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The Effects Of Altruism On Activity Productivity In Elderly Women In Skilled-Care Nursing Facilities, Carol J. Getz

Masters Theses

This study investigated altruism as a factor in productivity in elderly women. Eight groups of institutionalized elderly women (n = 33) stenciled personalized (initials) stationery. Groups were randomly assigned to either the non-altruistic condition or the altruistic condition; there was control for time of day and location of the activity. Subjects in the non-altruistic condition made stationery for themselves, while subjects in the altruistic condition made stationery for abused children living in an innercity. The number of pieces of stationery produced and the duration of time engaged in activity were recorded for each subject. Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that subjects …

An Evaluation Of The Effects Of An Infant-Care Skills Training Program On Fathering Behaviors, G. Joseph Vrazo

Masters Theses

This study replicated the findings and expanded the assessment procedures of a previous study that had established the effectiveness of a multi-component infant-care skills training program for first-time fathers. A multiple probe design was used in this study to demonstrate that the training program produced criterion performance of the infant-care skills by four experimental fathers; also, an increase in the frequency of infant stimulation activities initiated by these fathers was observed. A pre/post training evaluation of the effects of the training program on the fathers' performance of play and affectional behaviors and daily infant-care activities yielded negative results. Four control …

Power And Dependency In Close Heterosexual Relationships: A Test Of An Exchange Theory Hypothesis, Gregory L. Sanders

Masters Theses

Ninety-nine heterosexual couples were surveyed to test the exchange theory hypothesis that interpersonal power and relative dependency are inversely related in dyadic relationships. Controlling for gender, this hypothesis was examined through a path analysis for each of six groups: the overall population, dating couples, engaged couples, cohabiting couples, married couples, and couples treated as a single unit. Results indicate that males are reported as relatively more powerful than females, and this gender effect is found to increase with the permanence of the relationship. Relative dependency has effects on power which also vary according to the type of relationship. Self-reported "subjective …

A Study Of The Effectiveness Of Evangelistic Techniques With Chinese Christians: With Applications For The Mission Field Of Taiwan, Gregory P. Hunt

Masters Theses

The call of missions cries out from the ends of the earth. Many millions of people have never heard the gospel and are waiting for someone to share the good news with them. Some have responded to this call of taking the gospel to the unsaved millions of the world, and others contemplate all of the many factors involved in doing missionary work. Missionary work needs to be defined here as cross-cultural evangelism in a foreign country which opens up a whole new set of problems in analyzing missionary work.

This thesis will focus on the problems and issues facing …

A Comparison Of Wais-R Scores With Wais-R Scores For Mentally Handicapped Students With Iqs Below 70 And For Regular Education Students, Kimberly A. Brennan

Masters Theses

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the utilization of WISC-R scores as a basis for placement and continuation of services for mental retardates in special education classes throughout their school careers. A comparison of the WISC-R Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs with the WAIS-R counterparts and a statistical analysis was conducted. Regular education students were also tested to determine if the two scales were equal.

The WAIS-R was found to yield higher Verbal and Full Scale IQ scores, but comparable Performance IQ scores. These results suggest that the differences between the two instruments for children of …

Drug Addict And Non-Addict Offenders: A Comparison Of The Disparity In The Types Of Crimes, Sentencing Recommendations, And Formal Dispositions Of Each Group, Scott B. Courtney

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the type and severity of a crime and the offender's known history (past or present) of controlled substance abuse.

A random sample of federal cases between the years 1980-1985 was used to see if the offender's known problem with substance abuse had any impact on the severity of the recommended and actual sentence imposed on the offender.

Specific control variables such as race, age, educational level, and marital status of the offenders were also incorporated.

Personal, Professional, And Educational Characteristics Of Illinois Women Superintendents In 1987, Joyce Simpson Kaufman

Masters Theses

This study reviewed the personal, professional, and educational characteristics of the Illinois women superintendents in 1987. A questionnaire was mailed to the twenty-two women superintendents. Eighteen of them replied.

