Digital Commons Network^™

The Virtues Of Prosocialness, Wisdom, And Hope As Predictors Of Academic Achievement In Adolescents, Michael P. Maier

Masters Theses

Currently, there is a strong emphasis on children scoring well on academic achievement tests. While the skills needed to do well on these tests are important, positive character is another factor that may be related to academic achievement. The purpose of the present study was to examine if positive character is relevant to academic achievement. Can prosocialness, hope, and wisdom predict academic achievement? Which of these virtues is most predictive? Can these virtues predict academic achievement above and beyond academic skill levels?

Illinois Standards Achievement Test scores and GP A were collected for 105 students who also completed self-report measures …

Teachers' Perceptions Of Multicultural Education, Brandie M. Goodman

Masters Theses

The current study investigated teachers' perceptions of multicultural education. Teachers' perception of the importance of culture in the learning and teaching process is expected to impact students' learning and social development. For the culturally competent teacher, the child's culture is central to the teaching and learning process. However, even though the student population of ethnic minorities is increasing at a rapid rate, schools may not be fully prepared to provide meaningful education to these students. Based on the exposure theory, the current study attempted to answer the following question: Does a teacher's present and past teaching experience (urban, suburban, or …

Family Structure And Psychological Factors: The Effects Of Family-Of-Origin Variables On Young Adults' Psychological Well-Being, Catherine E. Morgan

Masters Theses

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between family structure and life satisfaction in young adults. Additionally, the study examined explanatory style, parenting style, family cohesion, family satisfaction, and the presence of siblings as potential moderating factors between divergent family structures and levels of life satisfaction in young adults. Ninety male and 121 female university students completed a demographic survey, the Parental Authority Questionnaire, the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales IV, the Attribution Style Questionnaire, the Family Satisfaction Scale, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. As anticipated, results indicated that participants who grew up in single parent and step-family …

Assessment Of Preferences For Individuals With Severe Disabilities, Meghan Foster

Masters Theses

Identifying preferences for individuals with disabilities is a big challenge for behavior analysts, teachers, and parents. Some individuals with disabilities lack the ability to verbally communicate their likes and dislikes, or wants and needs on a daily basis. When a loved one or teacher mistakes an indication of preference and produces an undesirable stimulus, this frequently causes aberrant responses. For these reasons, it is important that an efficient means of identifying preferences for individuals with disabilities is devised. The following pages examine areas of research into the study of individual preferences for specific stimuli and the different means of assessing …

Anxiety, Graduate Students, And New Student Orientation Programs: A Quantitative Study, Megan M. Hullinger

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze the anxiety levels of incoming graduate students at a Midwest regional state university and determine if an online graduate student orientation program assists in lowering those levels. The researcher used the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Form Y-1 (STAI) to measure state anxiety levels before and after the orientation program was administered. Each participating student completed a pre- and post-test in conjunction with the online orientation program. Once the information was received, the researcher analyzed the data using a paired t test to determine if the orientation program lowered anxiety levels for incoming graduate …

Hannah Dustan: A Seventeenth-Century Text Still In Progress, Janice Derr

Masters Theses

This thesis traces the path of Hannah Dustan's story of captivity from its first appearance in the seventeenth century through today and explores the cultural history and significance behind her story. Dustan's story of her capture and bloody escape from the Abenaki tribe was first told by Puritan minister Cotton Mather, in his 1697 sermon Humiliations Follow 'd with Deliverance. Incorporating captivity narratives into sermons was not atypical, but it may surprise modem readers to find a story with a protagonist who commits murder in a sermon about humiliation. By examining primary documents and exploring the history of the captivity …

Quality Of The Teacher-Child Relationship And Self-Worth In Middle-Childhood, Hannah Ozier

Masters Theses

The quality of the teacher-child relationship has been described as having implications for the social, emotional, and cognitive development of children, in addition to future school-related outcomes, such as school adjustment and performance (Birch & Ladd, 1998; Hamre & Pianta, 2001). Previous research has focused on children in preschool or kindergarten. The purpose of the present study was to provide information about the teacher-child relationship in middle childhood by examining factors attributed to influencing the relationship. Teachers' perceptions of their relationship with students, measured by the Student Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS), was compared to factors such as sex of the …

Victorian Restriction, Restraint, And Escape In The Children's Tales Of Beatrix Potter, Mandy L. Dewilde

