Adult Curiosity Dimensionality

The need to discern the dimensions of curiosity is compelling as researchers strive to understand better the developmental implications of learning. Six hundred and two participants completed 10 curiosity scales. Scores were factored using Principal Components Analysis and a varimax solution. A threefactor interpretation of the curiosity construct was supported

Turnover Intent Among Middle School Teachers

The purpose of the study was to examine the relations among mentoring, adaptation, satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intention. Two-hundred fifty two middle school teachers from ten Midwestern U.S. schools were surveyed. Hierarchical regression results demonstrated that positive mentoring experiences, successful adaptation, and greater commitment reduced the likelihood of turnover intent

Exploring the Roles of Adult Education and Human Resource Development before and after Retirement of Faculty and Practitioners in the Fields

Given the large numbers of baby boomers who are at an age where retirement is an active consideration, it is critical for HRD and AE scholars and practitioners to consider seriously their roles in preparing such professionals for making appropriate decisions; making their retirement healthy, productive, and rewarding; and assisting such professionals in achieving their visions once that decision is made. There is a void in the literature addressing these roles. In this symposium, we will explore with attendees what these roles might be, expanding our understanding about what retirement means, and how to expand the research in these areas

Occupational Stress: Towards an Integrated Model

Occupational stress impacts employees’ physical and mental health, as well as productivity and performance. This literature review provides an overview of occupational stress, highlighting two major models. The relationship between supervisory behavior and occupational stress is explored

Digital Literacy: A Demand for Nonlinear Thinking Styles

This paper makes a case for a direct relationship between digital literacy and nonlinear thinking styles, articulates a demand for nonlinear thinking styles in education and the workplace, and states implications for a connection between nonlinear thinking styles visual literacy, and intuitive artistic practice

Investigating the Effects of Land-Cover Change on the Hydrologic Conditions of a Restored Agricultural Area in Everglades National Park

In the Florida Everglades, remodeling of natural wetlands to promote agriculture and human settlement, have profoundly altered its hydrologic regime. As a result of anthropogenic changes, many restoration programs have been initiated to restore hydrologically controlled wetland ecosystems. One such restoration project that has been ongoing for the past 27 years is the Hole-in-the-Donut restoration program in Everglades National Park. The restoration program is unique in that it utilized an unorthodox technique to restore the landscape. The viability of the restoration technique was assessed by coupling long-term hydrologic and evapotranspiration data with water chemistry analyses. Key results indicated that the restoration method did not change groundwater levels within and down gradient of the restored sites. Evapotranspiration rates were significantly reduced as a function of restoration. Concentrations of ions and nutrients were significantly different in groundwater and surface water within the restored areas compared to outside the restored areas

Extracting Semantic Propositions from Dependency Trees

Käesoleva bakalaureuse töö eesmärk on luua teek, mis loendab ja väljastab sõltuvussüntaksi puudelt mustrite abil propositsioonid. Propositsioonid on lause osad, mis kirjeldavad ideid, mida antud lausega tahetakse edasi anda. On leitud, et propositsioonide leidmine ja loendamine on heaks mõõduks, et seostada propositsioonide arvu loetavuse, mälu või Alzheimeri haiguse ennustamisega. Varasemalt on propositsioone lausetest leitud manuaalselt, minu programm PCP teeb seda automaatselt mustreid kasutades. Mustrid on regulaaravaldised, mis on vastavalt AID manuaalile koostatud ja nad jaotatakse kolme suuremasse gruppi: predikatsioonid, modifikatsioonid ja ühendajad. Mustreid kasutatakse sõltuvussüntaksi puudel, mis esitavad lause süntaktilist struktuuri. Sõltuvusstruktuuri ja propositsiooide struktuuri ehitus on omavahel sarnane. Kuna parserid ei oska vigast lauset parsida, mille tõttu ka mustrid ei leia õigeid propositsioone, siis tulemused sõltuvad lause ehituse korrektsusest. Samuti, kuna erinevad parserid töötlevad lauseid erinevalt, siis on suur tõenäosus, et ka propositsioonide arv võib erineda.The main goal of this thesis is to implement a tool for extracting propositions from dependency parse trees. Propositions are part of sentences that describe the ideas what people want to express. Finding the propositions and counting them has been found to be good measurement to relate it with readability, memory or prediction of Alzheimer’s disease. Earlier works have extracted the propositions manually, my program called Proposition Count based on Patterns, short for PCP, does it automatically using patterns. Patterns are regular expressions that are created on the basis of AID manual and they are classified into 3 groups: predications, modifications and connectives. Patterns are used on depend-ency parse trees that present the syntactic structure of a sentence. It has been found that the dependency structure and propositions suit more naturally and is direct. The results depend a lot on correctness of the sentence, because parsers are not able to correctly parse faulty sentence and patterns can’t extract correct propositions from incorrect sentences. Results are also affected by what parser is being used, if using different parser than I used with the same patterns, then the possibility that extracting different count of propositions is high

