Despite widespread alcohol use by college students, the majority of them appear capable of controlling their drinking. The present study sought to develop a measure assessing college students' use of self-regulatory strategies in an effort to control their drinking. Three hundred and ten undergraduates completed questionnaires assessing a variety of alcohol-related behaviors and beliefs, as well as academic performance and strategy use. A fifty-item Drinking Self-Regulation Questionnaire (DSRQ) was developed based on social-cognitive theory, pilot data, and principal components analysis. The measure was composed of three scales (cognitive, behavioral, and environmental strategies), each evidencing good reliability. The DSRQ was negatively correlated with quantity and frequency of drinking, indicating that the more self-regulatory strategies individuals used to control their drinking, the less they drank. The DSRQ also was negatively related to alcohol-related problems, indicating that the more strategies an individual used, the fewer alcohol-related problems he or she experienced. A positive relationship was found between the DSRQ and self-efficacy for avoiding drinking heavily, suggesting that higher self-efficacy was associated with greater strategy use. In multiple regression analyses the DSRQ was shown to contribute to the prediction of drinking beyond a measure of self-efficacy, indicating that it assessed a unique construct which may further our understanding of controlled versus excessive use of alcohol. The present study failed to find a relationship between alcohol use and academic performance. These results suggest that the present study was successful in constructing a questionnaire assessing college students' use of self-regulatory strategies to control their alcohol use. / Master of Science

Children's self-regulation has been found to be related to optimal developmental outcomes; however, researchers are still investigating how cognitive and emotional regulation work together to explain development of self-regulation. This study investigated how children's private speech interacted with emotion regulation, conceptualized as effortful control, to predict children's emotionality. I also examined how private speech and effortful control may be different strategies of self-regulation that more fully explain the relation of parental emotion coaching philosophy to children's emotionality. Preschool-aged children (n = 156) and their primary caregivers participated in this study. Parental emotion coaching was observationally measured as encouraging of negative emotion when discussing a time when children were upset. Children's non-beneficial private speech was transcribed and coded during a cognitively-taxing task. Children's effortful control (attention shifting, attention focusing, and inhibitory control) and negative emotion (anger and sadness) were measured using parent-report on the Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ). It was found that children's parent-reported effortful control significantly mediated the relation between parent's observed emotion coaching philosophy and children's reported negative emotionality. Parents who did more emotion coaching had children reported to have greater effortful control and in turn were reported as less emotionally negative. While parental emotion coaching did not predict children's non-beneficial private speech, children who used less of the non-beneficial private speech were reported as less emotionally negative. Lastly, children's private speech and effortful control interacted to predict children's negative emotion. When children were low in effortful control they were high in negative emotion, regardless of how much non-beneficial private speech they used. However, children with higher levels of effortful control were reported as less negative when non-beneficial private speech was low. This research supports the importance of considering both cognitive and emotional development together, because private speech and emotion regulation interacted to predict children's negative emotionality. In addition, parents who support and encourage negative emotions may aid children's effortful control. This research further supports the importance of children's use of private speech in the classroom because non-beneficial private speech may be an additional cue for teachers and caregivers to know that a child needs assistance. / Ph. D.

