Le phénomène du suicide chez les jeunes est toujours en progression au Québec et touche particulièrement les 15-19 ans, garçons et filles (Conseil Permanent de la Jeunesse, 1997; Institut national de santé publique du Québec, 2001). Plusieurs études soulignent l'importance de considérer certaines caractéristiques personnelles ou cognitives comme facteurs de risque du comportement suicidaire chez l'adolescent (p. ex., Grossman & Kruesi, 2000). Le perfectionnisme est l'une de ces caractéristiques à laquelle les écrits sur le suicide font parfois référence, ce qui contraste, par ailleurs, avec l'image prévalente de l'adolescent suicidaire. Récemment, des recherches empiriques ont démontré un lien entre un type de perfectionnisme et le comportement suicidaire auprès de populations cliniques d'adolescents (Boergers, Spirito, & Donaldson, 1998; Donaldson, Spirito, & Farnett, 2000; Hewitt, Newton, Flett, & Callander, 1997). La présente étude a pour objectif d'examiner les relations entre certaines dimensions du perfectionnisme (Hewitt & Flett, 1989) et les comportements suicidaires auprès d'une population non clinique d'adolescents des deux sexes. Au total, 362 jeunes âgés entre 14 et 17 ans ont répondu en milieu scolaire à un questionnaire écrit visant à mesurer : le perfectionnisme orienté vers soi (POS), le perfectionnisme prescrit par autrui (PPA) et les tendances suicidaires (incluant tentatives passées et idéations sérieuses). Les scores obtenus aux deux sous-échelles du perfectionnisme par les adolescents suicidaires et les non-suicidaires ont été comparés par le biais d'analyses de régression logistique. Les résultats révèlent que, des deux dimensions du perfectionnisme, seul le PPA est un prédicteur significatif des tendances suicidaires dans cet échantillon, tel qu'observé antérieurement auprès de populations cliniques. De plus, les analyses révèlent une interaction sexe x âge significative indiquant une probabilité d'être suicidaire plus élevée chez les filles que chez les garçons à l'âge de 14 et de 15 ans, pour une même valeur de PPA. Ces résultats obtenus auprès d'une population générale plutôt que clinique apportent un support empirique au construit de perfectionnisme, et plus spécifiquement à sa dimension sociale (PPA), comme variable caractéristique d'adolescents suicidaires.

The extant research on the experiences of lesbian/gay, bisexual, and questioning —unsure- (LGBQ) youth shows that they have a lower sense of belonging and safety a tschool, are more likely to be victims of various types of bullying and to skip school, and use drugs and alcohol than their straight peers. Lately, however, a shift in direction towards examining the protective factors, which promote the well being of LGBQ youth, is happening. Extending the emerging research on this shift, the present study investigated the role of supportive adults at school in predicting LGBQ youth sense of safety and belonging. Also, this study examined whether adult support moderated the relationship between sexual orientation victimization and skipping school for LGBQ youth separately. The participants in this study (N = 19,551) were students (grades 8 through 12) enrolled in high schools that took part in a district-wide survey in a large, ethnically and economically diverse urban school district in British Columbia. Results showed that perceptions of adult support played a significant role in predicting the safety and belonging of LGBQ youth. Adult support significantly moderated the relationship between sexual orientation victimization and skipping school for bisexual and questioning youth but not for lesbian/gay youth. The implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed in the last section of this thesis.

