Historically, school aged students from diverse backgrounds have experienced detrimental effects as a result of school psychologists who fail to consider cultural differences when providing services. The demographics of students in K- 12 schools have increasingly become more diverse which only exacerbates the need for multiculturally competent school psychologists. Research has identified graduate programs as an area to intervene and ensure future school psychologists are receiving training necessary for developing multicultural competence. Within the literature, graduate student attitude towards multiculturalism and program climate have been identified as barriers to developing multicultural competence in graduate students. Therefore, the purpose of the following study was to investigate how these two variables impact school psychology students perceived levels of multicultural competence. Participants (n= 111) included school psychology graduate students from NASP- approved programs. Participants completed the School Psychology Multicultural Competency Scale (SPMCS), Multicultural Environmental Inventory- Revised (MEI-R), and the Munroe Multicultural Attitude Scale Questionnaire (MASQUE) which was used to examine perceived levels of multicultural competence, program climate, and graduate student attitude towards multiculturalism, respectively. Results indicated a significant relationship between program climate, graduate student attitude toward multiculturalism, and perceived levels of multicultural competence. Graduate students who reported positive program climate and positive attitudes towards multiculturalism also reported higher perceived levels of multicultural competence. These findings have implications for school psychology graduate programs as it relates to graduate student training, faculty training, program evaluation, and recruitment and retention of faculty and students.

The main purpose of the study is to analyze the possible difference in attitude toward sex in advertisements when used by familiar luxury or non-luxury brands. In addition to this, the aim is to further analyze whether genders form a different attitude and purchase intention towards sexually loaded ads and the impact of varying degrees of sexual imagery shown in the ad on the factors like purchase intention. Previous research was found regarding consumer attitude toward the ad and purchase intention in relation to sex in advertisements. However no previous research examined whether consumers form a different attitude and purchase intention depending on the brand type of either luxury or non-luxury utilizing it. Few studies were found to use familiar brands advertisements and instead focused on unfamiliar brand names. Therefore, our aim is to fill these above-mentioned gaps and make a contribution to the field of research regarding sexual content in advertising. To fill the gaps presented, the following research questions were formulated: Is there a difference in attitude and purchase intention between males and females in response to sexual images in ads? What is the impact on purchase intention from varying degrees of sexual imagery in ads? And is there a difference in consumer attitude towards ads with sexual content when used by luxury and non-luxury brands? The study uses a quantitative research approach and cross-sectional research design, collecting primary data through a self-completion online survey. The research philosophies adopted are a positivistic epistemological orientation and objectivistic ontological orientation. The sample was drawn via a systematic sampling method from the target population of students enrolled in programs at Umeå School of Business and Economics. 130 respondents participated and were divided into 4 groups that completed the same questionnaire however, each group responded to a different sexually charged ad, used by either luxury or non-luxury brands with varying degrees of sexual imagery. The question sets measured variables like perceived morality and ethicality in the ad, attitude toward the ad and purchase intention. Following the data collection, the data was analyzed with tools in Excel to calculate internal reliability with Cronbach’s alpha, correlation with Pearson’s correlation test and hypotheses testing with t-Tests. Findings indicate a significant difference in attitude and purchase intention between genders in response to sexual imagery in ads. Males show a more positive attitude and stronger purchase intention compared to females. The findings further suggest the varying degrees of sexual imagery in ads influence purchase intention among respondents, where a higher degree of sexual imagery decreases the purchase intention. However this is only statistically significant in relation to its use by luxury brands. The results show a significant difference in attitude toward the ads between luxury and non-luxury brands. The difference however is only significant in response to high degrees of sexual imagery in ads. Finally, the results suggest that ads using high degrees of sexual imagery by non-luxury brands are perceived as more acceptable compared to its use by luxury brands. The findings were used to contribute to implications on theory from previous research and contribute to business administration, specifically advertising strategy with sexual imagery. Findings imply that luxury brands should cautiously use ads with high degrees of sexual imagery due to the more extreme negative responses observed. Non-luxury brands contrarily could use more highly sexual ads with less negative reactions among consumers. This technique can be used to create attention and gain publicity.

