Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Loving Of The Game: A Study Of Basketry In The Mammoth Cave Area, Denis O. Kiely

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The production and marketing of baskets in the Mammoth Cave area of Kentucky from 1880 to the present is observed in light of the cultural, technical, aesthetic, ad traditional aspects involved. The process of making a white oak ribbed basket is documented, as well as the technical and aesthetic variables from which the basket maker renders his product. The changing role of social organization and communication in the production and marketing of a traditional craft objects is also considered.

Expressions Of Grief In South Central Kentucky, 1870-1910, Sue Lynn Arnold

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Through the ages, survivors have experienced loss due to the deaths of their contemporaries. Between 1870 and 1910, the people of south central Kentucky (Allen, Barren, Butler, Edmonson, Logan, Monroe, Simpson and Warren counties) used significant expressions of grief. Combining oral history with primary correspondence, journals, scrapbooks and mementos, this study determines the importance that area residents placed on deathbed accounts, the care given the deceased's body, the funeral service, obituaries, resolutions of respect, memorial poetry, condolence letters, photography, memorial cards and pictures, hair wreaths, mourning attire and jewelry, the gravesite, and the tombstone. In almost every instance, south central …

The Relationship Between Psychologists’ Judgments Of Artistic Quality And Judgments Of Emotional Adjustment From Children’S Human Figure Drawings, Karen Collier

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Children’s human figure drawings (HFDs) have frequently been used as a projective technique to indicate emotional problems. Despite the popularity of this technique, research has shown contradictory findings on its validity as a measure of emotional adjustment. As a reason for the inconsistent findings, researchers have suggested that the artistic quality of HFDs may interfere with successful interpretation of adjustment from the drawings. However, the issue of the possible influence of artistic quality has not been adequately researched.

The major purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship existed between psychologists’ judgments of artistic quality and judgments of …

Sex Role Orientation And Its Effect On A Woman’S Decision To Parent, Agnes Van Buren

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Female undergraduates from a private college on the east coast were surveyed regarding their feelings about having children and were asked to complete the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). Eighty-one percent of the respondents indicated a desire to have one or more children. Nineteen percent responded negatively or were uncertain of their feelings at that time. On the BSRI, 12% were classified as Masculine, 38% as Feminine, 37% as Androgynous, 13% as Undifferentiated. Comparison of the Masculine, Feminine and Androgynous groups (the Undifferentiated group was excluded from analysis) showed that the proportion of Feminine women indicating a desire to have …

An Eclectic Approach To The Identification And Treatment Of The Cluster Of Disorders Known As Infantile Autism, Margaret Considine

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The present research is a comprehensive look at the causes and treatment of autism. To date the research has not found the etiology of autism, even though many areas have been examined. The areas looked at are psychogenic, biochemical and neurobiological. Some of these areas seem promising and may in the future shed more light on why these persons present this particular cluster of problem behaviors.

Approaches to the treatment of autism have not yielded an all encompassing cure for autism. Therefore, the symptoms of autism were presented along with the current treatments that are most successful in dealing with …

A Simplified Surface Analysis For The Detection Of Outflow Boundaries From Mesoscale Convective Complexes, Gregory Powell

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A simplified surface analysis was developed to detect thunderstorm outflow boundaries that emanate from Mesoscale Convective Complexes (MCCs). The analysis consisted of the interpretation of visible and enhanced infrared satellite imagery, radar observations, and a limited number (10-12) of surface observations. Thirty MCCs were interpreted by the simplified analysis; nine produced identifiable outflow boundaries.

Pre-boundary Cloud Cover (PCC) and radar echo intensities were analyzed to determine if a correlation existed between mean sky cover and thunderstorm intensity. Research established that no correlation exists between PCC and radar echo intensity.

Recommendations were made for future research into outflow boundary identification by …

The Relationship Between Drinking And Assertiveness In College Students, Ernest Small

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The relationship between drinking patterns of college students and their measured level of assertiveness was examined in this study. The subjects were categorized into six groups based on their self-reported frequency and amount of drinking. They were also asked to record the number of drinks they had drunk in the prior week. The MacAndrews Alcoholism Scale and the Rathus Assertion Schedule were administered to all the subjects. Pearson Product-moment correlations were calculated to assess the relationship between levels of drinking, the number of drinks in the prior week and scores from the Rathus Assertion Schedule and the MacAndrews Alcoholism Scale. …

Effects Of High Proximity Living Accommodations On The Stress Levels And Self-Perceptions Of College Students Living In Residence Halls At Western Kentucky University, Aaron W. Hughey

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Selected occupants of University residence hall rooms accommodating three students in a physical facility originally designed for only two occupants were compared to selected occupants of rooms accommodating two residents in a physical facility originally designed for two occupants. They were compared along two psychological dimensions: frustration (stress) and self-perception. Both groups responded to an instrument package consisting of The Student Life Event Questionnaire, The Self Perception Assessment, and The Frustration Assessment. These instruments were designed to measure relative stress levels and relative strengths of self-perception.