The three specific problems addressed by the study were:

1. What are the personal, professional, and educational characteristics of Illinois women superintendents in 1987?

2. What are the special problems encountered by women superintendents?

3. What advice do the present women superintendents in Illinois offer to women aspiring to become superintendents?

The responses were based on the perceptions of the eighteen women superintendents who replied. The questionnaire results were reported in …

Effect Of Nurse's Attire On Patients' Perceptions Of Trustworthiness, Marcia Diane Westrate

Masters Theses

This descriptive study was an investigation of the difference in patients' perceptions of trustworthiness in the nurse based on the nurse's attire. Eighty-nine men and women who presented to emergency departments in three West Michigan hospitals for treatment of non-acute illnesses or injuries completed a Trust Perception Questionnaire before being seen for treatment. Subjects were shown one of three photographs of the same nurse model in different nursing attire and were directed to choose statements concerning elements of trust that applied to the person in the photograph. Analysis of variance performed on data indicated a significant difference (F(2, 86) = …

Family Problems In The Background Of Mental Health Professionals, Linda Elaine Mccarter

Masters Theses

It has been proposed by some that students choose to study in mental health related fields in an effort to find solutions for their own personal emotional or family problems. Some believe that those who assumed or were assigned a family role of the good or parentified child (a role which requires that the needs of others be placed ahead of one's own) are over-represented among mental health professionals. Others contend that there are no significant differences in family background between psychotherapists and other individuals with a similar level of education. Little empirical investigation has addressed these issues. Studies which …

The Kalamazoo County Juvenile Home's Foster Shelter Care Unit: Toward An Evaluation, Michael John Underwood

Masters Theses

A formative evaluation of the Foster Shelter Care Unit was conducted in order to analyze the success/failure of the program during its firs t year of operation. Data on 77 cases were analyzed, and nine Independent variables and one dependent variable were bivariately tested 1n order to provide a theoretical explanation of the success/failure rate.

The evaluation was conducted 1n order to supply the Foster Shelter Care Unit with recommendations to enhance its success/ failure rate and to modify its existing policies.

The success rate for the unit was 48.1%, and it was found that the only significant association with …

Historical & Contemporary Reasons For The Existence Of 17,000 Unreached People Groups And Factors Being Employed To Lessen Their Number, Larry W. Lagrande

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Seating Arrangement On Affective Meanings And Group Interaction In Healthy Senior Citizens, Judith Ann Boughton

Masters Theses

Occupational therapists state that environmental factors (seating arrangements) influence behavior. This ex post facto study examined the effect of peripheral versus central seating arrangement on interaction (verbalizing and looking), affect, and group climate in 41 healthy senior citizens. Nine men and 32 women aged 62 to 83 participated in two collage activities (creative and imitative) in either a parallel/nonsharing group or a project/ sharing group. Seating arrangement was added to an earlier study's independent variables (creative and imitative activities, and sharing and nonsharing groups). Dependent variables consisted of three factors of affective meaning from the Osgood Semantic Differential, evaluation, power, …

The Uniqueness Of Christian Meditation, Edward L. Hedding

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Dual-Purpose Activity Versus Single-Purpose Activity In An Institutionalized Geriatric Population, Rita M. Yoder

Masters Theses

The use of purposeful, goal-directed activity has traditionally been a central theme for occupational therapy. In dual-purpose activity the participant has two goals: successful task completion and the making of adaptive responses in the activity process. This study compares the extent to which a dual-purpose activity (stirring for the purpose of exercise and baking cookies) enhances performance in contrast to a single-purpose activity (stirring for the purpose of exercise alone) in an institutionalized geriatric population.

Thirty women between 70 and 92 years of age were randomly assigned to either the single- or dual-purpose activity. Duration, exertion, and discontinuities were measured …

The Use Of Repeated Acquisition As A Technique For Establishing A Behavioral Baseline With Victims Of Alzheimer's Disease, Michelle D. Stone

Masters Theses

Three subjects suspected as Alzheimer's Disease (AD) victims were trained on a behavioral chain of three sets of three poker chips, each set differing in color and position, to investigate subtle changes in learning and performance behaviors over time. For each session the subjects learned a new three-response sequence with a marked poker chip serving as the correct response for each set. A within-session learning curve resulted for all three subjects with the errors in the learning trial (LT) exceeding the errors for the performance trials (PT1 and PT2). Only Subject III demonstrated a stable pattern of learning, with the …

Becoming A Nurse: A Study Of Aspects Of Professional Socialization, Arlene Christian

Masters Theses

This study examined aspects of the professional socialization of student nurses into the role of the professional nurse. Comparisons were made between senior and freshmen nursing students, between those 25 years of age and over with those under 25, between those who had two or more years of college with those who had less than two, and between those who were nursing externs with those who were not.