Alkoholens påverkan på människor är vida känt och intresset för attityden till bakrus på arbetsplatser uppkom som en fortsättning av en studie som visade att alkoholkonsumtionen var mer utpräglat inom Handels men mindre i Vård och Omsorg. Syftet med den här studien var att se om attityden till bakrus på arbetsplatser skiljde sig åt och om Handels är mer accepterande till bakrus än Vård och Omsorg. Det användes en enkät med attitydskalor som skulle mäta attityd till bakrus och den delades ut på utvalda omvårdnads-boenden och butiker i Uppland, totalt svarade 103 personer på enkäten. Resultatet visade på en skillnad avseende attityder till medarbetare som kommit bakfulla till arbetet för de olika yrkeskategorierna. Personal inom handels var mer accepterande till bakrus på arbetsplatser än inom Vård och Omsorg. Ett förslag till framtida studier är att forska i om det finns ett samband mellan en faktisk alkoholkonsumtion och attityder till rus/bakrus bland medarbetare på arbetsplatser.

Purpose/method: The purpose of this research is to investigate how and if football supporters’ and non-supporters’ attitude towards football clubs is affected when they read about football related events on social media. To research this phenomenon a quantitative method constituting a survey was used to find parallels and to find patterns of the impact on different persons and what situations have the greatest impact on people. Conclusion: To conclude, this research shows that posts about football related events have a strong impact on the most hardcore supporters but also on people who are not interested in football at all. Furthermore, negative events such as hooliganism during football matches are one of few incidents which have the greatest impact on people. However, there are incidents that have positive effects on people when they spread on social media as well, for example sport success. The credibility of social media was relative high which in turn leads to more people being affected of what they read since they believe that what they read is also true. Contribution: The practical contribution of this essay is to help Swedish football clubs in their work with social media and to understand the impact of social media on their club. In addition the research will guide clubs on which details are most important to work with to build a good relationship with supporters and possible supporters on social media. The theoretical contribution is to get a deeper understanding of how the attitude of supporters and non-supporters can be affected when they read different news on social media.

published_or_final_version / Philosophy / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Recent years have seen ambitious robotic exploration missions to other planets and a renewed interest in sending humans beyond low Earth orbit. These activities give rise to a need for autonomous spacecraft operation. Of particular interest here is the ability of a spacecraft to navigate independent of contact with Earth-based resources. Optical navigation techniques are proposed as a solution to the problem of navigating in a planetary system without requiring navigation information from Earth. A detailed discussion of optical sensor hardware and error sources leads to new high fidelity math models for optical sensor performance that may be used in navigation simulations. Algorithms are developed that allow optical data to be used for the estimation of spacecraft position, velocity, and attitude. Sequential measurements are processed using traditional filtering techniques. Additionally, for the case of attitude estimation, a new attitude filter called Sequential Optimal Attitude Routine (SOAR) is presented. The models and techniques developed in this dissertation are demonstrated in two case studies: (1) navigation of a spacecraft performing a planetary fly-by using real images from the June 2007 MESSENGER fly-by of Venus and (2) navigation of a spacecraft in cislunar space on a return trajectory from the Moon. / text

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An investigation of factors in the persuasion process was conducted in this thesis. Personalitys factors of dogmatism and Internal-External locus of control were examined to determine whether they would be meaningful predictors of opinion change to a persuasive communication. The researcher also examined whether these two personality factors would interact with varying degrees of source credibility.The researcher had expected both personality factors would be significant predictors of a criterion of attitude change, and that once statistical control for dogmatism and Internal-External locus of control had been provided, there would not be a significant relationship at the .05 level between source credibility and attitude change.To test these assumptions a controlled experiment was conducted with 94 subjects drawn from three Ball State University Journalism classes. The subjects were administered a pretest to determine their initial attitude to an issue of tuition tax credits (i.e., a credit that may be deducted from parents' income tax for children attending college). Subjects were subsequently exposed-to a persuasive communication which argued against the tuition tax credit proposal, and then retested to determine whether there had been a shift in opinion. After subjects had responded to the posttest they were asked to argue for and against the topic. According to Rokeach's theory of the "open and closed mind," the researcher had expected to find argumentation to be related to a person's belief system, whether it was open or closed, and therefore also correlated with attitude change.Findings of the multiple regression analysis failed to substantiate the original assumptions and the research hypotheses predicting a significant relationship between the two personality factors and attitude change at the .05 level were rejected.Argumentation, however did prove to be related to attitude change, significant beyond the .01 level, but was unbound to the two personality factors. The researcher proposed that this relationship could have been the result of cognitive dissonance on the part of subjects when they were forced to choose between two positively valued beliefs: 1) a belief that tuition tax credits could help ease the burden of rising college costs, and 2) a more traditional belief that "each man whould pull his own weight in society."According to this theory, subjects who changed in their initial liking for tuition tax credits from the pretest to posttest felt compelled to offer counterarguments to justify their switch in opinion in the face of information that tuition tax credits could ultimately benefit them.