Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Latina/O First Generation College Students And College Adjustment: An Examination Of Family Support Processes, Patricia R. Cerda-Lizarraga

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

First generation Latina/o college students are at a higher risk for not completing their college degrees when compared to other ethnic minorities due to added barriers and challenges of being the first to go to college. Researchers reported that poor college adjustment is one of the factors contributing to the lack of college completion among Latina/o college students. A few studies exist on the role that family support has on the college adjustment of Latina/o students and these yielded mixed findings. The central role of the family among Latina/o students and their support during the college adjustment period merits attention. …

How A Healthy Population Acquires Nutrition And Exercise Information: A Mixed Methods Study, Sally J. Hillis

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Faced with an overwhelming amount of available sources and different perspectives, researchers in the field of Nutrition and Health Sciences continually strive to identify key factors that shape a healthy lifestyle. Employing an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, phase one of this research utilized a constructivist grounded theory approach to develop a model explaining the process by which healthy individuals acquire nutrition and exercise information. Interested is studying a population identified by good nutrition and daily exercise, the researcher set the participant criteria to include daily consumption of 2-3 balanced meals, 45-60 minutes daily moderate-intensity exercise, and a normal BMI. …

The Family Mealtime Study: Parent Socialization And Context During And Surrounding Family Mealtimes, Car Mun Kok

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Past research showed that family mealtimes positively impact youth's dietary behaviors. However, the processes through which these benefits occur are unclear. Understanding the aspects of family mealtimes such as parent socialization and mealtime context can increase the understanding of how family mealtimes may benefit youths’ dietary behaviors. This mixed methods study identified occurrences around family mealtimes that might impact youths’ dietary behaviors. One hundred parent-child dyads completed surveys. A subsample of 40 families participated in family mealtime observations and 20 parents were interviewed. Quantitative findings showed that parents engaged in various food- and mealtime-related socialization behaviors like parent modeling, parent …

Exploring Deployment And Resilience Through The Experiences Of Army National Guard Youth, Kerrie Joy Rosheim

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Global War on Terror utilized Army National Guard soldiers at unprecedented rates, drastically changing their reserve role and the lifestyle of their families. This qualitative study explored what the adolescent children of Army National Guard soldiers experienced during the deployment of a parent and how they conceptualized and demonstrated resilience. Through individual interviews with nine participants, who collectively have experienced over 17 years of deployment during adolescence, and email survey results of their primary caregivers, the following three themes emerged to capture the essence of deployment for Army National Guard youth. Deployment can be viewed as “a mixed bag” …

The Impact Of Sexual Violence On Intimate Relationship Dynamics: A Grounded Theory Study, Nicole M. Lozano

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study intended to develop a theory that explains the relationship dynamics of opposite-sex couples in which the female partner has been sexually victimized as an adult outside of the couple relationship. Four couples participated in the study sharing their experiences of disclosing the assault, communicating about the assault, physical intimacy, and salience of the assault to the relationship. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach the model emerged from the data. Overall, the women decided to disclose because they felt secure in their current intimate relationship. Disclosure happened for one of two reasons: (a) either to test the relationship and …

Tacit Cultural Knowledge: An Instrumental Qualitative Case Study Of Mixed Methods Research In South Africa, Debra Rena Miller

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Notwithstanding the dramatic expansion of mixed methods research, research methodologies, methods, and findings are culturally situated. Problematically, studies conducted outside the global north often embrace canonical methodologies aimed at understanding concepts more explicit than tacit. Learning about the needs of researchers and participants in South Africa may bring to light taken-for-granted assumptions in Anglo-American orientations of mixed methods. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore aspects of tacit cultural knowledge that contextualize mixed methods research in South Africa.

In-person interviews among South African professors as well as a corpus of books, sections, journal articles, and theses informed the …

A Comparison Of The Effects Of Choice And Differential Reinforcement On The Computation Fluency Of Students With Escape-Maintained Academic Performance Problems, Maureen A. O'Connor

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation compared antecedent- and consequence-based strategies to determine which treatments or combination of treatments produced the strongest improvements in math computation fluency with four elementary-aged students who displayed escape-motivated behaviors. Functional analyses were conducted to identify elementary-school students whose academic responding was under a negative-reinforcement contingency. Next, a preference assessment was administered to each student to identify potentially effective reinforcers in the form of permissible school activities. These high-preference activities were used during the DRA and Task-Choice + DRA conditions. A multielement design was used to examine the impact of four treatments – Task Choice, DRA, Task Choice+DRA, and …

Adolescent Bullying: Do Weight, Body Size, And Body Size Dissatisfaction Influence Victimization?, Paige T. Lembeck

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The current study investigated how body mass index (BMI) z-score, peer context, and body size dissatisfaction influence bullying victimization in adolescents. Participants were 11-18 year-old patients at pediatrician’s offices in a mid-sized Midwestern city. Path analyses and percentile bootstrapping procedures were employed to investigate the research questions. A zero-inflated Poisson approach was used to examine whether there was an indirect effect between BMI z-score and bullying victimization through perceived difference from friends’ body size and body size dissatisfaction. An alternative model was investigated to determine whether BMI z-score indirectly affected body size dissatisfaction through perceived difference from friends’ body size …

