This study was based on the assumption that classroom teachers were in an advantageous position to judge their principal's role behavior and their principal's administrative performance. The problem of this study was to determine whether or not significant differences existed between teachers' perceptions of their principal's role behavior; whether or not significant differences existed between teachers' perceptions of their principal's administrative performance; and whether or not there was any relationship between teachers' perceptions of their principal's role behavior and his administrative performance. The findings in this study led to the following conclusions: Factors such as sex, education level, teaching experience, school level, school size, and school district do not effect principal’s behavior or administrative performance. However, differences were found in teacher perceptions for teachers with 5 years or less of teaching experience, rural/urban school setting, principal’s sex don’t differ in their role behavior; differing instead in educational leadership ability. It is concluded that principals are least effective in the area of educational leadership when comparing the four areas of administrative decision-making, communications, general administrative behavior, and educational leadership. They are most effective in general administrative behavior. Principals, in general, tend to exhibit transactional behavior. The majority of teachers do not indicate that their principal's role behavior has any relationship to their administrative performance as school principals.

Childhood obesity is a prevalent subject of research currently, and many researchers have studied the effectiveness of school programs in battling obesity among students. This case study, utilizing ethnographic tools of observation, interviews, and investigation of artifacts, examines educators' perceptions of the role of the school in the prevention of this epidemic, how perceptions affect practices, and the barriers to prevention efforts. The lens of caring theory, social justice, and critical theory frame the analysis of how educators in a medium-sized elementary school contend with the problem of childhood obesity. Educators in this setting perceived their role in the prevention of childhood obesity as limited and tended to blame parents for the condition of obese students. Because of this perception, attempts at prevention were somewhat sporadic and individualistic in nature. Barriers included a lack of training in critical reflection and the stresses of mandated testing and budget cuts. Teachers and staff members cared for their obese students' well-being, but generally lacked the resources to help them. They were often uncomfortable discussing obesity with parents and tended to avoid the subject, and unfortunately, this conversation needs to occur in order to find help for their obese students.

Background: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is a long-term inflammatory arthritis which starts before the age of 16; 60% of those with JIA continue to have symptoms into adulthood. There are wide variations in experiences of adolescents with JIA, including the effects of the condition on social and intellectual development, self-management, psychological and physical functioning. Individual differences may be due to differences in how adolescents conceptualise JIA. Leventhal's Common Sense Self-regulatory Model (CS-SRM) has been used to theorise adults' experiences of illness, however, this has rarely been used with adolescents. The CS-SRM has three components, mental representations (component 1) that drive coping procedures and illness behaviours (component 2) which are then evaluated and appraised (component 3). A review of studies with adolescent cohorts that applied the CS-SRM found no evidence-base with which to justify application of an adult theory with children or adolescents. Thus the applicability of the theory and the use of the associated questionnaire, the Revised Illness Perceptions Questionnaire (IPQ-R), with adolescents are problematic. Aims: The aims of this PhD were first to assess the suitability of the CS-SRM for adolescents with JIA by investigating the three components of the model, and second, to develop a questionnaire for use with this population. Methods: To investigate the first two components of the CS-SRM, twenty-one participants aged between 11-16 years were recruited from a national cohort of JIA patients. Data collection was undertaken using cognitive interviewing. Framework analysis of the data was used to identify domains used by adolescents to conceptualise their JIA and content analysis to further investigate the suitability of the IPQ-R to assess beliefs. Transcripts were analysed identifying problems or inconsistencies with IPQ-R use. Adolescents' ways of coping with JIA were investigated using the somatic experience module of a computer-based interview, 'In My Shoes' (IMS). To evaluate the third component of the CS-SRM, quantitative data were used in a longitudinal mediation analysis to investigate the extent to which emotional representations and pain predicted physical behaviour (n= 50). To address the second aim of this PhD, Version 1 of the Pain Perception Questionnaire for Young People (PPQ-YP) was devised and sent to 18 healthy adolescents (11- 16) to assess linguistic validity and face validity of the items using a recent pain to answer items and provide feedback on language and length. The psychometric properties of a revised version were tested with 76 adolescents with JIA. Results: Adolescents' responses to having JIA were driven by their emotional and cognitive responses to symptoms (in this case pain) rather than illness beliefs per se. Thus, it is important to assess pain beliefs rather than broader illness representations. The need to preserve their social identity as 'normal' was a coping goal shared across the sample, however different strategies were identified, either to focus on maintaining normal activities or to attend to pain directly. Adolescents who focused on their pain held a more negative emotional representation, reported higher pain and lower functionality compared to adolescents who tried to maintain normality. Based on these results, longitudinal mediation models investigated the role of emotional representations and pain in predicting physical behaviour. Pain mediated 44% of the relationship between emotional representations and physical behaviour. Conclusions: Modifications to the model are recommended to take into account the role of social identity in the process of developing illness behaviours as well as the importance of a symptom driven conceptualisation of the condition.

