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Mind the Gap: A Crosswalk Analysis of California Teacher Preparation Standards and Public K-12 Local Teacher Evaluations
No full textThis study utilizes an alignment-crosswalk of metro-Los Angeles public K-12 school districts’ teacher evaluation items and the California Teacher Performance Expectations to determine which local school district evaluation items do not align with pre-service preparation course work standards, and which pre-service preparation course work standards are not assessed by local school districts. Findings initially indicated that many districts utilize the California Standards for the Teaching Profession, a set of standards defined by the same California regulatory body which responsible for developing and authorizing the California Teacher Performance Expectations. Initial findings also included school district evaluations not aligned to the California Standards for the Teaching Profession which were also crosswalked with the Teacher Performance Expectations to determine their alignment and non-coverage areas. Content analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis were performed to determine what gaps exist between preservice teachers’ preparation standards and in-service early-career evaluation standards
Prevention of Combat and Operational Stress Reactions in Female Active Duty Service Members: A Literature Review
No full textThis study is a critical review of the existing literature pertaining to combat and operational stress reactions (COSRs) in female active duty service members. Presented is a description of COSRs, a review of prevention programs, and an examination of gender differences. Utilizing literature from academic journal databases, the researcher reviewed articles demonstrating the content, feasibility, and efficacy of primary and secondary prevention activities. These activities included unit needs assessments, stress inoculation, mindfulness, master resiliency training, anxiety reduction training, psychological first aid, restoration centers, deployment transition centers, debriefings, graphic novels, and the influence of family and leader systemic levels. Females’ unique experiences are narrated from the literature to include motherhood, pregnancy, contraception, menstruation, and “gendered stress.” A discussion of military sexual assault is presented. Suggestions are made for future research to involve development of COSR criteria, screening tools including unique gendered questions, oversampled efficacy studies for females, and studies focused on transgender service members
Social Influences on U.S. Postdoctoral Researchers’ Participation in ResearchGate
No full textAcademic social networking services (ASNS) will need to rely on the continued participation of their members in order to transition from venture-backed to self-sustaining businesses. Postdoctoral researchers, or PDRs, are likely to have a particular interest in membership participation as a means of distinguishing themselves professionally. The following paper is quantitative research into PDRs’ intent to participate in an ASNS from the perspectives of Social Influence Theory and Social Cognitive Theory. A survey of postdoctoral researcher users will identify the relationship between social influences and participation in an ASNS
A Clinical Guide to Discussing Prejudice Against Men
No full textPrejudice against men may result in emotional distress, interpersonal conflict, and impairments in a man’s view-of-self. It can be a contributing factor for explaining increased substance use and suicide by men, as well as rates of violence against men. Awareness of the prejudices men may face allows clinicians to form better alliances with their clients by helping them understand the feelings and perspectives of men who experience various forms of prejudice. This dissertation begins with an overview of the general causes of prejudice and a summary of the mechanisms that maintain a prejudice’s social acceptability. It then provides a taxonomy of different forms of the prejudices men face, as well as the mechanisms that maintain the social acceptability of prejudice against men. Finally, it describes examples of prejudice against men, applying the taxonomy put forth in this dissertation
The Relationship Between Multifaceted Motivational Factors and Academic Achievement
No full textThe United States has yet to reach the White House’s 2020 goal of attaining the top international ranking in college degree attainment among young adults. Researchers have investigated the academic performance variables associated with timely degree attainment for first-year college students. Prior research has indicated that poorly motivated students are likely to struggle academically, experience academic stress, and drop out of school. However, it remains unknown which types of motivation significantly affect academic achievement. The purpose of this study was to better understand which Reiss basic desires of motivation predict undergraduate academic achievement. An additional purpose of this study was to determine which basic desires of motivation, among gender and age groups, predict cumulative grade point average (GPA). Based on Reiss’s theory, I used the Reiss School Motivation Profile (RSMP) to examine which of the motivational factors predicted cumulative undergraduate GPA. Using a convenience sampling method, I recruited 459 community college students to complete the online surveys. The bivariate ordinal logistic regression results indicated a modest yet significant relationship between 4 of the Reiss motivation factors (curiosity, order, status, and vengeance) and cumulative GPA. The multivariate ordinal logistic regression results indicated a modest yet significant relationship between 3 Reiss motivation factors (order, vengeance, and physical exercise) and cumulative GPA, but not between gender, age, and cumulative GPA. The results of this study may provide useful insights to academic institutions administrators regarding how they can use motivational factors to identify students who may need academic assistance
Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms as a Moderator of Affective Reactions to Perceived Interpersonal Behaviors
No full textIndividuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms often struggle with heightened sensitivity and arousal in response to perceived threats. Moreover, interpersonal dysfunction in GAD has become increasingly a focus of empirical investigation and treatment, given the possibility that responses to social interactions may contribute to GAD symptom maintenance. Laboratory studies and cross-sectional trait assessments of interpersonal problems comprise most of our understanding of interpersonal dysfunction in GAD. However, how GAD symptoms interact with perceived interpersonal threats to predict affective responses (increased arousal, lower valence) within daily life remains poorly understood. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine effects of in vivo social perceptions on state affect, and how GAD symptoms may moderate those relationships. Participants (N = 161) completed baseline measures of trait GAD and depression symptoms (as a covariate). Then participants completed 30 social interaction surveys over the subsequent 10 days. In each survey, participants rated interaction partners’ dominant, cold, and immoral behavior (each conceptualized as interpersonal threats) as well as their own arousal and valence in response to the behavior. Multilevel modeling analyses of between- and within-person effects revealed that mean perceptions of cold and immoral behavior predicted higher arousal and lower valence as hypothesized, whereas mean perceived dominance unexpectedly predicted only lower valence. All within-person fluctuations in social perceptions predicted both higher arousal and lower valence. Regarding the moderating effects, GAD symptoms unexpectedly buffered the effect of average perceived cold behavior on valence and strengthened the effect of average perceived immoral behavior on valence. These results provide a deeper understanding of how social perceptions may contribute to affect in naturalistic interactions, and add to the literature on interpersonal correlates of GAD symptoms
The Reacculturation of Veterans Post Transition Assistance Program
No full textAs many as 61% of veterans have sought reintegration services after the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) to help them cope with culture shock. TAP is not designed to address cultural transition. However, culture shock has resulted in disassociating behavior, unemployment, and homelessness in the veteran community. The purpose of this study was to identify the unmet reacculturation needs of post-active duty veterans in Chester County, Pennsylvania, who have utilized the United States’ Department of Defense’s TAP. Using an ethnographic approach, this study identified the extent that the TAP helps 13 post-active duty veterans obtain the autonomy stage of culture shock theory to the extent of career transition preparation only. In areas of reacculturation, veterans reported feeling on their own to manage mounds of paperwork during a perceived pointless “check the box” out process course set to calibrate an individual to civilian life through “toxic positivity.” This study found that veterans do not perceive separation from the military as solely a career change but as a cultural and lifestyle change. TAP does not address the needs of cultural and/or lifestyle changes, which impedes veterans' reacculturation through autonomy obtainment. It is recommended that TAP expand the application of 10 U.S.C. §1142(b)(10) to include cultural transition as a part of the transition plan. Addressing veterans' culture shock will help reduce the 20 veteran suicides per day due to readjustment issues leading to positive social change
Early Detection of Decline in Executive Functioning in Alzheimer's, Frontotemporal, and Lewy Body Dementia
No full textCognitive deficits associated with an aging population have been the focus of clinical research interest as an increasing number of people survive into older age. These research interests have determined that there is a need to accurately detect the onset of cognitive changes that show the beginning of a dementia syndrome and to differentiate among disorders with distinct etiologies and sites of pathology. Impairment in executive functions has been recognized as one cognitive feature in which changes and deficits have been reported in various types of neurodegenerative disorders. Mild cognitive impairment is often viewed as a transitional stage between normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), frontotemporal lobe dementia (FTD), and Lewy body dementia (LBD). Neuropsychological evaluations can assist in detecting the onset of cognitive executive functioning changes and decline in the early stages of dementia disorders. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a change in executive functioning profiles in subjects who initially have no dementia but later receive a diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders of Alzheimer’s, frontotemporal lobe, and Lewy body dementias. Possible early executive functioning indicators might be found that could then be used to identify at-risk individuals before a formal diagnosis is made. Strategic interventions could then be provided to lessen the effects of these disorders. Early intervention allows more time for individuals to gain access to strategies and plan for changes that may occur throughout the process of these disorders. It also provides information for further study. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that once a subject has been diagnosed with dementia a detectable change has occurred in executive functioning measures. Participants were 34 persons between the ages of 61-89 who had been given a series of neuropsychological tests of executive functioning. Individuals who met criteria for AD, LBD, and FTD disorders were included in this sample, and their scores from baseline evaluation to initial diagnosis of AD, LBD, and FTD were analyzed to determine changes in executive functioning measures. The executive functioning tests included verbal associative fluency retrieval of animal and vegetable exemplars, Trail Making Part B, and Digit Span Backward from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMR-R). Analysis included changes in executive functioning measures when the diagnosis of AD, LBD, or FTD was made after a change from the initial diagnosis of no dementia. The results of this study are that patients performed similarly across different measures, with the exception of the Trails B subtest, which indicated a significant difference. This subtest difference emerged between the initial evaluation and the first diagnosis of AD, LBD, or FTD
Nurturing Creative Problem Solving in Social Sciences in Middle School Students
No full textThe purpose of this non-experimental research study was three-fold: (1) to investigate the relationships among the attributes of creative problem solving ability (divergent thinking, convergent thinking, motivation, general knowledge and skills, and environment) and their relationships in the humanities (specifically those that took enrichment classes in that area), (2) to explore if there were group differences in Creative Problem Solving (CPS) attributes between students that had a high or low perception of class activities as measured by the My Class Activities (MCA) survey, and (3) to explore whether specific components of learning environment were impacted by certain enrichment classes. The CPSAI (Creative Problem Solving Attributes Inventory) and the MCA (My Class Activities) were administered to 114 students in grades six through eight at a suburban New York middle school on Long Island. The groups were subdivided by the total number of social science courses taken, those that participated in a humanities based enrichment class (rhetoric and debate or Model UN), high and low perceptions of class activities, and achievement in social studies classes as measured by their final grade for the year. Results supported that social science elective classes had a statistically significantly positive effect on student perception of their own CPS attributes, and classroom learning environment was a significant aspect of student perception of their CPS attributes, accounting for 29% of the variance. This study added to the body of quantitative research regarding creative problem-solving in the social sciences. It supported the validity of the CPSAI and its use in the social sciences and mathematics. Most importantly, it informed teachers of the importance of designing classroom learning environments that supported critical thinking and creative problem-solving while being appropriately challenging
Order and Learning in Sequential Neural Structured Prediction
No full textStructured objects such as sets, trees, and sequences appear in a variety of scientific and industrial domains. Developing machine learning methods that generate these objects is of interest for both scientific understanding and practical applications. One approach to generating structured objects, called sequential neural structured prediction, decomposes generation into a sequence of predictions, with each prediction made by a deep neural network. Choosing an appropriate sequential representation of each structured object and selecting an effective learning objective are key to adopting this approach. The standard method for learning specifies a canonical ordering of elements in the sequential representation and maximizes the likelihood of the resulting sequences. This thesis develops two streams of research that explore alternatives to this fixed-order, maximum likelihood approach for sequentially generating sets, trees, and sequences, with a focus on natural language processing applications. In the first part of the thesis, we focus on text generation and study degenerate properties of fixed-order maximum-likelihood learning that are surfaced in practice, motivating new learning methods. We characterize the degeneracy using three properties that are observed in generated text: non-termination, logical incoherence, and repetition. To study non-termination, we develop theory that allows us to formally prove that conventional text generation methods can generate infinite-length sequences with high probability. To study logical incoherence, we create a dataset for investigating the degree to which a model logically contradicts its preceding statements. For reducing the three types of degeneration, we develop unlikelihood training, a new learning method which penalizes task-specific textual properties. In the second part of the thesis, we remove the requirement of a fixed generation order by developing a learning framework, called non-monotonic generation, that yields models capable of selecting input-dependent generation orders. This flexibility is natural for set-structured objects, which lack an inherent order. For ordered objects, such as text, the selected orders induce an interpretable latent structure and allow us to study whether canonical orders such as left-to-right are optimal for learning. We use non-monotonic generation for generating multisets, parse trees, and text. The investigations and techniques presented in this thesis lead to promising directions for future work