The study was designed to facilitate the development of a set of guidelines which could be used by administrative personnel at Kokomo-Center Township Consolidated School Corporation (KCTCSC) in planning and implementing a program of administrative evaluation. A review of literature and research concerning administrative evaluation programs was made to identify principles and desirable practices relative to the development of evaluation philosophy and activities. The review of literature also was intended to focus upon the purpose of evaluation, responsibilities for making evaluations, criteria for evaluation, and acceptance of evaluation procedures and techniques by the administrative team members.The study included a review and analysis of evaluation programs conducted within the nineteen member school systems of the Indiana Public School Study Council as of January 1979. Twelve superintendents of the member school systems provided written descriptive materials. Selected materials were analyzed in order to determine the nature, scope, and procedural characteristics of practical, ongoing evaluation programs.The study also included a KCTCSC team survey. The survey was designed by a committee of representative administrators to solicit the opinions of all administrative team members of KCTCSC on eight specific areas affecting an evaluation program.Conclusions drawn from the findings of a review of the literature, the Indiana Public School Study Council Member Superintendent's Questionnaire, and the Kokomo Administrative Team Evaluation Survey Questionnaire were as follows.A. Administrative performance can and should be evaluated on a regular basis.B. Authorities are not in agreement that only one process of evaluation is correct.C. Evaluation may include two main purposes: the first, to help the evaluatee establish relevant performance objectives and work systematically toward objective achievement; and secondly, to assess the evaluatee's present performance in accordance with prescribed standards.D. Evaluation should require the evaluator(s) to assess the. performance of the evaluatee by rating the evaluatee on a value scale that may have varying degrees of excellence.E. Management by Objectives (MBO) should be a supplement to evaluation procedures that stress rating. Self-evaluation should always be encouraged.F. Formal evaluation of administrative team members should be conducted annually within the time framework of individual state laws. Informal evaluation should be a continuous process, on a day-to-day basis supplementing the formal process.G. The superior or supervisor should conduct the formal evaluation with informal documented evaluation input from peers, staff, students, parents, community, and evaluatee as situations and/or time warrants.H. Particular attention should be paid to amassing specific documentary evidence regarding each behavioral characteristic to be assessed.I. Evaluation should be supported by data, records, commendations, and critical comments, work achieved, spotchecks, special activities and awards.J. Little new information, if any, should be saved for the formal appraisal. Evaluation should concentrate on guidance and counseling, not solely on checking up on the evaluatee.K. The evaluator should enter the evaluation process with a mutual, unprejudiced, and unbiased attitude with respect to the evaluatee.L. The best evaluation system is of no value if the information is simply gathered and stored or ignored.M. Improvement of evaluatee performance involved two processes, assessment of evaluatee and in-service or job development.Guideline recommendations for planning and implementing an administrative evaluation program touch on the following considerations: the responsibilities of the board of school trustees, the superintendent of schools, and the evaluation committee which has been established by the superintendent of schools. Implementation and follow-up recommendations are also a part of the guideline recommendations made as a result of the study.

This study examined two item characteristics believed to influence rater agreement: observability and difficulty. The first goal of this study was to replicate the findings of Roch, Paquin and Littlejohn (2009), which found that rater agreement was negatively related to item observability (Hypothesis 1) and rating difficulty (Hypothesis 2). The study also explored whether participants had closer item performance ratings to their overall impression when items were less observable (Hypothesis 3) and more difficult to rate (Hypothesis 4). A sample of 254 Undergraduate psychology students viewed a video of a leaderless group discussion and then filled out a rating form assessing performance of one of the individuals in the video and rating difficulty. Results were that rater agreement was positively related to observability (not supporting Hypothesis 1) and negatively related to difficulty (supporting Hypothesis 2). RDS, a distance score between participant’s overall impression and the item performance rating was computed to assess Hypotheses 3 and 4. RDS was positively related to observability (supporting Hypothesis 3) and not related to difficulty (not supporting Hypothesis 4). The positive relationship between observability and rater agreement was surprising given that it was the opposite of previous findings. Not hypothesized but of interest to the study was that observability and difficulty were not correlated. In previous studies, these variables were negatively correlated. Implications of these findings are discussed along with directions for further research.

