The purpose of this study was to describe the resilience in adult at-risk college students who had overcome adverse circumstances and the role resilience played in the post secondary experience in formal education. This qualitative study examined the characteristics and behaviors of resilience within the framework of human development.The eight study participants were clients of the Educational Opportunity Center program in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The study participants were low-income, first generation college students. Several assessment tools were administered to evaluate levels of resilience in the eight participants. In addition, all participants were interviewed, which allowed the participants to share their post secondary experience.The analysis of the evidence gathered showed that the eight participants exhibited traits of resiliency. These traits included being goal-oriented and exhibiting a desire to excel, exhibiting positive responses to new opportunities, using a capacity to delay gratification, demonstrating a high level of personal discipline and responsibility, being self-understanding and independent, exhibiting a high self-esteem, being flexible and creative in responding to life events, displaying a strong internal locus of control, making wise use of the presence and support of a caring person, building positive relationships with others, selecting environments that provided positive and high expectations as well as an opportunity to participate and contribute, possessing an easy-going temperament, finding meaning in life and having a vision of the future, responding with a sense of humor, and possessing a strong faith.All of the eight participants believed that resilience is present in all people and that resilience can be learned. There was not sufficient evidence provided by the assessment tools in this study to support strongly that resilience is a developmental process in adulthood. However, the analysis of the data gathered from the interviews suggest that resilience may be learned and strengthened by observing and learning from others.Conclusions and recommendations of this study focused on the identification of resilient at-risk adult students, determination of the role environment plays in the development and use of resilience in at-risk adult students, and the evaluation of effective assessment tools in identifying resilient at-risk students. Implications of this study for low-income, first-generation post secondary students include providing and strengthening the support of at least one caring adult in students' lives, as well as determining methods to teach or foster resilient behavior in at-risk adult students. / Department of Educational Leadership

Three hundred and eight nurse educators, who teach in NLN Accredited Bachelor of Science in Nursing Programs in the Midwest, were requested to complete a three-page survey concerning their perceptions and practices concerning student stress. The study demonstrated that nurse educators, in this study, were aware of the level of stress among students who were pursuing undergraduate degrees in nursing. The study found that most nurse educators understood that the sources of stress were a combination of the many roles and responsibilities of students. They were aware that most students needed services/interventions to assist them in coping with stress. Most nurse educators thought that they were responsible, to some degree, for intervening to assist students in decreasing their stress level. However, they expressed frustration at their attempts to help students. They indicated that many of the sources of stress were not within faculty control and that there was low participation when services/interventions were offered. Finally, the study found that most nurse educators thought that stress management for nursing students was included in the nursing curriculum. However, very little time was actually spent on stress management in the nursing program. Nurse educators indicated that they relied on other institutional services/interventions to provide stress management skills. However, many nurse educators indicated that they were willing to make changes to assist students. Nurse educators need to reconsider the amount of time that is spent facilitating students in reducing stress and helping them build coping skills that will continue to help them become competent nurses. Given the predicted nursing shortage that is estimated to last until 2020, the low application rate to nursing school, and the graying of America, it would seem prudent that nurse educators assist students who are in nursing programs become successful. The health of our nation may be at stake. The task for nurse educators is to help students recognize the signs of stress, understand the effects that unmanaged stress can produce, and teach the techniques that students can use in coping with stress. / Department of Educational Leadership

This study investigated personality differences among students who seek personal, career, and academic counseling and students who do not seek counseling. Students in the 1983 freshman class (N = 3,245) at Ball State University were administered various tests including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Counseling center files were examined to determine the number of students who subsequently sought counseling (n = 494) and which services they sought. Virtually no previous research existed using these variables. Therefore the study was considered exploratory in nature.In the statistical analyses, descriptive statistics were used to examine counseling groups. Loglinear analysis model fitting was performed on the four MBTI scales for the counseling seeker groups and the nonseekers.Results of the descriptive statistics showed that, in addition to the three counseling service groups, a fourth group emerged. Nearly one-fourth of the seekers did not return for services after intake (the "no services" group). Women represented about two-thirds of the total counseling seekers and of each counseling group. There was a significant relationship between year in school and counseling service sought. In the freshman and sophomore years, students sought more career and academic counseling. By the junior and senior years, students sought more personal counseling.Results of the loglinear analyses showed that the best-fitting model for the counseling groups contained the MBTI scales of sensing-intuiting (S-N) and judging-perceiving (J-P). The model further discriminated between the personal and academic counseling seekers and the nonseeking group. The personal counseling group was intuiting and perceiving (NP) and the academic group was sensing and judging (SJ). No differences were found for the no services and the career groups.The results of this study indicate there are definite personality differences among counseling seekers and nonseekers. By personality type, academic counseling seekers prefer the practical and concrete. Personal counseling seekers prefer the theoretical and abstract. Career counseling seekers and the no services group appear more like the general student population on the MBTI. Suggestions for counseling interventions and future research were given. / Department of Educational Psychology

This study has looked at the temporal and multidimensional self in high-ability African American males attending a specialized school for high-ability youth. Interviews were conducted with 9 students. Results provided details about the hoped-for and feared selves the young men envisioned as well as the strategies these youth utilized to realize and avoid these possibilities for their future. The interviews also demonstrated the impact of family, the specialized school’s culture, their neighborhoods, and racism on the possibilities the young men envisioned for themselves. Interrelationships between the attempt to attain possible selves, academic self-concept, socioeconomic status, race, and year in school were assessed via a path model with data from 253 high-ability male students attending the specialized school. The nature of the relationships amongst the variables revealed that older students better able to attain or avoid possible selves had higher academic self-concepts. Higher academic self-concepts resulted in higher grades and SAT scores. / Department of Educational Psychology

The Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) test is used extensively across a wide variety of settings in South Africa, however more appropriate local normative data has yet to be established. The CPM is internationally recognised as a culture-fair test of nonverbal intelligence, designed for use with children between the ages of 5½ and 11½. This pilot study thus sought to establish normative data for this instrument for a population of Xhosa-speaking Primary School children in the peri-urban township area in the Grahamstown region. The booklet version of the test was used and it was administered in group format and according to an alternate method of test administration (using Xhosa instructions) developed by Vass in 1992. The final normative sample consisted of 197 male and 182 female Xhosa-speaking children in Grades Two to Seven (N=379). The results showed (1) a significant effect of age on test scores, where scores increased with age as expected; (2) a consistent tendency for males to outperform females was also noted, however small sample sizes precluded any categorical claims to this effect; (3) no significant effect of education on test scores was observed and finally; (4) and finally, it appeared that the norms generated for this study revealed a tendency to be lower than those obtained by Raven, Court and Raven (1990) during the standardisation of this instrument in the United Kingdom and America. The study concluded that (1) there is an urgent need for more appropriate South African normative data for this test; and (2) that when assessing African children from disadvantaged backgrounds, further research into the effects of cultural and socio-economic factors and gender on non-verbal intelligence (and on performance on this test in particular) is required.

Two major purposes existed for this study. The first purpose was to compare how persisters and nonpersisters in the first year of a two-year nursing program differed in locus of control, selected personality traits, and seven demographic variables. The second major purpose was to develop a predictive model for the persisters and the nonpersisters. The particular personality variables examined were intelligence, superego strength, extraversion, anxiety, tough poise, and independence as measured by the 16PF. The summary findings were that persisters had significantly higher scores on the NDRT and the B and G traits, significantly lower externality, and were generally younger with no previous nursing experience, and more likely not to have prekindergarten age children than the nonpersisters. The major significance of this research comes from its use of data gathered at the beginning of an educational program to make predictions which can be available to teachers, counselors, and administrators who may make use of the information to improve the chance potential nonpersisters have of completing the nursing program, or perhaps to assist students in reexamination of their career choice.

The aim of this investigation is to determine the influence of pupils' perception on their academic achievement. The literature review indicated that sensation and perception are separate but unitary processes. It was also discovered that academic achievement is influenced by the perception of several factors pertaining both to the pupil himself as well as those responsible for his academic growth. There was conclusive evidence from both the literature and empirical investigation that perception influences academic achievement. Results from the empirical study confirm that pupils with negative perceptions achieve poor academic results and those with positive perceptions achieve good academic results. It has also been found that there is no difference in the overall perceptions of pupils in standards 6,7,8,9 and 10. There was a significant difference in the perceptions of boys and girls, with girls having more positive perceptions than boys. An attempt to change the negative perceptions of pupils to positive perceptions will inevitably result in an improvement in academic achievement. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The problem of this study was to determine the relationship of double sex standards to achievement and to selected personality variables of female college students. The following hypotheses were formulated: Hypothesis 1 Women with low acceptance of double sex standards will be found to have a higher grade-point average than will women with high acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 2 Women with low acceptance of double sex standards will have greater internal locus of control than will women with high acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 3 Women with high acceptance of double sex standards will be more influenced by powerful others than will women with low acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 4 Women with high acceptance of double sex standards will show a greater tendency to believe that chance controls their lives than will women with low acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 5 Women with high acceptance of double sex standards will have a greater fear of negative evaluation than will women with low acceptance of double sex standards. Hypothesis 6 Women with low acceptance of double sex standards will show more motivation to succeed than will women with high acceptance of double sex standards. The testing of hypotheses resulted in rejection of Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 6, and acceptance of the remaining four hypotheses. The conclusions, limited to the subjects included in the study, are that women who differ greatly on the subject of equality between the sexes do not differ in their scholastic achievement or in their motivation to succeed. In terms of the variable of locus of control, it is concluded that in the two groups studied women who show high support for equality between the sexes are more internal and women who show low support for equality are more external as a group. Lastly, the conclusion can be made that women in the group who reject equality between the sexes are more fearful of receiving negative evaluations of their behavior.

This study investigated the Adlerian concept of social interest m entering community college students to determine the predictive value of social interest for academic achievement and to determine the relationship between social interest and ethnicity and gender. Data for this study included age, gender, ethnic origin, high school class quarter, financial aid status, ACT Composite, grade point average, and scores on the Social Interest Scale. The results of stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that the social interest scores did not contribute significantly to the prediction of academic achievement. The results of an analysis of variance indicated a significant difference in the social interest scores of Anglo-American, Black-American, and Mexican-American students but the Scheffe test for multiple comparisons did not indicate any significant differences among or between the three ethnic groups. The results of a two-tailed t-test for independent samples indicated no significant difference in the social interest scores of males and females.

This study is a lifespan analysis of adult college students between the ages of twenty-three and fifty-five at North Texas State University in Denton, Texas, with respect to academic achievement as measured by grade point average, self-esteem as measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and anxiety as measured by the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale.