Digital Commons Network^™

Piecing Together The Puzzle Of Autism: Aspects Of Its Effects On Children With The Condition And Their Caregivers, Roula Markoulakis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

As one of the most prevalent developmental disorders, extensive research exists concerning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, gaps are still evident in a number of areas. Information pertaining to any costs and benefits associated with the experience of caring for a child with autism is inadequate. In Study 1, the lived experiences of married female primary caregivers of children with autism were explored, specifically by examining the costs and benefits of caregiving and its influence on the women’s situations. Furthermore, motor control deficits are apparent in many children with high functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger syndrome (AS), but need to …

The Effect On Response Complexity On Task-Switching Behaviour, Christina Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Research on task-switching has shown that when participants are asked to switch between two different tasks, they are slower than when they repeat the same task. These costs have also been shown to increase when the previous response is repeated; however, very little has been done to investigate the role of response complexity in this relationship. We manipulated response complexity by increasing both the number of stimulus-response pairs and the number of individual response components. We hypothesized that increased response complexity would increase both the switch costs and the response repetition effect. Results indicated that increasing the number of S-R …

Reading Comprehension In Adolescent First And Second Language Learners: A Comparison Of Simple And Multi-Component Models, Adrian Dominic Kenneth Pasquarella

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The underlying components of reading comprehension were examined and compared in adolescents who spoke English as their first (L1) or second (L2) language. One-hundred and nine adolescents (55 L1 and 54 L2) completed measures of reading comprehension, decoding, vocabulary knowledge, working memory, comprehension strategy use, motivation and print exposure in English. Overall English L1 students outperformed English L2 students on measure of reading and language, with English L2 students performing below grade level on measures of comprehension and vocabulary knowledge. Examining models of reading comprehension between groups revealed that vocabulary knowledge is the best predictor of reading comprehension for both …

The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status And Physical Activity Among Adolescents, Meredith Laurel Stockie

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Background: Many Canadian youth are inactive (Active Healthy Kids Canada, 2009). Socioeconomic status (SES) is one factor that influences youth physical activity (PA) levels; however, the factors involved in this relationship are not well understood. Given that numerous quantitative studies suggest there is a positive relationship between SES and PA among adolescents, but offer little insight into why the given relationship exists, the purpose of the current thesis is to study the factors that influence the relationship between SES and PA among youth aged 12–14 years through a qualitative lens.

Methods: Low (n = 2) and high SES (n = …

Birds Of A Feather Sit Together: Physical Similarity Predicts Seating Choice, Sean Mackinnon

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The relationship between physical similarity and seating preference was examined using two observational studies and one laboratory study. Using Campbell et al.’s (1966) seating adjacency formula, Study 1 found significant aggregation by glasses-wearing status and sex when observing seating patterns in a library computer lab. That is, men sat beside other men, glasses-wearers by other glasses wearers, and so on. Study 2 broadened this methodology by examining a wider variety of physical traits in university classrooms; specifically, race, sex, glasses-wearing, hair length and hair colour. Broadly speaking, multivariate tests revealed an overall tendency for people to sit beside physically similar …

Using Scripture In Counselling Evangelicals, A. Tim Span

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis examines how the Bible can be used beneficially and ethically as a resource in counseling evangelicals. For evangelicals the Bible is their “primary text”—an unequalled source of authority and comfort. Evangelicals begin with the self-attestation of scripture to its own reliability and usefulness (e.g. 2 Tim. 3:16–17). When the scriptures are used in a responsible way using sound exegetical method there can be real dividends for the hearer. With proper preparation and informed consent, the counselor who ministers to evangelical clients can appropriate the message of the scriptures in a way that brings emotional and spiritual health. The …

Mothers’ Experiences Of The Care Provided To Their Child With A Life-Limiting Illness, Carolyn Miguelle Ouellet

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this study was to examine mothers’ experiences of the care provided to their child with a life-limiting illness. This study explored mothers’ experiences in finding, accessing, and providing care for their children and their perceptions of gaps, barriers, and strengths in care for their children. As a secondary focus, this study looked at how these mothers understand pediatric palliative care. A qualitative descriptive design was used to explore the experiences of six mothers caring for children with life-limiting illnesses in urban areas of Ontario and Quebec. Mothers shared their experiences through in-person interviews.

