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The Effect Of Orientation-Neutral Cursors On Movement Time, Positioning Performance, And Stimulus-Response (S-R) Compatibility, Kim Joachim Oehmichen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Very little research exists on the topic of computer cursor design and utilization. Since this is an important area in successful and efficient user interaction with graphical user interfaces, additional study is necessary. To investigate the impact of cursors with no implicit directional cues (orientation-neutral cursors) on movement time, positioning performance, and stimulus-response compatibility, six experiments were designed. In these experiments, six orientation-neutral cursors were compared against each other as well as against four directional cursors. Twelve participants with advanced computer skills between the ages of 18 and 30, right-handed, and normal or corrected-to-normal eyesight participated in the experiments, which …

A Grounded Theory Of Teacher Sensemaking Processes In A Climate Of Change, Dorothea Reynolds Wood

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Teacher commitment and capacity are critical factors in school reform. However, school change models underestimate the complexity of teaching, which undermines teachers' ability to implement and sustain changes. This grounded theory of teacher sensemaking explored teachers' perceptions as they participated in school reforms targeting pedagogy.

A multi-site sample was purposefully selected and included 12 elementary school teachers from eight schools. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with each teacher and analyzed using inductive analysis. The three analytical coding procedures were (a) open coding, (b) axial coding, and (c) selective coding. Open coding analyzed the concepts emerging from the data and pursued …

Living To Ride: A Sociological Study Of Freeriders In Missoula, Montana, Marlana Michelle Kosky

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Kosky, Marlana M., M.A., Fall 2007 Sociology Living to Ride: A Sociological Study of Freeriders in Missoula Montana Chairperson: Robert W. Balch This paper is an ethnographic description of The Safety Team, a group of freeriders frequenting the Bike Doctor in Missoula Montana. Information about this faction of freeriding’s social world is revealed using the members’ own words and experiences as data. This study is meant to explore the significance of bike riding to the members of Missoula’s freeride “scene,” including its effect on their beliefs, values, and ethics. Qualitative methods are used including participant-observation structured within the theoretical framework …

Managing Multiple Identities: A Qualitative Study Of Nurses And Implications For Work-Family Balance, Claire Marie Spanier

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The ways in which people manage organizational, professional, and familial identities can have significant implications for work-family balance. This is particularly true for nurses, who have a strong sense of professional identity and may be likely to experience work-family tensions. By framing work-family tensions as related to identity, we can see the ways in which being a “good” employee, a “good” nurse, and a “good” family member are both complementary and contradictory. This study highlights ways in which being “good” employee facilitates and hinders an individual’s ability to be a “good” nurse. Furthermore, it demonstrates how being a “good” nurse …

An Assessment Of The Hiv Prevention Needs Of Injection Drug Users In Montana, Nancy Mae Cunningham

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study was to assess HIV prevention needs of individuals living in Montana who use injection drugs (IDUs). Gaps between prevention needs and services were identified and recommendations for overcoming the barriers to accessing and implementing treatment needs and services were offered.
A qualitative case study approach was used. Data collection methods included: 1) IDU interviews, 2) Key Informant interviews, and 3) Documentation collection and archival record retrieval.
IDUs represented a wide range of demographic variables. While people of both genders, a variety of sexual orientations, ethnicities, educational levels, incomes and employment statuses participated in the interviews, …

Finding Meaning In The Aftermath Of Trauma: Resilience And Posttraumatic Growth In Female Survivors Of Intimate Partner Violence, Melissa Dawn Young

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Despite recent interest in resiliency and growth in victims of trauma (Ryff, Singer, Love, & Essex, 1998; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996), very few studies exist that document resilient responses to intimate partner violence, and none exist that explore posttraumatic growth in the aftermath of violent relationships. The purpose of this study was to explore resiliency and growth factors in women who were interviewed for the Domestic Violence Project at The University of Montana, which comprises an archival dataset. Participants were 127 women who had been out of a violent relationship for a year or more. As interview questions did not …

A Reanalysis Of Boas’S Hebrew Immigrant Data: Comparisons Of Foreign-Born And Us-Born Children Living In Early 20th Century America, Margaret Rose Kress

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This research paper uses data observed on Hebrew immigrant populations collected by the anthropologist Franz Boas and coworkers between 1909 and 1910. Boas was asked by the United States Immigration Commission to write a report that examined how the influx of European immigrants into the United States might affect the morphology of the American population. Seeing this as a chance to undermine racial typologies, Boas took many measurements of immigrants and their children and concluded that observed changes between foreign-born and US-born children were a result of the move into a new environment. Recent research has demonstrated that the Hebrew …

