This study was designed to integrate a mailing list-based survey with an internetbased presentation/response in order to take into account the trend toward selfadministration that is evident in everyday interactions with automated services that have taken the place of personal interactions. A random sample of 2,999 was taken from applicants for Triploid Grass Carp Permits from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. A forty-nine question survey was constructed containing five sections: general pond characteristics, physical pond characteristics, aquatic vegetation, fish and other wildlife, and management goals. The primary emphasis of this study was to determine what specific problems Texas pond owners faced, how widely these problems occurred, and where pond owners got the information they used to deal with pond management problems. A secondary emphasis of the project was to examine the potential presented by the Internet for use in this type of information gathering and distribution for Texas Cooperative Extension. An overall response rate of 21.3% (excluding non-deliverables and unusable submitted surveys) was obtained. Summary statistics for each question were calculated and then compared in order to gain a clearer picture of the pond management practices employed by Texas pond owners. These results indicated some initial discrepancies between pond owners?? management practices and current management recommendations, most dramatically where aquatic vegetation was concerned. The internet-based survey methodology worked effectively to lower the cost of distribution and the workload of data entry when compared to the mail survey. These benefits outweighed the disadvantages caused by survey error with the new methodology.

Background: Pregnancy is a significant period of time for individual women. Promoting optimal health behaviors and supporting individuals during critical periods of health (such as pregnancy) is an important aspect of public health research and practice. One way of supporting individuals in promoting positive health behaviors and outcomes is by increasing their health literacy. The ability to find appropriate health information is the first step in the health literacy process. This process of finding information in health contexts is called Health Information Seeking Behavior (HISB). Whereas, HISB has been extensively studied in chronic health contexts, little research has been conducted regarding maternity-related information seeking in women. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the pregnancy-related health information seeking behavior (HISB) of women while they were pregnant. This objective will be achieved through the following specific aims: (1) To describe topics sought, and (2) describe the sources of information used by women during pregnancy. Methods: To achieve these aims, a multi-phase, descriptive, mixed methods, cross-sectional research design will be utilized. Phase I consisted of an online survey disseminated to collect HISB data on first-time mothers (N = 168) who delivered a child within the prior 12 months. Phase II consisted of in-depth individual interviews (n=26) with a sub-set of participants who completed the online survey assessment to check the consistency of the survey findings and further explore constructs related to HISB. Findings: Using primary data collection, pregnant women seek information on numerous pregnancy and childbirth topics (average 18.7 topics). Of information they sought, women ranked the three most important topics to them. If looking at topics deemed ‘most important’ irrespective of rank positioning, the most frequently cited topics were ‘How My Baby Grew While I was Pregnant’, ‘Complications during Pregnancy’, and ‘What NOT to Eat during Pregnancy.’ If we look at only those topics ranked as being first ‘most important’, ‘What NOT to Eat during Pregnancy’ is replaced by ‘Natural Birth’. Findings from the qualitative phase of the study indicated that topics were salient for a number of reasons, including curiosity about pregnancy as a new experience, wishing to avoid poor health outcomes, and wanting to achieve maternity-related goals. Quantitative results indicated that women used multiple sources of information during pregnancy to meet their information needs (average 9.9 sources). Of information sources they used, women ranked the three used ‘most often’. If looking at sources used ‘most often’ irrespective of rank positioning, the most frequently used information sources were ‘My Doctor(s) that Took Care of Me while Pregnant,’ ‘Pregnancy and Childbirth Books,’ and ‘Pregnancy and Childbirth Mobile Applications.’ If we look only at those information sources ranked as used ‘most often’, ‘Pregnancy and Childbirth Books’ are no longer used as often, and ‘Midwive(s) Who Took Care of Me while Pregnant’ becomes important. Qualitative interviews indicate that women use information sources for a variety of reasons including ease of access, access to the lived experiences of other pregnant women, reliance on professional expertise, and anticipatory guidance. Conclusion: This study found that pregnant women look for many different pregnancy and childbirth-related topics, using multiple sources of information to do so. There were multiple motivations driving information needs and use of information sources. Further, beliefs about the value of information sources were different given the motivation behind using them. Understanding pregnant women’s HISB may allow us to understand which translational practices better address individual information needs in ways that they are more likely to use. Further, if the motivation behind why women seek out information is understood and why they use certain information topics, better targeted and tailored health literate educational materials for pregnant and postpartum women may be created. Exploring health information seeking behavior of pregnant women is the first step in understanding and affecting health literacy in this priority population.

