Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Telepathic Assistance On Performance In A Visual Target-Search Task, James A. Wachtel

Masters Theses

Given the significant controversy regarding parapsychology and the study of psi phenomena, there appear to be opportunities to improve design in parapsychological experimentation through the use of more sensitive and reliable means of measurement. The current study was an attempt to introduce a design that employs time as an outcome measurement, the use of groups and individuals as opposed to just individuals, and the use of more specific and focused content through the use of problem-solving tasks, in an attempt to create a sensitive and replicable experiment in telepathy. Twenty-three undergraduate participants completed 12 trials each by finding targets in …

Predictive Validity Of Measures Of Phonological Awareness On First Grade Reading Achievement, Jennifer Hervey

Masters Theses

The purposes of this study were to evaluate the degree to which three measures of phonological awareness (Test of Phonological Awareness (TOPA), Torgesen & Bryant, 1994; Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), Kaminski & Good, 1996; Read America Diagnostic Tests, McGuinness & McGuinness, 1998) correlate with each other and with selected measures of reading skills (Brigance Diagnostic Inventory of Basic Skills, Brigance, 1976, 1977; Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery (WDRB), Woodcock, 1997). The study also evaluated which of the measures of phonological awareness best predicts reading skills in a first grade population. The current study is an extension of …

A Ghost In Europe: Right-Wing Extremism And Its Metamorphoses, Raluca Viviana Stireanu

Masters Theses

The main assumption of this thesis is that fascism is not an historical feature, nor a geographical one. The premises for the rise of fascism are beyond time and space; it can develop anywhere, anytime, in a certain context and under some conditions. These context and these conditions are to be explained and described in this thesis. I will compare the features of fascism in inter-war Europe with those of neo-fascism, and I will also compare the features of Eastern European fascims with those of the Western Europe; the main reason for these comparisons is that it was argued that …

The Relationship Between Sex Role Stereotypes, Domestic Violence Training, History Of Law Enforcement Involvement, And Law Enforcement Officer's Perceptions Of A Domestic Violence Incident, Kristen M. Schuch

Masters Theses

This study examined how police officers perceptions of a domestic violence situation are influenced by sex role stereotypes, domestic violence training and history of police intervention. Participants were police officers employed in sheriff's departments or city police departments. Officers received several surveys and a vignette describing a domestic violence scene. Officers were given one of two vignettes, one describing a situation in which there have been previous calls to the address and one in which this is the first call and were then asked several questions to assess their perceptions. Sex role stereotypes were assessed using the Sex Role Egalitarianism …

Non-Directive Play Therapy: Past, Present And Future, Jeslina Jayanti Raj

Masters Theses

The paper focuses on the history, research and future directions of non-directive play therapy. According to the history of play therapy, the first person to advocate studying the play of children in order to understand and educate them was Henry Rousseau. The history of play therapy is discussed with further details. Few studies have been done that empirically support the effectiveness of non-directive play therapy and there have been no investigations of therapeutic processes. From a behavioral perspective, it is understood that non-contingent attention in the form of attention, the absence of demands and the environmental richness of the playroom …

When You Aren't In Kansas Anymore: Computer, Research, And Library Anxieties Of Graduate Education Students, Rita Ann Kohrman

Masters Theses

Library anxiety is accepted as a valid, unique phenomenon and is recognized as a major stumbling block when writing at the graduate research level. Graduate students are woefully unprepared for the high level of technology found in academic libraries today. Many students are also unprepared for the intricacy of graduate level research. They discover their research skills are inadequate for computerized libraries when they return to universities or colleges for graduate studies after being away from academic studies. They must not only learn research skills, some truly learning for the first time, but also learn an online catalog, databases. Interlibrary …

John Irving, Female Sexuality, And The Victorian Feminine Ideal, Tara Coburn

Masters Theses

In an interview about The Cider House Rules, John Irving states, "It is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel" (qtd. in Herel, para. 18). However, in book reviews, jacket blurbs, literary criticism, and Irving's own writing, readers and critics and Irving often assert that he is a neo-Victorian novelist, and the Victorians were a notoriously political bunch. Though Irving does not admit to the political nature of his writing, the way he treats feminist politics in his fiction has drawn particular notice by the media, who often label him as a feminist writer. …

This Man's Heart: Masculinity In The Poetry Of E.E. Cummings, Willis John Whitesell Iii

Masters Theses

"This Man's Heart: Masculinity in the Poetry of E.E. Cummings" explores changing masculinity in the life and poetry of E.E. Cummings. The relationship between Cummings and his father, his first male role model, became strained when Cummings was a teenager finding his own male identity. As he rebelled against his father, a Unitarian minister, he began writing poetry in a modernist style under the direction of a new mentor, Ezra Pound.

