Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Soontae An / Since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relaxed regulations on broadcast DTC advertising in 1997, DTC advertising has become a prominent part of public health communication. The purpose of this study is to assess the stigma reducing components of DTC ads based on the attribution theory and recategorization theory. Taken together, the combination of these two health communication theories can provide a useful framework to assess whether DTC advertising has made a sufficient effort to reduce the barrier in an attempt to motivate people to take appropriate actions for their treatment. A content-analysis of the past ten years from 1998 to 2008 of DTC ads of stigmatized diseases was done to critically evaluate the practice of DTC ads. Results focus on the prevalence of onset controllability (e.g., whether contracting an illness is blamable or not), offset responsibility (e.g., whether people have efforts to cope with or not) and recategorization (e.g., in-group) as textual cues and visual cues in the ads. Only half of ads (57%) offered a stigma reducing strategy. The most prevalent for both textual cues and visual cues were recategorization. However, an unbalance of stigma reducing components implies a meaning that Corrigan and Penn (1999)’s strategy of interventions to reduce stigma could not effectively function. Therefore, it required appropriate adjustments by onset controllability, offset responsibility and recategorization.

Master of Science / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / F. Todd Goodson / This study analyzes the power of rhetorical forms from a historical perspective. Ronald Reagan's presidency (1981-1989) will serve as the historical time period used for analysis. By looking at President Ronald Reagan‘s ―War on Drugs, this study provides historical research on the legislative initiatives leading up to this war, as well as on the various aspects of Reagan‘s drug policies. In addition, this study also outlines concurrent educational policies respectively. This background information provides a foundation for examining the role of education within the -War on Drugs, as well as how rhetorical similarities between Reagan‘s drug and education policies are indicative of his administration‘s larger aims and beliefs.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / William H. Meredith / This study made use of a three round Delphi survey process to explore the influential factors in the personal clinical theory development of marriage and family therapists. The sample consisted of marriage and family therapy trainees in COAMFTE accredited masters programs around the country. The initial round began with 64 items and resulted in 94 items. The last round resulted in 94 items being rated as to their amount of influence upon the personal clinical theory development of the trainees. A core set of variables were identified that were seen to be highly influential in the theory development process. Panelists were able to reach a strong consensus on all but one of these variables. A much larger set of variables were deemed moderately high in importance and varied in the overall degree of consensus that was obtained among all panelists. The results of this study, in terms of personal clinical theory development, point to the power of the personal relationships formed in the training process. Multiple variables related to the power of personal relationships with MFT program supervisors/professors. Key graduate and undergraduate courses were identified as being highly influential. Recommendations for future study, and program emphasis are offered.

Master of Science / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Walter R. Schumm / Fathers, once deemed as “forgotten contributors to child development” (Lamb, 1975, p. 246), may provide more than just a bread winning role for their children. More studies have examined the effects of a father’s absence and involvement on his children, specifically among adolescents’ early sexual activity. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of father absence on young adults’ choices of cohabitation, marriage and divorce. The data for this analysis came from The February-March 2007 Social Trends Survey by the Pew Research Center, a nationally representative sample in the United States. This analysis selected 802 young adult respondents (ages 18-40 year old). Results support previous research that the two key factors leading to father absence are children whose parent never married or whose parents divorced. Father absence was associated with children's future cohabitation rates for the whole sample, but not when examined individually by gender, race or ethnicity. Higher marriage rates were associated with father-present homes among men and in the overall sample, but not for women or according to race or ethnicity. No associations were found between father absence and children's future divorce rates. Tracking young adults’ rates of marriage and divorce according to father absence and cohabitation (tables 4.4 through 4.9) found that young adults who had the combination of a father-present and did not cohabit had the lowest divorce rates. Future research should investigate the disparity in father-present homes between those who did and did not cohabit, father and child religiosity, and father involvement. Implications for family life education were also presented.