The overall aim of this grounded theory multiple-case study was to better understand how K-12 independent schools (“schools”) in the United States cultivate a connection between children and adolescents (“students”) and the natural world (“environment”) by exploring the interplay between this connection and (a) the school community (“community connectedness”) and (b) personal sense/belief about spirituality. The aim was guided by key research questions, which include: (Q1) How do schools in the United States cultivate a connection between students and the natural environment? (Q2) Why do schools cultivate a connection between students and the natural environment? (Q3) What is the interplay between the natural environment and the school community? And (Q4) What is the interplay between the natural environment and personal sense/belief about spirituality? This study utilized a grounded theory multiple-case study approach to conduct a secondary analysis on data previously collected as part of a parent study. Representative data from 4 of the 20 schools (Cedar Highlands, Mapleton, Tabiona, and Rocky Ridge) in the parent study were analyzed for the purposes of this grounded theory multiple-case study. Data were collected by conducting 1- to 2-day site visits to each school. Data collection methods included: (a) face-to-face individual interviews and group discussions with key school personnel (including teachers, faculty, staff, and parents); (b) general observations (including, but not limited to, classes, student groups/activities, faculty meetings, campus life, school culture, and extracurricular activities); (c) desk review of reports and documents (including organizational documents, such as strategic reports, and public documents, such as blogs and articles); and (d) audiovisual materials primarily in the form of photographs. For the current study, an inductive analytic strategy was utilized to identify emergent concepts from the previously coded data. Within the inductive framework of the current study, cross-case synthesis, with a case-based approach, was utilized to compare within-case patterns across the four individual cases and to address the research questions. Emergent themes and results from cross-case synthesis were utilized to develop an initial working theory of environmental education that is spiritually formative as a component of overall healthy development.

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While the importance of confidentiality in eliciting sensitive information in psychotherapy is generally assumed, there has been little experimental testing of this hypothesis. Therapists are understandably reluctant to manipulate conditions of confidentiality in a therapy situation, since such manipulation may adversely affect the progress of the client. In view of this circumstance, analogue experiments are an alternative in producing empirical data. The current study in an analogue. Forty-five male and forty-five female subjects were orally administered the same structured interview by a female experimenter. Interview questions were derived from existing standard personality and clinical assessment instruments, and school regulations and situations encompassed in school discipline codes. Questions were rated by mental health professionals who work with children and adolescents and by junior high school teachers as to their presumed sensitivity for a junior high school population. Seventh and eighth grade male and female subjects were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions: confidentiality explicitly assured; confidentiality neutral; and confidentiality. Seventeen items were judged most sensitive by the panel of rates. A frequency of sensitive self-disclosure, computed for these questions revealed a nonsignificant trend consistent with the experimental hypotheses that self-disclosure would be highest in the confidential conditions, and lowest in the nonconfidential condition. Thus subjects in the confidentiality assure condition had the highest mean disclosure rates, while subjects in the nonconfidential condition had the lowest mean disclosure rates. Additionally, defensiveness of subjects was moderated by confidentiality condition. Males and females showed differences in patterns of behavior under the three confidentiality conditions. Females disclosed less frequently across conditions, with greatest differences shown in the nonconfidential condition. Also females' patterns of defensiveness differed from those of male subjects. Post-test responses to a questionnaire indicated that a majority of subjects tended to assume a condition of confidentiality, unless they were explicitly informed otherwise, and that females valued confidentiality more highly than males. The results provide support for the hypothesis that confidentiality is perceived as an important condition in a situation in which an individual is asked to disclose sensitive and personal information, and that behavior is influenced by confidentiality condition, although male and female adolescents may be affected differently.

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No description available.

