<p> The university environment in science can feel unwelcoming for ethnic underrepresented minority (URM) students due to cultural incongruity. Thus, it can be difficult for a Latino student&mdash;seeking congruity in social and value domains&mdash;to develop a coherent identity as both an ethnic minority and as an emerging scientist. Using longitudinal archival data spanning an academic year, the proposed study sought to examine whether and how motivational experiences for freshmen and sophomores contribute to identity processes, specifically among Latinos in science education. Current hypotheses were mostly unsupported, but unexpected findings suggests there is room to explore a differential influence of Social Congruity and Value Congruity on two components of Identity Integration: Conflict and Closeness. Greater Social and Value Congruity at the beginning of the academic semester independently and positively predicted greater Conflict and Closeness at the end of the same semester, respectively. Potential interpretations and implications are discussed.</p>

<p> Current research uses effect size guidelines to determine if there is a small, medium, or large effect for group design interventions. A best practice methodology and guidelines for determining the effect size of an intensive intervention in a single-subject design have not been established. The present study identifies cut score guidelines for single-subject research designs to determine if the intervention had a small, medium, or large effect. This study examines the distribution of effect size, using the Percentage of Non-Overlapping Data (PNOD) and Cohen&rsquo;s d, for a large sample of intensive academic interventions. In addition, differences in distribution for varying environmental settings (e.g., clinic-based and school-based) and targeted skill areas (e.g., math, reading, and writing) are examined. This information will assist interventionists in selecting interventions, determining if an intervention is working, and if changes to an intervention should be considered.</p>

<p> Foster youth, one of the country&rsquo;s most vulnerable populations, are often told that their best chances for escaping the cycles of abuse and poverty in which their families may have been ensconced for generations is through the attainment of a college education. However, thus far, only approximately 3% of this population has succeeded therein. For the past 20 years, scholars attempting to help ameliorate this situation often focused on illuminating the barriers to college entry and retention faced by foster youth. Currently, researchers are beginning to explore whether in addition to overcoming barriers, helping foster youth to target and develop potential internal and external protective mechanisms might also assist them in mediating the negative effects of abuse, neglect, financial instability, mental health problems, lack of academic preparation, and inadequate support systems faced by so much of this population, in order to persist through college graduation. This study looked to provide support for existing hypotheses that protective factors such as self-efficacy and perceived social support may mediate foster youth&rsquo;s college attendance and retention. Building on existing theory, the study additionally investigated whether an evolving construct, self-compassion, was also related to college attendance and retention for foster youth, in a significant-enough way to warrant incorporating self-compassion training skills into independent living skills training programs for teens and young adults from foster care. Hypothesized benefits associated with helping foster youth strengthen internal protective factors were assessed by using survey methodology to measure the extent to which a sample of foster youth in college reported significantly different levels of self-compassion, self-efficacy, and perceived social support than a similar sample of foster youth who did not attend college. The results of the study indicated that college students from foster care reported significantly higher levels of self-compassion and self-efficacy than foster and former foster youth who did not attend college. These results may serve to inform child welfare stakeholders of the potential benefits of including self-compassion training into independent living skills training programs for foster youth, so they may be better equipped to face the challenges of postsecondary education. </p>

<p> Using data from the Minnesota Student Survey of over 120,000 eighth, ninth, and eleventh grade students across the state, this study examined the characteristics of students who identified themselves as engaging in bullying behavior (bully only), being the target of bullying (victim only), or both engaging in and being the target of bullying (bully-victims). Scores for these three bully/victim groups were compared to the general student population on fourteen characteristics: perception of safety, perceived fairness, perception of care, family communication, family inclusiveness, internalizing behavior, externalizing behavior, inattentiveness, coping skills, positive self-evaluation, positive feelings toward others, parent abuse, sexual abuse, and family substance abuse. All categories of bullies and victims reported adverse scores on these measures, scoring on average about one-half standard deviation below the mean of all Minnesota students. Bullies and victims were similar on eight of the fourteen measures. Bully-victims consistently reported lower scores compared to the bully only and victim only groups. Gender differences were found with female students reporting more hardship on half of the investigated characteristics; however, gender did not interact with bully/victim status. These findings have important implications for understanding the psychological, behavioral, and physical space which both bullies and victims occupy.</p>

The present study examined the effectiveness of child development and child management training as an approach toward primary and secondary prevention of child abuse and neglect. Volunteer participants with a newborn child participated in 1 - 1 1/2 hour training sessions twice weekly in the privacy of their own home. Child development training consisted of 2 weeks of training in language, motor, self-help skill, and social skill development. Child management sessions (6 weeks) included training in reinforcement, shaping, punishment, rule development, writing behavioral contracts, mistakes of reinforcement, observing, counting, and recording behavior, communication skills, and coping skills. Following a 5 day baseline phase of in-home observation and pretesting, Immediate Contact Group participants began training in their infant's 3rd week of life. Delayed Contact Group participants began training in their infant's 12th week of life following a baseline phase which corresponded to the Immediate Contact Group's baseline, treatment, and post-treatment phases. Multiple outcome measures, matched across time for the two groups, consisted of the Adult/Adolescent Parenting Inventory (an at-risk inventory), a child development inventory, the Comprehensive Index of Marital Satisfaction, generalization observation, parent-infant observation, and role play assessment. Results reveal differential effectiveness dependent upon the outcome measure analyzed. Analysis of role play data strongly suggests that low-risk parents and parents who may be at-risk for child abuse and neglect can learn appropriate child management techniques in a relatively short period of time. Generalization of treatment effects was also demonstrated by improved responses to critical incidents not specifically targeted during training. Results also suggest that parents' knowledge of child / development was significantly improved as a function of brief, but in-depth training. Observation, at-risk, and marital satisfaction data revealed interesting, but, generally, non-significant results. Problems in the use of multiple outcome measures, recommendations for follow-up analysis, and suggestions for future research in primary and secondary prevention of child abuse and neglect are discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4359. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

This paper examines the contrasting predictions of the dual-coding and depth-of-processing theories and proposes a resolution of their differences in a more generic two factor model of stimulus trace elaboration. First, the author conducts an analysis of the literature relevant to the two approaches, reviewing three major studies and finding their results inconclusive. Second, he conducts a theoretical analysis of the two positions, contrasting the memory structures and processes they propose and finding few significant differences. Third, he describes a generic two factor stimulus trace elaboration model to more adequately address the variables currently described and explained by the dual and depth theories. The author reviews five additional studies in support of the two factor model. / The characteristics of the two factor model of stimulus trace elaboration are then explored in a 2 x 4 factorial study, involving the free recall and recognition of picture and word stimulus items under four learning strategies: Control, within-item processing, between-item processing, and a mixture of within-item and between-item processing. Separate analyses of variance were performed on the recognition and recall tests. / The results of the study are as follows. First, pictures and words failed to elicit different retention scores, under either the recognition or recall conditions. This finding is inconsistent with both the dual-coding and depth-of-processing positions, but entirely consistent with stimulus trace elaboration theory. Second, there were no differences in the performance of the within-item processing, between-item processing, and mixture groups on the recognition test, although all three surpassed the control group. This finding is entirely consistent with the one factor model of stimulus trace elaboration. Third, there were no differences between the mixture and between-item processing groups, although these groups surpassed both the within-item processing and control conditions, which again were not significantly different from one another. This finding is partially consistent with the two factor model of stimulus trace elaboration. This research provides strong support for the stimulus trace elaboration theory, but only weak support for a two factor variant of that theory. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-02, Section: A, page: 0400. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

