anthony Curtis

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

School psychology training programs are under increased pressure to train students in a way that emphasizes cultural competence. However, there is not currently an accepted instrument that can measure the cultural competence of students specific to the discipline of school psychology. The current study proposes and explores several adaptions of a proposed instrument to measure cultural competence in school psychology. Adaptions were selected to address problems observed in collecting similar data in a school psychology program. A first study was unsuccessful due to sampling issues; however, a second study was more successful. A sample was selected to exaggerate training differences …

Effects Of Negative Keying And Wording In Attitude Measures: A Mixed-Methods Study, Chris M. Coleman

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Researchers often collect data on attitudes using “balanced” measurement scales—that is, scales with comparable numbers of positive and negative (i.e., reverse-scored) items. Many previous measurement studies have found the inclusion of negative items to be detrimental to scale reliability and validity. However, these studies have rarely distinguished among negatively-worded items, negatively-keyed items, and items with negative wording and keying. The purpose of the current study was to make those distinctions and investigate why the psychometric properties of balanced scales tend to be worse than those of scales with uniformly positive wording/keying. A mixed-methods approach was employed. In Study 1 (quantitative), …

Measuring Motivation For Coursework Across The Academic Career: A Longitudinal Invariance Study, Makayla Grays

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Students must be sufficiently motivated in order to achieve the intended learning outcomes of their college courses. Research in education and psychology has found motivation to be context-dependent. Therefore, students’ motivation is likely to differ from one semester to the next according to which courses students are taking. However, there are also instances in which motivation levels may not change over time. In order to determine whether motivation for coursework changes across the academic career (and, if so, what variables may be related to that change), it is imperative to use a measure of motivation that is theoretically and psychometrically …

Emotion Regulation In European American And Hong Kong Chinese Middle School Children, Kayan Phoebe Wan

Dissertations, 2014-2019

This study explored emotion regulation strategies in middle school European American (N = 54) and Hong Kong Chinese (N =89) children. Based on Gross’s theory (1998), the Survey of Emotion Regulation Strategies was designed to study children’s perceived effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies (deep breathing, thinking positively, situation avoidance, talking and suppression) in three fictitious scenarios associated with sadness, anger, and fear. Five mixed ANOVAs were conducted to evaluate the effect of culture, gender and the type of emotion on each emotion regulation strategy. The results demonstrated that American children considered deep breathing more effective in dealing with anger than …

Associative Processes In Statistical Learning: Paradoxical Predictions Of The Past, Jennifer Patricia Provyn

Psychology - Dissertations

The ability to process sequences of input and extract regularity across the distribution of input is fundamental for making predictions from the observed past to the future. Prediction is rooted in the extraction of both frequency- and conditional statistics from the distribution of inputs. For example, an animal hunting for food may consistently return to a particular area to hunt if relative to all other areas visited, that area has the highest frequency of prey. In contrast, humans asked to predict the next word in a sentence must make a prediction based upon higher-order regularities rather than simple frequency statistics …

Intrinsic And Extrinsic Motivation: Abraham Lincoln As An Adult Learner, Warren Greer

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Over the last two decades, research has identified factors that foster versus undermine human motivation and well being with important implications for learning and performance. Much of the research is concerned with intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and autonomous versus non-autonomous learning environments. The data suggests that learning and performance are often significantly enhanced in autonomy-supportive environments that foster intrinsic motivational perspectives. This study examines the lived experience of Abraham Lincoln in the context of his adult learning motivation, forming a qualitative narrative around his adult educational experiences. It was hypothesized that Abraham Lincoln benefited from learning experiences with high levels …

Synthetic Task Environments And The Three Body Problem, John M. Flach

Psychology Faculty Publications

The challenge for our panel was to address the opportunities and challenges of synthetic task environments for basic research on human performance in sociotechnical systems. In doing this, the classical three-body problem from physics is used as a metaphor to illustrate the contrast between dyadic and triadic semiotic models of cognitive systems. In the context of this metaphor, synthetic task environments offer a means to bring some of the additional complexities of triadic semiotic systems under experimental control where converging empirical methods can help to titrate through the additional complexity to distill basic theoretical insights that will potentially have practical …

Increasing Psychological Flexibility Regarding Interpersonal Conflict Between Religious Beliefs And Attitudes Towards Sexual Minorities: An Acceptance And Commitment Therapy (Act) Intervention, Cory John Myler

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study was designed to facilitate the development and assessment of a group therapeutic intervention for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and questioning individuals. Previous research has established that this population is particularly vulnerable to psychological distress and that religiosity contributes to this vulnerability, but there have been no interventions established specifically for the population of sexual minorities who are experiencing religious conflict. The components of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy were used to inform the development of a group intervention, which was then carried out. An assessment battery of numerous quantitative measures was given to participants before and after the intervention to …

Comparing Oral Reading Fluency Growth To Elementary-Level Students’ Pre-Assessment Disposition, Katie Flatley