The results of the data analysis offered mixed support for the hypotheses proposed. Senior nursing students exhibited higher levels of professionalism in two aspects, while the older students, those with more college, …

Female Criminality And Feminism – Is There A Causal Relationship?, Heather Whitcroft

Masters Theses

In the past, many criminologists have viewed the collective sentiments of feminism as potentially crimogenic (Lombroso, 1985; Thomas, 1923; Pollak, 1950). Even female academics writing in the last decade have claimed the women's movement has a "darker side" (Cowie, 1968; Adler, 1975; Simon, 1975; Hart, 1975; Dening, 1977). Substantial sceptics appear to remain unheard amongst those who profess that "liberated" women are committing more masculine, violent, serious, male-dominated and occupational crimes. Such remarks are generally unsubstantiated by research.

Box and Hale (1983:36) suggest that "... those who are attempting to prove a causal connection between emancipation and female crime by …

Analysis And Trends Of Education And Employment: 1985 Fountain Central High School Graduates, Beverly J. Shelton

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived quality of education and the employment expectations of the 1985 graduates of Fountain Central High School and to gather current statistics on those graduates. Subjects comprised 103 graduates of a rural, west central Indiana public high school. The graduates were administered a survey to determine opinions and perceptions of education received, to determine whether they were employed or continuing their education, and to determine what trends may be developing or maintained.

Today' s students reflect a much wider range of preparation, as indicated by grades and class rank. The test …

The Free Negro In Illinois Prior To The Civil War, 1818-1860, Steven J. Savery

Masters Theses

Free Negroes embodied one of the great dilemmas in the ante-bellum history of the state of Illinois. Nominally a free state, Illinois endeavored mightily to suppress, exclude, and dispose of a class of people who were the ultimate result of the anti-slavery movement. While a majority of Illinoisans deemed the peculiar institution undesirable, they had no intention of accepting free Negroes as equal citizens. Free blacks were often regarded as dangerous and a menace to the well-being of the entire society. Yet, Illinois reconciled its apparently contradictory views on slavery and the free Negro to a remarkable degree.

The reconciliation …

Wit And Humor In Asl, Keila Tooley

Masters Theses

In his article "Linguistics and the Study of Poetic Language," Stankewicz (1960) characterizes poetic organization as "completely embedded in language and fully determined by its possibilities." The purpose of this study is to examine the form that poetic function assumes in a language that itself has a structural organization fundamentally different from that of oral languages and in which, accordingly, the possibilities for poetic organization are radically different.

In wit and poetry, elements of form and meaning—a linguistic system--are used to create complex multi-layered expressions with multiple meanings and systems of form and meaning. Similarities--and differences—in form, function and meaning …

Assembly Process To Collective Behavior Episodes, Karen M. Glumm

Masters Theses

There have been three major reviews of the field of collective behavior out of which have come a challenge for future research. In response to that challenge this thesis is the investigation of growth and dispersal patterns of one short-range non-periodic extemporaneous gathering from beginning to end.

A brief review of the literature will be presented to focus on what has been done with regard to collective behavior episodes. The research has been somewhat limited and has tended to focus on retrospective accounts rather than on-the-spot interviews and observation.

The research for this thesis was conducted on the day of …

What's On Tv? A Demonstration Of The Utility Of Contextualism And Content Analysis In Mass Media Research, Craig P. Gaumer

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis has been to develop, test and utilize a reliable method to quantify the prevalence of pro- and anti-social behavior on children's television as assessed from a contextualist perspective. Many previous studies in the area of television have arbitrarily assigned either pro- or anti-social labels to television programs without the benefit of analyzing the content of these programs

The few studies that have attempted to analyze the pro- and anti-social content of children's television have used only physical parameters to define pro- or anti-social behavior. Through the development of a reliable method of analyzing the contextually …

A Computerized Audio-Visual Speech Model, Joaquin Alberto Vila Ruiz

Masters Theses

"This thesis describes an expert system able to animate (graphically) and reproduce (acoustically) a text in any language which uses the Latin alphabet. A rule editor has been developed to create and modify the set of letter-to-sound rules of the target language. A parser has been implemented to apply the set of rules and translate text-to-speech. Each phoneme has a unique sound and thus requires its particular positioning of the vocal organs which are displayed in two different projections: a front view and a profile cross view of a human face in synchronization with the output sounds of the speech …

