Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2009. / Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 102 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of History, August 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

This thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the impact that constructions of meaning and personal identity have upon the processes of professional decision-making, in the delivery of community safety services. The research draws upon the previous work undertaken in the fields of psychology, sociology, social anthropology, criminology and community safety. The research was composed of five separate studies. Study one was a Delphi exercise to determine consensus of meaning for different community terms in common usage for policy makers, practitioners and academics. The research was able to define consensual meanings for ten of the thirteen terms presented, including crime prevention, crime reduction and community safety. Consensus was not achieved for the terms community engagement, respect and quality of life and suggestions are made which may account for this result. Study two utilised repertory grids to investigate the ways that community safety professionals might construe the decisions that they have to make as part of their duties. Studies three and four utilised bespoke ISA/lpseus instruments, whose structures were informed by the results from Study Two. These instruments were used to further explore the construals and worldviews of a variety of community safety professionals through six process postulates. It was found that whilst an individual's initial job role or gender did not have significant impact upon their professional decision-making, the training that they had received in community safety and the time that they had spent working in the field did have a significant impact upon their professional decision-making. It was also found that the groups of community safety professionals differed in their attitudes towards those members of society who are the target of community safety activity. Study five involved the generation and piloting of a survey instrument whose various sections were designed to validate the findings generated from the previous studies, as well as providing further data on the decision-making processes of those working within community safety. The final chapter presents the Warren Person Process Priority (WaPPP) layered model of decision-making that was derived from the data collected to inform the current thesis. The outer Person layer is defined by the four-way typology derived from the Procedural / Free-form and Cautious / Adventurous bi-polar constructs of identity types that were identified from the ISA/lpseus studies. The middle layer of the model describes a number of different decision-making processes that professionals may follow when making a judgement or coming to a conclusion. The order of the processes was given by the results of the survey pilot. The central portion of the model presents a number of factors that may impact upon professional decision-making, determined from the ethnographic work that informed the ISA/lpseus studies. The order of these factors was determined from the preparatory data collection instrument that was used with the ISA/lpseus studies and confirmed by the results of the survey pilot. Suggestions are made for further research that may expand upon the results presented in this thesis. These include a larger version of the Delphi, with an international panel of experts; correlation of the ISA/lpseus instruments with other validated instruments for the measurement of personality, identity and decision-making and an expansion of the survey pilot.

The purpose of the study was to determine the attitudes and judgments of public school superintendents in the State of Indiana in regard to the public school system and early childhood programs. Early childhood education was defined as: parent education for parents of young children, nursery school (prekindergarten) for children of ages three and four, kindergarten for five year olds, and day care programs for children.A questionnaire containing forty-five items was developed and refined with the aid of the Northeastern Indiana School Study Council serving as the pilot study group. A questionnaire was sent to all 289 superintendents of public school corporations in Indiana. Two hundred five, or 71 per cent of the superintendents replied to the questionnaire. The data were analyzed and reported as raw numbers, percentages, and totals.Major findings included:1. Approximately 51 per cent of the superintendents indicated the present educational services available to all three, four, and five year old children were not adequate in the school districts represented.2. Approximately 80 per cent of the schools did not provide educational programs for adults relating to the role of the parent.3. Approximately 78 per cent of the superintendents strongly agreed the early childhood programs should have been concerned about all aspects of a young child's development.4. Over 95 per cent of the responding superintendents indicated strong agreement or agreement that the family had the primary responsibility and the rest of society had a supplemental responsibility for providing adequate health, education, and care of young children.5. Approximately 64 per cent of the respondents strongly agreed or agreed that teaching people ways to be better parents was an educational need in the community.6. Approximately 63 per cent of the superintendents disagreed that day care and nursery school programs in the community might have been best provided by the public school.7. Approximately 97 per cent of the superintendents strongly agreed or agreed the availability of revenue for financing programs for young children was limited.8. Approximately 87 per cent of the superintendents expressed agreement that an enriched experience in a planned educational program was important to a young child's development.9. A total of approximately 63 per cent of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed early childhood services could be effective when delivered through the public school system.10. Approximately 57 per cent of the responding superintendents disagreed or strongly disagreed that the nursery school for three and four year old children should have been operated as an integral part of elementary education in the public schools.Conclusions were:1. Early childhood programs, outside the home,were a need in the State of Indiana. Kindergarten programs were not available for all five year old children. The educational needs for all three, four, and five year old children were not being adequately met.2. A program teaching high school students and adults how to be competent parents was a need in the State of Indiana. A t the same time competency as a parent was judged to be an important element for the provision of meaningful experience in a young child's life.3. Approximately 75 per cent of the superintendent's attitudes and judgments concerning the philosophy of early childhood development was in agreement with the review of research and related literature.4. Superintendents expressed agreement that a planned educational program was important in a young child's development and the public schools could effectively deliver the early childhood services. However, over one-half of the superintendents expressed disagreement that the have been operated as an integral part of elementary educational programs for three and four year old children should be operated in the public schools.