The returned instrument packages were scored and a comparison was made between the two …

A Comparison Of The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised With The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised, Cynthia Burris

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), a receptive vocabulary measure, and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), a measure of general intelligence, have been two tests widely used by educators and psychologists, respectively. In addition to being used as a measure of receptive vocabulary, the PPVT was frequently used as a measure of intelligence. While the authors of the PPVT established IQ scores, this use of the PPVT frequently brought criticism from professional psychologists who felt that the test was not comprehensive enough to be used as a measure of general intelligence. The PPVT was revised in 1981, and the …

A Study Of The Relationship Of Socioeconomic Status & Student Perceptions Of School Effectiveness To Academic Achievement Of Engineering Students, Geronimo Mendoza Meraz

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative contribution of socioeconomic status and student perceptions of school effectiveness to academic achievement in engineering students. The variables representing the general factor of socioeconomic status were 1) father’s occupation, 2) father’s schooling, 3) mother’s schooling, 4) family income, and 5) family’s community population. The variables representing student perceptions of school effectiveness were: 1) help seeking factor, 2) professional preparation factor, 3) experience factor, 4) outside classroom activity factor, 5) personal encouragement factor, and 6) delivery factor.

A question was developed for this specific study and was completed by 110 senior …

The Use Of Feuerstein’S Instrumental Enrichment With Underprepared College Students: A Pilot Study, Michael Kieta

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This pilot study investigated the usage of Feuerstein’s (1980) Instrumental Enrichment with underprepared college students. Open admissions policies in colleges and universities have resulted in the enrollment of many students who are underprepared to meet the academic task demands. Courses have been developed by the colleges and universities to remediate the academic deficits of underprepared students. Remedial courses using traditional educational methods have been largely ineffective. Cognitive process instruction (CPI) is an area of educational research that recently began to receive increased attention in the field of remedial education. The goal of CPI has been to develop the cognitive/thought processes …

Shadowing Interference In A Dichotic Listening Task With Categorized And Uncategorized Word Lists, David Coleman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this thesis was twofold: to investigate the effects of categorized versus uncategorized material on selective attention and to test predictions derived from Filter Theory (Broadbent, 1958), Response Selection Theory (Deutsch and Deutsch, 1963), and Attenuation Theory (Treisman, 1969). Subjects performed a dichotic-listening task in which they shadowed a list of words presented to one ear (i.e., relevant message) while trying to ignore a simultaneously presented list of words on the other ear (i.e., irrelevant message). Lists were 16 words in length and consisted of either categorized words (C) or uncategorized words (U) presented at a rate of …

The Effects Of Age & Education On Personality Consistency, Craig Sparks

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study attempts to determine the influence of age and education on the consistency of one's responses to items on various personality inventories. It was hypothesized that with increased age and education, people develop more stable and coherent personality structures. This results in more internally consistent responses to the personality measures used in this study (e.g., the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, the Dogmatism Scale, and the Private Self-Consciousness Scale). Alpha reliabilities showed that only three of the eight scales gave a positive relationship between age and internal consistency, while only two of the eight scales were supportive of a positive …

Perceived Characteristics Of The Ideal Hunter Education Instructor, Stephen Wilburn

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study was undertaken to investigate the importance of various characteristics possessed by volunteer Hunter Education Instructors, as perceived by two study populations. The populations of volunteer Hunter Education Instructors in Kentucky and Hunter Safety Coordinators in the United States and Canada were asked to rate the importance of thirty-five given characteristics. Respondents were also requested to list any characteristics perceived as important that were not included in the battery of given characteristics.

Both groups perceived that the majority of given characteristics were highly important. The volunteer Hunter Education Instructors and Hunter Safety Coordinators mostly agreed on which characteristics were …

A Descriptive Analysis Of Morally Mature Individuals, Deborah Rich

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The present research is an idiographic study of the moral development of six individuals at the highest stage of morality, Kohlberg's (1958, 1976) stage six. The subjects range in age from an 83 year old retired geography professor to a 21 year old bright college senior. The life of each individual was examined through a three to four hour semi-structured interview. Questions were designed to cover a wide spectrum of the individual's life, such as early family influences, religion, critical life events, and influential people and writers, while affording each subject the opportunity to tell his or her own story. …

Leader Behavior Factor Structures: A Function Of Leader Behavior, Implicit Leadership Theories Or Both?, Jeffrey Prewitt

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study attempted to resolve the controversy in implicit leadership research concerning whether factor structures commonly found in leadership questionnaires are a function of the actual factor structures of leader behaviors, of the preconceived structures of leader behavior imposed by raters, or both. This study replicated and extended the Weiss and Adler (1981) study on implicit leadership theory. 250 subjects were asked to describe an imaginary supervisor using the Survey of Organizations and the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire Form XII leadership scales. The subjects also completed a measure of the differentiation aspect of cognitive complexity. High- and low-differentiation subgroups, formed …

Birth-Order Complementarity And Marital Adjustment, Cornelia Vos

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

It was predicted that the level of complementarity of birth-order position is positively associated with marital adjustment. This hypothesis was developed from Adlerian (1959) theory about the effects of birth-order position on personality formation and from the Toman (1961) duplication theorem. The Spanier Dyadic Adjustment Scale (1976) was given to 327 married women. An analysis of variance revealed no significant differences between the various combinations of birth order (no data were available for the only-with-only combination due to insufficient number of subjects in this group). Correspondingly, level of complementarity of birth order was also found to be unassociated with marital …

An Investigation Into The Problem Of Validity Generalization & Situational Specificity For Nuclear Power Plant Operations, Jeffrey Hornsby

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The issues of situational specificity and validity generalization have shed new light on employment test validation in personnel psychology. Over the past six years Schmidt, Hunter and colleagues have accumulated an abundance of evidence supporting the use of validity generalization. The present study attempts to further investigate the issues of situational specificity and validity generalization for five nuclear power utilities using the CNS test battery. Using the Bayesian statistical procedure developed by Schmidt and Hunter (1977) the results indicated that neither the rejection of situational specificity or the inference of validity generalization was possible. However, further analyses indicated that the …