Digital Commons Network^™

A Comparison Of Functional Equivalence Training And Timeout Procedures In The Reduction Of Disruptive Behavior, Steven D . Goodman

Masters Theses

The use of nonaversive or aversive procedures continues to be debated regarding treatment of behavior problems of persons with developmental disabilities. This study compared the efficacy of a punishment and a nonaversive procedure in the reduction of problem behavior. The nonaversive technique involved the teaching of alternative, functionally equivalent, responses. Timeout was employed as the punishment procedure. The functional equivalence training included a functional analysis to identify the motivating conditions for the disruptive behavior of three boys with severe mental retardation. Treatment conditions were evaluated on rate of disruption, effects on learning trials, and time engaged in training. Results indicate …

Sedimentological, Structural, And Organic Geochemical Controls On Natural Gas Occurrence In The Antrim Formation In Otsego County, Michigan, Timothy M. Dellapenna

Masters Theses

The prolific Antrim Formation natural gas reservoir in Otsego County, Michigan, has been examined using core descriptions, X-ray diffraction, petrographic, and geochemical analyses. New stratigraphy nomenclature is proposed for the Antrim and Ellsworth Shales. The Antrim Shale contains two distinctive lithofacies: (1) a fractured, non-bioturbated, silica-rich, organicrich black shale lithofacies; and (2) sparsely fractured, bioturbated, carbonaterich, organic-poor gray-green shale. Gas production comes from the Black shale facies.

Rock-Eval analysis demonstrates that the organic matter is a mixture of types I and II material. Low Tmax (435°C) and vitrinite reflectance (0.41-0.46%) values indicate a submature thermal maturation level. Del 13 carbon …

Diagenesis In The St. Peter Sandstone, Michigan Basin, Carl E. Lundgren

Masters Theses

The petrographic evolution of authigenic minerals in the St. Peter formation consists of: early marine cement, syndepositional dolomite, quartz overgrowth cement, pervasive dolomite replacement of precursor carbonate, dissolution of framework grains and carbonate cements, and late formation of authigenic chlorite and illite.

Variations in the diagenetic sequence were templated by variations in primary mineralogy related to depositional facies. Early intergranular carbonate cement, common in shelf facies, precluded early quartz cementation. Subsequent dissolution of dolomite and detrital grains may be temporally and chemically related to the precipitation of authigenic clay in dissolution pores. In peritidal facies, pervasive quartz cementation was locally …

The Paleoethnobotany Of Schwerdt (20ae127): An Early Fifteenth Century Encampment In The Lower Kalamazoo River Valley, Gregory R. Walz

Masters Theses

Carbonized macrobotanical remains from the Schwerdt Site, an Upper Mississippian sturgeon fishery in the Lower Kalamazoo River Valley are identified and analyzed in terms of their implications for localized subsistence-settlement systems operating during the Berrien Phase in southwestern Michigan. The exploitation of wild plant foods at this limited-activity, spring sturgeon fishery and the environmental composition of the site environs are reconstructed from their representation in flotation samples derived from excavated feature and midden contexts.

Botanical data indicate a strong wetland-aquatic orientation in plant procurement, with aquatic tubers being the primary plant resource exploited at the site. Data from several sites …

Political Perspectives In Encyclopedias: Portrayal Of The Nicaraguan Revolution, Brian B. Smith

Masters Theses

Encyclopedia text is most often presented as objective, factual, authoritatively documented truth. To examine this knowledge claim, this thesis analyzes the portrayal of the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution in editions of the four major U.S. encyclopedias. A qualitative content analysis is employed to determine the political perspectives present in encyclopedia coverage of the Nicaraguan revolution and the subsequent changes in Nicaraguan political economy brought about by that revolution.

The findings indicate that significant differences among and within the encyclopedias existed in the text analyzed. A variety of political perspectives were found to have influenced the content of the text, and to …

Improving The Performance Of Corporate Instructional Designers, Karolyn A. Smalley

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent the job aid developed by Brethower (1968) controlled instructional designers’ behavior so that they effectively and efficiently produced performance-based learning programs. This study consisted of developing and testing two iterations of the Analysis-Design Instructional Guide (job aid). Instructional designers who used either version of the job aid were able to meet a higher percentage of general criteria for performance-based learning programs than designers who did not. In addition, they took less time to develop programs than industry norms suggest. Even though the behavior of the designers was not completely …

The Effects Of Public Posting On Job Performance With And Without Supervisory Participation, Jan Marie Miller

Masters Theses

The intervention was tested using a sequential presentation of conditions to assess the performance of clerical employees in a university admissions office. Ten workers received feedback on completion of mailroom tasks on a daily basis. Tasks included time of mail delivery and accuracy and quantity of responses to information requests. For mail delivery, two intervention elements were applied. First, group performance data were posted publicly. Second, verbal feedback from a supervisor was added to public posting. Improvement in time of mail delivery was observed when public posting was implemented; however, no reliable improvements were observed when supervisor feedback was added. …

