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Grading Teaching: An Evaluation Of Teaching Techniques Used By California Community College Introduction To Sociology Instructors, Lynette Ann Osborne-Estes

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Research on teaching techniques used in higher education report that instructors who use a mixed repertoire of styles promote optimal student learning. However, previous research also indicates that many college professors continue to use the less effective traditional lecture instead of implementing more student-centered methods of instruction. This thesis investigates two general research questions. (1) To what extent do community college instructors utilize teaching techniques that have been shown to promote optimal student learning? (2) What factors, if any, increase the probability of an instructor using the teaching techniques that promote optimal student learning? In order to address these questions …

The Relationship Of Autonomy Sociotropy And Depression To The Recall Of Autobiographical Memories, Jennifer Sue Cheavens

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Past research in the area of dysphoria and depression has examined two personality constructs known as autonomy and sociotropy. These personality constructs have been studied as predispositions to dysphoria and depression. The current study focused on the ability of Autonomy and Sociotropy, measured by the Personal Style Inventory (PSI), to predict both participants' and raters' autonomous and sociotropic ratings of autobiographical life events. The study also examined the differences in classifications of events as either sociotropic or autonomous when the classifications were made by both participants and objective raters. Participants were 72 female and 43 male undergraduate students enrolled in …

Task Interdependence And Teamwork Processes, Kristin Krahl

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

In today's continually expanding and global marketplace, organizations are increasingly relying on teams. The tasks that are performed by these teams are requiring greater interdependency among members as technology becomes more complex. Therefore, there is a need for a valid measure to study the task interdependence among team members. This study developed a measure of task interdependence and provided evidence for the construct validity of the measure using LISREL (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993). In particular, the task interdependence measure was shown to be distinct from teamwork measures developed in previous research (Rosenstein, 1994). A structural model of relationships among teamwork …

Psychological Outcomes Of Religiosity In The Elderly, Deanna R. Hogge

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Three components of religiosity- organizational religious involvement, nonorganizational religious involvement, and subjective religiosity- were examined for effects on wellbeing, depression, and coping in an elderly sample. A multiple regression analysis, in which demographic variables were controlled for, did not result in any significant findings. The lack of statistically significant findings conflict with a large body of research on religion and psychosocial and health outcomes. The current findings suggest that while traditional religious involvement may be beneficial to those who participate, this involvement does not account for significantly increased well-being, better coping, and less depression for the individuals of this elderly …

Work Interference With Family (W→F) And Family Interference With Work (F→W): Antecedents And Mediators, Karyn Hofler

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study was designed to assess the antecedents of two forms of work-family conflict (WFC). The separation of two types of WFC is represented by work interference with family (W→F) and family interference with work (F→W). Several variables were hypothesized to be directly and indirectly related to the two forms of work-family conflict. Because of the individualistic nature of WFC. the participants for the present study were all female. LISREL VIII was used to test the proposed model and to develop an alternative model. Job stress was found to be directly and indirectly related to W→F. Family stress was …

When The "Blues" Come To Call: Police Officers' Attitudes Toward And Responses To Domestic Violence, Christine Reneé Crossland

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

As a result of the growing popularity of arrest in domestic assault cases, many studies have focused on the relationship between police arrest policies and incidence rates of domestic violence. However, few actually assess direct input from police officers concerning their attitudes and perceptions of these policies, or how they feel about dealing with domestic violence. Since police officers are the first point at which domestic disputes are brought to the public's attention, the information provided by police officers concerning domestic violence can provide essential knowledge which could impact future policies and training on domestic violence. This study addresses the …

Comparison Of Curriculum Content On Behavioral Strategies For Managing Anxious Clients In Associate And Baccalaureate Degree Dental Hygiene Programs In The United States, Darnyl Marie King

Dental Hygiene Theses & Dissertations

Dental anxiety, a pervasive problem in the general population, is an important client management concern for dental hygienists. This study sought to determine the type and amount of instruction in United States dental hygiene programs in terms of behavioral strategies for the management of anxious clients, the difference in instruction between associate and baccalaureate degree dental hygiene programs, and the opinions of dental hygiene educators regarding these strategies. A self-designed, 19-item questionnaire entitled the King Behavioral Management Questionnaire was used to obtain data on a sample of 210 accredited dental hygiene programs. Part one of the questionnaire consisted of questions …

Pounding Seas Against The Shore Wife Battering In The U.S. Navy And Its Relationship To Duty Assignment, Peter James Mercier Iii

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the severity of wife battering in the U. S. Navy and to determine if duty assignment has an impact on its occurrence. Although considerable research on wife battering has been conducted in the general population over the past 25 years, limited research has focused its attention on wife battering in the military; there has been virtually no research conducted in the Navy. The present research utilizes Norfolk, Virginia Naval Base Police data on domestic disturbance calls at five Navy housing complexes, as well as ship deployment schedules, and compares the incidence of …

Exploring Knowledge Processes For Technology Assimilation, Rochelle K. Young

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In the emerging knowledge society, the ability to make the experience and expertise of those involved in and affected by new technology unconditionally available to all members of an organization is becoming increasingly important. One of the problems in developing such knowledge processes for technology assimilation is that current social structures do not easily accommodate unconditional participation. Since the implementation of modern information technology is changing the workplace and the nature of work itself, alternative social structures are needed. This research takes as given that deep questions concerning knowledge processes and social transformation are in principle undecidable; and, only questions …

The Influence Of Time Pressure And Information Load On Rule-Based Decision-Making Performance, Brooke Browne Schaab

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Performance was evaluated under varying levels of time pressure and information load to determine their influence on simple rule-based decision-making. Consistent errors, biases, and heuristics found in human decision-making have been attributed to attempts to reduce attentional demands and to the limitations of working memory. Do these same mistakes occur when little or no demand is placed on working memory and the decision is made by following a set of simple rules? Using a simulation of a radar operator's task, 96 participants monitored a display for 24 min. Time pressure was manipulated by increasing or decreasing the number of aircraft …

Neuropsychological Assessment Of Battered Women, Mona Matheney Tiernan

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the effect of physical battering on the neuropsychological functioning of women. Twenty-five battered women and twenty-five non-battered women were administered a neuropsychological screening battery (11 separate tests, yielding 16 variables) to assess for possible deficits in the areas of attention/concentration, memory, visual-perceptual skills, sensory-motor skills, novel problem solving, and verbal fluency. All participants completed a demographic questionnaire, a post-concussive syndrome checklist, and a questionnaire evaluating for the presence of depressed mood and possible effects of depression. Potential participants with a history of previous head injury (occurring from a source other than battering) or other neurological disorders were …

Computer Anxiety And Attitudes Of Urban Teacher Education Students, Alfred P. Rovai

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Education

This three-part study used quasi-experimental methodologies to: (a) determine how a computer literacy course affects the computer anxiety and computer attitudes of urban teacher education students over time, (b) explain and predict urban teacher education students who are resistant to reduction of computer anxiety, and (c) determine whether a humanistically-focused treatment is more effective than a traditional cognitively-focused treatment in reducing computer anxiety and improving computer attitudes.

For the first part of this study 75 subjects were measured over three observations using a 13-week interval. The treatment, a mandatory computer literacy course for teacher education students, was conducted between the …

Toward Understanding Team Leadership: The Empirical Development Of A Team Leadership Classification System, Brian J. Ruggeberg

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop a classification system of team leadership through the empirical process of numerical classification. Although the value and importance of leadership have been recognized in the team literature, few empirical studies have been conducted to understand the phenomenon of team leadership. A thorough review of the relevant literature was conducted to identify the various behaviors, functions, traits, and KSAOs associated with team leadership. This information was then used to select and construct data collection instruments for the classification process.

Two separate studies were conducted to achieve the overall goal of developing a team …

The Effect Of An Integrated Library Computer System On Job Characteristics In Public Libraries, Richard J. Harris

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Management

This study investigated the effects of computerization with an integrated library system (ILS) on job characteristics in public libraries.

Two different but complementary research design components were used. One component consisted of a case study of the Norfolk (Virginia) Public Library, where an ILS was implemented between 1988 and 1995. The case study relied on data from interviews, archival sources, and questionnaires. The other component was a mail survey of public library workers across Virginia.

Case study interview data was analyzed by coding. Time series analysis was used to examine trends in budget and staffing. Pattern matching logic was used …

The Cultural Adaptability Of Dental Hygiene, Medical Laboratory Sciences, Nursing And Physical Therapy Faculty, Irene Mary Connolly

Dental Hygiene Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the cultural adaptability of full time faculty in the College of Health Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. The sample consisted of 40 health science faculty representing dental hygiene, medical laboratory sciences, nursing and physical therapy. The principal investigator personally administered the Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory (CCAI), a 50 item instrument, which contains questions to measure the construct cultural adaptability and its four dimensions: emotional resilience, flexibility/openness, perceptual acuity and personal autonomy. The CCAI is not targeted to one particular culture, but rather is designed to be culture general.

