Defining leadership effectiveness (LE) remains a controversial subject with scholars and researchers disagreeing on a common definition. Most studies term leadership effectiveness as the leaders’ ability to successfully exercise personal influence and abilities in order to accomplish set standards. Such leadership effectiveness was measured using three elements, namely influence, follow commitment and versatility. To be effective, leaders must possess certain competencies and perform specific tasks (independent variables). In this study, three leadership competencies, namely strategic thinking, emotional effectiveness and transformational leadership were examined. Similarly, seven leadership tasks (set organisational direction, develop human capital, build core competencies, create organisational alignment, sustain appropriate organisational culture, manage change and establish balanced organisational control) were identified as essential for the attainment of leadership effectiveness (intervening variable) which, in turn, leads to organisational effectiveness (dependent variable). Given the importance of leadership effectiveness to organisational effectiveness, the purpose of this study was to identify, investigate and empirically test the possible relationship between leadership effectiveness and organisational effectiveness within the Kenyan indigenous banks. To achieve the aim of the study, a survey was undertaken using a structured self-administered questionnaire. The respondents were identified using both probability and non-probability techniques with the survey yielding 257 usable questionnaires that were statistically analysed. The proposed hypothetical relationship between leadership effectiveness and organisational effectiveness was assessed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), a multivariate statistical technique. The SEM included Cronbach’s alpha and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the dicriminant reliability and validity of the measuring instrument, and Goodness-of-fit indices. The study findings demonstrated the existence of a strong relationship between leadership competencies, tasks performed and leadership effectiveness which in turn impacts on organisational effectiveness, in this case the overall effectiveness of the Kenyan indigenous banks.

Academic achievement and educational expectations as a function of parental absence were examined among 268 newly immigrant elementary, middle, and high-school students from Spanish-speaking countries. Data collected as part of a longitudinal study of adaptation and achievement in newly immigrant students were analyzed. Participants had varying experiences with parental absence, in terms of length of absence, gender of absent parent, and reason for absence. Reasons for parental absence included parental divorce, parental death, and serial migration, a cause unique to immigrant children. Students who experienced parental absence reported lower educational expectations. Students who experienced the death of a parent had lower achievement scores and lower expectations than students who did not experience parental death. Prolonged absence was also important, with students who experienced parental absence for more than one year performing worse than students who had minimal parental separation. In addition, boys who experienced parental absence because of serial migration performed worse academically than boys who did not have this occurrence. Educational expectations were reduced among students who experienced parental absence as a result of the migratory process, especially for younger students. The extent to which parental absence related to achievement and expectations through potential mediating factors, such as economic hardship, perceived school support, and parental school involvement was assessed with structural equation modeling. Overall, the model was able to explain some of the relationship between parental absence and the academic achievement and educational expectations of immigrant students from Spanish-speaking countries.

Minimal empirical research using longitudinal data to explore integrative models of eating disorder development exists. The purpose of this study was to further explore multidimensional models incorporating parental attachment, history of stress, appraisal/coping processes, internalization of the thin-ideal, negative affect, body image, and eating disordered behavior using prospective, longitudinal data. The models were evaluated using 238 participants who completed an initial series of self-report questionnaires during their first semester in college and completed follow-up questionnaires 6 months and 18 months later. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships among the factors. Analyses confirmed that college freshman with insecure parental attachment relationships and those with a history of previous stressful experiences appraised the adjustment to college as more stressful and reported feeling less able to cope with the transition; these conditions predicted increased negative affect and increased eating disturbances. Women who reported experiencing negative affect and those that endorsed internalization of the thin-ideal also reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction; these women engaged in more disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. A second model investigating negative affect as mediating the relationship between the appraisal/coping process and eating disturbances also revealed that experiencing difficulties with the transition to college predicted later negative mood states. Further, women who reported increased negative affect also reported increased eating disturbances. Finally, cross-lagged and simultaneous effects between selected factors were evaluated. Results from these analyses are mixed, but they provide additional information about the predictive relationships among factors that play a role in the development of eating disorders. The results of this study provide valuable information about the development of eating disorders that can be used to aid prevention and treatment. Examination of these models in a large independent sample might provide confirmation of these relationships, and investigation of the models during different developmental periods might also provide important information about the development of eating disturbances and those individuals who are most at risk.

The stratification of bird species along elevational gradients is widely reported, with montane bird communities typically characterized by distinctive species occurring in relatively small and isolated populations; as such, these species are the subject of considerable interest to ecologists and conservationists. The stratification of species along elevation is largely attributed to compressed climatic zonation. Recent evidence that bird species are shifting up in elevation has fueled speculation that these species are tracking their climactic niches in response to climate change. However, there is also evidence plant communities are shifting in elevation, presenting a potential additional mechanism explaining changes observed in the bird community. Uncertainty as to the degree to which climate directly influences bird abundance versus the degree to which climate indirectly influences bird abundance via habitat composition and structure represents a key impediment to understanding the ecology of these species in montane environments. To address this question I measured species abundance, habitat characteristics, and temperature at 150 survey points located along 15 elevational transects in the Presidential Mountains of New Hampshire in the summers of 2014 and 2015. I used N-mixture models to correct for imperfect detection of species and structural equation models, incorporating abundance, habitat, temperature, and precipitation derived from a downscaled regional dataset to assign variation to the direct and indirect effects of climate upon birds. Analysis of 21 species revealed species-specific patterns on how climate exerts direct effects and indirect effects mediated by forest composition and structure on bird abundance. This work represents an important contribution to the ecological understanding of the pathways by which climate influences bird abundance. Finding that 62% of species experience both direct and indirect effects of climate, with 62% experiencing stronger direct than indirect effects, these results underscore the vulnerability of these species to climate change. With 81% of species found to experience indirect effects of climate via forests, these findings indicate great conservation value of maintaining forest habitat amidst climate change. Overall, this information will facilitate the refinement of predictive models of the abundance of montane bird species and represents an approach that will advance future investigations of climate effects in the Northern Appalachians and other systems.

