Digital Commons Network^™

The Relationship Between Teachers' Theoretical Orientations To Reading And Their Verbal Feedback To Students During Oral Reading, Kathleen A. Swann

Open Access Dissertations

This study examined the link between theory and practice as evidenced in the relationship between teachers' beliefs and the decisions they make during instruction. It is embedded within research on teacher change during times of educational reform (Cuban, 1993; Darling-Hammond, 1997; Sarason, 1996) and in reading theory (Shannon, 1992). The specific role of belief in the change process is unclear (Guskey, 1986; Richardson, 1990). Beliefs were explored through the construct of theoretical orientation (blend of teachers' beliefs and knowledge) to reading. Decisions were observed through the verbal feedback teachers gave during oral reading instruction. The study was designed to triangulate …

The Effectiveness Of Transitional Bilingual Education On The Reading Performance Of Cape Verdean Students From Crioulo-Speaking Homes, Kay Helene Wood

Open Access Dissertations

This research examines the reading performance in English of Cape Verdean students who received three years of Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) in comparison to the performance of Cape Verdean students who did not receive TBE or other bilingual language services. It also compares the performance of Cape Verdean students in grade five to their performance in grade six. Lastly, it compares the students' performance with that of the district-wide population at the same grade levels. Results on the reading subtest of the California Achievement Test, Fifth Edition (CAT/5) administered in grades five and six are used for comparisons. ANOVA is …

Sexual Negotiation And The Influence Of Gender And Power In Heterosexually Active Men And Women, Seth Michael Noar

Open Access Dissertations

This study had four main goals: (1) to develop a psychometrically valid condom influence strategy scale (CISS) on a college sample; (2) to examine the relationship of these influence strategies to variables from HIV risk reduction models; (3) to further validate this scale in a sample of at-risk community adults; and (4) to discuss how gender, power, and interpersonal variables such as influence strategies can be integrated into current models of HIV risk reduction. In Study One, a sample of 471 sexually active college students was split in two for exploratory (N = 201) and confirmatory (N = 270) analyses. …

Examining The Structural And Philosophical Positions Of Community-Based Organization Practitioners, Dana Scott Mills

Open Access Dissertations

Research examining the gap between science and practice in community health promotion often acknowledges the relevance of differing philosophies between science and practice populations and their relative influence on technology transfer. However, few studies have examined the nature of the philosophical differences on the adoption of science-based health promotion and prevention program adoption. This dissertation explored the paradigmatic views and philosophical orientations of community-based prevention providers with a focus on how paradigm differences between researchers and practitioners sustain gaps and block the transfer of technology (a.k.a., diffusion of innovations, utilization of research findings, adopting science-based programs) in community health promotion …

School Psychologists' Knowledge Of Family Violence And Their Identification Of Children From Violent Homes, Anne Maile Lamoureux

Open Access Dissertations

This study assessed school psychologists' knowledge of family violence. Three major questions were addressed: (1) Does a school psychologists' educational, specialized training and perceived experience level affect their knowledge about family violence symptomology, risk factors and facts? (2) Does a school psychologists' educational, specialized training and perceived experience level affect their assessment of a child's risk level and choice of an intervention? (3) Do the age, gender, and behaviors of a child influence participants' assessment of the child's risk level and their choice of an intervention? A random, national sample of school psychologists was mailed the instrument. Information was collected …

The Relationship Of Community And Prevention Coalition Characteristics To Rates Of Adolescent Substance Abuse, Ilene Klein

Open Access Dissertations

This study explored the relationship between community and coalition characteristics in predicting community-wide rates of adolescent substance use. Coalition characteristics (i.e., ratings of the quality of prevention plans, key informants ratings of the perceived effectiveness of the coalition in the community) and characteristics of 20 different communities in Rhode Island (i.e., median family income, amount of funding each community received for prevention) were examined to determine which were better predictors of the community-wide variability in eighth grader's self-reported alcohol use between 1993 and 1995. Due to the multilevel nature of the data used in this study the Hierarchical Linear Modeling …

