Psychology Commons^™

A Preliminary Study: Body Dysmorphic Disorder In Division I Women’S Collegiate Soccer Players, Tammy D. Jones

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The prevalence of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) among collegiate athletes has not been clearly determined. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder found in Division I women’s soccer players. The researcher hypothesized that there would be some symptoms found within the participants of sport and that there was a need to research this area further.

The study consisted of four participants who participated in semi-structured interviews. The subjects were asked a series of questions from the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Modified for Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD-YBOCS) to determine if they indicated …

Expanding Leader Capability: An Exploratory Study Of The Effect Of Daily Practices For Leader Development, Simon Rakoff

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Leadership is, at its essence, an influence relationship between people. Leaders are often thought of as those who are able to influence people to take actions oriented toward achieving specific goals and objectives. While many books have been written, and myriad scholarly research studies conducted enumerating countless personal characteristics, qualities, and skills of the exemplary leader, little has been done to understand and convey the ways in which an individual might go about cultivating these virtues; which are often said to include charisma, empathy, communication skills, and others. Through a multiple single-subject design, this research examines the individual-level effect of …

Edge Leadership: Using Senior Leadership Perceptions To Explore Organizational Turnarounds, Lynn William Olsen

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The researcher developed the concept of an edge leader—that is, one who can mindfully turn around a troubled business to sustain it for the future. In an increasingly turbulent and competitive climate, more edge leaders must be developed to sustain their organizations for the benefit of shareholders, employees, communities, and society. The researcher's review of the classic and contemporary leadership and change literatures suggested that four elements are necessary to develop leaders capable of leading even basic beneficial change. They include: having broad, successful experience; being emotionally and socially aware; having the ability to think differently about priorities and paradoxes …

Functional Behavioral Assessment : School Based Practice And Perception, Clint Henning

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Functional behavioral assessment (FBA) is a process that attempts to uncover specific causes and reinforcement of inappropriate behavior in order to design and implement interventions that more accurately address these behaviors. According to the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, functional assessments are now required in working with students struggling with inappropriate behavior. Despite these requirements there is still ambiguity about how these assessments are carried out in school settings (Gartin and Murdick, 2001). This study consisted of a survey of school psychologists in the state of Iowa to understand how the process looks currently, ten years …

Performance-Based Assessment Of School Psychology Interns : Analysis Of Problem-Solving Skills As Demonstrated In Comprehensive Case Examinations, Kimberly Suzanne Hansen

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

School psychologists are integral partners in the facilitation of the problem solving process, especially when the process is embedded within a tiered service delivery system incorporating response to intervention philosophies. Therefore, it is important that new school psychologists entering the field be competent in the skill areas needed to produce positive student outcomes. It is important for school psychology training programs to assess these competencies to improve individual student competencies as well as to improve the training provided by the program in the future. Comprehensive case studies are performance-based assessments that can be utilized to evaluate individuals, as well as …

Facilitating The Generalization Of Social Skills With Bibliotherapy And Positive Peer Reporting, Angelina C. Krieger

Theses and Dissertations

Social competence is needed for interaction among peers, teachers, and families in order for children to be successful in school. Children enter school with various levels of social competence. Social skills training is an effective method for building social skills; however, many programs fail to generalize these skills across settings and time. This study investigated the effects of a social skills training intervention for first and second grade students with emotional and behavioral problems. The intervention blended direct instruction, role-plays, and children's literature, with peers supporting both the acquisition and generalization of the social skills through positive peer reporting (PPR) …

College Students And Stress Management: Utilizing Biofeedback And Relaxation Skills Training, Shannon Jones Anstead

Theses and Dissertations

This study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of biofeedback and relaxation skills training to help alleviate college students' stress symptoms. Data was collected from 659 full-time college students who attended a total of 1,170 biofeedback sessions over the course of two years. Results of the study indicated that the top three stress-related symptoms students experienced were (a) feeling overwhelmed, (b) feeling anxious, and (c) difficulty concentrating. Furthermore, the top three stressors rated by students were (a) too much to do, (b) homework, and (c) classes and school. In addition, the top three coping strategies utilized by students to manage …

Secondary School Students' Attitudes Towards Physical Education In Trinidad, Gina Ragbir

