Quantitative Psychology Commons^™

Thematic Consistency Between Criminal History And Crime Scene Behaviors: Comparing Sexual Homicide Offenders With And Without Criminal Histories Of Sexual Offenses, Shannon E. Ettinger

Student Theses

Offender profiling research suggests that offenders may display behavioral consistency, meaning they may behave in some consistent manner between their crime scene actions and other aspects of their lives. Through behavioral themes, researchers can identify consistency in groups of individual behaviors that are thematically similar. Previous literature successfully applied the Expressive/Instrumental themes to homicide crime scene behaviors and criminal history. The current study aims to apply the Expressive/Instrumental thematic approach to analyzing the relationship between sexual homicide offender’s criminal history and their crime scene behaviors. The present study focuses on the distinction between sexual homicide offenders with a history of …

Construction And Use Of Cognitive Maps In Model-Based Control, Ata Karagoz

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

When making decisions, we sometimes rely on habit and at other times plan towards goals. Planning requires the construction and use of an internal representation of the environment, a cognitive map. How are these maps constructed, and how do they guide goal-directed decisions? We coupled a sequential decision-making task with a behavioral representational similarity analysis approach to examine how relationships between choice options change when people build a cognitive map of the task structure. We found that participants who encoded stronger higher-order relationships among choice options showed increased planning and better performance. These higher-order relationships were more strongly encoded among …

Beyond The Numbers: A Deeper Dive Into The Dearth Of Girls And Women In Stem, Jennifer John Buck

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Despite decades of research attempting to better understand the dearth of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), gender imbalances persist in many STEM fields. This is particularly the case in math-intensive STEM fields. The current program of research used mixed-methods research to better understand these inequities. The first paper identified gender and ethnic variation in how undergraduates reason about STEM inequities. The second paper found that how emerging adults narrate “turning points” in their relationship with math was associated with their current math outcomes and future plans to pursue math. The final paper demonstrated that how …

Towards More Task-Generalized And Explainable Ai Through Psychometrics, Alec Braynen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this work, we propose that adopting the methods, principles, and guidelines of the field of psychometrics can help the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community to build more task-generalizable and explainable AI. Three arguments are presented and explored. These arguments are that psychometrics can help by providing 1) a framework for formulating better datasets, 2) psychometric AI data that can lead to models of generalization in AI, and 3) explainable AI through more informative evaluations.

A review of psychometrics and psychological generalization is performed, along with an overview of evaluation, generalization, and explainability in AI. Various ideas are presented throughout for …

Public Acceptance Of Medical Screening Recommendations, Safety Risks, And Implied Liabilities Requirements For Space Flight Participation, Cory J. Trunkhill

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The space tourism industry is preparing to send space flight participants on orbital and suborbital flights. Space flight participants are not professional astronauts and are not subject to the rules and guidelines covering space flight crewmembers. This research addresses public acceptance of current Federal Aviation Administration guidance and regulations as designated for civil participation in human space flight.

The research utilized an ordinal linear regression analysis of survey data to explore the public acceptance of the current medical screening recommended guidance and the regulations for safety risk and implied liability for space flight participation. Independent variables constituted participant demographic representations …

Individual Characteristics Of Postsecondary Underachievement, Natasha Godkin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Underachievement in postsecondary education has been a growing concern for educators and researchers. Higher education institutions have implemented early alert systems to identify students performing below standards. This early warning system has major limitations that confine it to an identification only approach. The current study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Student Attitude Assessment Survey-R (SAAS-R) in a postsecondary sample. First, a confirmatory factor analysis validated the SAAS-R in a postsecondary sample. Predictive validity was then investigated by identifying students as underachieving or achieving based on responses to the SAAS-R and via a regression-based discrepancy model (ability vs. …

Evaluating Outcome Factors Of Childhood Emotional Neglect: An Exploratory Factor Analysis, Taylor Levitt

Dissertations

Experiencing childhood maltreatment has been shown to have major implications on adult outcomes. Less is known about the outcomes of childhood emotional neglect (CEN). The purpose of this study was to identify factors related to psychological outcomes of CEN within the domains of depression, anxiety, and alexithymia as a precursor to the development of an inventory. One hundred and fifty participant responses on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), and Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) were collected. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted where nine factors yielded significant results and were titled, “Depressive Symptoms,” “Difficulty Identifying Feelings,” “Usefulness of …

Prevalence And Predictors Of Careless Responding In Experience Sampling Research, Alexander J. Denison

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the current study we examine the prevalence and several predictors of careless responding to an experience sampling (ESM) study. While careless responding has been noted as a potential problem in ESM research, few studies have examined the prevalence of this behavior (Beal, 2015; Berkel et al., 2017; Eisele et al., 2020; Gabriel et al., 2019; Jaso et al., 2021). Using statistical methods of careless response classification, we derive cut scores from data simulation and graphical examination of item correlations, and flag 44.98% of response episodes as careless. A majority of these flagged episodes were the product of overly consistent …