Previous examinations of young children's political cognition have mainly followed a socialization framework, through large-scale surveys of children's developing comprehension of the adult political world as a knowledge-goal. However, this research was formulated in the belief that children's political understanding develops as a consequence of their attempts to comprehend the political realities present in their own social environment. Therefore, as the school represents an important micropolitical context in children's lives, this study investigated their understanding of the system of the school. The empirical work reported in this thesis first presents a broad picture of the developmental trends in children's understanding as they attempt to make sense of the school, with their perceptions of such political concepts as power, authority, rules, roles and decision-making exhibiting differences with age. However, further empirical studies, examining the children's thinking for wider influences, suggested that the children's perceptions of the social environment are subject to a very complex pattern of influences, which are not necessarily the consequences of either age or cognitive differences. There was evidence of contextual effects on children's differentiation of school rules and of links between the children's attitudes and the attitudes of both teachers and parents. More importantly, there were indications that the children's perceptions of school were also subject to influences associated with their social categories, such as socio-economic class, gender and birth order. Given the extent and significance of these influences on the children's thinking which were revealed in this research, it is argued that the development of social cognition in children is much too complex for an interpretation based solely on changing cognitive capacities. It is therefore concluded that this study presents compelling evidence in favour of a social representations perspective on the developmental trends in children's political thinking.

Ce travail de recherche a pour objet de s’interroger sur la contribution de la théorie de sensemaking à l’étude de la Responsabilité Sociétale des Entreprises (RSE). A cet effet, nous nous proposons de rendre compte du sens que les acteurs attribuent aux actions socialement responsables. Ce faisant, nous cherchons à mettre en évidence la variété de processus de sensemaking pouvant aboutir à une variété de représentations de la RSE. Notre étude qualitative consiste à explorer en profondeur le processus de sensemaking de la RSE. Nous avons eu recours à un procédé de croisement de perspectives méthodologiques : une analyse lexicale, une analyse thématique de contenu et enfin une analyse par les cartes cognitives. Les résultats font apparaître quatre classes de discours portant sur la RSE : la responsabilité vis-à-vis des parties prenantes (PP) et la cartographie des PP ; le comportement moral et éthique ; le développement durable, la certification et le reporting ; le cadrage et le déploiement de la démarche. Ces derniers montrent la nécessité de considérer cinq dimensions du processus de sensemaking de la RSE : les facteurs déclencheurs, le processus d’énaction, le processus de sélection, le processus de communication et le processus d’adaptation. Il ressort aussi de cette étude cinq types de perceptions de ce processus de sensemaking de la RSE : la perception englobante des responsables, la perception des responsables des entreprises et organisations tunisiennes publiques, la perception des responsables des entreprises et organisations tunisiennes appartenant au programme de promotion de l’ISO 26000, la perception des responsables des firmes multinationales privées et la perception du responsable du programme de promotion des principes du Pacte Mondial. / The aim of this research is to identify the contribution of sensemaking theory to the study of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Therefore, we propose to bring out the meaning that actors attribute to socially responsible actions. For that matter, we seek to highlight the variety of sensemaking process that can lead to a variety of CSR representations. Our qualitative study consists in exploring in depth the sensemaking process of CSR. We have used crossing methodological perspectives: a lexical analysis, a thematic content analysis and finally a cognitive maps analysis. The results suggest four classes of discourse on CSR: responsibility to stakeholders (SK) and stakeholder mapping; moral and ethical behavior; sustainable development, certification and reporting; framing and implementing the approach. These results show the need to consider five dimensions of the sensemaking process of CSR: triggers, enactment process, selection process, communication process and adaptation process. From this study appear also five perceptions’ types of the sensemaking process of CSR: the global managers’ perception, the perception of public enterprises and organizations managers, the perception of Tunisian enterprises and organizations belonging to the ISO 26000 promotion program managers, the perception of private multinationals managers, and the perception of the manager of the Global Compact principles program.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Kristin Timken, for the Master of Science degree in Food & Nutrition, presented on November 21, 2011, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: PERCEPTIONS & SATISFACTION OF HEALTHY FOOD CHOICES AMONG COLLEGE-AGED FEMALES IN A SELF-SERVE DINING FACILITY SETTING MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Sara Long Roth Objective: The purpose of this study was to measure perceptions of healthy food choices and satisfaction of menu choices among members of a sorority house. Design: Three surveys were used in this experiment, two pre-tests and one post-test. Subjects and Setting: The study consisted of a self-selected sample of 38 females aged 18-23 who were living in Stein Hall. Intervention: Food and menu items were changed to incorporate healthier food items and healthier recipes along with addition of more fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains Statistical Analysis: One-way ANOVA tests were used to test for significance. Post-hoc tests were used to compare the three surveys. Results: Almost 90% of the participants reported being dissatisfied, to some extent, with menu items served at meals on the first survey. Residents' reported satisfaction of menu changes changed significantly throughout duration of the study. Conclusions: Results of this study suggest that increasing healthy foods on the menus increased reported satisfaction of meals.

