This study focused on Latino undergraduate students majoring in science, and their decisions to access academic support programs. The purposes were to understand (1) factors that influence Latino students' career-related choices; choosing a science major and accessing resources in support of their academic careers; and (2) what role socializers play in those decisions. The informants were four Latino college students who chose science majors when admitted to a research university. Using a case-study interview approach, they were interviewed longitudinally over two years to understand the influences on their decisions. Data codes and themes were generated through interpretive analysis of interview transcripts, and results were evaluated against the Eccles' et al. (1983) expectancy-value model of career choices. Three categories were identified: decisions made prior to matriculation, decisions made in adjusting to the university environment, and continuing decisions to persist in the sciences. First, initial decisions as high school students were made within a web environment, through self-dialogue. Participants relied on web information in a non-interactive way to make decisions on their own. Parents, teachers, and peers merely validated decisions. Second, the process by which these students adjusted in their first year of college revealed differences among the participating students. Unlike the two male computer science majors, two female biology majors had a more difficult time participating in classes, being active about seeking help and contacting socializers, and managing their personal lives. This contrast continued on to their second year. Finally, the study yielded an iterative notion of decision-making about persistence in science. The two female biology majors having a hard time in their classes constantly revisited their initial choice of a science major. They accessed the web to get information necessary to find a solution and relay that to new socializers, such as advisers, mentoring program staff, and peers in college. Drawing from these findings, this study yielded a framework for discussing Latino science students' academic decision making. The importance of the web in initial decisions has digital equity implications, and indicates the importance of Internet outreach. Further, differences in the decision process imply a need for personalized support structures. / text

Impulsive behavior can be viewed as selecting the less beneficial option when multiple choices are presented. This type of sub-optimal decision-making behavior has been demonstrated to be a basic behavior process that is not unique to humans. In recent years, a large body of research has surfaced analyzing the sub-optimal decision-making of animals, generating models that are analogous to impulsive human behavior. This literature attempts to investigate the factors that influence the choice-making of organisms and lead organisms to choose less reinforcement over more reinforcement in some circumstances. Research has shown that reinforcement contingencies alone do not account for all of the behavior produced, especially when organisms fail to optimize their receipt of reinforcement when given a choice. The current study sought to replicate the recent animal research on sub-optimal behavior with humans. Specifically, the current study investigated the choice-making behavior of three young boys with autism using a concurrent-chains schedule of reinforcement. Results replicated previous research with the finding that two of the three participants indicated an increasing preference for the least optimal choice while a third participant maximized his reinforcement throughout the study. Implications for future research are discussed.

Two choice-making interventions (task sequence and where) were implemented by a classroom teacher to determine the effects on the percentage of task completion, accuracy, and classroom disruption for ten sixth through eighth grade students with E/BD in a residential math classroom using a reversal design. An FBA was conducted to determine the function of disruptive behavior during independent math practice prior to the implementation of the two choice-making interventions. The math teacher provided either choice of task sequence of the independent tasks or choice of where to complete the independent tasks. Results indicate that choice of task sequence matched avoidance-maintained behaviors for two of four participants who exhibited reduced disruptive behaviors and increased task completion and accuracy. Results were mixed for six students with access-maintained behavior. Three of the six students showed decreased disruptive behaviors and increased task completion and accuracy with the hypothesized choice of where intervention. However, three participants decreased overall in disruptive behavior and increased task completion and accuracy; choice of task sequence was the most effective intervention. Future directions for research in choice-making interventions are discussed as well as limitations of the present study.

The use of a simultaneous prompting procedure for teaching choice-making skills using an iPad to high-school students with moderate intellectual disabilities was evaluated. The Proloquo2Go application, which is designed for use with the iPad, iPod touch, or iPhone as an augmentative alternative communication system for individuals with communication support needs, was used to communicate choices made by participants during sessions. A multiple-probe design across 3 participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the simultaneous prompting instructional procedure to teach independent choice making. Results indicate the procedure was effective for teaching all participants to use an iPad to make choices from foods and drinks available for lunch, and 2 participants generalized choice-making skills to a novel set of stimuli.

