Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Life Histories Of Latino/A Teacher Candidates, Mary L. Gomez, Terri L. Rodriguez, Vonzell Agosto

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Background/Context: In this article, we explore the life histories of two Latino/a prospective elementary teachers in a large Midwestern university; examine their knowledge, strengths, and needs as teachers; and consider how teacher educators might capitalize on these. We explore how these prospective teachers’ prior family, home, K–12 schooling, and university experiences have forged their identities and affected how they think about campus peers and classroom colleagues, and their obligations to their students.

Research Questions: In analyzing these life histories, we ask: What knowledge, strengths, and needs do Latino/a teacher candidates bring to campus when enrolling in teacher education, and how …

Forgetting The Once-Seen Face: Estimating The Strength Of An Eyewitness’S Memory Representation, Kenneth A. Deffenbacher, Brian H. Bornstein, E. Kiernan Mcgorty, Steven D. Penrod

Psychology Faculty Publications

The fidelity of an eyewitness’s memory representation is an issue of paramount forensic concern. Psychological science has been un¬able to offer more than vague generalities concerning the relation of retention interval to memory trace strength for the once-seen face. A meta-analysis of 53 facial memory studies produced a highly reliable association (r = .18, d = 0.37) between longer retention intervals and positive forgetting of once-seen faces, an effect equally strong for both face recognition and eyewitness identification studies. W. A. Wick¬elgren’s (1974, 1975, 1977) theory of recognition memory provided statistically satisfactory fits to 11 different empirical forgetting func¬tions. Applied …

Nafta Toward A Common Currency: An Economic Feasibility Study, Kelly Hugger

Undergraduate Economic Review

The recent emergence of the Euro, combined with the completion of a decade of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has sparked interest in adopting a common currency for North America. This study examines the likelihood that Canada, Mexico, and the United States will adopt a common currency under fixed exchange rate regimes. The benefits and costs of a common currency are explored using the theory of optimum currency areas (OCA). Empirical research focuses on several variables including intra-regional and intra-industry trade, trade openness, gross domestic product, inflation rates, interest rates, economic growth rates, business cycle synchronization, factor mobility, fiscal …

Toward A New Social Contract: A Tripartite Mixed-Methods Analysis Of Social Sustainability At Three Land-Grant Universities, Lyndsay Josephine Agans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Increasingly, colleges and universities in the United States are adapting toward a model of behavior that incorporates issues of sustainability. This adaptation in universities and in society has implications on the organizational and nation-state level, the very core of which may serve to reshape the social contract between the two. In addition to supplying a strong counter-hegemonic argument that alters the competitive economic agenda-setting paradigm, this study serves as a tripartite comparative case study analysis of university adaptation toward social sustainability. By employing a social capital lens to understanding social sustainability in higher education, this study seeks to examine the …

The Role Of Child Protective Services Workers:, Brook Shelnutt

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses

This study examines the self-concepts and opinions of Child Protective Services (CPS) caseworkers and University of Arlington undergraduate students that are declared Criminal Justice majors. Both groups have been surveyed to also explore how CPS caseworkers and UTA students feel that they are viewed by others. This was done in an attempt to establish what similarities and differences exist between personality traits of CPS caseworkers and UTA students. The data in this study was obtained from surveys given to a sample of CPS caseworkers in Wichita County, Texas and University of Arlington (UTA) undergraduate Criminal Justice students that were enrolled …

Dissonance-Based Interventions For The Prevention Of Eating Disorders: Using Persuasion Principles To Promote Health, Eric Stice, H. Shaw, Carolyn Becker, P. Rohde

Psychology Faculty Research

The limited efficacy of prior eating disorder (ED) prevention programs led to the development of dissonance-based interventions (DBI) that utilize dissonance-based persuasion principles from social psychology. Although DBIs have been used to change other attitudes and behaviors, only recently have they been applied to ED prevention. This article reviews the theoretical rationale and empirical support for this type of prevention program. Relative to assessment-only controls, DBIs have produced greater reductions in ED risk factors, ED symptoms, future risk for onset of threshold or subthreshold EDs, future risk for obesity onset, and mental health utilization, with some effects persisting through 3-year …

Biases In Interpretation And Memory In Generalized Social Phobia, Paula T. Hertel, F. Brozovich, Jutta Joormann, Ian Henry Gotlib

