Counseling Psychology Commons^™

A Parent-Child Therapy Program For Latino Families, Michael P. Fung

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study used a randomized control design with treatment and wait-list conditions to evaluate the efficacy of a culturally-adapted version of the Early Pathways program (Fox & Gresl, 2014), an in-home, parent-child therapy program with 137 at-risk Latino children under the age of six referred for severe behavior and emotional problems, such as aggression, oppositional behavior, self-injury and property destruction. Early Pathways directly engaged the parent-child dyad, emphasizing parent-directed training and child-engagement activities, such as psycho-education, child-led play, and cognitive-behavioral strategies. Cultural modifications included establishing community partnerships to identify Latino family needs, translation of materials, offering bilingual services, acculturation assessment, …

A Mexican Woman's Journey In Becoming A Successful American Educator, Lucy Ordaz Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations

This self-study explores the question of "What factors in my life shaped my journey in earning an American college degree and becoming a successful educator in the U.S.?" This question is explored in the context of my own lived experiences. Results contribute to the field of immigrant studies and may encourage others who wish to transition from first generation immigrant to successful professional educator in the U.S. This study employed hermeneutic phenomenology to answer the research question. It used in-depth narrative interviews to elicit my responses to lived experiences from growing up in Mexico to my current teaching position. Thematic …

Making The Connection Between Disordered Personalities And Interpersonal Dysfunction: A Relational Study, Meggie P. Rowland

Doctoral Dissertations

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a constantly evolving record of the conceptualization of mental problems. With each new edition, researchers seek to come ever closer to defining complex dysfunctional human behaviors as they occur in nature. Significant evidence suggests that the current conceptualization of personality disorders (PDs) as defined in the DSM-5 is not adequately capturing these disorders, leading to inaccurate diagnosis and ineffective treatment outcomes. This evidence has led to the formation of a new diagnostic model of PDs which is outlined in Section III of the DSM-5 under conditions requiring further study. Several …

Factors Associated With Family Counseling Practices: The Effects Of Training, Experience, And Multicultural Counseling Competence, Amanda A. Brookshear

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

The ACA code of ethics encourages the inclusion of family in the therapeutic process when doing so can be considered positive (ACA, 2014). Additionally, family dynamics are an important component of counseling for clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. A critical review of the literature reveals that there are differences between conceptual and physical inclusions of families in counseling. Counselors can use a family systems theoretical lens and or incorporate family-based interventions. The purpose of this study was to investigate how counselors include families in counseling and what factors are associated with family counseling practice. Variables assessed include training and coursework, …

School Resource Officers' Perceptions Of In-School Graffiti: Disciplinary Measures And Prevention Efforts, Bobbi Sue Van Leuven

Theses and Dissertations

The term graffiti has been adapted to mean any type of writings on a surface area that have been scratched, painted or marked. These writings, which are typically perceived from a negative point of view, may be something as small as doodles on a paper or something as large as paintings on a wall or the side of a building. Because graffiti is often part of gang culture and identified as criminal activity, when graffiti enters into a school the school's atmosphere and graffiti deters from a positive educational environment. In this study, five School Resource Officers from urban secondary …

Respite Care And Marital Quality In Parents Of Children With Down Syndrome, Michelle Norton

Theses and Dissertations

Parents of a child with a disability are at greater risk than other couples for having higher stress, adjustment difficulties, and lower marital quality. Respite care has been shown to reduce stress in parents of children with disabilities. This study focused on parents who have a child with Down syndrome and their reported marital quality and respite care received. One hundred and twelve couples, each consisting of a mother and a father who lived with their child with Down syndrome, completed questionnaires including the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Experience in Close Relationships Questionnaire, Daily Hassles and Uplifts Scale, and a …

Training Middle School Paraeducators Positive Behavior Support Strategies Through Job Embedded Feedback, Carrie Ann Eichelberger

Theses and Dissertations

The current training model for paraeducators traditionally consists of single-day workshops, emails, newsletters, in-service meetings or other similarly isolated and infrequent tips or no training at all. Such practices have caused many paraeducators and teachers to cite a lack of efficient and effective training as one of the major difficulties in their job. The purpose of the study was to establish a causal relationship between the independent variable: the direct instruction of precorrection through modeling and guided practice with bug-in-the-ear feedback and the dependent variable, the performance or nonperformance of positive behavior support strategies in the classroom. The study took …