Cummings' early modernist poems criticize conventional male roles and configurations of masculinity as outdated. As Cummings continued to grow as a man and writer, he confronted new realities which …

A Study Of The Effectiveness Of A Commercially Available Feedback Training Program In Increasing The Classroom Attending Skills Of Students With Attention Deficit Disorder, Janice M. Digiovanni

Masters Theses

The incidence of attention deficit disorder among elementary aged children has increased dramatically along with reliance on psychostimulant medication. Many parents and professionals seek alternative or supplemental treatments. Neurofeedback training is an alternative intervention that has been researched over the past twenty years with many positive results. The advent of commercially available systems makes neurofeedback training a more realistic and cost-effective option. Such systems must be shown to be effective and practical within a school setting.

This multiple baseline single system experimental study of three male subjects with ADD/HD confirmed that the Play Attention feedback training program by Unique Logic, …

Avoiding Pitfalls In Administrative Internships, M. Scott Korpak

Masters Theses

Educational leaders and researchers are concerned about the number of qualified candidates for school leadership positions (Tracy, G. & Weaver, C. 2000). In response to this need, many school districts are promoting administrative internships. Through this project, the author sought to learn more about the following challenges: What does the current research literature say about administrative internships, and what are some of the common pitfalls that administrative interns face, especially in the area of journal preparation and the corresponding guidelines of the Human Subject Institutional Review Board.

Through this project, recommendations were formulated for future interns and their advisors. Common …

The Effects Of Learning To Learn: Nine Years Of Data From Western Michigan University, Kimberly A. Morrill

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine what effect the LTL course had on student grade point averages and graduation rates at Western Michigan University. Three hundred fifty seven undergraduate students who took the LTL class between Fall semester 1987 and Winter semester 1995 were selected as the experimental group. The LTL students were divided into categories based on whether they were Beginners, Transfers, or Re-entries. The three groups of students were matched with control subjects based on demographic variables and academic history using logistic regression. Statistics were computed on all subjects in terms of the differences between the …

Using Performance Analysis To Increase Staff Compliance With Acquisition Programs For Children With Autism, Scott Traynor

Masters Theses

Improvement in the rate of learning on acquisition programs for individuals diagnosed with autism often depends on the quality of instruction delivered by direct-care staff The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a performance analysis on targeting environmental variables that were maintaining less than optimal staff performance for a least-to-most prompting procedure used to teach a hand-washing task to preschool children diagnosed with autism. Direct observations of technician/child dyads were followed by informant interviews with technicians, supervisors, and other key staff members that pinpointed variables that were maintaining/hindering staff compliance with a prompting procedure designed to promote child acquisition of …

The Potentials For Cross-Gender Mentoring, J. Douglas Penn

Masters Theses

The youth of today are being confronted with more diverse choices than ever. With trends like close to 70% of African-American youth (in 1994) growing up in single-parented homes, many youth are left to make these critical choices without access to sufficient numbers of trusted adults. As the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development Concluded: "Many young people feel a desperate sense of isolation. Surrounded only by their equally confused peers, too many make poor decisions with harmful or lethal consequences" (1989). The job of social policy now must be to match these diverse choices with an equally diverse supply of …

Reefer Madness: How Voters Responded To Medicinal Marijuana Initiatives In The 1998 State Elections, Ryan E. Wood

Masters Theses

In recent years, a growing number of states have witnessed the passage of state initiatives that have authorized the medicinal use of marijuana. The medicinal marijuana movement has circumvented elected state legislatures by relying on an increasingly popular form of direct democracy - the direct initiative. This paper briefly examines the history and continuing legacy of illicit drugs and the initiative process in the context of the movement for medicinal marijuana. However, the primary focus of this study is to uncover the voter characteristics that influenced attitudes toward medicinal marijuana in the 1998 state elections. This paper uses Voter News …

Attitudes Of Male Athletes In Their Last Year Of Eligibility In Division Ii College Athletics And The Relation To Their Academic Success, Brian Paul Bauer

Masters Theses

This study examined male college student athletes in their final year of eligibility and the relation to their academic success. The purpose was to find out if student athletes who plan on participating in professional athletics are relinquishing their academic responsibilities in college. Three male student athletes, who were finished with their last year of eligibility at a Division II institution, were interviewed. The cumulative grade point averages of each of the participants were viewed and compared to the statements given during the interviews. Results of the study were compared to the literature found.

