Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Sexual encounters among gay men produce distinct meanings when methamphetamine is involved. Few studies have inquired about the meanings gay men ascribe to their meth and sex encounters. We have yet to ask, what meanings do these experiences hold and how are they constructed? Using qualitative data gathered from one-on-one semi-structured interviews with eleven men, at least 18 years of age and who report using meth during sex with another man in the past 90 days, this study explored the meanings constructed from the participants’ meth-sex experiences. The analysis revealed several important themes helping to explain why these men use meth and have sex with other men including belonging; being in, searching for and falling out of love; having sex for 12 hours; dealing with HIV; and, confronting addiction. The findings impart a meaningful role for belonging, love, sex and disease as socially constructed through the intersection of the body, mind, social interaction and the environment in which lived experiences unfold. Previous research supports several of these themes while at least one theme, i.e. love, extends our understanding of meth and sex among gay men. I assert belonging binds the themes together. The desire to belong came across more powerful and determining in its meaningfulness than the risks associated with sexual encounters where meth is present.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)

Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)

A Constituição Federal prevê a igualdade de condições para o acesso e permanência na escola. A história da educação superior brasileira é marcada pela desigualdade social. A cultura de avaliação de programas vem se institucionalizando no Brasil. A presente pesquisa apresenta uma avaliação da eficácia do Programa de Auxílio Estudantil da Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná – Câmpus Curitiba, por meio de estudos comparativos do coeficiente acadêmico e da permanência entre os estudantes beneficiados pelo Programa e os não-beneficiados. Expõe um breve histórico do Ensino Superior e da Assistência Estudantil no Brasil. A questão social apresentada é a permanência dos estudantes em situação de vulnerabilidade socioeconômica no ensino superior. E para o seu enfrentamento, normas foram editadas e ações desenvolvidas, inclusive o Programa de Auxílio Estudantil da UTFPR. Discute conceitos da avaliação de Programas Sociais e da Governança Pública. Trata-se de um estudo de caso, no qual foram coletados dados do sistema acadêmico da instituição e do Programa de Auxílio, complementados por um questionário aplicado aos ex-alunos bolsistas graduados e desistentes. Construiu-se um sistema de indicadores, concluindo-se pela eficácia do Programa de Auxílio Estudantil. Traz como resultado, a superioridade dos coeficientes acadêmicos dos estudantes bolsistas em relação aos não bolsistas, bem como uma taxa de evasão inferior dos bolsistas em relação aos demais estudantes do Câmpus. / The Federal Constitution predicates equal conditions to the access and permanency in the school. The Higher Education History in Brazil is spotted for social inequality. The programs evaluation growth has becoming systematized in Brazil. This study presents an evaluation of the efficiency of the Student Scholarship Program of the Federal Technological University of Paraná—Curitiba, through comparative studies between Scholarship Program students and the rest of the student body focusing on grades and student retention. The study offers a brief overview of Brazilian Higher Education and Student Scholarship Programs. The social issue examined is the retention of students in positions of socioeconomic vulnerability in higher education. In order to confront these issues, standards were edited and actions were developed, including the Student Scholarship Program of UTFPR (Federal Technological University of Paraná). The study discusses evaluation procedures of Social Programs and Public Governance. This is a case study in which the university’s academic and the Scholarship Program databases are used as a corpus, and in which a questionnaire for former students, both graduated and withdrawn from the program, serves as compliment. A system of indicators was constructed, and its conclusion is presented through the efficiency of the Student Scholarship Program. The case study results demonstrate higher academic grades from scholarship students in relation to non-scholarship students, as well as higher retention rates for scholarship students in relation to the rest of the student body on campus