Participation In Sports And The Development Of Resilience In Adolescents, Jason Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Adolescents today are faced with an array of risk factors including sexual activity and drug and alcohol use, as well as environmental factors that are beyond their control, such as parental divorce and poverty. The attribute of resilience is an extremely desirable quality that, if developed, has the capacity to reduce the effect of many of these risk factors that many adolescents are exposed to. Sport participation is a potential intervention that a large portion of adolescents can have access to through school and community programs that could potentially foster resilience. The current causal-comparative, non-experimental study sought to add to …

Falsification Of The Look, Rodrigo Andres Veas

Theses and Dissertations

The LOOK is a viewing time measure that seeks to assess sexual interest patterns and is currently in development at Brigham Young University. This instrument is intended to aid current efforts to prevent child sexual abuse by identifying deviant sexual interests. A recently presented study on a similar viewing time measure has raised concerns regarding individuals' ability to falsify sexual interest patterns on average. This study seeks to extend this falsification research to the LOOK in order to assess if falsification of this measure is possible by means of speed or pretense. Participants were exclusively heterosexual non-pedophilic males and females. …

A Comparison And Exploration Of Arkansas Professional School Counselor Activities Across Poverty, Angela Mccoy Harless

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is an exploration of the actual and preferred practices of Arkansas K-12 school counselors in low, mid, and high-poverty schools using the School Counselor Activity Rating Scale (Scarborough, 2005), follow-up questionnaires, and interviews. The qualitative component of this study brings to light the contextual factors that prevent school counselors from providing direct and indirect services to students outlined in the ASCA National Model. This research study examines the hidden dynamics of the counselor/principal relationship and how this relationship has a pivotal role in the realization of a fully comprehensive developmental school counseling program. This study contributes to the …

Hope Among Resilient African American Adolescents, Jessica Briana Mcclintock

Dissertations (1934 -)

African American youth have historically been disproportionately affected by an array of environmental stressors that have put them at higher risk for poor adjustment outcomes (Adams III et al., 2003; Mcloyd, 1990). Despite their hardships, not all of these youth fall victim to negative environmental influences (Miller & MacIntosh, 1999). Many exceed expectations and their lives take positive trajectories that lead to positive adaptation (Hunter, 2012; Miller & MacIntosh, 1999). This positive adaptation in spite of significant risk is referred to as resilience (Cicchetti, 2010). While the importance of resilience has been well documented in European Americans, the majority of …

Stay-At-Home-Fathers Navigating Depression: A Consensual Qualitative Research Study, William Douglas Meyers Caperton

Dissertations (1934 -)

Evidence suggests that the practices through which men are socialized to become masculine may serve both to restrict their potential in ways that lead to psychological distress, and also to restrict the ways in which they respond to such distress (Addis & Mahalik, 2003; Mahalik, Good, Tager, Levant, & Mackowiak, 2012; O’Neil, 2008). While we are beginning to understand masculine depression (Cochran & Rabinowitz, 2000; Magovcevic & Addis, 2008) and paternal depression (Paulson & Bazemore, 2010; Ramachandani & Psychogiou, 2009), almost nothing is known about how SAHFs experience depression, nor their experiences and beliefs regarding help-seeking and psychotherapy. The trend …

Basic Counseling Techniques Training: The Differential Effects Of Two Models On Skill Development And Fully Functioning, Christopher Loyd Carver

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of two models of basic counseling skill training on the development of fully functioning, and the frequency of basic skill utilization as assessed at the end of the course. Two groups of students were taught using the Carkhuff Human Resource Development model (1971) and Egan’s Skilled Helper model (2002). They were then given the Strathclyde inventory to assess fully functioning early and at the end of the semester, and skill frequency count was conducted on all participants. Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon tests were conducted to determine difference between groups in both measures. Additionally, …

An Exploration Of Health Providers' Responses To Intimate Partner Violence (Ipv) In Malaysia, Kee Pau

