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An Exploratory Study Of The Role Of Research In Social Work At Portland State University, Jo Mackay Imeson, Audrey Englebardt Zalutsky

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore and to evaluate the role of research in social work from the points of view of different populations affiliated with the Portland State University School of Social Work community. Students, faculty and field instructors, and agency directors were asked to express their subjective opinions in an effort to explore attitudes regarding the role of research in social work and to evaluate their estimate as to the value and position of the research component in the curriculum at Portland State University. The research program is intended to assist the student in becoming an …

Alternative Methods For The Analysis Of Curves, Randi Christine Martin

Dissertations and Theses

The interpretation of data from psychological experiments often involves the analysis and comparison of curves, like the electrocardiogram, spectral sensitivity, or dose-response curves. Existing statistical techniques are often inadequate for making this type of analysis. This thesis presents alternative methods for handling the data comprising curves and discusses the advantages of these techniques against those of existing methods.

Four types of analysis are discussed:

1. finding a confidence band around one curve,
2. finding a confidence band around the difference between two curves, or making an overall comparison between two curves,
3. decomposing a curve into its components,
4. making a component by component …

Marital Status As A Discriminator And Treatment Variable Among Female Alcoholics, James C. Knapp

Dissertations and Theses

In this study marital status and the alcoholism or non-alcoholism of the spouse are hypothesized to be important factors affecting the female alcoholic's personality and treatability. Using as a sample group of women seen at a public treatment center for alcoholism, personality measurement variables were obtained from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule. On the basis of these variables and of the additional variable of age, discrimination among this group of women was attempted using a stepwise discriminant analysis.

Classification of this group of women by marital status into four groups (1. alcoholic women with …

Private Pensions And The Free Market, John Louis Dobra

Dissertations and Theses

In light of the retirement phenomena, the development and utilization of private pensions may be viewed as a market response based on individual and collective recognition of the need to plan to finance retirement from the labor force. This market response however, is shown to have produced a profusion of independent differential pension schemes which may vary with respect to their administrative mechanisms, the type and adequacy of benefits paid, the level at which contributions are made to the plan by participants and the basis of these contributions, and the adequacy of funding. As a result, it is not only …

The Application And Evaluation Of Goal Attainment Scaling To The Janis Drug Treatment Program, Steven W. Kilber, Carol E. Swanson

Dissertations and Theses

Janis is a residential drug treatment program for drug abusers between the ages of twelve and eighteen deigned to rehabilitate the participants. Five homes, each staffed by two trained residential coordinators and one student accommodate a total of thirty patients at a time. The treatment program consists of daily house meetings led by the residential coordinators, one group therapy session per week led by a psychiatric social worker, and individual therapy sessions with a psychiatrist as needed, as well as regular consultation with a psychologist and psychiatrist. The adolescents enrolled in the program are referred from a variety of agencies, …

Social Workers In The Community Mental Health Field A Delphi Forecast Of Training Priorities, William Boyce Thomas, Mark L. Clay

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis describes an exploratory research project initiated to facilitate curriculum planning for and evaluation of a social work training program in the field of community mental health. The literature concerning community mental health, the historical relationship of social work to this field, and current issues in social work manpower and education was reviewed as part of the thesis project. On the basis of the review, a study was undertaken to determine appropriate priorities for training Master ' s level social worker’s specializing in this field of practice. The researcher's decided that these priorities would be determined in terms of …

Lesbian Marriage, Sandi Parks

Dissertations and Theses

Research findings on marriage as a heterosexual institution were reviewed and research was carried out to determine if certain of them were applicable to lesbian "marriage" as well. Marriage was defined as a relationship in which two people have lived together with strong emotional and sexual involvement for a year or more. Subjects were volunteers from among women age 22 or older, who were childless, and who were involved in the women's movement, as well as their friends, lovers and husbands. There were 14 lesbian couples, 14 lesbians who had never been married and 6 lesbians who had been married …

Effects Of Colors, Noun Position, And Verb Proximity On The Acquisition Of Direct Objects, Ronald M. Dohr

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine if colors can differentially be applied as teaching tools for pre-school children. Previous studies have shown that pre-school children are easily distracted in language development by external stimulation. Studies have also shown that brighter color hues can arouse and facilitate performance of subjects on given tasks. This experiment is an attempt to measure performance of word manipulation by usage of colors. Three independent variables have been selected as stimuli to measure direct object acquisition. Measurement of color, noun position, and verb proximity will be assessed in connection with subject performance on given …

A Cross Validation Of Leary's Level I-M Assessment Method, Bruce Leroy Purvine

Dissertations and Theses

Leary has proposed a method of estimating overt interpersonal behavior from MMPI indices. However, subsequent investigations have only been able to validate a portion of this assessment technique at best.

