Sports officials experience moderate to low amounts of stress, which can affect the outcome of games, seasons, and officials' careers. Furthermore, officials' report that the criticality of game situation (situation criticality) is one of the major sources of stress they experience. Situation criticality is comprised of score differential (i.e., more pressure in close games) and time remaining in a game (i.e., more pressure as time expires). Surprisingly, there is a lack of research examining the association between situation criticality and officials' stress level. However, previous research has indicated that situation criticality impacts athletes' stress levels (Bar-Eli & Tenenbaum, 1998a). Thus, the present study explored the effect of situation criticality on officials' stress levels. Specifically, high school basketball officials were given a survey packet containing game situations that vary in criticality (i.e., score differential: > 6, < 6, and tied game; time of game: two minutes into the first half, last two minutes in the first half, last two minutes in the second half). For each game situation (a total of nine) officials completed the Stress Appraisal Measure (SAM). The SAM includes a measure of overall stress level as well as the officials' appraisals of the stressor. Results revealed that situation criticality has an effect on officials' perceived stress levels. Officials' perceived stress levels increased as score differential decreased and as time remaining in the game decreased. In addition, officials reported that a tie game at the end of the second half was the most stressful situation presented. Both threat and challenge appraisals were positively correlated with perceived stress. Furthermore, results indicated that threat appraisal had the greatest impact on overall stress level. These findings indicate that officials' stress levels fluctuate within games depending on score differential and time of game. This finding should encourage officials to manage their stress, possibly through their appraisals, to improve performance and job satisfaction. Additionally, this finding can impacts the training of officials in the management of stress as well as potential rule changes that reflect the increased situational demands on officials in critical situations (e.g., expanded instant replay). / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2014. / July 9, 2014. / Appraisal, Officials, Officiating, Performance, Referees, Stress / Includes bibliographical references. / Gershon Tenenbaum, Professor Directing Thesis; Yanyun Yang, Committee Member; Ryan Rodenberg, Committee Member.

This project studied the relationships between preschoolers' school readiness skills and the parental involvement they experience. Children's own characteristics, their family characteristics, and the parental involvement they experience, including parental home practice and informal education, are studied using the 2007 National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) School Readiness Survey. The participants were a national total sample of 2620 parents of children aged three to five years old. The results suggest that child age, speaking English at home, previous experience with preschool programs, SES, single parent status, and parental involvement all influence child's school readiness level, while age, speaking English at home, previous experience with preschool programs, SES and single parent status also influence parental involvement behaviors. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Spring Semester 2016. / April 6, 2016. / Includes bibliographical references. / Susan C. Losh, Professor Directing Thesis; Beth Phillips, Committee Member; Jeannine Turner, Committee Member.

This document describes experimental research conducted with the objective of better understanding adults' self-regulatory decision-making (e.g., study choice) process in reading for comprehension. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which individuals' self-regulatory process may be influenced by ease-of-processing. On an exploratory basis, this study also investigated the extent to which metacognitive self-assessments of learning and self-efficacy beliefs in reading may potentially interact with ease-of-processing as a predictor of study choice. In the context of reading comprehension, ease-of-processing refers to the relative ease or difficulty of processing information. Metacognitive self-assessments of learning in this context refer to personal judgments of self-perceived learning (e.g., judgments of learning) in a reading task. Self-efficacy beliefs in reading refer to personal beliefs about one's own self-perceived competence or skill as a reader. This research builds on a pilot study which found evidence to support the possibility that when reading an essay designed to be difficult to read, participants' pre-existing self-efficacy beliefs in reading may influence participants' subsequent study choices. The current research sought to extend these findings by more thoroughly examining the role of ease-of-processing in participants' self-regulatory decision-making process while engaged in reading for comprehension. On an exploratory basis, judgments of learning and self-efficacy beliefs in reading were also examined regarding the extent to which these variables may moderate the relationship, if any, between ease-of-processing and self-regulation choice (i.e., study choice). As it happens, neither judgments of learning nor self-efficacy beliefs in reading served as significant moderators of this relationship. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / March 28, 2016. / Metacognition, Reading Comprehension, Self-Regulated Learning / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeannine Turner, Professor Directing Dissertation; Colleen Kelley, University Representative; Alysia Roehrig, Committee Member; Beth Phillips, Committee Member.

