Psychology Commons^™

Qualitative Study Of Male Asperger's Syndrome Students : Transition From High School To College, Jon Alan Lyman

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

This study examines the narrative statements of individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome concerning their recollections of the transition from high school to college. Nine male college students are led, via interviews, starting with their experiences in high school, to the initial stages of preparing for college life, and ending with current experiences in college. Analysis of the data focuses on the factors that have impact on this transition. The study is intended to contribute to the development of qualitative data about Asperger’s Syndrome, informing students with Asperger’s Syndrome who intend to apply to college, and providing recommendations for parents, and professionals …

Qualitative Analysis Of The Implementation Of An Autism Program Within A Public School District, Lucila F. Hernandez

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The study analyzed the development, implementation and success of an educational program for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis within a public school structure. Records reviewed for a two year time period identified four phases to program development and implementation, as well as identifying themes and barriers for specific roles, administration, staff and parents. The success of the program is evidenced by growth in the children and by reported satisfaction of parents and staff. A program blue print offers an outline to program development and implementation. Necessary ASD program components, based on literature reviewed are summarized. This study highlights …

Breaking The "Sound" Barrier To Fluent Reading: An Evaluation Of A Middle School Reading Intervention, Kimberly Simmerman

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The failure to read efficiently accounts for nearly 80% of the children who meet the criteria for a specific learning disability in America. Moreover, many of those children do not receive instruction that is sufficient to improve their reading achievement to within the average range. The current study examines the Breaking the “Sound” Barrier to Fluent Reading program by comparing pretest and posttest scores on individually administered and group statewide tests of reading achievement. The impact of IQ on progress is evaluated and discussed. Students’levels of reading proficiency preintervention and postintervention, as determined by the criteria set forth by the …

Impact Of Participation In A Community Based, Even Start Literacy Program On School Achievement And Parent Involvement For English Language Learners (Ell), Elvira I. Zuazo-Legido

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The family literacy model underlying the national Even Start Family Literacy Program has not fared well in large-scale evaluation studies, with outcomes showing minimal or no positive impact on later school achievement. However, the results of these studies have not been replicated in smaller studies, which hold the possibility of yielding richer and possibly more valid data using appropriate research design, methods, and techniques. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of an Even Start Family Literacy Program on the academic progress of a homogeneous group of ELL (English Language Learners) Hispanic immigrant elementary school-age children. Twenty-nine …

An Analysis Of Survey Data On Student Perceptions Of Adolescent Counseling Needs, Jane Ellen Santo

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The school counseling needs of adolescents have often
been assessed through the perceptions of school personnel
and other adults. This study provides an alternative
perspective and reports the results of a mental health/life
stress counseling needs’ assessment, conducted directly
with middle school and high school students’ grades 7
through 12. The results of this student-centered survey
are reported with relation to literature pertaining to the
potential counseling needs of adolescents and the
deleterious consequences of not meeting these needs. Data
pertaining to each area of the survey: awareness of
counseling services, participation in counseling services,
perceived counseling needs, and perceived …

The Value-Congruence Model Of Memory For Emotional Experiences: An Explanation For Cultural Differences In Emotional Self-Reports, Shigehiro Oishi, Ulrich Schimmack, Ed Diener, Chu Kim-Prieto, Christie N. Scollon, Dong-Won Choi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In 3 studies, the authors found support for the value-congruence model that accounts for cultural variations in memory for emotional experiences. In Study 1, the authors found that in the made-in-the-U.S. scenario condition, European Americans were more accurate than were Asian Americans in their retrospective frequency judgments of emotions. However, in the made-in-Japan scenario condition, European Americans were less accurate than were Asian Americans. In Study 2, the authors demonstrated that value orientation mediates the Culture X Type of Event congruence effect. In Study 3 (a daily event sampling study), the authors showed that the congruence effect was explained by …

Asg Student Social And Emotional Health Report, Michael. E. Bernard, Andrew Stephanou, Daniel Urbach

Wellbeing

This report presents the results of sophisticated Rasch measurement analysis and multi-level modelling to validate and support the use of the ACER Social and Emotional Wellbeing (SEWB) student and teacher surveys for reporting on the social and emotional well-being of students from the early years of schooling through to senior secondary school levels. It describes the social and emotional well-being of over 10,000 students attending 81 schools across Australia. Among the more important findings of this research are the characteristics of students with low levels of social and emotional well-being compared with students with higher levels of social and emotional …

Private Narratives In Public Places: The Experiences Of Predominantly White Gay Male Undergraduates On Lgb Classroom Panels, James Patrick Dolan Jr.

Dissertations

The scholarly literature addresses the common practice and effectiveness of using classroom panel presentations by lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) speakers to increase awareness of LGB experiences and to change attitudes. However, little is known about the experiences of the speakers themselves or how the experience may affect the speaker's sense of self or identity. From an identity as narrative perspective, the goal of this study was to learn what effect the repeated telling of a coming out story in a public setting may have on the teller's identity, the story they tell, and the meanings and feelings associated with …

Evaluation Of A School-Based Program Targeting Pediatric Asthma Self-Management Skills In An Urban Population, Dawn J. Dore-Stites

Dissertations

Asthma is the most commonly diagnosed chronic disorder in childhood and is linked with several problematic outcomes including frequent school absences, increased hospitalizations and decreased quality of life. Further, urban populations struggling with low socioeconomic status are disproportionately represented in prevalence statistics and suffer from increased functional morbidity relative to other children with asthma. These findings exist in the midst of largely effective pharmacological interventions.

Asthma self-management programs (SMPs) target several behaviors linked to improved outcomes and are often used as an adjunct to medication management. SMPs have been employed using a variety of techniques and treatment targets in a …

Examining The Ability Of The Halstead -Reitan Battery And The Wide Range Achievement Test To Utilize Severity In Discriminating Among Alzheimer's Dementia Patients, Gina Gibson-Beverly

Doctoral Dissertations

Measuring change in cognitive status is essential for the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of brain dysfunction. Psychological abilities are differentially affected by brain dysfunction severity, as some abilities are more vulnerable to brain dysfunction than others. Neuropsychological assessments can be viewed as a continuum of "hold" and "don't hold" tests. "Hold" tests assess abilities that remain stable in spite of brain dysfunction, while "don't hold" tests measure skills that are significantly compromised by brain impairment. The present study ranks the Halstead-Reitan Battery (HRB) and the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) subtests based on their ability to discriminate between two levels …

Response To Intervention And Effects On Retention, Jason D. Haught

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Little research exists pertaining to the affect of the Response to lntervention model on student grade retention. This study was designed to determine a relationship between the frequency of students retained in grades kindergarten through third prior to and following the implementation of the Response to lntervention model. A five member cohort group conducted a longitudinal study of grades kindergarten through third grade in eleven pilot schools in the state of West Virginia. A Chi-Square test was chosen to examine the variables in an attempt to identify whether the implementation of the Response to lntervention model had an affect upon …

The Effect Of Marshall University's Summer Enrichment Program On Reading Gains Program Evaluation, Ii, Kelli A. Potoczny

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the Marshall University Summer Enrichment Program on students’ reading success in grades Kindergarten through eighth. From June 26, 2006 through July 27, 2006, a 5 week chronological period, 105 students attended the summer program and were evaluated for reading achievement. The study measured students' reading performance during the 5 consecutive weeks. Students were divided into three groups, primary, intermediate and middle school to evaluate the different age groups for changes in reading ability. This study compared student's pre and post running records to determine any gains in reading skills. …

Comparative Study Of The Working Memory Scales Of The Wisc-Iv And Sb5 In Referred Students, Erica N. Abbott

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The present study compared the working memory scales of the WISC-IV and the SB5 as both tests are used, in part, to develop academic interventions for students. There is a moderate correlation (.6) between the two tests with 33 percent of shared variance and a SEest of 9.1 [plus or minus]. The findings indicate that the two tests do not measure a similar ability and scores obtained on them should not be interpreted in the same manner. More research is needed to investigate the specific constructs measured and which test is most appropriate to assess working memory problems.

Effective Reading Instruction In A Response To Intervention Program Evaluation, Sabrina L. Graham

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In response to the reauthorization of IDEA, in the spring of 2005, the West Virginia Department of Education (WVDOE) initiated a project to implement a Response-to- Intervention (RtI) approach to the identification of students with specific learning disabilities. The present study evaluated to what extent the Tier 1 approach provides effective instruction to reach mastery in Phonemic Awareness and Phonics in Kindergarten through 3 rd grade. The research design for this study was a program evaluation. The participants in the West Virginia RtI pilot project included approximately 150 teachers from Kindergarten through 3 rd grade, 11 principals, 11 project coordinators, …

High Stakes Testing Effects Dropout Rates, Ann Dodd

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Since the inception of No Child Left Behind, it has been argued that high stakes testing leads to a higher dropout rate. High stakes testing can cause anxiety, stress and fear in students when the results determine whether or not they are able to be promoted to the next grade or to graduate from high school. The dropout rates for the two years before and the three years after the high stake test (WESTEST) was implemented in West Virginia were examined to establish if there had been any effect on these rates. Results indicate no significant difference in dropout rates …

