Retention of students in high school continues to be a problem. At-risk students, principally minority high school students, drop out at a staggering rate (1990 national dropout statistics indicate that 13.2 percent of Black students and 32.4 percent of Hispanic students leave high school before graduating). There is a direct, positive correlation between parent involvement and student retention. Students whose parents demonstrate positive influence regularly are more successful academically and participate more often in school and extra-curricular activities. Parents' interest in their children's education can be expressed differently. Few parents realize how important and powerful their influence can be in a school. Some parents have invested so much time and energy in previous years that they assume the high school student is emotionally mature enough to speak for him/herself. Other parents will participate in school-related projects only when or if asked by school representatives. Nearly all parents are willing to respond in a crisis. Lack of parent participation in school governance and affairs has been evident for years. In fact, it is expected by many administrators and teachers. Many articles have been written that support the importance of parent participation in a child's education. This paper will attempt to discuss strategies ten single working parents use to motivate their children to succeed in high school. Parent involvement in the child's academic success may be most needed when parents have low education levels and the children are in high school. Additionally, there are unique problems associated with single working parents; however, there is a positive correlation between single parent involvement and student retention. As a guidance counselor, talking to students it is obvious that parents use many strategies not identified in the literature at home to motivate their children to remain in high school until graduation. This research was designed to elicit, explore, and evaluate strategies used by ten single working parents to keep their children in high school when many of their peers have left high school.

Doctor of Philosophy / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared Anderson / This meta-analysis used data from 285 studies (yielding 983 effect sizes and a combined sample size of 627,726) to quantitatively evaluate the link between substance use and physical intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration and victimization. Results indicated that overall substance use, alcohol use, and drug use were significantly related to both IPV perpetration and victimization, with mean effect sizes ranging from r =.18 to .23. Moderator analyses also compared males and females for overall substance use, alcohol use, and drug use; subcategories of alcohol use and drug use; and different types of drugs, for males and females, and for IPV perpetration and for victimization. This is the first meta-analysis to compare alcohol versus drug use for IPV perpetration and IPV victimization. The analyses revealed drug use to be a significantly stronger risk marker for victimization, and a non-significantly stronger risk marker for perpetration, compared to alcohol use. Alcohol consequence measures (i.e., abuse and dependence) were significantly stronger risk markers than consumption measures for IPV victimization, but non-significantly different for IPV perpetration. Furthermore, more frequent alcohol use (few times a week, almost daily, and daily) was a significantly stronger risk marker for perpetration compared to other alcohol frequency measures. Drug consequence measures (abuse/dependence) were significantly stronger risk markers for perpetration than simply drug use measures. There were no significant differences between different drug types, and no significant difference between stimulants versus non-stimulants for IPV perpetration and victimization (though these smaller comparisons may have been underpowered, and thus unable to detect differences). The findings of this study are important because they provide the most comprehensive and detailed analysis of the link between substance use and IPV to date.

This study set out to test the effects of relationship quality with a stepfather on other familial relationships, romantic relationships, and usual outcome measures for products of parental divorce. OLS regression tests were conducted using responses from over a thousand participants from the New Family Structures Study (N=1,696). Respondents were organized by self-reported level of relationship quality with their stepfathers. Various qualities of stepfather families were then regressed against other family types—single parent, intact, and others. Results show that respondents with high-quality stepfather relationships were able to develop relationships with their biological mothers at stronger levels than people from intact families. This supports resilience theory, which posits that the exposure to risk coupled with positive, promotive factors allows a person to grow beyond his or her original trajectory. The findings of this study assert stepfamilies that encourage good stepfather-stepchild relationships can assuage some of the negative outcomes typical for children of divorce.

<p> This research asks the question, <i>How does yoga help women heal when coping with divorce?</i> To answer this question, the researcher asked four women to tell their stories through interviews. Those interviews were then synthesized into narratives. The research was completed using the heuristic inquiry method as well as story-telling and photo elicitation. The heuristics method recognizes that the primary researcher has intimate knowledge of the subject. Therefore, the researcher became the fifth participant. Through cross-referencing the five stories, two primary and two secondary themes were uncovered. The primary themes were a connection to nature and the support of a community. The researcher presents the data as stories punctuated with photos self-selected by each participant. The themes are then further explored and corroborated using scholarly literature. This research will assist yoga teachers in supporting their students who are healing during or after divorce. It may also inform teaching practices and curriculum inside yoga classrooms. </p>

