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A Longitudinal Study Of The Developmental Kindergarten Program In The Troy Schools, Troy, Michigan, Dennis H. Raetzke

Dissertations

This study evaluated the long-term effects of developmental kindergarten on reading achievement, grade retention, and special education services. Data were collected for 84 subjects from 12 participating elementary schools in Troy, Michigan. Forty-two subjects in the experimental group were matched with 42 subjects from the control group. Pairs were matched according to age within 6 months, gender, and to ta l score on the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning-Revised (DIAL-R, Mardel1-Czudnowski & Goldenberg, 1983) screening test.

Multivariate analysis of covariance, used to analyze the effects of developmental kindergarten participation on reading achievement over time, indicated no significant results …

Characteristics Of Community Foundations At Different Ages And Asset Sizes, Kathryn Ann Agard

Dissertations

This dissertation identifies a growth pattern for community foundations. The study is based on a comparative review of 89 community foundations selected on a stratified random sample basis from the membership of the Council on Foundations. Changes in the administrative , social, strategic, and technical systems were studied. Measurements were taken on 35 indicators and analyzed through descriptive and correlational statistics .

The findings of this study indicate that there is a pattern to the change in each of the administrative, social, strategic, and technical systems in the foundations studied. The pattern of change is correlated to the two independent …

An Analysis Of Student Math Scores Based Upon Teacher Training In The Instructional Theory Into Practice Model, Martha O'Kray

Dissertations

The main purpose of this study was to determine if teacher participation in Instructional Theory Into Practice (ITIP , Hunter, 1978) training resulted in any difference in student achievement. Student outcomes were measured by scores received on the district's Exit Level Mathematics Test (Roseville Community Schools, 1986).

The study took place in Roseville Community Schools. Six hundred forty-nine students and 32 teachers in Grades 3, 4, and 5 participated.

Fourteen teacher observations were included to confirm the appropriateness and frequency of ITIP strategies in classroom instruction. Observers using the Instructional S kills Observation Instrument (ISOI, Wolfe, 1984) scored non-ITIP-trained teachers …

University Students' Personal Histories And Alcohol Programs: A Naturalistic Study, Alexandra E. Michaels

Dissertations

Using a naturalistic inquiry approach, this study sought to generate (a) new insights into the troubling problem of student alcohol abuse as well as (b) a new theoretical basis for alcohol programs. The purpose of the study was to provide a comprehensive understanding of the experiences and characteristics of college students who have discontinued abusive drinking. Using an interview methodology, three main issues were examined: (1) the environmental and personal factors that influenced the participants' drinking behavior and related problems, (2) the factors which hindered or assisted participants in setting and achieving a goal of sobriety or establishing a nonabusive …

A Study Of Selected Strategies For Allocating Funds To Improve County Roads, Ronald E. Reid

Dissertations

Strategies for the ranking of county road improvement projects can be based on a rating that reflects the physical condition of the pavement, a rating that reflects the pavement roughness, a rating that incorporates the combination of physical condition of the pavement and the pavement roughness (its pavement serviceability rating), or a rating that takes into account the age of the pavement and amount of traffic

This study compared the relationship between the strategy of the ranking of each road segment based on that segment's: (a) surface distress rating and roughness rating, (b) surface distress rating and pavement serviceability rating, …

The Naturalistic Study Of Performance Feedback In A Higher Education Administrative Setting, Karen M. Reese

Dissertations

Examined in this study is the performance feedback provided to administrative staff at the research location and the relationship of that feedback to performance. Data were collected through semistructured interviews from 27 subjects at a small midwestern coeducational public university. Six research questions were investigated: the conditions under which feedback occurs, the sources of feedback and their relative usefulness, barriers to feedback giving and seeking, and the relationship of feedback to performance.

The desire to correct a deficiency was the primary catalyst to informal feedback being given to staff. Supervisors became aware of staffs' deficiencies through observation and complaints from …

A Critical Examination Of The Use Of Preliminary Tests In Two-Sample Tests Of Location, Kimberly Tucker Perry

Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the appropriateness of testing the equality of two means using either a t test, the Welch test, or the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test for two independent samples based on the results of using two classes of preliminary tests. One class of preliminary tests determines whether the population variances differ, and the other class ascertains if the underlying distributions are symmetric or skewed. The F-ratio test and the Levene test (using the median) were compared as preliminary tests for variance homogeneity; and the DAgostino Sy and the Triples tests were also compared as preliminary tests …

Sociolinguistic Dimensions Of Nurse Practitioner Practice: A Question Of Power, Merrily J. Allen Dnsc, Mn, Rn