As international student enrollment has increased at US universities since late 1950s and early 1960s (Taylor & Angelis, 2008), international students at the graduate levels have taught an increasing number of undergraduate courses. As Bailey (1983) recognized early on, a "foreign TA problem" has developed due to various misunderstanding in the accent and culture of International Teaching Assistants (ITAs). This so called "problem" has led to numerous studies on the subject. The main focus of this study was to investigate undergraduate students' perceptions and attitudes toward the foreign accentedness of ITAs. Different from previous research which largely studied the perspectives from North American undergraduates, this study examines data from two groups of participants: 34 native (18 male; 16 female) and 32 nonnative (18 male; 14 female) English-speaking undergraduates. In order to examine this complex topic fully, three research foci were generated, including undergraduate' overall perceptions and attitudes to ITAs, their evaluations of the comprehensibility and intelligibility of ITAs' foreign accents, and their awareness and appreciation of the value of intercultural communication. The research instrument was a survey questionnaire that inquired into participants' answers to the aforementioned research foci. In addition to the general demographic information, participants had to circle or mark their answers to 20 statements, presented in 5-point Likert scales, and to write down their responses to 2 open-ended questions listed in the end of the questionnaire. This was a study of mixed-design which included quantitative and qualitative data analyses. For the quantitative part, the data gathered from 5-point Likert scales were analyzed through univariate analyses of variance (ANOVAs) and correlation analyses. The data of written responses from 2 open-ended questions were analyzed through content analyses as the qualitative part of this study. The results of this study shed a positive light on the research of ITAs. From the quantitative analyses, neither nationality nor gender showed statistically significant differences, but both groups of participants revealed moderate-high positive attitudes/perceptions to ITAs, evaluated ITAs' foreign accents slightly lower but still positively, and displayed moderate-high positive awareness/appreciation of the value of intercultural communication. Moreover, it was found that participants with higher awareness of intercultural communication showed more positive attitudes and rated ITAs' foreign accents higher. Both consistent and intriguing findings were discovered from analyzing participants written responses. In a similar manner, both groups of participants responded with more positive than negative comments to describe their personal experiences with ITAs. In contrast, more negative reports were written when the participants described their classmates' reactions toward ITAs. This inconsistency might have resulted from the conflict between avowal and ascription of participants; ethnocentrism was also revealed from the comments of some participants. The results of this study provide insights for ITA training programs when evaluating and screening ITAs' competence in spoken English and they also serve as a reference for ITAs in preparation for future teaching assignments at US institutions.

