Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item CHILDREN’S UNDERSTANDING OF MERIT IN FAIR RESOURCE ALLOCATION(2017) Noh, Jee Young; Killen, Melanie; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While previous studies have documented children’s consideration of merit in fairness decisions, less is known about specifically how merit has been conceptualized by children, as effort and outcome were confounded in merit (Baumard et al., 2012; Kienbaum & Wilkening, 2009). Thus, the current study aimed to disentangle these two components of merit in understanding children’s conceptions of fairness. One hundred children (3 to 6 year-olds and 7 to 10 year-olds) participated in this study. Children’s understanding of merit was documented in four contexts: a) when effort and outcome were confounded (baseline), b) when outcome was controlled (i.e., when the level of effort was varied), c) when effort was controlled (i.e., when the level of outcome was varied), and d) when given the opportunity to prioritize either effort or outcome. Novel findings were that with increasing age, children prioritized effort over outcome and thus found it to be fair when more resources were allocated to the hardworking peer than to the productive peer. That is, older children were more likely to focus on the positive intentions of an act rather than positive consequences compared to younger children. In addition, when merit was examined when effort and outcome was controlled, children were still able to take into consideration for merit, thereby allocating more resources to a peer who was hardworking over a peer who was lazy (when outcome was the same) and to a peer who was productive over a peer who was unproductive (when effort was the same). Interesting findings were revealed when authority figures’ messages were present: all-aged children rejected a teacher’s allocation decision that was against merit; however, older children rejected a teacher’s equal allocation decision while younger children found a teacher’s equal allocation to be okay. The current study made a significant contribution to the current literature by examining the process in which children integrate two different aspects of merit in their fairness decisions.Item The Role of College Students' Perceptions of Effort Source on Self-Evaluations of Academic Ability(2016) Muenks, Katherine; Wigfield, Allan; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the present studies I investigated whether college students’ perceptions of effort source influenced their perceptions of the relation between levels of their own effort and ability in mathematics. In Study 1 (N = 210), I found using hypothetical vignettes that perceptions of task-elicited effort (i.e., effort that arises due to the subjective difficulty or ease of the task) led to perceptions of an inverse relation between one’s effort and ability, and perceptions of self-initiated effort (i.e., effort that arises due to one’s own motivation or lack of motivation) led to perceptions of a positive relation between one’s effort and ability, consistent with my hypotheses and prior research. In Study 2 (N = 160), participants completed an academic task and I used open-ended questions to manipulate their perceptions of effort source. I found that participants in the task-elicited condition endorsed no overall relation between effort and ability, and participants in the self-initiated condition endorsed an overall inverse relation, which is inconsistent with my hypotheses and prior research. Possible explanations for the findings, as well as broader theoretical and educational implications are discussed.Item Social Preferences Among Clinicians in Tanzania: Evidence from the Lab and the Field(2011) Brock, J. Michelle; Leonard, Kenneth L.; Agricultural and Resource Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Health worker effort can have a dramatic influence on patient outcomes. This is especially true in developing countries, where poor overall quality of healthcare systems is the norm. There is evidence, however, that despite low levels of education and experience, clinicians in Tanzania underperform relative to their ability (Leonard and Masatu, 2005). Understanding clinicians' intrinsic motivations may help us identify nonmonetary incentives for improving quality of care. To this end, this dissertation considers how risk, pride and social information impact altruism among Tanzanian clinicians. In Chapter 4, we study how risky environments impact social preferences. With experimental evidence from games with risky outcomes, we establish that social preferences of players who give in standard dictator games are best described by consideration of equating ex ante chances to win rather than of ex post payoffs. The more money decision-makers transfer in the dictator game, the more likely they are to equalize payoff chances under risk. Risk to the recipient does, however, generally decrease the transferred amount. Also, while some people behave generously regardless of the attributes of others, pride and knowledge about the recipient characteristics may also motivate altruistic behavior. In Chapter 5, we explore the role of social information and pride in determining pro-social behavior among clinicians in Tanzania. We find that making someone feel proud increases the number of "fair" allocations (50/50 giving) and that those who do not respond to decreased partner anonymity are less responsive to induced pride. Chapter 6 combines laboratory data on social preferences and field data on clinicians' workplace effort. This study is unique in that we observe the same subjects from the laboratory in a field setting, where pro-social behavior has large welfare impacts. We use modified dictator games to define subjects as fair types, social information responsive types and pride responsive types and test how those characteristics are correlated with effort in the workplace. We find that clinicians responsive to both pride and social information provide higher than average effort in the workplace. These results are suggestive of Ellingsen and Johannesson's (2008) theory of social preferences wherein social identity and esteem interact to motivate altruism.Item investigating the effects of HPC novice programmer variations on code performance(2007-12-07) Alameh, Rola; Basili, Victor R; Computer Science; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this thesis, we quantitatively study the effect of High Performance Computing (HPC) novice programmer variations in effort on the performance of the code produced. We look at effort variations from three different perspectives: total effort spent, daily distribution of effort, and the distribution of effort over coding and debugging activities. The relationships are studied in the context of classroom studies. A qualitative study of both effort and performance of students was necessary in order to distinguish regular patterns and define metrics suitable for the student environment and goals. Our results suggest that total effort does not correlate with performance, and that effort spent coding does not count more than effort spent debugging towards performance. In addition, we were successful in identifying a daily distribution pattern of effort which correlates with performance, suggesting that subjects who distribute their workload uniformly across days, pace themselves, and minimize interruptions achieve better performance.