High levels of stress, anxiety, and depression (SAD) can adversely influence physical health, psychological well-being, and academic and clinical performance of nursing students. Numerous studies have identified the factors associated with SAD; however, a paucity of empirical research addresses the relationship of SAD with campus connectedness (CC), perceived social support (PSS), and coping. The purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional study, guided by Lazarus and Folkman's theory of stress, coping, and adaptation, was to determine the prevalence of SAD and examine its relationship with CC, PSS, and coping among undergraduate nursing students of Nepal. Survey research was conducted using depression anxiety stress scale, campus connectedness scale, the multidimensional scale for perceived social support, and brief cope inventory. Among 680 nursing students analyzed, the 51.7% reported moderate to extremely severe levels of SAD. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance revealed a statistically significant relationship among CC, PSS, and coping with SAD (p < .001). A discriminant analysis indicated that depression best discriminated the levels of CC and PSS. The levels of coping were found to be best discriminated by anxiety. The findings can be sourced to create awareness among educators and administrators of nursing colleges about the roles that campus connectedness, social support, and coping strategies play in the occurrence SAD. Future studies can focus on the need to establish mental health screening and social support services, such as counseling centers in nursing colleges, which may bring about a positive social change in the lives of nursing students.

Nine teenage participants and two adult guides were followed throughout a 10 day white water canoe trip to investigate the relationship between their impressions of connection with nature and the canoe trip experience, and their interactions with nature and the canoe trip experience. Themes providing a description of these relationships were identified and three major findings emerged. The first was that multiple themes mediating participants’ connectedness with nature did so both towards connection and disconnection. The second was that participants’ state of comfort was related to an impression of connection with nature while their state of discomfort was related to an impression of disconnection from nature. The third was that the relationship between participants’ connectedness and interactions with nature differed depending on the context (e.g., nature versus civilization). Possible directions for future research include investigating changes in participants’ conception of nature and the relationship between comfort and connection with nature.

Laotian American students attending universities across the U.S. are first-, second-, and third-generation American. This generation status, along with their families' unique immigration experiences, likely impacts their adjustment to college. Data from the 2000 U.S. Census indicates a very low representation of Laotian Americans (7.6%) in the cluster of Asian Americans who have attained at least a Bachelor?s degree (42.7%). This low representation calls for further research on the Laotian American population to discover ways to increase these numbers. This study examines the mediating effect of campus connectedness on ethnic identity and college persistence attitudes and on other-group orientation and college persistence attitudes. It also examines mean group differences on campus connectedness by cultural orientation, among 82 low-land Laotian American college students. Results reveal that campus connectedness does not mediate the relationship between ethnic identity and college persistence attitudes. A mediation effect exists for campus connectedness on: 1) ethnic identity cognitive clarity (EI-clarity) and persistence and 2) other-group orientation and persistence. Mean group differences on campus connectedness by cultural orientation appear in the results.

Chinese-American adolescents were compared with the major group in the United States (European-American adolescents) in negotiating self-concepts related with autonomy and connectedness. Senses of autonomy and connectedness were evaluated by examining adolescents' cultural value orientations (individualism and collectivism), parent-adolescent relationships (decision-making styles and power perception), and relations between the two constructs. Participants included 56 first- or second-generation Chinese-American adolescents (18.5% of first-generation and 81.5% of secondgeneration) and 45 European-American adolescents, accompanied with their mothers (47 Chinese-American mothers and 42 European-American mothers). In terms of cultural value orientations, Chinese- and European-Americans' selfconcepts were consistently oriented towards collectivism more than individualism in adolescents and mothers. With regard to parent-adolescent relationships, Chinese- American adolescents have identified with the dominant culture to show similar desires of being autonomous as European-American adolescents. However, Chinese-American mothers adopted more authoritarian, conservative, and inflexible parenting styles than European-American mothers. With regard to the relations between variables of cultural value orientations and variables of parent-adolescent relationships, the pattern of findings was consistent with the notion that Chinese-American adolescents who internalize highly collectivistic cultural values displayed more collectivistic communication styles in parent-adolescent relationships than European-American adolescents.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the effect that a subject's level of social connectedness on their perceptions of a counselor during the intake setting. There is theoretical and empirical evidence arising both from Kohutian self-psychology as well as interpersonal psychological literature that indicates that one's level of social connectedness, race, and gender should directly affect one's perception of counselors in a therapeutic setting. This study found suggestive, but not conclusive, evidence that social connectedness is positively related to how counselors are rated on dimensions of trustworthiness, expertness, and attractiveness. Suggestive differences across race and level of training of the counselor were also found, but the differences were not statistically significant. Implications of this study and suggestions for further research are discussed. / text

