Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

University Of Akron Student Journal Reading Patterns, Carol Tenopir, Lei Wu, Xiang Zhou, Kitty Mcclanahan, Max Steele, Natalie Clewell, Donald W. King

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

This report is a factual analysis of the results of the University of Akron survey of students, conducted in October and November 2005 (see Appendix for the Questionnaire.) A comparison of this report with Tenopir & King survey data of other U.S. universities is not yet included, but further comparisons, both with the other Ohio universities, universities in Australia, and the University of Tennessee, will be included in subsequent articles for publication. This report is for the internal use of Akron library personnel, as well as for the preparation of presentations and journal articles.

Sp681-S-Cutting And Other Self-Injurious Behaviors, The University Of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service

Family

Cutting is one of several types of self-injurious behaviors that some teens and young adults may practice. Self-injury is the deliberate mutilation of a body part with the purpose of managing emotions that are perceived as too painful to express with words.

Sp681-M-Tobacco Use, The University Of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service

Family

Every day in the United States, approximately 4,000 youths aged 12 – 17 try their first cigarette. Will your child be next?

Smoking and tobacco use among young people is a serious issue that can affect their health and life expectancy. Among high school students, 22 percent report current cigarette use while 10 percent of high school males use smokeless tobacco. Talking to your children about tobacco use and being involved in their lives will help you prevent them from becoming smokers or smokeless tobacco users. Here are some tips to help you.

Sp681-Q-Weight And Body Image, The University Of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service

Family

Why are so many teenagers obsessed with their looks? Both males and females in today’s society are under pressure to measure up to a certain social and cultural ideal of beauty. Some of this pressure comes from the media; but unfortunately, a lot comes from family and friends, who mean to be helpful but whose comments can have a negative effect on how teens feel about themselves.

Sp681-O-Teen Relationships, The University Of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service

Family

As parents, you want your teens to have an easy transition into adulthood. You want them to have friends and be liked at school. While you want to encourage them, you also worry that they may choose the wrong friends and be negatively influenced by them.

In addition, the teenage years bring changes in your child’s view of you: parents who once knew everything suddenly don’t understand anything. This attitude is normal, but it doesn’t make parenting easier!

Thinking About Linking, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

LINKING TO FULL TEXT THROUGH link resolver technology and the OpenURL standard has made electronic journals a cornerstone of library collections. Users expect that full text will always be a click or two away and it brings the library catalog, indexing and abstracting databases, and full text into an integrated system. The impact is great as major and smaller players embrace linking to all types of digital materials.

Hot Topic: Changes To The 1983 Purchasing Law, Rick Whitehead

MTAS Publications: Hot Topics

During the 2006 legislative session, the General Assembly amended this law to broaden its coverage and to authorize cities to increase the dollar amount for which advertising and competitive bidding is required.

Hot Topic: Interest Rate Set At 12 Percent Effective July 1, 2006, On Delinquent Taxes Collected Or Administered By The State Of Tennessee, Dick Phebus

MTAS Publications: Hot Topics

The rate of interest effective July 1, 2006, through June 30, 2007, has been set at 12 percent, which is an increase from last year.

Technical Bulletins: Should Your City Consider Privatization?, David Angerer

MTAS Publications: Technical Bulletins

Many cities have come to see privatization as a means of saving money and improving the quality of the services they provide to the public.

Qualification Based Selection 2006, Sharon Rollins

MTAS Publications: Full Publications

The purpose of this guide is to present a simple, step-by-step procedure to aid Tennessee municipal officials in procuring engineering, architectural, land surveying and other professional services by using the QBS process.

University Of Akron Faculty Journal Reading Patterns, Carol Tenopir, Lei Wu, Xiang Zhou, Kitty Mcclanahan, Max Steele, Natalie Clewell, Donald W. King

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

This is a question-by-question analysis of the results of the University of Akron survey of faculty, conducted fall 2005 as part of a grant funded by IMLS (see Appendix for the Questionnaire.) Final results may require further analysis or information about the library context for complete analysis. At the same time as this survey, a survey of reading patterns of Akron’s students was conducted, with results presented in a separate report. Also at the same time, surveys of faculty and students at three other Ohio universities and the University of Tennessee were conducted. Comparisons among these will be included in …

Moving History Forward, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

CURRENT EVENTS, CURRENT awareness, and faster news mean the immediate present often dominates our worldview. But for many researchers, history informs the latest hot topic.

Hot Topic: 2006-2007 State Shared Taxes And Appropriations, Dick Phebus

MTAS Publications: Hot Topics

Based on revenue projections for FY 2006-2007, cities are expected to receive approximately $109.60 per capita for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2006.