Situation : Dans le contexte de la périnatalité au Manitoba, les clientes autochtones ont tendance à avoir plus de naissances prématurées, à faire moins de suivis prénataux et vivent plus de stress que les clientes non autochtones. La colonisation et ses effets sur les peuples autochtones jouent un rôle important dans cette réalité. La sécurité culturelle est un processus de la part infirmière qui encourage une conscientisation culturelle optimale en prenant compte le contexte historique et politico-socioéconomique de sa cliente dans le but d’améliorer les relations infirmière-clients. Le but de cette recherche est de décrire les perceptions des infirmières manitobaines œuvrant en périnatalité sur les effets de la colonisation et comment elles intègrent ces connaissances dans leur relation infirmière-client. Méthodologie : Une étude descriptive qualitative a été faite par l’entremise d’une analyse de contenu qualitatif dans un contexte théorique de sécurité culturelle et de constructionisme social. Six entrevues semi-structurées avec des infirmières œuvrant ou ayant œuvré en périnatalité récemment ont eu lieu. Résultats : Des six participantes, cinq démontrent avoir des connaissances moyennes à fortes. Plus les participantes démontrent être capables de faire des liens entre leurs connaissances et leur pratique infirmière, plus elles sont capables de démontrer comment elles intègrent leurs connaissances au sein de leurs relations infirmière-clients. Les facteurs qui favorisent l’intégration de leurs connaissances sont l’intérêt que porte la participante sur les effets de la colonisation, l'expérience clinique et la maturité des participantes alors que les facteurs qui nuisent directement à cette intégration sont le manque de temps et la culture de l’unité. Trois facteurs nuisent indirectement à cette intégration : le contexte de travail complexe, le manque de compréhension des concepts de soins équitables et égaux et le manque d'autoréflexion. Discussion : Les résultats ont permis de regarder de plus près au concept de la sécurité culturelle comme un processus entrepris par l’infirmière pour aboutir à la sécurisation culturelle du client. Un début de cadre de référence est proposé qui décortique le concept de la sécurité culturelle comme étant une progression à trois étapes soit le processus entrepris par l’infirmière, la relation infirmière-client et la sécurisation culturelle du client. Les résultats de cette recherche ont permis de proposer une progression d’apprentissage basée sur la taxonomie révisée de Bloom afin d’aller de connaissances sur les effets de la colonisation à intégration de ces connaissances au sein relations infirmière-clients

Rape culture remains a major issue on college campuses today in the United States. Significant research has been conducted on rape on college campuses in the United States, examining factors such as alcohol, cost of a date, relationship between the victim and perpetrator, apparel of the victim, sexual history of the victim, etc. However, no studies have yet investigated factors that impact rape culture in France. This study will investigate factors that impact both blame attribution and perceptions of sexual assault in the United States and in France. Participants (N=249) were shown a short vignette involving a rape scenario, and then asked questions about who was at fault for the rape, as well as their perception of the situation. Results showed that alcohol use, the cost of a date, and participant country of residence all impacted how participants attributed blame, as well as impacted their overall perception of the scenario. More specifically, participants were less likely to classify a scenario as “rape” when alcohol was involved, when the cost of a date was high, and when the participant was French. These results indicate that we need to rethink the way society approaches issues of sexual assault, in the United States and in France.

abstract: With many students of all ages attending after school programs (APSs) where there are a variety of program specific goals, this study examined the physical activity (PA) patterns of youth and teens attending afterschool programs as well as their physical activity during the school week. The first phase of the study used a validated observational instrument System for Observing Play and Leisure in Youth (SOPLAY) to record PA data and contextual aspects. Data was analyzed using cross-tabulations, chi-square test, and a table created to understand moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) levels and contextual variables of the ASP. Findings suggest both girls and boys engaged in MVPA in environments built for play, while the mean percentage of girls engaged in MVPA was less than boys regardless of activity area. The second phase of the study used a survey comprised of two self-administered instruments. The first section used the Middle School Health Behavior Survey (MSHBS), which has been previously validated to record youth and teens PA behaviors during the past school week inside and outside of school. The second portion of the survey asked youth and teens about PA participation, leisure time, perceptions of the after school program, and choices within the after school program using the validated Kaiser Physical Activity Survey (KPAS). Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics to calculate and summarize data within and across both groups. Results showed more than half of youth and teens surveyed were active in some form during the past week regardless of being in school or outside of school, approximately less than a third are in front of a television or computer for less than an hour, and the favorite part of the ASP to youth and teens was the Gym and Friends respectively. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Physical Education 2015