The majority of instructional communication literature has historically focused on the positive outcomes of incorporating humor into the classroom. However, despite the clearly documented instructional benefits of humorous communication, the literature tends to focus solely on instructor-enacted humor. However, humor is not a homogenous concept; therefore, it is imperative to examine it from a number of contexts, including student-enacted humor. Although the Instructional Humor Processing Theory (IHPT) has made a number of theoretical advances in exploring humorous communication in the classroom, it still lacks adequate explanatory power, particularly when examining student-enacted humor. Thus, four expansions to IHPT are proposed: to incorporate (a) the interpersonal attraction experienced toward the sender, (b) the humor orientation of the receiver, (c) the enacted humor style of the sender, and (d) the receiver’s perception of the classroom climate. Results indicate that the aforementioned expansions are theoretically pertinent to examining student-student humorous communication and warrant future research for inclusion to IHPT. The study also discovered sex differences regarding the message sender, along with interaction effects between the sex of the sender and receiver. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed, and directions for future research are provided.

A growing body of research indicates that nature connectedness should be an important component of environmental education programs as emerging empirical evidence shows a correlation between connectedness to nature and environmentally responsible behaviour. Despite an increased interest in further examination of the human-nature relationship, research is lacking in terms of specific factors or conditions that influence nature connectedness. In this study, a mixed methods approach was employed to quantitatively assess the impact winter camping had on nature connectedness and then qualitatively determine specific components of the camp experience that influenced this sense of nature connectedness. Nineteen scouts participated on a three day winter camp at Manning Park in British Columba, Canada, where they experienced many challenges such as sleeping in quinzees (snow caves) and learned new skills such as snowshoeing. The Nature Relatedness Scale was used to assess nature connectedness in this study. A pre-test was administered a few days before the winter camp and the post-test two days afterwards. The results from the paired sample T-test show that there was a statistically significant improvement in nature connectedness following the winter camp experience. Eleven scouts were then selected to participate in semi-structured interviews with the aim of gaining insight to the specific conditions of winter camping that influenced nature connectedness. The results indicate that the location of the camp, the condition of being immersed in nature, interacting with wildlife, the positive experience of challenges, the presence of risk, and freedom from technology are all contributing factors that influenced a sense o f nature connectedness. An increased environmental awareness was also a prevalent theme which supports research suggesting that there is a positive relationship between nature connectedness and pro-environmental behaviour. It is recommended that programs with the aim of promoting nature connectedness or environmental awareness should include as many of these components as possible. Further research should alsobe conducted to confirm that these results apply also to other populations as these results cannot be generalized with a sample size of nineteen.

