Personality, motives, and self-efficacy have all been recognized as factors contributing to relapse, and the interaction among these factors has been outlined in Witkiewitz and Marlatt’s contemporary relapse model. However, there is limited empirical research examining the mechanisms involved in this theory. This study aimed to better understand the relationship between personality risk, drinking motives, and confidence to resist drinking during high-risk situations among adults who have changed their drinking. Results indicate that prior to participants’ change in drinking, introversion/hopelessness was associated with coping motives and confidence in situations involving unpleasant emotions, anxiety sensitivity was associated with coping motives, and impulsivity was associated with conformity motives. Following participants’ change, two specific motives (i.e., coping and conformity) were found to moderate the association between two of the personality profiles (i.e., introversion/hopelessness and anxiety sensitivity) and confidence to resist drinking during specific high-risk situations (i.e., negative emotional and social pressure to use).

This study contributes to nascent entrepreneurship research by investigating factors on the individual and opportunity levels of analysis that determine the exploitation of innovative venture ideas. As a result of the literature review three theoretical perspectives were chosen to organize the factors: human and social capital, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and domain definition strategy. The analysis of the chosen factors is based on hypotheses formulated on the basis of the literature review concerning the impact of the factors on the performance of nascent entrepreneurs during the discovery process. Empirical data were collected from the survey of 409 nascent entrepreneurs who addressed a public advisory agency in Stockholm area. Research findings show that among all factors, statistically significant predictors of exploitation of venture ideas are social capital in terms of the contact with counselors and number of ties with different actors, planning and marshaling self-efficacy, initial investment, tangibility and innovativeness of the future offerings. As for the direction of relationships, too many ties with different networks and higher planning self-efficacy influence exploitation in a negative way. Among variables related to domain definition strategy, entrepreneurs with innovative venture ideas based on services have higher probability of exploiting their ideas. Those who have made initial investment into the development of venture ideas and have a frequent contact with counselors are more likely to continue exploitation efforts. Of five dimensions of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, higher marshaling self-efficacy was shown to positively contribute to the exploitation process. It is especially difficult during the early stages of entrepreneurial process to predict which venture ideas will survive, thus, nascent entrepreneurship assistance should encourage experimentation. Although it is difficult to make generalizations from the study about nascent entrepreneurs in the Stockholm area, it can be advised to encourage the development of new services and enhance the entrepreneurial potential of nascent entrepreneurs by developing their entrepreneurial self-efficacy, especially marshaling self-efficacy.

Caring for children with autism place mothers at high risk for poor health outcomes and compromises the health of all family members (e.g., Bristol, 1987; Hastings et al., 2005a). Although poor outcomes prevail, some mothers do well despite their caregiving challenges. While ample research exists on mothers’ supports and stress, virtually nothing is known about their strengths. Emerging research suggests that parental self-efficacy and empowerment may contribute to better outcomes in mothers of children with autism. The purpose of the present study was to identify predictors of better outcomes in mothers of children with autism. Relationships among child disruptive behaviour, supports, self-efficacy, empowerment, maternal distress and positive perceptions of parenting were examined using a postal survey design. Mothers (N = 114) of school-age children with autism provided demographic information and completed various scales (i.e., the Developmental Behaviour Checklist, Family Support, Difficult Behaviour Self-Efficacy, Family Empowerment, Hospital Anxiety and Depression, Positive Contribution). Overall, 35% of the variance was explained in maternal distress (i.e., anxiety and depression). After accounting for mothers’ age and child disruptive behaviour, support and empowerment were subsumed by parental self-efficacy in predicting lower levels of maternal distress. Collectively, 17% of the variance was explained in mothers’ positive perceptions of parenting. Self-efficacy partially mediated the moderate effect of disruptive behaviour on mothers’ distress and fully mediated the small effect of disruptive behaviour on mothers’ positive perceptions of parenting. Thus, parental self-efficacy for managing children’s difficult behaviour is very promising for preserving mothers’ health. While discussion focuses on outstanding issues to be addressed, the findings suggest that tailoring formal services to enhance parental efficacy, rather than providing support and consultation services alone, would be more in line with mothers’ needs and possibly improve both children’s and families’ outcomes.

