Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / Judy Hughey / College counseling has been a unique profession among the helping professions that seeks to provide mental health and academic support to college students. One vocational danger for college counselors has been the onset of burnout. The loss of resources leading to burnout, as explained by the Conservation of Resources theory, may have been connected to today’s higher education administrative position of performing more responsibilities with less staffing. This research study examined the relationship between work duties assigned to college counselors, as measured by the College Counselor Activity Rating Scale, and the level of burnout for those counselors, as measured by the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure. The first five hypotheses examined the relationship between burnout and non-counseling duties by utilizing a hierarchical multiple regression analysis with various tests of mediation and moderation. The sixth hypothesis explored the assertion that college counselors at small institutions of higher education (institutional enrollment less than 5000 students) are more likely to engage in non-counseling duties. Members of the American College Counseling Association were recruited to serve as the population sample frame for the study. Because no instrument existed to measure counseling and non-counseling duties for college counselors, the College Counselor Activity Rating Scale was developed as a part of the study. Validation procedures were utilized in the form of an expert panel and pilot study for the College Counselor Activity Rating Scale. Of the six null hypotheses, all six were retained with limited power. Further analysis showed statistically significant relationships between burnout, perceived workload, and meaningful work. In addition, three non-counseling duties items, all related to administrative duties, were statistically significantly related to burnout. The key findings, implications and recommendations for future research were discussed.

Research shows that anger has a negative impact on cognition due to the rumination effect and in the context of driving, anger negatively impacts situation awareness, driving performance, and road safety. In-vehicle agents are capable of mitigating the effects of anger and subsequent effects on driving behavior. Language is another important aspect that influences information processing and human behavior during social interactions. This thesis aims to explore the effects of the language of in-vehicle agents on angry drivers' situation awareness, driving performance, and subjective perception. The three conditions explored are the native language agent condition (Hindi or Chinese), secondary language agent condition (English), and no agent condition. Results indicate that driving performance is better in the case of the native language agent condition when compared to the no agent condition. Higher levels of situational awareness were affected by the agent condition, favoring the native language condition over the secondary language condition. The participants preferred native language agents over the other conditions and the perceived workload was higher in the no-agent condition than the native agent condition. Drivers also expressed the need to control the state of the in-vehicle agent. The study results have practical design implications and the results are expected to help foster future work in this domain. / Master of Science / People are deeply influenced by emotions. Anger while driving is shown to negatively impact people's perception and understanding of what is going on in the driving context and prediction about what will happen. As a result, this influences driving performance and road safety. Intelligent agents (such as Siri or Alexa) built into vehicles can help regulate the emotions of the drivers and can positively impact driving performance. Language is another important aspect that influences human behavior during social interactions. The current thesis aims to leverage the positive impacts of in-vehicle agents and language to design in-vehicle agent interactions capable of mitigating the negative effects of anger to ensure better driving performance and increased situation awareness. The three conditions explored are the native language agent condition (Hindi or Chinese), secondary language agent condition (English), and no agent condition. The effects on angry drivers' situation awareness, driving performance, and subjective perception are studied. Results indicate that the driving performance is better in the case of the native language agent condition when compared to the no agent condition. Participants preferred native language agents over the other conditions. People's understanding and prediction capability in the driving context was better in the native agent condition over the other conditions. The study results have practical design implications in designing in-vehicle agent interfaces and the results are expected to help foster future work.