No description available.

Research indicates that preschool experience significantly influences child development and this study examined the influence of preschool learning experiences on children’s school readiness, self-regulation and academic achievement. Participants were 190 children from an impoverished county in Southwest China and their teachers. Classroom observations were conducted and children were assessed in individual and group sessions. There were three different types of preschool programs (kindergartens, pre-primary classes; Grade 1) available in the county. A total of 18 teaching episodes provided in either the kindergarten or primary schools to 164 children were videotaped and analyzed. Results indicated marked variations in preschool quality and pedagogical practices to support children’s self-regulation across programs. Kindergartens had the best physical environments, the most resources and highly qualified teachers. The teachers provided children with meaningful learning opportunities, adequate instructions, clear structure and predictability, and diversified instructional formats. Pre-primary classes had limited resources and unqualified teachers who emphasized academic learning. Compared to kindergarten teachers, pre-primary class teachers prepared fewer activities and frequently required children to simply sit still and listen. Preschool age children who merely “sat in” Grade 1 classrooms were typically neglected by teachers and only received attention from the teacher when they were disruptive. Grade 1 children (89 girls) who had attended kindergarten (n = 60), separate pre-primary classes (n = 55), merely “sat in” Grade 1 classes before being formally enrolled in school (n = 54) or had no preschool experience (n = 21) were assessed at the beginning of Grade 1 (Wave 1), at the end of Grade 1 (Wave 2), and at the end of Grade 2 (Wave 3). Their school readiness was assessed in Wave 1. Their self-regulation skills were assessed using the modified Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task in Waves 1 and 2, and seven cognitive regulation tests in Wave 3. Their literacy and mathematics achievement was evaluated using curriculum-based tests across the three waves. Results indicated that children with some form of preschool experience outperformed those with none in almost all the three outcomes across the three waves. Children from the kindergarten had better school readiness than the other three groups and better self-regulation than those attending separate pre-primary classes at the start of school. Children attending separate pre-primary classes had significantly better literacy and mathematics than those from the kindergarten at the start of school and literacy at the end of Grade 2. Children “sitting in” Grade 1 classes achieved lower scores than those from the kindergarten and pre-primary classes on almost all child outcome measures. The growth of self-regulation within the first primary school year was significant and Wave 1 behavioral regulation predicted Wave 3 cognitive regulation. School readiness and self-regulation significantly predicted academic achievement in all three waves and school readiness mediated the close relationship between self-regulation and academic achievement. Findings highlight the importance of (i) preschool experience for children from economically disadvantaged families in rural China; and (ii) self-regulation in school preparedness and early academic attainment. They also have implications for scaling up and enhancing the quality of preschool programs. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Workplace aggression has been associated with a number of detrimental employee and organizational outcomes, both at work and away from work. This dissertation includes three studies that expand our knowledge of the implications of workplace aggression in the work and nonwork domains. Further, this research illuminates the processes through which this relationship occurs by utilizing various sources of data from employees in a variety of contexts including universities, long term health care, and the USDA Forest Service. In Study 1, which was published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, multi-source data are utilized to identify the indirect effects of coworker-reported workplace aggression on self and significant-other reported work-family conflict via self-reported psychological detachment from work. Study 2 identifies an indirect effect of workplace aggression on parental warmth via increased perceived stress utilizing longitudinal data from the Work, Family, and Health Network. Finally, Study 3 utilizes data from the USDA Forest Service to examine associations between workplace aggression and safety outcomes. Workplace aggression was found to be associated with increased resource depletion (i.e., rumination, cognitive failure) and decreased workplace safety (i.e., increased workplace accidents, decreased safety compliance). Workplace aggression was indirectly associated with safety participation and workplace injuries via cognitive failure and rumination, respectively. Safety climate, an organizational resource, moderated the relationship between rumination and safety behaviors. Finally, the indirect effect of coworker aggression on safety compliance via rumination was found to be conditional on low levels of safety climate, while the indirect effect of supervisor aggression on safety participation via rumination was also found to be conditional on low levels of safety climate. The current body of work provides implications for developing workplace interventions to reduce negative outcomes of workplace aggression, such as general stress management and recovery from work interventions. Several avenues for future research are suggested as well, including examining objective health outcomes of workplace aggression, utilizing longitudinal designs, and identifying additional moderators of the association between workplace aggression and employee outcomes.

