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High-risk drinking among college students is believed to be the most serious health issue facing college and universities throughout the United States. In 1999, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) established a task force to address the issue and released a report with recommendations for intervention and prevention. Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students (BASICS) emerged as an evidence-based practice to address high-risk drinking. Quantitative researchers produced results that indicate BASICS and interventions similar to BASICS are an effective means to reduce high-risk drinking and the negative outcomes associated with high-risk drinking. Despite strong evidence for the effectiveness of BASICS, little is known about its fidelity when BASICS is implemented in a practical setting. The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives and experiences of practitioners in the mental health profession who use the BASICS intervention via semi-structured interviews. Themes emerged related to the application of the intervention, the strongest and weakest aspects of intervention, and barriers to implementation. The themes linked to the application of BASICS on campuses included: (1) a comprehensive/progressive approach to address high-risk drinking; (2) modifications; and (3) the mandated student. The themes relating to the strongest aspects of the intervention were: (1) harm reduction; (2) education; (3) personal awareness; and (4) self-empowerment while the weakest aspects were: (1) the dilemma of one size fits all and (2) the personalized feedback report (PFR). The themes connected to barriers were: (1) the referral process; (2) training; and (3) onus on the facilitator. These twelve themes provide insight into the benefits and challenges of implementing BASICS in a practical setting on college campuses. Implications for both mental health practitioners and student affairs professionals are discussed, study limitations are provided, and suggestions for future research are offered. This study concludes with specific recommendations for student affairs professionals that includes the use of BASICS combined with other best practices to effectively address the issue of high-risk drinking and the negative consequences associated with this behavior on college campuses. / Ph. D.

The current study utilized laboratory tasks (Conners' Continuous Performance Test, CPT; Behavioral Inhibition Task, BIT) to examine the relationships among motivation, executive functioning, and parent and teacher-reported attention, internalizing, and externalizing problems in a clinical sample of 132 children with or without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Combined Type (ADHD-C; 69% male, mean age = 9.88). Specificity was examined through total, unique, and interactive effects via hierarchical regression. Higher CPT scores (i.e., executive disinhibition) were related to greater externalizing problems in total and unique effect analyses, while a relationship between lower CPT scores (i.e., executive inhibition) and greater internalizing problems was found only in unique effect analyses. No significant effects were found for motivational inhibition (i.e., low BIT) or disinhibition (i.e., high BIT). ADHD-C was associated with greater attention and externalizing problems in total effect analyses, but only externalizing problems showed a significant relationship in unique effect analyses. Interactive effects were found for ADHD-C and executive functioning, as lower levels of CPT (i.e., executive inhibition) coupled with ADHD-C resulted in greater parent-reported attention problems. In addition, higher CPT scores (i.e., executive disinhibition) were associated with greater parent-reported externalizing problems in Non-ADHD-C children. Although some main effects were predicted, the interactive effects were somewhat surprising, particularly in relation to ADHD-C, executive inhibition, and parent-reported attention problems. Exploratory analyses revealed that this effect may have been due to greater internalizing problems in ADHD-C children at lower levels of CPT (i.e., executive inhibition). Results are discussed in relation to past studies and laboratory task validity. / Master of Science

Virginia Tech's Faculty Development Institute (FDI) was developed to address issues related to the computer technology revolution; training and education of faculty; faculty professional development; and the university adjusting to change. The purpose of this study was to identify and compare the goals, expectations, and perceived outcomes that the university, FDI developers, and the initial participants had for Virginia Tech's FDI initiative as originally implemented. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in this study to identify the perceived outcomes for the developers and initial participants. The fundamental concepts of motivation theory, evaluation, personal recall, and self-perception theory are used help to describe and explain the findings of the study. Interview results from the five developers and historical document analysis were used to develop surveys for the 49 initial participants and the developers in order to provide validity for the results. Interviews, historical documents and the survey results show that initial participants, developers and the university had very similar expectations for the outcomes during and/or immediately following the initial FDI workshop. There were wider differences in expectations of long-term outcomes as a result of the FDI initiative. The results also differ in terms of the extent to which participants and developers believed that their expectations were met short and long term. / Ph. D.