DIF detection methods identify the difference between the performances of subgroups when the subgroups are matched by examinees' ability level or a proxy variable, such as total test score (Holland & Wainer, 1993). Log-linear Models (LLM) method is one of the DIF detection methods. This method was first introduced by Mellenbergh (1982) to investigate the relationship among item responses, subgroups, and categorized total test score in terms of DIF detection. This study examined the performance of LLM as a DIF detection method for dichotomous items and polytomous items. LLM method was compared with Mantel-Haenszsel (MH) and logistic regression (LR) methods to detect uniform DIF and with LR to detect non-uniform DIF in dichotomous item response data. MH was not included in non-uniform DIF detection, because, the previous studies indicated that it is not able to detect non-uniform DIF (Narayanon & Swaminathan, 1996; Uttaro & Milsap, 1994). In addition, LLM was compared with Mantel, generalized Mantel-Haenszsel (GMH), ordinal logistic regression (OLR), logistic discriminate function analysis (LDFA) methods in polytomous item response data. For this purpose, both simulation study and empirical study were conducted under various sample sizes, ability mean differences (impact) and item parameters. Since the previous studies did not investigate the effect of ability mean differences on DIF detection with LLM, this study also focused on the effect of ability mean differences between subgroups. This study found that MH was better to detect uniform DIF when LR and LLM indicated equally well performance on uniform and non-uniform DIF detection. In Addition, GMH and LLM performed better than Mantel, OLR, and LDFA for the polytomous item response data. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / April 14, 2016. / Includes bibliographical references. / Insu Paek, Professor Directing Dissertation; Fred Huffer, University Representative; Betsy Jane Becker, Committee Member; Russell Almond, Committee Member.

The purpose of this study was to examine the coaching experience in charitable cause-based endurance training programs, in which participants receive coaching to complete a marathon or similar endurance athletic event in return for raising funds for a charitable cause. In particular, the purpose of this study was to investigate the nature and extent of coach burnout in this setting, and their correlated factors. Male and female coaches (n = 150) from six different endurance sports participated in this study. Their average reported age was 50.94 years (SD = 10.01) and their average years of coaching in the charitable setting was 6.76 (SD = 4.77). They completed four questionnaires: a demographic questionnaire, the Areas of Worklife Survey (Leiter & Maslach, 1999), the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction scale (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Deci, Ryan, Gagné, Leone, Usunov, & Kornazheva, 2001), and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996). Items in these last three questionnaires were modified, with permission, to more specifically reflect the charitable coaching setting. Path analyses indicated that basic needs played a relatively minor mediating role between worklife satisfaction and burnout, compared with the direct effects of both the AWS and BPN dimensions. In particular, BPN emerged as an important direct predictor of burnout rather than a mediator. This study was, to my knowledge, the first to examine the coaching experience in the charitable setting. It was also the first to present a model of the coaching experience that combined two separate lines of research: worklife satisfaction in relation to burnout, and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs as presented in self-determination theory. It is hoped that this model will have applications to coaching in other settings, as well as to other areas in sport and exercise psychology. In addition, this is one of the few studies to examine any aspect of the charitable cause-based endurance training phenomenon, despite the fact that this phenomenon has now been in existence for over 30 years, and has successfully induced millions of beginner athletes around the world to complete long-distance endurance events such as marathons. Therefore, this study helps to address a research gap regarding the success of these programs in motivating individuals to pursue large-scale fitness goals. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2015. / December 2, 2015. / basic psychological needs, burnout, charitable, coaching, endurance training, motivation / Includes bibliographical references. / Betsy J. Becker, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Robert C. Eklund, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Colleen Kelley, University Representative; Gershon Tenenbaum, Committee Member; Russell Almond, Committee Member.