Graduating CS students face well-documented difficulties upon entering the workforce, with reports of a gap between what they learn and what is expected of them in industry. Project management, software testing, and debugging have been repeatedly listed as common "knowledge deficiencies" among newly hired CS graduates. Similar difficulties manifest themselves on a smaller scale in upper-level CS courses, like the Data Structures and Algorithms course at Virginia Tech: students are required to develop large and complex projects over a three to four week lifecycle, and it is common to see close to a quarter of the students drop or fail the course, largely due to the difficult and time-consuming nature of the projects. My research is driven by the hypothesis that regular feedback about the software development process, delivered during development, will help ameliorate these difficulties. Assessment of software currently tends to focus on qualities like correctness, code coverage from test suites, and code style. Little attention or tooling has been developed for the assessment of the software development process. I use empirical software engineering methods like IDE-log analysis, software repository mining, and semi-structured interviews with students to identify effective and ineffective software practices to formulate. Using the results of these analyses, I have worked on assessing students' development in terms of time management, test writing, test quality, and other "self-checking" behaviours like running the program locally or submitting to an oracle of instructor-written test cases. The goal is to use this information to formulate formative feedback about the software development process. In addition to educators, this research is relevant to software engineering researchers and practitioners, since the results from these experiments are based on the work of upper-level students who grapple with issues of design and work-flow that are not far removed from those faced by professionals in industry. / Doctor of Philosophy / Graduating CS students face well-documented difficulties upon entering the workforce, with reports of a gap between what they learn and what is expected of them as professional soft-ware developers. Project management, software testing, and debugging have been repeatedly listed as common "knowledge deficiencies" among newly hired CS graduates. Similar difficulties manifest themselves on a smaller scale in upper-level CS courses, like the DataStructures and Algorithms course at Virginia Tech: students are required to develop large and complex software projects over a three to four week lifecycle, and it is common to see close to a quarter of the students drop or fail the course, largely due to the difficult and time-consuming nature of the projects. The development of these projects necessitates adherence to disciplined software process, i.e., incremental development, testing, and debugging of small pieces of functionality. My research is driven by the hypothesis that regular feedback about the software development process, delivered during development, will help ameliorate these difficulties. However, in educational contexts, assessment of software currently tends to focus on properties of the final product like correctness, quality of automated software tests, and adherence to code style requirements. Little attention or tooling has been developed for the assessment of the software development process. In this dissertation, I quantitatively characterise students' software development habits, using data from numerous sources: us-age logs from students' software development environments, detailed sequences of snapshots showing the project's evolution over time, and interviews with the students themselves. I analyse the relationships between students' development behaviours and their project out-comes, and use the results of these analyses to determine the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of students' software development processes. I have worked on assessing students' development in terms of time management, test writing, test quality, and other "self-checking"behaviours like running their programs locally or submitting them to an online system that uses instructor-written tests to generate a correctness score. The goal is to use this information to assess the quality of one's software development process in a way that is formative instead of summative, i.e., it can be done while students work toward project completion as opposed to after they are finished. For example, if we can identify procrastinating students early in the project timeline, we could intervene as needed and possibly help them to avoid the consequences of bad project management (e.g., unfinished or late project submissions).In addition to educators, this research is relevant to software engineering researchers and practitioners, since the results from these experiments are based on the work of upper-level students who grapple with issues of design and work-flow that are not far removed from those faced by professionals in industry.

Although many children enter kindergarten having some form of preschool experience, the quality of these experiences differs greatly among the programs that are available to families. This variability can create school readiness gaps, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds (Isaacs, 2012). Children not being ready for school has come to the attention of stakeholders around the country and in the Commonwealth of Virginia. According to a state-wide study, approximately 30% of the students entering Virginia's schools either were not ready academically and/or behaviorally (Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission [JLARC], 2017). Fortunately, the Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) program was created to give students with the greatest risk of school failure an opportunity to overcome potential learning obstacles. The general purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a state-funded prekindergarten program in a rural school division in Central Virginia. Specifically, this study examined academic and behavioral data for four cohorts of kindergarten students to determine if students who participated in the VPI program performed better on school readiness measures compared to their peers without any preschool or prekindergarten experience. Two-tailed t-tests were used to determine if any significant differences existed on measures of literacy, mathematics, self-regulation, and social skills between students who attended a state-funded prekindergarten program to their peers without any prekindergarten or preschool experience. / Doctor of Education / Children not being ready for school has come to the attention of stakeholders around the country and in the Commonwealth of Virginia. According to a state-wide study, approximately 30% of the students entering Virginia's schools either were not ready academically and/or behaviorally (Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission [JLARC], 2017). Fortunately, the Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) program was created to give the students with the greatest risk of school failure an opportunity to overcome potential learning obstacles. The general purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a state-funded prekindergarten program in a rural school division in Central Virginia. Specifically, this study examined academic and behavioral data for four cohorts of kindergarten students to determine if students who participated in the VPI program performed better on school readiness measures compared to their peers without any preschool or prekindergarten experience.

Guided by the research on cognitive performance tasks (e.g., Wood, Mento, & Locke, 1987), the potential moderating effects of skill and outcome difficulty upon the relationship between specific, difficult goals and physical task performance were examined from an attribute treatment approach. Overall, different measures of performance yielded several convergent findings. Using a sample of 184 laboratory participants, a test of the primary hypothesis failed to support the expected three-way interaction among skill, outcome difficulty and goal setting. Models containing skill and outcome difficulty were found to provide the most parsimonious explanation of variance in performance, regardless of whether assigned or personal goal were used as an index of motivation. After controlling for skill and outcome difficulty, goal commitment showed a weak positive relationship with task performance. Self-efficacy was not related to performance among participants pursuing specific, difficult goals. Potential reasons for the failure to obtain evidence of the predicted three-way interaction among skill, outcome difficulty, and goals are discussed in the context of limitations to the present study. Future research directions are suggested. / Master of Science