Thirty adults were individually given the MMPI to obtain estimates of interpersonal vertical (Dom) and horizontal (Lov) scores. Two raters described the subjects using the Interpersonal Checklist (ICL). The mean of theses two ratings produced the interpersonal vertical and horizontal scores.

The Pearson Product Moment statistic was applied to the paired sets of vertical and horizontal scores. The results showed no correlation along the vertical or horizontal dimensions. Several possible …

A Study Of Local Union Business Agents In Portland, Oregon Area, Lillian L. Morrison

Dissertations and Theses

Labor unions are an integral part of the economy of the United States. At the grass roots, union influence and/or effectiveness depends on the local union organization, its management, and its relationship to and involvement in community affairs. This influence and involvement is focused on the local union leadership in the person of the business agent. A substantial body of literature exists on leadership in general as well as specific information about leadership in labor unions, and includes contributions from the fields of Sociology and Psychology as well as Economics. This research paper is a study of local union business …

A Voice Incidence Study: Portland, Oregon, Ann Lynn Laskey

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the incidence of voice disorders among kindergarten and first-grade students in some schools in Portland, Oregon, during the Fall of 1974. The study was designed to determine the following information: 1) the percentage of voice disorders, 2) the percentage of each type of voice disorder, 3) the severity of each voice disorder, and 4) the percentage of males and of females exhibiting voice disorders.

The essential questions to be answered by the present study were:

1. What is the incidence of voice disorders in a kindergarten and first-grade (approximately five to seven years …

A Comparative Study Of The Reponses By Varying Socioeconomic Groups On General Knowledge And Categorization Tasks, Margo I. Keller

Dissertations and Theses

This study sought to determine if there are any "cultural" or economic level patterns of behavior in responding to tasks involving categorizing pictures and recalling general knowledge. The Daberon School Headiness Device (1972), which contains subtests for general knowledge and categorization, was used to assess four groups of children: 1) lower-SES white, 2) lower-SES black, 3) middle-SES white, and 4) middle-SES black. This study involved thirty black and thirty white children between the ages of five years and five years, eleven months. All subjects were screened to determine race, age, auditory acuity, speech intelligibility, subject cooperation, and socioeconomic status (SES). …

Attendance At Out-Patient Clinics As A Function Of Risk Taking For Alcoholics, John Ketcham Fryer

Dissertations and Theses

Many-psychotherapists feel that the capacity to risk is a necessary ingredient for change. Whether that change occur in a person seen in a professional context or in a person who views new behavior as being more rewarding, risk and change go hand in hand. Coleman (1972) described this relationship in the following way:

Life often poses problems in which the pursuit of increased satisfactions involves giving up present hard-won security and taking new risks. For the neurotic, this is likely to prove an especially anxiety-arousing conflictful situation [p. 226].

Why should this be true? It seems that one of the …

Contrasting Cultural Orientations Among The Indian, Chinese, And Euro-American Peoples And Some Effects On Intercultural Communication, Gregory See-Chay Chan

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to lay the foundation for a better understanding between the East and the West by (l) a broad overview of the traditional value systems and thought patterns (sometimes referred to as cultural orientations) of the Indians, Chinese, and Euro-Americans, (2) comparing and contrasting these value systems and thought patterns, and (3) showing the effects of the contrasts of the Asian and Western cultural orientations on intercultural communication.

The differences in the traditional heritages that affect the way that the three major cultures look at the world are discovered by drawing together descriptions from classical …

The Treatment-Moral Career Of Clients In A Community Based Treatment Program, Charles Edward Forster Jr.

Dissertations and Theses

The research reported here was intended to consider in an exploratory fashion the impact of a community based treatment program, Services for Problem Drinker Drivers, (SPDD), for persons convicted of driving while under the influence of liquor on: (1) the self-concept, (2) consequences for public identity, and (3) the careers or changes over time in both self-concept and public identity of clients in the program.

