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The Schooling Of Vietnamese-American High School Students In Oregon: Their Perspectives, Minh Van Tran

Dissertations and Theses

Research on the education of Vietnamese-Americans is very limited, and mainstream media continue to project Vietnamese students either as high achievers or gang affiliated (Castro, 1983; Davis & McDaid, 1992). This kind of projection can mask the real issues that Vietnamese students are facing. Based on Cummins' (1979) Contextual Interaction Theory, this study examined the views of Vietnamese-American high school students in Oregon regarding their schooling under four major areas: Community Background Factors, Educational Input Factors, Instructional Treatment, and Student Input Factors. In particular, this study examined factors, within the above four areas, pertaining to the schooling of Vietnamese-American high …

A Study Of Personal Attributes Associated With Marginality And Failure Of Preservice Teachers In The Terminal Field Experience, Sharon Irene Bancroft

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the impact of personal attributes on student teachers' failure to pass or marginal success in the terminal field experience. Interviews were conducted of faculty at five Washington and two Oregon teacher education programs, who served as supervisors of student teaching. The interview was of the "depth" type described by Masserik (1981,) open-ended, interactive, and designed to encourage the sharing of case histories and subjective experience according to interpretive inquiry protocol as outlined by Lincoln and Guba (1985.) Its goal was to surface fundamental assumptions about and idiosyncratic language used to describe those attributes deemed critical to a …

Persistence Influences On The Minority Student Attending A Predominantly White Postsecondary Urban Institution: The Student Perspective, Annmarie O'Brien

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation is an examination of influences that have contributed to the retention of a group of minority students attending a predominately white postsecondary institution. The focus of the study is on the students' perspectives and the meaning and personal interpretation students draw from influences that impinge upon them and from their interactions with the college experience. From a sociological perspective this view and emphasis on meaning is described as the sociology of everyday life. The component of the sociology of everyday life which directed the methodology is symbolic interactionism. The data collection instrument was a focused interview. Variables from …

Total Quality Management: The Case For The Public Sector: A Comparative Study Of The Implementation Of Total Quality Management In Three Health Care Organizations, Zayed Mohammed Abu

Dissertations and Theses

Total quality management [TQM] is an approach to improving the competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of the whole organization through the improvement of the organizational processes and those who perform them. There has been a rising interest among public sector professionals in examining the applicability and usefulness of TQM methods to public organizations. This research provides descriptive information about the experience of three health care organizations that vary in terms of ownership, whether being publicly or privately owned, with implementing TQM. Participants at these organizations were interviewed, and/or surveyed and observed. The study provides a narrative description of each organization's experience …

Oregon Primary Care Physicians' Support For Health Care Reform, Timothy Alan Baker

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation studies Oregon primary care physicians' attitudes toward health care reform. Two models of reform are examined: one, health care rationing such as that proposed by the Oregon Health Plan (OHP); and, two, support for national health insurance (NHI).

This work examines the necessity for changing the present health care system, traced from the early origins of the medical profession to the present day health care "crisis." The high cost of health care is examined and an overview of the OHP is provided, including citations from John Kitzhaber, M.D., author of the plan.

Overall, Oregon primary care physicians overwhelmingly …

Aids-Preventative Behaviors And The Psychological Costs Of Behavior Change, Howard Balshem

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the effects of behavior change on psychological health among gay and bisexual men of Portland, Oregon who were at risk for contracting AIDS. Cross-sectional self-reports of personal experiences were obtained in Summer, 1991. Sexual behaviors were used as predictors of self-efficacy, depression, anxiety, and subjective well-being. Adopting safer sexual behaviors was psychologically more costly than continuing to engage in high risk behaviors, or long-term adherence to safer behaviors. Behaviors amenable to short-term change differed from those conducive to long-term maintenance. Behavior change was also found to have a beneficial effect on self-efficacy.