The present study looked at the effects of a self-regulatory goal setting framework (WOOP) implemented in writing classes that were developed by Oettingen (2018) using Mental Contrasting and Implementation Intentions (MCII). The study examined English learners' development on self-reported self-regulation and proficiency levels in an Intensive English Program (IEP) in the United States over the course of two 14-week semesters. A total of 238 English Language Learners participated in the study and took the Short Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SSRQ) where the scores were analyzed to determine development over time. The analysis showed no statistically significant differences. However, experimental group participants' self-reported self-regulation tended to increase over time, even if only slightly. The same 238 participants also took a Level Acquisition Test (LAT) to assess their productive proficiency levels. The scores were also compared to a control group to determine if their proficiency was affected when the framework was implemented in the class. Based on the proficiency results, there were statistically significant differences in the development by experimental and control groups that were compared over time. In summary, WOOP, the self-regulatory framework that used MCII, may not have led to statistically significant differences in self-regulation, but the majority of the experimental group participants tended to improve in self-regulation, suggesting WOOP may be beneficial to help ESL learners improve their self-regulation. This research suggests the potential and value of further research with MCII in ESL contexts, specifically with longitudinal implementation of the framework, clarifications and instructions to better assist teachers and students, and further consideration of qualitative data looking at interviews, comments, personal reactions.

The Swedish private equity industry has been the target of vast criticism and media coverage in the years following the most recent financial crisis. As a number of scandals related to private equity owned companies within the welfare sector unfolded, the public confidence assigned to the industry diminished. These events triggered an intricate discussion concerning the regulatory conditions surrounding the industry. In an attempt to regain the confidence of the public and to restore the tarnished reputation of the industry, the alternative regulatory approach self-regulation was utilized and a code of conduct was established on the initiative of the industry in 2015. Current research in the field of private equity is predominantly quantitative and the concept of self-regulation and its components are unexplored. The scarcity of qualitative research addressing private equity and the self-regulatory matter induced the following research question: How is self-regulation integrated within the Swedish private equity industry? The main purpose of this inductive study was to generate an increased understanding and to provide new knowledge concerning the integration of self-regulation within the Swedish private equity industry. In order to accommodate this purpose and to produce an answer to the stated research question, a qualitative and interpretative study was conducted. Semi-structured interviews with eight prominent Swedish private equity professionals were pursued as the study adopted the perspective of the industry. Self-regulation has been integrated at two levels within the Swedish private equity industry in response to the existence of information asymmetry. Firstly, the recently introduced and formalized industry self-regulation addresses the relationship with the public at large. Secondly, the informal self-regulation pursued by the individual private firms targets the relationship with investors. The emphasis of the various self- regulations performed relates to issues of ethical and moral nature. By means of self- regulation, the Swedish private equity industry intends to reduce the prevailing information asymmetry and to safeguard the interests of concerned parties. Consequently, the private equity firms within the industry manage to serve as perfect stewards for the investors as well as the public. In addition, a high industrial morality was observed and ethical concerns are of greatest significance to the industry. Finally, self-regulation has enabled the Swedish private equity industry to become less private.

Self-regulation in the context of a relationship, described as relationship "work," is a powerful predictor of relationship satisfaction. Identifying individual characteristics that predict the practice of relationship self-regulation (RSR) can inform clinical and couple relationship education interventions. Anxious and avoidant attachment have been linked to shortcomings in self-regulation in various contexts, and were hypothesized to be negatively associated to individual practice of RSR; neuroticism, a personality trait characterized by negative emotionality, was also hypothesized to be negatively related to RSR. Neuroticism was also tested as a moderator of the relationship between attachment and RSR. Data from first-married men (589) and women (912) taking the RELATE online questionnaire was used in correlational and OLS multiple regression analyses to test hypotheses and a research question. Bi-variate correlations for all predictor variables and RSR were negative and statistically significant for women and men. Regression analyses echoed those associations. Moderated multiple regression analyses testing a moderator effect of neuroticism were significant for anxious attachment and RSR, but not for avoidant attachment. Results are interpreted as support for the theoretical model tested.