The effects of mnemonic verbalizations and formally stated rules on problem solving were investigated in the present study. Sixty eleventh-grade students each performed a computer problem-solving task (the game of NIM) in one of three treatment conditions, each comprising 20 subjects: (1) mnemonic verbalizations in which subjects were brought to verbalize mnemonic rules; (2) formal verbalizations in which subjects verbalized formal statements of rules; and (3) coached no-verbalizations condition in which subjects were orally coached in the use of the rules in detail but had no access to them for verbalization. Results indicated that (a) mnemonic verbalizations enhanced problem-solving better than a coached no-verbalizations strategy; (b) formal statements of rules were potentially more useful than a coached no-verbalizations strategy; (c) it took longer to solve problems with verbalizations than without them. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-02, Section: A, page: 0398. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate Preservice Teachers' (PT) reasons for teaching and their beliefs about teaching. Specific reasons of PTs for entering the teaching career, and typologies (clusters) of PTs based on their reasons for teaching were investigated. Further, across the clusters of PTs, their beliefs about teaching were examined, in the context of PTs' understanding of their goals to become teachers. Mixed methods were used for data collection: survey and interviews. Participants were undergraduate students enrolled in the EDF 4210 Educational Psychology and EDF 4430 Classroom Assessment courses for the Spring semester 2007. The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, 215 participants completed a survey about PTs' demographic data, PTs' reasons for teaching and their beliefs about teaching. An initial quantitative analysis of participants' responses for the Reasons for Teaching Questionnaire (RTQ) was made using factor analysis and cluster analysis to establish groups/clusters of individuals displaying similar patterns regarding their reasons for teaching. For the second phase of the study, a selected number of participants (n=25) from the three clusters were recruited for an in-depth interview. The purpose of the interviews was to explore more deeply PTs' understanding of their goal to become a teacher, as well as similarities and differences across the clusters. Overall, the study results indicated a variety of reasons for teaching and beliefs about teaching expressed by PTs in their survey and interview responses. Survey results indicated six main categories of reasons (i.e., factors) as influential to PTs' career choices. These were reasons related to PTs' identity issues, reasons related to PTs' subject matter, reasons related to PTs' meaningful relationships, reasons related to the teaching job benefits, reasons related to PTs' holistic views of profession and reasons related to job opportunities through teaching. Three different clusters of PTs were obtained by conducting a cluster analysis, and specific reasons were found to be relevant for each cluster as related to their teaching career choices. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc tests, conducted to further explore the differences across clusters of PTs regarding their beliefs about schooling and beliefs about the teaching career, showed significant differences across the three clusters of PTs. The interview results provided more support to understanding the interplay among PTs' motivation and beliefs about teaching in the context of their understanding of the teaching goal development. A grounded theory model was developed to represent PTs' understanding of their teaching goal development as related to four major categories: Motivators, Beliefs, Context, and Strategies. Results from this study showed that PTs' understanding of their goal development was related to different types (or combination) of motivators for teaching, specific beliefs about the teaching career, all these applied to a specific context (i.e., past school experiences, emotions etc). How PTs perceived themselves as teachers, and how they perceived teaching represented a major influence in their career choices. Research from this area can bring a significant contribution to understanding PTs' beliefs in connection with their reasons for teaching as related to their attitudes toward teaching and their future professional practices. From this perspective, the issue of teacher education quality programs can be addressed, and stress the importance of studying PTs' views of teaching as related to their future instructional practices. Findings from such research may also bring a contribution to understanding motivational aspects for continuing teaching and job satisfaction, and indirectly may provide support to understanding various teacher attrition issues. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2008. / Date of Defense: November 5, 2007. / Motivation, Teacher Education, Beliefs / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeannine E. Turner, Professor Directing Dissertation; Stacey Rutledge, Outside Committee Member; Alysia Roehrig, Committee Member; John Keller, Committee Member.

This study established and then evaluated a microcomputer assisted program designed to change the contraceptive knowledge, attitudes and behavior of college students. Sixty-three volunteer subjects were evaluated for equivalency of background and contraceptive knowledge, attitudes and behavior. Age and university classification were found to be significantly different between the two experimental levels, a microcomputer used alone, and a microcomputer used in conjunction with a group interaction, and the baseline against which both of the treatments were evaluated, the reportedly effective group interactive program, the Male Involvement Project. The microcomputer when used alone significantly changed contraceptive knowledge but had no significant effect on either contraceptive attitudes or contraceptive behavior one month after treatment. The microcomputer used in conjuction with a group interaction significantly changed the contraceptive knowledge and all attitudes targeted; however, contraceptive behavior was not significantly different one month after treatment. When these two experimental levels were compared to the Male Involvement Project baseline an evaluation for differences between the groups proved insignificant. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-02, Section: A, page: 0399. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

In order to reach maximum psychological, social and vocational adjustment, spinal cord injured men and women must learn to overcome attitudinal and environmental barriers. Some research has been conducted to determine the demographic and disability related characteristics that influence acceptance of disability. However, these studies have been conducted almost exclusively with men or with a limited sample of women. Given the personal, social and vocational implications of acceptance of disability, this study was designed to determine whether gender and six other variables significantly affect acceptance of disability among spinal cord injured people. / Two questionnaires were mailed to the entire population of spinal cord injured clients of the Florida Office of Vocational Rehabilitation. The first questionnaire addressed demographic and disability related characteristics. The second instrument was the Acceptance of Disability (AD) Scale, developed by Linkowski (1969) and based on Dembo, Leviton, and Wright's (1956) theory of acceptance of loss. Data collection was considered complete at the end of six weeks; 266 clients (61.6%) responded. / Results indicated that women were significantly more accepting of their disability. A significant inverse relationship between acceptance of disability and age was present despite the duration of the disability, and a significant positive relationship was found between acceptance of disability and duration of the disability regardless of the person's age. Educational level was positively related to acceptance of disability and findings also suggested other relationships between demographic and disability related characteristics and acceptance of disability. The most notable implications of this study pertain to rehabilitation and counseling strategies for professionals working with people with spinal cord injuries, as well as the education and research programs addressing the rehabilitation process. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-02, Section: A, page: 0409. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.