Blogging is a form of social media, and student engagement is at the center of blogging. The benefits of blogging include being easy to create and maintain, making writing easier to share, encouraging students to write outside of the classroom, and supporting group collaboration. The findings suggest students are more passive in their blogging experiences, as the data found students generally read blogs more than they wrote blogs. The Unified Theory on Acceptance and Use of Technology and self-efficacy theory were used as the framework for the study. This study sought to explore agricultural leadership students’ motivations for blogging. Student responses indicated on average they read blogs less than once a month. Students typically reported a preference for informal writing even if they did not blog. Teacher training could be used to increase awareness among educators about the benefits of blogging. Educators must be able to convey the benefits of educational blogging in terms of its ease and benefit for student acceptance.

In 2009, 4.1 million Canadians over the age of twelve experienced an activity-limiting injury. Of these injuries 35% occurred from sport or physical activity (Canadian Community Health Survey, 2009). Although injuries occur most commonly in sport and exercise activities, it is difficult to study injured athletes with similar injuries all occurring within the same time frame. Therefore, a scenario protocol was used in the study which described the occurrence of an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. The purpose of this study was to compare a modeling, an imagery, and a control group on psychological factors related to a hypothetical injury. Healthy athletes (N=86; M age = 22.06 years; SD = 4.37) who had no recent experience of an injury and had not experienced an ACL injury were included in the study. At baseline, athletes read a scenario that described the occurrence of an ACL injury. Participants then completed questionnaires including, demographic information, expected pain, task and coping efficacy, projected rehabilitation adherence, and movement imagery ability. Within two weeks of completing the baseline testing, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: control, modeling, or imagery. Participants either met with the primary researcher or were sent a link via email in order to complete the follow-up. At the beginning of the follow-up, all groups were given the scenario to read over. Then participants were given the respective treatment. The modeling condition consisted of a video of an athlete who described his experience of an ACL repair. The guided imagery condition involved a recorded script that detailed the recovery process of an ACL injury. The control condition only read the scenario. Afterwards, participants completed the questionnaires involving expected pain, task and coping efficacy, and rehabilitation adherence. Four separate 3 (group) x 2 (time) repeated measures ANOVAs and two ANCOVAs were conducted to examine between group differences in athletes’ perceptions of pain, task and coping efficacy, and rehabilitation adherence before and after the intervention was administered. No group by time interactions were found for any of the dependent variables. However, there were changes over time for pain, F(1, 81) = 5.97, p = .017, task efficacy, F(1, 79) = 193.23, p < .001, coping efficacy, F(1, 79) = 11.16, p = .001, and frequency of adherence, F(1, 32) = 5.17, p = .03. Findings from manipulation check questions suggest that modeling and imagery could serve as pre-injury education tools for athletes to use if they are faced with an injury in the future. / Thesis (Master, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2010-11-02 14:35:08.256

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Self-efficacy has consistently distinguished between highly successful and less successful athletes. Given this relationship there is demand in sport to have strategies to enhance self-efficacy. The use of motivational general-mastery (MG-M) imagery is an effective psychological technique to enhance self-efficacy. What moderates the effectiveness of this technique is the athlete’s ability to use MG-M imagery. A single-subject multiple baseline design was employed where inter-collegiate golfers (n = 3; male) completed baseline and post-intervention measures: Motivational Imagery Ability Measure for Sport and the Golf Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. Participants completed the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory prior to each competition and the score recorded for each round of golf was used to evaluate performance. Participants engaged in six sessions of guided MG-M imagery training over a 3-week period. The results of the study demonstrated that the sport confidence and golf self-efficacy of Participants 2 and 3 improved, while Participant 1 remained at a relatively constant level. All participants showed improved imagery ability and Participants 1 and 3 demonstrated improved golf performance. Post-experimental interviews indicated all participants felt the imagery training program was effective and appropriate for their sport.