Effect Of Stressful And "Neutral" Moving Images And Still Images On Dreaming, Elizabeth Anne Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

A controlled presleep experience was used in an attempt to trace waking experience in dreams. Dream reports were collected in the laboratory from 12 dreamers (half men, half women; half recallers, half nonrecallers), using the electrophysiological method of Dement and Kleitman. Following a baseline night, each dreamer was awakened on three consecutive nights during every REM period (rapid eye movement and Stage 1-ascending EEG pattern). Immediately prior to sleep on Night 3, four of the dreamers viewed an emotionally arousing film, four others viewed a slide sequence having the same content as the stressful film, and four others viewed an …

The Teaching Of History In The Secondary Schools Of Australia, Richard Townley Blaine

Dissertations and Theses

Australian students terminating their secondary education with completion of Form Four provided the major stimulus during the last decade for new curriculum developments in an organized study of man. To provide these fifteen-year old pupils with the necessary exposure to life for social adjustment underscored the debate between many social scientists and history teachers on the ability of their respective subject's focus.

Where in the middle of the last decade Australia found herself in the middle of a communication revolution, many students, ending their educations during mid-adolescence, did not finish the normal sequence of history courses. History's dominance in the …

The Relationship Between Self-Concept And Responses Of Others During A Marital Crisis, Kathryn Ann Farr

Dissertations and Theses

Symbolic interaction theory indicates that an individual's self-concept is related to the way in which the individual perceives others as responding to him/her. Although this theory is widely accepted in social psychology, it has been given little empirical attention. In this study a typological model was developed in an empirical examination of the relationship between self-concept and responses of others during marital crisis. Self-concept was defined as the organization of qualities (roles, social-psychological feelings) that an individual assigns to himself/herself. Kind of qualities were described, and social-psychological feelings about self were examined on a positive to negative continuum. Responses of …

The Relationship Between The Housing Environment And The Child's Behavior: Strategies For Adapting To Multi-Family Housing, Anthony J. Filipovitch

Dissertations and Theses

This study is an inquiry into some of the effects of the housing environment on the behavior of children. The city can be seen as a structure which facilitates communication and interaction because of the large number of intersecting individual pathways which the city represents. Young children, however, have little experience of this city: for the most part, their microcosm extends only a few blocks from home. Cities are a function of density and large numbers of people, and these two characteristics are also descriptive of multi-family structures. In the child's microcosm, multi-family dwellings could be considered as the type …

A Study Of The Relationship Between Self-Concept, Public Image, And Consensus Rorschach Performance, Dale Sherman Walhood

Dissertations and Theses

Four measures of dominance were taken on college roommate pairs. Three of the measures were derived from Leary’s interpersonal system for diagnosing personality. The fourth measure was derived from the consensus approach to Rorschach administration. Dominance scores for self-concept, public image, predicated image (a new measure in which a person attempts to predict how a significant other sees him) and consensus Rorschach performance were computed. Predicted image correlated higher with self-concept than public image as predicted. Results suggest that dominance as measured by the Rorschach is related to both public image and self-concept. Submissive members appear to understand the structure …

A Study To Differentiate Between Runaways And Non-Runaways Among Juveniles Reported Missing, Neil E. Crannell, Patricia A. Hoffman

Dissertations and Theses

It is the purpose of this research project to develop a profile of predictive variables that would be helpful in distinguishing a missing juvenile report of a runaway from that of a missing youth who may have met with "foul play" and who does not fit the pattern of the runaway youth. The usefulness of such a tested set of predictive variables would be in designing a report form to be used by the peace officer who takes the initial report enabling him to immediately identify the situation as one of a runaway indicating one type of follow-up as opposed …

Pretesting A Questionnaire At The Solo Center On The Impact Of Divorce On Children And Parents, Shirley Anne Paetzhold

Dissertations and Theses

This study was concerned with the impact of divorce on parents and children. The writer spent a minimum of sixteen hours per week from September, 1974 to May, 1975 in field work at the Solo Center, as part of the requirements for a Master’s Degree in Social Work at Portland State University. Multiple areas of interest for research at the Center narrowed to a focus on the closely interwoven problems of child custody, child support, and visitation.

Indian Alcoholism On Reservations, Cleora E. Jackson

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this practicum is to describe the destructive use of alcohol among Southeastern Idaho Indians. This practicum is based on John and Irma Honigmann's (1) theory of "loss of stake." It is John and Irma Honigmann's contention that whatever may be the social functions of drinking, and whatever the personal reasons, having a stake in society tends to induce people to conform to the norms of society with regard to drinking behavior. The three case histories in this practicum will illustrate more of what is meant by the theory of stake in society.