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Researchers are often interested in comparing brain activity between experimental contexts. Event-related potentials (ERPs) are a common electrophysiological measure of brain activity that is time-locked to an event (e.g., a stimulus presented to the participant). A variety of decomposition methods has been used for ERP data among them temporal exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Essentially, temporal EFA decomposes the ERP waveform into a set of latent factors where the factor loadings reflect the time courses of the latent factors, and the amplitudes are represented by the factor scores. An important methodological concern is to ensure the estimates of the condition effects are unbiased and the term variance misallocation has been introduced in reference to the case of biased estimates. The aim of the present thesis was to explore how exploratory factor analytic methods can be made less prone to variance misallocation. These efforts resulted in a series of three publications in which variance misallocation in EFA was described as a consequence of the properties of ERP data, ESEM was proposed as an extension of EFA that acknowledges the structure of ERP data sets, and regularized estimation was suggested as an alternative to simple structure rotation with desirable properties. The presence of multiple sources of (co-)variance, the factor scoring step, and high temporal overlap of the factors were identified as major causes of variance misallocation in EFA for ERP data. It was shown that ESEM is capable of separating the (co-)variance sources and that it avoids biases due to factor scoring. Further, regularized estimation was shown to be a suitable alternative for factor rotation that is able to recover factor loading patterns in which only a subset of the variables follow a simple structure. Based on these results, regSEMs and ESEMs with ERP-specific rotation have been proposed as promising extensions of the EFA approach that might be less prone to variance misallocation. Future research should provide a direct comparison of regSEM and ESEM, and conduct simulation studies with more physiologically motivated data generation algorithms.

This study investigates the changeability of transport-related attitudes and mode choice of early adolescents. Data on attitudes and travel behavior were collected in Austria and Germany in two consecutive survey waves with an interval of one year. The approach is based on a before-after control group experiment with an intervention promoting active travel modes. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior we used structural equation modeling analyzing effects of the intervention; the potential for behavioral changes was modelled as moderator variable between intention and behavior. Findings suggest that the intervention was effective in changing attitudes, perceived behavioral control (PBC) and intentions to use non-motorized travel modes more, and car less. Difference models show that changes of attitude, subjective norm, and PBC accounted for 29% (car passenger) to 92% (walking) of the variance in changes in intention. The changes in intentions are however weak predictors of changes in reported behavior.

Adolescence is an important developmental period where friendships become important for social emotional adjustment. Given the importance of friendships in adolescence, the current study explored the relation between popularity and internalizing problems and whether friendship qualities mediated this relation. The present study aimed to answer the following research question: What is the mediating role of friendship qualities in the relationship between perceived popularity and internalizing symptoms? Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Development – Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were analyzed. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results indicate that adolescents who rated themselves as being high in popularity also reported higher levels of positive friendship qualities. A significant relationship was also found among perceived popularity and internalizing problems such that adolescents who rated themselves as being high in popularity were also reported by their mothers as having lower levels of internalizing problems. Contrary to what was expected, validation and caring significantly mediated the relationship between popularity and anxiety/depression and social problems such that as popularity goes up, so does anxiety/depression, and social problems. Results found conflict and betrayal mediates the relation between popularity and thought problems suggesting adolescents that believe they are popular experience less conflict and betrayal and fewer thought problems. Additionally, conflict resolution, companionship, and recreation each mediated the relationship between popularity and social problems. This suggests that having a friend you can rely on for companionship, recreation and conflict resolution serves as a buffer from the negative consequences of social problems. Help and guidance as a mediator resulted in a positive relation between popularity and social problems which was unexpected. Results support claims that popularity relates to having high quality friendships that protect against internalizing problems. These findings emphasize the importance of understanding outcomes for adolescent adjustment in relation to forming and maintaining positive relationships with peers.

Development of the Jordan Performance Appraisal System (JPAS) was completed in 1996. This study examined the factor structure of the classroom observation instrument used in the JPAS. Using observed classroom instructional quality ratings of 1220 elementary teachers of Grades 1-6 in the Jordan School District, this study estimated the factor structure of the data and the rater effect on relevant structural parameters. This study also tested for measurement invariance at the within and between levels across teachers of two grade-level groups (a) lower grades: Grades 1-3 and (b) upper grades: Grades 4-6. Factor structure was estimated using complex exploratory factor analysis (EFA) conducted on a subset of the original data. The analysis provided evidence of a three-factor model for the combined groups. The results of multiple confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) conducted using a different subset of the data cross-validated EFA results. Results from multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) indicated the three-factor model fit best at both the within and the between levels, and that the intraclass correlation (ICC) was high (.699), indicating significant rater-level variance. Results from a multilevel multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MLMG-CFA) indicated that the ICC was not significantly different between groups. Results also indicated configural, metric (weak factorial), and scalar (strong factorial) equivalence between groups. This study provided one of the first examples of how to estimate the impact of cluster-level variables such as rater on grouping variables nested at the within level. It provided an example of how to conduct a multilevel multigroup analysis on count data. It also disproved the assumption that counting classroom teaching behaviors was less subjective than using a categorical rating scale. These results will provide substantial information for future developments made to the classroom observation instrument used in the JPAS.