This thesis aims to examine the development of morphosyntax with longitudinal English production from Diany, a Mandarin-speaking child, starting from the second week Diany arrived in the U.S.A. (age 4;9). The study is particularly interested in whether Diany’s acquisition of verbal morphemes and verb movement supports relevant hypotheses in the literature. In generative linguistics, there are two important lines of interests in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) that address the “long-standing debate on the nature of syntactic representation in SLA” (Haznedar & Gavruseva, 2008:5). One line examines the relationship between morphological development and syntactic representations, namely, whether absence of surface morphology entails absence of the syntactic representation. A recently influential proposal is that there is dissociation between overt morphology and abstract syntax, as suggested by the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH) (Lardeire, 1998a, 1998b, 2007; Haznedar & Schwartz, 1997; Prevost & White, 2000). The second important line, more relevant to child L2 research, focuses on the comparison of child L2 (cL2) acquisition with child first language (cL1) and adult L2 (aL2) acquisition in the domains of morphology and syntax. On the observation that attainment in cL2 is superior to aL2, Schwartz (1992, 2003a, 2003b, 2004) proposes the “Domain by Age Model (DAM)” , arguing that in the realm of syntax, cL2 acquisition is (more)like aL2 acquisition, but that in the realm of inflectional morphology, cL2 is (more) like L1 acquisition (2003a, p.47). With regard to the first line of interest, whether there is a relationship between the acquisition of morphology and syntax, the data from our subject show that the development of the two domains is independent of each other. The morphemes and verb raising are acquired at their own paces, supporting the MSIH. The comparison of Diany’s morphosyntactic development with L1 children and adult L2 learners whose native language is Chinese suggests that Diany’s English morphological development is more similar to that of adult SLA holding the same L1, and the verb raising in negative utterances and questions is parallel with both L1 children and L2 adults. This is inconsistent with the DAM which proposes that L2 children assemble L1 children in morpheme acquisition, but are similar to L2 adults in syntactic development. In the thesis, we also argue for the presence of L1 influence and age effect in the Mandarin-speaking child’s L2 English. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of English

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Overcrowding is a serious problem in prisons and jails. Most people who are in prison and jail have substance abuse problems. Long-term, intensive, therapeutic community, substance abuse treatment in prison has proven effective in reducing arrests, amounts of incarceration and time until first arrest. Jails, with their shorter times of incarceration, make long-term treatment impossible and therapeutic communities or milieu therapy difficult. There are few substance abuse treatment programs in jails and even fewer outcome evaluations to determine effectiveness so it is not known if jail treatment is effective. Graduates of the Inmate Recovery Program (a short term, day treatment style, jail-based substance abuse treatment program) were compared four years before and up to five years after treatment with a nontreated control group and a treatment drop-out group. The IRP group had fewer arrests, less time incarcerated, a bigger drop in rates of incarceration and a longer time lapse until first arrest than the drop-outs. The IRP group had less arrests, a longer time lapse until first arrest, a bigger drop in rate of incarceration and less incarceration in two out of five years than the control group. IRP produced a conservative net avoided cost of incarceration of $786,593.89 alone. This is equivalent to an average savings of $3,480.50 per client for the average three and a half years after treatment. Experiences prior to IRP also impacted treatment results. Subjects with fewer previous prison sentences; fewer prior arrests; less time incarcerated the year of treatment; more prior alcohol and drug related arrests; a job, or another legal source of income; who were older; and had more DUII arrests before treatment were associated with fewer arrests and less time incarcerated after treatment. This information may help improve future IRP performance. Therefore the Inmate Recovery Program has a variety of favorable impacts and appears to also be a cost-effective program. / Graduation date: 1996

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-141).

published_or_final_version / Dentistry / Master / Master of Philosophy

Several research studies have examined the link between working memory ability and behavior problems in youth. Research suggests that children with working memory deficits demonstrate lower levels of attention and higher levels of hyperactivity, physical aggression, and other behavior problems. The purpose of this research was to determine the effects of developmental trajectories of working memory on the developmental trajectories of behavior problems. Results suggested that developmental increases in working memory did not lead to developmental decreases in behavior problems. Results from this study suggested that internalizing and externalizing behavior problems increase over the course of childhood. Several variables did lead to developmental change in behavior problems in children. Children who had lower initial levels of working memory increased in internalizing behaviors less than children with higher initial working memory ability. Also, high socioeconomic status led to smaller increases in internalizing and externalizing behavior, high Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) scores led to larger increases in internalizing and externalizing behavior, and high PPVT scores led to larger decreases in inattentive and hyperactive behavior. Results are discussed in reference to current theories about working memory and behavior problems. / text