Analysis of …

An Exploratory Study Of Gender And The Process Of Negotiating Academic Contracts Among Sociologists, Miriam M. Newton

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Ample evidence supports the existence of the gender wage gap. One explanation for the gender wage gap in academia may be men's and women's different experiences of the process of negotiating academic contracts. Past literature on gender differences in negotiation suggests that males are more likely to initiate negotiations and are more successful in negotiations than women. This study investigates the process of negotiating academic contracts through a survey of recent PhD graduates in sociology. The research is guided by two questions: (1) What are the experiences of new faculty regarding the process of negotiating academic contracts; and (2) What …

Wittgenstein On Freedom Of The Will, Grant Allen Marler

Institute for the Humanities Theses

This thesis is an exposition and clarification of two lectures on freedom of the will delivered by Ludwig Wittgenstein in 1939. Wittgenstein asks whether it makes sense to say that the "decision of a person was not free because it was determined by natural laws." I offer a brief explanation and defense of Wittgenstein's method of linguistic analysis, then proceed in its spirit. Associated with the words 'determined' and 'free' are certain pictures which, if misapplied, may lead us to misjudge their function. Among these are the picture of natural laws as "rails" that compel events, and that the meaning …

Validation Of Continuous Self Improvement Flow And Individual Commitment As Personality Constructs, Alexia Anne Fink

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Three personality constructs that are hypothesized to be related to desirable organizational outcomes were validated in the present study. The 363 participants included 39 artists, 43 athletes and 281 psychology students, for a total of 363 participants. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good fit to the measurement and structural models. The scales were trimmed to maximize discriminative efficacy in an effort to further establish construct validity. The trimmed measures have satisfactory scale characteristics, but their discriminative efficacy is limited.

Expressions Of Oppression Or Power? Reconsidering The Texts Of Hannah Webster Foster And Tabitha Gilman Tenney, Debra Anne Akgun

English Theses & Dissertations

Hannah Webster Foster and Tabitha Gilman Tenney were early American novelists writing in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Each author wrote a sentimental novel and a traditional conduct book. The Coquette and The Boarding School by Foster and Female Quixotism and The New Pleasing Instructor by Tenney, have scarcely been understood in relation to each other. This project attempts to view these texts as in the eighteenth-century society might have.

The introductory chapter identifies the problem with the typical feminist critical reading. It also explores many of the popular genres of literature during the eighteenth-century. Included are explorations …

Affinity-Maintenance Strategies And Relationship Satisfaction, Carla J. Jernigan

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the influence of affinity maintenance strategies (i.e., positivity, openness, assurances and sharing tasks) on relationship satisfaction. An individual's perception of his or her partner's affinity-maintenance behaviors was investigated. Gender differences and sex-role attitudes were also examined. Using Stafford and Canary's (1991) Affinity-Maintenance Strategy Measure and Hendrick's (1988) Relationship Assessment Scale, positive correlations were found between the frequency of positivity and relationship satisfaction for males and females. The perception of partner's use of sharing tasks was positively correlated with relationship satisfaction. Gender differences were not found in how frequently males or females utilized affinity-maintenance strategies within their relationship. …

Correlates Of Parental Discipline In Adhd Children, Dawn Marie Powers

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study was designed to examine the parenting of an ADHD child in several important ways. First, it was hypothesized that mothers of ADHD children would report employing harsher, more restrictive disciplinary practices and that more negative interaction patterns, specifically resembling the coercive pattern described by Patterson (1982) would be evident in mother/ADHD child dyads. Second, the present study sought to identify the determinants of disciplinary practices and negative interaction patterns that are believed to exist in mother/ADHD child dyads. It was hypothesized that greater parental stress, difficult child temperament, and less ability to regulate self-control will be positively …

Adaptive Integration Of Audio And Visual Information Using Discrete And Semi-Continuous Hidden Markov Models In Audiovisual Automatic Speech Recognition, Qin Su

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

An audiovisual semi-continuous hidden Markov model (HMM)-based Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system and an improved method of integrating audio and visual information in an audiovisual discrete HMM-based ASR system are investigated.

In the audiovisual discrete HMM, an adaptive integration formulation is employed, which incorporates the integration into the HMM at a pre-categorical stage. A visual weighting parameter is determined automatically, which allows the relative contribution of audio and visual information to be adjusted adaptively. Using an adaptive weight, the accuracy increased by 13% compared to the same model with no adaptive weight.