Graduate Theses

It is important to understand secondary school students’ attitudes toward physical education since they will be future members of the workforce who will need to use their knowledge to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Students’ perceptions and feelings contribute to their attitudes toward specific content areas and toward their school experience in general. The purpose of the proposed study was to examine attitudes that secondary school students have toward physical education in Trinidad. The study also sought to ascertain whether there was a link between gender or race and, activities seen as most liked in the physical education curriculum and students’ …

El Concepto De Audiencia Y La Colaboración Entre Iguales En La Revisión De Textos Escritos, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

A Toddler's Development: Analyzing "One Who Walks Unsteadily", Valerie Sharie Davis

XULAneXUS

On April 19, 2009, for exactly two hours, I observed a twenty-four month old toddler at her home, with parents' consent, to fulfill an assignment for a Normal Language Development course. The assignment was to observe a child ranging between the infancy stages to three years old. After observing the child, students were instructed to complete a language analysis sample on every word or phrase that the child produced. This sample was conducted by writing down what the child said and comparing it to what linguistic and motor development researchers expected from a child at the approximate age level observed. …

The Embodied Mind In Early Development: Sitting Postural Control And Visual Attention In Infants With Typical Development And Infants With Delays, Regina T. Harbourne

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

As infants learn to sit between the ages of 5 and 8 months, they undergo many changes in their bodies as well as in their minds, creating conditions for the emergence of skills that allow greater interaction with their environment. The present study focused on the interaction of developing postural control in sitting with cognition, exemplifying the concept of the embodied mind. Look time, or the time an infant looks at an object, served as a proxy for the construct of cognitive processing. Three experiments examined developmental changes in sitting postural control and looking. The first experiment examined archival data …

A Comparison Of Methods For Teaching Auditory-Visual Conditional Discriminations To Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Laura Lee Grow

Dissertations

Early and intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) is an approach to treating the behavioral deficits and excesses observed in children with autism spectrum disorders. The magnitude of improvement in the overall functioning of children receiving EIBI has stimulated additional research and widespread clinical dissemination through the publication of EIBI curricular manuals. Many EIBI manuals recommend teaching conditional discriminations using the simple/conditional method. Initially, component simple discriminations are taught in isolation and in the presence of a distracter stimulus. Finally, conditional discriminations, which include stimuli previously taught as simple discriminations, are presented to the learner. Although the simple/conditional method is often recommended …

The Impact Of Knowledge, Attitudes, And Peer Influence On Adolescent Energy Drink Consumption, Alyson C. Ward

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Adolescents are labeled as sensitive to caffeine, though despite this predisposition, consumption is high among this population. Energy drinks are a current trend in soft-drink-like beverages and are marketed to 11-35 year olds. However, unlike soft drinks, energy drinks are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, and therefore do not have to limit their caffeine content.

This cross-sectional, correlational study sought to identify the role that knowledge, attitudes, and peers play in adolescent energy drink consumption. Adolescents (n = 199), ages 18 to 21, at a university in the west were surveyed. Descriptive statistics revealed that 25% …

Mothers' Perceptions Of Website Information In Solving Behavioral Problems In Children With Disabilities, Heather Collins

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigated the needs of mothers in regard to designing an educational website for parents/caregivers of children with disabilities. This research was designed to provide information to inform outreach efforts of Brigham Young University's Family HOPE (Happiness, Optimism, Promise, and Excellence) Project. This project assists families struggling with child behavior problems. Results from this study provided an initial understanding of the potential for a website to offer support to families not directly served through the Family HOPE project. Participants included 26 adult females, 25 mothers and one female caregiver. Each participant was the primary caregiver of a child with …

Perceptions Of School Civility: A Survey Of School Of Education Alumni, Keely Marie Swanson

Theses and Dissertations

Very little empirical data exists on the topic of civility in schools, although much theory and philosophy are proffered in the literature. Literature on moral education and character education also informs the study of civility. Many of the philosophical theories mention education as a way of increasing civility in society. Some schools have attempted to implement various civility interventions and research supports the use of similar interventions to teach social skills; however, none have systematically collected data for these interventions to evaluate their effectiveness for teaching civility. The present research systematically gathered data on perceptions of civility and incivility in …