ABSTRACT In educational psychology and first language writing, many studies have established a link between self-regulation, key motivational factors associated with self-regulation, and academic achievement, but only a handful of research has examined this relationship in the context of L2 first-year writing. Using a sample of 170 non-native English speakers enrolled in different sections of two levels of first-year writing courses at an American university in Japan, the present study tested a hypothesized model of L2 first-year writing achievement using Structural Equation modeling. The model examined the impact of SRL strategy use, Academic Writing Self-Efficacy, Goal Orientation, Writing Attitude—key motivational factors associated with self-regulated learning—and general English proficiency, as measured by TOEFL iBT, on the writing achievement of students’ final essays, measured by their essay grades. The impact of gender on the hypothesized model of writing achievement was also investigated by conducting two separate Structural Equation modeling analyses on the hypothesized model for males and females. The study also examined the impact of SRL Strategy Use and Academic Writing Self-Efficacy on four levels of Writing Achievement, as well as the impact of four levels of Writing Experience on SRL Strategy Use and Academic Writing Self-Efficacy. The results of the study indicated that the hypothesized model had adequate fit to the data, and was, therefore, interpreted as being representative of the sample population examined in the current study. Statistically significant relationships in the model were found among the following variables: (a) English Proficiency and Essay Grade, (b) Academic Writing Self-Efficacy and Essay Grade, (c) Writing Attitude and Academic Writing Self-Efficacy, (d) Mastery Goal Orientation and SRL Strategy Use. These results corroborate findings in first-language and second-language writing research, which have reported statistically significant positive relationships among these variables, and lend support to the notion emphasized in socio-cognitive models of SRL that self-efficacy is a strong predictor of writing achievement. However, statistically significant relationships were not found among: (a) SRL Strategy Use and Essay Grade, (b) Writing Attitude and SRL Strategy Use, (c) Academic Writing Self-Efficacy and SRL Strategy Use, (d) Academic Writing Self-Efficacy and Goal Orientation. Possible explanations for the lack of statistically significant findings among the relationships between SRL and the other variables were attributed to the small sample size, and methods used to assess the use of SRL strategies. While the importance that the participants’ attribute to earning credits for the courses, as opposed to mastering writing skills, was considered a reason for the lack of a statistically significant relationship between Academic Writing Self-Efficacy and Goal Orientation. The examination of the influence of Gender on the hypothesized model of writing achievement indicated that the model for females had more adequate fit to the data than the model for males, suggesting that the model was more representative of the female participants. Differences in the models were found in the relationships between English Proficiency and SRL Strategy Use and the relationship between Academic Writing Self-Efficacy and Essay Grade. The results were in line with previous findings that have reported that female students use more SRL strategies and hold higher self-efficacy beliefs than male students. With regards to the influence of SRL Strategy Use and Academic Writing Self Efficacy on levels of Writing Achievement that ranged from Poor to Excellent, statistically significant differences were only found between the mean scores of the Poor and Excellent groups with regards to Writing Self-Efficacy. SRL Strategy Use did not exert a statistically significant difference on the mean scores of the groups. The results were in line with previous findings that reported the predictive influence of self-efficacy on writing achievement, but the results did not corroborate previous findings in relation to the predictive strength of SRL Strategy Use. The methodology used to assess the use of SRL strategies in the present study was considered a possible explanation for the lack of statistically significant results. In relation to the influence of Writing Experience on SRL Strategy Use and Academic Writing Self-Efficacy, the results also yielded non-significant differences between four groups with different levels of Writing Experience and SRL Strategy Use. This result was attributed to the broad nature of the method used to assess Writing Experience in the current study. Statistically significant differences were found between Academic Writing Self-Efficacy and Writing Experience, and the results supported previous findings in first language writing research, which have shown that learners with less experience often report higher levels of efficacy due to perhaps to overestimation of their skills. Overall, in the current study SRL did not predict the participants’ essay grades, and did not mediate the influence of other variables on essay grade. However, Academic Writing Self-Efficacy emerged as a powerful predictor of Essay Grades, and writing achievement. Therefore, while the current study supported social cognitive views about the predictive nature of self-efficacy on writing achievement, it did not corroborate theoretical assumptions about the relationship between the use of SRL strategies and writing achievement. / Teaching & Learning

