Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Enduring Mythological Role Of The Anonymous Source Deep Throat, Shana Lyris Hamilton

Theses and Dissertations

Deep Throat is one of the most famous anonymous newspaper sources in American journalism. He is known for helping Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's impeachment and resignation in 1974. Deep Throat's identity was a source of curiosity until he was revealed in 2005 as the former number two figure at the FBI, William Mark Felt. This thesis will show that, despite Felt's notoriety, Deep Throat was not an indispensable part of Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate coverage, speaking with Woodward 16 times about Watergate during the reporters' coverage. …

Changing Nature: Globalization And Economic Reforms In Brazil, Lucas Gimenes Loureiro

Theses and Dissertations

Globalization is affecting our lives in ways that we never expected before. Greater interdependence, some scholars argue, weakens the ability of nation-states to retain their authority over individuals and corporations. However, nation-states are highly adaptable and they have the power to maintain their primacy .

Governments have the ability to choose which model of development their economies should pursue. Thus, based on the choice of economic model, nation-states shape their economies and the way business operates within it. In other words, governments will essentially steer their economies in a certain direction, even though they cannot determine the exact path that …

Theory Of Effectiveness Measurement, Richard K. Bullock

Theses and Dissertations

Effectiveness measures provide decision makers feedback on the impact of deliberate actions and affect critical issues such as allocation of scarce resources, as well as whether to maintain or change existing strategy. Currently, however, there is no formal foundation for formulating effectiveness measures. This research presents a new framework for effectiveness measurement from both a theoretical and practical view. First, accepted effects-based principles, as well as fundamental measurement concepts are combined into a general, domain independent, effectiveness measurement methodology. This is accomplished by defining effectiveness measurement as the difference, or conceptual distance from a given system state to some reference …

Behavior Problems In Children Of Battered Women, Stacey Monahan

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to address this question: Is there a relationship between the trauma symptoms of mothers and the behavior problems of their children in the context of domestic violence? Mothers' trauma symptoms significantly correlated with their children's behavior problems in these children between the ages of 3 to 10 years. Pearson correlations revealed that the mothers' defensive avoidance scale scores significantly correlated with their children's anxious/depressed and internalizing scale scores, mothers' depression and impaired self-reference scale scores significantly correlated with their children's withdrawn and internalizing scale scores, and mothers' dysfunctional sexual behavior and tension reduction behavior …

Xhosa Single Mothers: Reasons For Remaining Single, Oertel Nicole Sparks

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study seeks to identify the situational and cultural influences related to single motherhood among a specific population in South Africa. Through semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this thesis reveals the life stories and experiences of the women utilizing the Salem Baby Care Centre. Hopefully, this contributed to a better understanding of these Xhosa mothers' reasons for remaining single. These single mothers are caught in a cycle of poverty. They often begin having children at a very young age, leading to children with different fathers. This differs from traditional family systems where women and children were protected. Women are …

An Analysis Of The Models Of Public Relations Most Commonly Used By Professional Minor League Baseball Franchises, Pasquale J. Rose Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the public relations practices of professional minor league baseball franchises by determining which of Grunig's four models of public relations are most commonly used by these organizations. With these findings, the study then evaluates the effectiveness of the models with respect to individual differences among the organizations and overall limitations encountered in the field.

Twenty directors of media and community relations for fifteen minor league franchises were asked to participate in data collection by completing a three-tiered Delphi study to reach a consensus on the most important job responsibilities and skill sets they feel are necessary to …

Ethical Pharmaceuticals? A Deeper Look At The Ethics In Pharmaceutical Public Relations, William M. Walsh

Theses and Dissertations

This study takes a deeper look inside the ethics of pharmaceutical Public Relations within marketing campaigns. More specifically, the researcher performed case studies on the ethically questionable marketing campaigns of Fen-phen and Vioxx and compared that data with data collected from focus groups composed of Rowan University graduate Public Relations Alumni.