The purpose of the study was to measure the difference between teacher need fulfillment and desired need fulfillment as related to the teacher evaluation process. The study was designed to (1) measure teachers perceptions of need fulfillment through the evaluation process; (2) measure teachers perceptions of desired need fulfillment through the evaluation process; and (3) examine the relationship of the teacher evaluation process and discrepancies between actual need fulfillment and desired need fulfillment of teachers.A questionnaire was developed for the study. The questionnaire was designed to measure the perceptions of teachers actual and desired need fulfillment through the evaluation process. The questionnaire was adapted from questionnaires developed by Porter and Sergiovanni. The discrepancy between actual and desired need fulfillment provided a Need Deficiency score.The items on the questionnaire were designed to relate to four levels of needs as identified by Maslow: (1) Security; (2) Social; (3) Esteem; and (4) Self-Actualization. The questionnaire was administered to elementary, middle school, and high school teachers in a single school corporation in Northeast Indiana. Mean Need Deficiency scores were used to describe the deficiency of need fulfillment in the need levels of Security, Social, Esteem, and Self-Actualization.The analysis of data indicated the lowest level of need satisfaction was at the Social level for the teachers participating in the study. Elementary teachers had the highest Need Deficiency mean scores. The younger and less experienced teachers were generally the teachers with the highest Need Deficiency scores, and therefore were the least satisfied.

Committee Chair: Dr. Shaun Wang Major Department: Risk Management and Insurance In this thesis I employ regime switching models on a unique dataset of bond downgrades to examine the information value of timely downgrades. I use ratings from a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) and a non-NRSRO as proxies for the arrival of public and private information. Regime switching models allow us to identify the time at which a discrete shift in the underlying stock return process takes place, estimate the distribution of returns in each regime and also observe the duration of each regime associated with the day of the downgrade. The first contribution is proposing an alternative way to perform an event study. First I define a regime switching model with two regimes: one of low and high volatility. The probabilistic nature of regime switching models allows us to identify the exact day on which stock returns switch to a high volatility regime. This is directly observed through the estimated daily conditional probability of being in one of the two regimes. In summary, I find that stocks switch from a low-volatility regime (1.92%) to a high-volatility regime (6.10%) on the day of the downgrade. The high-volatility regime lasts for about three days and it is mainly driven by downgrades of the smaller bond rating company (non-NRSRO). The second contribution is to propose a method to quantify stock return distress costs associated with downgrades. This measure is based on the capital asset pricing model, uses the parameters of the regime switching model and the estimated daily conditional probabilities of being in each regime. I find that distress costs on stock returns range from 9.49% to 12.91% for the 10 days prior to the day of the downgrade when assuming unity for the market price of risk. The magnitude and direction (sign) of my estimates are consistent with prior literature on the information value of bond ratings. The third contribution is to propose an extension to regime switching models to the bivariate case with a common shock. I show through a state-contingent model how shocks to the economy may cause a one time loss that affects a portfolio of stocks. I derive the frequency and severity implications of such exogenous shocks on regime switching models.

Introduction Nearly all flat panel video display monitors have luminance and colour variations as the angle of view varies from the monitor’s perpendicular. The new MicrotileTM displays developed by Christie Digital are no exception to this general finding. A review of any book on colour science will show that there is substantial amount of literature on just noticeable colour differences within various colour spaces. Despite the wealth of data on the topic, there is no general consensus across different industries as to which colour space and colour difference equations are appropriate. Several factors like the background colour, object size, texture of the stimulus are different for different studies; these factors make it very difficult to determine precisely the effect of viewing angle on the perception of coloured images on the Microtiles display based on previous research. Hence, the objective of this thesis was to quantify the measured colour shifts of a Microtile display at different viewing angles, in steps of perceptible thresholds and to evaluate the acceptability of distortions at different viewing angles for complex scenes. Methods A preliminary experiment was setup to study the behaviour of Microtile display primaries as a function of viewing angle. The aim was to measure the shift in hue and luminance of the three primaries at different eccentricities (from 0o to 40o). The measured trend was used to simulate Microtile shifts on complex images for the rating task. In the first part of the perceptibility experiment, three reference colours were picked and 12 vectors heading towards the blue-yellow region of the L*a*b* colour space (pertaining to the colour shifts noticed with the Microtile displays). A uniform reference colour was presented in three of the four quadrants on the CRT monitor and one quadrant changed colour in the direction of the sampled vector. An adaptive, four alternate forced choice procedure was employed to determine thresholds for each of the 3 reference colours. The adaptive technique used was a ZEST paradigm. In the second part of the perceptibility experiment, eighteen directions were sampled around each reference colour. The rating task was based on simulating the measured attenuations of the Microtile primaries on complex scenes. Subjects rated the images both in terms of acceptability/unacceptability and as percentage image degradation. The simulation was presented on three static complex images, car, landscape and portrait. A total of 60 subjects participated in the study, 20 subjects for each experiment. All subjects were between the age group of 15 to 35 years of age and underwent battery of colour vision tests before being included in the study. All subjects included had average to superior colour discrimination as categorized using the FM-100 Hue discrimination test. Results Study1: The preliminary study on Microtile display characteristics as a function of viewing angle showed that all the three primaries decreased in luminance with change in viewing angle. The red primary decreased at a faster rate compared to the other two primaries. The trend presents as a decrease in luminance with the hue shifting towards the blue-green region of the CIE1974 L*a*b* space. Study 2: Results from both the first and second parts of the perceptibility experiment showed that the vectors sampled in different directions approximated to ellipsoids in the L*a*b* colour space. This finding was consistent with the colour discrimination literature. Vectors on the equi-luminance plane were significantly longer than the vectors on the non equi-Luminance plane. Results showed that the average perceptibility thresholds in the non equi-luminance direction were lower than 1∆ELab¬¬¬¬. Study 3: Results from the rating experiments showed that irrespective of the complexities in the images, distortions greater than five times thresholds were less than 50% acceptable and were rated to be at least 30% degraded. This corresponds to a viewing angle greater than 10o for a Microtile display. The relationship between the stimulus (ΔE) and subjective Image degradation judgements followed a linear relationship, with the portrait and landscape having similar functions, whereas the car was rated more degraded at lower ΔEs and less degraded at higher ΔEs compared with the other two scenes. Conclusion Perceptibility thresholds for different reference colours showed that the conventionally used calibration precision of 1 ΔELab is a lenient criterion. Perceptibility thresholds are at least 25% less for the Microtile display reference condition. From the results of the rating data a distortion greater than five times thresholds is less than 50% acceptable and appears to be at least 30% degraded for static complex images. However, the image quality judgments appear to be related to scene context, which requires further study.