This study examined peer victimization, specifically indirect peer victimization and cyber victimization, in a sample of 311 college fraternity and sorority students at a large, public university in the southwestern United States. Of specific focus was the relationship between peer victimization--both within fraternity and sorority groups and between fraternity and sorority groups and outside members--and co-occurring psychological stress (i.e., anxiety, depression, stress). The potential mediating roles of group identity and campus connectedness were also examined. This study utilized the social psychological theory of Social Identity Theory to predict the relationships between the aforementioned variables. Results indicated that a majority of college fraternity and sorority students (58%) have experienced at least one instance of indirect peer victimization since being initiated into their respective organization. Collectively, the majority of respondents reported low levels of peer victimization and high levels of group identity and campus connectedness. As hypothesized, peer victimization was significantly and positively correlated with stress. In addition, higher ratings of within-group peer victimization were related to lower ratings of group identity. However, ratings of between-group peer victimization were not significantly related to ratings of group identity, which did not support the hypothesis that there would be a significant and positive correlation between the two.It was also found that campus connectedness mediated the relationship between peer victimization and Stress. Specifically, campus connectedness served as a protective factor from stress. Alternately, group identity did not protect against stress. Lastly, a specific subgroup of participants was identified as experiencing significantly high levels of peer victimization. Participants designated as "Victims" were significantly more likely to report ethnic minority status, be male, and be a fifth-year college student. Moreover, these students reported significantly higher levels of stress, and lower levels of group identity and campus connectedness. The implications of these findings for university and educational settings are discussed.

Environmental attitudes are shaped by a variety of factors including our educational history, cultural background, childhood and life experiences, and past and current interactions with nature. This research set out to examine attitudes toward the environment in an understudied but growing segment of the Canadian population, homeschoolers. The purposes of this study were to investigate whether environmental attitudes in Canadian homeschoolers differ from those of people involved with public school and to acquire a greater understanding of the factors that affect the development of these attitudes. The mixed method, follow-up explanatory research design utilized the New Ecological Paradigm Scale and the Connectedness to Nature Scale in an internet survey. The survey was sent to homeschooling and parent groups across Canada. Subsequently, interviews were conducted with a subsample of respondents. The results of the survey showed that demographic variables were not significantly related to environmental attitude scores with the exception of locale and religion. Urban respondents had slightly stronger environmental attitudes than rural respondents. The confluence of homeschooling and religiosity emerged as the key factor influencing environmental attitudes. There was no significant difference between environmental attitudes of homeschoolers and public schoolers until importance of religion was taken into account. As measured by the scales, religious homeschoolers exhibited the weakest environmental attitudes, public schoolers were in the middle, and not-as-religious homeschoolers had the strongest environmental attitudes. The qualitative data supported these results, with religious homeschoolers expressing weaker iv environmental attitudes, particularly in terms of climate change and the need for a more sustainable lifestyle. Religious homeschooling respondents favoured a more structured back to basics style of schooling which also correlated with lower environmental attitude scores. Unstructured homeschooling respondents tended to choose a child-centred philosophy of education which was correlated with stronger environmental attitudes. During the interviews, respondents were asked to reflect on what in their lives had influenced their attitudes toward the environment. Consistent with other literature, unstructured outdoor time as a child remained the most significant factor, cited by a majority of respondents. Other important factors included religion, parents, school, teachers, TV/media, economic necessity, and negative experiences with environmental pollution. The results of this study highlight the importance of considering variables associated with religion when exploring the development or level of environmental attitudes or when conducting a study of homeschooling. Religious beliefs are complex and highly personal in some cases, as is their corresponding influence on environmental concern. Potential exists for environmental concern and action from a group of spiritual people with strong community bonds and often political involvement. The key may be finding common ground and learning to communicate, while resisting expectations of complete agreement. This dissertation showed that stepping outside of the educational system does not necessarily have a direct impact on environmental attitudes, as they are mediated by a complex array of variables. Homeschooling may not directly generate a different level of environmental attitudes than public school; however, religious v homeschoolers definitely have a different set of attitudes toward the environment that deserve further in-depth study.

An increasing number of older adults is experiencing mental health problems, which may result from loneliness and social isolation. Although research has noted the positive impact that community programs might have on the social connectedness of older adults, there is a scarcity of research exploring older male adults' experiences in these programs. Men's Sheds, developed in Australia in the 1990's, is one program that integrates older men into the community. Men's Sheds have recently begun in Manitoba, allowing me the opportunity to develop a theoretical model of the processes of involvement of older male adults in this program. I conducted in-depth interviews with Men's Sheds participants (N = 12), and analyzed data using constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Findings provide insight into participants’ experiences throughout their initial, current, and continued involvement in Men’s Sheds, which may serve as a model for community organizations attempting to increase participation among this demographic.