The case studies were performed through primary and secondary research of the campaigns conducted for Fen-phen and Vioxx. The data was then used to reconstruct the two campaigns. The focus group data was collected from three focus groups, each with four members, and all data was tabulated and then …

Dynamics And Control Of Tethered Satellite Formations For The Purpose Of Space-Based Remote Sensing, Kurt A. Vogel

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation assesses the utility of tethered satellite formations for the space-based remote sensing mission. Energy dissipation is found to have an adverse effect on foundational rigid body (Likins-Pringle) equilibria. It is shown that a continuously earth-facing equilibrium condition for a fixed-length tethered system does not exist since the spin rate required for the proper precession would not be high enough to maintain tether tension. The range of required spin rates for steady-spin motion is numerically defined here, but none of these conditions can meet the continuously earth-facing criteria. Of particular note is the discovery that applying certain rigid body …

Multilingual Phoneme Models For Rapid Speech Processing System Development, Eric G. Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

Current speech recognition systems tend to be developed only for commercially viable languages. The resources needed for a typical speech recognition system include hundreds of hours of transcribed speech for acoustic models and 10 to 100 million words of text for language models; both of these requirements can be costly in time and money. The goal of this research is to facilitate rapid development of speech systems to new languages by using multilingual phoneme models to alleviate requirements for large amounts of transcribed speech. The Global Phone database, winch contains transcribed speech from 15 languages, is used as source data …

Corroborating What Data Collected By 9th-12th Grade School Librarians Articulate And Validate A Successful School Library Program, Arlen H. Kimmelman

Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing an experts' consensus from the field of school librarianship of the characteristics of a successful school library program, this study aimed to corroborate what data collected by 9^th-12^th grade school librarians articulate and validate a successful school library program. Information Power was used as the industry standard for determining the standards of successful school library programs. First; a meta-analysis was done to identify the experts in the field of school librarianship. Second, a Delphi study was used with the experts to corroborate what data needs to be collected by 9^th-12^th grade school librarians …

Hate: Juror Perceptions Of Crime Classification, Attributions Of Blame, And Impact Of Extra-Legal Factors, Karyn M. Plumm

Theses and Dissertations

A jury simulation paradigm was employed in this series of studies exploring hate crime. In the first two studies., crime label (i.e., bias-motivated assault ·vs. first degree assault) and victim gender were varied within the context of a sexual orientation motivated (study 1) or gender motivated (study 2) hate crime scenario. Results from the first study indicated that attributions of blame against the victim varied as a function of participants' attitudes toward minority sexual orientation. Results of study two indicated that participants in the assault condition were more likely to find the defendant guilty than those in the hate crime …

Writing System Development And Reform: A Process, Elke Karan

Theses and Dissertations

Orthography issues are complex. Although literature about writing systems has flourished in recent years, issues which preoccupy practitioners involved in orthography design or reform are rarely addressed.

This thesis provides an overview of theory relating to establishing orthographies for unwritten languages and modifying existing systems. It presents principles and recommendations which favor popular acceptance and successful implementation. Introductory chapters explain the recent increased interest in orthography, define terms, introduce pertinent literature, and give an overview of writing system typology. Remaining chapters present linguistic and non-linguistic factors which influence orthography decisions, examine writing system adaptation options, discuss orthography testing, consider motivations …

Paraprofessionals In The Classroom: Creating A Test Bank, Linda Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

This purpose of this thesis was to create a valid, reliable, fair test bank for the textbook Paraprofessionals in the Classroom (Ashbaker & Morgan, 2006). This textbook was written specifically for the education of paraprofessionals. Further education beyond high school is one of the options recommended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 to assist paraprofessionals in becoming highly qualified to work with children with special needs. Extensive research was conducted by the researcher on what constituted a good test bank. Excerpts were selected from seven chapters of the textbook. Questions and a rating scale for each question …

Drug Addiction And Mothers: Does Parenting Get Better With Treatment?, Concetta Arabia

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: To examine the parenting skills and attitudes of substance abusing mothers in a comprehensive drug treatment facility in Camden, NJ. Methods: Giving three self-report measures and urine analysis to 14 mothers at intake, 2-months, and 6-months. Participants were reimbursed for their time and travel. Results: Mothers parenting skills and attitudes at intake were found to lack the confidence and enjoyment in their parenting and to have high levels of perceived stress. Bigger sample sizes are needed. Discussion: Progress towards incorporating parenting skills training in in-patient and out-patient treatment facilities has been made. However, a distinction between bad parenting and …

Holistic Scoring Of Esl Essays Using Linguistic Maturity Attributes, Ronald Millett

Theses and Dissertations

Automated scoring of essays has been a research topic for some time in computational linguistics studies. Only recently have the particular challenges of automatic holistic scoring of ESL essays with their high grammatical, spelling and other error rates been a topic of research. This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of using statistical measures of linguistic maturity to predict holistic scores for ESL essays using several techniques. Selected linguistic attributes include parts of speech, part-of-speech patterns, vocabulary density, and sentence and essay lengths. Using customized algorithms based on multivariable regression analysis as well as memory-based machine learning, holistic scores were predicted on …