The current study investigated how college students’ perception of cognitive demands, instrumentality and personality influent their learning strategies generally used for a specific course. A survey package consisting of a Cognitive Demands Questionnaire (Zhou, Phillips, & Turner, 2012), the Instrumentality Questionnaire (Husman & Lens, 1999), the Big-Five Personality Questionnaire (John, Donahue & Kentle, 1991), and part of the Motivated Learning Strategies Questionnaire (31 items for measuring cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies ,Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991) was administered to 494 participants near the end of the semester when students have already completed most of the course content and assignments. The results revealed that 1) Compared to personality traits and instrumentality, cognitive demands are stronger and more direct predictors for explaining students’ use of learning strategies; 2) Most personality traits associated with impulse control only have indirect influence on learning strategies through the coordination of self-regulation; 3) Self-regulation has a special role of coordinating cognitive demands, instrumentality and personality. The present results shed light on the very important role played by the local context of the specific demand characteristics of the assignments of a given course. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning System in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2016. / July 5, 2016. / Cognitive demand, Instrumentality, Learning strategy, Personality / Includes bibliographical references. / Beth M. Phillips, Professor Directing Dissertation; Sherry Southerland, University Representative; Jeannine Turner, Committee Member; Yanyun Yang, Committee Member.

Despite evidence of smaller gaps in recent years, there is still major concern of high student attrition rates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, particularly in engineering and computer science (Chen, 2013, 2015; NSF, 2013). The literature has shown that academic achievement is an important predictor for STEM major retention (Whalen & Shelley II, 2010; Geisinger & Raman, 2013). Furthermore, motivational variables such as students’ intelligence mindset (i.e., basic beliefs of intelligence) and academic goal orientations (i.e., goals students focus on to reach certain achievement outcomes) have been shown to relate to and be predictive of students’ academic achievement (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Farrington et al., 2012). Using Dweck’s socio-cognitive approach to motivation, the current study extends the work of growth- and fixed-intelligence mindsets to college engineering students. Using data from 245 unique student participants from four junior- and senior-level electrical engineering courses, I investigated three issues. First, I examined and compared the relationships among student engineering majors’ math and science intelligence mindsets and academic goal orientations during the beginning and end of the semester. I found that there were consistent and significant relationships during both time points among students’ science- and math-growth intelligence mindsets and mastery-approach goals, students’ science- and math-fixed intelligence mindsets and performance-avoidance goals, and students’ science- and math-fixed intelligence mindsets and performance-approach goals. There were also some significant relationships among students’ science- and math-fixed intelligence mindsets and mastery-approach goals at the end of the semester. There were, however, no significant differences between any of the correlations between students’ intelligence mindsets and goal orientations at the beginning and end of the semester. Second, I investigated students’ math and science intelligence mindsets across four time points throughout a semester to see if there were any significant differences across time and across the four courses. I found a significant difference across time for students’ science-growth and math-growth intelligence mindsets, specifically a decrease in scores between time point 2 and time point 4. Third, I examined the potential predictive relationship of students’ course exam grades on their end-of-semester science- and math-intelligence mindset. Exam 1 grades significantly predicted students’ end-of-semester math-growth intelligence mindsets. Results and future research are discussed, as well as implications from these findings. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the Master of Science. / Fall Semester 2016. / November 9, 2016. / Academic Goal Orientation, Engineering Education, Intelligence mindset / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeannine E. Turner, Professor Directing Thesis; Alysia Roehrig, Committee Member; Shonda Bernadin, Committee Member; Qian Zhang, Committee Member.

Meta-analytic techniques have gained great attention in educational, social and behavioral sciences to synthesize and summarize related study results. Most common tradition is to use primary studies with similar designs (correlational or experimental) in order to draw conclusions for a specific topic. Sometimes different set of studies – experimental and correlational – are available to researchers focus on similar outcomes. Until now, methods to synthesize the results of studies coming from such different designs have not been introduced. This study was conducted to present a proper meta-analytic technique to include both continuous and treatment predictors in a regression model, and to investigate the accuracy of the parameter estimates when assuming different interdependency conditions among the predictors. Moreover, it was important to address the issue of missing information about predictor intercorrelations. Two- and three-predictor models were examined under the fixed-effects models. The simulation study results in this dissertation showed that syntheses of treatment and correlational studies differ when predictors are assumed to be dependent or independent and meta-analysts should consider modeling the possible dependency when synthesizing primary study results. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2016. / November 14, 2016. / correlation, dependent effect sizes, meta-analysis, standardized regression model / Includes bibliographical references. / Betsy Jane Becker, Professor Directing Dissertation; Diana Rice, University Representative; Russell George Almond, Committee Member; Yanyun Yang, Committee Member.

