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This study uses two quantitative and two qualitative data sources to determine if homeless people are viewed as dangerous and if they are what factors contribute to this perception. Areas examined are respondent's characteristics, media affects and the perceived rights of homeless people to urban space. Actual levels of perpetration among the homeless are examined to allow for comparisons between perception and reality to be made. Findings showed that race plays a major role in the perception of homeless peo-ple among whites, while gender is more influential among blacks. There was no rela-tionship between media and perceptions. A negative relationship was found between support of rights of the homeless and the perception that they are dangerous. While the homeless have higher incarceration rate as compared to the poor-but-never-homeless, the crimes for which they are sentenced appear to be non-violent in nature and are of-ten what are characterized as nuisance crimes. Recommendations were made to study actual perpetration rates among the homeless to allow for a more in-depth analysis of criminal involvement.

The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of an external focus of attention on the learning of dart throwing at three different focus reminder frequencies (every two, every four and every ten trials). Twenty-four male and female subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Subjects threw darts at a circular target 60 times over two days while getting a reminder of their intended external focus at the three different reminder frequencies. Five-day delayed retention and transfer tests were conducted to assess learning, each consisting of five trials. The target was comprised of five concentric circles, with the center zone worth five points and the outer-most zone worth one point. Target scores were used for statistical analysis. Findings show that the groups given a reminder after every fourth and tenth trial perform better during acquisition (F=13.61; p<0.001). Furthermore, the group that received a reminder after every tenth trial performed the best during the retention test. Although, the high variability within groups may have prevented more significant differences between reminder frequency groups in the retention and transfer test results, it is evident that less-frequent reminders result in better performance and learning of dart throwing.

Conducting focus groups with children may be a useful strategy for the development of health care interventions, particularly those involving visual media such as health games. However, these groups can be challenging given a child's attention span and the constraints of their developmental needs. The use of interactive theatre techniques is a relatively novel development in focus group methodology that may be well suited for focus groups involving children. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the use of interactive theatre techniques as part of a program of research being conducted to develop an intervention to delay initiation of intercourse in middle school girls. The study design included both qualitative and quantitative methods. Data sources include: (a) videotape and participant observation notes from two focus groups (one somewhat higher in acculturation, one somewhat lower in acculturation) conducted with Latina middle schoolers (n = 15), and (b) interviews with the Principal Investigator (PI) on the larger study and the Director of the Interactive Performance Lab (IPL) who facilitated the focus groups. Videotape data were coded for positive affect and anxiety as indicated by nonverbal behaviors (forward lean, fidgeting. Interview data were content analyzed. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize coding data and responses to the study demographic questionnaire used to measure age, country of birth, and grade level. The effects of group differences in acculturation on non-verbal behavior were examined with chi-square and t-test. Results indicated a positive response to the experience: (1) members of both focus groups spontaneously expressed positive thoughts about the experience and asked to do another focus group; (2) forward leaning and participation increased over time in both groups. Field notes indicated that the more acculturated group (as indicated by place of birth) disclosed more sensitive information. This group also exhibited significantly more forward leaning (p < .01). However, the two groups did not differ significantly in mean participation (p = .44) and both showed large amounts of participation. Useful information, both context (i.e., scene setting information), and content (i.e, what should happen in the scene) were identified in the focus groups. Analysis of interviews with the Pl and the Director of the IPL indicated that each looked for different things in the data and had different perspectives regarding the "next steps" in the research process. Study findings support the use of interactive theatre techniques in focus groups involving children and argue for an interdisciplinary approach in which a nurse researcher pairs with an expert in theatre and improvisational techniques. Additional implications for research include the importance of having a debriefing period and using participation as an indicator of engagement.

The Mississippi Delta has been recognized for its poverty level and high rate of obesity. As an effort to combat the obesity issue while also considering the poverty issue of the population, a descriptive analysis was developed to understand what intervention might be beneficial. Focus groups were conducted to determine barriers to healthy eating behaviors for children, grades K-2. Focus groups (n=6) with parents or guardians of children from the six elementary schools in the Mississippi Delta were conducted in the Spring of 2007. The emergent themes included, perceived healthy foods, where diet information had been retrieved, and the efforts associated with meal preparation. Participants also voiced concern regarding the school policy on vending and coke machines that provide high-calorie non-nutritious foods.