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Neurologically healthy individuals misbisect their visual space by erring towards the left. This misreprentation has been attributed to the right hemisphere dominance in processing of spatial information. Lateral biases are thought to emerge as behavioural outcomes of cognitive processing, mainly attention. Recently, attention mechanisms have been reported to be closely inter-related to memory systems, where attention directs what will be remembered and memory impacts where attention is directed. Although spatial biases attributed to attention have been widely accepted, the claim that memory exhibits similar biases has been more controversial. Recent research shows that recall of representations is biased towards the left side of space, indicating that lateral asymmetries may not necessarily be limited to perceptual and attentional mechanisms, but may extend to memory mechanisms as well. The purpose of this work is to understand better the relationship between lateral biases within working memory and attention interactions. Two approaches were considered. First, working memory, as defined by the representations and operations related to manipulate the representations, used time delay and visual load. Second, backward masking was used to control the relative formation of the working memory trace, which strengthens with recurrence of the visual stimuli and is through to progress from attention to working memory. To explore these two theoretical avenues, a novel task was constructed. Two circular arrays were presented at the top and bottom of the computer screen. These arrays were composed of six individual discs of varying shade. Hence, the overall array represented a greyscale gradient, where discs on one lateral side were darker compared to the middle discs and the other lateral side. For example, if two darkest discs were presented on the left side, the lightest discs were presented on the right side. Such array was presented with its left/right mirror reversed image. In this example, the second array was with the lightest discs on the left side and growing progressively darker, with darkest discs on the right side. Such presentation requires the participants to integrate the array of individual discs into an overall representation to perform a brightness judgement and select the array seemingly darker. A total of six behavioural studies addressed the two theoretical approaches. The first approach, to determine the impact of inter-stimulus time interval and visual load on lateral asymmetries, was addressed in four experiments. The findings indicated that participants were able to integrate the discrete disks into an overall array. Participants exhibited an overall leftward bias similar to that obtained in attention tasks, where they selected an array to be overall darker when the darkest disks were presented on the left side of the array. Furthermore, these biases increased the most when the stimuli were presented in the lower half of the computer screen, consistent with the lower visual field. Conversely, stimuli presented to the upper half of the screen elicited a rightward bias, which is consistent with the upper visual field. Stronger biases were observed when the stimulus noise, in the form of black, white and grey pixels, was relatively low and weaker biases were attained with a relatively high noise levels. In the second study, the findings showed that the magnitude of upper and lower visual field biases shows dependence on the vertical and lateral stimulus manipulation within these fields. Upper-left, lower-right interactions indicate that biases may not simply rely on the horizontal and vertical dimensions, as previously thought, but also on the relative spatial distribution of stimuli within these dimensions. The third study, which used the standard rectangular greyscale stimuli, revealed that visual load does not impact the lateral biases, but shows to impact the upper and lower visual field processing. Further, time interval between stimulus presentation and response, extended past 1 second eliminated lateral and vertical biases. The remaining two studies investigated lateral asymmetries within working memory by selectively manipulating the formation of working memory trace using backward masks. The presence of a mask, following a stimulus, inhibits the memory trace formation for that stimulus. Conversely, if no mask is presented following the stimuli, the memory trace is permitted to form within working memory. Again, using the circular array task, participants were required to select the overall darker array while retaining either a shade of position information from the array within their working memory. Findings showed increased rightward biases when memory trace was permitted to form with longer inter-stimulus (3 sec) time interval, as compared to shorter (0 to 1 sec) time interval. In the last study, the participants were required to make brightness judgement while maintaining either a position or shade information within working memory to determine whether previously acquired information, which does not serve as a cue, impact the brightness judgement task. Rightward biases were evident when participants were required to maintain either a position or shade information relating to the array, but did not provide any cue-type of information, which could facilitate performance. Rightward biases were stronger while retaining position information and completing the brightness task, hence indicating a spatial nature of the bias. As well, stronger rightward biases were obtained when the to-be-remembered position information was allowed to create a memory trace. Furthermore, recall accuracy of the position information was increased when the memory trace was permitted to form, indicating involvement of working memory processes. Overall, the data attained in this set of experiments can be interpreted using the activation-orientation model presented by Reuter-Lorenz (1990) indicating that this model may also be valuable when integrating working memory in addition to attentional processes.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of induced anxiety and induced relaxation upon the performance of subjects on the Personal Orientation Inventory. More specifically the study proposed to ascertain if there were any significant differences in POI test performance among subjects exposed to induced anxiety, induced relaxation, and "normal" conditions prior to responding to the POI.The subjects for this study were enrolled in Human Development (Psychology 230) Sections A and B - at Taylor University, Upland, Indiana, during the study, Eighty-five subjects (men and women) from the original population of 124 participated in the study. The 85 subjects comprised three randomly selected groups: experimental group #1 (26 subjects) which was exposed to anxiety arousing experiences; experimental group #2 (29 subjects) which was exposed to the relaxation experiences; and group #3 (30 subjects) which was exposed to a "normal" class discussion and operated as a control group. Each of the groups was then administered the POI immediately after participating in their respective experiences. In determining the effects of induced anxiety and induced relaxation upon the performance of subjects on the POI, 14 variables (POI scale scores) were analyzed to determine if the performance of anxious or relaxed subjects varied from that of the control group. A simple one-way analysis of variance revealed a significant difference at the .05 level of confidence on the Feeling Reactivity scale. Further analysis utilizing Duncan's Multiple Range Test showed that the significant difference was between the relaxed group and the control group which was administered the POI under "normal" conditions. This difference indicated a significantly greater responsiveness to needs and feelings on the part of the relaxed group. Otherwise, no significant differences at the .05 per cent level were found, and the remaining null hypotheses were accepted.A secondary analysis of data comparing men to men and women to women on the 14 variables (POI scale scores) was also made. No significant differences were found between the homogeneous groups. The results obtained in the present study indicated that the Personal Orientation Inventory was highly resistant to the effects of mood or response set. It seemed to measure an underlying or identifiable self-structure which was not significantly influenced by induced anxiety and induced relaxation. The study therefore lends support to the use of the POI as a measure of positive mental health in a variety of settings and under a variety of testing situations where subjects present differing moods or response sets.

