Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2757

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Developmental psychology

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    RETIREMENT PLANNING FROM A CAREER SELF-MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE: A TEST OF SOCIAL COGNITIVE CAREER THEORY
    (2019) Penn, Lee Thomas; Lent, Robert W; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Although the retirement transition is a complex and multifaceted process for older workers, much of the existing research only examines retirement from a financial or “encore career” perspective (i.e., work after retirement, which represents only one of several possible retirement lifestyles). As the baby boomer generation nears retirement age, a more comprehensive understanding of retirement is needed to improve successful planning for this transition. The career self-management model of social cognitive career theory was used as the conceptual base for the current study. Based on this model, five new social cognitive measures of retirement planning (self- efficacy, outcome expectations, supports, anxiety, and decidedness) and a revised goal measure were developed and administered to 525 older workers anticipating retirement in the near future. Data from the first 200 participants in the sample were subjected to exploratory factor analysis and other analyses to estimate their reliability and validity. Data from the remaining 325 participants were then subjected to confirmatory analysis and to path analyses to predict retirement planning anxiety, decidedness, and goals. The data provided good overall fit to the career self- management model, and support was found for most, though not all, predicted paths in the model. Implications of the findings for the career self-management model, as well as for future research and practice directions, are considered.
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    Jiao Tong: A Grounded Theory of Chinese International Students' Transition to American Tertiary Education
    (2016) Kavaliauskas Crain, Lena; Griffin, Kimberly; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    University students are more globally mobile than ever before, increasingly receiving education outside of their home countries. One significant student exchange pattern is between China and the United States; Chinese students are the largest population of international students in the U.S. (Institute of International Education, 2014). Differences between Chinese and American culture in turn influence higher education praxis in both countries, and students are enculturated into the expectations and practices of their home countries. This implies significant changes for students who must navigate cultural differences, academic expectations, and social norms during the process of transition to a system of higher education outside their home country. Despite the trends in students’ global mobility and implications for international students’ transitions, scholarship about international students does not examine students’ experiences with the transition process to a new country and system of higher education. Related models were developed with American organizations and individuals, making it unlikely that they would be culturally transferable to Chinese international students’ transitions. This study used qualitative methods to deepen the understanding of Chinese international students’ transition processes. Grounded theory methods were used to invite the narratives of 18 Chinese international students at a large public American university, analyze the data, and build a theory that reflects Chinese international students’ experiences transitioning to American university life. Findings of the study show that Chinese international students experience a complex process of transition to study in the United States. Students’ pre-departure experiences, including previous exposure to American culture, family expectations, and language preparation, informed their transition. Upon arrival, students navigate resource seeking to fulfill their practical, emotional, social, intellectual, and ideological needs. As students experienced various positive and discouraging events, they developed responses to the pivotal moments. These behaviors formed patterns in which students sought familiarity or challenge subsequent to certain events. The findings and resulting theory provide a framework through which to better understand the experiences of Chinese international students in the context of American higher education.
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    EARLY INTERNALIZING AND EXTERNALIZING PROBLEMS: AN EXPLORATION OF RISK FOR LATER PROBLEM BEHAVIOR COMORBIDITY
    (2015) Kuhn-McKearin, Megan; Strein, William; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The comorbidity of problem behaviors within individuals is prevalent and represents a public health concern. To date, extant literature remains inconclusive regarding which presents greater risk for the development of comorbidity: internalizing problems or externalizing problems. This study addressed the question of risk by first creating an outcome variable representative of comorbid elevations in internalizing and externalizing behaviors--a first step taken by few extant studies. Logistic regression was used on data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K; National Center for Education Statistics, 2002) to answer which single problem behavior was more likely to precede comorbidity. Additionally, mediation by social and academic competence along with gender differences were examined. Results showed that, in general, externalizing problems in first grade were more likely to precede fifth grade comorbidity. Social competence and, to a lesser extent, academic competence in math mediated the problem behavior trajectories. Significant gender differences existed, however, such that, for girls, externalizing problems did not present risk for later comorbidity and, for boys, academic competence was not a significant mediator. Existing research findings and psychological theory were utilized to provide potential explanations for the results and implications for future research and practice were discussed.
