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The Relationship That Teachers' Concerns And Their Perceptions Of Organizational Climate Have With Innovation Maintenance, Frederic Wayne De Vall

Dissertations

The main purpose of this study was to determine what some of the factors are that have an affect upon the maintenance of an innovation. Many educational change models focus upon the initiation and implementation of educational innovations in schools. This study tested some of the factors identified, from the literature review as affecting innovation maintenance, upon one innovation which is being used by teachers in several school districts. The first factor centered upon the concerns teachers have about an innovation they use in their classrooms. The second factor centered upon teachers' perceptions of the organizational climate that exists which …

The Effects Of Parent Monitoring On Homework Completion Of Low Performing Students, Maria Del Carmen Barocio

Masters Theses

Four junior high school boys from a Special Education room participated in this study. The purpose was to increase the amount of homework completion having parents as monitors of their own children and minimal teacher intervention. In Condition I, baseline was taken of the percentage of homework assignments completed. During Condition II, parents received a Homework Checklist from the teacher explaining the assignments for the next day. For Condition III parents were given a handout explaining the use of positive statements and prompts, and a guideline for skillful home study was also included. Parents were asked to send a Report …

Coalition Politics In Malaysia, Zakiah Awang

Masters Theses

This thesis has attempted to explain the success and the stability of the coalition party system in Malaysia from 1955 to 1982. This success has been attributed to three factors.

The most important factor is the role played by political elites. Malaysian political elites come from a different racial background. It is their willingness to cooperate, work together in harmony and to find solutions through compromises that helped to hold the coalition party together. Elite cooperation, in turn, has been fostered through similarities in the leaders' socioeducational- linguistic backgrounds.

The success of the coalition party is also closely linked to …

Effects Of Positive, Negative And Balanced Emphases On Perceived Effectiveness Of Performance Appraisal, Joseph Andrew Hammond

Masters Theses

The central theme of the research is the experimental manipulation of three different appraisal processes, namely positive, negative, and balanced appraisals to determine which evaluation tool would be perceived as most useful in motivating and stimulating employees to improve on their performance. Subjects were randomly assigned to groups and presented with scripts exemplifying three appraisal approaches and asked to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of each approach in producing a desired performance outcome. The results showed significant differences between the balanced approach and the other two approaches. However, there was no significant difference between the means of the positive versus negative …

The Repeated Acquisition Procedure As A Means Of Analyzing Instructional Stimulus Control And Rule-Directed Behavior, Jeffrey S. Danforth

Masters Theses

Pre-school children were taught to emit four-response chains using the repeated acquisition design. Experiment 1 examined the effect of instructional stimuli. Many errors were made in Control Learning, followed by few errors in Control Relearning. Instructional cues resulted in few errors in the morning learning session, but many relearning errors were made. Experiment 2A determined if two-trial cuing with instructional stimuli would improve relearning performance. The result was fewer relearning errors, but the criterion required more learning trials. In Experiment 2B a rule was taught relevant to two-trial cuing. In Experiment 3 a child was told that the morning and …

Teaching Change Computation To The Developmentally Disabled, Nancy Daeschlein

Masters Theses

This study evaluated a procedure for teaching three developmentally disabled adults to compute monetary change combinations. Also, the procedure assessed generalization to the skills of computing change with bills, verifying the correctness of change received, and computing change with both coins and bills. Subjects were first trained to make change using pennies and then were trained to use each successive denomination in combination with those previously trained. A multipleprobe design was used, including generalization probes of the above-cited skills. Results indicated that each subject acquired the behavior of change computation with coins as a function of the training procedure. Also, …

The Albigensian Heresy And The Gnostic Tradition, John Stine Penman

Masters Theses

That the Albigensian heresy represents a resurgence of early Christian Gnosticism is the thesis of this work. The study defines Gnosticism in terms of its pattern of prevalent characteristics and traces the course of Gnosticism and its emergence as the Albigensianism of the Middle Ages. Using the finding of Hans Soderberg's La Religion des Cathares: Etudes, sur le gnosticisme de la basse antiquite et du moyen age as a point of departure through the analysis of documents discovered since 1949, the study shows that Gnosticism and the Albigensian heresy represent a continued tradition of religious expression as a recognizable alternative …

The Effects Of An Instructional Package On Study Question Completion Skills Of High School Students, Jeffery David Montgomery

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to empirically evaluate the effects of an instructional package on study question behaviors. The instructional package, incorporating contingent reinforcement, modeling, feedback, contingency contracting and a programmed instruction format was implemented to train four study question answering behaviors identified through task analysis. Each subject demonstrated ability to perform the four behaviors with increased accuracy on experimental measures following training. Results indicated that the instructional package was effective in training increased accuracy in each instructional behavior for each subject. Generalized performance of these behaviors in the classroom environment, assessed through comparison of classroom grades and study …

Long Slow Distance Running As A Treatment For Moderate Depression Of Outpatients, Dalene Degraaf Vandenhoek

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of "long slow distance" (LSD) running as a treatment for moderate depression. Clients diagnosed with "moderate primary depression" were randomly assigned to one of two treatments. Individuals receiving the running treatment walked and ran slowly for forty minutes three times a week for ten weeks. Those receiving psychotherapy participated in behavior therapy one hour a week for ten weeks. According to biweekly scores on the Symptom Checklist-90 and Beck Depression Inventory, the anxiety and depression of the clients who ran improved as much as those receiving behavior therapy.

A Microprocessor Controlled Pulsed Hollow Cathode Lamp For An Atomic Absorption Spectrometer, James B. Schilling

Masters Theses

A Jarrell-Ash Atomic Absorption/Flame Emission 82-360 Spectrometer was interfaced to a Heathkit ETA-3400 microprocessor. The microprocessor is used to pulse the hollow cathode lamp from a "steady" current to a "peak " current during the opening of the chopper. The current from the photomultiplier-tube is converted to a proportional voltage which is supplied to a sample-and-hold circuit. A successive approximation routine is used to convert the voltage to a representative digital value. Digital values are obtained for the "blank" and "sample" and are used to calculate percent absorption values. The system can also be used to obtain emission values.

The …

Instructional Strategies For Implementing A Reading For Meaning Approach, Elaine G. Wangberg

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

If our goal as reading educators is to develop in students the ability to gain meaning from written language, our instruction and programs should present and emphasize experiences which promote this ability. The following is a listing of practical suggestions for implementing a reading for meaning approach.

Burnout And The Reading Teacher, James C. Sadler, James W. Cunningham

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

It's the end of the school day on Friday and most of the teachers are congregating in the lounge and classrooms, happily anticipating the weekend. Carole, however, walks straight to the parking lot without pausing to speak to colleagues as she did in former years. Today she informed the principal that she would not be renewing her contract as a remedial reading teacher and, although saddened by her decision, she also feels relief that months of increasing frustration and self-doubt have reached a conclusion.

Part of the tragedy of this hypothetical but all too familiar example of Carole is her …

An Informal Reading--Language Test, Una A. Lange, Dixie D. Sanger, Sheldon L. Stick

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Professionals working with children who need help in language development and reading have reported a positive relationship between reading performance and the development of language skills (Mattingly, 1972; Goodm3n, reported in Gutknecht and Keenan, 1978; Berger, 1978; Semel and Wiig, 1975; Stark, 1975). Semel and Wiig (1975) report that many reading problems are due to a child I s difficulty or inability to understand the ideas being expressed by complex syntactic structures, and Rupley (1974) states that problems in understanding the vocabulary used in reading texts may contribute to reading problems. The relationship and parallelism between reading and language development …

An Advance Organizer Is…All Or None Of The Above, Evelyn F. Searls

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The purpose of this article is to review the guidelines for the construction of an advance organizer as proposed by Ausubel and to examine why the choice in the title "all or none of the above" could be literally true.

Reading Horizons Vol. 23, No. 4

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Complete issue of Reading Horizons volume 23, issue 4.

Reconciling Differences In Test Results: Comprehension, Barbara A. Hutson, Jerome A. Niles

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

In planning an instructional program for Brenda you have discovered that one of her tests indicates an instructional level of fourth grade for comprehension and another test shows comprehension at the high second grade level. How can both results be accurate? How do you decide about their accuracy? If both are true what does that indicate about her profile of abilities? How can you turn what appears to be a testing anomaly into useful diagnostic information?

Current Reading Research: What Does It Tell The Classroom Teacher?, Ellen R. Smith

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Teachers often consider research as an entity separate from classroom practices. However, if one looks carefully at research results, implications that have a direct bearing on classroom practices can be found.

In the field of reading, there is a growing abundance of research results which can affect what is done in the classroom. It is the purpose of this article to present an brief overview of current research done in reading and point out some implications for classroom reading teachers. Standal (1978) descriptive model of reading is used as a framework in which to present the research. Standal' s components …

The Socializer, June 1983, Western Michigan University

The Socializer

Volume 1, Number 22 of the Socializer, published June, 1983.

The Westerner Vol. 3 No. 6, Western Michigan University

The Westerner (1980-1997)

• Stevenson estate provides $300,000 for short-term loans • Planned giving totals $10 million since 1974 • Homecoming to recognize Western's birthday • Denenfeld named vice president, Moskovis becomes associate • Continuation budget approved with deficit • Emeritus status granted to two former trustees • Sky Broncos win at national air meet • Gravure printing capital campaign launched in June • Language, Speech and Hearing Clinic named in honor of Van Riper • Savor the Moment • Alum who overcame speech disorder is now with CNN • Tourism and travel-a growing industry • Tuition and fees increased • Kemper designs …

The Impact Of Women Legislators On Introduction Of Social Legislation Into A Southern State House, Marjorie A. Baney

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The study investigated the interest of male and female legislators in social legislation as measured by the number of bills each group introduced. Legislators included in the study were the entire female population of the North Carolina General Assembly House of Representatives serving between January and July 1981, and an equal number of their male colleagues randomly selected. Comparisons of the female and male legislators in the study criteria such as number of legislative terms served, relative power of committees on which they served, number of committee chairpersonships and independent rankings and effectiveness by colleagues, lobbyists and the media revealed …

Regional Planning Of Mental Health Services: An Illinois Case Example, Wynne Sandra Korr

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Now that Reagan has ended a twenty-year pattern of federal involvement in setting mental health policy priorities, states must develop models for implementing and maintaining services to the mentally ill. The Illinois model of regional offices which plan and monitor programs is described. A case example showing how one such office developed services in a minority community is given. Examples of the work of other offices illustrate the flexibility of this model in meeting special community needs.