Community Forestry Education In The Swan Valley, Mt: Contributions Of Northwest Connections' Field Program, Joanna Elizabeth Seibert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As the community forestry movement matures, a question remains regarding what kind of educational experience nurtures and inspires people in community forestry? This thesis seeks to contribute to a better understanding of community forestry education by examining a field educational program known as “Landscape and Livelihood” (LL) offered by Northwest Connections, a small community-based conservation organization in the upper Swan Valley of western Montana. Based on extensive interviews, observation and the author’s own personal experience as a former LL student, the thesis documents the program’s use of field ecological studies involving both scientific and local knowledge integrated with journaling, homestays, …

Examining The Relationship Of Physical Activity With Inflammation And Cardiovascular Disease Risk, Coral Michelle Gubler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for 37.1 percent of all deaths in the United States. Physical activity is inversely related to both CV event risk and to many of the individual CVD risk factors. The inverse relationship between physical activity and CVD risk is well established. However, much dispute remains about the optimal physical activity intensity and duration related to health benefits and to lower CVD risk. The ability to objectively measure intensity and duration may clarify the inverse relationship between physical activity and CVD. The purpose of this collection of studies was to explore the association of physical activity with …

Achieving Environmental Justice For The Community Of Opportunity, Montana: An Assessment Of Superfund Concerns, Kathleen A. Hasenbank

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The community of Opportunity, Montana, is surrounded by an area many consider to be the largest Superfund site in the United States. The nearby Opportunity Ponds is a major consolidation area for mining-related contaminated wastes in the state of Montana, and Opportunity residents have voiced concerns about their well water, windblown dust, and other issues since at least the late 1990s. Furthermore, the community has been subjected to ongoing environmental injustices: they feel they have been left to bear an unfair environmental burden without compensation and feel left out of important decision-making processes that affect them. I have …

The Impact Of Peer Discussion Groups On The Recreational Reading Of Seventh Grade Students, Dana Haring

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Recreational reading is declining. The decline starts early in elementary school and rapidly accelerates during adolescence. Adolescent literacy is impacted on many fronts, including various factors in psychological, emotional, intellectual, academic, and social development. Because social factors and emotional factors are especially relevant in the study of adolescents and their recreational reading, these elements were integrated in this quasi-experimental research.
This study was designed to answer the following research question: if given the choice of what to read and time with peers to discuss their reading, will seventh grade students spend more time reading? The sample of 117 seventh grade …

Hiv/Aids And Conservation Agency Capacity In Southern Africa: Perceptions Of Critical Impacts, Barriers, And Intervention Strategies, Jennifer Ann Cash

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The HIV/AIDS pandemic permeates all aspects of southern African civil society including the ability of organizations to practice conservation. The purpose of this research is to understand how management perceives HIV/AIDS influencing southern African conservation agencies workforce capacity to meet their missions. Research goals include: (1) identifying perceptions of the impacts of HIV/AIDS on workforce capacity; (2) elucidating barriers to addressing these impacts; and (3) exploring mitigation strategies. Data collection involved two stages: (1) semi-structured interviews of managers and scientists (n=23) to better understand impacts and barriers; and (2) a panel of key experts (n=30) within southern African conservation agencies …

New Romanticism, Kendall Anne Mingey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No Abstract.

Essential Understandings: Exploring My Personal Relationship With The Multiple Intelligences Through Art, Jeffrey Wardlaw Brown

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The theory of Multiple Intelligences holds that there are an array of different kinds of intelligences in human beings. Howard Gardner has identified 8 multiple intelligences: Verbal/Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily/Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalist. This project was designed to explore the practical applications of the theory through personal experience. A series of five artworks were produced using the artistic mediums of oil and acrylic paints, clay, natural found objects, songwriting and musical performance. The artworks served as external documentation of the inner processes through which the eight intelligences were manifested. A public lecture was held describing the artworks and …

Change, Principal Trust And Enabling School Structures: An Analysis Of Relationships In Southern Alberta Schools, Cheryl Anne Gilmore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Improved student learning continues to be a pressing issue compelling schools and districts to undergo change. Schools are complex organizations and there are a number of interrelated factors that contribute to the success or failure of change into a new model. In Alberta, organizational change was mandated in 2003 through government acceptance of a Commission’s recommendation that all schools operate as a professional learning community. The context of mandated change provided a unique opportunity to examine large scale change with factors that may have a relationship to successful change. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship …

Neuropsychological Correlates Of Borderline Personality Disorder, Christopher S. Miller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the current study, participants with borderline personality disorder (BPD) displayed deficits in neuropsychological functioning when compared with healthy controls. Participants with BPD performed worse on all measures of cognitive functioning: attention, verbal memory, processing speed and a measure of general neuropsychological functioning. The study found that depression was significantly more prevalent in the BPD sample compared with the control sample and that there was a significant inverse correlation between level of depression and scores on a general index of neuropsychological functioning. Results from ANCOVA analyses revealed significant differences existed in neuropsychological performance on all four measures of cognitive functioning …

Resolving Employment Retention Barriers To Enhance Self-Sufficiency For Missoula County Tanf Recipients, Deborah Evelyn Holland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study examined the issues of barriers and employment retention in a rural county welfare-to-work setting, the Missoula, Montana WoRC Program. Qualitative research (study one) was conducted, to interview clients regarding reasons why they had lost jobs in the past, and, to elicit their suggestions regarding new services the WoRC Program could offer to help with employment retention at future jobs. Study one results indicated that the primary barriers resulting in job loss were: family issues; medical problems; mental health disorders; work site difficulties; and other (i.e. boredom, attitude problems). Work adjustment proved to be an underlying barrier to employment …

Disrupted Conventions: Gender Roles In Mildred Walker's The Curlew's Cry And Winter Wheat, Pandora Andre-Beatty

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this thesis, I discuss the significance of gender in Mildred Walker’s novels The Curlew’s Cry and Winter Wheat. Walker wrote and situates both narratives in Montana, supporting my argument that literature of the American West remains a productive area for examining gender roles. The Curlew’s Cry is set at the closing of the American frontier in the early 20th century, while Winter Wheat is set during the settled agricultural era of the 1940s. I argue that instead of re-enforcing gender stereotypes commonly found in novels set in the American West during and after the white settlement of the plains, …

The Relationship Between Level Of Empathy And Stress Contagion, Heather Lynn Kirby

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Although potential benefits associated with social support are well documented, it is also the case that social networks expose an individual to the stressful life events of others. Studies have shown that the stressful life events of others are positively related to negative affect. It has been theorized by several researchers that relationships between, for example, stressful life events of others and negative affect are evidence of a stress contagion process that may occur through empathy. The current study addressed this idea by testing whether the positive relationship that exists between network stress and depressive symptoms varied dependent upon (ie. …

The Socialization Of Seasonal Employees, Maria Dawn Blevins

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper examines summer seasonal organizations to examine how they socialize employees in an abbreviated amount of time.

Public Relations In Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide To Establishing Public Relations Programs In Nonprofit Settings, Megan Kate Gale

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Public relations has become an increasingly popular topic in the nonprofit community, and the demand for developing piblic relations as a core competency has increased as well. Since many nonprofit organization have limited time and resources for developing fuull-scale public relations programs, many rely on information obtained during one-day workshops or conference presentations presented by public relations professionals who have little or no experience with the concerns of the nonprofit setting. Using a program planning model, this paper describes how nonprofit organizations can increase the capacity and effectiveness of their public relations efforts by building relationships with key stakeholders.

Public Archaeology In Montana: A Sample Of University Of Montana Students' Perceptions Of Archaeology And Knowledge Of Local Sites, Helen Alexandra Keremedjiev

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Archaeologists have an obligation to disseminate publicly their research and theories. To do this effectively, they need to know how each public perceives archaeology. A voluntary Institutional Review Board certified questionnaire was given to 606 University of Montana undergraduates and graduates. It included topics on the basics of archaeology and sites in Montana. After the results were tabulated, a website was created to show the overall results. Its location is at www.umt.edu/publicarchaeology. This online resource includes the questionnaire, the total raw results of all classes’ responses, and a discussion section. (See Appendix E for screenshot images of the website.) This …

A Study Of The Relationship Between The Type Of Parent Involvement And High School Student Engagement, Academic Achievement, Attendance, And Attitude Toward School, Carmen Philip Mombourquette

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Parents are being encouraged to be actively involved in the educational lives of their children, including the lives of their adolescent high school students. Governments in both Canada and the United States are even mandating parent involvement as a means to achieve increased student performance. Type of parent involvement in the lives of adolescent high school students and its relationship to student performance factors of student engagement, academic achievement, attendance, and attitude toward school was studied so as to provide high school administrators with the knowledge set necessary to offer advice to the parent community.