The purpose of this study was to examine choice-making as it relates to providing a source of clean water to those at varying social distances. A discounting survey was completed by 65 participants asking them to choose between spending a specified about of money on plastic water bottles that have a 100% chance of harming the environment or spending $1000 on a water filtration system that has a 0% chance of harming the environment. Results indicated that as social distance increased, responding became more impulsive as evident by a steeper amount of discounting. For “Person #1”, 27.69% of participants chose to spend money on plastic water bottles while for “Person #100”, 53.8% of participants chose to spend money on plastic water bottles. The R2 calculated was 0.8633. Results also indicated that there was a positive correlation between frequency of behaving in sustainable ways and how much one valued the environment, as well as how concerned one was with the environment. Implications, strengths and limitations, and future research opportunities are discussed.

No description available.

abstract: ABSTRACT This Master's Thesis gives positive testament to the idea that high school students are able to develop creative choice making skills. During a yearlong study of a beginning foundational visual arts class, a pretest and a posttest self-portrait performance assessment was given to 34 students and scored by three visual art teachers from the same school. The performance results were then analyzed to ascertain evidence of the evolution of an idea and the logistic validity of assessing growth of a student's creative choice making process. Construction of an appropriate rubric to measure student growth was imperative in the process of training visual art teachers for scoring. Findings show overwhelming evidence that students’ creative choice making abilities were developed in the three weeks of instruction between pretest and posttest. Findings also suggest that with appropriate training, groups of visual art teachers can be trained to score student art performance assessments accurately and validly within the context of state required testing. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Art 2015

The present study investigated the effects of a concurrent schedules arrangement, in which three dimensions of reinforcement (duration, attention, and stimuli) were manipulated, on choice responding, appropriate behavior, and problem behavior for three participants with disabilities who had escape-maintained problem behavior. Three experiments were conducted in which participants could choose between work, break, or problem behavior. In the first experiment, the choice analysis, three reinforcement dimensions were varied simultaneously for choice responses. In the second experiment, the component choice analysis, reinforcement dimensions were evaluated in isolation. In the third experiment, the effort analysis, increasing task demand requirements and how they affected response allocation were investigated. Results of the first experiment were consistent across all participants, and suggested that participants allocated their choices in favor of reinforcement contingencies that resulted in breaks with the longest duration, high preference stimuli, and high quality attention. Results of the second and third experiments, however, were idiosyncratic across participants. Component choice analysis results suggested that only specific reinforcement dimensions maintained responding for some participants, whereas all reinforcement dimensions maintained response allocation for others. Results of the third experiment suggested that as task demands increased, reinforcement contingencies that previously maintained responding in the second experiment did not always continue to maintain responding for all participants. This study contributes to and extends the literature on choice making in several ways. The majority of previously published investigations evaluated different dimensions of reinforcement when only two response options were concurrently available, and many of these studies only examined one or two reinforcement dimensions. The present study used a concurrent schedules arrangement in which three concurrently available response options existed. Like previous research the present study suggests that quality of reinforcement can be manipulated to effectively bias individuals' responding in favor of adaptive responses, and the quality variables that impact choice responding may or may not be related to the function of problem behavior. However, further research is needed to understand how choice responding is impacted by increasing demand requirements, as this study demonstrated that choice responding was idiosyncratically affected by changing task demands.

No description available.

Traditionally, John Stuart Mill has been described as a transitional thinker who fails to fully understand the values he espouses. Critics contend that he cannot simultaneously espouse both utility maximization and the protection of individual choice-making as a non-trumpable value. Like his moral philosophy, Mill’s political thought is also rejected for interspersing, seemingly at random, elements of utilitarianism with concerns about respecting individual choice-making. More recent attempts to bring Mill’s commitment to utilitarianism into line with his respect for individual choice-making are not wholly successful. In this thesis, I offer an interpretation of Mill’s moral philosophy which reconciles the tension between utility maximization and respect for individual choice-making as a non-trumpable value. In addition, I argue that my interpretation of Mill’s moral philosophy also allows us to interpret his political thought. / Master of Arts