Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 174-179).

Sociologists are generally in agreement that the closing decades of the twentieth century involved striking changes in the landscape against which British young people grew up. Transformations in education and the labour market had the potential to dramatically alter and re-shape patterns of social inequality. This thesis addresses the importance of family effects upon educational attainment, early career prospects and, in turn, the post-16 trajectories of young adults against the contextual changes of this period. Recently, youth researchers have been keen to argue that we are continuing to progress towards a ‘post-modern era’, which centres on the ‘individualisation’ or ‘detraditionalisation’ arguments of Beck and Giddens; where structural factors, such as gender and social class are diminishing as the defining elements of the pathway a young person will take. In this study, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), a contemporary source of longitudinal data from the early 1990s onwards, is used to demonstrate a lack of evidence of detraditionalisation, or the weakening of structural factors in determining the outcomes of young people. To the contrary, the gap between those from advantaged and less advantaged backgrounds remains wide. Furthermore, this research augments and extends previous studies of educational and early labour market outcomes by providing more comprehensive and integrated statistical analyses of household, family and parental effects, using techniques for longitudinal data analysis which give insight into patterns of social inequality being replicated in current contexts. Evidence using 17 years of longitudinal panel data indicate that, over time, family effects on school attainment and early labour market outcomes remain strong.

Self-rated health (SRH) is an outcome commonly studied by demographers, epidemiologists, and sociologists of health, typically measured using an ordinal scale. SRH is analyzed in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies for both descriptive and inferential purposes, and has been shown to have significant validity with regard to predicting mortality. Despite the wide spread use of this measure, only limited attention is explicitly given to its unique attributes in the case of longitudinal studies. While self-rated health is assumed to represent a latent continuous and dynamic process, SRH is actually measured discretely and asymmetrically. Thus, the validity of methods ignoring the scale of measurement remains questionable. We compare three approaches to modeling SRH with repeated measures over time: linear multilevel models (MLM or LGM), including corrections for non-normality; and marginal and conditional ordered-logit models for longitudinal data. The models are compared using simulated data and illustrated with results from the Health and Retirement Study. We find that marginal and conditional models result in very different interpretations, but that conditional linear and non-linear models result in similar substantive conclusions, albeit with some loss of power in the linear case. In conclusion, we suggest guidelines for modeling self-rated health and similar ordinal outcomes in longitudinal studies. / text

Emotion language use provides insight into a person's emotional landscape. However, little is known about how preschool aged children and their parents use emotion language in their real world interactions. To address the shortcomings of the current body of empirical work on naturally occurring emotion language, this dissertation asks the following four research questions: 1) How do children and parents use emotion words in their daily lives?; 2) How is children's emotion language related to parents' emotion language?; 3) How is emotion language use related to emotional functioning?; and 4) How does emotion language in a lab setting compare to a natural setting? This dissertation implements a naturalistic methodology tool to answer the above questions. Thirty-five preschool aged children and their parents were recruited to participate in a two-wave longitudinal study in which the children wore a digital recording device for one day at each of the time points to capture acoustic information about the emotion language and behaviors they and their parents use in their daily lives. Additionally, participants completed a traditional laboratory based paradigm used to study emotion language within families. Parents also completed self-report measures related to emotion functioning for themselves and their child. Results indicate that children and their parents use high rates of positive emotion but very low rates of negative emotion in their naturally occurring interactions. This is different from lab based paradigms that elicit high rates of both positive and negative emotion language from children and parents. Next, children's use of emotion words tends to match the emotion language of their mothers more than their fathers but gender of the child also plays an important role. Very little support emerged for the emotion regulation model, as evidenced by children who cry and whine the most and who have the most behavioral problems tending to use negative emotions the most. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that emotion language reflects emotional state rather than regulates it. And, finally, the ecological validity of laboratory studies of emotion word usage is called into question by the independence of emotion language elicited in the lab and the natural expression of emotion words in a natural setting. Implications for researchers conducting work in the area of emotion language and emotional development are discussed. / text

published_or_final_version / Paediatrics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