The Impact Of Marital Quality And Parent-Child Relationships On Peer Relationships At School: A Brazilian Study, Brandon P. Eddy

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the impact that marital quality and parent-child relationships have on peer relationships at school in a Brazilian population. Despite the fact that Brazil is the fifth most populated country in the world, it is very underrepresented in the literature and little information is known about how marital quality and the parent-child bond impact children socially. Sixty-five mothers and their children participated in this study. Marital quality was assessed using the Portuguese version of the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale. The parent-child relationship was assessed using the Parental Bonding Instrument and peer relationships at …

Predictors Of Preschool Children's Body Mass Index: Breastfeeding Duration, Child Eating Behaviors, And Parental Feeding Practices, Amy J. Encinger

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The current study examined how breastfeeding duration, child eating behaviors (Satiety and Food Responsiveness), and parental feeding practices (Environment and Parental Control over Food) are related to body mass index (BMI) among preschool-aged children. Participants were 224 primary caregivers (M age = 30.36; 90% mothers) of preschool-aged children (M age = 4.22 years, 55% male) from three Midwestern preschools serving low-income children. Mediated multiple regression analyses examined the effects of the various child eating behaviors and parental feeding practices as mediators of the relation between breastfeeding duration and child BMI. Three main findings emerged. There was a significant …

The Emotional Experience Of American Indians Receiving Hemodialysis And How It Relates To Treatment Adherence, Anitra M. Warrior

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study used a phenomenological approach as an attempt to capture the essence of the experience of American Indians with diabetes who are receiving dialysis. The purpose of this study and this approach was to develop an understanding of factors that influence treatment adherence, specifically with mental health concerns. As an additional component of this study, this research also followed an advocacy/participatory approach (Creswell, 2007) in which steps to reform services are provided to the Indian Health Service in support of this marginalized group through a written Agenda for Change.

Participants for this study were recruited from multiple states serving …

A Study Of Life Skills From Traditional And Afterschool 4-H Participants, Julia M. Kreikemeier

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Cooperative Extension has been serving youth and their families for over one hundred years. The total impact of this service has been measured on several occasions by many researchers, most notably in the research of youth development by Dr. Richard Learner; however, his research only took into account those who participated in traditional 4-H clubs. The purpose of this quantitative study was designed to examine which life skills youth participants in traditional and afterschool 4-H programs reported. Quantitative methodology was used to collect post-program survey data of youth participants. Qualitative informal interviews were conducted of Extension Educators and afterschool 4-H …

A Comparison Of Population-Averaged And Cluster-Specific Approaches In The Context Of Unequal Probabilities Of Selection, Natalie A. Koziol

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Sampling designs of large-scale, federally funded studies are typically complex, involving multiple design features (e.g., clustering, unequal probabilities of selection). Researchers must account for these features in order to obtain unbiased point estimators and make valid inferences about population parameters. Single-level (i.e., population-averaged) and multilevel (i.e., cluster-specific) methods provide two alternatives for modeling clustered data. Single-level methods rely on the use of adjusted variance estimators to account for dependency due to clustering, whereas multilevel methods incorporate the dependency into the specification of the model.

Although the literature comparing single-level and multilevel approaches is vast, comparisons have been limited to the …

The Impact Of Treatment Exposure, Trauma, And Caregiver Involvement In Therapy On Children's Response To Behavioral Treatment, Mindy R. Chadwell

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Early childhood represents a time period during of rapid growth and development including physical development, language and communication, autonomy, and a wide variety of self-regulation skills (Campbell, 2006; Egger & Angold, 2006). Children vary in the rates at which they achieve these skills and they may challenge their parents through behaviors such as noncompliance and temper tantrums (Butler & Eyberg, 2006). Failure for children to adequately develop these basic skills can contribute to the development of behavior problems that lead to persistent problems throughout life (Whittaker et al., 2011). This study examined three factors that influence young children’s response to …

Conjoint Behavioral Consultation Via Distance Delivery (Cbc-D): An Evaluation Of Efficacy And Acceptability, Michael J. Coutts

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Despite greater prevalence rates of child mental health and behavior problems, rural areas are often overlooked by researchers in favor of urban areas that provide larger, more diverse samples. However, rural children’s problems manifest differently across home and school than what is seen in urban and suburban contexts. Conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC; Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2008) is an evidence-based family-school partnership intervention wherein families and schools collaborate with a consultant to address child concerns. In its traditional format, the time specialized nature of delivering CBC and time and travel commitments needed by participants limits the feasibility of CBC as an …

Perceptions Of Psychological Distress And Treatment Among The Ovambo In Northern Namibia: A Multiple Method Study, Theodore T. Bartholomew

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The biomedical model of psychiatric care and psychological distress has dominated the Western world’s approaches to psychological treatment (Wampold, 2001; 2007). Moreover, psychology has, historically, been exported wholesale beyond its Western base of development. Such exportation lends itself to the overshadowing of local psychologies in favor of dominant, universal psychology. Imposition of Western theory is further true in applied psychology insofar as how clinical practice and mental illness are defined. This study intended to understand the nature of psychological distress and treatment in a non-Western context – the Ovambo people of Northern Namibia. Little is known about the perceptions of …