Nonviolence Training Program Evaluation, Maram Hallak

Open Access Dissertations

There has been much recent attention given to conflict resolution and nonviolence training programs in the face of problems of violence in our society. The Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island was founded to provide nonviolence training to students of the university and community members. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Center's Nonviolence Training Program, based on Martin Luther King's approaches, designed to teach participants nonviolence methods as a way of life. A qualitative study gathered information and established the overall expectations of the parties involved. Focus groups …

Development, Validation And Factorial Invariance Of Transtheoretical Model Measures For Recovery From Anorexia Nervosa And Bulimia Nervosa, Patricia Janet Jordan

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to advance understanding of the self-change process in recovery from anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) through: (a) development of a staging instrument for recovery from BN; (b) development of TTM-based measures, including decisional balance, self-efficacy, and processes of change; (c) invariance testing of these measures across AN and BN subsamples; and (d) characteristic description of individuals at each stage of change. The sample (N = 427) was composed of AN subgroup (n = 278) and BN subgroup (n = 149) who completed questionnaires measuring all constructs of the TTM, as well as …

Embedded Impediments To Joint Venture Success: A New Institutional Theory Perspective On Negotiating With Russian Principals, Valentin H. Pashtenko

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation challenges the current prevalent view (found in the research literature) that learning does not occur during periods of economic upheaval. In particular, it examines the various types of negotiating behavior that Russian business executives have developed during a period of rapid social change. Using a qualitative methodology, this research project has distilled three different mindsets about negotiating at the bargaining table that Russian business executives have developed. This dissertation then uses a quantitative methodology to examine whether New Institutional Theory (NIT) offers the best possible explanation of why these three executive mindsets have emerged during this time. The …

The Effects Of The Intensity Of Conflict And Commitment On Marketing Channel Partnership Survival, Elizabeth F. Purinton

Open Access Dissertations

The survival of marketing channel partnerships is important to both the buyer and the seller. Dissolution would entail loss of sales and partnership-specific assets, and would require outlay of time, money and effort to find and invest in a new partnership. Unfortunately for both practitioners and academicians, little is known about the maintenance and dissolution of partnerships despite the call for research put forth by Frazier (1983, 1999), Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987), and Ping (1993). The intent of this paper is to examine several relationships within partnership dynamics. First, are the roles of commitment and conflict and their potential …

The Relationship Between Teacher Perceptions Of Self, Others, And Instructional Methods And Intentions To Teach Hiv/Aids Prevention, Lindsey Knight Pineo

Open Access Dissertations

This study was designed to investigate the potential relationships between elementary school teachers' perceptions about curriculum content and methods of instruction and teachers' decisions to teach, or not teach, about HIV/AIDS prevention behaviors as part of a required school health education curriculum for students in grades kindergarten through five. The Elementary School Health Education Profile (ESHEP), a teacher self-report survey was used to assess teachers' perceptions about curriculum and methods of instruction. Mailings of the ESHEP were sent to all public elementary school teachers in one of the northeastern United States with the request that participation be restricted to teachers …

Movin' On Up To The 21st Century: Multiculturalism… Making The Abstract Applied, Vonda Dionne Jones-Hudson

Open Access Dissertations

The following evaluative study looks at a psychology department's organizational development and change process. Using the Multicultural Environment Inventory (MEI) (Pope-Davis & Liu, 1995), the Departmental Cross Reference to the MEI (DCR-MEI) (Jones-Hudson, 1997), and a short version of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Reynolds, 1982), this research assessed the psychometric properties of the surveys and the effects of the 3-year intervention designed to assist the University of Rhode Island's Psychology Department in its journey towards multicultural proficiency. Using information from an initial consult in 1995, data was collected in 1998 to measure change specific to the environment and curricula …