A Constituição Federal prevê a igualdade de condições para o acesso e permanência na escola. A história da educação superior brasileira é marcada pela desigualdade social. A cultura de avaliação de programas vem se institucionalizando no Brasil. A presente pesquisa apresenta uma avaliação da eficácia do Programa de Auxílio Estudantil da Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná – Câmpus Curitiba, por meio de estudos comparativos do coeficiente acadêmico e da permanência entre os estudantes beneficiados pelo Programa e os não-beneficiados. Expõe um breve histórico do Ensino Superior e da Assistência Estudantil no Brasil. A questão social apresentada é a permanência dos estudantes em situação de vulnerabilidade socioeconômica no ensino superior. E para o seu enfrentamento, normas foram editadas e ações desenvolvidas, inclusive o Programa de Auxílio Estudantil da UTFPR. Discute conceitos da avaliação de Programas Sociais e da Governança Pública. Trata-se de um estudo de caso, no qual foram coletados dados do sistema acadêmico da instituição e do Programa de Auxílio, complementados por um questionário aplicado aos ex-alunos bolsistas graduados e desistentes. Construiu-se um sistema de indicadores, concluindo-se pela eficácia do Programa de Auxílio Estudantil. Traz como resultado, a superioridade dos coeficientes acadêmicos dos estudantes bolsistas em relação aos não bolsistas, bem como uma taxa de evasão inferior dos bolsistas em relação aos demais estudantes do Câmpus. / The Federal Constitution predicates equal conditions to the access and permanency in the school. The Higher Education History in Brazil is spotted for social inequality. The programs evaluation growth has becoming systematized in Brazil. This study presents an evaluation of the efficiency of the Student Scholarship Program of the Federal Technological University of Paraná—Curitiba, through comparative studies between Scholarship Program students and the rest of the student body focusing on grades and student retention. The study offers a brief overview of Brazilian Higher Education and Student Scholarship Programs. The social issue examined is the retention of students in positions of socioeconomic vulnerability in higher education. In order to confront these issues, standards were edited and actions were developed, including the Student Scholarship Program of UTFPR (Federal Technological University of Paraná). The study discusses evaluation procedures of Social Programs and Public Governance. This is a case study in which the university’s academic and the Scholarship Program databases are used as a corpus, and in which a questionnaire for former students, both graduated and withdrawn from the program, serves as compliment. A system of indicators was constructed, and its conclusion is presented through the efficiency of the Student Scholarship Program. The case study results demonstrate higher academic grades from scholarship students in relation to non-scholarship students, as well as higher retention rates for scholarship students in relation to the rest of the student body on campus

