The thesis was designed to measure patterns of drug use among undergraduate college students and to examine possible relationships between drug use and six personality traits. An anonymous questionnaire was administered by participating Eta Sigma Gamma faculty advisers and student members to 1,552 undergraduate college students enrolled in introductory health education courses at 11 universities. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and a chi-square analysis provided the means for evaluating the data.The Null hypotheses tested were: (1) drug use is independent of sex, age, race, religious affiliation, religiosity, residence, class, college major, and cumulative grade point average; and (2) drug use is independent of these six personality traits: purposelessness, anomie, insecurity, fatalistic thinking, and belief in intervention by God.The first Null hypothesis was rejected for all variables in that differences were statistically significant at the .05 level. The second Null hypothesis was rejected except for the personality trait of pessimism. All of the other personality scales indicated that the results were statistically significant at the .05 level.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that occurs almost exclusively in women, with its prominent features being caloric restriction, excessive exercise, and emaciation. Research has found that women with anorexia nervosa generally have less sexual experience and more negative sexual attitudes when compared to "normal" women. There has been little research, however, on the potential relationship between sexuality and anorexic-like symptoms among women who do not meet diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder. Therefore, this study employed a population of college women to investigate the hypothesis that anorexic-like symptoms would be related to less sexual experience and more negative sexual attitudes. The correlations that were obtained did not support the hypotheses. Results are discussed with regard to directions for future research. / Department of Psychological Science

The present study examined the relationship of sense of humor to affect and coping with humor ability. The participants were 147 Introductory Psychology students from Ball State University. Participants first took the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire (SHRQ: Martin & Lefcourt, 1984), then observed 1 of 3 videos (i.e., sad, neutral, or humorous), which was then followed by the Coping with Humor Scale (CHS: Martin & Lefcourt, 1983) and the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL: Zuckerman & Lubin, 1965). The results indicate that sense of humor is inversely related to depression and hostility regardless of video condition but not with anxiety. Low sense of humor participants were influenced greatly as a function of the video condition but the high sense of humor paticipants were not. High sense of humor paticipants used humor to cope more than the low sense of humor participants in the sad video condition. The findings indicate that sense of humor is strongly related to depression, that depression levels can be reduced with a humor stimulus, and that those with a high sense of humor are more likely to use humor to cope with problems. / Department of Psychological Science

The present study was designed to simultaneously examine the prevalence of insomnia, hypersomnia, and delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS) among college students, while also examining the relations of depression (atypical and melancholic) and anxiety. Analyses revealed that insomnia, anxiety, poorer sleep efficiency, longer sleep latency, and shorter sleep duration were all correlated with melancholic features of depression and that anxiety, insomnia, and sleep latency were the strongest predictors of melancholic depression. Anxiety, excessive daytime sleepiness, insomnia, shorter sleep duration, poorer sleep efficiency, and longer sleep latency were all correlated with atypical depressive features, whereas anxiety and sleep latency were the strongest predictors for atypical depressive symptoms. The Composite Scale of Morningness correlated with sleep latency, later night times both during the week and on the weekends, later morning times both during the week and on weekends, and the difference between morning times on weekends versus the weekdays. Further research is needed to explore the relations among the depression subtypes and sleep problems and for development of more adequate measures to assess various sleeping problems and depression subtypes. / Department of Psychological Science