Masters Theses

The fantasy works of Beatrix Potter have entertained children of all ages for decades. Many children are familiar with the stories of Peter Rabbit, Tom Kitten, The Flopsy Bunnies, and the dreamy prints of fuzzy little animals in jackets and aprons that accompany them. The characters of Beatrix Potter’s beloved children’s stories have transcended the written page and been marketed on infant layettes, children’s dinnerware, stationary, bedroom linens, and even on cartons of infant formula. However, beneath these cheery stories, which seem to imply that children should perhaps heed their parents’ advice concerning socially accepted conduct. Potter’s …

A Narrative Study: Exploration Of Arts And Crafts As Meaningful Productivity In A Middle-Old Adult Who Resides In An Independent Living Facility, Sara E. Thornburg

Masters Theses

This qualitative study explored the meaningfulness of engagement in arts and crafts in one older adult who resides in an independent living facility. A narrative approach was used and one participant was purposefully selected for the study. Data was collected through the use of semi-structured interviews. Additional data sources included the participant’s book of memories, artifacts, and photos. Analysis consisted of thorough readings of the data and the development of a chronology from the participant’s stories and hook of memories. Participant feedback and peer debriefing was elicited in order to insure validity of the researcher’s findings. Consistent with narrative research, …

Examining The Effects Of Nurse Work Hours, Inter-Shift Recovery, Fatigue, And Sleep Debt On Intent To Leave, Amy M. Manderscheid

Masters Theses

The nursing profession contains dedicated professionals who work varying shifts with assorted time frames to recover before returning to work. The purpose of this study was to examine shift work, inter-shift recovery, fatigue, sleep debt and intent to leave among full-time nurses. Data were collected through the use of electronic questionnaires from a sample of 36 registered nurses from the Sigma Theta Tau Kappa Epsilon Chapterat- Large.

Findings revealed significant differences among nurses working 10 hour shifts and their accumulation of sleep debt in comparison to nurses working 8 or 12 hour shifts. Significant differences were not found between acute …

Approaches To Learning In A Classroom Environment: Observational & Experiential, Raj Kanwar Singh

Masters Theses

"Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has established a set of criteria that requires engineering graduates to be able to effectively communicate, work in teams with ethics and professionalism understanding the contemporary issues. There are different approaches for teaching and learning these skills, two of which are discussed in this thesis. The intention of this research is to understand the impact of observational and experiential learning on team and individual performance"--Abstract, page iv.

What Comes Next, Mario Podeschi

Masters Theses

A narrator named Mario Podeschi watches a character named Mario Podeschi be sent back in time from graduate school to his freshman year of high school. A twenty-four year old in a fifteen year-old body, the Mario character retains aH of his old memories leading up to Spring of2008 and tries to use them to his own benefit at his small town Illinois high school. Fifteen year-old Mario readdicts himself to cigarettes, chases high school crushes, and distances himself from his old friends. Not that his second chance at high school is a complete failure~he finds his soulmate in Saturday …

Cutting Back The Mask: Character And Coiffure In Fiction By F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, And Robert Penn Warren, Lisa Anne Powell

Masters Theses

Realistic fiction has recorded changing fashions of architecture and landscape, clothing and coiffure. For at least three centuries, writers of narrative have described the clothing and the hairstyles of their fictional women both to set them within a specific time ar place and to offer a key to their character. Hair as natural endowment and artificial adornment has served as an essential component to the character costume. Novelists have understood that women send messages, albeit sometimes unconscious ones, about themselves, their lives, and their feelings through the style, color and length of their hair. Writers have sometimes described women's hair …

Passage Through The Ocean: The Female Heroic Journey In The Novels Of Anita Desai, Jaime Pedigo Hendrix

Masters Theses

This study examines the female heroic journey in relation to the protagonists in three of Anita Desai's novels: Maya in Cry, the Peacock, Sita in Where Shall We Go This Summer, and Bim in Clear Light of Day. The elements of the heroic journey as described by Joseph Campbell in Hero with a Thousand Faces illuminate the journeys of Desai's characters, as certain of these elements appear in all three of the characters' journeys toward adulthood. The work of C. G. Jung is also central to this study, as his theories on psychological development are utilized to show the growth, …

Educated Mothers At Home: Motivation, Expectations, And Experiences, Adrienne Lynn Riegle

Masters Theses

This studuy explored the motivation for educated stay-at-home mothers (SAHНMs) to stay at home with their children and examined expectations and experiences regarding their decision. Twenty-two participants earned the minimum of a bachelor's degree or higher prior to staying at home with their own children for a period of at least 1 year and responded to an online survey of demographic information and open-ended questions. Qualitative data analysis led to a theoretical model of the SAHM experience. The model included 3 specific concepts: 1) individual interests as motivation; 2) commitment to and identity associated with the SAHM; and 3) the …