Psychology Faculty Research

Two experiments examined the link between interpretation and memory in individuals diagnosed with Generalized Social Phobia (GSP). In Experiment 1, GSP and control participants generated continuations for nonsocial and ambiguous social scenarios. GSP participants produced more socially anxious and negative continuations for the social scenarios than did the controls. On the subsequent test of recalling the social scenarios, intrusion errors that shared meaning with the original continuations were made more frequently by the GSP group, producing false recall with emotionally negative features. To examine whether nonanxious individuals would also produce such errors if given emotional interpretations, in Experiment 2 the …

Attorneys' And Jurors' Perceptions Of Juvenile Offenders' Culpability, Catherine Camilletti

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Factors affecting attorneys' and mock jurors' perceptions of a juvenile offender's culpability were investigated. In study one, 30 attorneys from Texas responded to a survey in which they rated how likely 20 factors were to mitigate a juvenile offender's culpability in jurors' eyes. In study two, college students, serving as mock jurors, saw a photo of a juvenile offender and read a trial transcript. This study determined whether a juvenile offender's appearance (youthful vs. adult-like) and mock jurors' perceptions of the current crime trend would affect their verdict and sentence recommendations. Attorneys thought a juvenile offenders' youthful appearance would mitigate …

Regional Electricity In The United States, Sergio Luis Contreras

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Elasticity coefficients are estimated for the different regions in the United States. Residential, commercial, industrial, and the nonprofit sectors are examined. Demographic, climatic, and regional variables are used to estimate electricity demand. The negative income estimator that appears when paired with the number of households estimator implies that residential electricity is an inferior good. Even though it is a substitute good, natural gas does not show any significance for any sectors in the economy.

Hedonic Housing Prices In Ciudad Juarez, Karen P. Fierro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Studies of the valuation of housing attributes abound. Empirical studies of this nature for Latin America and Mexico are less common. This study utilizes data for 175 new houses in Ciudad Juarez to estimate a hedonic pricing model. All units in the sample were completed and sold between November 2006 and April 2007. For each house, a total of fourteen characteristics, both structural and locational, are employed as explanatory variables. Empirical results indicate that the structural characteristics play a bigger role than the neighborhood amenities. Surprisingly, neighborhood parks are found to lower housing values

Evaluation Of An Image Processing Algorithm For Scene Change Detection, Daniel Flores

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Despite the efforts to reduce traffic accidents by government entities and automobile manufactures, the numbers of accidents are not considerably reduced. An evaluation of an algorithm based on the fly's eye is done on this research applying its principles to detect scene change on images for printed circuit boards providing initial steps to implement this algorithm on vehicular traffic to keep track of objects moving on the field for collision avoidance purposes. The effectiveness of the algorithm is addressed through a comparison of its performance with that found in experimental data.

Allocating Emergency Response Vehicles To Cover Critical Infrastructures, Hao Lei

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Optimal deployment of limited emergency response service units in a metropolitan area is of interests to public agencies. The limited emergency units not only have to respond to the demand for service by residents and businesses, but also cover Critical Infrastructures (CIs). This Thesis formulates an improved optimization model to allocate different types of Emergency Response Service (ERS) units among their candidate base stations. The allocation of units must ensure maximum coverage to CIs, subject to the capacities of the base stations, service standard in terms of time to reach the CIs, and the availability of the ERS units (when …

Evolutionism And Historical Particularism At The St. Petersburg Museum Of Anthropology And Ethnography, Sergei Kan

Dartmouth Scholarship

The paper describes the early 20th century debates between several leading Russian anthropologists, including Lev Shternberg, on the best way of displaying artifacts in the newly refurbished Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology in St. Petersburg. These debates revealed major tensions and contradictions between evolutionism and historical particularism, as well as universalism and nationalism within Russian anthropology of that era.

