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The Observer As An Instrument In Qualitative Community Studies, Pranab Chatterjee

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A qualitative study of leadership in local black communities was done by an Asian Indian scholar in Cleveland during the nineteen sixties and seventies. This paper narrates the conditions under which and the methodology with which the study was done. Using participant observation, interviews, and reviews of published and unpublished documents, the author develops ten propositions about organizational and electoral leadership in black communities. Further, three additional propositions about the adequacy of qualitative research are also developed from this research experience. A short comparative review of trends in these communities is appended.

Resources For Friendship Intervention, Rebecca G. Adams, Rosemary Blieszner

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Programs affecting friendship patterns can be implemented at the individual, dyadic, network, immediate environment, community, or societal level. Literature specifically focused on friendship intervention is scarce. The relevance of other resources for the design and assessment of friendship interventions at each of these levels is described.

Practitioners who design social interaction interventions are prompted to familiarize themselves with the friendship literature and to apply the findings. Even if the goal is not to manipulate friendship patterns specifically, interventions should at least be designed not to undermine existing relationships.

Adaptive Leadership Style And Sales Performance: A Test Of The Social Style Model, Frank M. Gambino

Dissertations

The Social Style Model served as the central theoretical framework of this study. The purpose of this study was twofold:

1. To assess whether performance evaluations of salespeople are related (a) to their social styles, (b) to the social styles of the sales managers who supervise their work, or (c) to the differences between their social styles and the styles of their sales supervisors.

2. To test the assumption that self-evaluations of social style are often significantly different from evaluations supplied by others who are familiar with a person’s behavior.

Two types of empirical data were collected: <1) measures of three social style variables—assertiveness, responsiveness, and versatility—for salespeople and sales supervisors, and (2) measures of salespeople’s overall job performance. Job performance was assessed using both self-ratings and supervisory ratings on five constructs of sales performance: (1) ability to meet sales objectives, (2) technical knowledge and application of that knowledge, (3) control of company expenses, (4) information processing, and (5) presentation skills. Social style was assessed using self-, peer and supervisory ratings.

Mail surveys were …

An Examination Of Depression In A Subclinical Eating Disorder Female Population, Christine Hill-Melton

Dissertations

This study examined depression and disordered eating symptoms in a population at high risk for the development of eating disorders. The level and prevalence of depression were compared between three groups of women with increasing severity of eating disordered symptoms.

Female undergraduate college students enrolled in psychology courses at four small colleges and one mid-sized university in Michigan completed a Biographical Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and an Eating Assessment Rating Scale (EARS). Participants were placed into one of three groups according to severity of disordered eating symptoms based on their responses on the EARS. The three groups were: …

Satisfaction In Lesbian Relationships As Compared To The Qualities Of Mutuality, Cohesion, And Merging, Patricia R. Murray

Dissertations

Recently theorists have examined women's development as relational. The ability to use empathy, the value of mutuality, and a flexible boundary structure are components, which lead to psychological growth and emphasize the importance of relating within the relationship. Lesbian relationships are likely to be highly relational, as they consist of two women relating in an intimate way. Research regarding satisfaction in lesbian relationships has been sparse; satisfaction has been correlated with mutuality, intimacy, and dyadic attachment. Other variables such as an equal power balance, commitment, and cohesion have also been positively related to satisfaction. The purpose of the present study …

Stakeholder Perceptions Of Barriers To Implementing Shared Decision-Making In Wisconsin Schools, Donald John Viegut

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was (a) to investigate if differences exist in stakeholder perceptions of barriers to implementing shared decision-making (SDM), and (b) to investigate if differences exist in stakeholder perceptions across the following constructs of shared decision- making: empowerment, leadership, motivation, organizational culture, accountability, and learning organizations. Randomly selected members from the stakeholder categories of: parents, board of education members, superintendents, principals, and teachers, were the sample (N = 100). Stakeholder perception was compared on a composite score of the survey instrument. Perceptions were also compared across the six constructs of SDM for each of the stakeholder categories. …

Comparative Effectiveness Of Therapeutic Strategies On Drug Knowledge And Drug Attitude In Inpatient Psychiatric Substance Abuse Population, Amber Haque

Dissertations

This study examined the effects of instructional strategies on the change of knowledge and attitude scores in mentally ill subjects with a history of substance abuse. Twenty subjects from a state psychiatric hospital were randomly divided into one control and three experimental groups. The study period was ten weeks with each session lasting forty five minutes, twice per week. Subjects studied issues relating to drug abuse outside scheduled sessions as they pleased. Pre- and post-test scores were measured by a drug abuse questionnaire developed at the Pennsylvania State University. Hypotheses formed were: (a) drug education improves knowledge and attitude in …

The Effects Of Disclosure Of Comprehensive Pretherapy Information On Clients' Behaviors And Perceptions Of Therapists And The Therapy Process, Patricia J. Dauser

