Background: Interventions for young children with autism are increasingly delivered through parents. This thesis investigated baseline and process variables associating with quality of parent-therapist alliance in a parent-mediated intervention for autism, including variables relating to parents' causal beliefs and perspectives. Participants: 77 parents and 6 therapists from a RCT of a parent-mediated intervention for autism (PACT). Method: A sequential exploratory mixed methods approach, with an intermediary instrument development phase. Baseline variables, investigated for the full sample of 77 cases, comprised demographic variables, parental dichotomous causal belief variables, and a therapist average fidelity variable. Thematic analysis of intervention session transcripts informed the development of the Parental Perspectives Coding Scheme (PPCS), a video-based scheme for rating the quality of parent 'Expression' and therapist 'Integration' of parental perspectives during intervention. 5 overarching themes were initially identified, these were collapsed into three items for the PPCS; Interpretation of the Child (IOC), Parent Actions and Strategies (PAS) and Parental Self Disclosures (PSD). Item inter-rater reliabilities were satisfactory to good. Parent-therapist dialogue, for a sub-sample of 20 cases, was coded using the PPCS to create process variables for the Expression and Integration of parental perspectives. Initial analyses identified baseline and process variables with significant univariate associations with alliance; these were included in separate multivariate models of parent-rated alliance and therapist-rated alliance. Results: Parent-rated and therapist-rated alliance did not correlate. PPCS Expression and Integration scores were higher in the high parent-rated alliance group but the difference was non-significant. Parents who cited MMR as a possible cause of their child's autism rated the alliance significantly lower than those who did not. Parents with no post-16 qualifications rated the alliance significantly higher than those with higher qualifications. Each factor contributed independently to a multiple regression model, together explaining 18.3% of variance in parent-rated alliance. Therapist-rated alliance significantly correlated positively with therapist fidelity and with PPCS variables for parent Expression and therapist Integration; together these explained 58.8% of variance in therapist-rated alliance. Conclusions: Therapists should be aware that parents may rate the alliance differently from themselves and that different factors associate with their ratings. Parents' causal beliefs and level of education may influence their ratings of alliance in specific interventions.

Estudo das crenças integrantes do Argumento de Vida de mulheres que sofreram agressão de seus maridos ou companhei ros. Trata-se de uma pesquisa \"ex-post facto\" realizada com populações atendidas na 2ª Delegacia de Polícia de Defesa da Mulher e no Centro de Saúde Dr. Rubens Monteiro Arruda, no bairro de Santo Amaro, na cidade de são Paulo (SP), Brasil. Na forma como é apresentada, esta pesquisa pode ser considerada inédita na área de Análise Transacional. Com ela procurou-se conhecer as crenças resultantes das experiências de vida com que cada mulher respondente construiu seu modelo de mundo. Reconhece-se que tal comportamento, por mais incongruente que seja, possui um sentido quando é analisado dentro do contexto limitado de escolhas geradas pelo próprio modelo. A interpretação dos resultados permitiu concluir que as mulheres da 2ª Delegacia de Polícia de Defesa de Mulheres e as do Centro de Saúde Rubens Monteiro Arruda, diferem em relação a maioria das crenças. As do primeiro grupo tendem a ter crenças de baixa autovalorização e de supervalorização do parceiro e, por isso, tendem a ser ,agredidas. / Study of believes integrating life script of women that suffered agression from their husbands or companions. It is an \"ex-post facto\" research done with the population attended by the Second Police District of Women Defense and Health Center Doctor Rubens Monteiro Arruda, in the district of Santo Amaro, in the city of São Paulo (SP), Brazil. In the form that it is presented, this research can be considered unheard in the area of Transactional Analysis. With it one tried to get to know the believes resulting from life experiences with which every respondent woman built their life model. It is recognized that every behaviour, the more incongruent it is, owns a sense, when analysed inside the limited context of choices generated by the own model. The interpretation of results permitted to conclude that, those women from the Second Police District and those from the Health Center Rubens Monteiro Arruda, differ in relation to the majority of the believes. The ones from the first group tend to have, believes of low self-value and super valorization of the companion and, for this reason, they tend to be victims of agression.