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The purpose of the study was to examine differential effects, if any, which two types of sma.11-group continuing freshman orientation programs had on participant academic achievement and perceptions of campus environment. The initial research sample consisted of 155 students randomly selected from 328 freshmen entering Taylor University, Upland, Indiana, for the first time in the fall term, 1980. Fifty-two students were randrn1v selected to participated in three levels of continuing orientation. Level 1 involved participation in the Providing Relevant Opportunities and Building Experiences (PROSE) program at Taylor University. PROBE was a small-group continuing orientation program with a prescribed format and content. Level 2 involved participation in a small-group continuing orientation program in which neither format nor content were prescribed. Level 3 involved no participation in a continuing orientation program at Taylor University and served as the control group for the study.Following completion of the seven week orientation program, perceptions of research subjects about campus environment were measured by the college and University Environment Scales (CUES). Grade point averages of all subjects were obtained following completion of the fall term. The final sample was comprised of forty-nine students in each of the three experimental groups.Analysis of variance, with subsequent t-tests, where appropriate, were utilized to test three null hypotheses pertaining, to differences among groups on the post test criterion measure of student perceptions about the campus environment and three null hypotheses pertaining to differences on the post test criterion measure of academic achievement. All decisions with regard to significance were made at the .05 level.Findings of the study support the following conclusions regarding the effects of two types of continuing freshman orientation programs on academic achievement an perceptions of the campus environment at Taylor University:1. Students participating in a small-group continuing orientation program with a prescribed format and content do not perceive the campus environment any differently than non-participants.2. Students participating in a small-group continuing orientation program without a prescribed format and content do not perceive the campus environment any differently than non-participants.3. Students participating in a small-group continuing orientation program with a prescribed format and content do not perceive the campus environment any differently than students participating in a small-group continuing orientation program without a prescribed format and content.4. Participants in a small-group continuing orientation program achieve a higher grade point average than non-participants, regardless of whether the format: and content are prescribed b y the university.Application of the findings were extended for observations beyond the scope of the original research. One such observation involved speculation regarding the role of the small-group format in the improvement off participant academic achievement.Results of the study suggest that participation in a continuing orientation program with a small-group format contributes to academic achievement. The results further suggest that such an improvement in academic achievement occurs irrespective of the format or content of the small-group continuing orientation program. Implications which might be drawn from such results include the following:1. The small-group process as utilized in the continuing orientation program contributes to increased academic achievement.2. Format or content of small-group continuing orientation programs are not a contributing factor to increased academic achievement.Further research to determine the differential effects, if any, of the small-group process compared to alternative processes in continuing orientation is needed to empirically support or refute such statements.