Childhood fears have been considered to be part of normal development. It is when these fears develop into severe fears or phobias that they become of concern to clinicians. Children's fears have varied over the years from school related fears, to political fears, to fears of danger and death in most recent years. Of the latter category, fear of fire-getting burned emerged as the second most commonly reported fear among children. The present study examines two cognitive self-instructional strategies to test their effectiveness in reducing children's fear of fire. Cognitive strategies were the ones of choice in that they remedied many of the problems found in some of the other behavioral techniques. Either of two self-instructional strategies including a fire safety training program using self-instructions and a self-instructional fear reduction strategy were taught to second and third grade children. A major hypothesis of the study was not confirmed which maintained that children who learned self-instructional fear reduction exercises would show greater reductions in fear than children who did not learn the exercises. Although these results were not evident immediately following training, a trend toward this expectation did appear at follow-up. These findings implied that although the cognitive self-control strategy was not effective in reducing children's fear immediately, it did tend to provide for greater maintenance of behavior change over time. The present study has implications for continued investigation in the areas of childhood fear reduction and the maintenance of behavior over time. / M.S.

Text in Afrikaans / The adolescents touched by their parent's divorce often display certain behavioral problems, such as withdrawal, aggression, and deterioration in academic performance, total apathy and misconduct. These adolescents experience mixed feelings in their period of distress. When one gets behind the reasons for certain behavior, the adolescents usually confess that the parents' divorce affected them. Parents often do not think about the emotional implications their divorce has on their children. Authors differ about the age at which children are influenced the most by their parents getting divorced. This study confirms suspicions that although adolescents want to break ties with their parents, they still feel threatened when their parents split up. During serious conflict in the family, the divorce is sometimes perceived as positive. The study makes everybody involved with the adolescent aware of the emotional disruption and the influence a divorce could have on their daily functioning. / Die studie oor die belewinge van die adolessente in die enkelouergesing as gevolg van egskeiding, spruit voort uit waarnemings tydens die interaksie met adolessente wat deur die ouers se egskeiding geraak is. Sodanige adolessente toon dikwels sekere gedragspatrone, soos onttrekking, aggressie, verswakking van akademiese prestasie, algehele lusteloosheid en wangedrag. Wannneer hulle genader word, ontken hulle dikwels dat iets skort. Hulle wil nie anders beskou word as ander adolessente wat nie in dieselfde situasie verkeer nie. Die ondersoek toon dat adolessente gemengde gevoelens in hulle tyd van nood ondervind het. Wanneer wel agter die rede vir die teruggetrokkenheid of aggressie of verswakkende akademiese prestasie gekom word, erken adolessente gewoonlik dat die ouers se egskeiding hulle onderkry. Ouers dink dikwles nie aan die emosionele uirwerking wat hulle egskeiding op die kinders het nie. Skrywers verskil oor die ouderdom waarop kinders die meeste deur die ouers se egskeiding beinvloed word. Die respondente in hierdie studie bevestig vermoedens dat, alhoewel adolessente hulself wil losmaak van die ouers, hulle wel bedreig voel wanneer die ouers uitmekaargaan. Tydens ernstige konflik in die gesin word die egskeiding tog soms as positief ervaar. Dit beteken egter nie dat dit vir hulle maklik is nie. Wanneer daar voor die egskeiding min konflik is en die verblyfreelings daarna vir die aolessent aanvaarbaar is, is die aanpassingsproses gewoonlik makliker. Die studie maak alle betrokkenes by die adolessent bewus van die emosionele ontwrigting waaraan hy blootgestel word en die uitwerking wat dit op sy alledaagse funksionering kan he. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Voorligting)

by Wong Kit Yi, Angel. / Thesis (M.A.Ed.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1987. / Bibliography: leaves 220-235.