Everyday the financial world is dominated by news from the international stock markets. A general market meltdown is viewed with alarm and dismay by all those investors who take a short-term view of investments or see their pensions erode. Nothing can be done to what has already happened, but a lot can be learnt from successful investors. One of these successful investors who are one of the richest people in the world is Warren Buffett. As a student of Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business School in the 1950's and a native of Omaha, Warren Buffett is renowned as the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated and are one of the world's legendary investors. This dissertation addressed the need that exists to provide investors with an investment philosophy that will limit the risk of failure when investing in the stock market by identifying and evaluating investment potential the Warren Buffett way. The was done by a literature study of the various investment fundamentals, analyzing the investment philosophy of Warren Buffett's mentor, Benjamin Graham and a in-depth study of the investment criteria used by Warren Buffett. The empirical study was conducted in five phases. The first phase consisted of identifying the study sample and the second phase was to identify the most important regression equations. Phase three consisted of multiple regression analysis that was used to determine the most important quantitative criteria, based on the analysis done on twenty two companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The most important criteria that were identified were the margin of safety, the book value and book value per share, the intrinsic value per share of the company, the debt pay-off period and the profit margin. Based on the criteria identified within phase three, a five step model was developed in phase four to assist investors in analyzing and successfully identifying companies with the highest investment potential and this model was tested in phase five. The results of the tests done on the study sample indicated the success rate of the model for the specific number of criteria. These results were compared to the average price per share for 2004 and the results indicated that the success rate of the model decreases as the number of criteria within the model decreases. The results achieved were satisfactory considering that the model only addresses the quantitative investment criteria and not the qualitative criteria within the model decreases. The results achieved were satisfactory considering that the model only addresses the quantitative investment criteria and not the qualitative criteria. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

Everyday the financial world is dominated by news from the international stock markets. A general market meltdown is viewed with alarm and dismay by all those investors who take a short-term view of investments or see their pensions erode. Nothing can be done to what has already happened, but a lot can be learnt from successful investors. One of these successful investors who are one of the richest people in the world is Warren Buffett. As a student of Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business School in the 1950's and a native of Omaha, Warren Buffett is renowned as the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated and are one of the world's legendary investors. This dissertation addressed the need that exists to provide investors with an investment philosophy that will limit the risk of failure when investing in the stock market by identifying and evaluating investment potential the Warren Buffett way. The was done by a literature study of the various investment fundamentals, analyzing the investment philosophy of Warren Buffett's mentor, Benjamin Graham and a in-depth study of the investment criteria used by Warren Buffett. The empirical study was conducted in five phases. The first phase consisted of identifying the study sample and the second phase was to identify the most important regression equations. Phase three consisted of multiple regression analysis that was used to determine the most important quantitative criteria, based on the analysis done on twenty two companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The most important criteria that were identified were the margin of safety, the book value and book value per share, the intrinsic value per share of the company, the debt pay-off period and the profit margin. Based on the criteria identified within phase three, a five step model was developed in phase four to assist investors in analyzing and successfully identifying companies with the highest investment potential and this model was tested in phase five. The results of the tests done on the study sample indicated the success rate of the model for the specific number of criteria. These results were compared to the average price per share for 2004 and the results indicated that the success rate of the model decreases as the number of criteria within the model decreases. The results achieved were satisfactory considering that the model only addresses the quantitative investment criteria and not the qualitative criteria within the model decreases. The results achieved were satisfactory considering that the model only addresses the quantitative investment criteria and not the qualitative criteria. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

On the eve of the Second World War, high school English teacher Leon Ormond writes about a minor skirmish he has with a history teacher over the pedagogical usefulness of wit. After telling her about his book, Laugh and Learn: The Art of Teaching with Humor, she tells him, “Only morons laugh.” Ormond goes on to describe her as one who exhibits “a countenance curiously reminiscent of an ancient Greek tragic mask”—she was “an exemplary member of the Cult of Pedagogic Pallbearers.” Although educators, historically, have often frowned upon humor, humorous writing—especially satirical writing—helps students understand the fundamentals of rhetoric and composition in a way that is both engaging and intellectually demanding. While often misunderstood within the larger culture, and perhaps equally underused in academic culture, satiric writing can be a creative and critical heuristic for the learning and practice of various rhetorical principles in the introductory composition classroom, an alternate discourse that can teach fundamental communication concepts while challenging mainstream thinking. Chapter one explores various historical, theoretical, and pedagogical concerns about the use of humor. Chapter two outlines a positive case for the inclusion of satiric writing in college composition. Chapter three describes my own efforts at teaching satire in four introductory composition classes at Western Kentucky University. An appendix examines the difficult relationship between the satiric genre and the once dominant school of literary criticism known as New Criticism, focusing on New Critic Robert Penn Warren’s work with seventeenth-century satirist, John Marston.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 333-340). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-84).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Jacqueline A. Rouse, committee chair; Ian C. Fletcher, Allison Calhoun-Brown, committee members. Electronic text (198 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Nov. 28, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-198).