The thrust of this research is the "MARKET-ORIENTATION OF TANZANIAN BANKING INSTITUTIONS: A CASE STUDY OF CRDB BANK". Being the first of its kind within the context of the study, it is largely an exploratory study on the marketorientation (MO) with twin purposes of: (a) examining the extent of MO in CRDB Bank as perceived by employees and (b) exploring the development and implementation of MO culture in the bank, with a special focus on the facilitating and hindering factors. Emanating from these purposes are four main objectives of the research that underpinned the research namely (1) to explore the existing marketing philosophies in the bank, (2) to measure the employees perceived level of MO and its constituent dimensions, including the development of the MO scale that is suitable to a banking institution, (3) to explore whether the perception of the level of MO differs according to the following attributes (a) hierarchical levels of the organisation (top, middle and lower management and between head office and branches offices of the bank), (b) employee-specific(personal) attributes(c) size of branches ( large, medium and small), (d) location of branches ( between those in competitive areas and in least competitive areas) and (e) profitability performance ( between above-median and below-median performing branches), and (4) to explore the facilitating and hindering factors for the development and implementation of MO in CRDB Bank and Tanzanian financial sector in general. The main methodology used in this research is a case study. This enabled us to use method triangulation, whereby both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Principally, we applied the following research tools/techniques in data gathering: interviews, documentary analysis, survey questionnaire and personal observation. The field research involved two phases. The first was a pilot study that entailed conducting discovery-oriented interviews with 9 bankers in six banks. The second phase was conducting the substantive research in CRDB Bank. The findings of the study are fascinating and may have far- reaching implications both in terms of theory and practice. From a themantic dimension, we successfully reconceptualised MO, by developing a scale for measuring the extended MO. We clarified this as the Simultaneous Market orientation, SMO, which composes five key dimensions: external customer-orientation, competitor-orientation, interfunctional orientation, internal 111 customer-orientation and profit-orientation. The scale was tested and validated for its psychometric properties. In other words, the SMO scale was found, reliable and valid, implying that the five components fully represented the SMO. External customerorientation and profit-orientation were ranked as first and second most important dimension of SMO in the bank. Competitor-orientation, interfunctional co-ordination and internal customer-orientation were ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively. From the practice perspective, our findings indicates that marketing-orientation and salesorientation are the dominant marketing philosophies, while production-orientation and societal marketing-orientation are the less marketing philosophies. This in practice indicates a co-existence of different marketing philosophies in the organisation contrary to the main stream literature exhortations. Also, the research revealed an integration perspective of employees on SMO culture. Essentially, this has established the importance of internal customer-orientation in influencing or leading to employees' participation, morale, training, job satisfaction and retention as a critical determinants of successful SMO implementation. Furthermore, we have identified the main facilitative and hindering factors for the development and implementation of MO in the specific context of CRDB bank and the Tanzanian financial sector in general. These antecedent factors have a profound effect on MO implementation. In general, our findings have set a solid base and raised issues that are likely to chart the future direction of MO situation not only in Tanzania, but also in other African countries that are undergoing market-driven transformation of their economies. The main public policy implication of this study is that there is a need to strengthen the macroenvironment and to mount public education in order to foster MO behaviour and practice. Similarly, at the management level, there is a need for effective and adequate management leadership and support for adoption and implementation of MO culture and the need for sustained or continuous changes given the emergent internal and external environment. The essential role of informed "change agents" in fostering MO could not be discounted.

Software engineering has been facing a crisis for several years now - there is more demand for new software than there is ability to supply. Software reuse is a potential way to tackle the problems caused by the software crisis with its promises of increased productivity and cheaper development costs. Several software reuse successes have been reported, but these have been predominantly in large, well structured companies. However, there are numerous smaller companies that could also benefit from reuse if it were made available to them. This thesis addresses these issues by implementing a reuse programme in a small company. An incremental approach to reuse introduction is adopted, following the Seven Steps to Success, and 'lightweight' processes are recommended to support the reuse programme. A prototype tool set, ReThree- C++, was developed to automate support for the reuse programme. The results of the case study are presented. The reuse programme was successful, with benefits to the company including both increased speed of production and financial gains from selling reusable components. The challenges faced are also identified. Details of the tool set giving automated support for reuse are also presented. The tool set is an approach to reuse repository control which also integrates information abstraction from C++ source code to generate class hierarchy charts and software documentation automatically. It helps developers store, retrieve, understand and use reusable components. The usefulness of the tool set is shown with an experiment and as part of the case study. The purpose of the thesis is to show that small companies can implement reuse, and that the method presented supports the introduction of a reuse programme. It concludes that although challenges were faced, great benefits can be gained by using the method with automated support for reuse in a small company.

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