Findings revealed that the …

Understanding Tourist-Host Interactions And Their Influence On Quality Tourism Experiences, Tiffanie L. Skipper

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In response to the rise in visitor harassment in tourist destinations, there is a need to further our understanding of its impacts on the tourist experience. The purpose of this study was to understand tourist-host interactions in the context of harassment and its influence on overall quality of the tourism experience. Tourist attitudes towards hosts is an under researched topic in the academic literature. Thus, this thesis makes use of the social exchange theory, tourism development cycles, and the concept of segmentation (traditionally used to explain residents’ attitudes towards tourism/tourists), to help understand tourists’ attitudes towards hosts. Similarly, there are …

Understanding Best Practices For Community Engagement In Municipal Contexts, Sherry Mcgee

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Engaging citizens in decision making has long been understood as part of the democratic process, most commonly recognized as electoral votership. In recent decades, the benefits of providing citizens a variety of opportunities for community engagement (CE) have been documented. Currently, few studies have explored the role of municipal government in engagement processes, and how engagement should be contextualized within municipal policy structures and practices. The City of Kitchener, located in Ontario, Canada is in the process of formalizing engagement practices through policy. In partnering with the City of Kitchener, five interviews were conducted with four Canadian municipalities and one …

Satisfaction With Sexual Health Education Among Recent Graduates Of Ontario High Schools, Glenn J. Meaney

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Satisfaction with sexual health education can be seen as student evaluation of how effectively the sexual health education curriculum meets its goals. First-year university students completed one questionnaire containing measures concerning satisfaction with high school sexual health education, sexuality-related individual difference variables, and intentions to pursue further sexual health education at the university level. Question 1 was whether students were satisfied with their high school sexual health education. Results were examined for differences by gender and type of school attended (i.e., public or Catholic). Participants rated sexual health topics as very important; believed that most sexual health education should occur …

Community Consultation And Environmental Justice In The Regent Park Revitalization, Jacqueline De Schutter

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The neighbourhood of Regent Park, located in the east end of downtown Toronto, Ontario, is the oldest and largest public housing development in Canada. In 2002, under its new management by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, the development was announced to undergo a total redevelopment to be completed over 12 years. The revitalization of Regent Park has involved, among other things, an extensive and uniquely designed community consultation process, as well as a redesign for its green space. The community consultation process is examined through a case study method, wherein the use of archival documents, interviews with community staff, and …

Made Me Who I Am: An Examination Of Grandparent And Parent Value Teaching And Young Adult Generativity, Identity, And Adjustment, Elise Bisson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Intergenerational value transmission plays an important role in child socialization. Although much research has been done on parent to child value teaching, there is little research on grandparent to grandchild value teaching. The purpose of this study was to explore parent and grandparent value teaching and how it relates to young adult generativity, identity development, and adjustment. This study involved 100 young adults, between the ages of 25 to 29 with a mean age of 26, taken from a longitudinal sample of participants in 2006. Participants were asked to tell parent and grandparent value teaching stories, in which they described …

An Action Research Study Of The Supporting The University-Ready Through Environment (Sure) Program, Natalie Brown

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The current research documented the processes and outcomes of an educational access program for women living in poverty at the individual and organizational level of analysis. The purpose of this study was to understand barriers, strategies to reduce barriers and outcomes achieved by a grassroots program: Supporting the University-Ready through Empowerment (SURE). The 12 participants consisted of three women learners of the SURE program, three SURE co-directors (including myself), three university partners and three community partners. Life narrative interviews were conducted with the learners with structured interviews conducted with all other informants. Additionally, focus groups were run with the SURE …

Globalization Mitigated: Human Rights, Corporations, And The New World Economy, M. Raymond Izarali

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this thesis, I argue for a set of basic human rights to constrain the practices of corporate entities in the context of economic globalization. These basic rights are derived through a concrete interpretation of specific articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. My focus is on constructing a middle-ground approach to economic globalization by building on the work of Peter Singer, Onara O’Neill, John Bishop, and Leo Groarke, but with particular emphasis on Groarke’s notion of a mitigated capitalism. The underlying objective of the middle ground is to secure globalization’s benefits and circumvent its harms. As I am …

