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The Development Of A Personalized Computer Assisted School Psychology (Casp) System, Patricia Lou Steinert

Dissertations

The purpose of this project was to develop a model computer system to assist school psychologists in managing and manipulating data accumulated in the course of accomplishing their professional responsibilities. School psychologists have traditionally generated large amounts of data, but rarely have they looked across these data to obtain information and/or feedback about their own functioning relative to their professional role. The system described is intended as a model from which an individual psychologist might construct a system to meet individual needs. Data across students were accumulated in four broad areas: (1) personal effectiveness/accountability, (2) diagnosis, (3) local test norms, …

Synthesis Of N And C Nucleosides Via Cycloaddition Reactions A New Approach To An Old Problem, Glenn L. Heise

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Computer Graphics Use On Student Understanding Of Calculus Concepts, Charlene E. Beckmann

Dissertations

Student understanding of selected calculus concepts as developed through use of a Cartesian coordinate graphical representation system were investigated. Subjects (N = 163) enrolled in first-semester calculus sections at Western Michigan University participated in one of four treatment conditions: Graphics (G), exposure to a computer-graphically-developed conceptual course; Graphics Plus (G+), exposure to the same course as G subjects plus provision of computer graphics software and related supplemental assignments; Standard 1 (S1), exposure to a graphically-developed, conceptual course; and Standard 2 (S2), exposure to a traditional skill-oriented course.

Two investigations were undertaken. In Investigation 1, comparisons were made between G and …

The Psychological Needs Of Sex Offenders Of Children As Measured By The Personality Research Form, Shirley Anne Miller

Dissertations

Major contributors in the field of child sexual abuse have agreed that sex offenders who sexually abuse children are not primarily motivated by sexual desire and have proposed that the simultaneous satisfaction of a number of psychological needs is the prominent motivation of sex offenders of children. Few attempts have been made to empirically validate the clinical and theoretical impressions regarding the psychological needs of this group using psychological measures designed to assess needs or motives.

The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent the assumptions about the psychological needs of sex offenders of children would be …

Chromatic Partitions, Paresh J. Malde

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Intuition In Decision Making By Human Service Administrators, Judith Huber Halseth

Dissertations

The phenomenon of intuition includes insights and hunches, as well as the ability to pick up clues and to see patterns. The role of intuition in interpersonal relationships, in problem solving and decision making, and in creativity makes it an important cognitive faculty. As a complement to more systematic and deductive decision making, intuition provides creative insights, especially when people consciously acknowledge intuition.

This study focused on the experience of intuition as reported by 25 administrators in human service organizations. In face-to-face interviews, the 10 women and 15 men who were known to use intuition were asked open-ended questions about …

Gas-Phase Reactions Of Methylene Chloride And Methylene Chloride-Trichloroethylene Mixture With Methane In Tubular Flow Reactor And Atmospheric Pressure, Javad Tavakoli-Attar

Dissertations

Reactions of methylene chloride diluted in methane and Argon and a mixture of methylene chloride + trichloroethylene diluted in methane and argon are studied in three flow reactors of different surface to volume ratios 4, 10.5, and 16 mm ID , atmospheric pressure and over a temperature range of 750-1000 °C. Experiments were conducted isothermally, ±5 °C over central 80% of oven length using a three zone oven. Argon was added as a diluent in order to limit carbon (s) formation. The concentration ratios of methylene chloride/methane/argon and methylene chloride/trichloroethylene/methane/argon was held constant at 1:4:10 and 1:1:40:40 respectively, throughout the …

The Ability Of Teachers Of Preschool Handicapped To Use Observational Behavioral Assessment Techniques In Assessing Social Skills, Stephen P. Barbus

Dissertations

Socially competent preschool children effectively use a variety of social skills, including initiating and maintaining interactions, using others as resources, expressing affection and hostility appropriately, and competing with, leading, and following peers. Children lacking these behaviors are at greater risk of interpersonal difficulties, delayed cognitive development, poor academic performance, school maladjustment, and mental health problems. Handicapped children are deficient in a variety of social skills. Before special education can provide effective intervention in requisite social skills it must establish accurate and reliable assessment techniques.