Purity Of Purpose: The Aesthetics Of Bernard Of Clairvaux Based On His Monastic Anthropology, Daniel Marcel La Corte

Masters Theses

Questions concerning Bernard of Clairvaux’s view of art and architecture have been answered primarily from his words on monastic art found in his work the Apologia. Some scholars have taken these statements out of context to their intended audience. Others have placed them firmly within the framework of his monastic vocation. More recently, scholars have analyzed the treatise in a broader context by using the Apologia to explore the role of art in the Middle Ages. None of these scholars question the fundamental motivation for Bernard’s view on art and the role it plays in the hierarchy of the …

Coordinated Strategic Planning Of Hydroelectric Energy Usage Using Stochastic Dynamic Programming With Decoupled Production Cost Simulation, Duane David Highley

Masters Theses

"The method of Stochastic Dynamic Programming is applied to the problem of Long-term hydrothermal coordination for a five-reservoir system in the Midwest. The model that has been developed will optimize the monthly reservoir elevations to produce the lowest expected energy production cost. The production cost calculations are decoupled from the Dynamic Programming loop, resulting in shorter execution times. Constraints are included for maximum and minimum reservoir elevations, maximum monthly reservoir rise and drop, and maximum and minimum monthly energy production. These constraints help to reduce the state space and shorten execution time. An additional constraint is modeled to control the …

The Relationship Of Osteoporosis Health Beliefs And Knowledge To Calcium Intake, Karen L. Boyer

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between health beliefs (susceptibility, severity, benefits, barriers, health motivation and self-efficacy) and knowledge, to calcium intake. The study used a descriptive correlational design and a convenience sample of 201 women was selected. Data collection took place in a metropolitan area of west Michigan and a structured interview method was used. The subjects ranged in age from 35 to 95. Ninety-six and one half percent of the sample was white. The hypothesis--"knowledge and the health beliefs account for a significant amount of variance in calcium intake" was partially supported. Self-efficacy and …

Nursing Care Of The Elderly In The Acute Care Setting: An Investigation Of Powerlessness, Dorothy De Boer Zylstra

Masters Theses

This study's purpose was to identify whether persons 65 years of age or older hospitalized with congestive heart failure perceive personal powerlessness. Cognitive competence of the subjects was determined by the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire. A Powerlessness Interview Schedule (PIVS) was used to identify subjects' perceptions of personal powerlessness.; Perceived powerlessness was not conclusively apparent in the fifty-one subjects of this study. No subjects received a score of 38 or below. Ten of fifty-one subjects received scores ranging from 46 to 56 which may place them at risk for perceived personal powerlessness. Forty-nine subjects had areas of limited feelings …

Patient Perceptions Of Nurse Caring Behaviors, Patricia A. Devries

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine which nurse caring behaviors in the critical care unit are perceived as most important and least important by patients with myocardial infarction. A sample of 44 subjects responded to an open-ended question and an assessment scale, the Caring Behaviors Assessment. Two comparison groups of 22 subjects each were formed from the sample to determine if number of previous admissions to the critical care unit made a difference in perceptions of most important and least important nurse caring behaviors.; Descriptive statistics along with t-test, chi-square, and two-way analysis of variance were used to …

The Perpetual Journey: Jonathan Edwards' "Personal Narrative" And Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, Pamela A. Masden

Masters Theses

Scholarly readers seem to have avoided a comparison of the writings of Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) and Benjamin Franklin (1706-90). Although they were born three years apart, they are rarely represented in anthologies as having been contemporaries, primarily because Edwards was a Puritan preacher and Franklin was an "Enlightenment" politician and inventor. However, when we disregard these critical constraints and assumptions, we find that as writers and thinkers, they have a great deal in common.

In my thesis, I have examined the autobiographies of these contemporary works: Edwards' "Personal Narrative" (c. 1739-42) and Franklin's Autobiography (1771-88). The theoretical approaches of Jane …

Destination Zero: A Play In One Act, Deborah L. Muller

Masters Theses

While there have been a few creative theses written in the English department, those written up till now have consisted of collections of short stories and poetry. This is the first play to have been conceived and written for a Master's Thesis at Eastern Illinois University. The Thesis is comprised of two major parts: an introduction and the play, itself.