The Effect Of Social Pressure On Eating Habits Of College Students, Dawn Wilcox

Masters Theses

Food consumption is affected by a variety of factors including social pressure. A quasi-experimental design was used to determine the relationship between social pressure and food consumption in a restaurant environment. The study addressed the specific effect of one person’s decision to order or decline a second portion on fellow diners' consumption of beverages, salads, side dishes, entrées, and desserts. The research protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board. A convenience sample of male and female college students (n=65) participated in a one hour dining experience in a restaurant setting. Subjects were randomly assigned to the control or treatment …

College Debt: An Exploratory Study Of Risk Factors Among College Freshmen And Its Effect On College Choice, Renee M. Smith

Masters Theses

College student loan debt has become an increasing concern in recent years. There has been a steady increase in the number of students taking out loans and in the total amounts borrowed for a college education (CollegeBoard, 2006). The majority of college students will graduate with some amount of college debt, but some graduates leave school with much higher loan debt than others. It is important to examine what makes some students more willing to take on higher educational loan debts than other students.

The primary purpose of this study was to explore risk factors associated with educational debt and …

Motivational Factors Of Marathon Running, Donna Lakinger

Masters Theses

This study was created to identify the motivations of marathon runners, that is, why they choose to participate in marathons. It is hypothesized that motives for running a marathon differ depending on experience, age, and gender.

Participants were eligible to complete the questionnaire if they had run at least one full marathon. Age, gender, and amount of experience were not restricted. Volunteers for the study were found at the Health and Fitness Expo for the Chicago Marathon and through various online running groups. The data was collected through an online survey • located at www.myg3.com. The Motivation of Marathoners Scales, …

Searching For A Connection: Internet Communication And Mobile Phone Use For Social Membership, Cathy Marie Quast Sowa

Masters Theses

College students struggle to develop successful interpersonal relationships, explore personal identity and establish social group memberships. The purpose of this study was to explore measured levels of social connectedness and social assurance among undergraduate student users of Internet communication and mobile phone. Survey results indicated that the number of hours students used electronic communication tools was not related to their feelings of social connectedness on campus. However, the data indicated that students mixed electronic communication media to make connections, even to simultaneous use of mobile phone and Internet communication. Results supported the researcher's connection attachment theory, which proposed that students …

Barriers Faced By Hispanic Women In Higher Education Institutions In The State Of Illinois, Zoraida Irizarry

Masters Theses

The purpose of the present study was to ascertain the perceptions of Hispanic women concerning barriers to their career advancement to faculty and administrators in higher education institutions in the state of Illinois. Specifically, attention was given to issues of national origin, mentoring relationships, education, gender, culture, socialization, socioeconomic status, and financial compensation.

Qualitative one-on-one interview were conducted with six Hispanic women who were faculty and directors of departments at state universities. The interviews were tape recorded, transcribed into computer files, and coded to identify themes.

The findings of the present study revealed that most of the factors, excluding those …

The Impacts Of Economic, Political, And Cultural Globalization On Transnational Terrorism, Bradley J. Murphy

Masters Theses

This paper analyzes the impacts of economic, political, and cultural globalization on transnational terrorism using world-level data in a semi-log structure for the years 1970-2000. There are currently two opposing frameworks, which are explored in this research: destructive globalization and civilizing globalization. The empirical results are evaluated and each variable is classified as support for one of the opposing theories. The economic and cultural facets of globalization are divided among their support for the opposing theories while the spread of democracy produces strong support for the civilizing globalization theory.

"I See By This Woman's Features, That She Is Capable Of Any Wickedness": Murderous Women, Public Justice, And The Social Order In London, 1674-1799, Annie Tock

Masters Theses

Crime held a certain fascination for eighteenth-century Londoners. They devoured case summaries, ballads, broadsides, pamphlets, and collections of criminal biographies. In addition, they flocked to Tyburn Tree to witness the malefactors hang for their crimes. Then, like now, murders were appalling, but murders committed by women were especially shocking. While part of the interest in murderesses is attributable to their relative rarity, eighteenth century Londoners were also concerned with the implications of deviant women on the state of their society. This was a culture that firmly believed that women's subordination to men was critical to the maintenance of order. In …

Collectively We Unite On Facebook: A Case Study Of Egypt's Collective Action On Facebook Toward Social Change, Basma Botros

