A psychometric validation of a Disability Attitude Implicit Association Test

Pruett, Steven R The University of Wisconsin - Madison 2004 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Disability Attitude Implicit Association Test (DA-IAT). Three hundred nine undergraduate and graduate students from rehabilitation services/rehabilitation counseling, special education or counseling psychology classes taught by rehabilitation counselor educators from 10 universities in the United States took part in this research. The DA-IAT is a timed, paper-based instrument that measures the differential association of the target concepts of people with disabilities and people without disabilities with a positive or negative attribute. Participants categorized two pages of disability and nondisablity symbols that were regularly interspersed with words that were positive or negative. On one page participants were asked to associate positive words with disability symbols and negative words with nondisablity symbols; on the second page these concepts were inversed. Twenty seconds were allowed for each page. The number of correct responses for each page was compared thus reflecting how well a group of people associate positive concepts with disability versus negative concepts with disability. Scores on the DA-IAT were compared with scores on the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale (ATDP) Form A. Both attitude measures were compared to demographic variables (age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, personal disability, family member with a disability, student status, major, number of disability-related classes and number of disability practica or internships) and psychosocial variables related to attitudes toward people with disabilities (social desirability, fear of death, internal and external motivation to respond without prejudice toward people with disabilities, and contact with people with disabilities). Variables associated with personal contact with people with disabilities were found to be the dominant predictors for the DA-IAT. Cognitive-based variables, such as the type of motivation to respond without prejudice toward people with disabilities, and the amount of rehabilitation training were predictive of ATDP scores. Research results may assist in understanding the nature and extent of implicit negative attitudes toward people with disabilities and identifying needed interventions to modify negative attitudes toward people with disabilities.

Response patterns in monkey second somatosensory cortex (SII) during a passive touch roughness classification task

Pruett, John Robert, Jr Washington University 2000 해외박사(DDOD)

Little physiological data exists for macaque SII during controlled manipulation of parameters related to tactile roughness. Active touch experiments demonstrated that macaque SII cells code surface roughness and hand movement parameters in their average firing rates. In the present study monkeys performed a roughness classification task with tactual gratings that were delivered by a robotic stimulator to a stabilized finger pad. Single-unit recordings described SII cell firing patterns, while monkeys classified the roughness of the gratings. They had to ignore contact force and scanning speed to make correct classifications. In this way, their task modeled problems posed by texture discriminations in everyday experience and more specialized situations such as Braille reading, where we filter out changes in force and speed, related to hand movement, to evaluate object texture and form. Findings included cells that changed mean firing rates as quasi-linear, positive or negative functions of increasing groove width (the intended variable for roughness), force, and/or speed, arguing for a mean rate code for roughness features in SII. Cells typically changed mean firing rates for two or three dependent variables, suggesting the population response must be considered for an unambiguous representation of roughness. Effects of groove width, force, and speed were additive or interactive, and the variety of response functions was similar to that found in a prior passive touch study of primary somatosensory cortex (SI). The SII sample population tended to show increased firing with both increasing groove width and increasing force (and to a lesser degree, speed). This correlation is consistent with psychophysical studies that found increasing groove width or force increases perceived roughness magnitude. It, therefore, strengthens the argument for SII's direct involvement in roughness perception, and it predicts the monkeys would have confused smooth at high force with rough at low force, which they did. For some SII cells, average firing rate changes with groove width and force correlated with monkey mean performance levels and with trial-wise correct and incorrect responses. These combined findings constitute neural correlates for the limits of roughness perceptual constancy and/or the dimensional integration of groove width and force in roughness classification.

The Relationship between the Interactive Computer Interview System and the "Praxis II" Principles of Learning and Teaching Test

Pruett, Sharon M University of Kansas 2012 해외박사(DDOD)

The objective of this study was to compare the relationships between the subtests of the Interactive Computer Interview System and the ETS Praxis II Principles of Learning and Teaching examination. In particular, this study compares scores on the ICIS instrument subtests to those gathered from the same classroom teachers on the Praxis II PLT examination. Data collected from fifty-eight teachers, thirty-three secondary and twenty-five elementary teachers, was used in this study. Results indicate the strongest correlations, alpha = .05, exist between the Praxis II PLT exams and the ICIS Knowledge of Content and Knowledge of Teaching subtests for the secondary teachers and the ICIS Knowledge of Teaching for all teachers. Correlations also existed at the significance level, alpha = .10, for all teachers for the ICIS subtests Knowledge of Content, Knowledge of Students, and Working with Others and for the secondary teachers for Knowledge of Students and Working with Others. A correlation was indicated for the elementary teachers at the significance level, alpha = .20, between the ICIS Knowledge of Teaching and the Praxis II PLT exam.

Intergenerational Mentoring: A Systematic Review of Facilitating Knowledge Transfer in a Multigenerational Workforce

Pruett, Candace Christine University of Maryland University College ProQuest 2020 해외박사(DDOD)

The business problem addressed in this study is the failure of some organizations to adopt mentoring programs, which are necessary to transfer knowledge in a multigenerational workforce. The workforce is becoming generationally more diverse. Over 36.5 million employees will become eligible for retirement within the next 10 years, leaving many leadership positions vacant in the workplace. Due to the gap in both knowledge and experience within the remaining workforce, many organizations will struggle to fill vacant, senior-level positions. Mentoring is a tool to enact knowledge transfer throughout the workforce. This qualitative study synthesizes the literature on how mentoring programs influence knowledge transfer throughout a multigenerational environment. In addition, this study examines the best strategies regarding implementing mentoring programs. The theoretical framework for this study includes knowledge-based theory, social exchange theory, and generational cohort theory. The systematic review identifies 699 articles, and the snowballing method is implemented to locate five additional articles. Duplicates are removed, leaving 487 articles for abstract review, of which 209 move to the full-text review stage. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are applied, and 43 articles meet the requirements and critical quality assessment for coding key themes. The general findings of the study are that mentoring influences knowledge transfer through the formation of collaborative relationships, mitigates negative stereotypes, builds larger social networks, enhances tactic and explicit knowledge for both mentor and mentee, and increases technological adaptability. Findings for best strategies to consider when implementing mentoring programs include management support, the creation of a knowledge-sharing organizational culture, and intergenerational mentoring. This study contributes to the development and replacement of leadership positions and comprises a valuable tool for organizational succession planning. The development of intergenerational mentoring programs can lead to increased knowledge sharing across organizations.

A Woman's Place: Lesbian Feminist Conflicts in Contemporary Popular Culture

Pruett, Jessica University of California, Irvine ProQuest Disserta 2021 해외박사(DDOD)

Managed Abundance: A Quantitative History of American Fiction, 1931-2009

Pruett, Jordan ProQuest Dissertations & Theses The University of 2022 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation considers the “problem of abundance” in literary studies, or the fact that the archive of extant literary texts is too large for manual analysis by literary historians. Though the nascent field of computational literary studies has proposed text mining methods for analyzing large text collections, that field has typically considered abundance only as an epistemological problem facing literary historians. By contrast, this dissertation considers abundance as a practical quality of historical literary markets. Just as the archive has more texts than literary historians can read, the literary market has more titles than publishers, booksellers, and readers can consider. Focusing on the United States fiction market between 1931 and 2009, the dissertation analyzes three institutions that social actors relied on to manage the size of the literary market: bestseller lists, book reviews, and the authorial brand-name. The dissertation is methodologically diverse, combining readings of individual texts, publishing history, and quantitative analyses of datasets on bestsellers and book reviews.