An Analysis Of Rhode Island Child Opportunity Zones Through The Lens Of Whole-School Change, Susan Patricia Casey Torrey

Open Access Dissertations

This study investigated Rhode Island Child Opportunity Zones (COZ), a school-linked service integration initiative that provides students and their families' links to health, mental health, and social services. Twenty-one elementary and three middle COZ schools were compared to twenty-one and three middle matched schools on a whole school level utilizing the High Performance Learning Communities Assessment, which is a comprehensive measure of school change. Comparison schools were matched on student demographics of gender, ethnicity, and free lunch status. Schools were compared on hundreds of variables across various stakeholders, including parents, school staff, school administrators, and students. The study found limited …

Cultural Conditioning And Mother/Daughter Conflicts In The Development Of Identity And Voice: The Autobiographical Fiction Of Dorothy Allison, Wan-So Pak, And Maxine Hong Kingston, Eunjoo Woo

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines the fictionalized autobiographies of three women writers from different cultures and ethnicities and analyzes the development of female identity, subjectivity, and voice through the mother/daughter relationships in Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out Of Carolina, Wan-So Pak's The Naked Tree and Mother's Stake 1, and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. These three women writers introduce the mother/daughter conflicts and suggest ways to reconcile with each other or to solve their problems in their particular and cultural contexts. Also, in spite of their cultural differences, all three women writers share their belief that the process of the daughter's search …

The Speed Of Money: Investment As Consumption In Age Of Computer-Mediated Communication, Detlev Zwick

Open Access Dissertations

Using the tools of interpretive consumer research my dissertation explores individual online investing in stocks and mutual funds. Investing in the stock market means more to the individual than the pursuit of a rational financial strategy. Approaches to study investment behavior developed by disciplines such as finance and economics have produced subject-specific but from a marketing perspective empty knowledge. An analysis informed by marketing and consumer theories is able to construe investing as consuming and bring into being a richer and more contextualized description of the lived experience of online investing. Based on a hermeneutic reading of 30 in-depth one-on-one …

Integrating The Transtheoretical Model: A Quantitative Analysis In The Area Of Sun Exposure, Janet L. Johnson

Open Access Dissertations

The constructs involved in the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) have been shown to have similar relationships to the Stages of Change across a variety of behaviors. While much work has been done investigating the way the constructs interact cross-sectionally and longitudinally, a completely integrated look at all the constructs of the TTM has not yet been successful. This study integrated all constructs of the TTM related to increase of sun protective behavior across three time points.

The sample used in this study is a portion of a sample collected for three larger, multiple behavior intervention studies. Assessments were collected at baseline, …

The Potential Clinical Utility Of Methods For Estimating Prior Standing In Specific Cognitive Domains: A Feasibility And Illustration Study, Stephen Correia

Open Access Dissertations

This study evaluated the viability of a potential strategy for improving the detection of cognitive decline over currently available IQ-based methods. The proposed strategy makes use of differential cognitive effects across different neurocognitive disorders. It involves examining estimated/obtained difference scores (D-scores) for the specific cognitive domain(s) (SCDs) most affected by a disorder. The current study undertook a broad feasibility test of the strategy as a preliminary step in the development of specific cognitive domain estimation methods (SCDEMs). Clinical and control group score distributions were reconstructed from IQ and SCD test (SCDT) means and standard deviations reported in previously published studies …

Effects Of Reading Disability In Adolescents On Self-Concept And Future Expectations, Miriam I. Meyer

Open Access Dissertations

This study investigated whether reading problems affect adolescents' self-concept and examined adolescent opinions regarding the consequences of reading ability. Three groups of adolescents participated: 68 special education students (SE), 41 regular education poor readers (REP), and 164 regular education students (RE). Two surveys were administered to the participants, the Multidimensional Self Concept Scale (MSCS) and the Meyer Reading Opinion Survey (MROS), along with standardized measures of reading ability and intelligence.