Evaluation Of Reading Achievement For Students Of The Carroll County Public School System’S 2006 Summer Enrichment Program, Melissa A. Doan

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of guided reading interventions with regard to individual reading achievement for elementary aged students who participated in a five-week summer enrichment program. Using a baseline and intervention design, a curriculum-based measure model of assessment was administered to each student. The analysis of data from the curriculum based measurement allowed for the implementation of guided reading interventions, which targeted increased student reading abilities for the chronological time period of July 5, 2006 through August 3, 2006. The results indicated that student academic deficits were not sufficiently impacted to normalize students to …

Organizational Orientations Of K-12 School Leaders In The Columbia Union Conference Of Seventh-Day Adventists, Rose Tooley Gamblin

Dissertations

Purpose of the study

The purpose of this study was to examine the organizational orientations--structure ,human resource, political, and symbolic --of the K-12 school leaders in the Columbia Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, and the relationship, if any, to their personal variables of age, gender, experience, and their professional variables of grade levels served, educational attainment, enrollment, support, feelings of success, and job satisfaction.

Method

A self-administered Organizational Orientations survey instrument, based on the multiple orientation framework of Bolman and Deal, was used to gather information about the school leaders. The population surveyed provided 56 usable responses, which were analyzed …

Academic - Practice Bridges: Implications For Lecturers When The Complexities Of Change Meets The Higher Education And Nurse Education Systems, Adrianne Jones

Theses : Honours

Government, industry, enterprises and the community expect the Vocational and Educational Training (VET) system to provide up-to-date educational programs that provide pathways from school-based learning to the higher education facilities such as universities and to employment opportunities. Reforms in the VET sector over the past ten years have had a significant impact on the work of staff employed in the area. Educators now operate in more competitive markets and face increased demands for higher quality and more relevant training programs from clients. Understanding and keeping up with the changes and working in new and more flexible ways have been major …

Codependency In Master's-Level Counseling Students, Terri Lynne Pardee

Dissertations

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to examine codependency in master’s-level counseling students, to determine if there was a significant difference between incoming and exiting students, and to investigate codependency as related to age, gender, and religious preference.

Method

The Codependency Assessment Tool was administered to 275 Spring Arbor University master’s-level counseling students to measure codependency in five core areas: Other Focus/Self-Neglect, Low Self-Worth, Hiding Self, Medical Problems, and Family of Origin Issues.

Results

Respondents’ CODAT mean score showed a minimal level of codependency. There were no significant differences between incoming and exiting students on the …

Student Satisfaction And Program Evaluation For The First Three Psy. D. School Psychology Cohorts At The Philadelphia College Of Osteopathic Medicine, Ronald M. Deguffroy

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

There is a noticeable absence in the professional literature regarding what school psychology doctoral students believe leads to satisfaction during their advanced training. Consequently, a general review of available research was conducted to ascertain what other closely related fields say about student satisfaction during doctoral training. As the document progresses, a variety of issues including funding and mentoring as well as considerations for multicultural and ethical issues as they relate to the topic are investigated. A theoretical model of what constitutes a satisfying experience for doctoral training in school psychology is provided. A program specific evaluation was conducted of the …

Externalising Behaviour Problems And The Influence Of Classroom Environments In The Early School Years ; Student-Teacher Relationships And Teacher Discipline: Their Relation To The Externalising Behaviours Of Kindergarten To Year 1 Students, Emma Spencer

Theses : Honours

Some of the most influential people in a child's life are the teachers who aid them in their transition into the education system and the complex social environment that it brings (Blancher & Eisenhower, 2006). Children who display externalising behaviours early in childhood often experience greater difficulties than other children when entering school and throughout their education experience (Hinshaw, Lahey & Hart, 1993; Liu, 2004). The student-teacher relationship established within the classroom and the disciplinary measures utilized by the teachers can have a profound impact on the child's development both academically and socially (Galen & Underwood, 1997; Hamre & Pianta, …

Mindfulness-Based And Cognitive-Behavior Therapy For Anger-Management : An Integrated Approach, Jeffrey R. Kelly

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

This monograph presents an anger-management treatment manual utilizing mindfulness and cognitive-behavior approaches. This program was implemented and evaluated in accordance with Chen's (2005) recommendations for program evaluation. This study employed a single-subject design with a high-school aged individual. Post-session and post-program evaluation forms from the subject and program facilitator, along with pre- and post-program measures in the form of State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI) scores, discipline records, and survey/assessment questionnaires from the parent and a teacher were obtained. The Mindfulness-Based and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Anger Management program manual received positive ratings for the structure of the sessions, for the content …

Examination Of One District's Identification, Assessment Practices, Preventative Interventions, And Longitudinal Literacy Learning Of At-Risk Readers, Lori J. Lennon