 Much of the research on parental involvement in education has focused on its positive influence on school-aged students in the western culture. This thesis examined Chinese parental involvement in the early years by conducting three empirical studies in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Study 1 was designed to be qualitative in nature to examine kindergarten teachers’ and parents’ perceptions and practices of parental involvement by conducting focus group interviews with 35 teachers and 41 parents. Responses revealed that teachers and parents defined parental involvement differently, in which teachers defined it as parents assisting the teachers or the school, while parents defined it as the support they provide for their child’s learning and development. Respondents also had varying opinions about the current parental involvement practices and discussed different family, school and child factors that influence parental involvement. Study 2 investigated the association between parental involvement and children’s readiness for school using a sample of 431 children. Parents’ involvement was examined using parents’ self-report, whereas readiness for school was assessed using two child tests and parents’ report. Results indicated that parents practiced more home-based involvement than school-based involvement. All parental involvement dimensions significantly predicted overall readiness for school; however, only the dimensions of Language and Cognitive Activities and Home-School Conferencing were found the significantly predictors of children’s Chinese literacy and cognitive development. Study 3 was a follow-up investigation of the changes in parents’ perceptions and practices of parental involvement during the transition from kindergarten to primary school. Individual interviews were conducted with 18 parents three months after their child’s school entrance. Compared to their involvement during the kindergarten years, most parents indicated a shift to become more academic oriented in their involvement and expressed their dissatisfaction in the distant parent-teacher relationship in the primary school. Implications, limitations and future research directions on this topic are discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Rumination has been consistently found to be a risk factor of depression. However, few studies examined rumination and its relationship with depression, and the protective role of such individual positive traits as hope, in a Hong Kong Chinese context. As opposed to western findings, a recent local study found that the two components of rumination (Treynor, Gonzalez, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2003), namely brooding and reflective pondering, were not correlated, and the latter was rather adaptive in predicting depressive symptoms (Lo, Ho, & Hollen, 2008). Together with some psychometric issues revealed in the same study, it is unclear if the two-factor model of rumination is applicable in the Hong Kong Chinese context. In addition, given that hope only buffers against negative impact of risk factors of depression, whether the moderating effect of hope on the relationship of brooding and reflective pondering with depressive symptoms in Geiger and Kwon’s (2010) western sample can be replicated in Hong Kong Chinese populations is not clear. Therefore, the present study re-examines the two-factor model of rumination and its relationship with depressive symptoms, and the moderating role of hope in a Hong Kong Chinese sample using a longitudinal design. Adult Trait Hope Scale, Ruminative Response Scale, and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale were administered to 189 Hong Kong Chinese university students at lectures with a four-week interval between the two time-points. Analyses using hierarchical linear regression were conducted to examine the relationship of brooding and reflective pondering, and their relationship with depressive symptoms and the role of hope, both concurrently and prospectively. Results confirmed the applicability of the two-factor model of rumination in the Hong Kong Chinese college sample. Rumination (total) and brooding consistently predicted depressive symptoms. Also, moderating effect of hope on the relationship of brooding and depressive symptoms was replicated using the time 1 data in the present study. Nonetheless, contrary to the recent local finding by Lo et al. (2008), brooding and reflective pondering were positively correlated as in western samples, and there was some evidence of one-way relationship from reflective pondering to brooding as shown by the longitudinal data. Reflective pondering itself was neither adaptive nor maladaptive, because there was no significant relationship between reflective pondering and depressive symptoms after controlling for level of brooding. Hence, hope had no interaction with reflective pondering in predicting depressive symptoms. For longitudinal data, after controlling for baseline level of the dependent variables, the one-way relationship from reflective pondering to brooding, the relationship of rumination (total) and brooding with depressive symptoms, and the moderating effect of hope on the relationship between brooding and depressive symptoms, all became nonsignificant. The findings of the present study support the use of the two-factor model of rumination in Hong Kong Chinese context, and suggest that the two components of rumination were correlated probably because reflective pondering tended to lead to brooding. This study also offers further empirical support for brooding being a more robust risk factor of depression than reflective pondering and the buffering impact of hope on psychological well-being. Implications of the results, limitations of this study and recommendations for further research were also addressed. / published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Introduction. The relationships among military service, combat intensity and long-term health effects were investigated in a cohort of 6,355 Vietnam-era American Legionnaires who were recruited in 1984 and followed through 1998. First, the effect of Vietnam service on coronary heart disease (CHD) risk was assessed among 3,781 veterans who responded to both questionnaires. Next, the effect of serving in Vietnam and combat exposure was investigated as risk factors for the mortality of the cohort. Finally, potential threats to the validity of this study were evaluated.Methods. Military service and lifestyle factors were assessed by questionnaires in 1984 and 1998. Vital status in 1998 was determined and causes of death were ascertained through the National Death Index. Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to calculate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for CHD incidence and mortality in relation to service location and combat exposure, adjusting for age, smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass, and hypertension. Response bias and reliability of self-reported data were examined.Results. Serving in Vietnam was associated with an increased hazard of developing heart disease (HR=1.37, 95% CI: 1.09, 1.73), after controlling for independent risk factors. Vietnam veterans experienced a 50% higher mortality than non-Vietnam veterans during 14-year follow-up (HR=1.48, 95% CI= 1.13 - 1.93), which increased with combat intensity after adjustment for other risk factors, (low combat: HR 1.17, 95% CI 0.79 - 1.73; medium combat HR=1.51, 95% CI 1.05 - 2.17; high combat HR=1.82, 95% CI 1.20 - 2.76). A stronger relationship was observed by level of combat for CHD mortality (low combat: HR =1.48, 95% CI 0.75 - 2.95; medium combat HR= 2.01, 95% CI 1.06 - 3.79; high combat HR= 2.27, 95% CI 1.08 - 4.79). Results showed that non-respondents differed only slightly from respondents for important variables potentially related to exposures and chronic disease outcomes. Furthermore, veteran self-report was moderately to highly reliable when measured over a 14 year period.Conclusions. Vietnam veterans are still experiencing higher rates of adverse health effects, even more than thirty years after their military service. These data support a long term and independent adverse effect of military service in Vietnam on cardiovascular health.

This dissertation investigates the effects and value of instructional activities for improving second language use of English articles. After reviewing a number of issues concerning pedagogical, linguistic, psycholinguistic, and internal validity, this study presents the results of eight longitudinal time-series case studies of adult Japanese learners of English residing in Vancouver, Canada, four of whom received grammatical explanations, input processing activities, and output practice activities regarding English article use. Learner development was assessed on three different narrative retelling tasks (spoken, written, and cloze) and the production was analysed with reference to specific contexts of use, indicating the form-function mappings that comprised the learners' interlanguage knowledge. The results indicated that the learners' interlanguage production exhibited (a) the anticipated task variation, with greater suppliance of the on tasks that allowed greater attention to form, and (b) the anticipated discoursal variation, with the supplied more consistently when it was primed as a redundant element on the written task and with the supplied less consistently when it was efficiently deleted as a redundant element on the spoken task. The results also indicated the variable nature of individual development and the value of assessing development longitudinally on different tasks. Importantly, the results indicated that the learners improved or continued improving after instruction, and strongly suggested that instruction can cause automatization of interlanguage knowledge. This finding suggests that form-focused instruction may be valuable for second language learning, and that pedagogical positions opposing form-focused instruction may need to be revised or abandoned.