These findings suggest that behavior …

Case Studies Of The Structure, Dynamics, And Outcomes Of Interdisciplinary Team Organization In Oregon Middle Schools, Gail Lyon

Dissertations and Theses

Middle school literature advocates interdisciplinary team organization as a structure that enhances student learning and teacher satisfaction. In an interdisciplinary team, teachers responsible for different content areas collaboratively plan the instructional program for a shared group of students. Yet, fewer than fifty percent of the nation's middle schools use an interdisciplinary team structure, and research indicates that teams are fragile and temporary. Few studies were found that described interdisciplinary team organization at the team or individual teacher level.

The purpose of this case study is to describe the structure, dynamics, and outcomes of interdisciplinary teams of teachers in middle schools. …

The Myth Of The "Battered Husband Syndrome", Jack C. Straton

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The most recurrent backlash against women's safety is the myth that men are battered as often as women. Suzanne Steinmetz created this myth with her 1977 study of 57 couples, in which four wives were seriously beaten but no husbands were beaten. By a convoluted thought process she concluded that her finding of zero battered husbands implied that men just don't report abuse and therefore 250,000 American husbands are battered each year by their wives, a figure that exploded to 12 million in the subsequent media feeding frenzy.

Men have never before been shy in making their needs known, so …

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: Multnomah County looks to the PSU Center for Sociological Research for help in improving its jury system; blacks were a common sight on the American frontier, but their stories are seldom told; until recently the placing of disabled children in state facilities required parents to relinquish custody; why has the university enjoyed such athletic success and attracted such quality coaches and players?; and more.

A Model For Comprehensive Reform In General Education: Portland State University, Charles R. White

University Studies Assessment Research

Article presenting General Education Working Group Recommendations, research and rational for implementing the University Studies program.

Viking 1994, Portland State University

The Viking (Yearbooks)

Portland State University 1994 yearbook

The Relationship Between Cognitive Skills Measured By Piagetian Tasks At Age 2 And Linguistic Skills Measured By An Expressive Language Test At Age 4 In Normal And Late Talkers, Rebecca Jayne Laplante

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between cognitive skills as measured by Piagetian tasks at approximately 2 years of age and expressive and receptive language scores from tests administered to the same children 2 years later. The questions this study sought to answer were: 1. Is there a significant difference in the performance of normal children and late-talking children on Piagetian cognitive assessment at age 2? 2. Is there a significant relationship between the cognitive scores at age 2 and language scores at age 4 in each of the two diagnostic groups? Sixty-four subjects participated in …

Determining The Property Value Impact Of Landfills, Okwuchukwu Gerald Uba

Dissertations and Theses

The decline in property value can be due to owner's act or exogenous act from the operation of landfills. Landfill neighbors, especially home owners, perceive landfill operation to pose environmental safety problem such as ground water contamination and methane gas leakage that could affect home value.

Owners of landfills, especially those landfills that accept only dry waste (limited purpose landfill), claim that since their facilities meet the requirements of environmental regulations and the type of waste they accept could not possibly produce methane gas and leachate there is no property value impact of their facilities.

Several studies have shown that …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet November 1993, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The November 1993 Monthly packet includes the November agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held October 1993.

The Effects Of Perceived Work Schedule Flexibility, Number Of Hours Worked, And Type Of Work Schedule On Work-Family Conflict, Tenora Dianne Grigsby

Dissertations and Theses

The interaction effects of perceived work schedule flexibility (PWSF) and the number of hours worked on work-family conflict, and the interaction effects of PWSF and the type of work schedule on work-family conflict were investigated for employees of a regional bank headquartered in the Pacific Northwest. A 50% response rate was obtained from a survey questionnaire administered to 2,000 randomly selected employees.

Hierarchial multiple regression analyses conducted on 526 subjects revealed no significant interaction effects for PWSF and type of work schedule. The interaction effect for PWSF and number of hours worked was not tested due to a significant correlation …

The Identity In Crisis: A New Approach To The Culture Shock Experience Of University Exchange Students, Christina Maria Luther

Dissertations and Theses

The relationship of language and culture is explored in this thesis for the purpose of better understanding why all sojourners, regardless of preparation, experience some degree of culture shock. The author begins with a review of literature on culture shock establishing that the native language of sojourners is not considered to be of any consequence to the sojourning experience. The fields of intercultural communication, social psychology and psychology are then explored to establish the link between language and culture and to introduce the notion of linguistic identity. Evidence found in each of these fields leads the author to conclude that …

