The focus of the current study is to examine the role of parental social support in college students' career development process, specifically choosing a satisfying academic major. It is hypothesized that: 1. There is a positive correlation between overall score on the Social Support Behaviors (SS-B) and major satisfaction score, 2. The relationship between the overall SS-B score and major satisfaction is mediated by the college student's major/career exploration, and 3. The emotional support subscale explains the greatest variance in major satisfaction followed by practical assistance, advice/guidance, and financial assistance, and finally socializing. Participants consisted of traditional college students at the sophomore and junior level from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Measures include: the self and environmental exploration subscales of the Career Exploration Survey (CES; Stumpf, Solarelli, & Hartman, 1982), the Social Support Behaviors (SS-B) measure (Vaux, Riedel, & Setwart, 1987), and the Academic Major Satisfaction Scale (AMSS; Nauta, 2007). Although results of the primary hypotheses were nonsignificant, there were several relationships between modes of social support and career exploration variables. Specifically, self-exploration related positively to total social support from primary caregiver as well as practical assistance, and environmental exploration related significantly to financial support from secondary caregiver. Other exploratory results are presented and discussed related to parents' role in facilitating college students' career development. Future implications of the present study, which add to vocational literature on career satisfaction, are discussed in regard to both research and practice with a college student population.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / As the integration of technology and data rises in production agriculture, John Deere dealers in North America are in a constant quest to differentiate themselves and be more than just an equipment provider. Customers with more technologically advanced products are requiring more support from the dealerships. Each dealership has a unique opportunity to provide unprecedented levels of support and each may do it in a slightly different way. This creates a challenge for Deere & Company in providing resources and support to those dealers in their endeavors. This thesis was requested by Deere & Company (John Deere) to provide the company with information on Dealer Customer Support Centers in North America. In order to provide resources and tools for dealers to be successful, it is necessary to understand what they are currently doing with customer support centers and the barriers to implementing more. An online survey was sent out to the Integrated Solutions Manager at every John Deere Dealer organization in North America. From that survey there were a total of 127 responses. The two most common forms of customer support systems that dealers are using are having Integrated Solutions Staff members take calls directly from customers and having someone within the dealership answer the phone and manually route the call to the right person for support. Data also shows that some of the less common but more technologically advanced methods of support have been implemented more in the past 12 months. Survey analysis indicates that only a small percentage of dealers have a true centralized dedicated support center for customers. This subset of dealers is utilizing several different methods to support customers. The two indicative methods are having a 1- 800 number for customers to utilize for support and having a dedicated staff to help customers remotely. Dealers are frequently using several types of tools and resources to help support customers, the most frequently occurring ones include JDLink™ and Data Management Services. Respondents indicated using many other tools to provide value to customers including John Deere Remote Display Access, clinics and optimization sessions and many others. Barriers to implementing more complex forms of customer support are numerous, the biggest of which is the cost of implementation and lack of resources to support a more sophisticated customer support system. With this information, John Deere is better positioned to provide resources and support to our dealer channel facing these challenges.

abstract: Emotional support messages can benefit recipients; however, verbal and nonverbal aspects of these messages can vary in effectiveness, and the process of communicating support can be stressful to some supporters. One potential behavior that may yield more effective support messages for recipients while reducing anxiety and stress for supporters is message planning. Thus, planning theory is used to test whether planning influences message effectiveness, nonverbal delivery of messages, self-reported anxiety, and physiological stress markers. Additionally, an individual’s trait-level reticence and prior support experiences are predicted to moderate the effects of message planning. One hundred laboratory participants were assigned to either a planning condition or writing distraction task and completed a series of self-report and physiological measures before, during, and after recording an emotional support message to a friend who had hypothetically been diagnosed with a serious form of cancer. Subsequently, a sample of one hundred cancer patients viewed the laboratory participants’ videos to provide message effectiveness ratings and four trained coders provided data on nonverbal behaviors from these recorded messages. Findings showed planning leads to more effective messages; however, it also leads to supporters engaging in success bias and inflation bias. Planning also increased vocal fluency, but not other nonverbal behaviors. Likewise, planning attenuated heart rate reactivity, but not other physiological markers. In general, experience and reticence did not moderate these main effects. Theoretical, practical, clinical, pedagogical, and methodological implications are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2018