Dissertations

Ethnographic methods were used to examine the sociolinguistic dimensions of female nurse practitioner interactions with female patients. The purpose was to provide a contextual account of the discursive practices used by the nurse practitioners during routine office visits with female patients. Direction for this research was provided by my concern about power inherent in professional-client dyadic relationships. Data collection methods included formal and informal interviews, participant observation and audio taping nurse-patient encounters. Nine nurse practitioners and 26 patients participated in the study in both private and public ambulatory care settings. Data analysis yielded two concurrent story lines which I labeled …

Computational Neural Networks In Chemistry: Model Free Mapping Devices For Predicting Chemical Reactivity From Molecular Structure, David Wayne Elrod

Dissertations

Computational neural networks (CNNs) are a computational paradigm inspired by the brain’s massively parallel network of highly interconnected neurons. The power of computational neural networks derives not so much from their ability to model the brain as from their ability to learn by example and to map highly complex, nonlinear functions, without the need to explicitly specify the functional relationship. Two central questions about CNNs were investigated in the context of predicting chemical reactions: (1) the mapping properties of neural networks and (2) the representation of chemical information for use in CNNs.

Chemical reactivity is here considered an example of …

The Construction Of The Right To Development: The United Nations, Human Rights, And Economic Development, Nader Izzat Said

Dissertations

The origins of human rights are of interest to social scientists. This study focuses on the construction process of the right to development as related to the UN. The emphasis is on the claims-making processes surrounding the creation of the right to development. To understand these processes, a theoretical framework has been developed. This framework combines interactionism, collective-behavior approaches, a dialectical theory of law-creation, and a capitalist world-economy theory. It is expected that this theoretical framework will explain the specific, organizational, and structural processes that led to the creation of the right to development.

Data for this study came from …

Training And Maintenance Of Breast Self-Examination Skills, Bernardine M. Pinto

Dissertations

Maintenance of breast self-examination (BSE) skills is crucial to the effectiveness of self-exams in early detection of breast tumors. While researchers have developed an effective technology for training these skills, the maintenance of BSE proficiency is questionable (Pennypacker et al., 1982). The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of reassessment (and retraining) on the maintenance of BSE skills. Twenty-nine women (ages 25-64) were trained to criterion using the MammaCare training package. Experimental subjects were required to demonstrate their skills at a 2 month reassessment and received retraining if their skills had declined below criterion. Control subjects were …

How Gender And Psychological Separation From Parents Interact With Depression In The Young Adult Experience Of Parental Separation And Divorce, Mary Oppenhuizen

Dissertations

The impact of parental divorce on children under the age of 18 has been studied extensively (Hetherington, 1979, 1981; Kurdek & Siesky, 1980; Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989; Wallerstein & Kelly , 1974, 1976, 1980). There has been far less research addressing effects of parental divorce on young adults (Bianchi, Rosen, & Reilly , 1987; Cain, 1989; Cooney, Smyer, Hagestad, & Klock, 1986; Farber, Primavera, & Felner, 1983; Kaufmann, 1987/1988). This may be due to the "common" assumption that young adults are psychologically separated from their parents in such a way that they suffer minimally when encountering parental divorce.

In this …

Sense Of Humor As A Mediator Of The Effects Of Stress On Physical Health And Psychological Well-Being, Timothy Eugene Spruill

Dissertations

This paper explores the role of sense of humor as a mediator of the effects of stress on physical health and psychological well-being. One hundred subjects, selected from a population of hospital employees, were administered two measures of sense of humor. In addition, they completed a personal data form, and instruments assessing stressors, perceived stress, physical health and psychological well-being.

Results were evaluated using simple correlations and multiple regression analysis in order to determine whether or not knowledge of a subject's sense of humor enables prediction of their levels of physical health, psychological well-being and perceived stress. Analysis of the …

Detection Of Sexual Cues: An Assessment Of Nonaggressive And Sexually Coercive College Males, Rita Kenyon-Jump

Dissertations

Seventy-four nonaggressive and 78 sexually coercive college males, as determined by the Sexual Experiences Survey (Koss & Oros, 1982) and ranging in age from 18-25 years, participated in a study designed to assess their ability to detect specific behavioral cues of female partners’ unwillingness to engage in kissing, genital fondling, and sexual intercourse. Contrary to prediction, a 2 (nonaggression and sexual coercion) X 3 (kissing, fondling, and intercourse) analysis of variance revealed no statistically significant difference between the nonaggressive and sexually coercive males in their ability to detect cues of female unwillingness to engage in kissing, genital fondling, and sexual …

Behavior Of High Strength Concrete And Slender Reinforced Concrete Columns With And Without Steel Fibers, Lin Showmay Hsu