Collected Working Papers, Phase 2, Portland Police Bureau/National Institute Of Justice Community Policing Assessment Project, Brian Stipak, Annette I. Jolin, Maria Clavadetscher, Susan Immer, James Marshall

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Portland State University is one of three agencies, along with the Portland Police Bureau and the University of Oregon, working on a project funded by a grant from the National Institute of Justice, United States Department of Justice. The purpose of the grant is to develop and implement methods of measuring the performance of community policing. As the recipient of the grant, the Police Bureau has contracted with Portland State University, and also with the University of Oregon, to do some of the work for the grant. This PSU report of collected working papers was produced wider the contract between …

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: This physics grad can determine if a missile warhead contains nerve gas or if an egg is infected with salmonella; a PSU psychology professor is asking Portland’s gay men about their relationships, feelings, and sex lives; for the past 20 years Jame Maurer has been bringing hearing technology to Costa Rica; and more.

Determinants Of Elite Athletes' Commitment To Sport: Examination Of The Sport Commitment Model In The Professional Sport Domain, Tammy Kay Hall

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the applicability of the Sport Commitment Model for a group of elite, professional athletes. The model proposes that an athlete's commitment will increase as sport enjoyment, personal investments, social constraints, and involvement opportunities increase and will decrease with an increase in involvement opportunities. The influence of identification as an athlete, a determinant of commitment not included in the original model, was also examined. One hundred and eighty three professional football players from the Canadian Football League (CFL) (n = 121) and National Football League (NFL) (n = 69) participated in the study. Each subject completed …

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Work Involvement And Family Involvement And Work-Family Conflict In Dual-Career Families, Elizabeth Jean Allen

Dissertations and Theses

The present study examined the relationship between work involvement and family involvement and work-family conflict in dual-career families. Four hundred thirty-six couples (436 females; 436 males; N = 872) in dual-career relationships were recruited from a bank organization in the Northwest United States. The survey questionnaire contained three sections to measure work and family involvement, work-family conflict, and sociodemographic information. Data analyses were conducted using multiple regression analysis and a 1 X 4 ANOVA to examine the proposed relationships among the study variables. Results demonstrated the following: across study participants, work involvement accounted for a significant amount of variance in …

The Intellectual Grounding Of The San Francisco Committee Of Vigilance Of 1851, Jon Jeffrey Walker

Dissertations and Theses

Vigilantism has a long history in the United States stretching back to the Regulator movement in South Carolina in 1767. These extralegal movements are distinguished from spontaneous and ephemeral mob activity by their regular organization and limited life-span. The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance of 1856 was the largest vigilante movement in American history. After a summer of vigilantism that included four hangings, the committee turned to politics and formed the People's Party which dominated San Francisco's city government for the next decade. The 1856 committee is generally considered the great exemplar of American vigilantism and has received considerable attention …

A Study Of Gender And Personality Factors In Work-Family Conflict Models, Steven Donald Ward

Dissertations and Theses

There were three underlying purposes to this study: 1) To test the main effect of gender on work -> family and family -> work conflict; 2) To re-examine the predictors of inter-role conflict used by Frone, Russell, and Cooper (1992) (i.e., job involvement, job stress, family involvement, and family stress); and 3) To investigate the importance of using personality characteristics as predictors of how individuals deal with inter-role conflict. A questionnaire was assembled, consisting of: a work -> family conflict spillover scale, a family -> work conflict spillover scale, a job involvement scale, a family involvement scale, a job stressors …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet June 1993, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The June 1993 Monthly packet includes the June agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held May 1993.

An Exploratory Study Of Student Retention In Kindergarten And Grade One And The Associated Decision Making Processes As Perceived By Principals And Teachers, Doris Cameron-Minard

Dissertations and Theses

Students who fail to achieve in school are frequently retained in grade to remediate their lack of satisfactory progress. In this study, elementary school principals, kindergarten, and first grade teachers were interviewed to explore their perceptions of the decision making processes used in recommending retention. The belief systems which underlie their reliance on retention as a remedial option were also examined.

