Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-37).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2000. / Title from title page screen, viewed May 11, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Graham A. Jones (chair), Kenneth N. Berk, Patricia Klass, Cynthia W. Langrall, Edward S. Mooney. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-124) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (D.P.E.)--Indiana University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-92).

Bullying has long-term negative effects on the mental health and wellbeing of everyone involved. School-wide interventions have been successful in some contexts, but they often require significant institutional and financial resources. Empathy is comprised of a cognitive component (perspective taking) and an affective component (empathic concern), both of which may be necessary for prosocial behavior. According to relational frame theory (RFT), empathy involves a transformation of stimulus functions across deictic relations (I-YOU, HERE-THERE, NOW-THEN), which also requires psychological willingness (i.e., psychological flexibility). The present study investigated this theoretical model of empathy based on RFT and the role of this model in middle school bullying. Results tentatively support this model by demonstrating two ways in which psychological flexibility moderates the relationship between deictic framing ability and empathy. The utility of deictic framing and psychological flexibility in predicting bullying behaviors was also examined. Deictic framing ability and psychological flexibility were expected to negatively predict bullying behaviors, and psychological flexibility was expected to moderate the relationship between deictic framing ability and relational bullying in particular. Additional research questions explored the roles of deictic framing and psychological flexibility in the relationship between relational bullying and other relevant psychological determinants: (a) parental discord, (b) social anxiety, and (c) social roles. The results of this study were insufficient to apply this model to bullying behaviors. Methodological and statistical limitations are discussed in depth, and future directions to improve on this study and clarify these relationships are emphasized.

Healthy aging has been associated with declines in executive functioning (EF) but it remains unclear how different subprocesses of EF are affected by age and by other possibly mediating variables. The principal aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of age and processing speed on three executive functions: set-shifting, planning, and attentional control. Four age groups (20-29 years, 60-69 years, 70-79 years, and 80-89 years) were compared on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), the DKEFS Tower Test, the Conner's Continuous Performance Test, and a Letter comparison test of processing speed. Results suggested that increased age was associated with decreased performance on most of the studied executive measures, but not all EF are equally affected by age. A slowdown in processing speed mediates some, but not all, decrements in executive performance. The results are interpreted in light of recent neuroimaging data on age-related changes in brain functioning. / by Maria Beatriz Jurado Noboa. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Kersten, Earles, and Berger (2015) reported a distinction between two kinds of motion representations. Extrinsic motions involve the path of a person or object, with respect to an external frame of reference. Intrinsic motions involve the manner in which the various parts of a person or object move. They found that intrinsic motions are encoded and remembered with the corresponding actor performing the motions in a unitized memory representation. Extrinsic motions are encoded as separate memory representations, making them more difficult to accurately associate with the correct actor. In the proposed experiment, I will examine the generality of this distinction in motion representation, and investigate whether the unitization of intrinsic motion with its corresponding actor occurs during reading comprehension tasks. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

A long standing debate in psychological science is whether the face signals specific emotions. Basic emotion theory presupposes that there are coordinated facial musculature movements that individuals can identify as relating to a core set of basic emotions. In opposition to this view, the constructionist theory contends that the perception of emotion is a far more intricate process involving semantic knowledge and arousal states. The aim of the current investigation was to explore some of the questions at the crux of this debate. We showed participants video clips of real people in real time, where the face was in motion, much as in everyday life. In study 1 we directly manipulated the effects of context to determine what influences emotion perception – situational information or the face? In support of the basic emotion view, participants identified displays of happiness, anger and sadness irrespective of contextual information provided. Importantly, participants also rated one set of facial movements as more intensely expressing a ‘sad’ face. Study 1 also demonstrated unique context effects in partial support for the constructionist view, suggesting that for some facial expressions, the role of context may be important. In study 2, we explored the possible effects that language has on the perception of emotion. In the absence of linguistic cues, participants used significantly more ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ words to label the basic emotion prototype for happiness and for the ‘sad’ face introduced in study 1. Overall, findings from these studies suggest that although contextual cues may be important for specific scenarios, the face is dominant to the layperson when inferring the emotional state of another.

Contextualization is often added to mathematical achievement items to place targeted mathematical operations in a real world context or in combinations with other mathematical skills. Such items may have unintended sources of difficulty, such as greater cognitive complexity than specified in the test blueprint. These types of items are being introduced to achievement exams through assessment programs such as SBAC and PARCC. Cognitive models have been created to assess sources of cognitive complexity in mathematics items, including a global model (Embretson&Daniel, 2008) and an adapted model (Lutz, Embretson,&Poggio, 2010). The current study proposes a new cognitive model structured around sources of working memory burden with an emphasis on contextualization. Full-information item response (IRT) models were applied to a state accountability test of mathematics achievement in middle school to examine impact on psychometric properties related to burden on working memory.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed February 11, 2010). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 681-712).

This research involved the contextual influences on teacher professional expertise in the Central Urban area in Durban. It explores what happens to teachers when their context changes and how they cope with a challenging environment. This study documents and describes a particular group of foundation phase teachers’ experiences in a specific school and how the context of this school influences their professional expertise. The study draws on Dryfus and Dryfus (1986) five stage typology which describes how and why teachers’ abilities, attitudes, capabilities and perspectives change according to the skill levels. An empirical investigation involving a qualitative research methodology was done using the case study method to present this research. The instruments used in this exploration were individual semi-structured interviews with six foundation phase educators and a focus group interview with a group of five foundation phase teachers. A City centre school was used as a sample. One male teacher and five female teachers were selected. All the participants were Indian. Interviews were used because of the need to observe the teachers facial expressions and emotions during the interview. The study was able to identify the various challenges that presented itself to both novice and expert teachers in the profession. The findings are organised under eight themes which are: the conceptions of a novice teacher; the conceptions of an expert teacher; novice teachers and school context; expert teachers and school context; novice teachers and change in curriculum; expert teachers and change in curriculum; the role of experience for novice and expert teachers and novice and expert teachers relationships with peers/leaders and mentors. Emergent findings suggest that both expert and novice teachers experience difficulties in a complex and challenging context are further presented under seven themes in which the researcher did a cross analysis. Cross theme analysis was used to present the findings of a further seven themes which are; conceptions of expert and novice teachers are different, teaching and school context are experienced differently by novice and expert teachers, curriculum change makes teaching challenging for expert and novice teachers, experience is important for expert and novice teachers, every teacher needs a mentor, all teachers are always a novice and the need for flexibility. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.