18th International Congress On Medieval Studies, Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University

International Congress on Medieval Studies Archive

The printed program of the 18th International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 5-8, 1983).

Political Symbolism In Juvenile Justice: Reforming Florida's Juvenile Detention Criteria, C. Aaron Mcneece, Mark Ezell

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A recent reform in Florida's juvenile detention criteria was over-turned during the subsequent legislative session. This paper describes both the initial reform and its reversal and suggests that symbolic political rewards may often be more important than the actual consequences of a policy. Recommendations are made for accomplishing policy reform in a traditional political culture.

Legislative Evaluation Of Social Welfare Programs: The Process And Consequences, Patricia K. Freeman, William Lyons

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Program review has increased substantially in recent years. There has been concern that the upsurge in policy evaluation would be detrimental to social welfare programs, where data is often unavailable, little agreement exists concerning specific goals and documenting success is often virtually impossible. In this analysis we compared the program evaluation of social welfare programs with non-social welfare programs. The review process differed substantially as did the recommendation made as a result of the review. Social welfare programs faced more criticisms than non-social welfare programs. However, the criticisms were less serious. Changes prior to the publication of the evaluation report …

An Advocacy Approach For More Effective Program Delivery And Coordination: A Case Study Of Maine's Housing Rehab Techs, Kenneth K. Ahn, James F. Horan, G. Thomas Taylor

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A detailed case analysis of the Maine Housing Rehabilitation Project provides an exploratory observation of the innovative use of human resources at the federal, state and regional levels through an evolutionary development process of housing rehabilitation technicians. Functioning largely as advocate planners and human service delivery administrators through self-expanded roles, these individuals were able to promote change in the context of this intergovernmental environment. The analysis presented here reveals findings of intrastate regional differences between the urban and rural areas. Low income citizens appear to be the main beneficiaries of a proactive style of leadership that was performed by the …

Alternative Service Delivery Strategies: Factors In States' Decision Making, Harold W. Demone Jr., Margaret Gibelman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article focuses on the range of choices and factors affecting state level decision making about how human services are to be delivered. In light of the dual thrusts of decentralization and privatization, the viability of public-private partnerships through contracting for services is explored. Among the significant factors affecting decisions about alternative forms of service delivery are: political and fiscal preferences; the strength of organized labor; the role and availability of the private service sector and history with purchase of service. The advantages and disadvantages attributed to a contracting model for delivering services are unlikely to be argued from an …

Western News, April 14, 1983, Western Michigan University

Western News (1972-2018)

Story highlights: Two to receive Distinguished Service Awards April, Goal surpassed in WMU United Way campaign, More than 1,800 to be awarded degrees April 23, Areopagitica 'Blues!' Bernhard issues call to freedom in address at third annual Presidential Scholars Convocation

Comprehension And Rate: Oral Vs. Silent Reading For Low Achievers, Paul D. Burge

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This investigator sought to examine the influence of oral and silent reading behavior on the reading rate and comprehension levels of the learner. Two questions were posed for investigation: 1. Do low achieving fourth graders read significantly more rapidly silently or orally? 2. Do low achieving fourth graders comprehend materials significantly better after having read orally or after having read silently?

Separation Of Southern Pine Pulp Into Its Springwood And Summerwood Components By Centrifugal Means: Savings In Refining And Other Possible Economic Justifications, Bernard J. Berger

Paper Engineering Senior Theses

A study of Southern Pine pulp separation into its springwood and summerwood fiber components was undertaken. Separation was accomplished through the use of two Bird Triclean centrifugal cleaner devices. Separation occurred mainly because of different apparent pulp densities in the two fiber fractions. Springwood collapsed during pulping, creating a flattened fiber, forty-five to sixty-five microns in length and ten to twelve microns in width. The thicker walled summerwood fibers, on the other hand, maintained their twenty-five to thirty-five micron diameter tubular shape. The greater surface area present in springwood fibers allowed a greater hydraulic force to be exerted to this …

Disco Users Manual, Thomas B. Pettinghill

Paper Engineering Senior Theses

The object of this thesis was to prepare an introductory user's manual for the use of DYSCO on WMU's DEC-10 computer. DYSCO is a process simulation program obtained from the Institute of Paper Chemistry. A variety of imaginary process systems were simulated with the DYSCO program so difficulties and problems could be found and dealt with. The manual gives examples and explanations so the program may be used with little difficulty.

This paper, however, provides only an introduction for the use of DYSCO, some of the more complicated routines such as RECIPE, CONTROL, and VALUE should be studied at greater …