Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Life Satisfaction Of Elderly Parents And Parent-Child Relationships In Old Age, Tehchou Yeh

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is designed to explore the nature of the relationship between elderly parents and their children and to investigate the association of that relationship with life satisfaction of the elderly parents. The examination of parents' life satisfaction is based on the activity theory of gerontology. The life satisfaction is measured by Adams's eighteen-item Life Satisfaction Index. The parent-child relationship is viewed from the standpoint of both the parents' expectations of their children and how the children fulfill these expectations. Filial discrepancies between parents' expectations and children's behavior are analyzed to fill a gap in the literature on behavioral and …

Career Supports And Career Mentors: An Analysis Of Their Prevalence And Their Relation To Career Success And Satisfaction Among A Group Of Women Lawyers, Sandra Lee Riley

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated three issues problematic to the state of knowledge on mentoring. These issues were: (a) lack of scientifically derived operational definitions in use in research on mentoring; (b) lack of agreement about how common mentoring is; and (c) lack of agreement about whether or not alternate forms of career support are more efficient than mentoring. The information collected to address each of these issues was acquired in two phases: a literature survey followed by a sample survey. The literature survey addressed the first issue. It resulted in the formulation of an operational definition of mentoring which was based …

The Japanese/American Interface: A Crosscultural Study On The Approach To Discourse, Hitomi Tamura

Dissertations and Theses

This study attempted to explore one aspect of the communicative styles of Japanese and Americans: their approach to discourse. In a literature review, four distinctive characteristics were surveyed: linear/nonlinear presentation, inductive/ deductive reasoning, explicit/implicit communication, and analytical/emotional statements. The American style of argument was characterized by:

1) a linear presentation as evidenced by its preference for a sequential paragraph development, its reliance on logic, and its direct introduction of the subject.

2) either inductive or deductive reasoning.

3) explicit communication as shown by its emphasis on the use of concrete language, definite qualifiers, clearly stated conclusions and a wider perspective. …

The Correlation Between Expressive Language Delay In Children And Their Motor Abilities, Gail G. Cunningham

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of the present study was to determine the correlation between expressive language delay in children and their gross and fine motor skills. Twenty children five years through six years, eleven months with a diagnosed expressive language delay, were selected to participate in the study. Each was screened on the basis of normal hearing, receptive vocabulary skills, motor functioning, and an expressive language delay of one year or more. After screening procedures, each child was administered the Preschool Language Scale-PLS (Zimmerman, et al., 1969) and the short form of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-BOMP (Bruininks, 1978). …

Effect Of Tinnitus Maskers On Speech Discrimination Among Those Wearing Tinnitus Maskers, John Alexander Chonka

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect(s) of tinnitus maskers and tinnitus instruments on speech discrimination utilizing a population of subjects who currently have tinnitus and are presently wearing these devices. The hypothesis which guided this investigation states that there is no difference between discrimination scores with and without tinnitus maskers. In an attempt to test this hypothesis, speech discrimination scores were obtained from 26 listeners both in quiet and in the presence of cafeteria noise, with and without use of their tinnitus maskers.

The Introduction Of European And Asian Cultural Materials On The Alaskan And Northwest Coasts Before 1800, Herbert Kyle Beals

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis concerns the introduction of exogenous cultural materials among the native inhabitants of the Alaskan and Northwest coasts prior to the and of the 18th century. It is an investigation of the sources of these materials and the manner and chronology of their introduction. The research is based primarily on data drawn from accounts of native life by explorers and fur traders who visited the coasts of northwestern North America in the 18th century. These accounts are supplemented by ethnologic and archaeologic data collected by anthropologists in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Crime As A Routine Activity: An Investigation, Donna Scott Munroe

Dissertations and Theses

Crime as a social phenomenon has customarily been examined as sets of occurrences which happen outside the boundaries of the legitimate social structure. Research by Lawrence E. Cohen and Marcus Felson suggests that more fruitful explanatory models of crime may be developed from the routine activity approach, an approach which regards crime as a routine activity in the same sense that everyday work may be regarded as routine activity. Such an approach is consonant with the precepts of human ecology. Human ecology as a theoretical model posits an interrelationship among the divergent parts of the social fabric. In such a …