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

This grounded theory study aimed to examine factors that influence Malaysian health providers' attitudes, knowledge, and responses to IPV survivors, including health providers' perceptions of IPV, factors that influenced the ways they work with IPV survivors, factors they perceived toward influencing IPV survivors' help-seeking behaviors, and their recommendations for improving IPV training. Seventeen (N = 17) participants were recruited using snowball sampling and theoretical sampling was utilized to ensure the data was saturated. The results found nine superordinate themes that highlights health providers' perceptions of IPV in general, conceptualization of IPV, institutional factors, health providers' personal factors, sociocultural factors, …

Teaching Self-Determination Skills To Middle School Students With Specific Learning Disabilities, Audryn Damron

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of explicitly teaching self-advocacy skills to three middle school students with mild/moderate disabilities by having them memorize a script and request accommodations in a training and generalization setting. The intervention components included 16 lessons comprising discussion and reflection about their disabilities and educational rights under IDEA, a four-part script, and a prompting procedure. The script included (a) greeting teacher and asking if it's a good time to talk, (b) expressing concern with assignment, (c) asking for accommodation, and (d) thanking teacher. The dependent variables were (a) frequency, measured by the …

Collectivistic Coping Strategies For Distress Among Polynesian Americans, G. E. Kawika Allen, Timothy B. Smith

Faculty Publications

Previous research has shown that psychological services designed to assist clients in coping with stressful or traumatic events are more effective when aligned with clients’ cultural values, practices, and worldviews. However, limited research is available regarding the preferred coping strategies of Polynesian Americans. In examining collectivistic coping styles and their association with previous distress among 94 Polynesian Americans, we found that participants were highly likely to use family support and religion/spirituality to buffer the initial and residual effects of impairment attributable to distressing events, and private emotional outlets, such as psychotherapy, very infrequently. The use of private emotional outlets was …

Navajo Nation Brain Drain: An Exploration Of Returning College Graduates' Perspectives, Quintina Ava Adolpho

Theses and Dissertations

American Indian tribes face the phenomenon known across the world as the brain drain. They invest millions of dollars in educating their members, only to have little return on their investments. Many nation members leave reservations to get postsecondary education but never return, contributing to the brain drain. Those who get education off the reservation and choose to return are the exceptions to this rule. Although there is an abundance of literature regarding the brain drain across the world, there has been little research done with American Indians. In order to begin to understand the brain drain phenomenon this study …

The Effects Of Varied Opportunities To Respond Embedded In A Group Contingency Program, Teresa Donna Bolt

Student Works

This study investigated the effects of using a group contingency program with three students with disabilities in a small group special education setting. These students exhibited both academic and behavioral difficulties. With the use of Class Wide Function-Related Intervention Team (CW-FIT) students increased their active engagement and correct responses, as well as decreased their disruptive behaviors; however, these behaviors did not maintain over time. CW-FIT with high opportunities to respond showed an even greater improvement than CW-FIT with low opportunities to respond. Increased opportunities to respond resulted in higher levels of active engagement and correct responses and decreases in disruptive …

The Emotional Experience Of American Indians Receiving Hemodialysis And How It Relates To Treatment Adherence, Anitra M. Warrior

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

This study used a phenomenological approach as an attempt to capture the essence of the experience of American Indians with diabetes who are receiving dialysis. The purpose of this study and this approach was to develop an understanding of factors that influence treatment adherence, specifically with mental health concerns. As an additional component of this study, this research also followed an advocacy/participatory approach (Creswell, 2007) in which steps to reform services are provided to the Indian Health Service in support of this marginalized group through a written Agenda for Change.

Participants for this study were recruited from multiple states serving …

Adolescents' Perceptions Of Homophobic Language: Implications For Bullying Prevention, Benjamin M. Bailey

Theses and Dissertations

Large scientific studies have recognized homophobic language as a national concern (American Association of University Women [AAUW], 2001; Kosciw, Greytak, Diaz, & Bartkiewicz, 2010). Concerning perceptions of homophobic language use, quantitative studies were mostly conducted in specific areas of the United States and qualitative studies have largely approached the issue with the theory of masculinity. The current study proposed to approach the study actively challenging all assumptions about homophobic language use. This study assimilated 20 adolescents' perceptions of homophobic language, using a hermeneutic qualitative methodology. This study found that in addition to policing masculinity, homophobic language was used to police …