The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of ninth-grade students and their teachers and parents/guardians with regard to the transition from middle school to high school. A mixed-method approach with both qualitative and quantitative measures assessed attitudes toward this transition. Student focus groups were also conducted toward this end. Parents and school staff were surveyed to gain insight into the problems associated with the student transition.Data gathered from students, parents, and school faculty were also analyzed to facilitate the design of a school-transition program for the local high school serving as the study site in this research. The findings support research that has indicated academic and social problems confronted by students transitioning into high school. All three study groups agree that developing a program to effectuate early adjustment by students and parents to this transition will “pave the way” toward ultimate student success.

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Working memory (WM) is often described as a mental workspace where information can be maintained and manipulated in the service of ongoing cognition. Theoretical accounts describe the focus of attention as a state within working memory where a limited number of items can be briefly maintained in a heightened status of awareness. Ongoing debate and conflicting empirical evidence surrounds the capacity and characteristics of the focus of attention. Substantial recency effects are reported in a group of WM studies, and these recency effects are interpreted as a marker of the focus of attention (e.g., Nee & Jonides, 2008; Oztekin, Davachi, & McElree, 2010). The present work considers whether these findings are specific to parameters of these particular studies or whether they generalize across a broader range of tasks. An initial behavioral experiment tested performance across two tasks (judgment of recency and judgment of primacy), two information types (verbal and spatial), and two self-reported strategies (maintenance-based and retrieval-based). Central analyses averaged trials by the serial position of the correct item, and compared the accuracy and speed of retrieval of trials in different serial positions. Results showed evidence of both recency effects and primacy effects in all four types of task (verbal judgment of recency, verbal judgment of primacy, spatial judgment of recency, and spatial judgment of primacy). Moreover, a significant task by effect-type interaction showed that the size of recency and primacy effects shifted with the demands of the task (e.g., larger recency effects in judgment of recency than in judgment of primacy). Some similarities and some differences were found between verbal and spatial domains, while no differences were found across self-reported strategy. A subsequent fMRI experiment examined the neural correlates of verbal judgment of recency and primacy. Again, behavioral results showed a task by effect-type interaction where there was a larger recency effect in judgment of recency and a larger primacy effect in judgment of primacy. FMRI results showed no distinct correlates of a recency effect. In other words, , contrasts comparing fMRI signal during retrieval of recency item trials and middle item trials did not reveal above threshold clusters of activation. In contrast, neural correlates of primacy were found in frontal lobe brain regions (BA 4, 6, 32) associated with active maintenance of information. Moreover, the precise neural correlates of primacy were task-specific. In sum, two experiments demonstrate that the behavioral and neural signatures of WM, specifically related to primacy and recency effects, are dependent on task-demands. Accounts of the architecture of WM should address these observations, which inform how competing claims are supported across studies of WM. / Psychology

<p> This study was designed to examine three issues concerning the learning of a new coordination pattern. The first issue examined was the root of the conflicting findings of previous work concerning the effect of learning a novel coordination pattern on the performance an intrinsically stable antiphase pattern (Fontaine, Lee, & Swinnen, 1997; Lee, Verschueren & Swinnen, 1995; Zanone & Kelso, 1992). Consideration of these experiments revealed that different metronomes were used, and that this metronome difference is critical because it may have influenced the learners' attentional focus during learning. Therefore, the present experiment sought to examine whether a difference of attentional focus was the cause of this conflict. The second issue was whether the superiority of an external focus over internal focus of attention during learning would be evident in the learning of a new coordination pattern. And last, this study set out to examine the issue of prior learning of a bimanual coordination pattern on the learning of a new coordination pattern. Two groups of participants (one with an. internal focus of attention, and the other with an external focus of attention) learned to perform a 90° relative phase (RP) coordination pattern over two practice sessions, and were then asked to perform a 135° RP pattern in a third session. An additional two groups of participants (one with an internal focus of attention, and the other with an external focus of attention), served as controls, and learned to perform the 135° RP pattern over all three sessions. Results of this experiment did not support the hypothesis that a difference in attentional focus during learning is responsible for the conflicting findings concerning the effect of learning on intrinsic pattern performance. Although the results seem to indicate that an external focus of attention is more beneficial than an internal focus of attention during learning of a new coordination pattern, further work without feedback as a confounding factor is required. Finally, results show that prior learning does influence the learning of a new coordination pattern in that positive transfer of learning was evident (prior learning of the 90° pattern facilitated performance of the 135° pattern), and findings provide evidence for the creation of a new attractor with learning. </p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)