The Role Physical Maturation Plays When Children Perform The Presidential Fitness Test, Anil M. Joseph

Masters Theses

The problem of the study was to determine the relationship between maturational age and performance on the Presidential Fitness Test. Seventy three subjects, boys and girls ranging in age from 8 to 12 years were involved in the study. It was the intent of the researcher to determine the relationship between maturational age and performance on The Presidential Fitness Test. The Roche, Wainer and Thissen (RWT) (Roche, Wainer, & Thissen, 1975) method of maturation was used to establish maturational age for all the subjects. The researcher used data that waere previously collected by Spring Arbor College for this current research. …

The Impact Of The Program For Athletic Coaches Education (Pace) Certification –Mivca Coaching Association, Heather L. Sawyer

Masters Theses

This study identified the level of awareness, and perceived usefulness of the Program for Athletic Coach (PACE) by the Michigan Interscholastic Volleyball Coaches Association (MIVCA) (n=296). The study further examined: (1) the extent MIVCA coaches are engaged in PACE; (2) the relative importance of content delivered; (3) the important content to improve coaching; and (4) what the MIVCA coaches believed their personal investment should be in a coaching education program.

The participants were asked to complete a survey that ranked the importance of the domains and standards found in the National Standards for Athletic Coaches (NSAC). Results indicate a relatively …

This Is The Price We Pay: A Study Of Divorce In The U.A.E. From Divorced Women's Perspectives, Wadha Al Nuaimi

Masters Theses

This study aims to answer these questions: What is the process of divorce in the U.A.E? When do women in the U.A.E reach the point where they can't stay with their husbands? Why does a close intimate relationship break up? What are the connections between social, economic, and cultural environment in the U.A.E and the divorced women who live within them?

Qualitative methods based on interviews of 20 divorced women citizens who initiated the divorce process in the city of Al Ain have been used. The study showed that there are six stages in the divorce process: disillusionment, expressing concern, …

“Welcome To Prime-Time, Bitch”: The Nightmare On Elm Street Film Series And The Social Problematic Of Mediated Quasi-Interaction, Jason Rapelje

Masters Theses

This thesis explores how scenes of conflict within the "Nightmare on Elm Street" film series articulate four problematic characteristics of mediated quasi-interaction. The exploration is achieved partly by turning these four problematic characteristics into four "metaphorical anxiety themes," the occurrence of which is kept track of as they appear within the conflict scenes. Afterward, select scenes of conflict are reinterpreted based around the concept of "pseudo-ontology," which is used to uncover the ideological significance of the main characters' actions. Overall, the findings display that the films' articulation of the four metaphorical anxiety themes, alone and in combination, decrease …

The Incidence Of Caregiver Reported Sensory Processing Disorders In Children Who Are Experiencing Traumatic Stress Reaction, Ann K. Viviano

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research project was to determine whether children who are experiencing traumatic stress reaction to childhood neglect· or abuse demonstrate sensory processing disorders. It was hypothesized that since neurodevelopment has been disrupted in children who have been exposed to trauma or neglect, sensory processing abilities may also be disrupted.

The Sensory Profile, a judgment-based caregiver questionnaire, provides a standard method to measure a child's sensory processing abilities and to profile the effect of sensory processing on a child's functional performance. A convenience sample of 25 children, with documented traumatic stress reaction due to abuse and/or neglect, …

Gender Differences In The Career Paths And Wages In The Japanese Labor Market, Machiko Kitagawa

Masters Theses

This study examines the gender gap in career patterns in the Japanese labor force, with particular attention to the role of education. A chief concern regarding employment for women is the worsening situation of college-educated women in terms of wages and employment opportunities.

Two cohorts of age groups, 25-29 and 40-44, are used to examine gender differences in career paths by educational level. The latter section of study examines the determinants of the average monthly earnings of male and female regular employees.

Analysis revealed significant differences between men's and women's employment patterns and wages during the middle ages. The study …

The Effects Of A Management System In A Non-Profit Association, Lori H. Miller

Masters Theses

The primary challenge for non-profit associations is carrying out the functions that meet the various needs of their members or Board of Directors with restricted income. In many non-profits there are numerous tasks to complete with few personnel. Existing literature on the topic of non-profit management has limited applicability regarding managing staff performance. The current study examined the effects of a management system that included weekly meetings, goals and feedback on the performance of four employees in a non-profit association.

This study was an ABC group design where Condition 'A' consisted of weekly meetings and goal setting, Condition 'B' consisted …

The Impact Of Peer Pressure On Self-Reported Alcohol And Other Drug Use, Daniel D. White

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of peer pressure upon eighth, tenth, and twelfth grade use of alcohol and other drugs. Data related to the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana were analyzed to determine the effect that peer pressure has on the use of these substances. Other relationships considered were sex, grade level, and race, based on the literature in this area.

The data that were chosen for this study included 141 Michigan public school districts and were based on the responses of 16,760 students in 1992-93, and 15,283 students in 1994-95.

The results indicate …

Is It Digitall? Who's Invited To The Digital Revolution?, Sarah E. Dempsey

Masters Theses

A significant issue surrounding the increasing dependence of U.S. society on technological products surrounds questions of equity. Research suggests that our increased dependence on technology has acted to further stratify our society in regards to gender. A growing body of literature which takes a critical stance of technology acknowledges that there are gaps between technology 'haves' and 'have-nots' (Aronowitz, 1988; Brosnan, 1998; Harvey, 2000; Loader, 1998; Millar, 1998), suggesting that utopian perspectives of technology need to be re-examined. Research has addressed issues regarding gender politics and technology (Caputi, 1988; Jansen, 1989; Millar, 1998; Zimmerman, 1983), yet little research has examined …

Adapting The Habitat For Humanity Model To Sabah, Malaysia, Rozita Abdul Manap

Masters Theses

Building sustainable housing and community developments through the Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) homeownership program, is one of the many ways that has successfully improved housing standards for low-income communities in the U.S. Findings show that this model can be used as a mechanism to stimulate serious programs and as an alternative to improve and solve housing problems.

This study focuses on how the Habitat for Humanity model can be applied towards increasing the benefits to the community in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Located on Borneo Island, Sabah is the second largest state in the Federation of Malaysia, but is regarded …

The Sense Of Coherence In Adjustment To Widowhood, Nora Dorothy Hartung

Masters Theses

The purpose for this study is to discover if a feature of personality, the Sense of Coherence, is a factor in the adjustment of women to widowhood. It has been suggested that women with a strong Sense of Coherence (SOC) will use adaptive behaviors and resources in their transition to widowhood. My observation at the church I attend is the reason for this inquiry.

The method used in this research is a questionnaire administered at six senior centers of Senior Services Inc., in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A sample (n tested. 50) of widowed women were tested.

A questionnaire was administered to …

An Investigation Of The Validity Of Selected Themes In The Career Perspectives Inventory (Cpi), Sharon Gherity

Masters Theses

The Career Perspectives Inventory (CPI), a recently developed career inventory examining ten different career development areas was investigated for concurrent validity using the My Vocational Situation (MVS) inventory for correlation. A second phase of this study examined the development exhibited between study participants of differing college academic standing. One hundred first through fifth year college students participated in this study. Results of research question one indicated there was moderate correlation for four of the five themes in common between the CPI and MVS (career decision-making, self-knowledge, career attitudes, career information) and some correlation between the fifth theme (goal planning). Results …

The Biomechical Analysis Of The Kinetics And Kinematics For Three Figure Skating Jumps, Laura Blazok

Masters Theses

The problem of this investigation was to describe the kinetics and kinematics of three figure skating jumps: axel, double toe loop, and double loop. Specifically, the researcher investigated impact force, kinetic energy, and selected kinematic variables of female skaters during the landing phase of the three figure skating jumps. Kinetic energy and impact force were calculated during three phases of landing: Initial, Mid, and Final. Each of these phases represented a third of the time spent in landing each of the jumps. The kinematic variables measured during the landing phase of the jumps were vertical velocity, horizontal velocity, shoulder rotation, …

A Biomedical Analysis Of The Walking Patterns Of Blind Individuals Who Consistently Veer, Beth Engler

Masters Theses

The problem of the study was to describe the gait patterns of congenitally blind adults who veer when attempting to walk in a straight path. Specifically, the investigation compared the walking patterns of blind subjects to the walking patterns of sighted subjects as described in the literature and compared the symmetry between the right and left sides of the body. Results indicated: (a) no significant difference among the three trials for pelvic rotation, foot position at foot plant, knee angle, shoulder rotation, vertical displacement of the center of gravity, ankle angle, thigh angle, foot displacement, left step length, and trunk …

Maximum Acceptable Oral Reading Speed For Voice Input Systems, Nirari M. Oda

Masters Theses

The objective of this thesis was to study the effect of vocal duration period and background noise on psychophysical oral reading speed. Ten healthy white males (21-28 years old) were used as subjects. Experiment one was designed to determine Maximum Acceptable Oral Reading Speed (MAORS) for an 8-hour period using psychophysical methodology. Results indicate that 114 words/min was an acceptable oral reading rate for an 8-hour day. Furthermore, 2 hours and 20 minutes is an acceptable testing period ( equivalent to the 8-hour day). Acoustical and physiological variables support these findings. Experiment two was designed to study the effect of …