Belief Formation Through Family Storytelling: Implications For Family Therapy, Kelly Gagalis-Hoffman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to phenomenologically explore and describe the influence family storytelling has on the formation and transference of beliefs. This study was a case study of one family who was identified as engaging in family storytelling. The participants were selected based on their participation in a 2004 pilot study, "A Phenomenological Examination of Family Recreational Storytelling." The results of the 2004 pilot study were analyzed for belief-centered themes. It was upon those themes that questions for this study were based. For this study it was hypothesized that: 1) storytelling strengthens family bonds and connections; 2) storytelling …

Eating Disorder Risk In Subgroups Of College Freshman Women, Karen E. Gochnour

Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this study was to identify subgroups within the college population having a heightened risk for eating disorders. The information for this analysis was retrieved from an existing data set. The two variables that were compared were self selection of college major at the initial collection during freshman year. The sample size of 1,924 was used to see if subgroups of college majors had a heightened risk. Twenty groups composed of similar majors were studied. The majors of Dance, Dietetics, Physical Education, and Communications had heightened risk according to analysis percentage of each group in the clinical range …

States' School Crisis Planning Materials: An Analysis Of Cross-Cultural Considerations And Sensitivity To Student Diversity, Neil O. Annandale

Theses and Dissertations

The importance of providing appropriate crisis intervention to individuals and families from diverse backgrounds is an often overlooked aspect of service provision. In particular, school-based crisis intervention has only recently begun to address this issue. This study reviewed state mandated school crisis plans, state directives for crisis plans, and state resources to assist school districts in developing crisis plans. The content of these materials was examined to determine the extent and type of coverage given to student diversity, particularly cross cultural considerations. Materials were obtained from state department of education internet sites and from the state offices of Safe and …

Alcohol Use And Religiosity Among College Students, Deena King

Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol use among college students is often in the news. Some scholars argue, with literature to support it, that problem drinking in college is just a media-driven myth (Lederman et al. 2004). Yet it is clear that college students do drink, some to excess. Various reasons are cited from alcohol availability to the "freedom" associated with this stage of life. However, very few researchers have attempted to determine whether religiosity affects alcohol use among college students. The purpose of this study was to further examine the combined issues of religiosity and alcohol use among college students. Is excessive use of …

Family Socialization, Religiosity And Young Men's Fatherhood Plans, James Parry Sanders

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how family socialization and religiosity are associated with young men's intention to someday become a father. Data from the National Survey of Families and Households are used to measure the influence of family connection, family regulation, family psychological autonomy and public and private religiosity on young men's fatherhood intentions. Family connection and private religiosity are associated with young men's fatherhood plans.

The Developmental Timing Of Divorce And Adult Children's Romantic Relationship Quality, Abigail Joy Viveiros

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the contingencies that explain whether divorce has positive or negative long-term effects for adult children is at the heart of this study. Although previous studies suggest an association between parental divorce and the divorce of adult offspring, less known is about whether the timing of divorce influences the relationship outcomes of adult children. Using a large nationally representative sample in terms of race (N=6,066), eight groups of individuals (males and females from intact homes, males and females who experienced divorce during adolescence, males and females who experienced divorce during middle childhood, and males and females who experienced divorce during …

Implicit Family Process And Couples Rules: A Comparison Of American And Hungarian Families, Noemi Gergely

Theses and Dissertations

Family life is organized by rules, and most of them are unspokenly agreed-upon by family members and may be even out of awareness. Implicit family process and couple rules may facilitate or constrain family relationship and intimate couple relationship growth. Prevalence of family rules may be different across cultures. Family members may perceive their rules and family functioning differently according to their family position and gender. Married couples may view their relationship rules differently than couples who cohabit. This study utilized the Family Implicit Rules Profile (FIRP) and the Couples Implicit Rules Profile (CIRP) Questionnaires to answer these research questions. …

Crossing Dependencies In Persian, Jonathan M. Dehdari

Theses and Dissertations

Languages occasionally have syntactic constructions that are difficult, if not impossible, to describe using a context-free grammar. One such construction is a crossing dependency. Crossing dependencies have been well studied for Dutch and Swiss German (Huybregts, 1976; Shieber, 1985), and recently for Tagalog (Maclachlan and Rambow, 2003). In this paper I propose that Persian exhibits crossing dependencies. In this SOV language, a light verb construction in the future tense becomes interrupted by a future auxiliary verb, which agrees with its subject in person and number. The future auxiliary also splits passive constructions in a similar manner. These forms present interesting …