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, progressive autoimmune disease causing inflammation of the synovium resulting in severe pain, joint disfigurement and disability as well as malaise, fatigue and a depressed immune system. Treatment consists of three broad phases; firstly, following diagnosis treatment is focussed on rapid reduction of pain and inflammation. Secondly, maintenance of quiescence is sought through medication. Finally, if disease activity remains high despite medication, escalation to anti-TNF α therapy is required to prevent permanent joint damage and disability. The primary course of treatment is prescription of disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) within 3 months of onset of symptoms. However, DMARDs can take 8-12 weeks to exhibit a noticeable benefit whereas unpleasant side effects can occur shortly after initiation. Also, DMARDs do not alleviate pain; therefore it is difficult for patients to attribute recovery to this medication. For these reasons, although it is imperative for future health and functioning to take DMARDs as prescribed, non-adherence is common at 30-50%. Non-adherence to treatment can be intentional, where a decision is made not to conform to the prescription, or unintentional which is often due to forgetting. To measure intentional non-adherence, a validated measure of adherence for rheumatoid arthritis was reduced through exploratory factor analysis from 19 items to 5 items by removing items that did not add to the explained variance of adherence. The CQR5 explained 53% of the variance in adherence and was shown to have a good fit to the data through confirmatory factor analysis. A discriminant function equation was generated that correctly identifies 88.5% of patients as high or low adherers and has high clinical utility due to the brevity for patients and unidimensionality for easy interpretation. The CQR5 was used throughout the programme of research to measure intentional non-adherence along with a separate measure of unintentional non-adherence. Four commonly used social cognition models of illness were measured in 227 RA patients to determine which had the best utility for predicting non-adherence to DMARDs. Patients were recruited to represent the three stages of illness including newly diagnosed, established on DMARD therapy and established with concurrent anti-TNF α therapy. Logistic regression analysis showed that the Self Regulatory Model best predicted intentional non-adherence as patients with perceptions of worse consequences of RA and longer disease duration were more likely to be highly adherent to DMARDs in cross-sectional analysis. In contrast, the Theory of Planned Behaviour better predicted patients who self-reported forgetting their DMARDs with patients with more confidence in being able to take their medications (Perceived Behavioural Control) being less likely to forget. 171 patients were successfully followed-up six months after baseline recruitment. The longitudinal results showed that the social cognition models differed for patients at different stages of the illness suggesting that their experience of living with rheumatoid arthritis influenced perceptions of their illness and medications. Newly diagnosed patients scored lower on factors measuring perceptions of disease chronicity and seriousness whereas patients that had escalated to anti-TNF α therapy scored higher on these factors. The newly diagnosed patients also showed more variability in the social cognition scores whereas the more established patients demonstrated stable models of illness. This supports Leventhal’s (1992) theory that illness representations will be regulated through integration of knowledge and experience of an illness. Structural equation modelling was used to establish the best predictors of intentional non-adherence at six month follow-up. In support of research in other chronic illnesses (Horne & Weinman, 2002; Niklas, Dunbar & Wild, 2010), the effect of perceptions of the consequences and chronicity of the illness on adherence are mediated by perceptions of the necessity of the medication. In addition, the impact of the emotional reaction to the illness on adherence to DMARDs is mediated by concerns about the medication. In addition, this study incorporated factors from the Theory of Planned Behaviour to explain medication adherence and found that the influence of friends and family impacts on the patient’s confidence to follow the prescription accurately which in turn as an effect on adherence to DMARDs. This large longitudinal study found that by combining factors from a number of social cognition models, it is possible to explain and predict intentional non-adherence and provides some evidence for best ways to intervene to improve adherence and prognosis. To provide a more comprehensive and clinically useful picture of non-adherence, a Cost of Illness study was carried which found that patients self-reporting low adherence to DMARDs also had significantly higher costs for this medication. This was caused by an increased incidence of Leflunamide prescribing for patients who often forget their medication and was maintained longitudinally. This association has not been previously reported in the literature and provides some evidence that non-adherence to DMARDs is having a concrete effect on the clinical management of patients. Finally, an SMS text message based reminder service designed to remind patients who self-report forgetting their medications was tested through a simulation study for the cost and likely benefit in health related quality of life using the health economic analysis of the longitudinal study and the results of a survey establishing the feasibility of implementing such a service in the rheumatology clinic. A sensitivity analysis testing the number of messages sent and the cost per message found that a reminder service for the sample of patients in this programme of research would cost between £1387.00 and £142.27 per year. This would equate to a cost per Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) gain of between £2889.58 and £296.40 by enabling patients to adhere more rigorously to their DMARD regimen. This programme of research is the first to test four commonly used social cognition models to predict adherence to DMARDs in a large, multi-centre longitudinal study of rheumatoid arthritis patients. Perceptions of the likely duration and consequences of the illness, as measured by the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire and the necessity of medications (measured by the Beliefs about Medications Questionnaire) along with self-efficacy (measured by the Theory of Planned Behaviour) explained 24% of the variance in intentional adherence over six months. The results show the importance of considering intentional and unintentional non-adherence separately as they appear to have different underlying mechanisms as well as patients in different phases of the illness as their experience influences their social cognition models of illness. A simple SMS based reminder service could act as a cue to action to reduce unintentional non-adherence whereas addressing issues surrounding maladaptive perceptions about the illness and the treatment could improve intentional non-adherence which has the potential to improve the prognosis and quality of life for patients as well as safe costs for the NHS.