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The objective of this study is to determine the factors that affect recruitment in community colleges and how community colleges can be competitive in the recruitment process. In recent years, community colleges have become more competitive in their tuition rates, course schedules, program offerings, and athletics. Therefore, community college recruiters are given the difficult task of vying for top students and athletes. Additionally, with the current economic situation, more students are returning to school to acquire an education or a trade so that they can have an advantage when applying for jobs. As a result, colleges are challenged to find more ways to attract students to their school. The research was conducted using a questionnaire that surveyed high school seniors over the age of 18 in order to determine what factors come into play when they make their choice of college to attend. Cost of attendance, course offerings and schedules, program availability, influence of others, location of the college, family income, and scholarships and financial were investigated. The top 3 college choice factors, as determined by this study, were financial aid, cost of college, and interest in particular major or study. Family income is associated with most of the college choice influences, as it is listed as having a significant influence on 8 of the 11 college choice factors listed in this study. Students’ GPA is associated with 5 of the 11 college choice factors. Finally, students’ ACT and Parent Education are significant to four of the eleven college choice factors listed in this study. On the opposite end of the spectrum, gender and race are seldom associated with college factors.

As legalized gambling venues continue to emerge throughout the United States, the already present problem of pathological gambling is likely to evolve in to a great issue of social concern. The vast body of literature on the effects of choice and choice overload, or the experience of negative side effects due to large choice arrays, may further contribute to an understanding of gambling behavior and treatment. The current set of experiments sought to extend the previous literature on choice to a gambling context to expand the behavioral model of gambling. The purpose of Experiment I was to determine whether maximizers, or those who tend to carefully examine options, and satisficers, or those who choose with little deliberation, differ in terms of frequency of switching slot machines, a possible behavioral marker of maximization. The results demonstrated that maximizers switched among available slot machines significantly more frequently than satisficers. Experiment II investigated further links between gambling behavior and maximization. A significant correlation between maximization and outcomes of the Problem Gambling Severity Index were observed, suggesting that these phenomena are related. Experiment III tested the effects of an intervention requiring participants to make repeated choices as an abolishing operation on subsequent gambling behavior. Participants who repeatedly made choices gambled significantly fewer trials on slot machines when allowed to play freely compared to those who simply watched a gambling video. Overall, the literature on choice and the phenomena of maximization and choice overload add to the behavioral model of gambling by suggesting new relevant variables in the determination of gambling behavior.

Impulsive behavior can be viewed as selecting the less beneficial option when multiple choices are presented. This type of sub-optimal decision-making behavior has been demonstrated to be a basic behavior process that is not unique to humans. In recent years, a large body of research has surfaced analyzing the sub-optimal decision-making of animals, generating models that are analogous to impulsive human behavior. This literature attempts to investigate the factors that influence the choice-making of organisms and lead organisms to choose less reinforcement over more reinforcement in some circumstances. Research has shown that reinforcement contingencies alone do not account for all of the behavior produced, especially when organisms fail to optimize their receipt of reinforcement when given a choice. The current study sought to replicate the recent animal research on sub-optimal behavior with humans. Specifically, the current study investigated the choice-making behavior of three young boys with autism using a concurrent-chains schedule of reinforcement. Results replicated previous research with the finding that two of the three participants indicated an increasing preference for the least optimal choice while a third participant maximized his reinforcement throughout the study. Implications for future research are discussed.

In this study, a technique was developed for classifying the manner in which testees came to choose their responses to multiple choice items on a test of Science 20. One hundred thirty-one students enrolled in Science 20 at Alpha Junior Secondary School in School District # 41 (Burnaby) took part in the investigation. The sample comprised five sections taught by two teachers. The aim of the study was to determine if a distinguishable response choice strategy existed for the test under study. The pupils were asked to classify their response choice behaviour into 4 categories: guessing, elimination and guessing, recall, and reasoning. The responses were separated into groups of successful and unsuccessful testees on each of the 60 items of the test. The question was asked: Do successful testees show different response choice behaviour from unsuccessful ones? The hypothesis was tested for each of the 60 items. On 33 of these items, the response choice behaviour of successful testees differed from unsuccessful ones at or above the 95% confidence level. The strategy of response choice appeared to be to try to recall the answer first, and if this was not possible, to rely on reasoning, elimination and guessing, and guessing in that order. Three factors; achievement, difficulty level, and discriminating power; which might influence response choice behaviour were investigated. The results were inconclusive. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This paper is concerned with the use of the choice experiment method for modeling the demand for snowmobiling . The Choice Experiment includes five attributes, standard, composition, length, price day card and experience along trail. The paper estimates the snowmobile owners’ preferences and the most preferred attributes, including their will-ingness to pay for a daytrip on groomed snowmobile trail. The data consists of the an-swers from 479 registered snowmobile owners, who answered two hypothetical choice questions each. Estimating using the multinominal logit model, it is found that snow-mobilers on average are willing to pay 22.5 SEK for one day of snowmobiling on a trail with quality described as skidded every 14th day. Furthermore, it is found that the WTP increases with the quality of trail grooming. The result of this paper can be used as a yardstick for snowmobile clubs wanting to develop their trail net worth, organizations and companies developing snowmobiling as a recreational activities and marketers in-terested in marketing snowmobiling as recreational activities.

Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-91). Also available via the World Wide Web.