Dissertations

An experimental study of the effects of comprehensive versus partial pretherapy disclosure was conducted. Sixty-three clients in a university counseling center participated. The control and treatment groups received information on four pretherapy issues. Those issues were services provided, confidentiality, length of sessions, and right to terminate therapy. The treatment group received additional information which included personalized data regarding therapists, what to expect in therapy, and risks and alternatives to therapy. The study examined the effects of the comprehensive information received by the treatment group versus the partial information received by the control group on (a) perceptions of therapists, (b) opinions …

A Comparative Study Of Primary Preventive Behaviors And Secondary Preventive Behaviors Among Michigan Adults, Jing Chang

Dissertations

Many researchers have documented the range and extent of the health preventive behaviors. However, previous studies have generally focused on either the contact with medical professionals (secondary preventive care) or compliance with their recommendations (primary preventive care). Some have treated the two types of behaviors as one and related them to social demographic characteristics and socio-structural conditions (e.g., access to medical service). There have been very few studies that have compared the two sets of preventive behaviors. This study takes a first step to explore the correlates of secondary preventive activities and compare them with the correlates of primary preventive …

Transformational Leadership: The Relationship Between Consciousness, Values, And Skills, John E . Schmidt

Dissertations

Leadership is one of the most important, yet least understood, phenomena on earth. Many researchers have investigated leadership traits, activities, behaviors, and processes; yet, until B u m s (1978), few researchers distinguished between leadership that is "transactional" and leadership that is "transformational." Transformational leadership, says Bums, occurs "when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality" (p. 20) .

Since Bums, few studies of transformational leadership have examined leaders who appeal to higher values or leaders who challenge individuals, organizations, and societies …

The Efficacy Of Eye Movement Desensitization In The Treatment Of Trauma Related Imagery And Cognitions: A Partial Dismantling Procedure, George S. Renfrey

Dissertations

This study investigated the effects of eye movement desensitization (EMD) on post-traumatic sequelae, and attempted a partial dismantling of the procedure to determine the necessity of EMD's characteristic eye movements. Twenty-three persons participated in three groups: (1) those receiving standard EMD, (2) those receiving a variant of EMD in which eye movements were engendered through a light tracking task, and (3) those receiving a variant of EMD in which fixed visual attention replaced eye movements. All participants had experienced traumata as defined by the DSM-III-R and were having intrusive symptoms of PTSD at pre-treatment. All but two met full DSM-II-R …

The Relationship Between Dependency, Gender, And Personality Style As It Impacts Adolescent Inpatient Depression, Cathy L. Kubik

Dissertations

The role of dependent personality traits in increased vulnerability to depression has been studied extensively. However,this issue remains controversial, and limited research has been done involving adolescent inpatients. In addition, limited research has been done regarding the possible interaction effects of gender and level of dependency upon depression and specific depressive symptoms in an adolescent inpatient population.

symptoms in an adolescent inpatient population. In this study, 92 inpatient adolescents from a private, not-for-profit psychiatric hospital had completed both the Millon Adolescent Personality Inventory (Millon, 1976, 1982), and the Multiscore Depression Inventory (Berndt, 1986).

One group consisted of 46 adolescents who …

Symbol Sense And Its Development In Two Computer Algebra System Environments, Brian A. Keller

Dissertations

The purposes of this study were to: (a) explicate the nature of symbol sense, (b) determine the differential effects of two computer algebra system (CAS) environments on students' development of symbol sense, (c) explore differences in symbol sense among students using a CAS and students not using a CAS, and (d) examine students' achievement in calculus with and without the use of a CAS.

Six sections of first-semester calculus at Western Michigan University during the 1992-93 academic year were used in the study. The investigator taught two CAS sections both semesters (n = 41, 34 Fall and n = 35, …

Adolescent Substance Use Patterns: Testing A Multidimensional Sociogenic Model, Eric O. Johnson

Dissertations

This dissertation begins with the understanding that behavior is a product of a variegated and complex web of social factors. Bringing this approach to the subfield of adolescent substance use, both substance use itself (alcohol, cigarettes and a broad range of illicit drugs) and the factors that influence such use are viewed as existing within the complex of demographic/structural, social contextual, attitudinal, and behavioral layers of adolescents' social worlds.

