The increasing demands of modern society and the modern workforce has resulted in added importance being placed on graduating students¡¦ psychosocial development. One well-established comprehensive theory, Chickering¡¦s theory of psychosocial development (1969, 1993), defines seven ¡§vectors¡¨ of development in a student¡¦s personal growth. He has also emphasized the importance of freshman year in establishing patterns for subsequent personal growth. Consequently for educators to strive for ¡§optimal¡¨ development for the students, it is especially important for them to examine factors during freshman year which may encourage students¡¦ psychosocial development. This study examines the role of social integration in students¡¦ psychosocial development. Using a longitudinal research design and gathering data collected from a private southern research university at four different time points during the students¡¦ freshman and senior years, this study analyzes the effect of social integration as it relates to Chickering¡¦s theory of psychosocial development. The study focused on three of the seven vectors: Developing Autonomy, Clarifying Purpose, and Mature Interpersonal Relationships. Multiple regression analysis is used to measure the effects of social integration on the students¡¦ psychosocial development. The results of the study indicated that social integration has a significant influence on Clarifying Purpose and Academic Autonomy, but no influence on Mature Interpersonal Relationships. It also showed that Greek affiliation has a significant influence on Clarifying Purpose and Academic Autonomy as well. The results of the research are discussed with respect to the parameters of Chickering¡¦s theory. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the magnitude of stability of externalizing problem behaviors with onset before age 6 and the variables affecting the stability effect sizes. Gender difference in the stability was also investigated. Seventy empirical research reports, representing 12,111 non-referred children assessed before age 6 drawn from 72 independent aggregated samples and 27 pairs of matched gender samples, met inclusion criteria. Stability was coded as correlational effect sizes for the relationship between externalizing behaviors at Time 1 and Time 2. Results showed great variability in the weighted mean stability effect sizes ranging from.12 to .52 with most of the effect sizes around .30. Boys externalizing behaviors were more enduring than girls externalizing behaviors. The effects of informants and subtypes of externalizing behaviors were the most robust findings: the stability effect sizes were larger if Time 1 and Time 2 measured the same subtypes of externalizing behaviors and used the same type of informants. The stability of childrens externalizing behaviors decreased as time intervals between measurement points increased. Children assessed before age 3 and from low socioeconomic status (SES) and Caucasian backgrounds had less stable externalizing behaviors. Low SES had differential effects on boys and girls: externalizing behaviors were less stable for boys from low SES families than girls. The findings suggest that externalizing behaviors in young children are not as stable as those in school age children and the information on externalizing behaviors in early childhood alone is insufficient to predict later antisocial behaviors accurately.

This study is based on pilot work that suggested that what makes hobbies engaging for adults is the opportunity to create an artifact that can be customized and shared. Further pilot studies showed that these same traits also contributed to high school seniors' enjoyment of their favorite activities both outside and inside of the classroom. These surveys suggested two hypotheses. The weak hypothesis is that giving students increased opportunities to create, customize and share will increase engagement. The strong version of the hypothesis posits that increased engagement will lead to increased attempts to learn. An instructional experiment tested these hypotheses. It used three different activities in NetLogo that varied opportunities to create, customize and share simulations on population dynamics. The study yielded positive, though moderate, support for the hypotheses, and provides insight on the future design of tools for relating motivation and learning with understanding.

This study was an exploration of the differences that lie within the private school sector in British Columbia using school evaluation catalogues and student achievement data. Content analysis was used to analyze the school evaluation catalogues to determine the differences in school mission and organizational characteristics between the private school sub-sectors. Hierarchical linear modeling was using to analyze the student achievement data. The analysis of school mission statements indicated that there were important differences between the major groups of private schools and between the schools within the private school sub-sectors and these differences were reflective of the distinctive ways the schools saw their task, the way in which the task was to be carried out, and those who were served by the school. There was also a strong emphasis on parent control and the schools having a partnership with parents in the education of children. The unique blend of goals and community distinctives in private schools allowed for a stronger linkage between what parents desire for their children and how private schools can meet that need, a linkage that goes beyond market choice and democratic localism to a commitment to a set of commonly held values. The analysis of the organizational characteristics, combined with the mission/vision analysis showed a degree of bundling of characteristics. The quantitative analysis of the student achievement data showed that when controlling for language, parents level of educational attainment, and prior achievement, the private school sub-sectors had small but significant differences in average performance. The study has implications for school communities, leaders, teachers and policy makers.

TOWARD AN EMPIRICAL DELINEATIN OF A NORMATIVE STRUCTURE FOR COLLEGE STUDENT DRINKING BEHAVIORS LAUREL RAIMONDO MARTIN Dissertation under the direction of Professor John M. Braxton This exploratory study was designed to identify a normative pattern among college students with regard to drinking and drinking related behaviors. Further, this study examines how support for the normative structure varies across personal characteristics, sub group affiliations and among different levels of alcohol consumption. This study analyzed data collected using the College Student Alcohol Behaviors Inventory which asked students to indicate how they believe most students and their closest friends at their institution would define behaviors on a scale that ranges from highly appropriate to highly inappropriate. A normative structure was identified which contains behaviors that met the criteria for inviolable, admonitory and laudatory norms (Braxton and Bayer, 1999). Personal characteristics, sub group affiliations and individual drinking behaviors did influence the level of support for the normative structure among students. In addition to corroborating a previous study that showed a normative structure among college students, this exploratory study adds to the research on normative structures within college drinking and alcohol related behaviors and demonstrates that future research is warranted. Approved __________________________________________ Date _________________

Several recent papers state that working memory's contents cause attention to automatically deploy to matching objects in a display. Results of eight experiments reported here are inconsistent with this claim. In the experiments, participants were given at least one object to hold in working memory (WM) at the beginning of a trial, and a recognition test was given at the end of each trial to ensure they held the object(s) in mind. During the retention interval, two objects were simultaneously flashed on the screen followed by a response probe. One of the flashed objects matched the item in WM and the other was different. If WM's contents guide attention, then probe responses should be aided when the probe appears at the location of the item matching WM. Seven experiments demonstrated that attention does not always deploy to memory matches, and four of these demonstrated that attention deploys to the mismatch when participants report not attending to memory matches. One experiment suggests that WM's contents might guide attention to memory matches for at least the first 300 ms of maintenance. The implications of these findings for theories about WM and attention are discussed.

