A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Clinical Psychology) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zululand, 2017 / The aim and objectives of the study were to investigate the management of anxiety disorders by Zulu traditional healers. Here the term management refers not exclusively to treatment but rather encompasses conceptualisation and causes of anxiety, symptom presentation and diagnostic procedures, treatment methods, and referral of patients with anxiety. The study was conducted at KwaDlangezwa and Esikhawini areas in Zululand, South Africa. A qualitative approach was adopted for the study. A snowball sampling technique was used to collect the sample. The inclusion criterion was diviners who are currently in practice. The sample comprised of 14 diviners. Semi-structured interviews were used in the collection of data. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data was analysed and interpreted using thematic content analysis. Within the study the concept of anxiety was understood in relation to the causes. Anxiety was discussed under the headings of functional and pathological anxiety. The diviners diagnose and treat exclusively pathological anxiety. Pathological anxiety was said to be caused by either witchcraft or ancestral calling. In the category of pathological anxiety three types of anxiety were described, and they were inyoni (affecting mostly children), uvalo lwezilwane (anxiety through bewitchment and uvalo lwedlozi (related to ancestral calling). The diviners indicated that anxiety is not a mental disorder but rather a physical illness. Although the treatment methods varied amongst the diviners, they were all indicated to be effective. If a patient was not responsive to treatment, the patient would be referred to other healers first and then a referral to clinics or/ and hospitals would be made. However, if there was an underlying medical condition, patients would be referred immediately to clinics and/or hospitals.

The following study examined the question of student achievement in online charter schools and how the achievement scores of students at online charter schools compare to achievement scores of students at traditional schools. Arizona has seen explosive growth in charter schools and online charter schools. A study comparing how these two types of schools are educating students will benefit parents who are considering the viability of online charter schools for their children's education. This study investigated the difference between educational achievements at online charter schools versus traditional schools. The study compared 16 online high schools to 16 similar traditional high schools. This study used the state standardized assessment, Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS), scores to compare the two different types of schools. This study used ANOVA to compare the online charter school scores and students have in Arizona, this study identified which of these two schools is achieving greater academic success. By a significant margin the traditional brick and mortar schools achieved higher scores on the AIMS test in both reading and math. The traditional schools also achieved higher scores across the three years examined. In 2012 traditional school students earned an average of 51 points higher in reading and 41 points higher in math. In 2013 traditional school students earned an average of 84 points higher in reading and 28 points higher in math. In 2014 traditional school students earned an average of 52 points higher in reading and 35 points higher in math. This research hopes to direct positive social change by calling into question the validity of online high schools and how they are currently managed and accredited in AZ.

Many educational researchers have proposed teaching statistics with less lecture and more active learning methods. However, there are only a few comparative studies that have taught one section of statistics with lectures and one section with activity-based methods; of those studies, the results are contradictory. To address the need for more research on the actual effectiveness of active learning methods in introductory statistics, this research study was undertaken. An introductory, university level course was divided into two sections. One section was taught entirely with traditional lecture. The other section was taught using active learning methods and a minimal amount of lecture. Both sections were taught by the same instructor during the same semester. The experiment was repeated the next semester. Students' exam scores were analyzed to determine if the activity-based teaching approach led to higher student comprehension and understanding of statistical concepts, and the ability to apply statistical procedures. Surveys were also administered to students to ascertain if the lecture or activity-based approach led to higher, more positive student attitudes toward statistics. Analysis of the data did not show that the activity-based teaching method led to higher student comprehension or procedural ability. Neither teaching method led to signicantly higher student attitudes. Student comments indicated a positive response to the activity-based methods, but the responses also indicated a student desire for more teacher-centered time in the activity course.

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Yes / Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an individualized medicine by observing the symptoms and signs (symptoms in brief) of patients. We aim to extract the meaningful herb-symptom relationships from large scale TCM clinical data. To investigate the correlations between symptoms and herbs held for patients, we use four clinical data sets collected from TCM outpatient clinical settings and calculate the similarities between patient pairs in terms of the herb constituents of their prescriptions and their manifesting symptoms by cosine measure. To address the large-scale multiple testing problems for the detection of herb-symptom associations and the dependence between herbs involving similar efficacies, we propose a network-based correlation analysis (NetCorrA) method to detect the herb-symptom associations. The results show that there are strong positive correlations between symptom similarity and herb similarity, which indicates that herb-symptom correspondence is a clinical principle adhered to by most TCM physicians. Furthermore, the NetCorrA method obtains meaningful herb-symptom associations and performs better than the chi-square correlation method by filtering the false positive associations. Symptoms play significant roles for the prescriptions of herb treatment. The herb-symptom correspondence principle indicates that clinical phenotypic targets (i.e., symptoms) of herbs exist and would be valuable for further investigations.

Thesis advisor: Catherine Cornille / Thesis advisor: Margaret Guider / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

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The purpose of this study was to determine if Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is as effective an instructional method at the elementary level as traditional instruction in learning content. This study also is a contribution to the literature on PBL in the elementary classroom. The research design was quasi-experimental with a non-equivalent control group. A pilot study was conducted in science classes prior to the commencement of the research project in social studies. Eighty-eight students participated in the two studies. The control groups received instruction in a traditional format, and the experimental groups received instruction through the use of PBL. The research question dealt with whether or not PBL was as effective an instruction method as traditional instruction in student achievement. T-tests were run at the conclusion of each study to compare the means of posttest scores and presentation assessment scores. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to determine if the differences in means were because of treatment effect or by chance. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to determine if prior knowledge had an impact on the student achievement scores. After the science data were collected and analyzed, the researcher determined that there was a statistically significant difference in the student achievement scores between those involved in the PBL class and those taught traditionally on both the posttest scores and the group presentation scores. Students enrolled in the traditional class scored significantly higher than those enrolled in the PBL class. The researcher noted, however, that both groups made gains in achievement. Assumptions for normality and homogeneity for t-test, ANOVA and ANCOVA were not met for the social studies classes. Transformation of the data took place using arcsine because of a negative skew of the data. After the social studies data were collected and analyzed, the researcher determined that there was no statistically significant difference in the posttest scores for the PBL and traditional classes. The group presentation grades produced conflicting results. Transformed data indicated a significant difference in student achievement while non-transformed data indicated that there was no statistically significant difference in the scores. The researcher noted that both groups made gains in achievement.

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