The semi-continuous HMM is a class of models …

Interest, Motivation, And Self-Regulation As Predictors Of Strategy Use And Academic Performance, Tracy L. Mcpherson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

A short-term longitudinal study was used to examine the relations of achievement motivation, general motivation, interest, and self-regulatory predictors to cognitive strategy use and academic performance. A total of 102 college undergraduates enrolled in their first college-level introductory psychology course completed an Achieving Tendency Scale of achievement motivation, the Motivated Strategies For Learning Questionnaire, and an Interest Profile in psychology during the first two weeks of the semester. At midterm they completed the Study Activity Survey of cognitive strategy use. At the end of the semester exam grades, total points earned in the course, and grade point average were obtained. …

An "Earthly Paradise": William Morris's Later Prose Romances, Carolyn Adele Gardner

English Theses & Dissertations

William Norris, prominent Pre-Raphaelite poet and early Socialist thinker, devoted the final six years of his life not to poetry or Socialism, but to the creation of a new literary genre, the prose romance. Following the initial publication of the later prose romances between 1890-1896, few critics have attempted to analyze Norris's last works; moreover, those who have done so, have generally either dismissed the romances as escapist fantasies or twisted the narratives of these romances in an attempt to demonstrate the presence of Marxist allegories thought to accord with Norris's Socialism. Yet Norris's later prose romances, uniting his philosophies …

The Creation And Destruction Of Surrogate Worlds In Montana Literature, Julie Lyn Mcmurray

English Theses & Dissertations

Montana writers create surrogate worlds where their characters escape the oppressiveness of the real world. The vast and varied landscape of Montana is more than a setting for many of these authors. It becomes symbolic of a national mind set that the open land will offer redemption or inner peace. Therefore, many characters become one with their natural environment. However, the writers destroy their alternative worlds by introducing emotion or real world problems into it.

Four Montana writers will be examined in detail. In Chapter II, I discuss Myron Brinig's Wide Open Town and his use of surrogate worlds. Brinig …

Animal-Word And Sound Test: An Auditory Cognitive Interference Effect, Jason L. Parker

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study presented a method in which the Stroop Color Word Test can be adapted to an auditory form. This auditory test used a series of animal words, animal sounds and word-sound combinations. This "Animal-Word-and-Sound test" contained three subtests. The test tasks were to repeat a list of words, identify a list of animal sounds, and to identify the sound in a combined animal word-sound pairings (Both the animal's name and sound are presented simultaneously). An alternate form of this audio test was examined. The alternate form followed the same construction except in the final condition, the task was to …

Extreme Response Style, Irvine Clarke Iii

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The objective of this research was to understand the effect of culture on Extreme Response Style (ERS) for cross-cultural marketing efforts employing Likert type scales. Growth in quantitative cross-cultural marketing research has brought alternative methodological considerations, like ERS, to the forefront of attention, since, traditional inferential statistics used in group comparisons become confounded by this systematic bias. Marketers comparing groups with differing degrees of response style may incorrectly make claims based on observed differences that are strictly attributable to cultural ERS. Therefore, the specific objective of this dissertation was to relate ERS to culture, Likert response formats and to demonstrate …

Narcissism And Actors: A Comparative Study Of The Narcissistic Qualities Of Actors Acting Students And Psychology Students, David William Wicker

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study compared 200 psychology undergraduates, 47 acting students and 69 professional actors using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. The inventory was evaluated using both Robert Raskin's seven factor system and Robert Emmons' four factor system. Three comparisons were done. The first analysis involved the three groups, undergraduate, student actors, and professional actors and gender. The second involved only the professional actors and investigated effects of gender and membership in an acting union. The third examined effects of gender and age. The age groups were delineated by decade beginning with teens, the oldest group being in their sixties. The acting groups …

Correlates Of The Mmpi-A Immaturity (Imm) Scale In An Adolescent Psychiatric Population, Eric Albert Imhof

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Despite numerous theories of adolescent ego development, there is no objective measure of ego development or maturation targeted for the assessment of adolescents. The Immaturity (IMM) Scale developed for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - Adolescent (MMPI-A) was designed to fill this void in adolescent assessment. The present study examined the concurrent validity of the IMM Scale based on sixty-six adolescents (13-18 years old) in an inpatient setting using four prominent measures of maturity, i.e., The Defining Issues Test (DIT), the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT), the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status - Second Revision (EOM-EIS-2), and …

Relationship Between Design Marketing Strategies And Toothbrush Purchases By Consumers, Cynthia Lynn Garvin

Dental Hygiene Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a relationship exists between design marketing strategies of toothbrushes (handle size, color, and shape; brush head size and shape; and bristle firmness and formation of toothbrushes) and toothbrush purchases made by consumers. To understand what consumers preferred, a self-designed, 24 item questionnaire, "Toothbrush Design and Consumer Preferences," was given to a convenience sample of 300 subjects ranging from ages 20 to 60 and over from the Old Dominion University campus in Norfolk, Virginia. Responses from each item were analyzed using frequency and percentages of responses, contingency tables, Kendall's tau b, and …