Renovating This Old House, Carol Tenopir, Gayle Baker, William Robinson, Jill E. Grogg

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

When we turn on the faucet we expect water to flow. When we flip the power switch, we expect light. We want a house to work and to look good. This old house of online databases is getting a new look and, in some cases, a new foundation to make it more attractive and robust for 2006.

Much of the value of a renovation lies in respecting history while reinforcing the foundation to keep the house intact. Information providers are using state-of-the-art technologies to create digital historical back files and collections.

Municipal Courts Manual, Rex Barton, Melissa Ashburn

MTAS Publications: Full Publications

This guide was developed for Municipal Courts with the authority to enforce municipal ordinances.

Assessment Of The Trait Hope Scale With Social Service Providers, Andrea Kelli Mccarter

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability of the Trait Hope Scale when used with a sample of socials service providers. Scale scores were collected from 104 social service providers in the southeastern region of the United States. Data was collected using self report surveys from a population of case managers in the social service field. Univariate analyses were conducted to determine the make up of the sample which was primarily white females having a graduate degree. Additionally, Bivariate analyses were used to compare the mean scores of the agency, pathway and hope scale between genders and …

Leadership Ability Based On Communication Style: A Quantitative Study Of The Effects Of Sex And Gender On Perception Of Leadership, Linda Pysher Jurczak

Doctoral Dissertations

Work to date on masculine and feminine communication styles in leadership roles is limited. Much of the leadership research reflects an interest in the differences between the styles of men and women, but relatively little has been done focusing on feminine and masculine communication styles. This study seeks to fill in some of the gaps. The quantitative design of this study is based on Goldberg's (1968) experimental paradigm and used an Internet-linked survey consisting of four different sex and gender combinations. The survey included Renzetti's (1987) Sex Role Attitudinal Inventory, a brief description of a leader, and a Likert-type scale …

Madam President: A Content Analysis And Media Effects Approach To Investigating News Nedia Coverage Of Female Presidential Primary Candidates, Tiffany Jane Shoop

Doctoral Dissertations

From the early 1900s when the first Congresswoman, Jeannette Rankin, in reference to a reporter, shouted, “Tell him to go to hell!” to the late 1980s when gubernatorial candidate Evelyn Murphy, in reference to an unflattering picture of her in jogging shorts published in the Boston Herald, stated, “Just some kind of parity among us, that’s all I’m asking,” the tension between women in political positions and the news media has been a topic of considerable scholarly interest (Witt, Paget, & Matthews, 1995, p. 186, 183). This research project continues the stream of research on news media coverage of …

Being Authentic In Life And On Stage: A Phenomenological Investigation Of The Actor As Character, Sanderien Marieke Bosshardt

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to describe the process of character development as experienced by the actor. Twelve professional actors participated in 60 to 90 minute phenomenological interviews in which they were asked to talk about their experiences of character development. Each participant was asked to respond to the following statement, ''Take a moment to think about a specific character you played. Please describe for me in as much detail as you can what stood out for you during the development of that character."

Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. The transcripts were analyzed individually and in a group format …

Measuring Effort To Interview And Track Mothers Of Newborns, Elizabeth E. Wilson

Doctoral Dissertations

Maintaining a longitudinal sample is methodologically important to the integrity of research conclusions. The amount of effort devoted to retaining samples varies across research studies. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the effort needed to interview and track longitudinal respondents and the respondents' demographic characteristics, their collateral information, and various measures of the respondents' stability. The sample consisted of 246 mothers of newborns who were interviewed twice over 6 to 12 months as a part of the Volunteer Infant Parent Study. By using eight variables and latent class analysis, mothers of newborns were categorized into …

Identifying The Underpinnings Of Compulsive Behavior: A New Measure Of Addiction Proneness, Jennifer Lynn Bowler

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation describes the development and initial validation of an indirect measure of addiction proneness. This new measurement system is based on the concept of differential framing, that is, the idea that individuals with different personalities tend to frame the same situations and stimuli in qualitatively different ways. This new measure (called the Conditional Reasoning Test of Addiction Proneness, or CRT-AP) consisted of 23 items that were designed to assess framing proclivities associated with addiction proneness. These items used Conditional Reasoning methodology to assess the extent to which implicit biases are used to justify the perpetuation of chemical dependency. Data …

Religion And Political Attitudes In South Korea, Junghyoun Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

In order to shed some light on how religion affects the consolidating democracy in South Korea, this research focuses on the relationship between individual’s religiosity and their political attitudes, particularly: (1) political tolerance, which is considered a prerequisite for democratic consolidation, and (2) political ideology, which enables us to look at the impact of religion on people’s political behavior.

