This thesis focuses on one key theme, which is to understand the construct of organizational networking behaviors in business-to-business markets. It is concerned with two main issues, which are built into the research program of three empirical studies. The first issue is concerned with a systematic understanding of organizational behaviors in response to the embeddedness and interconnectedness of the network of business relationships that every organization has to deal with. Study 1 of the research program explores the concept termed ‘organizational networking behaviors’. This study adopts an industrial network approach, the central tenet of which is that firms undertake a continuous process of interaction with their important partners in the embedding context of the business network. A multi-informant approach, using semi-structured interviews, was used to collect qualitative data from thirty-one executive managers (in fifteen manufacturing firms in the UK). This study identified information acquisition, opportunity enabling, strong-tie resource mobilization and weak-tie resource mobilization as four types of organizational networking behaviors, which are reflected by their respective sub-types. The resulting conceptualization of organizational networking forms the basis for the operationalization of the construct in Study 2. While Study 1 takes an exploratory qualitative approach, Study 2 deploys a confirmatory quantitative approach since it is necessary to confirm/refute the resulting conceptualization and its types from Study 1. A rigorous scale construction and validation process was followed in this study. The conceptualization of the measurement model was carefully considered based on its theoretical underpinning. A second-order formative measurement structure was conceptualized, which required the employment of a multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) model for the validation of such a measurement model. A dataset of 603 responses was collected and analyzed to confirm the structure of the four types of organizational networking behaviors, which is in line with the results of Study 1.The second issue that the thesis is concerned with is the influences of such organizational networking efforts, which are examined from a firm’s behavioral perspective. Study 3 examines how organizational networking behaviors serve as the driver of a firm’s customer-oriented, competitor-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors due to the sensing and seizing aspects of networking. It was also hypothesized that a firm’s customer-oriented, competitor-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors positively affect firm performance. The test of these hypotheses required survey data collection, which was done through an on-line questionnaire. A dataset of 354 responses was collected from UK managers, whose organizations operate in business-to-business markets in either the manufacturing or services sectors. The use of statistical modeling techniques is similar to that of Study 2. The research results indicate that a firm’s network-oriented behaviors positively impact on the development of customer-oriented and competitor-oriented behaviors. They also foster relationship coordination with its important business partners within the network. In addition, the effective management of the firm’s portfolio of relationships is found to mediate the positive impact of network-oriented behaviors on firm profitability.

Male-perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) against women remains as a pervasive and detrimental issue both in the United States and globally. Researchers, counselors, and others often develop psychological measures to help understand the causes of IPV in an effort to prevent this issue from occurring. Debate still persists within IPV research as to the definitive factors that contribute to the perpetration of IPV. The socio-feminist perspective remains as the predominant theoretical basis that drives IPV research and understanding. Despite this, no psychological measure grounded in this theory that predicts IPV perpetration proclivities has been developed and validated to date. The purpose of the current project was to develop and validate a psychological measure that predicts a likelihood to physically abuse a female intimate partner among heterosexual men – the Likelihood to Physically Abuse (LPA) scale. The development of which followed the methods of previously developed and validated measures of likelihood to rape and likelihood to sexually harass. Two studies were conducted that utilized two, independent and samples of adult, English-speaking American men. Study I involved a review of the literature to develop the LPA scale and initial internal reliability testing. Two hundred men were recruited using Qualtrics and were administered the LPA scale online. In Study II, three hundred men were recuited using Qualtrics and were administered the LPA scale along with other measures related to male-perpetrated IPV online. The purpose of the second study was to further test the internal reliability of the LPA scale and test the construct and external validity of this measure. The results from both studies demonstrated good internal reliability and initial evidence for good construct validity of the LPA scale. The LPA scale was concluded to show promising reliability and validity. However, the external validity results require further investigation. Implications for future IPV research and applications, and limitations are discussed.

LOHAS stands for “Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability”. LOHAS describes an emerging new lifestyle that is defined by attention to health and well-being and, environmental sustainability. The problem with the introduction of a description of a lifestyle that is supposed to capture broad social, political, economic, and behavioral changes is that the discussions of this lifestyle have moved faster than any research to support it. The validity and the conceptual richness and implications of the LOHAS can only proceed if there is a reliable and valid instrument to measure the LOHAS lifestyle; and there isn’t. The research focuses on the development of a reliable and valid LOHAS scale. The proposed research consists of five studies; specification of domain of the LOHAS, item generation, measurement purification, reliability assessment and validity assessment. This research will contribute to the understanding of the nature of LOHAS and provide a variety of theoretical and practical applications.