Rapid Response Behavior Before And During The Pandemic, Katarina E. Schaefer

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Different levels of examinee motivation pose a validity threat to the interpretation of test scores. This problem is heightened in low-stakes, remote testing environments. Though some ways exist to gauge average motivation throughout testing, less ways exist to gauge motivation fluctuations throughout a single test. One of those ways is through response times. Specifically, rapid response behavior occurs when examinees quickly answer an item without reading or engaging with the item. At James Madison University (JMU), students participating in campus-wide Assessment Days typically experienced an in-person, proctored Assessment Day. However, that changed during the pandemic. During the pandemic, examinees participated …

Writing While Black: African American Vernacular English (Aave) And Perceived Writing Performance, Jaylin N. Nesbitt

Masters Theses, 2020-current

In the education system, there have historically been inequities that have severely disadvantaged Black students academically. One area in which these inequities surface is on writing assessments in the form of lower scores. I argue that because the U.S. education system is centered around Standard American English (SAE), it disadvantages those from different linguistic backgrounds, specifically Black students, as they are most likely to be speakers of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Although there are theoretical justifications for this, past literature has not empirically tied inequities on writing assessments to Black students’ use of AAVE. The current study used Natural …

The Use Of Complex-Structure Items In Multistage Testing, Paulius Satkus

Dissertations, 2020-current

When developing tests, measurement experts may prefer simple-structure items because they measure one trait, which simplifies scoring and scoring interpretation. Conversely, complex-structure items may be preferred to reflect the complexity of multidimensional constructs. The current study sought to address the gap in the literature of multi-stage testing by conducting a simulation study with a hypothetical two-stage adaptive test with a purpose of comparing the performance of simple and complex structure items. The findings suggest that with a longer test (60 items), the two types of items performed similarly with respect to bias and RMSE of the trait estimates. For the …

Non-Verbal Pride Expressions As A Predictor Of Lgbtq Health, Craig Gilbert

Theses and Dissertations

Pride is a self-conscious, positive emotion that has been assessed in a wide range of populations and with a variety of pre-validated measures. Research has shown that the presence of pride can function as a potential resilience factor against minority based stress and has been linked to increased emotional well being, life satisfaction, and self-esteem. However, a majority of this research relies upon self-report questionnaires as opposed to observational data. To evaluate the predictive power of non-verbal pride behaviors, a group of LGBTQ+ individuals (n=125) were asked during a recorded interview to describe an experience where they felt prideful about …

Creating A Short, Public-Domain Version Of The Cpai-2: Using An Algorithmic Approach To Develop Public-Domain Measures Of Indigenous Personality Traits, Mukhunth Raghavan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study we aimed to create a short, public-domain analogue of the Cross-Cultural (Chinese) Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI-2; F. M. Cheung et al., 1996). Emic (culture-specific) traits measured by the CPAI-2 are purportedly specific to the Chinese culture and argued to not be fully captured by the consensus Big Five personality trait taxonomy. Research suggests that CPAI-2 traits may have unique predictive power, especially in non-Western contexts. However, research has been hampered by several limitations of the measure. The inventory is proprietary and long, with 341 items forming 28 scales and four factors. Cross-cultural personality research would benefit from …

A Job-Demand Resource Theory And Psychological Flexibility Integrated Model Of Police Officer Burnout, Lucas David Baker

Dissertations and Theses

Police officers encounter stressors as a result of job responsibilities that contribute to high rates of occupational burnout. Defined by three primary components (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and professional inefficacy), burnout is associated with health- and work-related problems among officers. In addition, police agencies incur significant costs associated with burnout due to performance decline and turnover. Officer burnout is also a matter of public interest given that burnout is associated with low prosocial behavior and high use of force. As such, research that aims to explore the formation and maintenance of officer burnout may be consequential for the profession and society …

Equine Assisted Psychotherapy: Implications For Treating Trauma, Kara L. Harrison Psy.D.

Psychology Doctoral Specialization Projects

Trauma related symptoms and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have been increasingly recognized for the key roles they occupy in mental health and overall individual well-being within both adult and childhood populations. They often represent significant barriers to the provision of mental healthcare within military populations and individuals diagnosed with serious mental illness (SMI). This original contribution to practice explores the significance of Equine Assisted Psychotherapy as a novel adjunctive approach to treating trauma. symptoms in adults and children. An extensive literature review examines current research and discussion on common definitions and nomenclature. It begins with discussion on the broader areas …

Factors That Affect Anxiety And Acculturation In Syrian Emigrants, Thomas H. Anderson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, more than 6 million Syrians have registered as refugees. Many displaced Syrians suffer myriad mental health disorders, including anxiety, which become a burden as they attempt to acculturate into a foreign culture. Research to understand the Syrian refugees has been conducted since the conflict began; however, the findings are inconsistent. Existing academic research does not adequately capture the depth of anxiety of Syrian emigrants, nor does it present an accurate picture of the challenges of acculturation. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the differences in anxiety and acculturation based …

The Effect Of Parental Socialization On The Postsecondary Plans Of Latino/Hispanic Students, Nilda Ivette Rosario

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Latino/Hispanics are one of the largest ethnic minority groups in the United States, yet they are underrepresented in higher education. Grounded on the social cognitive theory and the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between parental expectations, parental involvement, parental self-efficacy, and postsecondary planning of Latino/Hispanic students. The research questions were formulated to determine whether parental factors among Latino/Hispanic parents can predict postsecondary educational outcomes among Latino/Hispanic students. A quantitative correlational research study design was used. The target population was Latino/Hispanic parents residing in the United States with at least one child …

Organizational Commitment As A Mediator Between Organizational Climate And Employee Silence, Jennifer Sherer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Unethical organizational behavior negatively impacts organizations, and despite the benefits of whistleblowing, some employees are hesitant to report employee misconduct. The specific research problem examined factors that influence employee silence when confronted with employee misconduct. Prior researchers have explored how organizational climate and organizational commitment can contribute to or inhibit the decision to report misconduct. What remained unclear is how these factors may interact on their influence on employee silence. The purpose of this study was to examine whether organizational commitment mediated the relationship between organizational climate and employee silence. The theoretical foundations for this study were the social information …

The Effect Of Parental Socialization On The Postsecondary Plans Of Latino/Hispanic Students, Nilda Ivette Rosario

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Latino/Hispanics are one of the largest ethnic minority groups in the United States, yet they are underrepresented in higher education. Grounded on the social cognitive theory and the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler model, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between parental expectations, parental involvement, parental self-efficacy, and postsecondary planning of Latino/Hispanic students. The research questions were formulated to determine whether parental factors among Latino/Hispanic parents can predict postsecondary educational outcomes among Latino/Hispanic students. A quantitative correlational research study design was used. The target population was Latino/Hispanic parents residing in the United States with at least one child …

A Monte Carlo Simulation Of Rat Choice Behavior With Interdependent Outcomes, Michelle A. Frankot

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Preclinical behavioral neuroscience often uses choice paradigms to capture psychiatric symptoms. In particular, the subfield of operant research produces nested datasets with many discrete choices in a session. The standard analytic practice is to aggregate choice into a continuous variable and analyze using ANOVA or linear regression. However, choice data often have multiple interdependent outcomes of interest, violating an assumption of general linear models. The aim of the current study was to quantify the accuracy of linear mixed-effects regression (LMER) for analyzing data from a 4-choice operant task called the Rodent Gambling Task (RGT), which measures decision-making in the context …

Relationships Among Burden, Quality Of Life, And Self-Efficcy In Careegivers Of An Older Family Member, Dr. Marietta Margaret Miller

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractInformal caregivers of a family member who has been dementia diagnosed play a substantial personal, social, and economic role in the care of their family member. However, this type of caregiving can have detrimental effects on a caregiver’s psychological, financial, physical, social, and emotional well-being. This quantitative study addressed possible relationships between caregiver burden and quality of life, and caregiver burden and self-efficacy as measured by the Zarit Burden Interview, the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF, and the Caregiver Self-Efficacy Scale. The theory of transactional stress and the stress process model provided the theoretical foundation. The participants of this …

Impact Of Trauma On Job Satisfaction And Turnover Intention Among Emergency Dispatchers, Sherrie Johnston

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Emergency dispatchers in the United States are exposed to traumatic events, which may lead to a staffing shortage. Though it is well-established that decreased job satisfaction increases turnover intentions, little research investigates whether trauma impacts these constructs. Therefore, this quantitative non-experimental study was focused on whether education was a protective factor against posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and whether trauma moderated the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention among emergency dispatchers. The relationship between vicarious trauma (VT) and PTSD among dispatchers was examined, and whether it is possible to predict PTSD among dispatchers based on VT, education level, and job …

Examining The Function Of Stone Wrapping Behavioral Pattern In Balinese Long-Tailed Macaques (Macaca Fascicularis), Patricia Mitchell