The introduction deals with what the goals of writing the Thesis were, what research went into reaching these goals, what the characters in the play were attempting to communicate to the reader/audience, and whether the resulting play deviated from the …

Female Fantasists: Re-Visioning The Archetypal Warrior, Tammy M. Bear-Tibbs

Masters Theses

This thesis discusses female archetypal warriors in several fantasy novels written for children and adolescents. The novels examined include A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle; The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley; Dragonflight, Dragonguest, The White Dragon, Dragonsong, and Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey; and The Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin. The thesis argues that, by expanding gender roles and portraying their female characters as strong archetypal warriors, these authors force a rethinking of existing archetypal criticism. Using …

The Effects Of Discrimination Therapy Administered To Preschool Children, Steven E. Deal

Masters Theses

Recent research in the area of phonological development has indicated phonemes are mastered earlier than previous research demonstrated. Research has also indicated phoneme discriminatory skills are acquired with a similar pattern of development as phoneme production skills. Additionally, many research studies have demonstrated a relationship between children's ability to discriminate phonemes and their ability to articulate phonemes. Phonological skill development at younger ages implies that children will be eligible for articulation therapy at younger ages. Traditionally, articulation remediation begins with sensory/perceptual or discrimination training. Currently, available research has not addressed the effectiveness of discrimination training at pre-school age levels.

Six …

The Relationship Between Elements Of Symbolism In Drawings And Language, Sarah Lynn Williams

Masters Theses

A relationship between the development of drawing skills and overall development has been well documented. Furthermore, a relationship between language development and drawing development has been suggested by a number of research findings. The research goal of this project is the following: to determine whether there is a predictable relationship between the elements of symbolism in drawing and language development.

Twenty-six children were given a standardized language assessment and a drawing assessment. The children were divided into two groups according to age. Language scores for Group 1 included the following Test of Language Development-Primary subtests (Newcomer & Hammill, 1982): picture …

An "Avowed Contradiction": Gender And Historical Instability In Clarissa, Jennifer C. Berkshire

Masters Theses

As one of the first novels written, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa serves as an important social text with which to examine the eighteenth century. Most theoretical studies of the emergence of novelistic discourse have interpreted the rise of the new genre as a reflection of other broader socio-economic changes. This study focuses on the role of the novel in bringing about such changes--in articulating particular attitudes, beliefs, and opinions that have come to be associated with the middle class. The study involves an examination of Clarissa, Lovelace, and the Harlowe family as representatives of particular ideologies, or understandings of history, with …

A Study Of Periphyton, Sediment And Diatom Community Structure As Monitors Of Heavy Metal Pollution In The Embarras River And Brushy Fork, David L. Vaultonburg

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate periphyton (diatom) and sediment heavy metal content and diatom community structure as potential monitors of heavy metal pollution in the upper reaches of the Embarras River system. The study was initiated due to recent industrialization in the area which could potentially contribute to the present heavy metal burden of Brushy Fork and the Embarras River. These streams are already subject to agricultural runoff, wastewater plant effluent, landfill leachate and other miscellaneous urban and highway runoff. The Embarras River system drains an area of approximately 2800 square miles in 11 east-central Illinois counties …

Changes In The Black/White Income Ratio, 1939-87, Melvin Keys

Masters Theses

The Black/white income ratio (BWIR) has increased steadily from 1939-87 for families with two incomes. Early-on, the income disparity was greatest for black females compared to black males. Because of race and sex discrimination, black females were lagging far behind society in wage differences. Today, the opposite is true, black males lag far behind black females in income: compared to their white counterparts. One of the reasons for such a large reversal in income differences maybe the opportunities that were available to black females in such occupations as teaching and nursing from 1940-75.

Migration, which looks at regional composition, was …

The Effectiveness Of Auditory Bombardment In The Remediation Of Phonological Processes, Lisa M. Gangloff

Masters Theses

Current research examining the efficacy of different stages of phonological remediation is limited to the use of minimal pairs and the integration of language therapy to assist children with accompanying language deficits. Auditory bombardment, however, although frequently used, has not been researched as to its effectiveness in the remediation of phonological processes. Auditory bombardment is currently being presented through word lists. This researcher suggests that a language-based bombardment, in the form of children’s stories, would aid in the reduction of phonological processes and the acquisition of language skills.

Six subjects were included in the research study. The subjects ranged in …

The Facilitation Of Students With Learning Disabilities To Postsecondary Education By Secondary Special Educators, Victoria A. Stephans

Masters Theses

This descriptive research was conducted to collect data concerning the attitudes and policies about transition to postsecondary education by secondary special educators in the State of Illinois. A survey was sent to 208 secondary special educators representing the independent high school districts in the state. The survey measured three variables in relation to size of school: special educators' awareness of postsecondary educational opportunities, special educators' expectations for students labeled learning disabled to pursue postsecondary education, and current practices for serving high school students labeled learning disabled. The findings showed that there were more likenesses than differences in the transition attitudes …

Methods Of Improving The Student Teaching Experience At The Elementary And Junior High School Levels As Identified By Cooperating Teachers, Student Teachers And First Year Teachers, Darrell L. Sy

Masters Theses

The purpose of this field experience was to identify how the student teaching experience could be improved based upon recommendations by cooperating teachers, first year teachers and student teachers who completed a questionnaire. Each group was asked its opinions of the current status of the student teaching experience and how the process could be improved.

