Social policy concerns groups. Specifically, social policies have been implemented as a means to affect the well-being of sexual and gender minorities, including areas such as health, employment, violence, and many others. Undergraduate student opinions on such policies are an understudied area of survey research. Possible correlates of support for such policy areas include, but are not limited to, sexual prejudice, attributions, increased contact with the minority group, gender, Para-social contact, and many others. This research administered a 55-item survey to undergraduate students at the University of Central Florida. With a sample of 210 individuals, this study aimed to answer the following research question. Which explanatory variables are most correlated with support for social policies and rights regarding sexual and gender minorities? Dimension reduction techniques were utilized to create three sub-scales that measure the dependent variable: Alternative Relationship Recognitions, Socio-Political and Economic Goals, and Basic Freedoms. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were reported, confirming the internal consistencies of the dimensions. Bivariate correlation analyses revealed a number of variables with consistent relationships to the dependent variable: sexual prejudice, attributions that view homosexuality as something with which an individual is born, support for abortion rights, partisan identification, ideology, religious affiliation, and religious attendance. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression models further assessed the nature of the relationships; sexual prejudice was the most correlated with support for social policies and rights pertaining to sexual and gender minorities. Discussions of findings, limitations of this research, directions for future research, and empirical implications are provided accordingly.

This study investigated whether a relationship exists between levels of marital dedication and student-life stress among married undergraduate students. Student-life stress was examined using the Student-Life Stress Inventory (SLI) (Gadzella, 1991). Student-life stress was compared to levels of marital dedication (low, moderate, high) using the Relationship Scale (Stanley & Markman, 1992). Differences in student-life stress were examined between male and female students. In addition, differences in levels of marital dedication were examined between students and spouses. Levels of marital dedication were compared to a national sample of relatively happy and committed couples. Lastly, spouses ranked categories that have had the greatest impact upon them as spouse of students. Ninety married couples (180 participants) at four universities and one community college in the Southeast participated in the study. No statistically significant difference was found on the Student-life Stress Inventory (SLI) between male and female students. In the highly dedicated category, there was a statistically significant difference in levels of marital dedication between students and spouses. A greater proportion of spouses were more highly dedicated than students. No statistically significant difference in overall levels of marital dedication was found between spouses of male and female students. Male students were as equally dedicated to the national sample of males, whereas female students were less dedicated than the national sample of females. Lastly, male spouses scored higher than female spouses on every category concerning areas that have been most greatly impacted by being a spouse of a student. Though Recreation and Housework were highly ranked categories, the only category showing a significant difference was Sex. Husbands were more severely impacted in the Category of Sex than wives. Although previous research found marital dedication to be higher among females than males, this was not the case for student wives. This may suggest that student wives prioritize their academic studies while they are in school. Male spouses struggle with multiple demands while their wives are in school, calling for more attention to preclude the negative marital effects for male spouses.

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<p>This dissertation consisted of a mixed-methods investigation into expectations about what “counts” as an engineering career and how individuals make decisions about their futures. Presented as a set of three independent but closely related studies, I examined the ways that engineering students, alumni, and educators think and talk about careers and career decision-making. This work focused not only on the content of participants’ experiences, but also the extent to which their claims may reflect or inform commonly held beliefs about what is normal, expected, or assumed. Such a focus adds an additional layer to ongoing conversations about how we can support students in their future endeavors. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The participants were students, alumni, or educators from four engineering programs (i.e., biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and mechanical engineering) at a single institution in the United States. The first study investigated the experiences of engineering undergraduate students with varying career plans at the cusp of the college-to-career transition. The fourteen students balanced an expectation of passion and fulfillment against an uncertainty of how to choose from their many and wide-ranging career options. I analyzed participants’ claims through discourse analysis and leveraged the concept of transformative decisions to highlight the difficulty of applying a rational decision-making framework to engineering students’ career decisions.</p> <p><br></p> <p>To complement the student perspective, I also investigated the perspectives of engineering alumni and educators. In the second study, I collected survey data from engineering undergraduate degree holders (n = 1,979) who earned their degree between 1970 and 2019. Using write-in data, I mapped alumni’s career pathways for their first four positions after graduation (i.e., their early career pathways). While some findings were unsurprising (e.g., the recent Millennial generation has shorter position durations compared to previous generations), the findings also highlight that the pathways of engineering degree holders have been generally consistent across time. Alumni have always moved in and out of roles that have “engineer” in the job title. In the survey, the alumni also named up to three educators at the institution that had been influential on their career pathways; those educators were targeted in the third study to better understand how to support students. I interviewed eleven influential educators about the strategies they used to help students make career decisions, which ranged from presenting themselves as approach to helping students figure out their interests. Beyond the pragmatic recommendations, the final study also highlights how the advice educators give do not always reflect their own experiences, underscoring why it is important to be aware of the expectations embedded in the messages we tell students.</p>