Coworkers can play an important role in helping each other overcome stressful circumstances (Beehr, Jex, Stacy, & Murray, 2000; LaRocco & Jones, 1978; Viswesvaran, Sanchez, & Fisher, 1999), yet work-family researchers have paid significantly less attention to coworker-provided support than they have to supervisor-provided support (Kossek, Pichler, Bodner, & Hammer, 2011). This thesis contributes to the occupational health literature by providing empirical evidence of the benefits of a novel construct termed work-family supportive coworker behavior (WFSCB) – defined as any supportive action that a coworker can take to contribute to the improved management of an individual’s work and family role demands. A phenomenological qualitative investigation revealed five categories of WFSCB that were tested using three quantitative samples to develop and validate a multidimensional measure. The findings indicated that four dimensions of behavior best reflect WFSCB including: 1) emotional support, 2) facilitating work adjustments, 3) sharing resources and knowledge, and 4) proactively developing solutions. In testing the criterion-related validity of the new measure, this research provides evidence of the positive relationship between these behaviors and various work-family outcomes, as higher levels of WFSCB were associated with lower levels of work-to-family conflict, and higher levels of work-family balance, work-family positive spillover, and overall life satisfaction. In addition, the utility of WFSCB as a source of informal workplace support was underscored based on evidence of its incremental validity in the prediction of these same outcome variables over and above a measure of general coworker support (i.e., emotional and instrumental support). Practically, these findings suggest that general measures of coworker support may fall short in assessing a broad spectrum of supportive coworker behaviors that can significantly contribute to improved work-family outcomes. Overall, the results of this research program will place scholars in a better position to provide prescriptive advice to organizations and employees on the behaviors that they can engage in towards one another to promote improved work-family integration for individuals and more broadly, to contribute to a work-family supportive organizational climate.

Education has changed as a result of technological advances. Distance learning, particularly online learning, has rapidly increased its presence in higher education. Millennials, a new generation of students who have grown up with the Internet, are college-age. They expect access to the Internet to manage their daily lives. However, as they enter college, many discover that support services that are requisite to a successful college experience, are available on-campus but not online. The goal was to determine what contemporary college-aged students expect as online student support services so that institutions will know what to provide. Data gathered through interviews with administrative support staff were used to modify a published survey and to guide construction of new questions. The modified instrument was validated by three experts and revised accordingly. All current students at Farmingdale State College were invited to respond to the web-based instrument that examined the current status of online support services. Following full-scale implementation, the data were analyzed. Results were used to create recommendations and considerations for the implementation of online support services at the college reviewed by the Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. The final report is a comprehensive resource for college administrators who serve millennial undergraduates. It contains valuable information and guidance for the development and implementation of student support services in the 21st century. A serendipitous finding was that many non-traditional, older students expressed comparable needs for online support services.

This thesis examines the idea that police officers have supportive factors in their lives which influence coping mechanisms used to handle occupational stress. This idea comes from police culture literature which suggests that officers are encouraged to use maladaptive coping strategies like drinking and emotional suppression to deal with stress. Additional research on management support and family support are introduced as alternative supportive factors which can promote the use of adaptive coping like agency offered services and programs. This thesis uses data from “Work and Family Services for Law Enforcement Personnel in the United States” (Robert, O’Quin, & Kennedy, 2000). A subset of questionnaire items and officer responses are coded and run through statistical analysis including linear regression and logistic regression. Finally, findings are discussed and future research on the topic is suggested.

The beneficial effects of religion and spiritual factors on cardiovascular functioning have become an area of increasing research. Similarly, considerable research has also investigated the negative effects of marital distress on cardiovascular functioning. Little is known, however, about potential protective factors against the deleterious effects of marital distress on cardiovascular functioning. Social support has been identified as a potential buffer against the negative effects of marital distress on ambulatory blood pressure, and the current study hypothesized that spirituality, religiosity, and religious support would also buffer the negative effects of marital distress on ambulatory blood pressure. Fifty-eight married couples were recruited from both marital therapists and the community surrounding Brigham Young University. Participants wore ambulatory blood pressure monitors for 24 hours and completed questionnaires which measure marital distress, spirituality, religiosity, religious support and social support. It was found that for normotensive individuals (SBP < 120) spirituality, religious support, and social support have an additive effect of lowering blood pressure on individuals with high marital quality. No effect was found for spirituality, religiosity, or religious support buffering the negative effects of marital distress on ambulatory blood pressure. It was also found that men and women view the relationships between religiosity and social support, and religious support and social support differently. Specifically, social support is more highly related to religiosity and religious support in women compared to men. It appears that for happily-married individuals, spirituality, religious support and social support have an additive effect in lowering blood pressure.