The Needs Of Older People As Seen By Themselves And Support Providers, Sarah Movius Schurr

Dissertations and Theses

This study compares perceptions of older people's needs from two vantage points: needs as seen by the older people themselves, and the needs of the elders as seen by their family support group. Two hypotheses were examined. The first hypothesis was that the elders and the support people would disagree on the needs of the elders. Secondly, the disagreement would be strongest on more abstract needs, like life satisfaction and contact with the opposite sex.

The Utility Of Alternate Theoretical Conceptualizations Of "Urban Environment" In Explaining Variation In Attitudes And Behaviors, John Conrad Allen Iii

Dissertations and Theses

The debate over what factors actually influence behaviors and attitudes of urban residents is the impetus which generated the idea behind this study. Urban literature suggests several explanations for attitudes including for example, alienation and anemia. These same explanations are assumed to influence behaviors such as: 1) smaller number of children, 2) involvement in voluntary organizations, 3) specialized voting behavior and 4) less kinship contact.

Rating Life Events : The Effect Of Experience And Point Of Reference, Richard John Alden

Dissertations and Theses

Life events inventories have been extensively used to investigate the relationship between stressful life events and the etiology of disease. In order to elucidate conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the use of these instruments, a Life Events Questionnaire was constructed and administered to 100 university students. Subjects indicated which of 40 events they had experienced and rated all events on a 20 point scale based on the amount of readjustment judged to be required by each event, both for themselves and for a hypothetical average person. Results of a three-way ANOVA indicated that in the majority of cases, neither the …

A Rhetoric Of Movements: A Dramatistic Analysis Of The Open Convention Movement, Gunnar Neil Farevaag

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to analyze the rhetorical strategies of the Open Convention Movement, a conglomerate of political mavericks who arose during the Democratic Presidential primary campaign of 1980. It consisted of both supporters and antagonists of incumbent President Jimmy Carter, primarily because of opposition to a proposed rule which would have required delegates to the Democratic National Convention to vote, on the first ballot, for the presidential candidate whom they represented in their state-wide primaries.

Psychometric Properties Of The Group Process Questionnaire, Lucia Igou Eakins

Dissertations and Theses

The Group Process Questionnaire (GPQ), a 55-item rating scale, was developed by Richard Wollert in 1981 to assess perceptions of the frequency of processes occurring in self-help groups (SHGs). The GPQ was first employed by Wollert, Eakins, and Dixon (Note 1) as the primary data collection instrument in an ongoing investigation of urban SHGs. This investigation is one of a small number of empirical studies which have attempted to specify the range of SHG activities. Due to the relatively recent emergence of SHGs as topics of research, and the unique obstacles to research presented by the independent character of these …

Tillamook Indian Basketry : Continuity And Change As Seen In The Adams Collection, Ailsa Elizabeth Crawford

Dissertations and Theses

In the Adams Collection at the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum, Tillamook, Oregon, there are 29 baskets that were probably made between 1880 and 1940. They are mostly of raffia, are somewhat faded from their original, bright, commercial colors, and are generally quite small. Despite the fact that these baskets are well-documented and were made by Tillamook women, they are the sort that have been overlooked by anthropologists and by collectors because of their non-"traditional" appearance. In order to determine what relationship these baskets have to Tillamook basketry made earlier, I analyzed them and 39 Tillamook baskets from four other museum …

The Work Values Of Secondary Teachers : A Comparative Study By Teaching Assignment, Charlotte Marie Klampe

Dissertations and Theses

The focus of this study was on the work values of secondary school teachers. Values have been defined in many ways. The common agreement is that values are standards, beliefs, or principles that do guide and direct a person's behavior. The values a teacher holds will influence a student due to the natural role-modeling effect in the classroom. With the advent of career education and exploration of the world of work, the values held toward work become a timely topic. The discussion of values and value clarification in all aspects of a person's life is one that is becoming very …

Sex Differences In The Language Development Rates Of Two-Year Olds, Laurel A. Hickman

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the language development rate of male and female children, 24 to 30 months of age, during a three month time period.