Dissertations

A series of compression tests are conducted on 3 in. by 6 in. cylindrical specimens using a modified testing method that give the complete stress-strain behavior for both plain and fibrous high strength concretes with or without tie confinements. The volume fractions of fiber in the concrete are 0%, 0.5%, 0.75%, and 1.0%, respectively. Empirical equations are proposed herein to represent the complete stress-strain relationships of high strength and high strength fibrous concretes with compressive strength exceeding 10,000 psi. Various parameters are studied and their relationships are experimentally determined. The comparison between the experimental and analytical results shows to have …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Gated Silicon Field Emission Micro Triodes, Nanchou Liu

Dissertations

This dissertation describes the fabrication technology and characterization of a gated silicon field emission micro triode that is a novel electron tunneling device for generating electron emission into a vacuum. Conic (point) and wedge field emitter structures with nm-scale radii were fabricated in silicon and GaAs by etching, MOCVD and dry oxidation. A new self-aligned process was developed for fabrication of vertical field emission triodes. This process allows control of gate opening to less than 0.5 μm diameter without the need of electron-beam writing. It also provides a planar gate electrode and a thick dielectric layer for reduction of the …

The Influence Of Pore Fluids On Shear Strength And Stress-Strain Behavior Of Granular Soils, Prasanna Ratnaweera

Dissertations

When a dry granular soil is subjected to an external load, the stresses are transferred through mineral to mineral contacts. The shear strength of such a soil is governed by its contact properties. Presence of a thin layer of fluid between mineral to mineral contacts in a saturated soil will alter its contact properties. Therefore any change in the physical properties of pore fluid can logically be reasoned to influence the deformation characteristics of granular soils.

To investigate the influence of pore fluid viscosity on shear strength and stress-strain behavior of a soil, a series of consolidated drained triaxial tests …

Expert System For The Injection Molding Of Engineering Thermoplastics, Tzy-Cherng Jan

Dissertations

Injection molding of engineering thermoplastics is the most widely used manufacturing method in industry. It is a priority to maintain a deviation-free operating environment to ensure high quality, low cost manufacture. An expert system for the injection molding of engineering thermoplastics has been investigated. The system can be used to attenuate the deviations experienced during the injection molding of engineering thermoplastics. The system is coded in C programming language.

The resolution procedures of this system include two stages such as the definition of declarative knowledge and the procedure of corrective actions. In the definition of declarative knowledge, all of the …

A Study On Radical Scavenging And Magnetic Resonance Imaging Characteristics Of Stable Radical Nitroxides, Shiey-Shiun Horng

Dissertations

Several nitroxides have been prepared for study of their image enhancement capability. These nitroxides contain different nitroxyl moieties within one molecule. On MRI examination for the nitroxides prepared, TEMPO and HPTPO are better due to their better water solubility, even though some of the others have more nitroxyl centers available. The intensity response is linear with respect to concentration in the range studied in most of the cases except for HPTPO, whose intensity finally reaches maximum when its concentration is higher than 10 mM.

Three sources of biomass, namely, liver microsomes, whole-cell yeast and a bacterial activated sludge consortium, have …

Factors Influencing Persistence Of Adult Students In High School Completion Programs, Joan E. Garbarino

Dissertations

This research was conducted to contrast adult persisters' and dropouts' perceptions of the importance of institutional, situational, and dispositional barriers to high school completion.

Institutional factors included staff support, curriculum , student services, and logistical considerations. Situational factors were family and friend support, time, employment, and health. Dispositional factors included attitudes toward education, academic preparedness plus expectations, and satisfaction.

Completers who graduated and noncompleters who dropped out before graduation were surveyed. Statistical analysis allowed the researcher to test differences between the perceptions of persisters and dropouts in regard to eleven factors found in the three major barriers. It also revealed …

The Rise And Decline Of Mental Health Hospitals In The State Of Michigan, Gerald H. Smith

Dissertations

The State of Michigan has been partially responsible for the treatment of the mentally ill population since 1832, when Wayne County General Hospital opened its doors. The state government made a commitment to care for the afflicted, and at the same time provide an opportunity for other individuals to participate in their treatment. Eventually this commitment led to the establishment of employment for many citizens, and gradually, over the decades, a mental health bureaucracy emerged. It was necessary to hire not only professional staff, but also support staff such as food services, housekeeping, maintenance, and the like. Mental health facilities …

A Comparative Study Of The Marital Relationships Of Parents Of Chronically Ill And Non Chronically Ill Children, Molly Smith Allen

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Transformational Leadership: An Integrative Review Of The Literature, Joseph Mark Gasper

Dissertations

Transformational leadership was introduced by James MacGregor Bums in 1978. This new paradigm described the leader and follower interaction as a mutually elevating process which Bernard Bass later described as performance beyond normal expectations. Transformational leadership theory has been expanded and extended by numerous authors and has been the focus of numerous research studies over the years.