This study explored how primary school educators expect to be supported and how they experience support from internal and external sources in a South African school district. Support for educators is vital in order to improve basic education in terms of South Africa’s long-term development goals and particularly in light of the poor performance of primary school learners in universal benchmark tests. Furthermore, the myriad of curricular changes introduced by the Department of Basic Education have increased the need for educator support in South Africa. A qualitative approach, located in an interpretive paradigm was adopted and a case study research design was employed. The requisite data were gathered by means of interviews, document sourcing and non-participant observation in three public primary schools. The main finding of the study was that there is limited amount of technical support, aimed at improving the quality of education, while affective aspects, i.e., meeting the socio-emotional needs of educators appear to be neglected. A broad theme that emerged was participants feeling like they are under surveillance; perceiving district officials to be on fault-finding missions when they conduct school visits and classroom observations; and feeling like they are on their own once they return to school from attending offsite workshops. In addition, the participants who served as heads of departments (HODs) reported that their workload prevented them from providing adequate internal support. A key recommendation of this study is that more curriculum instructors and HODs be employed and that they receive adequate preparation in order to provide appropriate support to primary school educators. In addition, it is recommended that the provincial and district officials increase the frequency of their school and classroom visits in order to spend more time supporting primary school educators. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Education Management and Policy Studies / PhD / Unrestricted

This study was motivated by my desire to understand participants’ perceptions about the effectiveness of learner support services and their contribution to distance learners’ progress and programme completion in the DPE programme in Botswana. The investigation was carried out to find out why despite the provision of learner support services, there were low completion rates and high incomplete rates in the final year (2002/2003 cohort) of the DPE programme. The study also intended to understand the strengths and weaknesses of learner support services and make recommendations for improvement. A qualitative case study research design was applied. Group and individual interviews were conducted with participants. Data were analysed using Atlas ti computer software which simplified the management of the large corpus of data generated during the fieldwork. The study found that there was need for sustained learner-tutor and learner-learner interaction and regular communication with the supporting institution during the learning process. This would require planning and aligning learner support services to identified learner needs, access to learning resources including the existence and application of effective monitoring and supervision mechanisms for academic, counselling and administrative support in order to ensure commitment and accountability of learner support providers. In order to reduce isolation which is created by the physical separation between learners and service providers, the study recommended a structure for the provision of decentralized learner support services that are as close as possible to where distance learners live and work for ease of access. The study further found that there is need for policy guidelines and management structures to facilitate the provision of effective learner support services for the benefit of distance learners. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

The problem of inclusivity in the workplace has been globally acknowledged as a challenge for employees living with disabilities. The objective of this study was to explore the experiences of employees living with disabilities in the South African Police Service (SAPS). Globally, there has been a lot of research conducted on diversity in the workplace; however, research on inclusivity is a rather new phenomenon. A theoretical model on inclusion and diversity in work groups is presented as a framework, which offers insight into the experiences that contribute to feelings of inclusion for a diverse workforce. This model identifies potential contextual factors and outcomes of inclusion. This study further defines inclusion and disability and provides literature on the barriers employees living with disabilities encounter once employed, as well as support structures that could enhance inclusivity for these employees. The study used a qualitative, explorative approach. Fifteen employees of the SAPS were selected for participation, based on their disability type as per the research criteria. A purposive convenient sampling approach was used to identify employees with disabilities, taking into consideration hearing, visual, physical and mobility impairments. Participants varied in age, gender and race and came from stations mostly situated in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, with one participant from George and one participant from Paarl East. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data and provide insight into how employees living with disabilities perceive inclusion in the SAPS. A thematic analysis approach was used to identify which negative and positive experiences of inclusion were identified. Irrespective of the provision of disability policies and legislation, which clearly stipulate that no person may be unfairly discriminated against on the grounds of their disability, the findings from this study indicate that employees living with disabilities still experience discriminatory attitudes in the workplace. While some participants had positive experiences of inclusion, other employees reported negative experiences relating mostly to a lack of management support, non-conducive workplaces, lack of disability awareness, as well as negative attitudes towards disability in the workplace. The results of this study indicate that the general feeling of inclusion in the SAPS is, to a certain degree, fair, and that management and co-worker support, together with reasonable accommodation, played an important role in contributing to making employees living with disabilities feel included. This study shows that more research is required in terms of disability awareness, and an understanding of the needs of employees living with disabilities in the workplace, to create an enabling environment of growth for employees living with disabilities. It is proposed that this study be used to provide employers and employees with a greater understanding of how to effectively include and retain employees living with disabilities.