Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1990. / Title from title page screen, viewed November 16, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Clayton F. Thomas (chair), Edward R. Hines, Vivian R. Jackson, Douglas H. Lamb, Kenneth H. Strand. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-124) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Florentina Bunea, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Statistics. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept.18, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 89 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007. / Lewis VanBrackle, Committee Member ; Brani Vidakovic, Committee Member ; Anthony J. Hayter, Committee Chair ; Nicholeta Serban, Committee Member ; Alexander Shapiro, Committee Member.

Despite the ability for past studies to link various psychological factors to optimal athletic performances, the roles of specific factors have yet to be fully discerned. Using a phenomenological-constructionist approach, the present study aims to gather a sharpened understanding of the roles that confidence and focus have on elite sport performances. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 Canadian and Norwegian high-level athletes originating from various sporting backgrounds. The athletes were interrogated about their general perspectives towards confidence and focus, inquired about the nature of their focus with regards to different game situations and asked to revisit their best and worst performances with the emphasis put on their confidence level and focus. The analysis of the interviews was inductive and followed Giorgi’s (1985) phenomenological methodology. Results suggested that an optimal focus is very often, if not always, present in best performances and largely absent during worst performances, thus suggesting that focus indeed plays a direct role on sporting exploits. Furthermore, confidence appears to serve as a powerful facilitator for the occurrence of optimal focus, leading to suggest that its relationship with performance might be more indirect. The increased understanding of the roles that both confidence and focus have on athletic performance that is enlightened by this study can serve as basis for practitioners in the development of performance enhancement programs in addition to stimulate future research on the possible relationship between confidence, focus and performance.

The present study examined the effect of introspection and verbalization on the confidence-accuracy correlation. Recent research has likened the process of eyewitness confidence assessment to a process of attitude formation. Following this analogy, it was hypothesized that introspection would strengthen, while verbalization would weaken, the confidence-accuracy correlation. Participants viewed a mock crime, made a lineup identification and either introspected or verbalized reasons for their identification (or did neither) before assessing their confidence. Results revealed that while introspection failed to significantly improve the confidence-accuracy correlation, verbalization decreased the correlation. These findings provide further theoretical support for the conceptualization of eyewitness confidence formation as analogous to attitude formation. In addition, these findings suggest that there are other mechanisms that can have a detrimental influence on the confidence-accuracy correlation. On the basis of these findings it is recommended that eyewitnesses refrain from verbalizing information about their lineup identification prior to providing their confidence.

Thesis advisor: Hao Wu / Thesis advisor: Ehri Ryu / In SEM, fit indexes provide useful information about how well a hypothesized model fits the population. Bootstrap has been applied to construct confidence internals for fit indexes. We proposed the most recent method for constructing confidence intervals (CIs) of fit indexes (Cheng & Wu, 2017): the bootstrap-test-based method. This dissertation includes the most popular bootstrap CI methods and the bootstrap-test-based method. In addition to the percentile bootstrap CI method used in Zhang and Savalei (2016), we also included other popular bootstrap CI methods. For all bootstrap CI methods, we explored their performances with and without the transformation proposed by Yuan, Hayashi, and Yanagihara (2007). In this process, we also solved computation difficulty for Studentized CI. The bootstrap-test-based method is improved by using alternative search statistics. As the previous approaches were not extended to nonnormal conditions, the CI estimation for fit indexes with nonnormal data are investigated for both bootstrap CI and bootstrap-test-based methods, using adjusted definitions of fit indexes for nonnormal data. Different nonnormal data generation techniques are applied. This dissertation presents a comprehensive comparison of bootstrap CI methods and the bootstrap-test-based method under various conditions. From the simulation results, the CIs for fit indexes under the bootstrap-test-based method are more accurate than most bootstrap CI methods. The results also show that the bootstrap-test-based method can be generalized well to non-normal data. The confidence bounds coverage by bootstrap-test-based method are closer to their nominal levels. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

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The thesis aims to address a perceived gap in the training and development of music performers, namely the lack of a practical strategies framework for developing performance confidence, especially self-efficacy (situational selfconfidence) in music performance. To this end, a Training Program with Training Manual was designed to assist musicians in the management of practice and performance, using a framework of six integrative mental and physical strategies taken from Sport Performance and applied to Music Performance. Five musicians trialed the Training Program for five weeks. Five individual case studies were constructed to explore and interpret the musicians' practice and performance experiences before and after using the Training Program / Manual. Analyses of in-depth interviews and a follow-up questionnaire revealed that the Training Program had produced positive changes in mental and physical behaviour, along with increased concentration ability and coping skills in stressful situations, resulting in a sense of control in performance. A cross-case analysis revealed that the shared issues of significance for the musicians were Concentration, Stress and Lifestyle Practices, and Sense of Control in practice and performance. This qualitative study demonstrates that a training program addressing the lifestyle context of music performance is beneficial for practice and the lead-up to performance. Confidence in playing ability develops, when practice and performance are perceived to be effectively self-managed and practice becomes a positive experience. The findings of this study suggest the need for a holistic approach to music performance, based on awareness of the mind-body connections involved in performance.

A growing literature suggests that individuals repeatedly check in part because they lack confidence in their memories for previously-completed actions. It has also been hypothesized that the cognitive distrust demonstrated by individuals with OCD extends beyond memory to related factors such as attention and perception; however, the relation between distrust in attention, perception and memory has yet to be examined. The present study examined the extent to which distrust in attention and perception relate to memory distrust and compulsive checking in participants ranging in OCD symptom severity. A measure of distrust in attention and perception was developed for this purpose. Initial psychometric results indicated that distrust in attention and perception can be measured reliably and that it is related to previously-established metacognitive factors (e.g., distrust in memory) and OCD-relevant beliefs (e.g., inflated sense of responsibility). Importantly, the present results also indicated that distrust in attention and perception contributed to checking symptoms beyond memory distrust, baseline negative mood and neuroticism, and previously-established OCD beliefs (i.e., inflated sense of responsibility). Taken together, these findings suggest that distrust in attention and perception may be an important mechanism in the persistence of compulsive checking.

A growing literature suggests that individuals repeatedly check in part because they lack confidence in their memories for previously-completed actions. It has also been hypothesized that the cognitive distrust demonstrated by individuals with OCD extends beyond memory to related factors such as attention and perception; however, the relation between distrust in attention, perception and memory has yet to be examined. The present study examined the extent to which distrust in attention and perception relate to memory distrust and compulsive checking in participants ranging in OCD symptom severity. A measure of distrust in attention and perception was developed for this purpose. Initial psychometric results indicated that distrust in attention and perception can be measured reliably and that it is related to previously-established metacognitive factors (e.g., distrust in memory) and OCD-relevant beliefs (e.g., inflated sense of responsibility). Importantly, the present results also indicated that distrust in attention and perception contributed to checking symptoms beyond memory distrust, baseline negative mood and neuroticism, and previously-established OCD beliefs (i.e., inflated sense of responsibility). Taken together, these findings suggest that distrust in attention and perception may be an important mechanism in the persistence of compulsive checking.