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    The Distribution of Gender Differences in the Temperament and Social Competence of Preschoolers
    (2014) Schussler, Laura Elizabeth; Teglasi, Hedwig; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The literature has shown gender differences on many temperament and social competence (SC) measures, though there are gaps in understanding where differences lie and whether it varies by informant. This study investigated how temperament relates to SC and whether gender is a moderator. Rater source and the use of standardized versus raw scores and how they influence gender as a moderator was a main focus. Temperament was measured by the CBQ (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006) and the newly-developed CBQ, Teacher Form (CBQ-T; Teglasi, Schussler, & Gifford, under review). SC was measured by the SCBE (LaFreniere & Dumas, 1992), and all measures were administered to the parents and teachers of preschoolers (N = 113; M age = 57 months). For temperament, findings supported the fact that rater agreement is low and holds true for both genders. On the temperament scales on which parents significantly differed from teachers, parents tended to rate boys more favorably than teachers. The hypothesis that teacher ratings would yield more gender differences than parents was supported. There were also more differences in variability between genders for teacher ratings, revealing that teachers tended to provide more extreme ratings. Scales with distributional differences were ones that have consistently yielded gender differences. For SC, girls had significantly higher means on several scales with raw scores, and raw scores produced more temperament x gender interactions for parent ratings. Activity Level and Anger had opposite effects for gender with higher activity predicting higher SC for girls and lower SC for boys, and higher anger predicting higher SC for boys and lower SC for girls. On Sadness, there were opposite rater effects with Sadness positively associated with SC for parents and negatively associated for teachers. There were fewer gender differences for teachers when considering correlations of temperament and SC. Overall, findings support the importance of obtaining information from parents and teachers about children's temperament and SC. Moreover, these results suggest that raw SC scores are more useful than standard scores for studying relations between SC and temperament, particularly with parent raters. Shortcomings included a limited sample precluding full examination of distributional differences.
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    Assessment of Emotion Understanding in Preschoolers: Multiple-Choice vs. Open-Ended Methods
    (2014) Verron, Heather; Teglasi, Hedwig; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study examines a new method of assessing emotion understanding in preschoolers. Prior research has established that preschool is a critical time for emotion understanding development and that emotion understanding abilities are related to such important outcomes as social competence. Traditionally, measures of emotion understanding present multiple-choice questions that require children to select one emotion that is most likely to be elicited in various situations. However, this study proposes an alternative method in which children are asked to explain their answers on a subset of items. Their open-ended responses are then coded for quality of reasoning. Results establish preliminary evidence of the reliability and validity of the new assessment method. Notably, multiple regression analyses indicate that the coded emotion reasoning scores are a better predictor of social competence than scores obtained using traditional multiple-choice procedures. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are also discussed.
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    Examining Developmental Stages of Leadership for College Students: A Validation Study of the Leadership Identity Development Model
    (2011) Wagner, Wendy; Komives, Susan R; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this study was to confirm or disconfirm the leadership identity development (LID) model (Komives, Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella, & Osteen, 2006). The LID model identified six stages in the development of a leadership identity. Although used widely to inform the design of leadership development programs, it has not been validated by further research. This study used Q methodology to classify subjects with similar views of leadership into groups. The resulting groups were congruent with the stages of the LID model that are most frequently experienced during the college years. Thirty-nine subjects described their points of view about leadership and themselves as leaders through a 64-item card sort, placing the cards into piles along a continuum from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Principle components analysis was used to classify subjects into groups based on similarities in the card sorts. The way each of the four resulting groups described leadership was interpreted by examination of an aggregate card sort representing the views of the students in that group. These descriptions were compared to the stages of the LID model. Factor one from this study was similar to stages four through six of the LID model. There was no evidence distinguishing these three stages from each other in this subject sample. Factor two was similar to stage three with an independent view of self with others. Factor three was similar to stage three with a dependent view of self with others. Factor four had only a single subject, whose description did not readily fit into the LID model. Further research is needed to examine the LID stages experienced pre-college, as well as further exploration into whether LID stages four through six are truly distinct. However, the findings of this study do provide support for the existence of the stages of development most often experienced during the college years (stages three and four) as described in the LID model.
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    A Narrative Analysis of the Process of Self-Authorship for Student Affairs Graduate Students
    (2011) Schoper, Sarah E.; Komives, Susan R; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Research on preparation programs for student affairs professionals has focused primarily on identifying competencies. Limited attention has been paid to the process of how meaning is made of preparation program experiences. Of the scholarship conducted, minimal consideration has been paid to the relationship between development and the environment. The purpose of this study was to explore the process of self-authorship for graduate students within a student affairs preparation program, and the environmental conditions that promoted that process. Utilizing narrative inquiry methodology (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber, 1998; Marshall & Rossman, 1999; Shank, 2002), data was collected through in-depth interviews of six graduates of a student affairs preparation program meeting the standards set by the Council for the Advancement of Standards (2009), and analyzed using the constant comparative method (Lieblich et al., 1998). The preparation program studied was located at a public research university in the Midwest. The results were considered in relation to constructive-developmental theory (Boes, Baxter Magolda, & Buckley, 2010), self-authorship theory (Baxter Magolda, 2001; Kegan, 1982, 1994), the environment of reference model (Conyne & Clack, 1981), the learning partnerships model (Baxter Magolda, 2004), and transition theory (Schlossberg, Waters, & Goodman, 1995). Results indicated that although movement toward self-authorship was achieved those who graduated had not fully reached self-authorship. The conditions identified that promoted the process of self-authorship included self-reflection and experiencing different perspectives. For example, participation in self-reflection helped participants separate their own meaning from that of others, as well as determine the value of the meaning made. The results also indicated that the participants sought out support within the environment as they experienced transition. Finally, the findings included a description of conditions within the environment that aided the participants in deciding to select the specific preparation program studied. Although the interaction between the environmental conditions and the participants' meaning making systems varied, the findings can be transferred to student affairs preparation program environments, as well as practitioner environments.