One such technique, behavioral assessment of social skills, uses several methods. Of these, observation in the …

The Effects Of Using Print Media In Teaching Critical Thinking Skills To Adult Students, Gloria Jean Mccormick

Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of an educational program in which print media were employed to teach critical thinking skills to adult education students. The major problem of this research was whether or not adult students, who lack a high school diploma, show greater improvement in critical thinking if they participate in a critical thinking skills program using print media, than if they do not. Adult education students in three suburban school districts of Macomb County, Michigan were the subjects of this study.

The methodology used in this study was a non-randomized control group, prettest-posttest …

The Effectiveness Of Feedback Procedures On Machine Set-Up Time In A Manufacturing Setting, Connie J. Wittkopp

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment package designed to improve and maintain set-up time in the extrusion department of a rubber manufacturing company. Subjects were exposed to various behavioral techniques including training and a feedback system in the form of both written and verbal supervisory comments with an emphasis placed on improving performance through use of videotaping. An attempt was made to maintain treatment gains by teaching supervisors how to give information concerning set-up performance to their employees. Results indicate that average weekly set-up times for each machine were significantly below baseline …

Self-Control In Mentally Retarded Adolescents: Choice As A Function Of Amount And Delay Of Reinforcement, Steven P. Ragotzy

Dissertations

Three severely mentally retarded adolescents were studied under discrete-trial procedures in which a choice was arranged between edible reinforcers that differed in magnitude and, in some conditions, delay. In the absence of delays, the larger reinforcer was consistently chosen. All subjects directed the majority of choice responses to the smaller reinforcer when the larger reinforcer was sufficiently delayed, although the value at which this occurred differed across subjects. Under conditions where the larger reinforcer initially was sufficiently delayed to result in preference for the smaller one, progressively increasing in 5-s increments the delay to both reinforcers increased percent trials with …

Psychotherapists' Responses To Anger Manifested By Female Clients, Lisa L. Morshead

Dissertations

The responses of therapists to anger directed at them by female clients was the topic under investigation. Sixty-nine professional therapists were engaged as subjects, with each therapist reading two fictitious transcripts depicting the first portion of a therapy session. The two transcripts portrayed an angry client and a nonangry client, with client sex varied in each condition for a total of four transcripts. Each subject read both an angry and nonangry transcript of either two male or two female clients. Subjects were then asked to rate the client on competence, and interpersonal functioning, along with providing diagnostic impressions. A four …

An Evaluation Of An Intervention Program For Juvenile Probationers, Kevin I. Minor

Dissertations

Although the efficacy of correctional rehabilitation was questioned during the early 1970s, recent research has demonstrated that certain intervention programs, when implemented under appropriate conditions, are effective in reducing illegal behavior. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of a court-based intervention for juvenile probationers.

The program was developed on the basis of caseworkers' assessments of youths' problems and needs. The theoretical perspective underlying the intervention consisted of a joint combination of critical, social control, and differential association theories. A major implication of theory is that the juvenile court's capacity to facilitate informal social control should be …

Evaluation Of A Psychoeducational Curriculum For Promoting Psychological Health And Self-Esteem, Michele Susan Meola

Dissertations

This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of a psychoeducational curriculum in psychological health skills, entitled Psychological Health and Self-Esteem (PHSE). The study evaluated PHSE which is a 10-week class offered through the Psychology Department at Michigan State University, East Lansing, and is part of the Health Promotion Program, partially funded by a Kellogg Foundation grant.

Two hundred students participated in the study, and complete data were obtained from 117, 56 of them enrolled in PHSE and 61 enrolled in a different class designated as a control group. The design of the study was a pretest-posttest quasi-experiment with a …

The Effect Of Self-Efficacy Training On The Willingness Of Preservice Teachers To Implement Social Skill Training In The Classroom, Linda J. Miller

Dissertations

Self-efficacy is the belief that one can successfully perform a behavior, and is a cognitive process theorized to play an important role in the acquisition and retention of new behavior patterns. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effectiveness of utilizing self-efficacy training procedures to influence the performance of preservice teachers, specific to social skill instruction, in their directed teaching assignments.