Pragmatic Conversational Skills Of Young Adults In Normal, Emr, And Tmr Classrooms, Jane Nicholson

Dissertations and Theses

Current language theory focuses on how a person communicates within a context (Bates, 1976a). A person's communicative competence depends on how effectively she translates her cognitive and social knowledge into linguistic forms to interact in the specific situation, following pragmatic rules (Prutting, 1982b). Thus, in order to assess a person's language ability accurately, the clinician needs to assess pragmatic skills as well as cognitive, social, and linguistic skills. A person's pragmatic development culminates in the ability to participate in a conversation (Rees, 1978).

Polish Foreign Policy And The Development Of The Conference On Security And Cooperation In Europe, Keijiro Yasui

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis concerns the connection between the development of Polish foreign policy and the evolution of the Warsaw Pact's proposals for an all European Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The first concrete CSCE proposal was put forward by Poland in 1964. It reflected the Soviet Union's interests as well as those of Poland's.

The proposals were closely related to the situation which World War II had created for Poland. During the war Poland was massacred by both the Germans and the Soviets. It lost almost half of its territory to the Soviet Union and was moved to …

Parameters Of Mental Rehearsal, Timothy K. Kelly

Dissertations and Theses

An extensive review of the literature of the phenomenon of mental rehearsal (MR), or the act of imagining oneself performing a behavior in anticipation of eventually doing so, indicated that MR could facilitate improved performance on varied motor skills. An experiment which drew from previous studies in MR, incorporated suggestions from.the literature, and used a novel measurement task was conducted. The present study compared MR to physical practice (PP), no practice (NP), mental rehearsal/physical practice combined (MR/PP), and interference mental rehearsal (I). Five groups of twenty subjects (N=100) played a hand-held video computer game in a pre- and post-test design. …

The Relationship Between Romanes And English As Spoken By The Portland Gypsies, Margaret Anne Sharp

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between English and Romanes as spoken by the Portland Kalderash Rom (Gypsies). Examples, taken from natural conversations which were taped, translated, and analyzed, show that the intermixing follows rules which guard the linguistic integrity of both languages. Code changing, code mixing, linguistic natural setting. A lexicon of Romanes words, elicited from members of the Gypsy community, is also included. The findings of this study support the thesis that this intermixing of Romanes and English is adaptive in that it insures that all members of the community can speak both languages from an early age.

An Analysis Of Women's Jobs In The Middle East, 610 A.D.-1982, Malakeh Taleghani

Dissertations and Theses

In this survey, women's roles (jobs) and their participation in the workforce in the Muslim Middle-Eastern countries will be discussed generally; moreover, some of the Middle-Eastern countries, such as Egypt and Iran, will be studied a little more specifically as a sample. The status of women, their education, skills, and profession, will be explained historically from the date of the Islamic period until today. The problems and factors that prohibited women from having outside jobs, social life, and equal rights in past and present times (from 610 A.D. to 1982) will be analyzed. On the other hand, the attempt is …

Toward A Behavioral Analysis Of Attentiveness As A Style Of Communication, Ray Alan Coker

Dissertations and Theses

Attentiveness, a variable of communication, primarily serves a stylistic function in the communicative process by providing behavioral evidence that an individual is actively involved in message reception. Past research suggests that while both verbal and nonverbal behaviors signal attentiveness, nonverbal cues are more closely associated with this construct. Among the many nonverbal behaviors of individuals in interactions, postural positions have been deemed highly indicative of attentiveness. At present however, most of the empirical evidence attesting to this notion has been established through the use of self-report measures. As a result of the felt need by this author to improve upon …

One-Third Octave Band Augmented Speech Discrimination Testing For Cochlear Impaired Listeners, Dianne Heath

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a 500 Hz and 3,150 Hz one-third octave band augmentation on the speech discrimination ability of listeners with cochlear hearing impairments. The results were analyzed both within the experimental group of subjects included in the present study and in comparison with data collected on a control group of normal hearing subjects reported earlier.