The Patterns of Adolescent Substance Use Typology, developed by Stanley S. Robin and me (1992a), is used to categories the overall level and kind of substance use, over time, that adolescents …

The Efficacy Of Prepared Videoprograms And Personal Conferences In Parent Education For Language Intervention, Candis M. Warner

Dissertations

This study was undertaken to examine the effectiveness of using prepared videoprograms and personal conferences to educate parents in the use of indirect language stimulation techniques with children who have delays in speech and language development. The efficacy of three methods to teach mothers to use facilitative communicative behaviors with their children was assessed by analyzing tape recorded language samples of 6 0 mothers conversing with their preschool children before and after their participation in one of three treatm ent conditions. The three treatm ents in the study were: (1) viewing the 30-m inute videoprogram, Let's Talk: First Steps to …

The Link Between Psychosocial Factors And Coronary Heart Disease: A Possible Neuroendocrine Mechanism, Sheila Wang

Dissertations

Coronary heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the affluent world. Despite identification of several risk factors for coronary heart disease (age, sex, lipoprotein profile, hypertension, diabetes, cigarette smoking, obesity), a significant amount of variability associated with the incidence of coronary heart disease cannot be explained solely on the basis of these risk factors. The contribution of psychosocial factors to the development of coronary heart disease (type A behavior, social isolation, traumatic events, unstable social conditions) continues to be a promising area of investigation. However, a biochemical pathway linking psychosocial factors to coronary heart disease remains …

The Political Activity Of Social Workers: A Post-Reagan Update, Mark Ezell

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article reports the findings of a survey that examined the political activism of social workers and what changes may have occurred in their political participation during the Reagan years. Social workers are politically active largely by writing letters to public officials but also by discussing political issues with friends, by belonging to politically active organizations and by attending political meetings. In addition, a substantial proportion of social workers make campaign contributions and get involved in candidate elections. Among social workers, those with the highest educational degrees, those who are NASW members, those who are in macro type jobs, and …

Using Technology For Dispensing Information, Ray Hoag

Dissertations

Technology that enhances communication through the use of digitized media abounds. Yet, there is a perception that education does not use technology's full potential to communicate with its audience. This dissertation demonstrates that a technological solution can communicate relevant educational information. Extensive documentation provides a high level departure point for subsequent technology enhanced communication projects.

The planning team for the Applied Technology Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, wanted an application to express the center's name-implied mission. This opportunity was fulfilled by the development of a point-of-information kiosk application, the dissertation's focal point. Methodology included using project management software to identify …

The Effect Of A Transition Class (Developmental Kindergarten) On Academic Parity, Douglas S. Mccall

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not those students who had participated in a developmental kindergarten program. Young Fives, had attained academic parity with their age mates who had not participated in the program.

The target population of this study was 245 students who were kindergarten age in 1988 and attended school in a rural school district in southwestern Michigan. The accessible population was 141 of the original 245 students.

The total battery grade equivalent test scores achieved on the California Achievement Test by the 141 students were analyzed using an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and …

A Comparative Study Of The Coping Ability Of Mobile And Nonmobile Elementary Pupils, Solomon Mokone Lebese

Dissertations

Frequent moves by parents of elementary-aged children can cause these children a considerable amount of stress, thus creating adjustment problems and straining their coping abilities to the limits. How do these children cope with such problems compared to those who do not move frequently?

The above question was the focus of investigation to determine whether or not there was a difference between the mobile (children whose parents have moved at least once in the past 3 years) and nonmobile (children whose parents have not moved from a particular school district in the past 3 years) elementary children in the way …

Productivity And Perceived Work Environment Of Work Groups In Poland, Donald L. Gusfa

Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the relation between levels of productivity and perceptions of autonomy among similar work groups. The analysis of data obtained did not support a tendency for perceptions of high autonomy among workers to be directly related to high levels of productivity. Data were obtained from workers at six carbide tool manufacturing plants in Poland who were administered the Work Environment Scale (WES) Form R (Moos, 1981) to measure perception of autonomy. The data were collected in February 1991. Analysis of the WES data used the Kendall tau test to investigate the relation …

The Slip Velocity Of Coating Formulations Using The High-Shear Viscometer, Daniel Parker Krieger

Masters Theses

When using a cup and bob viscometer, it has long been recognized that errors in the viscosity measurement can arise from several factors, among them slip. Slip is a phenomenon which occurs when there are slipping layers in the fluid under shear, causing a non-uniform velocity gradient to be generated across the gap of the cup and bob viscometer. A layer of fluid at either the bob or cup wall moves faster than the adjoining layers, causing the slipping effect. This leads to a low viscosity calculation for the fluid.