Masters Theses

The development of the famous social networking site, Facebook, has been associated with significant challenges to regimes that are characterized by being repressive to its citizens in terms of freedom of speech and expression, and mostly are third world developing countries that suffer. Egypt provides a good case study of Facebook ability to organize a strike among its citizens. April 6, 2008 is curved in the memories of Egyptians as a "general dissent day" that was initiated through Facebook and then was transmitted to almost every Egyptian citizen using other media sources. This paper shows how Facebook facilitates collective identity …

Women Candidates And Television Advertising: An Examination Of The 2006 Mid-Term Elections, Sharlin Aldao

Masters Theses

Television campaign ads are considered by scholars as the primary resource which candidates for national office use to introduce themselves and their views to the public, regardless of whether they are male or female. The majority of research nonetheless has focused on advertising at the Presidential and Congressional level. It has also focused on the use of negativity in their ads. Women candidates as an aggregate have many obstacles in terms of television advertising. The long standing stereotype of women as the homemaker and mother would lead many to believe that they should and only focus on women's issues such …

The Coordination Of Multiple Roles By Female Graduate Students From Three Different Cultures, Smita Srivastava

Masters Theses

This research studied the coordination of multiple roles by female graduate students who are mothers. Zika (2006) reported that working women in the developed world contribute 40 to 50 percent of the gross national product at the same time that they continue to be responsible for most of the household and childcare responsibilities in the home. Some researchers have suggested that having multiple roles can be deleterious, while others have suggested benefits. Because women from around the world today are participating in multiple roles, the present study investigated, using a qualitative research method, how three female graduate students from different …

Automated Estimation Of Time Codes For Captioning Digital Media, Daniel P. Harvey Ii

Masters Theses

Captioning provides accessibility to media resources for deaf and hearingimpaired persons and is mandated by federal and state laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, the process of creating synchronized captions for media is time consuming and labor intensive. Consequently, many content providers still do not incorporate captions into media presentations on the web.

In this research, algorithms were developed to automate part of the captioning process by estimating the timing of captions for web-based audio and video files using plain-text transcripts and their corresponding audio recordings. Recordings used in this study were of professional speakers/readers from American …

Comparison Of Dibels And Aimsweb Fall Benchmarking And Their Identification Of Students In Need Of Tier Ii Service, Lindsay R. Rickelman

Masters Theses

This study investigated the DIBELS and AIMSweb systems of data collection for fall benchmarking and their identification of students in need of Tier II services. One hundred and five students in the second through fifth grade from a Midwestern suburb were administered probes from both assessment systems during the fall benchmarking time period (September - October). The median number of words read correctly and errors committed in a minute from each assessment system were recorded and analyzed. Results revealed that student performance differed significantly, in that they read more reads correctly on AIMSweb probes and committed more errors on DIBELS …

Using Individual Growth And Development Indicators To Track Preschoolers' Early Literacy Development, Deborah Cook Pottle

Masters Theses

Several studies have recently reported the examination of preschoolers' early literacy kills with the purpose of establishing a trajectory of growth that can be expected by age group, socio-economic factors and developmental levels. The purpose of this study was to examine preschoolers' early literacy development to further understand the developmental timeframes in which children establish early literacy skills. The Individual Orowth and Development Indicators (lODI) were used to track the trajectory of early literacy skills in 6J preschool children over a period of four months from .Tanuary to April. The growth trajectories of the preschool participants from differing socio-economic groups …

Resiliency In Hispanic Middle School Students: A Direct Assessment, Randy Horner

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to identify the level of resiliency found in middle school Latinos in the south suburbs of Chicago. The Hispanic population is currently booming with the most growth coming from Mexican Immigrants. Many young Hispanics face munerous stressors attributed to cultural issues and low Socioeconomicstatus (SES). Few studies have examined resiliency in young Hispanics. Resiliency plays an integral part in adjusting to life, and a lack of, or passel of it can lead to maladjustment or negative outcomes. This study compared the level of resiliency between Hispanic middle school males and Caucasian middle school males. …

Predicting Eating Disordered Behavior In Adolescent Boys, Kurt Wagner

Masters Theses

Although much research exists on eating disorders, little exists regarding the prevalence and correlates of eating disordered behavior among males, particularly at the peak age of onset: early adolescence. The current study hypothesizes that eating disordered behavior in male adolescents is most correlated with self-dissatisfaction of musculature, then dissatisfaction of apparent body fat, drive for muscularity, their reasons for exercise, and body mass index. High school males (n = 148) were surveyed regarding these attitudes and beliefs, and about symptoms of eating disordered behavior. The purpose was to determine correlates of eating disordered behavior among adolescent boys, then develop a …