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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Hertzog, Christopher; Committee Member: Dunlosky, John; Committee Member: Engle, Randall; Committee Member: Rogers, Wendy; Committee Member: Smith, Anderson

The majority of research in environmental education (EE) has focused on measuring knowledge, attitudes, and behavior using quantitative tools and methods. Few studies have attempted to elicit and characterize children's conceptions of the environment or nature, particularly those resulting from a residential EE experience, which contextualize knowledge, attitudes, and may be used to predict behaviors. Therefore little is known about how physical, socio-cultural, and personal dimensions are reflected in conceptual learning in the context of a guided outdoor program. This study begins to address this relative knowledge void by employing qualitative and phenomenological methods in a grounded theory approach. Interviews, writings and drawings on the topic of nature were collected from 5th grade students before and after a three-day residential outdoor school program conducted on the Oregon coast. Students' responses were analyzed in terms of breadth and depth of their nature conceptions. Individual students' additions to the emergent categories of breadth, including new organisms, habitats, processes, and non-living things, were used to measure change in the breadth of students' nature concepts. Change in depth of students' nature concepts was measured by means of emergent hierarchical typologies representing ideas included in students' understanding of nature. Factors affecting students' learning, including the themes students use to frame their interpretations of nature, emergent misconceptions, references to TV and books, students' interest, and weather, are discussed in terms of their impact on the breadth and depth of students' nature conceptions. Findings indicate almost universal gains in breadth and modest gains in depth of students' nature concepts. Children's preconceived ideas about nature, particularly an idealized view in which nature is seen as the opposite of human environments, appear to play an important role in learning. / Graduation date: 2006

The subject of the diploma thesis is design of an architectural study of the New synagogue in Trutnov. The first synagogue on this location was destroyed in 1938. Only the foundation system of the first synagogue have been preserved. This architectural study creates space for the recovery of the Jewish community in Trutnov. The Jewish community needs space for daily and spiritual life. The buliding program is therefore divided into two main objects. The synagogue with a prayer room and a mikveh is located on same place as the first synagogue. The preserved foundation system of the first synagogue creates a barrier from the sloping terrain for the new synagogue. This creates a symbiosis of the original and the new. The community center contains spaces for education, administration, catering and celebrations. The location of the community center respects the original villas, which are located close.

Purpose – SUFUvet is a cross-disciplinary teaching-learning project designed to adapt students’ soft skills and track usability and the concrete surplus value of work techniques in the field of visual media design. Design/methodology/approach – For SUFUvet, a collaboration between the Institute of Food Hygiene/University of Leipzig and the Media Center/Technische Universität Dresden was initiated. Bachelor students of media informatics generate 3D visualisations in the framework of SCRUM: Undergraduate veterinary students issue instructions in order to create an e-learning class. During the project, questionnaires, group discussions, and feedback methods are used to detect changes in selected soft skills. Originality/value – This design is meant to increase knowledge and employability by adapting student’s media, communication, and project management competences. Using SCRUM appears to be a new approach, not only in the field of programming, but for media production as well. Additionally, it offers an interdisciplinary work environment, which is rare but considered fruitful within university studies. Practical implications – The outcomes of the application are a 3D-visualised meat inspection e-learning class for veterinary students plus a documentation of SCRUM as a framework for visual media design. It is seen as an experiment for future applications in a variety of cross-disciplinary learning and media design cases.

The cross-sectional study INVITE (INtimate partner VIolence care and Treatment prEferences in postpartum women) aims to examine treatment and counseling preferences and barriers in relation to the experience of intimate partner violence (IPV), depression and anxiety, and (childbirth-related) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among postpartum women in Dresden, Germany. Currently, the INVITE study consists of an interim sample of N = 1,787 participants with n = 891 completed interviews. Recruitment is ongoing, targeting a community sample of at least N = 4,000 women who complete various quantitative questionnaires via telephone interviews at 3–4 months postpartum. The differences in rates of IPV, postpartum depression and anxiety, and/or (childbirth-related) PTSD as well as treatment and counseling preferences and barriers between affected and non-affected women will be assessed. Further, predisposing variables, past and present stress exposure, enabling resources, as well as past and present health will be examined as predictors of service preferences and barriers. In this study protocol, the theoretical background, methods, as well as preliminary results regarding sociodemographic characteristics and birth-related factors of the interim sample are presented and discussed in terms of their socio-political relevance. Simultaneously assessing IPV, postpartum depression and anxiety, and (childbirth-related) PTSD will facilitate exploring comorbidities and concomitant special needs of affected women. Results of the INVITE study will therefore set the ground for well-aimed development and improvement of treatment and counseling services for the respective target groups by informing health care professionals and policy makers about specific preferences and barriers to treatment. This will yield the possibility to tailor services to the needs of postpartum women.