Results indicated that on the MSCS, RE students had significantly higher academic self-concept than REP and SE students; differences were not noted between the latter two groups. RE students also …

Childhood Trauma, Family Functioning And Adult Health: Protective Factors As Mediating Variables, Jennifer Ann Morrow

Open Access Dissertations

The current study looked at the plausibility of two theories: Social Cognitive Theory and Survivor Theory to explain the interrelationships between childhood trauma, family functioning, protective factors, and adult health. The interrelationships among these constructs were explored with a sample of 451 undergraduate students . Structural equation models revealed that there is a mediational relationship between childhood trauma and health through social support. This relationship was similar for men and women. Cluster analysis and multivariate analysis of covariance revealed that individuals with high levels of all the childhood traumas (physical, psychological, and sexual abuse) have significantly more physical and psychological …

Development And Initial Validation Of A Structured Interview For The Detection Of Malingered Mild Head Injury, Margaret Anne Ackley

Open Access Dissertations

Neuropsychologists often assess individuals involved in litigation, and who may be in a position to obtain significant financial compensation. Malingering measures are often employed in these assessments, however, the accuracy of these measures may be less than satisfactory. Most malingering measures are not targeted to mild head injury, a very common type of claim. The goal of this research was to begin the development and validation of a measure specifically designed to detect malingering of mild head injury symptoms. More accurate assessment can help identify false claims, and also establish the merit of genuine claims.

A 472-item questionnaire was developed …

African American Identity, Experience With Racism, And Meaning In Life Among Black College Students, Brian L. Ragsdale

Open Access Dissertations

Experience with racism and its relationship to meaning in life (i.e., the degree to which a person feels the world is a safe and caring place), African American identity, and African American acculturation were explored in a sample of Black college students (N = 48) who attended a predominately White, public, state university in the Northeastern United States. Black men and women who have Black nationalistic ideals and were immersed in Black culture reported more lifetime racist experience than those students who were less immersed in African American culture. As a group, Black women who were under the age of …

Recovered And Continuous Memories Of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Quantitative And Qualitative Analysis, Linda Ribble Stoler

Open Access Dissertations

This study is an in-depth examination of women who reported childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Among a non-clinical sample of 26 women, ages 22 - 65, 11 reported they had always remembered CSA (continuous memories) and 15 reported they had forgotten CSA for some period of their lives (delayed memories). Participants completed a questionnaire which included demographics, abuse history, therapy history, symptom checklists, Family Functioning Scale, Dissociative Experiences Scale, and the Adult Sexual Victimization Scale, and were then interviewed. Eighty-six percent of women with delayed, and 46% with continuous, memories reported corroboration. Only one woman reported a therapist was the first …

Integrating Theories And Methods In Assessing Longitudinal Change In Heterosexual Hiv Risk Among Women, Gary J. Burkholder

Open Access Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Efficacy Of The Rhode Island Teen Dating Violence Prevention Program (Tdvpp): A Process And Outcome Approach To Determining The Success Of Both Primary And Secondary Prevention Projects, Amy Beth Silverman

Open Access Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Relating Objective And Subjective Measures Of Water Quality In The Travel Cost Method: An Application To The Peconic Estuary System, Jerry Diamantides

Open Access Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Boundedness, Global Stability, And Periodicity Of Some Difference Equations, Norman Ray Prokup

Open Access Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Teacher Opinions About The Nature And Treatment Of Reading Deficits In Adolescents, William Vincent Catone

Open Access Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Emergent Readers' Joint Text Construction: A Descriptive Study Of Reading In Social Context, Mary Lee Prescott Griffin

Open Access Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Of Children's Timing Abilities As A Model For Understanding The Nature Of Adhd Deficits, Timothy John Heitzman

Open Access Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Historical Uncertainty And Moral Ambiguity In Postwar America: An Examination Of Selected Black Humor Novels Of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, Jeffrey Matthew Foster

Open Access Dissertations

No abstract provided.