Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2757
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Item PERSPECTIVES OF VETERANS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: EXPLORING THE TERM "STUDENT VETERAN" AND THE IDENTITY SHIFTS BETWEEN MILITRAY AND COLLEGE(2014) Hernandez Baron, Paola Maria; Griffin, Kimberly; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Given changes in the G.I Bill, warfare, and higher education, post 9/11 veterans are a unique and expanding college student population. The purpose of this narrative inquiry study was to better understand how post 9/11 student veterans perceive and identify with the term "student veteran." The findings suggest that "student veteran" is more than a label and shares some qualities of a social identity. The participants wanted to be treated as "regular students," but also valued what the term "student veteran" signifies including a unique sociohistorical, cultural, and personal context and history that framed their academic experience. Participants described the term as a way to uphold military culture amidst the more ambiguous college culture. Participants felt the term carries imposed meanings and judgments different from that which participants themselves attribute to it. Findings suggest both theoretical and applied implications for expanded cultural competency around interacting with heterogeneous student veteran populations.Item Exploring the Relationship between Socio-Cultural Issues Discussions and Social Change Behaviors(2011) Segar, Thomas Christopher; 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 explore the relationship between student participation socio-cultural issues discussions and student participation in social change behaviors. This study utilized data from the 2009 administration of the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership (MSL), a national research project designed to explore student experiences and environmental factors that contribute to student leadership development. An internet-based survey was used to collect data from participants at 101 higher education institutions throughout the United States. The usable sample for this study consisted of 94,367 undergraduate students who completed at least 90% of the core survey and scales used for the study. An adapted version of Astin's college impact model (Astin, 1991; 1993) provided the conceptual framework for the study. In this input-environment-outcome (IEO) model participant demographic characteristics and pre-college experiences represented the inputs. The environment included institutional characteristics, positional leadership experiences, leadership capacity, and socio-cultural issues discussions, which was the main independent variable for the study. Self-reported frequency of participation in social change behaviors was the outcome and dependent variable. Results indicated that the regression model accounted for 46% of the variance in predicting student participation in social change behaviors. Demographic characteristics were a positive but weak predictor of participation in social change behaviors. Institutional characteristics were found to have little influence in predicting student participation social change behaviors. Pre-college leadership experiences and positional leadership experiences were found to be strong predictors of social change behaviors. After accounting for these variables, socio-cultural issues discussions were found to be a positive weak predictor. When matched with other environmental predictors, socio-cultural issues discussions contribute to student leadership experiences related to participating in social change behaviors. Implications for practice provide practitioners with strategies to increase the likelihood of student participation in social cange behaviors.Item 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.Item Examining the Socially Responsible Leadership Development Outcomes of Study Abroad Experiences for College Seniors(2010) Lee, Amye Mae; Komives, Susan R.; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis explored the leadership development outcomes of study abroad experiences for college seniors. This is the first study attempting to identify the link between involvement in study abroad, a growing trend in higher education, and student leadership development, a value of higher education institutions. Data from the 2009 Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership was used in this study, specifically the sample of over 31,000 seniors from 99 four-year institutions. The hypothesis that study abroad contributes significantly to student leadership development was tested using hierarchical regression statistical analysis. This study's model explained 21% of the variance in the omnibus measure of the Socially Responsible Leadership Scale (SRLS), with pre-college leadership development factors as the only independent variable with significant contribution. A post-hoc analysis found that there was a small but significant difference on the omnibus SRLS between those who did, and those who did not, study abroad. This study's findings offer implications for higher education practitioners and research.Item Preschoolers' Emotional Understanding of Others Who Are Ethnically the Same or Different(2004-11-22) Mende, Linda; Strein, William; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)According to Mayer and Salovey (1997), emotional understanding is the ability to "label emotions and recognize relations among the words and the emotions themselves". While children at an early age are aware of racial differences, do children understand emotions differently for others of another ethnic group? This study considered the potential impact of race on understanding the emotions of others, by focusing on children's accuracy in inferring story characters' emotional response during emotion-eliciting situations. The cultural component involved the racial match between the participant and the story character. Study findings indicate that preschoolers understood others' emotions similarly, regardless of racial background. Study results also examined children's overall accuracy and assignment of emotional intensity. Similar to previous emotional understanding results, preschoolers found happy emotions the most easily identifiable and the most intense. In contrast, angry emotions were the most difficult to identify and the least intense emotion.