This work presents the evaluation and refinement of a chemistry attitude measure, Attitude toward the Subject of Chemistry Inventory (ASCI), for college students. The original 20-item and revised eight-item versions of ASCI (V1, V2, V3 and V3.1) were administered to different samples. The evaluation for ASCI had two main foci on the psychometric properties: reliability and validity. Both psychological theory and factor analysis techniques were applied to guide instrument refinement. Evidence for good reliability and validity was established for ASCI V2 score interpretation. The two-factor correlated structure was supported by confirmatory factor analysis. The two subscales, intellectual accessibility and emotional satisfaction, are indicators of cognition and affect components of attitude, and thus we can make good connection with tripartite attitude framework (cognition, affect and behavior) in psychology. As regards to attitude-achievement relationship, other than the well-known aptitude test score, students' attitude played a significant role in predicting final achievement in General Chemistry I course. This work represents the first time in the area of chemical education that a benchmark for scale development was successfully implemented to reconstruct an existing instrument. In addition to showcasing a method for examining validity, a second important result of this work is to recommend refinements that lead to greater ease of administration while improving validity: this eight item instrument now takes very little time to administer.

<div>With countless problems facing the world, there is an indispensable need for individuals who are able to persist and succeed in generating virtuous actions to meet unsettling eventualities. There have even been successful attempts to deploy specific wisdom-based curricula and then measure the results. Since the possibility for developing wisdom in the classroom exists, teachers’ perceptions of wisdom and the implicit beliefs that influence their ability to cultivate wisdom in their classroom become important to understand. </div><div>The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Perception of Wisdom Exploratory Rating (POWER) Scale based on the Polyhedron Model of Wisdom (PMW). According to PMW, components that characterize wisdom are knowledge; reflectivity and self-regulation; moral maturity; openness and tolerance; sound judgment; creativity; and dynamic balance and synthesis. A total number of 585 responses from in-service and preservice teachers with no missing data was collected. Inservice and preservice samples were randomly split into two halves for Exploratory Factor Analysis (n = 290) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n = 295). In the EFA, the items fit a seven-factor structure, producing the following subscales: knowledge management; self-regulation; altruism and moral maturity; openness; tolerance; sound judgment and decision making; creative thinking. CFA was performed to test the construct validity of the scale. The model did produce a good fit to the data (χ2/df= 1.67, CFI= .92, TLI= .91, RMSEA= .049, and SRMR= .06). With continued testing and revisions, this instrument could be useful for cross-cultural comparison of perceptions of wisdom and identification of barriers to promoting wisdom instruction. It also could be used to identify and compare, across different populations, educators’ perceptions of wisdom and measuring perceptional changes due to designed interventions.</div><div><br></div>

Abstract available in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Background: Risk for skin cancer is increased by UV exposure and decreased by sun protection. Appearance reasons to tan and not tan have consistently been shown to be related to intentions and behaviors to UV exposure and protection. Purpose: This study was designed to determine the factor structure of appearance motives to tan and not tan, evaluate the extent to which this factor structure is gender invariant, test for mean differences in the identified factors, and evaluate internal consistency, temporal stability, and criterion-related validity. Method: Five-hundred eighty-nine females and 335 male college students were used to test confirmatory factor analysis models within and across gender groups, estimate latent mean differences, and use the correlation coefficient and Cronbach's alpha to further evaluate the reliability and validity of the identified factors. Results: A measurement invariant (i.e., factor-loading invariant) model was identified with three higher-order factors: sociocultural influences to tan (lower order factors: media, friends, family, significant others), appearance reasons to tan (general, acne, body shape), and appearance reasons not to tan (skin aging, immediate skin damage). Females had significantly higher means than males on all higher-order factors. All subscales had evidence of internal consistency, temporal stability, and criterion-related validity. Conclusions: This study offers a framework and measurement instrument that has evidence of validity and reliability for evaluating appearance-based motives to tan and not tan.

Thesis advisor: Larry H. Ludlow / In 2019, as in previous years, White students outperformed African American, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Natives in a variety of K-12 outcomes (Darling-Hammond, 2007; de Brey et al., 2019; Jacob & Ludwig, 2008; National Education Association, 2015). The urgency of the opportunity/achievement gap is clear, as the current cohort of students under 5 years of age marks a turning point in student population demographics as the first in which 50 percent are part of a minority race or ethnic group (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015). Sociocultural integration (SCI) is included in the frameworks of successful bilingual programs (Howard et al., 2007; Scanlan & López, 2014). SCI considers the dynamics of relationships with oneself and others as being built in the context of one’s racial/ethnic, cultural, and linguistic background (Brisk, 2006; Feinauer & Howard, 2014). Acceptance and appreciation of cultural difference is critical for teachers (Bennett, 2003) and a number of pedagogical frameworks center teachers’ role of cultural brokerage as a pathway to fostering positive student outcomes (Grant & Sleeter, 2006; Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2001; Villegas & Lucas, 2002). In this dissertation, I defined sociocultural integration in a teacher-centered way, and explicitly incorporate teachers’ racial/ethnic identity development in the evolution of their actions to support SCI. Second, I operationalized this definition and built a scale for measuring SCI using innovative “lived experiences” scenario items according to the Rasch/Guttman Scenario scale development methodology (Ludlow et al., 2020). The SCI Scale for Teachers showed desirable psychometric properties and is well suited to increase use due to ease of interpretability. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation.

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