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This study was designed to examine administrators’ attitudes toward the significant factors for facilitating the implementation of online courses at select community colleges in Mississippi. The population for this study included all presidents, vice presidents, deans, business managers, directors of campus technology, and distance learning coordinators at the select community colleges in Mississippi. The total population was 79 administrators. For this study, 79 questionnaires were electronically distributed to the participants, 70 (89%) were returned. 1 (2%) was excluded due to incomplete answers. 69 questionnaires (87%) were analyzed and used for this study. The findings show that in terms of relationships between select variables (position, college, age, gender, ethnicity, and experience) and administrators’ attitudes toward implementing online courses three variables had a positive relationship with administrators’ attitudes (i.e., age, ethnicity, and experience). Also, 3 variables had a negative relationship with administrators’ attitudes (i.e., position, college, gender). Furthermore administrators rated their attitudes toward online courses as “strongly agree”. In terms of the most important factors that facilitate implementing online courses at the select community colleges in Mississippi, administrators rated their responses as “strongly agree.” Those factors were resources, infrastructure, willingness of administrators to implement online courses and faculty to participate in implementing online courses. In this study, administrators rated their responses on barriers that limit implementation of online courses as “agree.” Those barriers that limit implementing online courses are lack of technical support, lack of faculty participation and lack of student access to the resources. Finally, in accordance with the finding, this study offered several major recommendations to administrators and community colleges that should be considered before implementing and delivering online courses. Some of those recommendations related to knowledge and skills of using technology by administrators, establishing good infrastructures to offer excellent online courses, and qualifying and recruiting the human resources needed to administer online courses successfully

The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether a required wellness course affected a change in the behaviors of college students. A post-course evaluation, which examined the relation between attitude, knowledge, and behavior, was conducted six months following the completion of the course. A secondary purpose of the research was to solicit information from participating students concerning which portions of the course they felt benefited them and those that did not. This was done to identify potential problems within the course in order to make improvements on content and structure. A survey was mailed six months after the completion of the course to 110 students who were enrolled in Health 200 Wellness Lifestyles in the 1997 spring semester at Radford University. Forty-five responses were returned for a return rate of 41%. An analysis of self-reported data discloses that student behaviors improved from before taking Health 200 to six months after completing the course in all behavior categories with the exception of alcohol consumption. A paired t test, which was conducted to compare knowledge between the end of the semester and the post-test, indicated a significant loss of knowledge at a p level of <.05. Results from a simple linear regression analysis revealed that 17.46% of the variability in behavior was attributed to attitude. Information gathered from the survey helped identify strengths and weaknesses of the course, which became instrumental in proposing recommendations for making course improvements. / Ed. D.

In this study we explored some of the factors associated with biased processing of attitude-relevant information. We were particularly interested in the possibility that a self-affirmation, by reducing self-evaluative concerns, might increase participants' willingness to impartially evaluate information that conflicts with their current views. We examined students' reactions to arguments about increasing tuition as a function of four factors: attitude importance, argument strength, the congruence of arguments with existing attitudes, and our experimental manipulation of affirmation. We found that affirmation reduced biased evaluation only for participants who rated the issue as important. We also found that affirmation dramatically impacted the perception of argument strength. Stronger counterattitudinal arguments were rejected by non-affirmed participants, who did not distinguish them from weak arguments, presumably because of the esteem threat posed by a strong ideological challenge. Affirmed participants, though, evaluated strong counterattitudinal arguments more positively.

Would you like a stranger more who shifts his/her attitudes to more closely align with yours? How would you feel if he/she aligned with everyone as opposed to just you? In Experiment 1, participants discussed with a partner disagreed upon social issues and received false feedback about whether the partner engaged in attitude alignment (shifted his/her attitude toward the participant’s attitude) following discussion. Participants also received false feedback about proportion of similarity (25%, 50%, or 75%) to the partner. Participants reported greater attraction toward partners who engaged in attitude alignment and who were more similar. However, similarity only predicted attraction in the absence of attitude alignment. Additionally, partner attitude alignment led to participant attitude alignment, and perceived reasoning ability marginally mediated the attitude alignment-attraction relationship. Similar to Experiment 1, participants in Experiment 2 received attitude alignment feedback, but they also received feedback about whether the partner engaged in attitude alignment with no others besides the participant (selective) or with many others besides the participant (unselective). Participants reported greater attraction toward partners who engaged in attitude alignment with them regardless of the partners’ attitude alignment with others. Perceived reasoning ability again mediated the attitude alignment-attraction relationship, and appeared to be more important in explaining this relation than cognitive evaluation or inferred attraction. Finally, participants reported greater trust and respect for partners who engaged in attitude alignment, but were no more willing to help those partners. This work extends our understanding of attitude alignment and its potential to affect interpersonal relationships, and it considers the influence of judgments about individuals outside of the dyad (i.e., alignment with others relative to alignment with the self).