Teaching Writing Through Peer Revising And Reviewing, Kristi Lundstrom

Theses and Dissertations

Although peer review, in which students evaluate each others' papers, has been shown to be beneficial in many writing classrooms, the benefits of peer review to the reviewer, or the student giving the feedback, has not been thoroughly investigated in the field of second language (L2) writing. The purpose of this study is to determine which is more beneficial to improving student writing: receiving or giving peer feedback. The study was conducted at the English Language Center (ELC) at Brigham Young University (BYU). Ninety-one students in nine writing classes at two different proficiency levels, high beginning and high intermediate, participated …

Adolescent Leisure Activities As A Moderator Of The Negative Effects Of Family Process On Adolescent Emotional Health, Samuel K. Dahlin

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether an adolescent's experience with different types of leisure (achievement, social or time-out) would moderate the negative effects of dysfunctional family process on an adolescent's emotional health. A model was tested that hypothesized that leisure experienced as achievement or social by adolescents would buffer the negative effects of a dysfunctional family. A sample of 243 clinical and non-clinical adolescents completed the Global Severity Index, the Family Assessment Device, and the Leisure Questionnaire. Three regression analyses were run for the whole sample (n=243), the male sample (n=150), and the female sample (n=93). In …

Marital Harmony And Conflict: Linkages To Infants' Emotional Regulation, Cardiac Vagal Tone, And Developmental Status At Six- And Nine-Months Of Age, Staci Shizuko Ohmine

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the linkages between marital harmony and conflict and infants' emotional and physiological regulation abilities and developmental status at six- and nine-months of age. Participants included 93 first-time mothers and their infants (43 males, 50 females) from a Mountain West community. Mothers were asked to complete a battery of questionnaires, including a demographic measure and Braiker and Kelly's (1979) marital quality questionnaire. The revised Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID II) and Behavior Rating Scales (BRS) 2nd Edition were administered at six- and nine-months to measure infants' mental and motor development status and emotional regulation abilities. Infants' heart …

An English For Specific Purposes Curriculum To Prepare English Learners To Become Nursing Assistants, Abel Javier Romo

Theses and Dissertations

This project details the designing and implementation of an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Curriculum to prepare English learners to become Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center (UVRMC) in Provo, Utah. UVRMC, which is owned by Intermountain Health Care (IHC), employs a group of about 40 non-native speakers of English. They work as housekeepers and have interest in learning English and consequently acquiring new skills they could use in better jobs to improve the quality of their lives. UVRMC would like these employees to obtain additional education in order to provide them with better employment opportunities. …

Family-Of-Origin Quality, Regulation Of Negative Affect, Marital Stability, And Couple Drinking Patterns, Heidi M. Brunner

Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of family-of-origin quality, adult regulation of negative affect, and marital stability with the extent to which couples report they drink similarly and the extent to which they report that the husband drinks more than the wife. It was hypothesized that these two types of couple drinking patterns would be impacted by each individual spouse's context as well as by the interaction of those contexts. A national sample of 1498 couples or 2996 individuals (1498 wives and 1498 husbands married to each other) participated in this study. This study sought …

Japanese Mothers' Parenting Styles With Preschool-Age Children, Ai Shibazaki Lau

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine whether Western typologies of parenting (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and psychological control) and their dimensions (e.g., connection, regulation, physical punishment, verbal hostility) can be measured in the context of Japanese parenting. Based on the literature review, it was hypothesized that these parenting constructs are measurable in Japan. The participants were 214 Japanese mothers of preschool-age children (101 boys and 113 girls) from several preschools in Kushiro-city, Japan. A series of two-group (boys and girls) Confirmatory Factor Analysis was carried out with Mplus statistical software to test the measurement models of authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, …

College Students' Preferences In Seeking Social Support From Divorced Verses Non-Divorced Parents, Juliet Maria Joseph

Theses and Dissertations

The goals of the current study were to (a) determine if differences exist in social support sought by college students from divorced vs. intact families and (b) to determine if the nature of the stressor is also related to students seeking support from either parent. Fifty-five students were recruited from Psychology courses at Rowan University and were given a modified version of the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ) and the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI). They were also given a demographics sheet to complete. A one-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and a univariate test revealed significant differences in the SSQ-A/father ratings …