This meta-analysis reviews research published between 1966 and 2001 that explores the effects of various reading treatments on the reading fluency of elementary school students. The literature search, coding schemes and procedures for effect sizes and study descriptors are described. Effect sizes are coded for reading rate, accuracy and comprehension. Study and subject characteristics are also coded. Thirty-nine studies are included in the meta-analysis, and some involved multiple treatments. Standard mean difference effect sizes are calculated for each treatment-control comparison. A rationale is discussed for including multiple treatment studies, as are strategies for solving the interdependencies among effect sizes from these studies. Mean effect sizes are reported for different reading treatments and treatment features in terms of reading rate, accuracy, and comprehension. Multiple regression procedures are conducted to determine what variables are good predictors of the variability in the distribution of effect sizes for the three outcome constructs. Various fluency building treatments are effective in improving reading fluency and comprehension in elementary school students. Results also suggest that the best fluency interventions are those that emphasize both fluency and comprehension training through extended practice. Limitations of the meta-analysis, implications for fluency instruction, and directions for future research are presented.

Although used widely in psychological research, race and ethnicity are amorphous and ill-defined constructs, lack adequate reliability and validity, and are rarely suitable as explanatory variables or mechanisms of psychological processes. Existing data regarding the relation of race and ethnicity to youths externalizing behaviors are inconsistent and conflicting, which highlights their inability to adequately explain or predict human behavior. The variables for which race and ethnicity act as proxies should be tested to identify the mediators directly linking race and ethnicity with developmental outcomes. After reviewing data and ecological theory positing that neighborhood factors may account for group differences, because of vast disparities between the communities in which many Black and White Americans live, I present three hypotheses proposing neighborhood mediation of race and parenting effects on adolescent externalizing behavior. Findings were: (a) there were race differences in externalizing behavior across raters; (b) neighborhood conditions were associated with race but not with externalizing behaviors; and (c) neighborhood factors failed to account for race-moderated relations between adolescent externalizing problems and parent acceptance of the youth and use of psychological control. Implications of these findings for measuring neighborhood effects on individuals are discussed.

Functional symptoms, defined as symptoms in the absence of organic disease, are common among pediatric patients. Differences exist in the clinical application of the biomedical versus biopsychosocial model in the explanation of functional symptoms. Parents perceive greater symptom severity, have more emotional distress, and more protectively parent their children when uncertainty is high and expectations are unmet for receiving diagnostic, treatment, and prognostic information for childrens symptoms. The current study examined effects of maternal trait anxiety (high versus low), diagnosis (functional versus organic), and physicians presentation of medical information (biomedical versus biopsychosocial) on mothers cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses to childrens symptoms. Mothers were hypothesized to have more negative responses to functional versus organic diagnoses presented from a biomedical versus biopsychosocial model, particularly for high anxious mothers. Mothers (N = 160) read a vignette describing a child with chronic abdominal pain and completed baseline questionnaires assessing their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses imagining themselves as the mother of the child in the vignette. Mothers then viewed one of four videos of a physician giving a functional versus organic diagnosis from a biomedical versus biopsychosocial presentation pertaining to the child in the vignette. Finally, mothers completed questionnaires assessing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses to childrens symptoms in response to the medical information received. Controlling for baseline, main effects of anxiety and diagnosis indicated that anxious mothers and those who received a functional diagnosis reported more severe symptom appraisals, pain catastrophizing, negative affect, and protective parenting after the medical evaluation vignette. Interaction effects demonstrated that anxious mothers who received a functional diagnosis presented from a biomedical framework reported significantly higher catastrophizing and negative affect than mothers in any other condition. Results underscore the importance of taking these three factors together in understanding parents responses to childrens symptoms, especially for cognitive and emotional variables. Identifying parent and provider characteristics that influence parents responses to childrens symptoms has the potential to improve the clinical encounter and enhance health outcomes for pediatric patients with functional symptoms.

In a sample of 89 depressed parents and their 115 adolescent children, ages 9-15, child caretaking behaviors were examined to determine their relationship to child and parent demographic characteristics, parental functioning and parenting, and potential child psychosocial correlates. Three different indicators of child caretaking were used: observed emotional caretaking (e.g., caring for a parents emotional distress), observed instrumental caretaking (e.g., looking after siblings), and child self-reports of caretaking measured by the Parentification Questionnaire-Youth (PQ-Y; Godsall & Jurkovic, 1995). Observations of caretaking were assessed during two parent-child interaction tasks: discussion of a shared pleasant activity and discussion of a recent stressful period related to the parents depression. Results showed that indicators of caretaking were differentially related to demographic characteristics and therefore suggest that caretaking should be considered as a multidimensional, multidetermined construct. Caretaking appeared to be strongly related to parental functioning and also appeared to have a stronger relationship to negative parenting than to positive parenting behaviors. Evidence was found for a curvilinear relationship between caretaking and its psychosocial correlates. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.