Exploring Dialectic Tensions In Teachers' Relationships In School Settings, Griselda Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study explored the feasibility of using dialectic theory to study of dialectic oppositions in teachers' school-based relationships. Employing relational dialectics as a theoretical framework, this study exposed several sets of dialectical forces emerging in teachers' relationships. 23 high school teachers were interviewed utilizing a semi-structured questionnaire; interviews were transcribed and coded for analysis. The analysis revealed that the dialectic tensions of control vs. emancipation, empowerment vs. oppression are prevalent in teachers' relationships with administrators; the dialectic tensions of solidarity vs. autonomy and fragmentation vs. unity are common in the relationships of teachers with administrators and colleagues as well; while …

The Correlation Between Social Desirability And Endorsement Rate Of Test Items Using The Snap And Neo-Ffi, Cynthia Pedregon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Classic studies in the 1950s indicated that endorsement rates of personality test items are very highly correlated with the items' social desirability (Edwards, 1953; Hanley, 1956). The present study attempted to recreate those findings using two contemporary personality tests: the NEO Five Factor Inventory short form (NEO-FFI) and 59 randomly selected items from the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP). Also included were 7 Rare Virtue items and 7 Common Fault items from the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire, Brief Form. Participants (N = 286) were randomly assigned to one of four groups, which rated the items for "true of self" …

Prosecutorial Perseveration: A Reaction To Public Commitment?, Elizabeth Rose Uhl

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The startling number of cases in which prosecutors ignore clear-cut exculpatory evidence and persist in the prosecution of an almost certainly innocent suspect may be related to the public nature of these prosecutors' commitments. Research has shown that people who make a public commitment to a decision are more likely to stick with their decision in the face of contrary evidence than people who did not make a public commitment. This study examined the effects of public commitment on undergraduate mock prosecutors' decisions to prosecute in a fictional murder case. Half of the participants rendered an initial decision which was …

The Application Of Federal And Texas State Sentence Ranges In A, Jessica Leigh Wildermuth

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Sentencing decisions are usually made in situations of judgmental uncertainty because they are typically complex and make use of inherently ambiguous information (Saks & Kidd, 1980). Research on underlying judgment processes has demonstrated that anchors provide a basis for simplifying judgments that involve uncertainty (Higgins, 1996; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). To investigate sentencing disparities that occur for identical crimes, it is also essential to understand the psychological mechanisms that underlie decision making. The Selective Accessibility Model (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) states that, "people construct a mental mode that selectively increases the accessibility of anchor-consistent information" (p.1125). In turn,because this information …

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder And Support Groups, Allison Davis

Communication Theses

The purpose of this qualitative study used several methodologies in order to discover why individuals with OCD choose to participate or not participate in a face-to-face and/or online support group. The primary researcher conducted a focus group, in-depth individual interviews, and open-ended online questionnaires. Three types of participants were recruited for this research: individuals with OCD who were currently in a face-to-face support group, individuals with OCD who were not currently in a support group, and individuals who were part of an online OCD support group. The two theoretical perspectives informed the research: the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the …

Spring 2005 And 2008 World Political Economy, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

Includes a typed course outline for GECO 5108 & LECO 4505: World Political Economy for Spring 2005 and Spring 2008 and an email from Shaikh to Tinru Lin with the subject "Reading list for WPE final paper."

Leaflet: Hillary For President Exploratory Committee, 10 For 10 Donation Form, Hillary Clinton For President Exploratory Committee

Saffy Collection - All Textual Materials

Hillary Clinton for President Exploratory Committee 10 for 10 program donation form. No date given. Box 14 Folder 11

Letter: Hillary Clinton, Dear Friend, Hillary Clinton For President Exploratory Committee

Saffy Collection - All Textual Materials

Campaign letter from Hillary Clinton to a Friend. Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President Exploratory Committee. No date given. Box 14 Folder 11

(Im)Politeness In Casual Conversations Among Female Mandarin Speakers: A Practice-Based Perspective, Hui-Yen Wang

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations

The fact that people have the choice to use different words and attitudes to convey messages of various significance has been attributed to politeness concerns. However, what constitutes politeness varies from culture to culture and person to person. Therefore, a universal definition for what politeness is does not seem plausible. Furthermore, using the term `politeness' to indicate the study of all kinds of linguistic behavior is problematic because `politeness' seems to exclude behavior that is inappropriate, aggressive or rude. To provide a more comprehensive account of politeness, this research draws upon the notion of "(im)politeness" (Watts, 2003) to account for …

Employees Raising Children With Disabilities: Work-Life Experiences And Strategies For Success, Eileen M. Brennan, Julie M. Rosenzweig, Anna M. Malsch, Lisa Maureen Stewart, John Conley

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

PDF version of a presentation given at the Annual Conference of the Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology at Oregon Health and Sciences University: Work-Family Stress: Implications for Safety and Health, Portland, OR., November 2008.