Personality, motives, and self-efficacy have all been recognized as factors contributing to relapse, and the interaction among these factors has been outlined in Witkiewitz and Marlatt&rsquo;s contemporary relapse model. However, there is limited empirical research examining the mechanisms involved in this theory. This study aimed to better understand the relationship between personality risk, drinking motives, and confidence to resist drinking during high-risk situations among adults who have changed their drinking. Results indicate that prior to participants&rsquo; change in drinking, introversion/hopelessness was associated with coping motives and confidence in situations involving unpleasant emotions, anxiety sensitivity was associated with coping motives, and impulsivity was associated with conformity motives. Following participants&rsquo; change, two specific motives (i.e., coping and conformity) were found to moderate the association between two of the personality profiles (i.e., introversion/hopelessness and anxiety sensitivity) and confidence to resist drinking during specific high-risk situations (i.e., negative emotional and social pressure to use).

Keeping a learner interested-and therefore engaged-in content to be mastered generally improves learning. One way to keep a learner interested is using seductive augmentation, which refers to the addition of entertaining text, graphics, sound, music, video or animation that is either irrelevant or only tangentially relevant to the learning objectives. Learner cognitive styles impact how individuals approach learning and problem-solving situations. With recent advances in technology, there has been an increased interest in the way such individual differences influence performance while learning. Research on the effects of cognitive styles has mainly focused on the role of field-dependence/independence. One of the recent advances in technology is the availability of virtual worlds as learning environments. This study investigated whether seductive augmentation in Second Life, a commonly used virtual world, affects the learning performance of field-dependent and field-independent education majors in an undergraduate class unit. A second focus of this study was to examine whether the computer self-efficacy of these learners changed after their two-month experience with the virtual world of Second Life. To determine if seductive augmentation in Second Life affects the achievement of field-dependent and field-independent learners differently, two different settings were designed in two different regions of Second Life. One setting was free of seductive augmentation, but the other setting included seductive augmentation in the forms of music, animation, text, videos and games. Thirty-six participants self-selected to the seductive setting and 48 to the non-seductive setting. The participants were pre- and post-tested on the instructional content presented both in Second Life and in real life classes; furthermore, to examine the influence on learners' computer self-efficacy, pre- and post-computer self-efficacy surveys were administered. The results of the study were obtained through two independent mixed-model factorial analyses of variance with repeats on the third factor (time) for achievement and computer self-efficacy scores. For the main effects, results indicated no significance for the between-group factors of field-dependency and seductiveness or for their interaction with either achievement scores or computer self-efficacy scores. The only significant factor was time as the main within-group factor for achievement scores. Therefore, the study did not find seductive augmentation effect in Second Life. In addition, there was no detectable change in the participants' computer self-efficacy as a result of their experience in this virtual world. The results of the present study contradict the findings of some previous research and support others.

As nursing leaders, nurse managers are critical to the future of the healthcare system, as well as the nursing profession. Becoming a new manager or leader requires considerable development (Conners, Dunn, Devine, & Osterman, 2007); however, there is limited literature that focuses on the development of the nurse manager (Cadmus & Johansen, 2012). The purpose of this study was to explore the development of self-efficacy in nursing leaders, specifically new nurse managers. Albert Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy theory was used to guide this study. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. Two themes emerged from the data, describing experiences of self-efficacy, and the development of self-efficacy. A positive connection between experiencing a mentoring relationship and perceived self-efficacy emerged from the data. The findings of this study provide healthcare stakeholders an in-depth understanding of the importance of mentoring and it outcomes related to the development of self-efficacy in new nurse managers.