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Candyce S. Russell / Marriage and family therapists (MFTs) over the past twenty years have increased their visibility by using their clinical skills and a systemic framework in other areas outside of therapy (i.e., business, school, medicine). Many of these individuals have pioneered roads of systems theory application through a creative process. Traditional creativity research has focused mainly on individual factors. However, Csikszentmihalyi’s theories of flow and creativity have offered important insight on the systemic nature of the creative process. Recently, research regarding intrinsic motivation and group creativity has provided more insight on how Csikszentmihalyi’s theory could be further developed. Furthermore, applying an ecological systems theory framework to his current model provides additional levels of influence to be examined in regards to maximizing creative potential in individuals and groups. Using deductive and inductive methodologies, an ecological systems theory of creativity is presented providing a framework for studying how MFTs that have successfully entered into non-traditional realms of systemic application go through the creative process of entering into their endeavors. Interviews with successful MFTs applying skills in non-traditional areas of applications were conducted using a modified phenomenological approach. Creative processes were outlined based on themes and patterns that emerged during the analysis. Implications of these findings are made regarding how to improve creativity in MFTs at the individual, academic, and professional field levels. In addition, implications are made regarding how to improve student recruitment and maximize potential in MFT trainees. Finally, implications regarding the maximization of productivity in university settings and applying systemic creativity to business, school, government, and education settings are presented.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Walter R. Schumm / This exploratory study examines abortion decision-making attitudes of adolescents attending Roman Catholic schools. With a theoretical background using both cognitive-developmental theory and moral development theory, this study investigated adolescent abortion decision-making attitudes with a multi-part paper and pencil survey. The first part of the Abortion Attitude Scale consisted of a combination of the seven General Social Survey (GSS) abortion questions, intermingled with seven additional author-devised abortion questions. The second part of the survey consisted of sixteen reality-based scenarios, each containing a high or low level of four dimensions. The dimensions consisted of the four most common reasons for abortion females wrote about in their online written testimonies about their actual abortion experiences. The four dimensions were determined after the author conducted a frequency count of reasons for abortion originating from 87 testimonies from pro-choice web sites and 82 testimonies from pro-life web sites, plus phone calls to 8 pro-choice agencies and phone calls to 8 pro-life agencies. The Abortion Attitude Scale was offered to a convenience sample of 8th through 12th graders attending the Topeka, Kansas Catholic Schools, which includes five elementary schools and one high school. Written parental consent and written student ascent were required for students to be eligible to participate in the study. A total of 350 students participated. The study’s six hypotheses explored whether or not the combined GSS and author-devised abortion questions are unidimensional; whether or not interaction effects exist among the four dimensions in each of the scenarios; and how the independent variables of gender, age, ethnicity, and intrinsic religiosity may impact adolescents’ abortion attitudes. Results suggest several conclusions. The GSS and author-devised abortion questions are multidimensional. Regarding the four dimensions used in each of the scenarios, there were interaction effects among the four dimensions. Whereas the adolescent female participants in this study did appear to be less accepting of abortion than the male participants, and the adolescents with higher intrinsic religiosity appeared to be less accepting of abortion, the hypotheses regarding younger age and greater ethnic diversity did not appear to lend support to adolescents being less accepting of abortion. The findings thus appear to show that this study’s participants had complex attitudes about abortion decision-making, and that these attitudes appear to be at least somewhat situationally-dependent. Implications for further studies are discussed, along with limitations and conclusions.

Master of Arts / Department of Geography / John A. Harrington Jr / Analysis of polling documents indicates how little most Americans know about the world. Geography education is the key to offsetting geographic illiteracy. Fortunately programs designed to improve K-12 geography education are growing in number and strength. How can we teach more and better geography within the school system? Given the dominant role of history in the K-12 social studies curriculum, use of the psychological theory of dual-encoding to integrate geography and history lesson planning is one approach to bring more geography into the classroom. As part of Kansas Geographic Alliance programmatic activity, Kansas history and geography standards, with emphasis on the tested standards, were assessed to identify candidate themes for development of dual-encoded educational units and associated lesson plans. Three workshops were delivered to share these dual-encoded units and lesson plans. The workshops were for education faculty, teachers getting in-service professional development, and for a group of pre-service teachers in a social studies methods class. Attendees at the workshops provided assessment and feedback of the material. Based on informal comments and written responses from the workshop attendees, it is concluded that dual-encoding will enable considerable progress in geography education. Not only will the knowledge provided demonstrate the impact and significance of geography to history teachers and their students, but dual-encoded lessons will advance teacher content and pedagogical knowledge, and most importantly students will learn both geography and history better.

Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Gerald Bailey / The purpose of the study was to research, develop, and validate a step-by-step guide for museum and public school partnerships that wish to create motivational standards-based curriculum materials in high school social studies. Museum and Public School Partnerships: A Step-by-Step Guide for Creating Motivational Standards-Based Curriculum Materials in High School Social Studies was developed using the research and development methodology of Borg and Gall (1989). The research and development process used in this study included seven steps: 1) research analysis and proof of concept, 2) product planning and design, 3) preliminary product development, 4) preliminary field testing, 5) revision of the prototype, 6) main field testing, and 7) revision of the final product. A prototype of the guide was produced and then evaluated by museum and public school experts in the preliminary field test. Revisions were made to the guide based on their feedback. The guide was then distributed to practitioners in the main field test. The reviewers in the main field test were museum staff or high school history educators; or museum, curriculum, or technology directors in the United States. Feedback from the main field test was used to create the final product. Major conclusions of the study were: a) there was a lack of literature specifically for museum and public school partnerships that wished to create motivational standards-based curriculum materials for high school social studies, b) museum and public school personnel benefit from quality resource step-by-step guides, c) educational guides developed through research and development methodology offer museum and public school personnel practical and valuable products for improving education, d) a step-by-step guide is a useful tool when museums and public schools partner to create motivational standards-based curriculum materials for high school social studies, e) this study produced the first step-by-step guide for museums and public schools that wish to partner to create motivational standards-based curriculum materials for high school social studies.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Educational Leadership / W. Franklin Spikes / This study explored the relationship between anesthesiology residents' In Training Examination (ITE) percentile ranks and learning styles and domains with the variables of gender, ethnicity, and postgraduate year (PGY). The ITE is a national examination given annually as a measure of cognitive achievement. The learning style instrument was the adapted Vermunt Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS), a diagnostic learning style instrument designed for use with university-level students. The study included 112 anesthesiology residents in anesthesiology graduate medical education (GME) at four universities (five sites) during the 2006-2007 PGY. Responses to the surveys were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Pearson product-moment correlations, and stepwise and backward elimination regression analysis. The results indicated that the residents' ITE percentile ranks had a bimodal curve. The ILS has 20 scales representing four learning domains factored into four learning styles. The relationships of the learning styles with the ITE percentile ranks were significant for two learning styles: positive for the meaning directed learning style (MDLS) and negative for the undirected learning style (UDLS). Analysis of the scales comprising the MDLS (seven) and UDLS (five) revealed significant relationships for 6 of the 12 scales for the anesthesiology residents (five positive, one negative). An analysis of the domain scale relationships for the other eight scales identified an additional two scales positively related to ITE percentile ranks: vocation oriented and analyzing. The significant scales positively identified with ITE percentile ranks included relating and structuring, concrete processing, two self-regulation scales, construction of knowledge, analyzing and vocation oriented. The only scale significant with ITE percentile ranks was ambivalent, which was negative. The potential exists that the UDLS can identify, in part, residents at risk academically. The positive relationship of the meaning directed learning style and the two significant, positive scales (analyzing and vocation oriented) with ITE percentile ranks offered an indication of learning styles and strategies of residents with higher cognitive achievement outcomes. These learning strategies have the potential to help residents learn how to learn more effectively.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Karen S. Myers-Bowman / The purpose of this study was to conduct a phenomenological inquiry into the impact HIV/AIDS-related stigma has on People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) and their family members in Ghana and the overall relationship family members have with PLHA. The study explored the concept of stigma in the Ghanaian context, ways in which it is expressed, factors influencing HIV- related stigma and its consequences on both PLHA and their family members. Strategies that PLHA and their family members consider for effective HIV- related stigma prevention were also explored. The study further explored some of the gender- biased nature of HIV- related stigma in Ghana. Data was gathered qualitatively through interviews with five PLHA and their discordant family members. Interviews were transcribed and translated into English, coded and analyzed. After inductively establishing themes and categories, final confirmatory analysis was deductively established, by using the Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model and Symbolic interaction theory to affirm the authenticity and appropriateness of the inductive content analysis. The study found that HIV- related stigma begins with serostatus disclosure. Stigma is manifested in myriad contexts including the family, community, healthcare institutions and gender. The major factors influencing stigma are insufficient knowledge of HIV transmission, fear and misconception of HIV created by the media, cultural and religious factors as well as poverty. Family members experienced similar stigma as PLHA, such as loss of jobs, loss of social network, loss of identity and self stigma. However extreme impacts such as suicidal thoughts were only experienced by PLHA. The impact of HIV- related stigma is worst for women because of beliefs and values relating to gender- role expectations. While women accept and support their husbands when they have HIV/AIDS, women are often neglected and abandoned by their husbands. To address this stigma, participants suggested house to house education, financial support from the government, revision of educational content especially discontinuation of negative images of HIV/AIDS used by the media. Implications for this study in the areas of research, practice and policy are provided.