In this study, experiments with coating formulations were conducted using …

Evaluation And Implementation Of Asynchronous Adders, Poornima Y. Shankarreddy

Masters Theses

The need for high speed addition is forcing digital system designers to trade off space. If speed is used as a criterion to judge adders, then the Ripple Carry Adder (RCA) and the Carry Look Ahead Adders (CLAAD) will rank last and first respectively. On the other hand, if space is used, then the order of these two is reversed. The rest of the adders rank between these two. This paper evaluates RCA, CLAAD, and some of the other well documented adders. Both space and speed are used to judge the merits of each of these, and whether or not …

The Effects Of Public Commitment And Group Feedback Of Curbside Recycling, Iser Guillermo Deleón

Masters Theses

Several methods for increasing recycling have been presented in the psychology literature. However, many rely on incentive systems that require individual response monitoring for differential delivery of consequences, thus rendering them prohibitively expensive on a community-wide scale. This study examined the effects of three community interventions which may circumvent this limitation: public commitment, group feedback, and a combination of both. The Commitment Only intervention produced no substantial increase in recycling when superimposed upon a curbside recycling baseline. The Feedback Only intervention and the Combined Intervention produced increases of 25.47% and 40.00%, respectively. A no-intervention Control Group decreased in amount recycled …

Separation Of Copper And Iron In Natural Waters By Solid-Phase Extraction, Charles Bui

Masters Theses

A separation scheme has been developed by utilizing Solid-Phase Extraction cartridges in order to isolate and characterize the charge of metals and their complexes in natural waters. These species can be analyzed by Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS), Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP), and Ultraviolet-Visible Spectrophotometry (UVVIS).

This separation scheme would permit the determination of the concentration of metals, as well as providing information about the forms in which the metals exist, e.g., charge of metallic complexes.

Synthetic metal complexes were prepared in the laboratory in order to study the separation scheme as well as trying to understand the binding stability of …

Thermodynamic Properties Of Mixtures Of Aqueous Solutions Of Hydrochloric Acid And Cadmium Chloride, Copper Chloride, Manganese Chloride, And Zinc Chloride, Samia A. Kosa

Masters Theses

The densities of mixtures of aqueous solutions of hydrochloric acid and cadmium chloride, copper chloride, manganese chloride, and zinc chloride have been measured at constant ionic strengths of 1.0 and 3.0 molal at 25 °C. In the case of HCl, CdCl₂ , and ZnCl₂ the literature data were refit using Pitzer' s apparent molal volume equation and the binary solution parameters were determined. Density data were used to determine the volume of mixing (∆V_m). Data from Torok and Berecs were combined with our data for the mixtures with CuCl₂ and MnCl₂. Pitzer's volume …

Journal Of Sociology & Social Welfare Vol. 20, No. 4 (December 1993)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• EDITORIAL: THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS - Robert D. Leighninger, Jr.
• AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES IN PRISON: ARE THEY DOING TIME OR IS THE TIME DOING THEM? - Anthony E. O. King, Ph.D.
• THE OBSERVER AS AN INSTRUMENT IN QUALITATIVE COMMUNITY STUDIES: A THIRD WORLD PERSPECTIVE - Pranab Chatterjee
• THE EMPLOYED HOMELESS: A CRISIS IN PUBLIC POLICY - Frederick A. DiBlasio, Ph.D., John R. Belcher, Ph.D., Kathleen A. Connors, Ph.D.
• JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND THE TRANSITION TO MONOPOLY CAPITALISM - Kevin I. Minor
• THE POLITICAL ACTIVITY OF SOCIAL WORKERS: A POST-REAGAN UPDATE - Mark Ezell, Ph.D.
• THE DUAL FACE OF EMPOWERMENT: …

The Employed Homeless: A Crisis In Public Policy, Frederick A. Diblasio, John R. Belcher, Kathleen A. Connors

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Departing from the conventional wisdom of who constitutes the homeless, the "employed homeless" emerge as a subgroup of the homeless population in a state-wide Maryland Study (n= 178) at 25 shelter facilities. Twenty-four percent. of the homeless were found to work fulltime and eleven percent part-time. Gender disability, health, previous mental health hospitalization, military experience and education were significantly associated with employment status in the bivariate analysis. From these exploratory findings a theory of economic dislocation is hypothesized.

The Dual Face Of Empowerment: A Model For Cooperative Resource Building, Eric C. Albers, Nancy Paolini

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Homelessness among families with children has become a nationwide problem. Although homelessness is difficult to document, it is estimated that approximately 250,000 to 3,000,000 people in the United States are homeless. Families, which comprise approximately one third of the homeless population, is its fastest growing segment (Mihaly, 1991; National Coalition for the Homeless, 1989; Van Vliet, 1989). This may be a conservative figure. Some of these families often go uncounted because they are part of the "invisible" homeless. They avoid agency contact for fear of losing their children or live in motels, cars, or campgrounds and thereby are not counted …

Access To Prenatal Care And County Size: Implications For Service Delivery, Ellen E. Whipple

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The impact of population size across twenty-three west Michigan counties was examined to determine access to prenatal care, low birth weight, and infant mortality. Surveys were completed by forty-five managers of hospitals and county health departments. Service availability, sociodemographic, system-related and lifestyle factors were examined as contributors to perinatal support utilization. Low birth weight and infant mortality were highest in the small- and large-sized counties. Positive birth outcomes in medium-sized counties may have been due to greater availability of infant and child health services through health departments, and the targeting of resources to specific problem areas, such as smoking cessation. …