Avhandling--Lund. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 458-472).

M.A. / The aim of this study was to ascertain whether the practise of Transcendental Meditation may benefit youths in terms of certain psychological variables. This was a quantitative quasi-experimental study as randomization was not possible. Grade seven pupils from a school in Alexandra which had been practising Transcendental Meditation for approximately two years; as well as a control school were both tested. There was an attempt to control nuisance variables, such as the translation of questionnaires, close geographical proximity of the schools, as well as the implementation of tests at the same time of day. Despite this, nuisance variables may always influence a study, in this study possible group differences could not be controlled for. Statistics showed that the school practising Transcendental Meditation had significantly lower scores than the control school in measures of anxiety. These scores were significant at the 0.1% level of significance. It was also discovered that depression was lower in the school practising Transcendental Meditation; this was found to be significant at the 1% level of significance. Measures of locus of control and hopelessness did not appear to be effected by the practice of Transcendental Meditation. Thus the possibility was proposed that Transcendental Meditation may have an effect on mood or affect namely anxiety and depression. In contrast, it was found that Transcendental Meditation may not effect the more stable personality characteristics of locus of control; nor the more stable cognitions found in hopelessness. The lowered scores of depression and anxiety were at levels of significance which may be deemed strong for a social science study. Thus this study may be considered to show important findings, as the consequences of psychological health in individuals ultimately effects the larger society.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-148).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 100 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 48-64).

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at New Paltz, 2006. / Also issued in electronic version. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 30-35). Online version available via the SUNY New Paltz Sojourner Truth Library : http://hdl.handle.net/1951/36491

M.Ed. / The writers of the HSRC report on the provision of education in the RSA emphasize the necessity of the introduction of a selection programme which ought to be implemented by every educational authority as standard practice. This study forms part of a team research project of the BUE which deals with some of the factors which may have an influence on the academic achievement of degree-course first-year students in the Rand Afrikaans University. The aim of this study is to determine whether there is a connection between the psychometric variable stress and the academic achievement of degree-course first-year teacher trainees and possibly to make an indirect contribution to the development of a selection mechanism for teacher trainees in the RAU should such a mechanism become a reality. At the hand of a study of literature on the subject the psychometric concept of stress was scrutinised specifically with refence to the definition and measuring of the concept and the connection between stress and academic performance. The most important finding was that there is a slight inverse connection between stress and academic achievement - that is low stress is inclined to go hand in hand with better performance and high stress with poorer performance. In the course of the empirical investigation the post hoc approach was followed and use was made of the BUE data bank to supply the necessary information regarding the 1986 and 1987 degree-course first-year students. The statistical technique was used to determine which differences between successful and unsuccessful student groups may be said to be significant, with reference to the various factors of the IPAT stress scale. Although there were no significant differences in respect of the factors, the following did emerge: the stress levels of all the students in the research group may be said to vary between low and average. This points to a normal society. In respect of total stress counts, the following was found: B, A. (Ed, ) students: There are no statistically significant differences between successful and unsuccessful students in respect of conscious, unconscious or total stress. B. Com, (Ed. ) students: The difference between the successful and the unsuccessful student's experience of unconscious stress was found to be statistically significant, respect of conscious or regarded as significant stress was found to be statistically significant but the differences on the total stress cannot be be regarded as significant. B.Sc.(Ed.) students: The difference in successful and unsuccessful students experience of total stress was found to be statistically significant.

An autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis in childhood comes with inherent vulnerability to adverse experiences. For some, the developmental process of adolescence overwhelms their altered neural system, exacerbating this vulnerability. Adolescence presents an opportunity to mitigate the negative effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the developing brain. However, little is known about children who have both ASD and a history of ACEs. This study, first sought to understand the prevalence of ACEs among adolescents with ASD and whether those who have experienced ACEs are placed at further risk for other social and emotional challenges, impacting their transition into adulthood. With adolescents being highly sensitized to their environment, opportunities for intervention in their environments may mitigate the long-term consequences of ACEs. Due to adolescents spending a great deal of their time in school, developing interventions to support those with ASD that can be implemented within the school would be beneficial. Thus, the second aim of this study was to understand how schools can serve as a place for trauma-informed intervention. The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model served as the conceptual framework for this mixed-methods study. Data from the 2020 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) were examined to determine the prevalence of ACEs and further risk for social-emotional issues in adolescents with ASD. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted with school personnel in public schools to understand how they respond to typically developing and ASD students who have experienced ACEs. The findings showed that 60% of adolescents with ASD had experienced ACEs. Additionally, significant associations were found between the experience of ACEs and a diagnosis of anxiety, depression and ADHD. Furthermore, the experience of ACEs was associated with being bullied, however, no significant association was found with their ability to make friends. Great variability exists in the way schools respond to ACEs, if at all, and lack consistency and clarity in their SEL practices. Therefore, there is a need to identify the school climate components that are needed to provide trauma-informed interventions and determine how to scale these interventions. Further, with the heterogeneity of the ASD profile, identifying which factors are associated with this risk will be helpful in providing tailored interventions, specifically in the school environment.

This dissertation research aims to develop systemic methods to analyze mental disorder and social media use data in young adults in a dynamic way. The first part of the dissertation is a comprehensive review on modeling methods of longitudinal data. The second part describes the methods that we used to identify symptom clusters that can characterize treatment trajectories and to predict responses of anti-depressants for depression patients. Manhattan distance and bottom-up hierarchical clustering methods were used to identify the symptom clusters. Penalized logistic regressions were conducted to identify top baseline predictors of treatment outcomes. The third part presents of Tweedie distribution application with generalized linear models and growth mixed models for analyzing association between social media use patterns and mental health status. The fourth part is future work and research directions.

M.A. / Because of the high incidence of hypertension amongst South African blacks, many hypothesis have been forwarded to account for the relative higher index of hypertension amongst South African blacks when compared to whites. Because of the virtue lack of endemic proportions of hypertension in South African blacks at the beginning of this century, the often - quoted genetic hypothesis that hypertension is genetically determined would seem not to hold for South African situation. However, this was not yet tested as one of the risk factors or precursors to hypertension, namely the higher indices of cardiovascular reactivity had not been compared in the South African group between white and black subjects. This study investigated the hypothesis that the offspring of black hypertensive parents would show greater cardiovascular reactivity than those of black non-hypertensive parents, and also show greater cardiovascular reactivity than the children of white hypertensive parents as well as the children of white non-hypertensive parents. These hypotheses were partially supported. As expected the children of black hypertensives did show greater indices of cardiovascular reactivity when compared to both children of white hypertensives and the children of black non-hypertensives. An interesting finding however, was that the children of white hypertensives had shown greater indices of the psychological construct of state anxiety than the children of black hypertensive and black non-hypertensive subjects. Whereas this study supported the hypothesis that an inherited cardiovascular reactivity would and could account for the greater index of hypertension amongst South African blacks, it is also possible that the non-psychological expression of tension or cardiovascular reactivity in the form of state anxiety could partially account for the results herein obtained.

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy