The primary purpose of this study was to examine the nature of social skills in socially anxious children from a social learning theory perspective. The reasons why socially anxious children often perform poorly in social situations have not yet been fully resolved. Is it due to lack of social skills or are these children too inhibited and nervous in social situations to exhibit the skills they possess? Ninety-two elementary and middle school children (age 10-14 years) in Kopavogur, Iceland participated in the study and completed questionnaires on social phobia and anxiety, social skills, assertiveness, and self-efficacy and outcome expectancy in social situations with friends and strangers. Based on how socially anxious they reported to be on the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C), 59 children were selected for further study. Results showed that socially anxious children reported being less socially skilled, less assertive with strangers than with friends, and lower in self-efficacy and outcome expectancy than children in a normal comparison group. However, the socially anxious children were not rated as less skilled by parents or teachers than the other children. Implications for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with social anxiety are discussed. / Master of Science

The problem under consideration is to determine the effect of certain environmental conditions upon the process of studying. This study attempts to answer the question, How much effect, positive or negative, will various environmental conditions have upon study?

Yes

No / In Autumn 2010, a multidisciplinary group of clinicians met in Manchester to discuss the issue of debridement in wound management. There are various debridement techniques available in the UK, but facilities and skills vary. This paper, resulting from the meeting, briefly outlines the differing techniques used, the levels of skill required to use them and the wound types for which they are appropriate. It is important that clinicians practising debridement are aware of the variations in method, and the limitations of their own skills and competency so that, if appropriate, the patient can be referred to receive timely and appropriate intervention.

The effectiveness of a social skills training workshop was assessed by comparing the rated competence of participants in an Interpersonal Skills Training Program (a 2-session, 12-hour workshop) to the rated competence of nonparticipants. This comparison was operationalized through a study design of the pre- and posttesting of 12 experimental and 22 control subjects. The assessment instruments used were Spitzberg's Conversational Skills Rating Scale (CSRS) and Curran's Simulated Social Interaction Test (SSIT). Two rating judges were utilized. Results, although modest, are in the expected direction. Measured competence on the CSRS failed to show significant improvement in the rated competence of the experimental group as compared to the rated competence of the control group. However, the SSIT did reveal significant improvement of the rated skill and anxiety of experimental subjects while the control group showed no significant improvement. In addition to assessing the effectiveness of the workshop, this study sought to find a positive correlation of the CSRS instrument to the SSIT instrument. As expected, the CSRS showed a positive correlation to the SSIT.

Rápidos avanços da tecnologia e desenvolvimentos em diversos campos da ciência têm provocado mudanças profundas no mercado de trabalho. Nesse contexto, é bem documentado o papel relevante das competências socioemocionais no desenvolvimento de competências para o trabalho, sugerindo que os retornos do mercado de trabalho para habilidades não cognitivas têm aumentado ao longo do tempo e que os retornos são particularmente fortes para indivíduos que possuem habilidades cognitivas e não cognitivas. Nosso estudo busca trazer evidências do retorno associado às competências socioemocionais no mercado de trabalho brasileiro. Encontramos evidências de que existe um retorno positivo associado às competências socioemocionais e que esse retorno é diferente entre grupos de ocupação. Acreditamos que este conhecimento possa incentivar e reforçar as parcerias entre governos, educadores, formadores, trabalhadores e empregadores, a fim de gerir melhor o impacto transformador da Quarta Revolução Industrial no emprego, nas competências e na educação do Brasil. / Rapid advances in technology and developments in various science fields are driving deeply changes in the labor market. In this context, the relevant role of social-emotional skills in the development of job skills is well documented, suggesting that labor market returns to non-cognitive skills have been increasing over time and the pay-offs are particularly strong for individuals who have both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Our study seeks to bring evidence of the return associated with social-emotional skills in the Brazilian labor market. We found evidence that there is a positive return associated with socialemotional skills and that this return is different between occupation groups. We believe that this knowledge can encourage and strengthen partnerships between governments, educators, trainers, workers and employers in order to better manage the transformative impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on employment, skills and education in Brazil.

Master of Public Health / Department of Food, Nutrition, Dietetics, and Health / Sandra B. Procter / There have been major shifts in the dietary patterns of people in the United States in the last four decades. People eat fast food more frequently, eating more convenience food products, and highly processed food. On the other hand, the practice of cooking from raw ingredients or cooking from scratch has been declining. The lack of cooking skills is one of the barriers of cooking from raw ingredients. Cooking skills are one of the important determinants of food choice. People who have higher cooking skills tend to choose healthier food options. There are many programs that aim to increase cooking skills and nutrition knowledge. One of them is done by EFNEP. Over the years, EFNEP has been helping the low socioeconomic population to reach nutritional well-being. Evaluation is an important component of EFNEP. There are evaluation tools in EFNEP including behavioral checklist and dietary recall that are administered pre and post program. However, these tools do not specifically measure participants’ cooking skills. A proposed short self-reported questionnaire is designed to measure cooking skills of EFNEP participants in Kansas. The questionnaire comprises of seven questions and has been tested to a representative group.

The problem of a prepared workforce is perennial. Part of the challenge is one of supply and demand, as education systems attempt to produce graduates with the technical competencies required for the current jobs available. In the new service- and knowledge-based economy, however, soft skills are cited as a greater need by today’s employers. Increasingly sought across all industry sectors, these skills allow employees to work independently and interdependently, respond rapidly to customer needs, and adjust to changing market conditions. As a result, institutions of higher education are being called upon to infuse soft skills into their curricula. In this three-manuscript dissertation, first the implications for higher education, with Kentucky serving as a prime example, are assessed. Second, potential higher education predictors of success on a soft skills assessment—college admissions tests, grades, coursework, socioeconomic measures, and work-based learning—are examined through a quantitative study. Third, the importance of soft skills is considered in the context of capitalist societies and the purposes of education as a human endeavor. The case may be made that soft skills, rather than being a subset of workforce preparation or higher education, may be thought of as the fundamental intellectual tools of humanity.

Many high school students who want to attend college never actually enroll. Multiple factors like barriers (e.g., financial, discrimination) and poor academic achievement prevent some high school students from matriculating to college. Researchers must form a nuanced understanding of multidimensional factors that predict college enrollment. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the extent to which psychosocial academic behavioral skills (PABS) predict college enrollment in two and four year colleges. A cross-sectional, survey-based methodology was used to address the research questions. Data from operational research by ACT, Inc. using the Engage 10-12 instrument were used to analyze students’ psychosocial academic behavioral skills. Standardized test scores and high school GPA were used to measure academic achievement. College enrollment data were gathered from the National Student Clearinghouse. A large, diverse sample of over 4,100 high school students in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade was analyzed using logistic regression and hierarchical generalized linear models. Select psychosocial academic behavioral skills demonstrated positive relationships with four-year enrollment. Relationships between PABS and two-year college enrollment were smaller than the observed relationships between PABS and four-year college enrollment. Bootstrapping was used to determine if psychosocial academic behaviors predicted college enrollment or if this effect was mediated via academic achievement. Moderation and partial mediation effects were observed. By understanding student characteristics related to college enrollment, researchers and policymakers are better equipped to help young people matriculate to postsecondary institutions.

Difficulties in social skills are generally considered defining characteristics of High-Functioning Autism (HFA). These difficulties interfere with the educational experiences and quality of life of individuals with HFA, and interventions must be highly individualized to be effective. I explore ways technologies may play a role in assisting individuals with the acquisition of social problem solving skills. This thesis presents the design, development, and evaluation of two systems; Refl-ex, which is a collection of multimedia instructional modules designed to enable adolescents with HFA to practice social problem solving skills, and REACT, a system to facilitate the authoring of a wider variety of instructional modules. The authoring tool is designed to help parents, teachers, and other stakeholders to create Refl-ex-like instructional modules. The approach uses models of social knowledge created using crowdsourcing techniques to provide the authors with support throughout the authoring process. A series of studies were conducted to inform the design of high-fidelity prototypes of each of the systems and to evaluate the prototypes. The contributions of this thesis are: 1) the creation of obstacle-based branching, an approach to developing interactive social skills instructional modules that has been evaluated by experts to be an improvement to current practices; 2) the development of an approach to building models of social knowledge that can be dynamically created and expanded using crowdsourcing; and 3) the development a system that gives parents and other caregivers the ability to easily create customized social skills instructional modules for their children and students.