This study had three main purposes: (a) to determine whether there is a linear relationship between international undergraduate (IU) students' adaptation and time at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), (b) to examine the effects of IU students' combined economic and linguistic backgrounds on their adaptation experience at Virginia Tech, (c) to determine the u-shaped curve model's effectiveness in explaining the adaptation experience of IU students from different backgrounds. The findings of this study could not be used to justify either a linear or a curvilinear relationship between time and IU students' adaptation. A difference in adaptation was found between IU students with two and four years at Virginia Tech based on their linguistic background differences, but no differences were found in regard to their economic background differences. A correlation analysis suggested a relationship between adaptation and the support IU students received while at Virginia Tech. Nevertheless, the most important finding is the fact that the existing models of IU students' adaptation do not adequately explain their adaptation experience. This study suggests that future research should concentrate on determining the relationship between IU students' adaptation and the adequacy of support they received. / Ph. D.

The student experience is a unique journey of challenge and opportunity, for which their success, subjective well-being (SWB) and psychological health are key elements. In three related investigations, this mixed-methods research programme examined the effects of Time-Perspective (TP: An individual’s psychological relationship with time) and Character-Strengths (CS: 24-positive traits associated with good character) on these outcomes. Investigation 1 involved developing a Likert-type scale to measure students’ success in areas they felt were important to the construct. Qualitative content analysis identified that HE students and staff collectively defined success as a multifaceted construct, consisting of numerous academic, non-academic and social aspects. These informed the development of a reliable and valid questionnaire for measuring success perceptions in seven of these areas. This was used in the following investigation to assess a range of outcome variables pertaining to student success. Investigation 2 was a longitudinal study assessing the effects of TP and CS on the success, good/poor psychological health and SWB of Year-1 HE students. In line with previous research, excessive or insufficient use of certain TP orientations was associated with, and could predict multiple positive and negative outcomes. For example, Future and Past-Positive orientations were predictive of academic success, perceived student success and SWB. Student psychological problems were associated with a bias towards Past-Negative and Present-Fatalist orientations. Additionally, a new formula for calculating a continuous Balanced Time Perspective (BTP) variable was devised and tested. High levels of BTP were associated with many positive aspects of the HE experience. Strengths were mainly associated with SWB and perceptions of success. However, Hope and Self-Regulation were inversely related with depression, anxiety, stress and negative-affect. Investigation 3 was a follow-up interview study with six student participants, who presented interesting profiles in Investigation 2. They talked about their experiences of psychological ill-health/well-being and student success in relation to TP and CS. Five super-ordinate themes were identified, including ‘Living with negative past experiences’, ‘A balancing act’ and ‘Using my strengths’. Psychological difficulties represent an escalating problem in HE, and student success and SWB are important outcomes. Both TP and CS offer additional understandings of these areas, adding value in academic, practical and theoretical contexts. This research has indicated that interventions focused on TP modification (i.e. developing a BTP) and strength development, may potentially offer preventative mental-illness strategies for susceptible students and enhance their success and SWB.

Ninety-six undergraduates were given four tasks under either reward or punishment conditions. Each task consisted of 20 trials of pressing or not pressing a button to make a light come on. Monetary reinforcement was contingent on light onset for all tasks and on accuracy of judgment of control for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tasks. Cognitive processing was comprehensively assessed for each task by measuring expectancy, judgment of control, perception of environmental stimuli, evaluation of performance, attribution, and reinforcement value. Results showed that subjects were more accurate in moderate than in low control and in low than moderate frequency. Females were more accurate in perceiving environmental stimuli and had lower self-esteem, lower efficacy expectancies, and higher self-rated reinforcement values for monetary incentives than males. Low defensives were accurate in expectancy of control, judgment of control in punishment, and estimation of environmental stimuli. Subjects in reward were more accurate in perceiving reinforcing events and they gave themselves more credit for task performance than subjects in punishment gave themselves blame for comparable performance. Those in punishment had more stable and external attributions and were more anxious, depressed, and hostile. Depressives and nondepressives reacted differently to the monetary contingency on accuracy of judgment of control. Depressives showed overestimation of control immediately after initiation of this contingency, then gradually decreased their estimation until they were relatively accurate on the last task. Nondepressives showed more accurate judgment of control immediately after monetary contingency on accuracy, but returned to overestimation on subsequent tasks. These findings gave partial support to Alloy and Abramson (1979) in that mild depressives became increasingly accurate in judgment of control across tasks. Female depressives, compared to female nondepressives, were less accurate in perceiving environmental stimuli and gave themselves less credit in reward. Although depressives did not set a particularly high criterion for success as suggested by Beck and Seligman, all subjects set criteria for success higher than both estimated and actual maximal control (ps < .05).

This study is a description and analysis of change in selected personality characteristics of junior-level undergraduates in the first phase of the curriculum for the Guidance Associate degree at North Texas State University.