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Sonya L. Britt and Martin Seay / This three essay dissertation examined questions related to personal financial difficulties of military members with the aim of suggesting the most effective focal points for those involved in development of policy or programs or working directly with military members on improving their personal financial condition. The introduction (Chapter 1) describes the nature of the problem, the level of attention it has received within the civilian and military leadership structure, and generally what has been done to address it before presenting an outline of the chapters which follow. The first essay (Chapter 2) relies on theoretical guidance from stress and coping theory to examine determinants of a military member’s choice of problem-focused over emotion-focused coping strategies. The study used primary data collected from a sample of soldiers (n = 688) at a large Midwestern military installation. Its results indicated that military members with an internal locus of control and those who performed positive financial behaviors in response to a financial stressor reported lower levels of financial stress. Taking its theoretical guidance from the theory of planned behavior, the second essay (Chapter 3) examined the relationship of the behavioral antecedents of attitude toward behavior, subjective beliefs, and perceived behavioral control with behaviors related to establishing and maintaining an adequate emergency fund and maintaining positive cash flow, the term used for keeping spending at levels below income over time. The study analyzed primary data from a sample of soldiers at a large Midwestern military installation (n = 93). Of the 11 models analyzed, most were statistically significant, though, individually, the behavioral antecedents themselves did not yield statistical significance as often. Although fewer definitive findings emerged from the cash flow group of models, results of the emergency fund group indicated that attitude toward behavior and perceived behavioral control are positively influential on behaviors related to maintaining an emergency fund. The third essay (Chapter 4) detailed a study which tested the theoretical assumption that better informed consumers make better financial choices. The study examined self-assessed financial knowledge, a self-assessed measure of confidence in day-to-day personal financial management termed financial confidence, and objectively measured financial knowledge as potential determinants of certain positive and negative financial behaviors. The positive behaviors were maintenance of positive cash flow and an adequate emergency fund, and the negative behaviors were engaging in high-cost borrowing through auto title lenders, payday lenders, pawn shops, and rent-to-own stores, collectively termed alternative financial services (AFS). The study analyzed secondary data from a sample of military members collected by the 2012 National Financial Capability Study which yielded a set of 949 responses useable for the study described in this chapter. Subjective knowledge was found to be associated with emergency fund maintenance, but not positive cash flow, while objective financial knowledge and financial confidence were found to be positively associated with positive cash flow, but not emergency fund maintenance. Females and those with higher incomes were found to be more likely to maintain positive cash flow, while those with three or more dependent children and those having experienced a recent income shock were less likely to do so. Females, members with graduate degrees, and members with a higher investing risk tolerance were more likely to maintain emergency funds, though members with two or more children and those having experienced a recent income shock were less likely to do so. Subjective financial knowledge was found to be positively related to AFS use, while objective financial knowledge and financial confidence were found to be negatively associated with AFS use. Members with more dependent children and those having experienced recent income shocks were more likely to have used AFS, while those with higher incomes were less likely to have done so. The conclusion (Chapter 5) summarizes the findings of all three essays, their implications, and suggests directions for future research. It re-emphasizes the unique contributions of the essays to personal finance literature pertaining to military members and its importance for policy makers, military leaders, and anyone involved in developing or administering personal financial improvement programs for the benefit of military members.

Master of Science / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Melinda Markham / Resiliency in the low-income population includes individual as well as familial and community achievement. In order to break down the barriers of poverty, all three must be interconnected. This report provides a review of the current literature on factors that affect individuals and families to become resilient and what programs are available for support along the way. Circles Manhattan is one program in the Manhattan, Kansas community that rallies around individuals and families in poverty and works to see them through to earning 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. This report also provides an evaluation of the Circles Manhattan Circle Leader training using pre-evaluation, post-evaluation, and weekly evaluation tools. Based on the results of the evaluation, recommendations are made for the future of Circles Manhattan as well as for researchers studying the topic of resiliency and poverty.