Master of Science / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Deborah Norris / Risk and challenge in children’s play have steadily declined over the last 30 years due to adult fears about injuries and litigation, among other factors. This societal trend is important to remedy because not only do children miss out on the numerous crucial benefits in every domain that play, and specifically risk and challenge in play, provides, but research suggests it also can lead to a host of other problems like childhood obesity, more injuries as children create their own risk and challenge in inappropriate ways, and childhood psychopathology. Data on children in care demonstrate a large number of children enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs today, therefore it is important to understand young children’s risky play in the education context and the role that early childhood practitioners play in either supporting or hindering that play. The present study used an original survey derived from the literature to examine early childhood practitioners’ beliefs and perceptions about preschool children’s risky play, practitioner’s risky play practices, and the factors that influence those beliefs and practices. The results showed that practitioners generally had more positive than negative beliefs about risky play, but only rarely or occasionally allowed risky play to occur in their classrooms or centers. A variety of both global and situational factors influenced practitioners’ decisions to allow risky play or not. Participants’ beliefs and practices were positively correlated, and beliefs and practices were both negatively correlated with influences. Numbers of years of experience in the field and education level were not found to be significant predictors of participants’ risky play beliefs and practices. These results have implications for professional development trainings as well as teacher education programs.

This multiple baseline single-case design study explored the influence that training in observation and interpretation had on teachers’ meaningful conversations with children. Three preschool teachers (1 from public school and 2 from Head Start) were trained using the Cycle of Inquiry System (Broderick & Hong, 2011) that informs of ways to observe and interpret children’s thinking to facilitate developmentally appropriate conversations. Teachers documented and interpreted observations of children engaged in small group play. Teachers were surveyed pre-training and post-training about observation, interpretation, curriculum, the teacher’s role, and the purpose of teacher interactions with children. Teachers were interviewed to clarify researcher questions and videotaped before the training to establish a baseline on their use of productive conversations with children. Videotaped observations after the training showed the effect of training on teachers’ conversations. Field notes from mentoring and videos were collected to provide insight into the influence of the training. A social validity questionnaire was used to determine if participants found value in the process learned. Data were evaluated for the 3 participants using graphs to show evidence for the rate of change. The Cycle of Inquiry Intervention increased teachers’ productive conversations with children. Pre-surveys and post-surveys indicated that teacher’s perceptions were positively affected. Teachers perceived productive conversation as important to documenting and interpreting children’s thinking. Their beliefs about children’s theory development and awareness about the role of conversation in the process changed after the intervention. They value observations and documentation to learn about children’s thinking as a way to engage in conversations. Social validity was used to determine if the goals of training were acceptable, if the training was valued, and if it would influence participants’ teaching. Participants indicated that the Documentation Record (DR) and recording observations was worthwhile and that they would use what was learned during training to increase productive conversations. Two of the 3 participants were concerned about consistency regarding the DR form, indicated it was worthwhile to complete the Interpretation of Children’s Knowledge and Thinking (ICKT) form, but were not sure of their consistency. Curriculum constraints and lack of support could influence their consistency concerns.

Research about preservice teachers' beliefs indicates that the educational beliefs they have developed over time will have an impact on not only how they respond to the various experiences they have while enrolled in a teacher education program, but also their receptiveness to future professional development opportunities. I investigated the developing and emerging beliefs regarding reading and its instruction of four preservice elementary teachers during their participation in two university reading methods courses and the accompanying field-based experiences in the elementary teacher education program that was the site of my study. Two purposes framed the qualitative, longitudinal design of my study. One purpose was to examine the participants' prior, university-, and field-based experiences with reading and its instruction and the meaning they attached to these experiences. The second purpose was to learn how the participants incorporated into their developing belief systems as teachers of reading the various conceptions regarding reading development and its instruction they brought to and encountered during their university coursework and field experiences. Data sources included interviews, archival documents from the courses (reading philosophies, belief survey and autobiographical reading histories), reading expert surveys, reflexive philosophies and personal pedagogies. Results, presented in portraits for each participant, indicated that the participants created fictive images of the teachers they wanted to be that served as the lenses through which they interpreted both their university- and field-based experiences that were the focus of my study. When discussing their action agendas for teaching reading in the future, each participant relied on the fictive image she had created of herself as a teacher of reading. Consistent with existing research in this area, prior and field-based experiences with reading and its instruction seemed more influential in the development of these preservice teachers' beliefs than were the reading "methods of teaching" courses or instructors. A key implication, consistent with the National Commission on Excellence in Elementary Teacher Preparation for Reading Instruction (2003, 2007) recommendations, is for teacher educators to operate from and enact a clear vision of what reading instruction consists of across the elementary grade levels and content areas.