Selection Of Remedial Engineering Techniques For Dioxin-Contaminated Soil Sites ; Based On Site Geological Characteristics, Jeffrey John Lux

Masters Theses

"Specific geologic, hydrologic, and topographic characteristics influence the selection of technologies employed in the remediation of sites affected by dioxin-contaminated soil. These characteristics are significant in the selection of equipment and methods for excavation and materials processing.

The only currently sociologically acceptable method of treatment of dioxin-contaminated soils is incineration. As more is learned concerning the nature of dioxin sorption to soil particles and the mobility of dioxin in the environment, long-term storage in underground mines, and land burial appear to offer strong potential alternatives. Strong public sentiment against non-destructive remedial options would have to be overcome. There are also …

The Development Of A Program For Minority Dropout Prevention In The Decatur, Illinois Public School District #61, Priscilla Marjorie Palmer

Masters Theses

The purpose of this field study was to identify the need and present a workable model designed to address minority dropout prevention for the Decatur, Illinois, Public School District #61. The overall district dropout rate at the time this field study commenced was 26.6 percent. However, the dropout rate for minority (Black) males was 43.1 percent and 24.9 percent for minority (Black) females. The data shows that a problem of minority dropouts did exist in Decatur School District #61 and that a preventive program was needed to address this problem.The Program to Improve Student Attendance (PISA), was designed for use …

Analysis Of The Charleston, Illinois Water Supply For The Presence Of Organic Mutagens Utilizing The Ames Salmonella/Microsome Assay, Steven Lee Washburn

Masters Theses

Water samples from the Charleston, Illinois water supply and selected agricultural run-off areas were tested for the presence of organic mutagenic chemicals. The Ames Salmonella/microsome mutagenicity assay utilizing strains TA98 and TA100 was used to analyze concentrated water samples. A special set of samples was exposed to the S9 activation system coupled with the TA98 strain to simulate the mammalian metabolic system.

No mutagens were detected in any of the samples tested. Several positive and negative control systems were included in the testing system. Negative control systems were used to determine the average spontaneous reversion rates for each strain for …

The Depo-Provera Controversy: A Sociological Analysis, Pamela A. Hayman

Masters Theses

This study is a sociological analysis of the Depo- Provera Controversy. The strong programme in the sociology of science was the method employed for examining the social and political dimensions of the decision-making process underlying science and technology as it relates to the approval of Depo-Provera as a contraceptive in the United States. The data were consistent with the social constructionist perspective, rather than the positivistic view of science. In almost every instance, scientific conclusions followed alignment rather than arising from objective, universalistic analysis. Upjohn scientists and family planners concluded that Depo-Provera was safe and advocated its use; feminists and …

One County's Experience With Community Corrections: An Assessment Of The Harm, Charles C. Crider

Masters Theses

Most correctional systems include pre-parole community placements. This study followed 114 inmates released to halfway house placement in one Michigan county over six years to determine the harm these inmates inflicted on the host community through new crime during halfway house placement and for three years following parole. Their criminal behavior was compared to statistical expectancies of criminal behavior for similar risk parolees. In a second analysis, the volume and seriousness of their criminal behavior was compared with non-comparable parolee controls. In both analyses, the extent and seriousness of crime by experimentals were comparable to that of controls. Criminal activity …

Robbery: Toward A Multidimensional Approach, Dick Taver'shima Andzenge

Masters Theses

This study identifies some major factors related to robbery, categorizes them, and attempts to assess their interrelatedness. The major purpose of the study is to explore how these factors can be studied more effectively in an attempt to explain the crime. Data on randomly selected convicted robbery cases in the Kalamazoo County during 1979-1983 were compiled and analyzed.

The study shows that factors related to robbery fall into four categories. These are: (a) social factors, (b) Individual offender characteristics, (c) situational factors, and (d) push factors (or motivational factors). The results of the analyses showed that these factors are closely …

Growth Within The Single-Cell Church: An Examination Of The Current Attitudes And Teachings Among Church Growth Authorities, John D. Corcoran

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.