A modified posttest only control group design was utilized to compare the performance of three groups: (1) a treatment group exposed to self-efficacy training procedures, (2) a treatment group exposed to social skill training content information, and …

Effects Of Task Difficulty, Performance Consequence, And Social Interaction On Physiological Reactivity In Post-Coronary Patients, A. Janelle Maldonado

Dissertations

Three experiments were performed to determine the effects of three task variables and Type A behavior pattern on physiological reactivity to time-limited math and anagram tasks. In the first experiment, ten post-coronary patients performed time-limited computer tasks under two performance consequence conditions: Point Reward or presentation of an Auditory Blast combined with two task difficulty conditions (40% and 60% difficult). The findings of Experiment 1 indicated that while the tasks did produce levels of physiological reactivity comparable to those observed in the literature, there were no significant main effects for either variable for any of the five measures. A significant …

Construct Validation Of The Family Of Origin Scale: A Factor Analysis, Omar L. Mangrum

Dissertations

The major purpose of this two-part study was to contribute to the body of knowledge concerned with the construct validity of the Family of Origin Scale (FOS). The issues of construct and discriminative validity were specifically addressed. The first phase was an attempt to empirically establish the underlying factor structure of the Family of Origin Scale (FOS) through factor analytic techniques. The analysis utilized data collected from a previously studied population (i.e., college students) and a demographically different population (i.e., prison inmates). Results from this study indicate that the FOS appears to measure at least seven distinct factors/constructs, four of …

Generalized Distance In Graphs, Garry L. Johns

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Life Stressors And Stress Related Medical Problems Of Middle School Administrators, Marjorie Patton

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify relationships among reported medical problems and life stressors perceived by a selected group of middle school administrators. The subjects were 110 members of the Michigan Association of Middle School Educators (MAMSE). Instruments used to collect data were the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) and the Medical Problems Checklist (MPC).

A single primary research question was investigated. Is there a correlation between stressful life events and reported medical probems of middle school administrators? Correlations were computed from data collected by administration of the two research instruments. The chi-square method was used for investigation. …

Graph And Directed Graph Augmentation Problems, Zhuguo Mo

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Caretaking Settings On School Readiness Of 4-Year-Olds, Joan C. Sergent

Dissertations

The effects of daytime caretaking settings and the nature and number of activities in those settings on school readiness and receptive language levels of 4-year-old children were investigated. Daytime caretaking settings, defined as the setting experienced by the 4-year-old the year prior to entering kindergarten, were determined through interviews administered to the parent/guardian of each of the 185 4-year-old participants. School readiness and receptive language levels of the 4-year-old participants were determined by individual administration of the Gesell School Readiness Screening Test (GSRST) and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) respectively. The settings were categorized as group educational, such as preschool …

Comparison Of Training Procedures On Acquisition, Retention, And Generic Extension In Retarded And Non-Retarded Children, Wendy Leys Rudolph

Dissertations

The effect of inclusion of irrelevant stimuli on concept attainment was investigated. Six regular education and six special education subjects learned a total of nine nonsense concepts under three training conditions differing in the number of irrelevant features presented. No major differences in performance were noted to be dependent on training condition. Special Education subjects reached mastery in approximately twice as many trials as the Regular Education subjects. Once mastered, both groups demonstrated similar retention and response to novel examples. Special Education subjects showed little improvement over the nine concepts. Regular Education subjects showed great improvement and responded almost errorlessly …

Parental Perceptions Of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Discharge Teaching, Virginia A. Passero

Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to determine parental perceptions of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) discharge teaching. Orem's (1985) self-care deficit theory was the conceptual framework. Fifty mothers and 15 fathers were interviewed in their homes following the infant's discharge to determine their perceptions of involvement, recall, need, satisfaction and importance of NICU discharge teaching.