Computer Integration In Elementary And Secondary Schools: Variables Influencing Educators, Julie Mueller

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Given the prevalence of computers in education today, it is critical to understand teachers’ perspectives regarding computer integration in their classrooms. Research identifying stages of implementation, and literature identifying barriers and supports, fall short of explaining what variables impact an educator’s ultimate decision to integrate technology in their instruction. The current research surveyed a heterogeneous sample of 185 elementary and 204 secondary teachers in order to provide a comprehensive summary of teacher characteristics and variables that discriminate teachers who integrate technology from those who do not. Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA) identified the following variables as making unique contributions to discriminating …

Neural And Behavioural Effects Of The Ginkgo Biloba Leaf Extract Egb 761, Elham Satvat

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Numerous studies have documented the cognitive-enhancing effects of standardized Ginkgo biloba leaf extracts (Ginkgo) both in humans and in rodents. In addition to its antioxidant and platelet-activating factor inhibiting properties, Gingko has been shown to protect cellular membrane fluidity, to enhance cerebral blood flow and microcirculation, and to modulate cholinergic system functioning, properties that have been suggested to underlie its cognitive-enhancing effects. However, the possible neurogenic-enhancing effects of Ginkgo on adult hippocampal neurogenesis as a possible mechanism underlying its nootropic effects have not been evaluated. The experiments discussed in the present thesis assessed such a possibility.

Chapter 1 …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of A Short-Duration Reading Intervention On Grade One Phonological Awareness And Word Reading, Carrie Seward

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the influence of a summer intervention for children showing early signs of reading delay. The project evaluated two intervention components: a two week camp for children and two training workshops for parents. Data were collected for five groups of participants. Three groups participated in one or more intervention components: parent workshops only group, child camp only group, and both parent workshops and child camp group. All children who participated in the interventions were identified by teachers as having difficulty in phonological awareness and word reading skills at the end of senior kindergarten. …

Phantoms Of Old Forms: The Gothic Mode In The Dramatic Verse Of Tennyson And Browning, Michael E. Ackerman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

My dissertation, “Phantoms of Old Forms: The Gothic Mode in the Dramatic Verse of Tennyson and Browning” situates Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning within a lineage of writers who experimented with the Gothic mode in dramatic and verse forms. This study is, in the first instance, an experiment in applying a specific strain of Gothic critical theory, one that addresses issues of gender, to canonical literary materials not ordinarily approached in that light. Definitions of the Gothic are notoriously elusive, and this project is not an assertion that the Gothic is always, in all of its manifestations, about gender. …

Saltwater Sacraments And Backwoods Sins: Contemporary Atlantic Canadian Literature And The Rise Of Literary Catholicism, Andrew Peter Atkinson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In the 1990s, Canadian readers were offered a new literary trend: the Atlantic Canadian Catholic novel. In this dissertation, I examine works from six authors whose writing reflects the scope of this trend and I argue for a consideration of their collective impact on our social imaginary. The bulk of my argument is devoted to an examination of the Catholic religious content in the five novels and one memoir: David Adams Richards’ Bay of Love and Sorrows (1998); Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees (1996); Lynn Coady’s Strange Heaven (1996); Wayne Johnston’s Baltimore’s Mansion: A Memoir (1999); Patrick Kavanagh’s Gaff …

Keeping Kids Safe In Custody: Youths’ Perception Of Safety While Incarcerated In Canada, Judy Finlay

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Keeping Kids Safe (KKS) is a study that presents an integrated model to demonstrate that the interaction between the predisposition of the youth and the institutional environment acts to promote or deter safety among incarcerated youth. The study illustrates that the peer subculture that produces a spectrum of violence within the institution is dependent on both the extra-custody attributes of the youth that affect his attitudes, beliefs and behaviours and on the critical influence of institutional attributes like program resources, staff/youth interactions and practices of social control. A predisposition that includes child maltreatment and exposure to domestic violence was used …

Acknowledging The Skeletons In Our Closet: Collective Guilt And Ingroup-Affirmation, Gregory Roy Gunn