How do people allocate responsibility for inter-racial conflict (Black vs. White) under ambiguous circumstances? We tested the hypothesis that responsibility allocation reflects people’s implicit racial bias—with greater blame allocated to the Black protagonist by observers with stronger implicit anti-Black bias—but only when they identify the conflict in low-level terms (i.e., the specific momentary actions of the individuals). When observers identify the conflict in high-level terms (e.g., the intentions of the individuals), they are conscious of their biases and can suppress them in favor of less prejudicial judgments. White and Black participants read or listened to an ambiguous inter-racial conflict narrative, then allocated responsibility for the conflict and rated the protagonists’ personalities. The results showed the defendants were rated as more responsible when rated more positively for personality and affective reaction. Methodological reasons for the direction of the relationship are discussed, as are suggestions for future research. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Robert Eisenberger, Dept. of Psychology. Includes bibliographical references.

People who are homeless rely heavily on acute health care facilities to meet basic health care needs. Medical-surgical nurses play a fundamental role in the health care and health outcomes of patients who are homeless. According to the Institute of Medicine, health care providers’ bias and stereotyping contribute to health disparities among marginalized and vulnerable populations. Because attitudes are linked to clinical decision making and behaviors, revealing how nurses’ attitudes towards patients who are homeless develop and transform is paramount to improving health disparities of the homeless population. The purpose of this study was to explore nurses’ clinical experiences with patients who are homeless in order to discover how attitudes toward care of the homeless develop and transform. Interpretive phenomenology was used to describe and interpret the experiences of 11 medical-surgical nurses who cared for patients who were homeless and reported their attitudes toward this marginalized population had transformed. Nurses’ clinical experiences ranged from 3 to 40 years. Audiotaped semi-structured interviews were conducted. Data analysis was ongoing throughout data collection as delineated by Diekelmann and Allen (1989) and expanded by Minick (1992). Five themes were revealed through interpretation of the rich data. The themes were ‘Discovering homelessness,’ ‘Finding common ground,’ ‘Piecing it together,’ ‘A daily struggle,’ and ‘Relationships based on distrust.’ Nurses’ attitudes were in constant development and transformation. Nurses’ life and clinical experiences created opportunities for attitude transformations. Experiences associated with attitude transformation were identified. Nurses’ experiences revealed how nurses enter practice with an established attitude toward this marginalized population. As nurses came to realize that homelessness was no longer an abstract, intangible concept rather homelessness existed and was present in their day-to-day nursing practices their attitudes began to transform. Nurses sought common experiences with patients who were homeless to create a sense of connectedness in nurse-patient relationships. Nurses described a daily struggle of maintaining positive, non-judgmental attitudes. Nurses shared how early experiences of negative encounters with patients who were homeless created feelings of distrust thus altering nurse-patient relationships with future patients who were homeless. This study contributes to nursing knowledge by revealing how medical-surgical nurses’ attitudes develop and transform and how experiences are associated with attitude change. Recommendations for nursing practice, education, research are identified.

Small satellites are growing in popularity because they offer an effective option that enables missions otherwise too schedule or cost limited. However, many possible missions require improved platform capabilities without sacrificing the cost effective nature of small satellites before they become viable. Described is the development and validation of high performance attitude determination and control for nanosatellite missions. Considered are astronomy missions, requiring very fine pointing stability, and formation flying missions requiring rapid manoeuvring while maintaining antenna coverage towards secondary pointing targets. It will be shown that power and volume limited nanosatellites are capable of this level of attitude performance by leveraging the techniques normally reserved for larger spacecraft. Discussed are attitude state estimation techniques and control laws developed for the BRITE stellar photometry constellation and CanX-4 and CanX-5 formation flying mission, along with the challenges associated with implementing and validating these designs for real space missions.

Small satellites are growing in popularity because they offer an effective option that enables missions otherwise too schedule or cost limited. However, many possible missions require improved platform capabilities without sacrificing the cost effective nature of small satellites before they become viable. Described is the development and validation of high performance attitude determination and control for nanosatellite missions. Considered are astronomy missions, requiring very fine pointing stability, and formation flying missions requiring rapid manoeuvring while maintaining antenna coverage towards secondary pointing targets. It will be shown that power and volume limited nanosatellites are capable of this level of attitude performance by leveraging the techniques normally reserved for larger spacecraft. Discussed are attitude state estimation techniques and control laws developed for the BRITE stellar photometry constellation and CanX-4 and CanX-5 formation flying mission, along with the challenges associated with implementing and validating these designs for real space missions.