This study found that there …

Changing Attitudes: Congressional Rhetoric, Race, And Education Inequalities, Jennifer Kathleen Richert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Richert, Jennifer Kathleen, M.A., May 2007 IYFD Changing Attitudes: Congressional Rhetoric, Race, and Education Inequalities Chairperson: Otto Koester Through an analysis of Congressional rhetoric regarding public school in the context of racial equality, three terms emerge as reoccurring concepts that drive discussions on contemporary educational conversations: narrowing the gap, disadvantaged students, and accountability. I have designed this study to determine whether the way politicians in U.S. Congress use these terms have racial undertones that ultimately work to maintain a culture of minority oppression. This study opens with an introduction describing my personal interest, followed with an extensive literature review regarding …

A Modern Examination Of Marcus Goldstein’S Mexican Immigrant Population Data: Comparisons Of Mexican-Born And U.S.-Born Children And Adults Living In 1930’S America And Mexico, Amanda Katelin Gango

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Modern statistical methods were employed in order to test the statistical validity and conclusions of Marcus Goldstein’s (1943) original data consisting of nineteen different anthropometric measurements on two different groups of individuals, Mexican immigrants and their children residing in the San Antonio, Texas area and Mexican natives living in central and northern Mexico. Using independent samples T-tests, an analysis of covariance, and an RMET analysis, significant differences among variables compared between Mexican natives and Mexican immigrants and their U.S. born children were identified and interpreted. Variation was attributed to geographical location and length of time spent in the United States. …

Examining The Variability In The Long Term Adjustment Of Child Sexual Abuse Victims, Heather Marie Ulrich

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Two meta-analyses (Rind, Tromovitch & Bauserman, 1998; Ulrich, Randolph, & Acheson, 2006) have suggested that the long held belief about the inevitable pervasive negative effects of child sexual abuse does not hold for college populations. The meta-analyses suggest that there is other factors in sexual abuse victims' lives that interact with their abuse experience to produce the sometimes-observed minimal long-term effects on psychological adjustment. This research attempted to examine a potential model for explaining the variability in the long-term effects of child sexual abuse by examining both moderator variables and abuse characteristics within the same population. The study examined three …

Expression And Regulation Of Emotions In Romantic Relationships, Makon Fardis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Romantic relationships are extremely important in people's physical and mental well being. One of the important determinants of the quality of romantic relationships is the expression and regulation of emotions. This study hypothesized that 1) expression of positive emotions is good for any relationship, 2) expression of negative emotions is good for only communal relationships, 3) expression of positive emotions is necessary alongside of negative ones to maintain a communal relationship, 4) in case negative emotions are expressed, providing explanations would help maintain the relationship, 5) suppression of emotions does not benefit communal relationship, and 6) expression of emotions correlates …

Implementation And Assessment Of A Test Anxiety Reduction Program With 10th Graders And Their Subsequent Performance On The Montcas Criterion Referenced Test, Nilda Soto Bishop

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This quantitative study investigated the relationship between performance on the MontCAS Criterion Referenced Test of 10th graders at Corvallis High School, Corvallis, Montana who participated in a systematic program for test anxiety reduction, and 10th graders who took the MontCAS but did not participate in the test anxiety reduction program. The population included all 10th graders at Corvallis High School who failed to achieve a score of proficient or higher, or who achieved in the low-proficient range on either the reading or math section on the last MontCAS administration, which was two years prior to this study. Fifteen students were …

Inequality And Civic Participation In The Rocky Mountain West: Missoula, Mt, Benjamin C. Harris

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study considers the impact of community-level inequality of income and education on the ways individuals participate in local government and community development activities. It adapts the standard identity-augmented utility model to demonstrate that, given the choice to participate or not to participate, increases in inequality can decrease overall group participation, and an individual's distance from the characteristics of an ideal community member can also decrease the benefits and likelihood of participation. The theory predicts, however, that increasing the responsiveness of civic bodies to input from citizens can mitigate the negative effects of inequality. Original survey data from a stratified …

Lobachevski Illuminated: Content, Methods, And Context Of The Theory Of Parallels, Seth Braver

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the 1820's, Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevski discovered and began to explore the world's first non-Euclidean geometry. This crucial development in the history of mathematics was not recognized as such in his own lifetime. When his work finally found a sympathetic audience in the late 19th century, it was reinterpreted in the light of various intermediate developments (particularly Riemann's conception of geometry), which were foreign to Lobachevski's own way of thinking about the subject.

Because our modern understanding of his work derives from these reinterpretations, many of Lobachevski's most striking ideas have been forgotten. To recover them, I have produced an …