The increasing inter-cultural communication in China has led to a growing interest in how the ethnic minorities cope with the encountered main stream (Han)culture of China. The present research compared Tibetan and Han college students studying in a Northwest China province, examining how Tibetan college students acculturated into Han cultural environment concerning their thinking styles, emotion regulation, acculturation strategy, academic performance, and psychological well-being. The present research was composed of a pilot study and a main study. The pilot study was conducted among 105 Tibetan and 147 Han college students studying in a teacher-training university in Northwest China. It aimed at validating the measures that were to be used in the main study, exploring the possible effects that culture might have on thinking styles and emotion regulation, as well as tentatively investigating the relationships among the variables of interest. The main study involved 483 Tibetan students from two nationality universities and 265 Han students from a teacher-training university who responded to the same set of questionnaires validated in the pilot study twice, with an interval of seven months. The quantitative procedure was followed by a qualitative one in which five teachers (one Han and four Tibetans) and eight students (Tibetans who participated in the questionnaire surveys) in the three sampled universities were interviewed. Both the quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to answer three research questions:1) How and why do the Tibetan students’ thinking styles and emotion regulation change as they study in Han cultural environment? 2) What are the relationships among Tibetan college students’ thinking styles, emotion regulation, and their acculturation strategy? And 3) What roles do thinking style, emotion regulation, and acculturation strategy play in Tibetan college students’ academic performance and psychological well-being? The results suggested that the Tibetan and Han college students did differ from each other in their thinking styles and emotion regulation. Longitudinal data supported that the Tibetan students’ thinking styles, emotion regulation, and acculturation strategy, as well as the relationships among these variables changed across time. Thinking styles, emotion regulation, and acculturation strategy were all found to have direct effects on their psychological well-being and academic performance. The effects of some of the thinking style and emotion regulation variables on psychological well-being and academic performance were also found to be mediated by either or both of the two dimensions of the Tibetan students’ acculturation strategy (i.e., ethnic and dominant society immersions). Meanwhile, the four acculturation strategies (i.e., integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization) were also found to moderate the effects of the thinking styles and emotion regulation on the psychological well-being and academic performance. With the support from the literature and interviews, the quantitative findings were discussed. The findings of the present research would not only provide valuable information on assisting in understanding the development of people’s thinking styles, emotion regulation, and acculturation, but also provide helpful information for the higher education institutions to improve their teaching and management of the ethnic minority students. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This qualitative dissertation explores the beliefs of 15 pre-service teachers who completed their apprentice teaching semester in diverse early childhood classrooms. The pre-service teachers' beliefs about teaching in diverse early childhood classrooms and the experiences the pre-service teachers attributed to having influenced and/or challenged their prior beliefs are of particular interest in this study. An analysis of interview data resulted in four themes. The first theme explores the participants' focus on their beliefs about how students learn, the role of the teacher in students' learning, and the importance of building a classroom community when asked to describe teaching in diverse early childhood classrooms. The ways in which the participants marginalized multicultural education by limiting what it included and by reserving it for particular subject areas, grade levels, and groups of children is described in the second theme. The third theme details the experiences that altered the participants' prior beliefs about teaching in diverse early childhood classrooms, including seeing difference, confronting prejudices, observing teachers, and refining beliefs. In the final theme, I examine the instability found in the participants' beliefs with regard to language, difference, families, and holidays. A second phase of research, including interview, observation, and document data, resulted in two themes: adopting pedagogical approaches and reflecting on practice. These findings lead to three conclusions for this study. First, pre-service teachers' beliefs about teaching in diverse classrooms are more complex than previous research has suggested. Second, reflecting on beliefs and practice is essential to the development of multicultural education practices. However, reflection about diversity, by itself, does not help pre-service teachers with their practice during field placements. Pre-service teachers need opportunities to observe multicultural education practices to connect beliefs and theory to practice. Finally, teacher educators need to understand the prior experiences and beliefs of the pre-service teachers in their courses in order to plan a range of activities that meet pre-service teachers where they are and then take them where they need to go with regards to their beliefs about teaching in diverse classrooms, so that these activities are effective for providing an interruption of prior beliefs. / text

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The purpose of this study was to select, analyze, and revise test exercises in critical thinking. Specifically, the aim was to identify items that have power to discriminate in performance among children in grades one, two, and three.The research was planned to answer three questions:(1) Would sufficient items remain to form a critical thinking test after those items showing no discrimination were rejected through examination of the point-biserial index?(2) Would the relationships between the twenty types of problematic situations tested cluster into a reduced specified number of elements after elimination of those exercises that did not appear to be related to a given factor?(3) Would the factor loading structure remain constant after reading scores and grade levels were partialled out?

As the tasks humans perform become more complicated and the technology manufactured to support those tasks becomes more adaptive, the relationship between humans and automation transforms into a collaborative system. In this system each member depends on the input of the other to reach a predetermined goal beneficial to both parties. Studying the human/automation dynamic as a social team provides a new set of variables affecting performance previously unstudied by automation researchers. One such variable is the shared mental model (Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 2000). This study examined the relationship between mental model quality and collaborative system performance within the domain of a navigation task. Participants navigated through a simulated city with the help of a navigational system performing at two levels of accuracy; 70% and 100%. Participants with robust mental models of the task environment identified automation errors when they occurred and optimally navigated to destinations. Conversely, users with vague mental models were less likely to identify automation errors, and chose inefficient routes to destinations. Thus, mental model quality proved to be an efficient predictor of navigation performance. Additionally, participants with no mental model performed as well as participants with vague mental models. The difference in performance was the number and type of errors committed. This research is important as it supports previous assertions that humans and automated systems can work as teammates and perform teamwork (Nass, Fog, & Moon, 2000). Thus, other variables found to impact human/human team performance might also affect human/automation team performance just as this study explored the effects of a primarily human/human team performance variable, the mental model. Additionally, this research suggests that a training program creating a weak, inaccurate, or incomplete mental model in the user is equivalent to no training program in terms of performance. Finally, through a qualitative model, this study proposes mental model quality affects the constructs of user self confidence and trust in automation. These two constructs are thought to ultimately determine automation usage (Lee & Moray, 1994). To validate the model a follow on study is proposed to measure automation usage as mental model quality changes.

This thesis is a defence of non-introspective simulationism. It seeks to explain how we acquire everyday behavioural and psychological beliefs (henceforth interpretational beliefs) regarding both ourselves and others. The thesis is in three parts; the first states non-introspective simulationism, the second surveys some relevant empirical findings and shows how simulationism explains (or at least accomodates) these, and the third compares simulationism with rival theories. The two main claims of non-introspecitve simulationism (as defended) are: simulation is central to the acquisition of interpretational beliefs. Introspection has no role whatever. Further central claims are: beliefs about our own currently intended behaviours are acquired by practical reasoning. Other interpretational beliefs are, in various ways, the product of simulation. Simulation requires little if any machinery not already required for practical reasoning. Knowledge of our own psychological states is acquired after and as a result of knowledge of others�. Knowledge of phenomenal states is unnecessary for mastery of folk psychology and the product of dinkum science.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, page: 2513.

Thesis (M. S.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Arthur D. Fisk; Committee Member: Gregory M. Corso; Committee Member: Wendy A. Rogers.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Phoenix Seminary, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 309-329).