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Author: Caroline RystedtTitle: Stress in High School - A Comparison between South Korea and Sweden Supervisor: Gabriel Jonsson This thesis aims at learning about stress-related issues that affect high school students in South Korea and Sweden through survey studies, and ultimately finding possible solutions to tackle them. The quantitative, qualitative and comparative research methods were utilised to achieve the objectives. Three research questions in place are: A) Do high school students in Korea and Sweden feel stressed because of school? B)Are there any similarities in terms of causes of stress in comparison? C) Do the high school students in these two countries handle stress well? Through background research it appeared that living in the South Korean society was highly stressful; South Korea had one of the highest suicide rates amongst the OECD countries, and the figures showed that many of those were high school students. On the other hand, there were sources suggesting that the Swedish adolescents felt more stressed nowadays than the previous generation did. An online survey was conducted to garner information and opinions from second and third year students in South Korea and Sweden respectively; Subsequent analysis based on the coping andstressors theories was employed to assess the outcome of the survey. The results indicated that school had significant influence on students’ mental health - students felt stressed in both countries. There were similarities in terms of causes of stress, despite the South Korean students feeling more stressed than their Swedish counterparts based on the survey answers. The students from both countries stated that fear over uncertain future was one of the main causes of stress, and that worries over university admissions put them under pressure. The study also showed certain differences in the copying ability of the two student groups. The conclusion of this thesis aims to achieve a better understanding of high school students’ well-being needs and seek possible means of tackling stress based on the student respondents’ own proposals. Key words: stress, high school, coping, stressors, internet survey, suicide, adolescents

As psychological well-being, or mental health, is a key factor to academic performance, schools are in a pivotal position to provide needed services to improve the well-being of individual students, parents, and teachers, as well as school-wide wellness. Research has shown positive outcomes related to psychological symptom reduction, but academic outcomes are less prevalent. Due to the increasing need for services, schoolbased mental health (SBMH) programs are being developed to combine the resources and expertise of SBMH professionals and community agency mental health professionals to serve these needs. In an effort toward developing a statewide Communities of Practice Model for the state of Utah, an internet survey was developed to identify the current practices that are being implemented with schools in Utah. This study explored the current and possible types of school based and community services within a multi-tier service system approach at each tier level (universal, at-risk, and intensive) delivered to elementary and secondary students, the outcomes expected to be impacted by these partnerships, and the barriers and key factors associated with effective program iv implementation. The sample included 32 school district respondents from 21 districts and 19 community agency respondents from 18 agencies throughout the state. Results revealed that 18 of the 21 districts are involved in a SBMH partnership implementing a broad range of collaborative activities, assessments and interventions that vary between tier levels. Specific practices, barriers, and implications for SBMH services and future research are discussed.

The aim was to examine whether measurements of creativity as a domain general trait can explain possible connections between a domain general creative performance and one of the creative domain specific areas, humor. Another aim was to examine whether the maladaptive humor styles can explain possible differences in creative performances. An Internet-based survey was used on 281 students from a Swedish university. The survey was composed of three parts consisting of three separate measuring instruments – Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ-6) was used to measure the respondents’ sense of humor, Humor Style Questionnaire (HSQ) measured the respondents’ humor style and Alternate Uses Test (AUT) gave the respondents an opportunity to account for their creative performances. The results showed no significant correlations between the respondents’ sense of humor and their creative performances. Neither could the maladaptive humor styles explain any significant differences in creative performances. However it was found that a low degree of self-defeating humor style had a significant interaction effect on differences in elaboration between low and high degrees of aggressive humor style.

This is a qualitative study of motivators for gaming. The method used was grounded theory and data was collected through internet surveys on gaming forums, followed by further questions through e-mails. The data was analysed with affinity diagrams categorized by content to identify patterns. The results show that, entertainment, interactivity, experience and escapism are the overall motivating factors, while the factors that motivate players to play a specific game are narrative, gameplay, social and aesthetics. Furthermore, it was possible to find indications of a relationship between these factors.