Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio University, June, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 162-180).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-90). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-90). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-150)

<p> Studies have been conducted on the effects of teacher-student interaction and student achievement. However, there is a need to examine the teacher-student interactions concerning at-risk students specifically the foster youth. This grounded-theory study examines the teacher-student interaction and the effects of social-emotional intelligence on the foster youth through qualitative and quantitative methods using the Foster Student Interaction and Social-Emotional Intelligence survey (FSI&amp;SEI) open-ended questions, interviews, and journals. A Southern California District educates approximately 500 foster students. This high school located in the urban district was chosen because they had the highest number of foster youth. The 15 participants who participated in the study consisted of a site administrator, a counselor, teachers, and foster parents. After collecting, the FSI&amp;SEI seven participants agreed to be interviewed. The overall findings of this study indicate that teacher awareness of who their foster students are, struggles foster students face, and intentional conversations regarding the whole child impact the foster student&rsquo;s social-emotional intelligence as well as their ability to form relationships with teachers.</p><p>

<p> As more opportunities abound for students to accelerate their learning during middle and high school, research is limited in the relationship between accelerated learning and the psychosocial adjustment of adolescents. This explanatory correlational research study provided additional empirical evidence of the relationship between accelerated studies, psychosocial adjustment, and the coping strategies adolescents utilize. Participants were 93 eighth to twelfth grade students enrolled in accelerated learning courses in a northwestern state in the United States. Students were administered instruments measuring their perceptions of: stress, life satisfaction, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, suicidal ideation, academic beliefs and task values, school climate, and coping strategies. Correlation coefficients determined relationships between psychosocial adjustment, age, number of accelerated learning program classes, gender and coping variables of students participating in accelerated learning programs. Results suggest that additional research is needed in the exploration of the relationship between a number of accelerated learning program classes adolescents participate in and their psychosocial adjustment. Gender had few significant relationships to other variables and grade level correlated with psychological factors, life satisfaction, motivation, school climate, and grade point average. There were statistically significant, strong to weak correlations amongst psychosocial adjustment variables; and in particular, an intricate association between psychological indicators of possible mental health issues, stress, life satisfaction, school functioning, age, and coping strategies.</p><p>

Substance abuse is the foremost health problem in the United States, with an estimated annual cost of over $400 billion and is linked to over 400,000 preventable deaths each year. Adolescents are among those abusing drugs and alcohol. Approximately one-half of high school students use alcohol and one-fourth smoke marijuana, and by their senior year of high school, over half will have used an illicit drug. Effective substance use interventions for young adults are important in preventing the progression toward other drug use disorders and harmful consequences of frequent drug use. Schools have been identified as a viable setting in which to conduct brief interventions to reduce adolescent substance use. However, a standard therapy for implementing motivational interventions in the school setting has not yet been established. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a motivational intervention on substance use in a school-based adolescent population and to test the hypotheses that motivational interviewing, compared to assessment only, would result in a reduction of substance use and an increase in each participant’s readiness to change. The proposed study utilized a randomized controlled design in which participants received one of two conditions, two 30-minute sessions of a motivational intervention or assessment only. Assessments were administered before and one month following the intervention. Results demonstrated that the intervention was effective in reducing daily cigarette use and symptoms of cigarette dependence for participants in the experimental group. These results are consistent with past research investigating the effectiveness of motivational interventions on reducing adolescent substance use, yet the current findings are unique because this is the first school-based motivational intervention delivered by school personnel to effectively reduce adolescent substance use. Results indicate that the current intervention could be implemented as a standard therapy for using motivational interventions to decrease adolescent substance use in the school setting.

This study will examine the concept of mentoring as a strategy for improving the academic success and the quality of life of black female and male undergraduates on predominantly white institutions in American society. More specifically, this study proposes the following: (a) That mentorship programs can provide a clearly defined, identifiable and monitored support mechanism through which faculty and staff members may have an impact, directly, on the growth potential of black undergraduates. (b) That through mentoring programs educational leaders on predominantly white college campuses can successfully meet the short-range goals of satisfying and improving the critical academic, social and personal needs of black undergraduates. (c) That mentorship programs will also meet a long-range need of our society by supplying the educational and professional markets with qualified and competent black undergraduates and professionals that will benefit American society. This study will be substantiated by findings from a survey of a selected group of minority mentorship programs on predominantly white college campuses and a survey of black female and male undergraduates' academic and personal needs on a predominantly white college campus. It is from this collection of data that six major recommendations for developing a comprehensive model for a Black Mentorship Program will be presented that embody the best of the prevailing theories, practices, principles and services for promoting the academic and professional success of black undergraduates.

The exchange of information between therapist and client has long been understood as an essential part of any therapeutic relationship; however, the perceptions of the client have often been overlooked in favor of the expert position of the therapist. Over the past several years research in family therapy has attempted to address this imbalance with methodologies that are grounded in the epistemological assumption that there are multiple realities and, as a result, considers the views of the client and therapist as equally valid. Spradley's Developmental Research Sequence (DRS), an open ended interview procedure designed for ethnographic studies, was used to study the perceptions of both client and therapist within the context of an Early Intervention Clinic. These perceptions emerged from 19 interviews conducted with three therapeutic systems that involved three families and three therapists. The interviews revealed eight primary topics of discussion that provided feedback to the therapeutic system in the form of identifying gaps of information that may exist between client and therapist. The results of this study suggest that there are differences in expectation and understanding that exist between members of the treatment system. Based on the result of this study, it was concluded that both therapist and client need to understand any differences in understanding and expectations that may exist within the therapeutic system. The results are discussed in terms of gaps of information that, if unaddressed, can inhibit the therapeutic process.

Experience, buttressed by a school survey, attested to the presence of homeless children in our schools. These children evince special needs which demand attention, or we may suffer their loss from the school systems, and pay a staggering social cost, later. The problem is that their special needs cannot be met if these children are not identified as homeless, and rarely do they self-identify. The dissertation develops a screening test for the identification of the homeless children in our schools in order to treat their special needs. After a pre-test survey, the test was piloted at an inner-city school, refined, and administered as circumstances suggested. The results confirmed the existence of homeless children with special needs in the schools. An increased ability to identify these children, coupled with enhanced teacher training and curriculum development, can help retain and treat these children within the educational process--and, it is hoped, avoid the social cost.