Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / Judy Hughey / Assessment of parenting stress and child acting-out behavior was measured via pretest and posttest over the length of a seven-session parenting program, the Becoming a Love and Logic Parent program (BLLP). All participants (n=86) were randomly placed in either a seven-session BLLP program group (n=56) or placed on a waitlist (n=30) and offered the BLLP program following the completion of the posttest. The BLLP program is a widely used parenting program with limited data available as to the effectiveness of the program. The data that are available utilizes the Becoming a Love and Logic Parent Before and After Questionnaire. A measurement tool designed specifically to measure the BLLP program. This study utilized two measurement tools widely used to evaluate parenting programs, the Parenting Stress Index/Short Form (PSI/SF) and the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI), in hopes of providing data that can be compared to other parenting programs. Levels of parenting stress were measured with a widely used index, the PSI/SF. The PSI/SF provides a Total Stress (TS) score and scores from three scales measuring different aspects of parenting stress: Parental Distress (PD), Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction (P-CDI), and Difficult Child (DC). Child acting-out behavior was measured with the ECBI. The ECBI measures disruptive child behavior using two scales: Intensity scale and a Problem scale. The intensity scale provides information regarding the frequency of certain acting-out behaviors, and the problem scale provides information as to whether or not parents view that particular behavior as problematic. All participants were parents or caregivers of elementary school students from a large suburban school district near Kansas City, Missouri. The group was homogenous in nature and had higher income and education levels than the average for the district and state, making it difficult to generalize finding from the study. Due to time and space limitations and attrition, the sample size of the study was small (n=86), which likely contributed to the outcome of the study. The six hypotheses were not supported in this study. Though a decrease in parenting stress occurred for both treatment group and control group participants, there was not a statistically significant difference between the two groups on any of the PSI/SF scales. Child acting-out behavior also decreased for both the treatment group and the control group; however, there was not a statistically significant difference between the two groups. Further study on the effectiveness of the BLLP program is recommended.

Teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students spend more time in conflict resolution than their general education colleagues do. Although emerging research suggests that both students and teachers benefit from an approach to student conduct that is more purposeful than traditional behavior modification models, further research was necessary to clarify how such an effective purposeful program would work. The purpose of this inquiry was to explore how teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students perceived and used a purposeful approach to student conduct. Deutsch's conflict resolution theory served as the conceptual framework. A single case study design was selected for this qualitative study conducted in a rural residential school for deaf and hard of hearing students in the western United States. Data were collected from interviews with six teachers, observations, and documents. Data were analyzed using line-by-line coding and the constant comparative method to construct categories for each data source, and examined across all data sources to determine emergent themes and discrepancies. Results indicated that teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students used a two-step approach to collaborative conflict resolution that included engaging in perspective-taking and engaging in solution generation. This study promotes positive social change by informing school administrators on how to plan effective teacher training on using a purposeful approach to student conduct with deaf and hard of hearing learners.