Master of Science / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Rick J. Scheidt / Schizophrenia can be an extremely disabling individual disorder but it is also clear that it is a "family disorder" as well. Researchers have begun to assess the correlates and possible causes of this disorder on families in the United States as well as in other nations. This report reviews this research. Most research to date has focused on two aspects of the schizophrenia-family relationship: expressed emotion and sense of burden. Following a definitional review of schizophrenia, its history, and its treatment, this report reviews research conducted on expressed emotion (relative's propensity to express critical, hostile, or over involved attitudes about a patient when discussing the patient's illness with an interviewer) and sense objective and subjective of burden of care provision. A personal account is offered regarding what it was like for the writer to grow up in a family with a parent diagnosed with schizophrenia. Finally, the conclusion of this report evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of current research on the impact of schizophrenia and the family. Suggestions for future research are derived partially from the content of the personal account. These include the need for a research targeting the full family, developmentally- and contextually-appropriate theories to guide the research, and the need for more qualitative research to identify individual and family variables that should guide future empirical efforts. It is suggested that programmatic family education and counseling should begin soon after diagnosis of the disorder, be developmentally relevant, and designed to sustain family members over long periods of time.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Sandra M. Stith / Male-to-female intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a significant social problem as research into its prevalence, incidence, severity, and resulting health consequences has documented. Just as we are beginning to understand some of the pieces of this problem in the United States, researchers and domestic violence advocates have called for expanding that understanding by exploring the range of risks involved in leaving a relationship with a violent man or in seeking help. In addition to the risk of personal physical harm, women in relationships with violent men may also consider the risk of harm to others, and the financial, social and legal risks to leaving (Hamby, 2008). Others have called for a better understanding of IPV through the examination of experiences of IPV within specific groups or subpopulations, such as with immigrant women (Menjívar & Salcido, 2002). This study uses Hamby’s (2008) holistic risk assessment, Choice and Lamke’s (1997) 2-part decision-making model, and a comparison between immigrant and non-immigrant women, to expand our understanding of the decisions women make about leaving their relationship and to seek help. With a sample of 1,307 women in the United Stated, similarities and differences between immigrant and non-immigrant women in the predictors to leaving and help seeking were determined through logistic regression analysis. Results indicate support for a holistic risk assessment such as Hamby’s (2008), and demonstrate significant differences between immigrant and non-immigrant women in their risks and barriers to leaving and help seeking. Nevertheless, examinations of the predictors to leaving and help seeking demonstrate many areas of similarity between immigrant and non-immigrant women in the ways they make decisions about leaving a relationship with a violent man or seeking help. Domestic violence advocates and therapists who work with women in relationships with violent men are encouraged to explore more fully the impact of the risks of harm to others, and the financial, social and legal risks to leaving or staying, and are further encouraged to expand their ideas of what women need once they leave, given the barriers that may make leaving more difficult for them.

<p>This study examines the connection between experiences of stress by sophomore women collegiate student-athletes and the coping strategies they adopt to deal with their stress. The study employs qualitative investigation strategies of focus group interviews and individual interviews to examine stress and coping among women student-athletes at one medium sized private university in the Washington metropolitan area. Ideas from theorists Erving Goffman and Emile Durkheim contribute to a conceptual framework for exploring both constructive and less-constructive coping strategies in the face of the stress experienced by women student-athletes. The study reveals the interconnections among understandings expressed by participants about sources of stress&mdash;notably the structural relations between coaches and student-athletes&mdash;and engaging in both constructive coping strategies&mdash;generally individual and informal&mdash;and less-constructive coping strategies&mdash;specifically, drinking alcohol and disordered eating&mdash;within the community of athletes. </p>

<p> Having a sibling with a disability has been found to have negative psychological effects, such as depression; however, very little research has focused solely on siblings of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The current study attempted to highlight whether siblings of children with ADHD experience depression symptomology to a greater degree than siblings of children without disabilities. Participants were included in the current study based on meeting the following criteria: target participants were between the ages of 6 and 17 with a biological sibling who may or may not carry a diagnosis of ADHD. Families came from 2 groups based on the siblings&rsquo; diagnosis. Seven families with at least 1 child with ADHD, and 11 families with all non-disabled children participated. Parents were asked to complete an informed consent and demographic questionnaire, as well as the Conners Rating Scale for ADHD, Third Edition, Short Form (Conners-3) on the target participant to ensure that he/she did not meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD. Taqrget participants were asked to complete an assent form, as well as the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC). Two multiple regressions were completed. Results, omitting a statistical outlier within the group consisting of families with a child with ADHD, indicated that siblings of non-disabled children experienced more symptoms of depression than siblings of children with ADHD; however, results including the statistical outlier indicated that both groups of siblings experience similar symptomology of depression. Both results were contrary to the researcher&rsquo;s hypothesis. Given the small sample size of the current study, the individuals that participated in the study may not be a representative sample, and additional research is therefore needed. Overall, the findings of the current study will guide researchers in further investigating this most important topic, and therefore, addressing how to better support families with children with ADHD.</p>