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Just as people defend against threats to personal identity, they also defend against threats to social identity. In the context of intergroup transgression, the defensiveness against social identity threat has the effect of undermining collective guilt and its prosocial consequences. However, there may be ways for perpetrator groups to alleviate threat without undermining guilt. Five studies examined whether perpetrator groups are more willing to acknowledge collective guilt once social identity threat has been buffered by ingroup-affirmation. As predicted, Study 1 revealed that men accepted greater collective guilt for the mistreatment of women after affirming their ingroup. Replicating this effect, Study …

The Role Of Geospatial Thinking And Geographic Skills In Effective Problem Solving With Gis: K-16 Education, Niem Tu Huynh

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Effective use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) is hampered by the limited geospatial reasoning abilities of students. The ability to reason with spatial relations, more specifically apply geospatial concepts, including the identification of spatial patterns and spatial associations, is important to geographic problem solving in a GIS context. This dissertation examines the broad influence of three factors on GIS problem solving: 1) affection towards computers, geography, and mathematics, 2) geospatial thinking, as well as 3) geographic skills.

The research was conducted with 104 students in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Students were drawn from four educational levels: grade 9 students, 13 …

The Tactile Motion Aftereffect, Peggy Joanne Planetta

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The tactile motion aftereffect (tMAE) is a perceptual phenomenon in which illusory motion is reported following adaptation to a unidirectionally moving tactile stimulus. Unlike its visual counterpart, relatively little is known about the tMAE. For that reason, the purpose of this dissertation was to gain a better understanding of the tMAE using both psychophysical and neuroimaging techniques. In a series of five experiments the skin was adapted using a plastic cylinder with a square-wave patterned surface. Chapter 2 consists of two experiments, both of which adapted the glabrous surface of the right hand. Experiment 1 showed that the prevalence, duration, …

Intuition, Rational Analysis And The Relation Between Implicit And Explicit Attitudes, Mervyn Lee Whitfield

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Across four experiments, reliance on rational analysis reduced the correspondence between implicit and explicit attitudes relative to reliance on intuition. In each experiment, implicit attitudes were measured, and then participants were induced to rely on either rational analysis or intuition. Following this manipulation, explicit attitudes were measured. We found that participants reported explicit attitudes that were more or less consistent with implicit attitudes depending on whether they relied more on intuitions or rational analysis. Notably, rational analysis only reduced the correspondence between implicit and explicit attitudes when it led participants to consider reasons for their attitudes that were inconsistent with …

Constructed Identity, Subjective Identity And Inter-Subjective Transformation: An Exploration By Way Of Motherhood And Canadian Maternity Benefits, Patricia Van Katwyk

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

When identity is conceptualized as a fluid and ongoing process that is mutually influenced by subjective and constructed experience, an interplay can occur that engenders and signifies collective life. With an acknowledgement of motherhood as a politically and emotionally charged identity experience, and asserting the capacity of social policy to sustain a constructed ideology, this paper explores a conversation that occurred between 28 mothers in Canada. The site of this conversation was an on-line journal (blog). Using a participatory narrative action method of research, the mothers participated as co-researchers, conducting a narrative analysis of one another’s narratives and a policy …

Institutional Analysis Of Integrated Treatment For Co-Occurring Mental Health, Substance Use And Gambling Problems In Ontario: A Case Study, Gabriela Novotná

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation explores the institutionalized response of the mental health and addiction sectors in Ontario to the pervasive demand for integrated services for people with concurrent disorders. Building on neo-institutional theory, I argue that despite the fact that different stakeholders on multiple levels—provincial governments, service providers, and clients—have called for the integration of treatment for concurrent disorders, this integrated treatment is implemented as a rationalized myth and adopted only ceremonially.

This is demonstrated through a case study of two treatment programs that provide services to populations with concurrent mental health and substance use problems and gambling problems. Both programs are …

Personality Type In Relation To College Alcohol Use Motive, Rachel M. Manley

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Gender Biases In Hiring Practices, Heather Howe

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Perceptions Of Stalking : Level Of Threat And Victim Response Type, John-Gabriel Licht

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Body : The Human Figure In Contemporary Art, Amanda Unruh

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.