Bass and his colleagues have been the most prolific researchers on the subject. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) (Bass, 1985) was developed to measure the extent to which a leader demonstrates transformational and transactional leadership. The MLQ also provides a measure of the …

Effects Of Western Education On Employees' Participation And Job Satisfaction In Saudi Arabian Industries, Abdulrahman Y. Al-Selaim

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate to what degree Western education and Saudi Arabian employees' degree of participation in quality circle programs influences their job satisfaction. These variables were investigated using a survey administered to 150 Saudi Arabian employees working in the production department of a Saudi Arabian company. The Questionnaire of Participation and Satisfaction (QPS) instrument that was used in this investigation is a 20-item questionnaire; items 1-13 were developed by the researcher, and items 14-20 were developed by Abbas (1985). The questionnaire consisted of three components designed to determine: where employees were educated, as well as …

A Measure Of State-Trait Anger With Adolescent Sex Offenders, Adolescent Delinquents, And A Normal Adolescent Population, Brett D. Lincoln

Dissertations

Research indicates that sexual offending juveniles are angry. Furthermore, sexual offending is seen as a primary means to reduce anger by these youth. However there is little empirical support of these positions. Few comparative studies of sexual offenders with other experimental or control groups exist.

The purpose of this study was to assess differences of anger among three adolescent groups: juvenile delinquent, sexual offender and a control. Assessment of anger was across six subscales of Spielberger's (1988) State Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI). The subscales of interest were: State, Trait, Trait Anger Temperament, Trait Anger Repressed, Anger Expression/In and Anger …

Juvenile Justice: An Examination Of Disparities In Dispositions, Michael P. Brown

Dissertations

The present study tests the utility of status characteristics and expectation states theory in the context of the juvenile court. The theory contends that there is dispositional certainty when case related factors are consistently rated serious or nonserious; the severity of the sanction will reflect the seriousness of the case. However, the likelihood of sentencing disparities based on individual characteristics (e.g., race and SES) increases as case related factors become increasingly inconsistent, with some rated serious and others rated nonserious.

Data to test this theory were collected from the Kalamazoo County Juvenile Court, Kalamazoo, Michigan in June and July, 1990. …

Applied Relaxation Training In The Treatment Of Genital Herpes, Kent A. Koehn

Dissertations

Four individuals with frequent recurrences of genital herpes simplex virus (HSV) were trained in Applied Relaxation (AR). Participants included in the research were all women, had been diagnosed with herpes at least one year prior to the study, experienced 6 or more outbreaks annually, and were not taking antiviral medications.

The experiment employed a multiple baseline across subjects design with individual baselines of 11, 13, 17, and 21 weeks. Participants maintained daily diary recordings of the frequency, duration, and severity of their herpes activity from baseline until a minimum of three months post-treatment.

Treatment consisted of 10 individual AR sessions. …

Foster Parents’ Experience Of Loss And Their Coping Response Style, Kathleen M. Kirby

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the subjective experience of emotional and physical stress reported by foster parents that may be caused by serial placements of foster children. It also addressed the coping response mechanisms and style of foster parents that may promote successful endurance of serial losses. In addition, the relationship between specific coping responses of foster parents was investigated to determine if the circumstances of placement or characteristics of foster parents interact to exacerbate or remediate emotional/physical stress.

Demographics were tabulated for Michigan foster parents including age, family income, religious affiliation, racial/cultural identification, marital status, educational …

A Study Of Cooperative Learning At The High School Level, Lisabeth S. Margulus

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to answer the following research questions:

1. Which teacher skills are necessary to implement effective teamwork in a classroom?

2. What kind of learning environment is optimal for implementing effective teamwork in a classroom?

3. In classrooms using teamwork, does greater student achievement occur than in classrooms not using teamwork?

The study outlined the specific teacher skills and described the optimal learning environment for implementing cooperative strategies in high school classrooms. To address the third question , an experimental study was conducted in which sixty-four 10th-,11th-, and 12th-grade Business Applications and Technology students in …

The Financial Implications Of School District Consolidation In Michigan, William P. Letarte

Dissertations

The consolidation of public school districts in Michigan has again become an issue with the state legislature with the introduction of Senate Bill 570 of 1989 and Senate Bill 344 of 1991, both of which have proposed a reduction in the number of school districts to a maximum of 200 and a minimum size of 2,000 students per district. The last major legislative initiative in Michigan was from 1960 to 1970 when the number of public school districts was reduced from 2,149 to 638.

The purpose of this study was to develop a model of school district reorganization and then …