All Master's Theses

Long-tailed macaques (LTMs, Macaca fascicularis) have multiple stone handling (SH) patterns that vary in form and complexity across different populations, but little is known about the group of Balinese LTM’s motivation to wrap stones in the Monkey Forest of Ubud, Indonesia. This study focuses on whether the SH pattern, wrap (WRP), is an object play behavior with the potential of becoming a more functionally complex behavior (e.g., tool use). SH sequences were collected using all-occurrence and focal sampling and examined using the program Behavioral Observation Research Interactive Software (BORIS). In total, 322 minutes of footage were reviewed for both stones …

The Effect Of Magnitude And Probability On Plea Bargain Decision-Making, Megan L. Small

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Decision-making is studied in various aspects of life and can be especially vital in the context of the criminal justice system, such as plea bargains. Previous research in this area used a less commonly used task (fill-in-the-blank) in addition to a student sample (Falligant & Pence, 2019). The current study uses probability discounting to study the choice between accepting a plea bargain for a shorter incarceration sentence or risking a trial with a longer sentence on a sample of adults with experience in the criminal justice system. Three sentence durations, or magnitudes, were used (1 year, 5 years, and 25 …

Bridging Psychometric And Cognitive Models Of (General) Intelligence: An Investigation Based On Process Overlap Theory, Han Hao

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Human intelligence has been scientifically investigated as a psychological construct for over a century but there has not been a universally accepted definition or theory. One cause of this problem is that traditional theories attempt to explain the robust findings in cognitive ability testing, such as the positive manifold, from two different perspectives: psychometric or cognitive. Both approaches have their own limitations and are sometimes incompatible with each other. Therefore, contemporary theories of intelligence have been developed to provide a more unified perspective by combining both types of approaches, allowing the psychometric structure of cognitive abilities to be represented and …

Characterizing The Patterns, Predictors, And Processes Involved In Recovery From Substance Use Disorders, Rebecca L. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol and drug use disorders are associated with significant cost to individuals, families, and society.Approximately 40-75% of affected individuals remit from alcohol use disorders (AUD). Although the development of AUD is well studied, recovery from AUD and factors that contribute to recovery are not as well characterized. With the definition of recovery evolving towards a process rather than an outcome, there is a need to better understand psychosocial functioning and quality of life among individuals at different points in their recovery journeys. Concurrently, additional research is needed to understand the interplay between sources of recovery capital, individual differences in risk …

Student Attitudes Toward Science: Growth Trajectories And Thematic Analysis Of A Project-Based Internship, Robert Donavin Mccreary

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In order to increase the number of students pursuing science-related careers, science educators and policymakers have advocated for improving student attitudes toward science (SAS) through inquiry-based instruction, such as project-based learning (PBL). While challenges exist in PBL, research suggests cogenerative dialogue (cogen) can ease the transition for students from traditional learning to PBL. In the present study, a secondary analysis was conducted to examine SAS growth trajectories from participants of the Work With A Scientist Program (WWASP) – a student-scientist internship which integrated cogen with PBL. Additionally, a thematic analysis was conducted to explore student attitudes toward cogen. The growth …

The Development Of The Adaptable Self-Disclosure Scale (Asds): A Multidimensional Approach To Disclosure Assessment, Brandon Mcintyre

All Dissertations

Understanding how individuals share or conceal parts of their identity has long been a topic of research with little consistency of measurement validation. The present study had three main goals: (1) define and conceptualize a multidimensional model of identity disclosure that can apply to any concealable identity, (2) generate a validated and adaptable scale for assessing any concealable identity, and (3) demonstrate the adaptability of this scale for a specific concealable identity. In Study 1, the proposed disclosure model was used to generate 72 items which were narrowed down using factor analysis to form the Adaptable Self-Disclosure Scale (ASDS). The …

Improving The Assessment Of Practical Judgment Ability In Older Adults, Crystal G. Quinn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Judgment is an important aspect of executive functioning and critical to many aspects of real-world behavior. As the older adult population and incidence of dementia rises, the assessment of judgment during neuropsychological evaluations is important for informing diagnosis, understanding functional and cognitive competence, and designing effective treatment plans. The Test of Practical Judgment (TOP-J) is an objective verbal measure with two versions (i.e., 9 items and 15 items) that is increasingly used by neuropsychologists; however, initial validation research was conducted with a small, highly-educated non-Hispanic White sample. As a result, normative data and content may not be appropriate for individuals …

Investigating The Self In Self-Report, Samantha L. Boddy

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Self-report items are ubiquitous in social sciences and services and medical centers. However, there is some concern about whether people are able to accurately report about themselves. One well-known source of concern is social desirability bias (SDB) or socially desirable responding (SDR), which involves people providing overly-positive responses about themselves that better align with social norms than might their actual attitudes or behaviors. However, several researchers (e.g., Brenner & DeLamater, 2016; Hadaway et al., 1998) suggest that a person’s identity in the area of interest may bias their responding. Specifically, that people interpret and respond to items in terms of …