Cooperating teachers provided information relative to the special types of activities they conducted to better prepare student teachers for the profession. Current student teachers were asked to determine the teaching skills with which they needed the most assistance. First year teachers provided information that compared …

Mmpi Profiles Of Sexual Perpetrators, Steven G. Vaupel

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to compare MMPI scores of 60 men referred for assessment and/or counseling at community mental health facilities. No MMPI protocols were excluded due to elevated validity configurations (70T or above). Forty of the referrals were referred for suspected child sexual abuse. Twenty of the referrals admitted (Admitter) to sexually abusing a child at the time of referral and twenty did not admit (Nonadmitter) to sexually abusing a child when referred. A control group of the remaining twenty subjects were referred for various offenses, none of which included sexual offenses against children. Significant differences were …

Improving Swimming Economy Of Novice, Adult, Female Swimmers By Training On A Väsa Swim Trainer, Loreen K. Mattson

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine if the swimming economy of novice, adult, female swimmers can be increased by training on a Väsa Swim Trainer. Economy of swimming was defined as either: 1) decreased submaximal oxygen consumption (VO₂); 2) decreased oxygen consumption per given distance (VO₂/d); 3) decrease ratio of arm stroke cycles per given distance to swimming velocity (ASI); and 4) decrease submaximal heart rate (HR).

Eight females between the age of 35 to 60 years, mean age 50.4, who were considered to be novice swimmers (average 45.7 meter lap time greater than …

The Rhetoric Of Documentation: Two Approaches, Walt Wisnewski

Masters Theses

In an attempt to clarify how a beginner who has not yet mastered a software program is to learn to use word processing programs, this thesis examines two examples, WordPerfect and W.W. Norton's TEXTRA from the standpoint of their documentation. Software developers have adopted conflicting rhetorical strategies in their documentation: some have sought clear instruction via a rule-based rhetoric with a reliance on jargon-free standard English, and others have pursued an inferential rhetoric. These two strategies parallel two models in modern communications theory: a decoding model and an inferential model. WordPerfect seems to follow a decoding (rule-based) approach and TEXTRA …

A Comparison Of Personality Traits Of Female Interscholastic Athletes And Female Intercollegiate Athletes Involved In Basketball And Softball, Katheryn M. Myers

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to compare personality traits of female high school athletes to female collegiate athletes.

Eighty female athletes participated in the study. Forty-two of them competed at the high school level and thirty-eight participated at the college level. The high school subjects came from either Arcola, Casey/Westfield, or Charleston High School. The college athletes came from either Eastern Illinois University or Illinois State University. All athletes participated in either softball or basketball.

The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire was administered to each of the subjects. Following Cattell's recommendations, raw scores were used for statistical analysis. Form A …

A Review Of The Literature On Self-Care Children: A Need For Empirical Studies, Stephanie L. Perry

Masters Theses

The term "self-care child'' refers to a young child who returns from school and remains at home unsupervised for an indefinite period until the parents arrive from work, or one who is alone before school in the mornings. In this paper, the emotional functioning, social functioning, and academic performance of self-care children were compared to adult-supervised children. Also, programs designed for self-care children were examined.

When examining the current literature on the self-care child regarding loneliness, anxiety and behavior problems, susceptibility to peer pressure, sexuality, social functioning, and academic performance, no significant differences were found between self-care and adult-supervised children. …

A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Preaching Of Robert Lee Russell, Ben F. Pennington

Masters Theses

Robert Lee Russell's pulpit oratory is analyzed through a review of the literature, personal interviews and critical study of three specific sermons. The consistency of idea content and effectiveness of the preaching is evaluated according to the concepts of rhetorical analysis delineated in Nilsen's (1957) Interpretive Funnction of the Critic. Robert Russell's concepts of man [existence], ideas [knowledge], and society [values] is examined through analysis of his sermons. The results of the analysis are compared to the literature on preaching, statements from interviews with him, and comments by leaders of his congregation. It is concluded that Russell is an …

The Validity Of Studies That Test The Effectiveness Of Psychotherapy, Ian K. Isaacs

Masters Theses

This thesis is a review of the validity of studies on the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Ten randomly selected studies are examined to determine if the validity of the study was affected by threats to statistical conclusion, internal, construct, and external validity. All of the studies examined were published after 1985. The results indicate that validity of the research on the effectiveness of psychotherapy is affected by some threats to validity: History, Testing, and Selection bias, (ie. internal validity). In addition, external validity was affected by the lack of use of appropriate control group, lack of a description of the therapy …