Problem Oriented Case Planning, Jack A. Morgan

Dissertations and Theses

This practicum report discusses the adaptability of problem oriented case planning to casework which is practiced in the Northeast Multnomah County District Office of the Children’s Services Division. Problem oriented case planning is an approach designed to make casework more explicit by specifying the target problem(s), goals(s), tasks and an evaluation scheme which are agreed to and stated in a written contract developed by the participants. Such explicitness is essential to permit agency collection of useful information about its casework and casework programs needed to respond to today’s accountability demands, i.e., demonstration that the agency operates at a reasonable level …

The Use And Evaluation Of Gestalt Techniques In A Program For The Parents Of Handicapped Children, Richard Roy Hammond, Robert E. Phillips

Dissertations and Theses

The goal of this paper will be to further explore the use of Gestalt therapy in the Parent-Education Program and to find a way in which its effectiveness in freeing parents of emotional barriers to growth can be evaluated. Our specific objectives will, therefore be to (1) review the literature and present our own assumptions on parental responses to having a handicapped child, (2) explore the basis of Gestalt therapy and relate it to the needs of parents who have handicapped children. (3) describe the setting in which the Parent-Education Program and its Gestalt component takes place, and (4) suggest …

An Exploration Of The Feelings And Attitudes Of Women Separated From Their Children Due To Incarceration, Dorothy Lundberg, Ann Sheekley, Therese Voelker

Dissertations and Theses

Although significant research has shed light on what happens to children when they are removed from their parents, few studies have explored the effects on parents undergoing separation from their children. Discussions tend to be confined to separate dimensions exploring child's needs on one side and parental obligations on the other. Much of the planning and prolonged care provided for children in placement reflects a traditional child-centered focus. This has led to a lack of attention to parental needs, and a gross ignorance about their lives, feelings and aspirations.

When women are involuntarily separated from their children through incarceration, a …

Structure Vs. Meaning In Subliminal Perception, Margaret Anne Callan Hoisington

Dissertations and Theses

Subliminal perception is defined as a process whereby a subject reports no awareness of a visual stimulus, and yet his/her verbal behavior, subjectively experienced as “guesses”, is influenced by the stimulation. Various studies have found evidence for and against subliminal perception using discrimination tasks and subjective judgments. Explanations of subliminal perception include the partial cue hypothesis, the theory of perception of structural differences, and the theory that responses to subliminal stimuli are of a semantic nature.

This study was conducted to determine whether subliminal perception involves a discrimination of structural characteristics or a discrimination of the semantic quality of words …

Shaping Of Marital Interaction: A Clinical-Research Approach, Cynthia Luders Clay

Dissertations and Theses

In the last ten years, a number of behavioral approaches to marital therapy have been developed and applied to married couples. Intervention techniques have included selective reinforcement, extinction, modeling, aversive consequences, and contingency contracting. The present study investigated the use of the bug-in-the-ear (BITE) instrument as an aid in shaping marital interaction. The BITE has been applied in several child behavior modification programs, but no applications in marital therapy have been reported.

The use of the BITE has been demonstrated and is considered clinically feasible. Since the N of this study was small and since the raters evaluating progress were …

An Analysis Of The Effects Of Individual Counseling And Group Process Techniques Upon The Behavior Of Children In A Juvenile Detention Facility, Robert Arthur Struble

Dissertations and Theses

A three month project was designed to study the effects of individual counseling combined with group process techniques upon the behavior of children in a short term detentional facility. The length of stay was also a primary variable. In the study of this behavior.

The behavior of 282 males, 14 to 17 years of age, whom had been to the juvenile detention facility in Portland, Oregon, was analyzed via three separate instruments. The Behavior Activity Inventory was utilized to obtain daily observations concerning four separate areas of interest. An attitudinal rating scale was devised to obtain the staff’s assessment as …

Recovery From Stuttering In A Sample Of Elementary School Children, Carol Deno Kimball

Dissertations and Theses

Several studies have been undertaken to determine the incidence of recovery from stuttering; however, the results of these investigations are not reliable due to methodological limitations. For the most part, ex-post-facto recall judgements on the parts of adults or parents of young children were relied upon in gathering data for the research. It would appear that a requisite factor in determining incidence of recovery from stuttering should be the use of a formal instrument which would quantify the auditory and visual aspects of speaking behavior to determine the presence or absence of stuttering.

The primary purpose of this study was …