Portrayal Of Characters With Disabilities In Newbery Books, Melissa Leininger

Theses and Dissertations

Newbery books represent quality literature that is likely to be used for bibliotherapy, yet these books have not been systematically evaluated for their portrayal of characters with disabilities. Thirty Newbery Award and Honor books from 1975–2008 were identified that contained 40 characters with disabilities. These books were evaluated using a rating scale that combines literary standards and standards relating to individuals with disabilities. The types of disabilities and personal characteristics such as gender, age, and race were documented and the personal portrayal of characters with disabilities and exemplary practices in these books were evaluated. This information was compared to the …

The Assessment Cyberguide For Learning Goals And Outcomes, Thomas Pusateri, Jane S. Halonen, Bill Hill, Maureen Mccarthy

Faculty Articles

The CyberGuide serves as a companion resource for implementing the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major in Psychology. These resources should aid psychology departments and their faculty to design the most appropriate and effective assessment plans. We have organized this Cyberguide into four parts that will assist departments in developing assessment plans: I. Understanding Assessment: Departmental, Institutional, Educational, and Societal Perspectives II. Designing Viable Assessment Plans III. Sustaining an Assessment Culture IV. Applying Assessment Strategies in Psychology

Incarcerated Male Adolescent Suicide In Utah: A Case Study, Kristy Straubhaar

Theses and Dissertations

Adolescent suicide has been described as a major public health problem calling for the aid of researchers willing to better identify factors related to suicide risk. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for 15 to 24 year olds. Despite the fact incarcerated adolescents act in self-destructive ways, minimal research has focused on suicide behavior among incarcerated adolescents. Existing data indicates that suicide among adolescent males is especially prevalent in the juvenile justice system. Several variables have been identified as risk factors for suicidal behavior, including interpersonal relationship dysfunction, substance abuse, and psychological variables such as depression and dichotomous thinking. …

Ciis Today, Fall 2009 Issue, Ciis

CIIS Today

This volume is the Fall 2009 issue of CIIS Today, the Magazine of the California Institute of Integral Studies.

When Being Sad Improves Memory Accuracy: The Role Of Affective State In Inadvertent Plagiarism, Amanda C. Gingerich

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Inadvertent plagiarism was investigated in participants who had been induced into a happy or sad mood either before encoding or before retrieval of items generated in a puzzle task. Results indicate that participants in a sad mood made fewer memory errors in which they claimed as their own an idea generated by another source than did those in a happy mood. However, this effect occurred only when mood was induced before encoding.

Development Of The Test Item Pool For A Screening Instrument Of Emotional And Behavioral Disorder Of Elementary School Students., Laura Eileen Conley

Theses and Dissertations

The functioning of children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) is a concern for parents and educators. Screening focuses efforts to identify and prevent/remediate EBD for students most at risk. Current screening instruments fail to meet three factors that may be related to successful early identification. The three factors are universality (rates all students), brevity, and identification of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. This thesis began the construction of a screener with all three factors. The thesis determined a conceptual basis for the instrument and created an item pool. The conceptualization was based on a literature review. The item pool was …

Comparison Of Physical Activity Level And Health Behaviors Between Physical Education Majors And Other Health-Related Majors, Sarah Galparoli

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in eating behaviors, physical activity level, alcohol and recreational drugs consumption, cigarette and smokeless tobacco consumption, and sedentary behaviors between physical education (PE) majors and other health-related (HR) majors. Participants were students enrolled in randomly selected undergraduate classes that were required for their majors offered by the College ofNursing, Health and Human Services at a Midwestern university in the United States. A total of 292 students agreed to participate in the study and completed a survey instrument. Sixteen participants reported their majors as other than PE or HR and, therefore, …

The Relation Among Sleep, Routines, And Behavior In Children With An Autism Spectrum Disorder, Jill Angelique Henderson

Dissertations

Children with an ASD have a propensity for routines and reportedly have a greater incidence of sleep disturbance and externalizing behaviors than typical children. In addition, significant relations have been identified among routines, sleep behavior, and externalizing behavior in a community sample of children, suggesting that a lack of routines maybe related to sleep disturbance and externalizing behaviors. However, to date, no known studies have thoroughly examined the relation between these variables in children with an ASD. The primary purpose of the present investigation was to examine relations among routines, sleep, and behavior in children with an ASD. Primary caregivers …

The Effects Of Differential Negative Reinforcement Of Task Engagement On Escape From Academic Tasks, Brett Vivian Mehrtens Prince