In order to reduce the risks, banks has two ways to evaluate the loan exposure. One is credit rating, and the other one is pledge collaterals. Many literatures and financial regulations are emphasizing on the importance of credit rating. However, with the illustration of a plenty of empirical study, the pledging collaterals are the popular way which was using by “lazy” banks. Credit rating or pledging with collaterals is the gap between theories and practices.  The aim of this thesis is to figure the factors which make the gap between the theories and practices. At last, the front-line employees are paid attention on. Since front-line employees are the first and direct one who contact customers. Reliability and responsiveness has a space to develop by training first-line employees, moral hazard controlling, and sectoral specialization the credit inspection.

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This paper attempts to find the relationship between momentum and firm¡¦s credit rating. According to Avramov¡¦s (2007) finding, there is a strong link between momentum and firm credit rating in US. In this paper, the similar phenomenon is proven existing in Taiwan stock market. Momentum profitability is large among low-grade firms, but it is insignificant among high-grade firms. The source of momentum profits is from operating performance, financial performance, volatility and illiquidity. For loser (winner) stocks in the low rating category, profit margins, sales growth, operating cash flows, and interest coverage decrease (increase) over the formation and holding periods, while illiquidity and volatility increase (decrease). As the market observes the deteriorating (improving) conditions, there is a pressure to sell (buy) losers (winners), which enhances gains among high risk winners and losses among high risk losers.

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This paper aims to realize that the capital structure decisions will be affected by the credit rating of a firm. According to the argument made by Kisgen(2006), a firm will incur discrete costs and benefits as a result of the level changes of its credit rating situation, and then causes jumps on firm¡¥s value. In order to maximize firm value, firms near a credit rating downgrade or upgrade will issue less debt relative to equity (as a portion of assets) than firms not near the change in credit raring, attempting to gain the advantage of an upgrade and avoid the disadvantage of a downgrade. The firms near a rating change are defined in different ways, and four hypotheses are tested empirically, using pooled OLS, fixed effect model and random effect model, to know how the concerns of firms¡¥ credit rating changes directly affect its financing decisions on debt and equity structure. Plus or Minus test(POM test), High or Low test(HOL test), Investment Grade or Speculation Grade test(IG/SG test) and Watch list test(Wlist test) are used to examine the influences of credit rating on firms¡¥ financing decisions. The firm which has a credit rating at the beginning of the year in all industries in Taiwan is included in our sample, and the sample period is from 2000 to 2007. As a result, although control variables such as leverage, profitability and firm size have significant impacts on financing decision, we observe that the impacts of credit ratings on net debt issuance are negative but not statistically significant in all models except in HOL test, in which credit rating variables are negative and significant at 5% confidence level. For this reason, the effect of credit ratings on firms¡¥ financing decision can not be concluded and should be examined further.