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Reading is an essential skill; however, the majority of elementary-aged students are not performing at grade level. This is problematic because poor reading is a significant risk factor for dropping out of high school. A number of demographic factors have been associated with students’ reading performance, including sex, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity. Educators use a number of measures to assess students’ reading performance. One screening measure, curriculum-based measurement in reading (CBM-R), is a time- and cost-efficient tool to assess elementary-aged students’ oral reading fluency. However, a number of research studies have shown that students’ performance on CBM-R assessments may be …

Exploring The Linguistic Styles Of Students With A Propensity For Alcoholism And Students With Symptoms Of Depression, Sarah Sanders

HIM 1990-2015

The present study investigated whether participants with a high propensity for alcoholism demonstrate the same linguistic pattern previously established for depression in response to a personal essay. It was hypothesized that students with a higher propensity for alcoholism would display a similar linguistic style when compared to those with symptoms of depression; specifically students with a higher propensity for alcohol abuse or dependence would use more first person singular pronouns and less first person plural pronouns. They were also hypothesized to use more negative emotion words similar to those with symptoms of depression. Participants completed a writing exercise that was …

Anxiety Symptoms In Individuals With High Functioning Autism, Jane C. Kelleher

Honors Scholar Theses

Research indicates a complicated relationship between anxiety disorders and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The current study examined the relationship between anxiety symptoms and ASD in 30 Optimal Outcome (OO) individuals, 33 High Functioning Autism (HFA) individuals, and 34 Typically Developing (TD) individuals. The groups were compared on the K-SADS measure of anxiety symptoms. The HFA group presented greater anxiety than both the OO and TD groups, and the OO and TD groups only differed on one anxiety symptom. Across all three groups, there was a significant association between greater anxiety symptoms and a higher level of social and communicative impairment. …

Her Voice Lingers On And Her Memory Is Strategic: Effects Of Gender On Directed Forgetting, Hwajin Yang, Sujin Yang, Giho Park

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The literature on directed forgetting has employed exclusively visual words. Thus, the potentially interesting aspects of a spoken utterance, which include not only vocal cues (e.g., prosody) but also the speaker and the listener, have been neglected. This study demonstrates that prosody alone does not influence directed-forgetting effects, while the sex of the speaker and the listener significantly modulate directed-forgetting effects for spoken utterances. Specifically, forgetting costs were attenuated for female-spoken items compared to male-spoken items, and forgetting benefits were eliminated among female listeners but not among male listeners. These results suggest that information conveyed in a female …

Voices Of Young Adults With Autism And Their Perspective On Life Choices After Secondary Education, Susan Galler

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative research study was to explore how young adults who have an autism spectrum disorder perceive their life choices after secondary education. The focus participants in the sample were young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). For the purpose of this research, ASD includes autism and Asperger's Disorder. Participants between the ages of 18 and 33 were located through purposive sampling in the states of Minnesota and Tennessee, as the author has previously worked in these states. Participants were asked five open ended focus questions during the span of two face to face interviews. Questions …

Content And Concept: An Examination Of Transcendental Empiricism, Charles Macmillan Urban

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I critically examine the philosophy of transcendental empiricism. Transcendental empiricism is, among other things, a philosophy of mental content. It attempts to dissolve an epistemological dilemma of mental content by splitting the difference between two diametrically opposed accounts of content. John McDowell's minimal empiricism and Richard Gaskin's minimalist empiricism are two versions of transcendental empiricism. Transcendental empiricism itself originates with McDowell's work. This dissertation is divided into five parts. First, in the Introduction, I state the Wittgensteinian metaphilosophical orientation of transcendental empiricism. This metaphilosophical approach provides a plateau upon which much of the rest of this work …

A Conceptual Model Of Exploration Wayfinding: An Integrated Theoretical Framework And Computational Methodology, Matthew Lee Tenney

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an attempt to integrate contending cognitive approaches to modeling wayfinding behavior. The primary goal is to create a plausible model for exploration tasks within indoor environments. This conceptual model can be extended for practical applications in the design, planning, and Social sciences. Using empirical evidence a cognitive schema is designed that accounts for perceptual and behavioral preferences in pedestrian navigation. Using this created schema, as a guiding framework, the use of network analysis and space syntax act as a computational methods to simulate human exploration wayfinding in unfamiliar indoor environments. The conceptual model provided is then implemented …

Talker Identification Learning And New Jersey Dialect Discrimination, Michael Patrick Apfelbaum

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals can be trained to identify a speaker by voice. Other research has found profound regional differences in dialect across the US, with individuals being able to generally discriminate between them at above chance levels. However, little research has investigated the ability to discriminate between two similar dialects or the effect of using bisyllabic words in talker training. The present study aims to explore the patterns of talker learning and dialect discrimination which arise from training talkers on the two predominate dialects spoken in New Jersey. To investigate such factors, the current research trained 24 …

It's Not So Simple: The Role Of Simplicity In Science And Theory., C. R. Gregg

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The principle of simplicity (parsimony) has long been invoked as a regulative principle that helps guide theory selection in science. However, it is unclear if there is justification for a globally applicable criterion of parsimony. This paper briefly reviews the salient features of what it means for something to be simple, as well as argues for simplicity as relevant only to a set of background assumptions.