Veterans with a spinal cord injury (SCI) engage in a complex and, often times, difficult dialogue within and through interactions in American society. That is, American society holds dear certain traditional values (ideals, beliefs, and customs) that promote the steady functioning and fabric of society. Through the process of enculturation and acculturation, likely, the majority of American citizens have already internalized many of these values. These values are cultural constructs of American society that can certainly influence and shape the myriad ways in which individual identity is formed. By identifying these value sets and analyzing the ways in which SCI veterans interact within society, I hope to achieve three goals; (1)discover the ways in which SCI veterans create and negotiate a unique sense of identity in American society, (2) illustrate the overall implications from this study to the general SCI population in America, and (3) provide a set of recommendations for healthcare providers for the purposes of creating and engaging in meaningful dialogues with SCI patients as well as aiding in more successful and sustainable health interventions.

This thesis explores how domestic factions and authoritarian regimes in Japan and Korea in the period from the 1850s to 1970s appropriated the concept of “modernity” to gain normative superiority over their competitors. The appropriating entity revised the concept of modernity to suit its own worldview. Across the case studies, the propaganda of modernity created a hierarchy that privileged those who are “more modern,” encouraged martial masculinity, and attached itself to existing domestic norms, such as ethno- nationalism. Under authoritarian regimes, modernity helped justify the mobilization of capital, manpower, and other critical resources in the name of nation-building or defense. Many factions and demagogues may have initially used the concept of modernity for domestic gains, but using this narrative later devolved into foreign conquests and imperialist expansion, for otherwise, their call for modernization would have become an empty promise in the eyes of the masses. This paper examines five cases along these dimensions, namely the rise of reformist samurais in feudal-era Japan, the failure of Joseon Korea’s ruling regime to adopt modernity in a timely manner, Imperial Japan’s colonial practices in Korea and Manchuria, the ideological divergences among factions in Colonial Korea, and a South Korean dictator’s attempts to gain legitimacy following a coup d’etat. Each case follows how domestic factions or individuals were motivated by an inferiority complex and how they produced their own version of modernity that favored their ascendance.

The measurement of religious belief has some social desirability concerns that make the development of an implicit measure of religiosity advantageous. Currently, there are few options for implicitly measuring religious belief. This study attempted to add to this literature by analyzing the automatic judgements of religious belief through the use of an implicit measure known as the MouseTrack task, allowing for the measurement of latency in the expression of these beliefs as well as the certainty of these beliefs by tracking the path taken during the decision process. A sample of 121 undergraduates was recruited from the UK SONA subject pool. Desired religious variance was not achieved in the sample, making interpretation of results difficult. Detailed breakdowns of these path analyses are given. Key trends in findings are discussed.

This study was a quantitative survey and explored beliefs about substance abusing clients among sixty-three social work students. The study focused on the extent to which social work students display bias toward clients with a substance abuse disorder. The study also explored the attitudinal domains of permissiveness, treatment intervention, non-stereotypes, treatment optimism, and non-moralism. The study found that social work students who have taken a substance abuse education class are less like to attribute substance abuse addiction to a weak will in the client. The study recommends that future studies on beliefs about substance abusing clients among social work students include qualitative interviews to determine how substance abuse education reduces bias toward substance abusing clients among social work students.

Social workers who choose to work in the field of child welfare will almost unavoidably be exposed to sexual trauma. This requires that social workers are prepared to understand and work with those who have been sexually abused, as well as the perpetrators of sex crimes. The purpose of this study was to explore social work students’ perceptions of sex offenders since it is anticipated that they will work with the sex offender population at some point in their careers. Exploring this topic could help future social workers gain valuable knowledge related to recognizing barriers that may exist when working with sex offenders. To study social work students’ perceptions of sex offenders, quantitative data were collected using a fifty item online survey instrument that was distributed via the Qualtrics website. In addition, t-tests, ANOVA, and Chi-square analysis were conducted using the SPSS analytical software program version 21. The findings of this study suggest that there were no significant differences between participants’ gender regarding their perceptions of sex offenders. Furthermore, the study found that overall, social work students’ perceptions are that there are more male sex offenders than female and juvenile sex offenders. The findings of this study suggest that further research is needed in order to explore social work practitioners’ perceptions of sex offenders since there is a likelihood that social works will work with this population at some point in their careers.