Three research questions were addressed:

1. What is the relationship between the written retention policy of a selected school district and the actual decision making process used by its schools?
2. What are the influences by district socio-economic level which impact …

A Model To Predict Recycling Behaviors: Reusing Ajzen's Model One More Time, Kathleen L. Kiwala

Dissertations and Theses

The prediction of self-reported recycling behaviors was examined using variations and expansions of Ajzen's theory of planned behavior. Three hundred and forty-eight residents from the Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties in Oregon completed a questionnaire that assessed attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, intentions, self-reports of recycling behavior, moral obligation and past behavior. Recycling behaviors and intentions were grouped into three categories of difficulty by a factor analysis. Structural equation analysis did not support Ajzen's model. It was found that although attitudes was correlated with the antecedent variables, it did not directly influence intentions or behaviors. Perceived behavioral control had …

Rain, Eco-Net

RAIN: Journal of Appropriate Technology

Volume 14, Number 3

Inside: Village-Organized Healthcare; The Homeless Garden Project; Center for Appropriate Transport; Ecotopia, Bulgaria

RAIN began in October 1974 as a publication of ECO-NET, an environmental education network funded by the Hill Foundation and an Environmental Education grant. Its office was based in the Environmental Education Center at Portland State University. With a focus on the Pacific Northwest, particularly Oregon, RAIN originally described itself as a “bulletin board” with an “emphasis on environmental/energy related and communications kinds of information” and interested in “the evolutionary possibilities of inter-disciplinary connections.”

Job Attribute Preferences Of The Workforce In Polish High Technology Enterprises, Florian Michael Sisavic

Dissertations and Theses

A key precept in work place motivation theory is that management knows what job attributes are valued by the employee. Management can benefit by asking employees what they want from their work experience (i.e., job attribute preferences), rather than assume they know. This is particularly important to Polish high technology companies that are in transition to a free-market economy and to Polish workers who must be appropriately motivated to compete globally.

This study attempts to better understand the job attribute preferences of Polish managers and workers, the potential gaps between Polish managers' perception of their workers' preferences (system), and how …

Residential Options For The Institutionalized Chronically Mentally Ill: The Impact Of Psychosis On Choice, Richard James Stanek

Dissertations and Theses

Discharge planning for hospitalized chronically mentally ill usually involves only verbal descriptions of community residential options. Psychosis often impairs ability to conceptualize abstract information, and quality of the choice process may be poor without describing options in concrete form, i.e., using written descriptions and photographs. A random sample (N= 90) of Dammasch State Hospital (Wilsonville, Oregon) patient population, comprising persons diagnosed schizophrenic, schizoaffective, organic mental disorder, and bipolar, were assigned to three treatment groups, asked to rank six community residential options suited for them when they were ready to leave the hospital. The three treatment groups were presented the same …

The Effect Of Color On Character Recognition: A Study Of The Oregon License Plate, Frank R. Dennis

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated character color changes on the current Oregon license plate in an attempt to rectify character recognition problems currently experienced with personalized license plates. Red-violet, brown, and purple were tested against the blue color currently used on the Oregon license plate's characters. Aesthetic-preference analyses were conducted to ensure that the potential character color changes maintained the appeal of the current plate. A standard recognition paradigm was used to test errors in letter recognition for the 4 colors.

Fifty-four subjects with normal or corrected normal visual acuity and normal color vision were solicited from undergraduate psychology courses. All 54 …

Friendship Patterns Of Chinese Students And Their Adjustment In The United States, Changhua Wang

Dissertations and Theses

International students who experience difficulties in a new culture are often considered to have suffered a breakdown in their normal healthy psychological functioning, and therefore need therapy and counselling (Pedersen et al, 1976). This study views failure and problems experienced by the sojourner as a result of lack of the necessary new social skills and knowledge. Social networks, particularly friendships, are thus extremely important in that such networks are not only source of social support [sic], but also major channels through which such skills and knowledge are acquired [sic].

1. Guided by social support theories and social skills theories, this study …