In terms of the research design, this research uses a quasi-experimental design, a survey design for hypothesis testing using statistical procedures (sample size = 994, sample frame = all adults over 20 years old who live in Seoul, the capital of …

Winnie-The-Pooh And Lincoln, Too: Children’S Literature As Civic Education, Marc S. Schwerdt

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe the civic content of children’s literature. A content instrument was prepared to measure the presence of civic and political concepts within a sample of children’s literature consisting of 51 bestsellers and 35 Newbery Award winners from 1960-2001. While manifest political agendas are minimal within children’s literature, this study found a heavy presence of civic content as defined by civic education standards. Children’s literature is permeated with the structure, skills, values and behavior of democracy. Findings show that civic content corresponds with developmental characteristics in children of the relevant age group. Findings also …

Visualizing Search, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

EXPECT MORE SEARCH SYSTEMS to incorporate visualization and other sophisticated search and display techniques. They not only give a system a distinctive look, they also help users get deeper into results and stimulate thinking about search strategies. Instruction librarians can use these tools to move students and researchers beyond just plain search and retrieval.

Some traditional systems are now adopting new search tools that go beyond text results. They incorporate clustering and visualization into search display that sidesteps long lists of document titles and the tendency of users to select just from the first ten results and stop there. These …

Differential Attributions Of The Causes Of Subordinate Success And Failure By Aggressive And Non-Aggressive Individuals, Mark Connor Bowler

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examined the differential causal attributions of non-aggressive and aggressive individuals responding to incidents of subordinate success and failure. Participants (N = 407) were presented with 16 vignettes (eight describing subordinate success and eight describing subordinate failure) that utilized unique combinations of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information. Participants made attributions regarding the cause of the subordinate’s behavior (i.e., person, task, circumstances, or any combination of the three) and indicated their preferred behavioral response (i.e., praise/reward, reprimand/punish, coach/train, redesign the task, or do nothing). When responding to incidents of subordinate success, the causal attributions of aggressive individuals were similar to …

The Pressure Model Of Terrorism: A Behavioralist Model For Ethnonational Terrorism In Western Europe, 1945-2000, Ole J. Forsberg

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine which factors affect an ethnonational group's decision to utilize terrorism to obtain their desired outcomes. Current theories have reached an answer, but theoretical underpinnings of those answers are disparate and weak. Thus, in answering this question, a new model of terrorism is necessary - one which spans the four primary levels of analysis. I do this using a weak rational choice model as a cross-level link, and using psychological models as a basis for the individual-level actions.

While the model is not unequivocally and universally supported by the tests, it is able …

Political Sophistication And Partisan Cues: Insight From South Korea’S 2002 Presidential Election, Do-Kyung Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to study the effects of political sophistication on the use of partisan cues in the 2002 South Korean presidential election. Many scholars in recent years have argued that it does not matter so much that many voters are poorly informed about politics because they can use information shortcuts or heuristic cues to overcome the lack of information and still make a reasoned choice. Based on these studies, much of the political sophistication literature in political science assumes that the use of party cues in the voting booth is the hallmark of an unsophisticated voter. …

Video Game Ratings: Does The System Work For Parents?, Alexis Diane Brekke

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes of parents toward the video game rating system. This relatively new medium and industry have rapidly grown in popularity in recent years. The industry-regulated rating system designed to help parents make choices about video games has made the news of late because of the possibility of government intervention into its practices.

Parents who buy video games for their children participated in a focus group or an in-depth interview. Topics under investigation were the extent to which parents understood and trusted the rating system, how they used the system and how …

Multiculturalism And The State: Globalization, National Protection, And The Role Of Social Policy In Québec And Canada, Corey Allen Blad

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is an historical comparative examination of economic globalization (i.e., global market integration) effects on state political economic capacities in Québec and Canada. The central goal of the project is to understand how global market integration has altered the policy capacities of state institutions. Specifically, this dissertation examines Canadian multiculturalism and Québec interculturalism as social policy responses to ethno-cultural diversification resulting from increased global market integration. I argue that increased global market integration decreases state capacity to enact economic protections, but not the demand for protections from national populations. The result of these changes (ethno-cultural diversification and decreased economic …

Exploring Sexual Scripts: College Students’ Perceptions Of Seduction And Rape, Nicole Corsaro Cravens

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research has utilized script theory as an important tool for social scientists in understanding people’s attitudes and beliefs regarding problematic events, e.g., rape and violence. A study conducted by Ryan (1988) has shown the different scripts for rape and seduction scenarios perceived by introductory level college students. The present study is an extension of Ryan’s research on rape and seduction perceptions. Data will be collected from students currently enrolled at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, instructing them to describe a "typical" rape and "typical" seduction scenario. These will be analyzed to: identify common stories of rape and seduction among …