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis project aims to address the following question: How do women who were planning a vaginal birth with limited medical intervention experience an unplanned c-section? Specifically, this research project involved: completing in-depth interviews with 15 women who planned a vaginal birth with limited medical intervention but instead experienced an unplanned c-section between six months and two years ago; discovering and describing the nature of the birth the mothers originally envisioned for their child; exploring the women’s experiences with, and feelings about, the birth itself and how it might differ from what they envisioned; developing a better understanding of how these experiences and feelings affected the women during the first two years following the birth; describing any challenges they faced and how, if at all, they managed such challenges; and identifying strategies that could be used to improve the experience of women recovering from an unplanned c-section who envisioned a vaginal birth with limited medical intervention.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In today's fast paced world, people have become increasingly interested in online communication to facilitate their lives and make it faster. This goes on from simple social interactions to more advanced actions like shopping on the internet. The presence of such activities makes it crucial for people to use their common sense and judgment to process all this information and evaluate what/who they trust and what/whom they do not. This process would have been much easier if the number of people in such networks is really small and manageable. However, there are millions of users who are hooked online every day. This makes the person very overwhelmed with his trusting decision, especially when it comes to interacting with strangers over the internet, and/or buying personal items, especially expensive ones. Therefore, many trust models have been proposed by computer scientists trying to evaluate and manage the trust between users using different techniques and combining many factors. What these computer scientists basically do is coming up with mathematical formulas and models to express trust in online networks and capture its parameters. However, social scientists are the people better trained to deal with concepts related to human behaviors and their cognitive thinking such as trust. Thus, in order for computer scientists to support their ideas and get a better insight about how to direct their research, people like social scientists should contribute. With this in mind, we realized in our group work the importance of such contribution, so we came up with the idea of my research work. In my search, I tried to find how these social scientists think and tackle a dynamic notion like trust, so we can use their findings in order to enhance our work and trust model. Through the chapters, I will discuss an already developed trust model that uses measurement theory in modeling trust. I will refer back to this model and see how other social scientists dealt with some of the issues encountered by the model and its functionality. Some small experiments have been done to show and compare our results with social scientists results for the same matter. One of the most important and controversial points to be discussed from social scientists' point of view is whether trust is transitive or not. Other points to be discussed and supported by social scientists' research include aggregation, reputation, timing effects on trust, reciprocity, and experience effects on trust. Some of these points are classified into trust mapping categories and others are related to trust management or decision making stages. In sum, this work is a multidisciplinary study of trust whose overall goal is to enhance our work and results, as computer scientists.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Chinese students are the biggest ethnic group of international students in the United States. Previous studies have identified many unique problems of Chinese students during their acculturation process and a higher level of acculturative stress than international students from other countries. A systematic review of instruments that assess acculturative stress revealed that none of the existing scales apply to Chinese students in the United States, either because of language issues or validity problems. Thus, this study aims to develop a reliable and valid scale to accurately measure the acculturative stress of Chinese students in the United States. A 72-item pool was generated by interviewing eight Chinese students and borrowing items from existing literature and scales. The item pool was sent online to 607 Chinese students and 267 of them completed the survey. Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted to empirically derive the factor structure of the Acculturative Stress Scale for Chinese Students (ASSCS). The results produced a 32-item scale in five dimensions, which were Language Insufficiency, Social Isolation, Perceived Discrimination, Academic Pressure, and Guilt toward Family. The ASSCS demonstrated high reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.939) and initial validity by predicting depression (Beta = 0.490, p<.001) and life satisfaction (Beta = -0.505, p<.001). It was the first Chinese scale of acculturative stress developed and validated among a Chinese student sample in the United States. Further studies need to be conducted to provide empirical support and confirm the validity for the scale. In the future, the scale can be used as diagnosing tool and self-assessment tool.

Text in Afrikaans / Summaries in Afrikaans and English / Hierdie verhandeling beskryf 'n taalkonstruktivistiese benadering tot die behoeftebepalingsproses in gemeenskapswerk. Taalkonstruktivisme vorm dee! van konstruktivisme. Taalkonstruktivisme word verduidelik in terme van 'n aantal beginsels en hoe dit toegepas kan word op die behoeftebepalingsfase. Dit fokus op die volgende: - Die belangrikheid van taal en betekenis in die gemeenskapswerker se eie denke en interpretasies van 'n gemeenskap se behoeftes. - Die belangrikheid van taal en betekenis en die verbalisering van 'n gemeenskap se behoeftes. - Die versigtigheid waarmee die kommunikasieproses met 'n gemeenskap benader moet word. - Die skep van idees wat in taal plaasvind en ook verander kan word wanneer daar behoeftebepaling in 'n gemeenskap gedoen word. Hierdie beskrywing van die taalkonstruktivistiese beginsels vind plaas aan die hand van 'n gevallestudie vanuit die navorser se praktiese werk wat uitgevoer is as gedeeltelike vereiste ter vervulling van die Meestersgraad. Dit beklemtoon die implikasies van die toepassing van taalkonstruktivisme op gemeenskapswerk. / This dissertation describes a language constructivist approach to the phase of needs assessment in community work. Language constructivism is part of constructivism. Language constructivism is explained in terms of certain principles and how they can be applied to needs assessment. The focus is on the following: - The part language performs in the community worker's own thoughts and interpretations of a community's needs. - The importance of language and meaning when a community verbalises its needs. - The care with which the communication process with a community should be approached. - The creation of ideas which can take place and change in language when a community's needs are being assessed. This description of the principles of language constructivism is done according to a case study of the researcher's practical work which was done as part of the requirements in fulfillment of the Master's degree. It emphasizes the application of language constructivism to community work. / Social work / M.A. (Social Sciences)