Toward A Phenomenological-Based Perspective Of Acculturation With Application To Scottish Immigrants, Dorothy M. Sermol

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is an attempt to construct a perspective of the acculturation of immigrants drawing on certain communication- based phenomenological assumptions. From these phenomenological assumptions a Framework of Acculturation is constructed as a guide through which to examine the acculturation process. The Framework of Acculturation is then applied to the particular group of Scottish immigrants who live in the Northwest of the United States.

Scl-90 Characteristics Of The Borderline Personality Disorder In A Day Treatment Setting, Jeananne Theresa Feagan

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this present study was to examine test performance of the Borderline Personality Disorder on the Symptom Checklist .(SCL-90). This investigation addressed whether the Borderline Personality Disorder has a distinctive profile on the SCL-90, and whether the profile is distinguishable in comparison with two other groups with mental disorders.

Pragmatic Deficits In Normal, Articulation Disordered, And Language Delayed Samples, Karen Jean Lucas

Dissertations and Theses

The purposes of this investigation were to identify, via the Pragmatic Protocol, the incidence of pragmatic disorders within public school articulation and language caseloads and a control group of normal students and to specify the pragmatic areas, i.e., utterance propositional, and/or illocutionary/perlocutionary act categories in which deficits occur.

Involvement, Social Class And Attrition In Higher Education: The Case Of The Stop Out, Terrence Scott Daugherty

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis tests the validity of three theories purporting to explain the attrition of stop outs -- why students interrupt their studies with the intent to return to school. Data were gathered at two schools, Portland State University and Reed College. Two theories, those of social class and involvement, were tested at each school as contending explanations of attrition by path analysis of parsimonious models derived by factor analysis. These theories were found to explain little of the variance of attendance pattern (less than 4.3 percent) at either school. No particular lines of causation could be demonstrated at either school. …

The Effects Of Overt And Covert Observation On The Clinical Behavior Emitted By Untrained Clinicians, Carol L.K. Middleton

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the effects overt and covert observation of live clinical sessions have on the number of social/ neutral verbal behaviors emitted by untrained speech clinicians and their respective clients enrolled Summer Term, 1980, in the Articulation and Language Clinic at Portland State University, Speech and Hearing Sciences. The Boone-Prescott Interactional analysis System (Boone and Prescott, 1972), a numerically coded system, was used to record clinician-client interactions. Data were obtained for a randomly selected five minute period from each of forty clinical sessions.

The Effect Of Causal Attribution And Self-Evaluation On Mood, William N. Werner

Dissertations and Theses

The present study was designed to test the causal locus hypothesis, and to develop and explore the self-evaluational hypothesis. The causal locus hypothesis is based on attribution, which is a person's perception of cause. The hypothesis holds that persons making internal attributions (self-caused) for failure end external attributions (not self-caused) for success experience more negative postoutcome mood than persons making external attributions for failure and internal attributions for success. The hypothesis was derived from major theories or attribution, but was not experimentally tested until recently (Wollert et al., 1981).

Log Structures: Criteria For Their Description, Evaluation And Management As Cultural Resources, Margaret L. Glover

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis discusses mining cabin sites from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as cultural resources. Special attention is given the concept of "description" in regards to discussion of the resource category, history, and physical attributes of the sites. Evaluation and management suggestions are presented for this particular resource category. To aid in the process of identification of log cabin notching, a typology of notches is developed and presented within the context of the thesis.

Congressional Power And Presidential Prerogative: The War Powers Question, Gerald Michael Worley

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is a study of the formulation of American foreign policy in general terms and specifically how hostility is initiated. War powers and who controls this authority is an age-old question. One can not simply look to the Constitution for direction. An intricate formula is necessary and the evolution of the nation must be understood.