The Role Of Interagency Collaboration For Substance- Abusing Families Involved With Child Welfare, Beth L. Green, Anna Rockhill, Scott Burns

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Meeting the needs of families involved with the child welfare system because of a substance abuse issue remains a challenge for child welfare practitioners. In order to improve services to these families, there has been an increasing focus on improving collaboration between child welfare, treatment providers, and the court systems. This paper presents the results from qualitative interviews with 104 representatives of these three systems that explore how the collaborative process works to benefit families, as well as the barriers and supports for building successful collaborations. Results indicate that collaboration has at least three major functions: building shared value systems, …

The Effects Of Education On Health Care Professionals' Assessment Of Intimate Partner Violence In Primary Care Settings, Sherry G. Sheffield

Social Work Dissertations

This study was designed to explore what factors influence healthcare professionals' assessment of intimate partner violence (IPV) and to examine the effects of education on healthcare professionals' IPV knowledge, opinions, and assessment behaviors. A quasi-experimental, pretest-post-test non-equivalent comparison group design was utilized to collect data. One hundred forty-nine (N = 149) healthcare professionals from three outpatient healthcare settings participated in this study. Participants completed a survey questionnaire (PREMIS) designed to measure healthcare professionals' IPV knowledge, opinions, and practices, and to assess training effectiveness. Participants' responses on PREMIS scales were evaluated to determine the relationship between sample demographics, previous training, knowledge, …

Factors Influencing Black/White Interracial Marriage Satisfaction, Gary John Herr

Social Work Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to investigate the marital satisfaction of Black-White interracial couples. This research study was undertaken by looking at the differences among interracially married Black-White couples and intra-married Black and White couples, using data from an American sample of 808 couples (White male-Black female, Black female-White male, Black male-Black female, White male-white female). These couples had presented for counseling or marriage enrichment and had taken the Evaluating and Nurturing Relationship Issues, Communication, Happiness Inventory (ENRICH) between January 2007 and mid-summer 2008. The ENRICH Inventory measures individual and dyadic responses to questions regarding marital satisfaction across multiple …

Minimum Clinical Important Differences Of Health Outcomes In A Chronic Pain Population: Are They Predictive Of Poor Outcomes?, Hilary D. Wilson

Psychology Dissertations

Psychometric validation of health outcomes measures ensures that the methods utilized to evaluate treatment effects, and aid in individual patient diagnosis are reliable, valid, and meaningful. A relatively new concept within the psychometric process of validation is the assessment of responsiveness, or the ability of an instrument to detect clinically meaningful change. Clinically meaningful change may be defined through subjective, self-reports of change, physician-based assessment, or through objective outcome criteria. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate clinically meaningful changes in chronic pain health outcome measures, as defined by objective outcome criteria. The average percent change in the …

Peforming Under Pressure: An Examination Of Performance, Workload, And Measures Of Acute Stress, Robyn D. Petree

Psychology Theses

Although many organizations use in-basket simulations as a means of selection and development, empirical guidance regarding the design of in-baskets is lacking. This study sought to fill that gap by examining the relationships between workload, stress, and performance using an in-basket simulation. Workload was manipulated by creating three variations of a task, differing only in quantity of issues to be addressed, to see how people perform under conditions that represent too much work, a moderate amount of work, and not enough work. Salivary cortisol samples were examined to investigate participants' stress levels throughout the simulation. Results revealed that performance was …

How Does A Weak Versus Strong Sense Of Self Affect People's Social And Nonsocial Involvements?, Michael Shaun Culwell

Psychology Theses

Does possessing either a strong or weak sense of self predict the number and percentage of one's self-selected social and/or nonsocial involvements? The current study is a retrospective survey study that sought to answer this and other questions. The data from three samples, using 418 total participants, revealed that sense of self was significantly correlated with the percentage of self-selected activities and the total number of self-selected jobs, and was correlated at a marginal level of significance with the total number of self-selected activities. Strength and clarity of sense of self (a combined factor of sense of self and self-concept …

School Library Orientation: Introducing Teachers To The Roles And Services Of Teacher Librarians, Allison Emery

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of this research project was to develop materials that could be used to orient teachers new to a school building to the roles and services of the teacher librarian, the resources he or she can provide, and the culture of collaboration. Research questions seeking resolution were the following: (1) What do teachers new to a school need to know in order to be able to collaborate with a teacher librarian and to be able to use the school library and all of its resources to effectively meet the academic needs of their students? (2) What practices are best …