This study investigated dimensions of undergraduate research among diverse academic majors at a large Southeastern public research university. Undergraduates' engagement in research, awareness of research opportunities, interests in participating in research activities, researcher role-identity salience, and research career attitudes were collectively examined. Special attention was paid to effects associated with gender, race/ethnicity, academic class level, first-generation college status, and academic major. The study proposed a researcher role-identity salience measurement model resulting from confirmatory factor analysis of a 4-factor solution that fit well to the data. Findings suggest that the proposed researcher role-identity salience model of this study is a useful instrument for measuring the extent to which undergraduates identify with a role of a researcher. Dimensions of undergraduate research varied significantly by gender, race/ethnicity, and college major. Specifically, research engagement, researcher role-identity salience, research career attitudes, research participation interest, and awareness of research opportunities tended to be most positive among male students, Asian/Pacific Islander students, and physical and life sciences majors. These dimensions of undergraduate research tended to be least positive among female students, Black/African-American and White/non-Hispanic students. Engagement in research intensive activities was found to positively relate to other dimensions of undergraduate research, particularly researcher role-identity salience and awareness of research opportunities; being a science major was found to positively relate to research participation interest. The results from this study may help explain undergraduates' attitudes toward and identification with prospective occupational role-identities, and assist in identifying undergraduate populations that may benefit from increased promotion and availability of research intensive experiences. Deeper understanding of these relationships will inform how undergraduate research experiences affect the next generation of research professionals through occupational identity development and career attitudes. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / February 8, 2017. / career attitudes, occupational identity development, role-identity salience, situated identities, undergraduate research / Includes bibliographical references. / Susan C. Losh, Professor Directing Dissertation; Robert A. Schwartz, University Representative; Beth M. Phillips, Committee Member; Betsy J. Becker, Committee Member; Roxanne M. Hughes, Committee Member.

Burnout is common when demands of the sport exceed the rewards. Individuals who have certain personality dispositions, such as perfectionism, have higher likelihood to experience stress (both in and out of sport) and subsequent burnout (Fender, 1989; Gould, Tuffey, Udry, & Loehr, 1996; Stoeber, 2011). Perfectionism has both adaptive and maladaptive dimensions, with more maladaptive qualities leading to greater perceived stress (Hamacheck, 1978; Rice & Van Arsdale, 2010). This study examined the influence of adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism on burnout as well as the mediation of perceived stress in Division II and III track and field athletes (N=351). Specifically, specialized and multiple sport athletes were compared to explore differences in these variables. Participants completed the Sport MPS-2 (Gotwals & Dunn, 2009), Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983), and Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (Raedeke & Smith, 2001) during the latter part of the competitive season. Consistent with Crocker, Gaudreau, Mosewich, and Kljajic (2014), perfectionistic concerns (maladaptive) were characterized by Concern over Mistakes while perfectionistic strivings (adaptive) were characterized by Personal Standards. MANOVA and path-analysis was used to examine relationships among the variables. Results showed a positive, indirect effect of perfectionistic concerns on burnout through stress. In contrast, perfectionistic strivings had a negative, direct effect on burnout. Thus, stress was a partial mediating variable between perfectionism on burnout. Specialized athletes showed significantly higher levels of stress compared to multiple sport athletes. Implications of the study regarding the influence of specialization, perceived stress, and perfectionism on burnout are discussed. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the Master of Science. / Spring Semester 2017. / April 10, 2017. / Athlete, Burnout, Perfectionism, Specialization, Sport, Stress / Includes bibliographical references. / Graig Chow, Professor Directing Thesis; Gershon Tenenbaum, Committee Member; Angela Canto, Committee Member.