背景：除性別及年齡等人員變數外，犯罪思想被視為犯罪行為的重要因素。西方研究找出了犯罪思想不同的結構，同類型的研究在中國或香港相對罕見。這範疇的研究可促進對邊緣青年的預防工作，所以有急切性。 / 目標：本研究旨在了解西方犯罪思想結構能否適用於中國香港的年青罪犯，亦嘗試發掘本土獨有的犯罪思想。犯罪思想與犯罪行為的關係亦會被探究。 / 方法：六個焦點小組找出了超過三百多個青少年的犯罪思想。四位有經驗之臨床心理學家仔細分析並製訂了一個一百四十六題的問卷。 探索性的因素分析提取了具本土特性的犯罪思想題目。 它們與兩個外國的測量，名為犯罪情感測量表 (CSSM) 及犯罪思想測量表 (CTS) 一同被放進回歸模型， 以了解能否提升結構模式的適配度及解釋青少年人的普遍及具體犯罪行為。 / 結果：探索性因素分析找到了十四項具本土特性的犯罪思想題目， 它們能提升CSSM結構模式的適配程度 (goodness of fit) ，卻未能於CTS達至理想效能。 當它們與CSSM結合後，一個四因子模型 (包括「英雄主義」、「對司法系統的態度」、「對罪犯的認同」及「相信法庭對青年人寬大」) 被塑造了。 「對司法系統的態度」能解釋普遍的罪案和有關肢體暴力、財產、毒品及性暴力的罪行。 「對罪犯的認同」能解釋普遍的罪案和有關肢體暴力及財產的罪行。 具本土特性的犯罪思想因子跟CSSM有類似統計學上顯注的辨別能力， 「英雄主義」在識別肢體暴力的罪犯上有些微優勝，而「相信法庭對年青人寬大」則可識別干犯毒品罪行的年青人。 與西方研究結果相符，性別和年齡解釋了大部分犯罪行為的差異，犯罪思想測量表能帶來的附加值有限。 / 討論：是次研究為本地年青人犯罪思想的探索。 在CSSM中，只有「對司法系統的態度」和「對罪犯的認同」這兩個因子被確立，兩個本地獨有的犯罪思想卻被發現了。 討論圍繞着四個犯罪思想因子中共同包含了對司法系統的態度或期望及渴求朋輩的贊同或情感。 文章討論了有關的中國教子方法，指出了如何善用研究所得的資料辨別與輔導邊緣青少年。 / Background: Criminal thinking was one of the strongest predictors, apart from demographic variables like gender and age, in predicting offending behavior. There were quite a lot of western researches on criminal thinking coming up with different constructs. In Chinese or Hong Kong research on this domain was however relative rare. Corresponding research was called for to facilitate the early intervention on the at risk youth. / Objectives: The present study aimed at exploring the applicability of the western criminal thinking constructs to Hong Kong - Chinese young offenders' population and discovering any indigenous criminal thinking. The relationship of criminal thinking with criminal behavior of youth had been studied also. / Method: 6 focus groups in young offenders' populations generated over 300 criminal thinking related statements. Four clinical psychologists experienced in young offenders’ work had given their opinions and narrowed the statements down into a 146 questions’ assessment. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to extract the indigenous items. These items were put into factor analysis and logistic regression together with the two western scales, namely CSSM and CTS, to see how well the indigenous items and factors could improve the goodness of fit of the model and the explanatory of general and specific criminal behavior of local young offenders. / Results: 14 local items had been generated from exploratory factor analysis. They had further improved the goodness of fit of CSSM, but not CTS, no matter in criminal or school samples. By combining the indigenous items with CSSM, a four factor model with factors namely, Heroism, Attitude towards Justice System, Identification with Criminal Others and Belief in Court’s Leniency toward Youth was yielded. Attitude towards Justice System could extensively explain general, physical violence, property, drug and sex offences. Identification with Criminal Others could explain general, physical violence and property offences. The two indigenous factors had comparable statistically significant classification power as the two factors of CSSM, with Heroism slightly more competent in identifying young criminals of physical violence, and Belief in Court’s Leniency towards Youth as more competent in identifying criminals of drug offences. Similar to the western finding, gender and age as demographic variables had explained most of the variances of criminal behavior and hence the added value of the scales on top of the demographic variables was limited. / Discussion: The current study aimed at exploring the constructs of criminal thinking in local young offenders. While only the constructs related to Attitude towards Justice System and Identification with Criminal Others of CSSM were being validated in Hong Kong - Chinese population, two indigenous criminal thinking constructs had been found. Discussion had been made on the two main elements in local young offenders’ criminal thinking as reviewed by the four factor model, i.e. attitude and expectancy towards justice system as well as need for approval and affiliation with peers. The cultural specific parenting style that might be associated with the thinking constructs were discussed. Directions to utilize the finding on early identification of and psychoeducation on at-risk youth had been highlighted. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Yeung, Yin Yan. / Thesis (Ph.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 329-360). / Abstracts also in Chinese; appendixes includes Chinese.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Sciences