Dissertations

The effects of differential negative reinforcement of alternative behavior (DNRA) were examined on the escape behavior of four 1st and 2nd grade general education students. The alternative behavior that was negatively reinforced was task engagement during reading or math periods. The DNRA treatment was evaluated for its effects on task engagement in either a DNRA with access to a preferred activity condition or a DNRA without access to a preferred activity condition. In the preferred activity condition, the participants were allowed to engage in a high preferred activity when they had been engaged with an academic task for a certain …

Effects Of Spritual Well-Being, Religious Coping, And Hardiness On Parenting Behaviors In Low Socioeconomic Status Families, Jane Elizabeth Schenck Varner

Dissertations

Children from low socioeconomic status families are at risk for poor academic, emotional, and behavioral outcomes (Owens & Shaw, 2003). Multiple variables have been associated with resiliency in such families (Walsh, 2003). Spiritual and religious constructs have demonstrated positive effects on quality of life (Perrone, Webb, Wright, Jackson, & Ksiazak, 2006), emotional well-being (Davis, Kerr, & Kurpius, 2003; Calicchia & Graham, 2006), and positive health outcomes (Edmondson et al., 2005) in various populations. Previous research has not examined the relationship between spiritual and religious variables and resiliency, nor has previous research considered how the religious, spiritual, and resiliency variables affect …

Selecting Effective Mathematics Interventions In The Rti Process Via Brief Experimental Analyses, Carmen Daniela Reisener

Dissertations

The treatment utility of brief experimental analyses (BEAs) for identifying effective treatments for individual students experiencing mathematics difficulties is a novel area of research; especially in a Response-to-intervention (Rtl) framework. One fourth and three sixth grade students served as participants in the current study. The effects of a variety of evidence-based mathematics computation fluency interventions were examined in a BEA format. Effective treatments identified from the BEA for each participant were alternated during an extended analysis. The results of the current investigation indicated variability within and across participants in response to a variety of evidence-based interventions. Visual analysis of the …

Exploring The Relationships Between White Racial Consciousness, Feminist Identity Development And Family Environment For White Undergraduate Women, Kara E. Wolff

Dissertations

Although the literature has emphasized the importance of understanding between White racial consciousness, feminist identity development and family environment. Based on the relationships described by the canonical functions considered noteworthy in the analyses three main findings appeared to emerge. First, family environments that were perceived by White undergraduate women to promote engagement with a variety of outside perspectives were related to more actively antiracist worldviews and well-developed feminist identities; while family environments perceived to reflect a more insular focus (i.e. less exposure to divergent opinions) were related to more prejudicial racial attitudes and less feminist identity development. Second, the more …

Effects Of After School Programs On Elementary School Students' Language Arts And Mathematics Achievement, Jennifer Lynn Presnell

Theses and Dissertations

This study evaluated after school program participation on student academic achievement as a way of helping schools meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act. After school programs were divided into academic after school programs and traditional after school programs. Student achievement was measured through Criterion Referenced Tests in Language Arts and Mathematics. This study took place in a small urban school district located in the Intermountain West. Students in after school programs were matched with students not participating in the programs on several background characteristics including socioeconomic status, English language proficiency status, school …

Familial Predictors Of Long-Term Outcome Following Inpatient Treatment For Eating Disorders, Anna Mae Ridley

Theses and Dissertations

The present investigation examined characteristic, symptomatic, and familial predictors of long-term symptom severity of eating disorders. The purpose of the study was to determine if, after accounting for a number of known predictors of outcome, familial variables explained a significant amount of additional variance in disordered eating and general well-being scores measured at post-treatment follow-up. The sample included 398 women, ages 13 to 56, who had completed eating disorder treatment at an inpatient facility. Hierarchal multiple regression analysis demonstrated that familial predictors at admission to treatment did significantly predict long-term outcomes, while changes from admission to treatment in symptoms and …

Understanding Acculturation Patterns Of Burmese Refugee Children In Utah Public Schools, Stacie Jai Fraire

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored the experience of 21 Burmese refugee adolescents as they acculturated into public schools in Salt Lake City, Utah. Unstructured, open-ended interviews were conducted to elicit information on the students' perception of the U.S. educational system, as well as their feelings about acculturation. The interviews were conducted with the aid of a Burmese/Karen translator and were transcribed and analyzed utilizing a grounded theory approach. The findings detail the acculturation process of the Burmese refugee students, the positive effect motivation has on the pace of acculturation, the impact of unfamiliar technology and language-based misunderstandings on the students' educational …