In both individual and relational psychotherapy contexts, it has been argued that the effectiveness of psychotherapy practice is associated with common factors cutting across the models including client factors, therapist factors, hope/expectancy of the clients, allegiance of the therapists, the quality of therapeutic relationship, and the basic counseling skills rather than model specific factors (Davis and Piercy, 2007a, 2007b; Lambert, 1992; Hubble, Duncan, and Miller, 1999; Sprenkle, Davis, and LeBow, 2009; Sprenkle, Davis, and LeBow, 2009; Wampold, 2001, 2008, 2015). However, the common factors perspective has been criticized for not having a theoretical framework, operationalization of its elements, and research support (Sexton, Ridley, and Kleiner, 2004). Despite gradually increasing interest in the literature, the research exploring the common factors of effective psychotherapy practice is still in its baby steps in the context of relational psychotherapy. In this study, motivational interviewing (MI) is presented as a theoretical framework and a practical research tool for exploring common factors in the context of relational psychotherapy. The research questions of to what extent motivational interviewing elements are implemented in the context of relational psychotherapy and to what extent therapist behaviors are associated with client change behaviors were explored by using task analysis and sequential analysis methodologies. Using the AAMFT Masters Series Tapes of MFT Model developers, including Boszmormenyi-Nagy, Minuchin, Satir, Whitaker, and White, the exemplary demonstrations of relational psychotherapy were rated on the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity Scale (MITI 4.2.1., Moyers et al., 2014) for therapist behaviors and on the Motivational Interviewing Skills Code-Client Behaviors Scale (MISC; Miller, Moyers, Ernst, and Amrhein, 2003) and the Experiencing Scale (EX; Klein, Mathieu, Kiesler, and Gendlin, 1969) for the client change behaviors. The results are discussed in terms of a common factors perspective. / Ph. D. / Since the beginning of psychotherapy as a method of treatment, the answers to the age-old question of how psychotherapy helps people to change has become more sophisticated, elaborated, and diversified. Recent literature focusing on individual psychotherapy processes shows that it might be the common factors cutting across the models including the quality of therapeutic relationship, and the basic counseling skills rather than model specific factors are responsible for change in psychotherapy process. However, there are few studies exploring these factors in the context of relational psychotherapy. By means of in depth analyses of the relational psychotherapy training videos, this study contributes to the understanding of common factors of effective practice in relational psychotherapy. Thanks to this study, the clinicians and researchers can have a better understanding of the effective relational psychotherapy practice. This understanding will allow the clinicians, researchers, and health care providers and educators to provide better clinical service and develop more effective psychotherapy practices.

Two concerns dominate speculation about the lack of progress in motivational disposition research. First, truly unique dispositional constructs have not been identified since wide acceptance of the approach / avoidance distinction. Second, research has largely neglected to account for context in models of motivated behavior. Effective avoidance has systematically been unassessed in motivation research. Social cognitive theory was used to define an effective avoidance motivational trait, vigilance, as an antecedent to effective regulatory behaviors that are avoidant in nature and/or strategy. Two studies were conducted: First, development and psychometric evaluation of a scale measuring vigilance within the existing motivational trait framework (Heggestad and Kanfer, 2000). Exploratory and confirmatory analyses provided initial validity evidence for the vigilance construct; composed of diligence and error-detection facets. Convergent – discriminant analysis revealed that vigilance is significantly related to approach and avoidance motivational constructs identifying two possible sources of contamination in self-report measures of motivational traits. Measurement items may be contaminated with implied outcomes and measurement items may be contaminated with generalized self-efficacy. In the second study, a within-subjects experiment tested the predictive validity of the vigilance measurement scale for task-specific self-efficacy and performance on a task that rewards avoidance-oriented strategies. Vigilance predicted prevention task-specific self-efficacy ( = .29) in one of two experimental conditions. The validation study also offered construct validity evidence for the vigilance construct. Implications and future directions are discussed. / Ph. D. / Motivation is defined as the force that energizes, directs, and maintains behavior. Researchers in the field of motivation continuously strive to understand individual differences in motivation levels (e.g., personality traits) and how those individual differences are related to task performance. Current consensus is that individuals differ on their levels of approach-oriented motivation (the motive to approach success) and/or avoidance-oriented motivation (the motive to avoid failure). Researchers tend to treat approach-oriented motivation as “good” and avoidanceoriented motivation as “bad”. The current study argues that, in a variety of contexts, avoidanceoriented motivation is actually good and that it leads to enhanced task performance. Thus, effective aspects of avoidance motivation were identified and used to define a new individual difference trait construct termed “vigilance”. Vigilance is defined as a predisposition for maintaining alertness, meticulousness, fastidiousness, and being heedful of overt warnings or obscure warning signs. Highly vigilant individuals are more likely to engage in careful planning, be good at error detection, and engage in safety-related behaviors. Results of this two-part study indicate that vigilance is a unique motivational trait construct and that it may be related to enhanced performance for some tasks. To the extent that vigilance is a valid motivational trait, it can be used to predict individual’s performance in on various tasks and help ensure that people are entered into jobs that they are likely to excel in. However, support for vigilance was mixed in these studies and further research is required.