The 50 infants in the sample were hospitalized an average of 41 days with a variety of neonatal diagnoses. The average age of the mothers was 27 years, and the sample of 50 included 82% married women, 42% primiparas, and 52% cesarean deliveries. Forty-two …

The Effects Of Participative Management On Teacher Satisfaction During Periods Of Organizational Decline, Robert Michael O'Brien

Dissertations

Public school teachers and administrators are increasingly challenged to demonstrate effectiveness in the face of organizational decline. A management system proposed by researchers in organizational development to promote worker effectiveness is participatory management. This study investigated the effects of participatory management as they related to teacher satisfaction and productivity during organizational decline. Two local school districts that used a participatory management system, identified as Quality of Work Life (QWL) districts, were studied. Two similar local school districts that did not use a participatory management system were also studied. The results of the analysis indicate that there were no significant differences …

Stimulus Overselectivity: An Investigation Of Determinants, Margaret T. Mcglinchey

Dissertations

Stimulus overselectivity refers to a phenomenon in which, after discrimination training with a multiple component stimulus, behavior fails to come under the control of all of the components of the stimulus. After a screening process based on past research, a group of children with specific learning disabilities was categorized into one of two groups: overselective and non-overselective. Both groups were exposed to training and testing for generalization. All children in both groups evidenced "stimulus overselectivity" during these tests for generalization. Generalization training subsequently reduced stimulus overselectivity for all students. There were few differences between the two groups. The results suggest …

Administrator And Consultant Perceptions Of Consultant Services In Michigan Schools, Julia A. Berg

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine administrator and consultant perceptions regarding consultant services in Michigan schools as related to: (a) services provided, (b) roles, (c) sources of funding, (d) sources for identifying services, (e) characteristics and components that may influence selection, and (f) methods used for evaluation. A review of literature was conducted related to the six survey questions of the study.

Responses to surveys were analyzed from 116 (85% response rate) randomly selected Michigan school superintendents and other administrators and 58 (58% response rate) consultants identified as providing service in Michigan school districts during the 1986-87 school …

A Study Of Factors Correlated With Career Persistence Of Male Pastors In The Free Methodist Church In Michigan, Robert Q. Bailey

Dissertations

The research objective was to create a descriptive profile of clergypersons who are persisting in career roles as pastors of the Free Methodist Church in Michigan.

An original instrument was administered to 113 male pastors, soliciting biographical data (age, pastoral tenure, educational background, statistical growth of churches served, family background, health and influences in career decisions) and responses to fifty value statements about the pastors' careers. The value statements were applications of ideas from the "Motivation-Hygiene" theory of career satisfaction and more individualized concepts as reinforcers of personal needs.

Attempts to describe the persisting pastors by correlating tenure to their …

The Effects Of Spouse-Based Cognitive-Behavior Therapy On The Treatment Of Agoraphobia, Joan Woods

Dissertations

The purpose of this clinical research was to determine whether spouse-supported treatment of agoraphobia would result in greater improvement on measures of exposure and avoidance than would individual treatment or no treatment. It was hypothesized that Couples Treatment subjects would demonstrate a significantly greater change from pretest to posttest than would Individual Treatment subjects or No-Treatment Control subjects. The study further predicted that significant improvements would be demonstrated for both treated groups on the same outcome measures, pretest to posttest and from pretest to follow-up.

Total N was 10 subjects, all were agoraphobic, married, and female, with 4 in Couples …

Relationship Of Quality Circles In Nursing To Leadership, Job Satisfaction, Patient Care, And Cost Containment, Shirley A. Weiglein

Dissertations

The use of quality circles in nursing has been widely espoused in nursing literature as a concept that enhances participatory leadership, promotes job satisfaction, improves the quality of patient care and contributes to cost containment. This study was conducted to examine the relationship between the use of quality circles in nursing units and leadership, job satisfaction, the quality of patient care and cost containment.

Quality circle and non-quality circle units in two midwest hospitals were used for data collection. Staff nurses only were asked to complete the survey. A total of 126 of the possible 295 staff nurses in the …

Effects Of Terminal-Link Response Topography On Choice Behavior Under Concurrent-Chains Schedules, Stephen P. Starin

Dissertations

Previous research has indicated that both absolute response rate and choice behavior differs under concurrent chains requiring different terminal-link responses, even when the reinforcement schedules are nominally identical. To date, no studies have investigated responding under concurrent chains with unequal schedules and different topographies arranged in the terminal links. Moreover, although the delay-reduction hypothesis has been widely tested using concurrent chains in which the same response topography is required in all links, the generality of the delay-reduction hypothesis in describing performance when different terminal-link topographies are required has yet to be examined. The present study was designed to address both …