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between religious commitment, spiritual well-being and psychological well-being in college students. The Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) and Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS) were administered. Also frequency of church attendance was assessed. Canonical Analysis was used to investigate the data from 425 participants to determine if there is relationship between religious/spiritual well-being and psychological well-being. A statistically significant relationship was found between religious/spiritual well-being and psychological well-being. The following describes the nature of the relationship. First, participants who experience existential well-being tend to be self-accepting and to a lesser extent have mastery of their environment and a purpose in life. Second, participants who experience existential well-being and to a lesser degree, religious well-being tend to accept themselves, have a purpose in life, possess mastery of their environment, positively relate to others, feel they are growing personally, and are autonomous. This study provided evidence of a relationship between religious/spiritual well-being and psychological well-being. Implications and limitations of the study, as well as recommendations for future research are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that may affect counseling psychology doctoral students' tendencies to seek professional psychological help for their personal problems. The study had the following specific goals: (a) to identify psychology students' reasons for seeking professional help, (b) to identify psychology students' reasons for hesitating to seek professional help, (c) to determine the incidence of personal distress among psychology students, (d) to determine the incidence of professional psychological help seeking, and (e) to begin to examine the impact that training environments have on the development of psychologists' attitudes toward seeking personal psychotherapy.The population of this study was doctoral students in APA-approved programs in Counseling Psychology during their internship phase of training. The sample consisted of 178 pre-doctoral interns. Students were mailed a survey developed by the researcher. The survey instrument consisted of questions about psychological problems experienced and the extent to which students had sought or would seek help for these problems. The survey also addressed students' perceptions about whether or not personal help seeking was advocated in their training programs and extent to which the topic of personal psychotherapy was included in their graduate curriculum.Data were analyzed using a combination of qualitative and quantitative procedures. Grounded theory analysis techniques, frequency distributions and multiple regression analyses were utilized.The study reveals that the decision to seek help is a complex one. While most students had sought or would be willing to seek help in the future, many would hesitate to do so. Conclusions drawn are that psychologists (in training) may prefer to turn to professional help as a last resort, and that there are barriers that prevent trainees from obtaining psychological services including finances, availability of therapists, and concerns about confidentiality. Trainees who have had positive experiences with therapy or who value it for personal or professional growth are more likely to seek help. Trainees who perceive that help seeking is normative among their peers are also more likely to seek help. The topic of "psychologists' seeking help for themselves" is not consistently addressed as a part of counseling psychologists' formal training. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

What strategies are effective for clinical nurse instructors to use in developing critical thinking in student nurses? Many clinical strategies have been discussed in, literature, but only a few have been verified through research as to their usefulness.This study used the qualitative research methodology of multiple case studies. Participants were six clinical nurse instructors. Nursing experience ranged from 17-27 years, teaching experience involved 2-24 years. Four instructors had doctorates, one nurse had a masters degree, and the sixth nurse lacked two courses before completing a masters degree. The six instructors were from five areas of nursing: medical/surgical (beginning and intermediate level), maternity, mental health, community health and management.Each instructor was interviewed three times during the same semester, approximately two weeks apart. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Spradley's (1979) domain and taxonomic analyses were used to analyze the data.Data analysis showed that some strategies were used by all instructors, with adaptations made for the specialty. The strategies used by all instructors were questioning, nursing care plans and clinical conferences. More than one instructor used student journals, teaching projects, research articles, milieu assessments, and case studies/scenarios.This research strongly supported the use of questioning to help the student progress in critical thinking. Contrary to some research, the present research found that questioning by the instructors was not detached but was situated in the client setting which helped the student synthesize facts into a whole. The research identified many questions used by the clinical nurse instructors.Instructors identified their role in assisting students toward critical thinking as helper, facilitator, coach and guide. Instructors also identified the following characteristics as necessary to help students: caring attitude, creativity, perseverance, knowledgeable, listener, encourager and learning attitude. The instructors motivated students as they progressed in critical thinking through verbal and nonverbal rewards. Students gained self-confidence as they experienced success in their journey towards critical thinking. Implications for nursing practice are provided. The importance of this research lies in the rich depth of discovering how these strategies, roles, characteristics, and motivators assist nursing students in developing critical thinking skills in different clinical settings.2 / Department of Educational Leadership

Research demonstrates correlations between the sensing-intuitive dimension of psychological type as interpreted by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Myers 1985) and science-related career choices. Alarming decreases in science-related career interests prompted this study which employed psychological type theory to investigate relationships between teaching strategies preferences of Indiana high school biology teachers and science-related attitudes of their academically-talented students. The purpose was to learn if good biology teachers instill positive attitudes within the context of the sensing-intuitive dimension by adapting teaching strategies to match the psychological type composition of their classes and therefore inspire students to pursue science-related careers. Teacher and student psychological type was determined by the MBTI. Teaching style preferences of 20 exemplary teachers and 16 randomly-selected teachers related to their 722 academically-talented students were explored by the Biology Teaching Strategies Inventory developed by the researcher. This instrument contained 40 forced-choice items with paired sensing and intuitive activities written to reflect sound biological conceptual themes from BSCS recommendations. An ANOVA determined that neither teacher group appeared to be adapting teaching strategies. Both teacher groups preferred teaching strategies corresponding to their own psychological type, sensing or intuitive, even when they were to select strategies to use with their specific classes.Science-related attitudes of 338 academically-talented students of 10 exemplary and 16 randomly-selected teachers were examined by seven scales of the Test of Science-related Attitudes (TOSRA) (Barry Fraser 1981). A covariant analysis of student science-related attitudes coupled with student variables of Psychological type (sensing and intuitive), career choice, gender, and socio-economic level indicated statistically significant differences in attitude scores of students of both teacher groups: females of exemplary teachers scored almost as high as males of both teacher groups on enjoyment of science learning and science leisure interests, sensing males of higher socio-economic levels had very low attitudes on adoption of scientific attitudes, females of both teacher groups had more positive attitudes than males on normality of scientists, students of exemplary teachers choosing biology-related careers had lower scores than students with similar career choices of randomly-selected teachers. Intuitive students had more positive attitudes than sensing students on all TOSRA scales. / Department of Biology

Researchers report the need for attrition and persistence studies of adult college students. While adults are enrolling in colleges in record numbers, high percentages are also dropping out. The majority of studies have been completed on 18 to 21 year-old traditional students who have different views, perspectives, and needs than adult students. The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics that have contributed to the persistence of adult commuter students who have earned 60 or more semester hours of college credit.The study was conducted at a midsize midwestern commuter college. The model of Bean and Metzner (1985) was used for the study. Evidence was gathered by in-depth, structured interviews of 20 college students who had completed 60 or more hours of college credit. Using a qualitative analysis, responses were transcribed and inserted in a prestructured case outline. Contact summary sheets, clusters, a frequency network, and two matrices were constructed to weigh the evidence, the characteristics that contributed to persistence, and to note the themes and patterns.The research indicated students varied by ethnicity, social class, and gender. Conclusions were that self-reliance was a characteristic of persistent students who assumed control for selecting courses, attending classes, and studying. Social support from outside or inside the university and a time commitment to college were important. Sufficient study skills, the discipline to study alone, and time management skills were also hallmarks of the successful students. The student's perception that the student was succeeding the first year of college appeared to be important. Beginning college at risk appeared to make only a slight difference in students at 60 or more hours of college.Implications were that administrators should educate students as to what characteristics contribute to success, and, when possible, provide characteristics of success so adult students persist to degree completion. Providing characteristics of success may promote persistence more than eliminating characteristics of dropouts. Recommendations were made for further gender, ethnic, socioeconomic, and developmental studies. / Department of Educational Leadership

Bronfenbrenner (2001) proposes that individual development is based on reciprocal interactions between personal variables, social interactions and the environment. If exposed to a non-accepting environment, individuals are assumed to have poorer adjustment as compared to those in accepting environments. Once exposed to a more accepting environment, psychosocial adjustment is expected to increase. D’Augelli (1994b) also sees sexual identity development as influenced by interpersonal interactions occurring in one’s environment. Sexual minority adolescents have high rates of depression, suicidality and victimization, and lower levels of self-esteem and social support. Methodological issues, including recruitment and inclusion of only those who are “out”, have potentially inflated previous results regarding psychosocial maladjustment. Therefore, the current study was designed to address those methodological flaws. A sample consisting of 286 sexual minority college students completed the following measures: demographics questionnaire, Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, Suicidal Behavior Questionnaire-Revised, Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and victimization questionnaires. It was hypothesized that when controlling for social support, rural participants would report higher rates of psychological maladjustment (depression, suicidality, self-esteem) and victimization (in person and electronic), as compared to non-rural participants; males would have higher rates of suicidality and victimization as compared to females, whereas females were expected to have higher levels of depression and lower self-esteem as compared to males; and sexual minorities spending more time in an accepting macrosystem (greater than two years in college) were expected to have lower levels of psychological maladjustment and victimization than those spending less time in an accepting macrosystem (less than two years in college). It was also hypothesized that participants would report higher rates of victimization prior to college, as compared to when in college. Results showed that psychological maladjustment did not differ based on gender, environment or time spent in college. However, rates of psychological maladjustment were found to be lower than previous studies reported. This may indicate that previous research is skewed due to using a non representative sample. Rates of victimization were higher for participants prior to entering college, as compared to when in college, and were higher for men than women. No differences were found between rates of victimization between environments, however. These results may indicate different things. It is plausible that persons in rural environments are more accepting of sexual minorities than has been noted in the past. This may be due to the increased exposure of sexual minority issues in the media and the internet. However, rates of perceived social support were high for the current sample, and essentially the same between those from rural and non-rural areas. Such results may confirm Bronfenbrenner’s assertion that microsystemic processes combat psychological maladjustment. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services