Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Carolyn M. Shields. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-192) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> The purpose of this project was to develop a school-based program, identify a funding source and write a grant that would fund an educational eating disorder program for students attending high school in the greater Orange County area. An extensive literature review indicated that there was an increase in eating disorders among adolescents and a need for an educational program that would provide reinforcing tools for healthy lifestyles, identification of symptoms of the illness, and resources for interventions, treatment and community referrals for both student and educators. </p><p> The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was selected as a funding source for this grant as the goals of the foundation best fit this grant. More importantly to promote healthy lifestyles for children and adults so that they can live longer and healthier lives.</p>

<p> The effectiveness of an incremental rehearsal intervention with and without self-graphing was assessed using an adapted alternating treatments design for reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary knowledge. </p>

The major purpose of this study was to determine whether exercise could help alleviate stress when performed on a regular basis. The subjects of the study were 30 University of Arizona students between the ages of 18 and 35. The study was conducted in a Pre-Post Control Group design. Regular exercise consisted of an individual routine worked out with a trainer. The exercise program was designed to raise the heart rate 50-70% of capacity for a duration of 20 consecutive minutes a minimum of three times a week for three weeks. The data consisted of four measures, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, a self-rating of stress, a stress inventory, and blood pressure. The results of this study showed that, while subjects perceived a reduction of stress, there were no significant changes in levels of stress as measured by the pre-post instruments. While previous studies have shown exercise to have important health benefits, the conclusion of the present study suggested that, although the experimental group showed a significant change in perception of stress, the other instruments revealed no significant change.

This study investigated the educational attitudes of Hispanic and Anglo students. It was hypothesized that attitudes concerning the value of an education are comprised of abstract and concrete attitudes and that concrete educational attitudes are the best predictor of grade point averages. A specially designed Educational Attitude Scale was used to measure students' concrete and abstract educational attitudes. The results of the study indicated the following: Principal component analysis of the Hispanic students' EAS responses suggests that educational attitudes are comprised of two underlying factors (concrete and abstract). Hispanic and Anglo students significantly differed in regards to concrete educational attitudes. Both Hispanic and Anglo students did not differ in their abstract educational attitudes. Concrete educational attitudes demonstrated to be the strongest predictor of academic performance. Finally, male and female Hispanic students did not differ significantly in educational attitudes. The implications for Hispanic student achievement were discussed.

Two hundred and twenty-three Taiwanese college and high school students (124 boys and 109 girls, aged 16-18 yrs) were administered the Chinese version of the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire for Adolescents (OSIQ) and Family Background Survey. The self-image questionnaire and social economic status (SES) survey data were used to investigate different gender and social class levels in the self-image of Taiwanese adolescents. Social class was determined by means of the Hollingshead "Two Factor Index of Social Position". Results showed that girls displayed poorer self-image than boys in many areas. Student's social class background had no apparent influence on self-image. Also there were no interaction effects of gender and social class in the self-image of Taiwanese adolescents.

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine the reflective essays of first-year, first-generation college students for evidence of self-directed learning at the conclusion of their first semester at the university. A phenomenological qualitative method was employed and a content analysis rating rubric used to identify and code evidence related to four themes: Self Awareness, Decoding and Pattern Fit, Autonomy/Responsibility, and Academic Success. </p><p> The study findings indicated that first-year, first-generation college students have the capacity to take ownership of their learning in ways exemplified by self-directed learners. Participants demonstrated deep reflection and metacognition and their essays revealed unexpected student vulnerability as they voiced fears and hopes with a nearly innocent transparency and candor. Study findings also emphasized the importance of a support system that includes coursework designed to facilitate understanding of individual learner characteristics, emphasize strategies to maximize learner efforts that lead to successful outcomes, and empower students to become more self-directed. This study also expands the field of adult education by providing evidence that learner control is a key component of self-direction and is positively correlated to academic success. Ample evidence related to metacognition, self-regulation, and learner control was identified in the essay data.</p>

<p>In order to integrate a mind, body, spirit approach in school settings, yoga programming such as Y.O.G.A. for Youth was introduced to one public and two charter schools in Los Angeles area urban neighborhoods. The study examined the effectiveness of the overall program and its effect on adolescent stress, emotional affect, and resilience. A survey was administered to measure the three dependent variables and informal interviews were conducted to determine the overall effectiveness of the program. The results of the mixed method approach indicated that the overall program was effective in creating a general sense of well-being and statistically significant in alleviating stress (p &lt; .05), increasing positive affect (p &lt; .05), and resilience (p &lt; .001), in the participants (N=30). </p>

An experience can influence performance on subsequent tasks whether they require conscious recollection (e.g., the judgment of whether something has been previously encountered) or not (e.g., completing word puzzles). What kind of study activities influence performance on nonrecollective memory tests? A proposed resolution to this issue is the task-demand principle, which states that performance on a task is determined by the degree to which the demands of the task match the demands of the original experience. According to the principle, tasks can be categorized along a continuum ranging from data-driven tasks, which require thought about the physical aspects of an item, through conceptually-driven tasks, which require thought about the meaning of an item. Although findings with several types of test have been cited in support of the task-demand principle, the present focus is on two tests that have figured prominently: Perceptual identification, a data-driven task that involves rapid identification of visually degraded words, and word stem completion, a largely data-driven task that involves completing word stems (e.g., WIN for WINDOW) with the first word that comes to mind. The experiments investigated two effects germane to the task-demand principle: (a) the effect of altering, between study and test, the context in which an item is presented and (b) the effect of conceptually-driven study tasks. Contrary to the task-demand principle, context effects were obtained with perceptual identification and word stem completion after subjects engaged in conceptually-driven tasks: Performance was better when the study context was preserved for both perceptual identification and stem completion. Moreover, such context effects for perceptual identification were sensitive to the difficulty of a conceptually-driven task. Finally, perceptual identification performance benefited from a conceptually-driven study task even in the absence of any context manipulations while remaining virtually unaffected by a concurrent data-driven manipulation of typography. These findings limit the generality of the task-demand principle as an account of nonrecollective memory.

The use of animated demonstrations to teach computer software procedures is becoming more common, but previous research has been ambivalent about their value. This study compared animated demonstrations and text instructions to determine if animation is indeed a useful form of instruction. Thirty-three users were trained and tested on 7 HyperCard$\sp\circler$ tasks during three sessions to assess acquisition, retention, and transfer of procedural skills. During training, users either watched and listened to an animated demonstration, read written text, or had a choice of either. They were then tested on identical, similar, and different HyperCard tasks. Whereas the animation group was slower than the text group during training, their performance steadily improved with the subsequent tests such that they were faster and more accurate one week later. These results suggest that animation may be an effective method of training, if long-term retention of skills is the ultimate goal.