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to profile Reading Recovery students in one district to examine: (1) the content and predictability of the district’s early intervention screening assessments and progress monitoring tools, (2) the initial and (3) sustained effectiveness of the Reading Recovery preventative program relative to student achievement in first through third grades (4) rates of identification of educational disabilities and special education placements and (5) common variables in intellectual, process, and achievement characteristics of those students who were slow to respond to reading interventions. Participants consisted of students from fifteen elementary schools, within the years 2000 to …

Book Review: A Half-Century Of Thinking About Prejudice, David Moshman

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Fifty years after Gordon Allport’s classic The Nature of Prejudice (1954), what do we know about the nature of prejudice? Quite a bit, actually, much of which Allport already knew, but some of which represents genuine progress in scientific understanding. That’s the message of On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years after Allport, in which forty-four authors, guided by three editors, successfully manage what Allport did alone a half-century ago: to present in one volume the state of the art in the psychological study of prejudice. The volume has been carefully conceived and structured to provide comprehensive and systematic …

The Complex Nature Of Bullying: Perceptions Of Bullying In Elementary Schools, Shaheen R. Fazelbhoy

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Bullying has emerged as a serious threat to the safety of children within school environments. Once attributed to normal childhood behavior, research shows that there is nothing normal about the physical and emotional consequences of bullying. The effects of this trauma may last long after the actual bullying is over. If undetected and untreated, bullying has the possibility of creating a climate of fear and anxiety that can affect children physically, emotionally and academically. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of whether behaviors defined as bullying are identified as such by teachers, whether the impact …

Field-Based Experience In Light Of Changing Demographics, Fred Jay Krieg, Joyce Meikamp, Stephen L. O’Keefe, Sandra S. Stroebel

School Psychology Faculty Research

Due to changing demographics of students admitted to the School Psychology Training Program at Marshall University Graduate College, it has become imperative to significantly expand field experiences beginning in the first semester to address the lack of educational background of most of the students entering the program. This organized sequence of field experiences continues throughout the program, parallel to classroom instruction, affording opportunities for students to put theory into practice and to interact with professionals in the field, while also allowing for exposure to the public school environment. The collaborative field experience sequence provides the students with early and continuous …

An Evaluation Of Intraverbal Training And Listener Training For Teaching Categorization Skills, Anna Ingeborg Petursdottir

Dissertations

Behavioral language interventions, such as those employed in early and intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) programs, target both expressive and receptive language skills. Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior provides a framework for analyzing expressive and receptive language in terms of stimulus control and reinforcement history. From this perspective, different expressive language programs target different verbal operants, such as tacts, intraverbals, and echoics , whereas most receptive language programs target a type of listener behavior that may be referred to as manded stimulus selection (Michael, 1995). Although EIBI curricula (e.g., Maurice, Green, & Luce, 1996; Leaf & McEachin, 1999) have frequently …

Audio Narration And Reading Ability In Programmed Instruction, Wendy Jaehnig

Dissertations

This study compared the effects of audio, textual, and audio-textual narration in a programmed instructional module on the performance of individuals with different reading abilities. One hundred eighty-four college students were randomly assigned to audio, textual, or audio-narration. Dependent variables were posttest score and instruction completion time. An ANCOVA was used to analyze the results, with ACT reading test scores as the covariate. No differences were found between the groups on posttest scores (p = .56) or completion time (p = .90), and there was no interaction between narration type and reading score for either dependent variable. Audio …

Perceptions Of Ethical Public School Leadership Among K-12 Indiana School Principals, Philip V. Bender

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research attempted to determine the ethical perceptions of Indiana K-12 public school principals through their ratings of selected ethical preparedness statements. The goal was to determine if significant differences exist among public school principals in the state of Indiana based on level and locale of school, gender, ethnicity, source of ethical development, and years of service related to ethical areas of knowledge, disposition, and performance as derived from the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium: Standards for School Leaders (ISLLC) Standard 5. The population for this study consisted of 1,900 public school principals in the state of Indiana. A survey …

More Than In And Out Of The Classroom Closet: A Study Of Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Teachers’ Identity Management Strategies, Teresa S. Lance

Dissertations

Two advancements in the study of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals’ workplace sexual identity management, the Workplace Sexual Identity Management Measure (WSIMM) and the Workplace Sexual Identity Management (WSIM) social cognitive model of identity management are incorporated in the current study of LGB K-12 teachers’ workplace sexual identity management strategies. The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties o f a revised version the WSIMM, investigate the workplace sexual identity management strategies of LGB teachers, and gain further understanding of the complex process LGB individuals navigate related to managing their sexual identity at work by exploring …