Methods matter: Call for research methods submissions

Editorial for the Human Resource Development Quarterly journal

INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN DOMAIN-SPECIFIC BELIEFS ABOUT WRITING, WRITING SELF-EFFICACY, WRITING APPREHENSION, AND WRITING PERFORMANCE IN UNDERGRADUATES

Writing has been called the "neglected `R'" in the traditional trilogy of reading, `riting, and `rithmetic (National Commission on Writing, 2003). Writing performance continues to languish, despite societal expectations that students should be able to write clearly and precisely. Sociocognitive theory predicts that writing beliefs are related to writing performance. Much research has focused on writing self-efficacy beliefs and their link to writing apprehension and writing performance, while research exploring another type of belief, domain-specific beliefs about writing itself, is sparse. This study examined the relations between these beliefs about writing, writing self-efficacy, and writing apprehension, and their links to writing performance. This research was a three-phase study. Phases I and II involved instrument construction and validation, while Phase III examined the relations among the research variables. Two hundred eighty-seven Hispanic women students completed a test battery in class measuring demographics, beliefs about writing, writing self-efficacy, and writing apprehension. Writing performance was measured separately on an authentic writing task, a take-home paper, by both an overall grade and six component grades. Inter-rater agreements on these grades ranged from r = .83 to .91. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that beliefs about writing independently predicted writing performance and that some beliefs about writing (e.g., Good writers adapt their message to their readers) are adaptive and associated with strong writing performance, while other beliefs about writing (e.g., Readers are impressed by big words) are maladaptive and relate to weak writing performance. In addition, apprehension about making grammatical and other mechanical errors had a stronger negative effect on writing performance than the more traditional concept of writing apprehension, which concerns sharing one's writing with others and having it critiqued. After controlling for domain-specific beliefs, writing self-efficacy weakly predicted writing performance as well. These results support the need for future research examining the relations among the research variables and writing performance in samples that are more balanced with respect to gender and ethnicity, and with other writing tasks. Because beliefs about writing demonstrated the largest beta weights in the regression equations, these beliefs may have the most promise for promoting both writing research and practice

Occupational Stress and Instigator Workplace Incivility as Moderated by Personality: A Test of an Occupational Stress and Workplace Incivility Model

This research investigates the relationship between occupational stress and instigator workplace incivility, as moderated by personality, to select organizational outcomes (i.e., perceived physical health and intent to turnover). Data were collected from 206 fulltime working adults in the healthcare industry utilizing Amazon MTurk. Moderated hierarchical regressions were conducted to test the possible moderating role of personality on the stress-incivility relationship; the results demonstrated that conscientiousness and agreeableness dampened the stress-incivility relationship and neuroticism and extraversion strengthened the relationship. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted also to explore the degree stress and incivility predicted the outcome variables of perceived physical health and intentions to turnover; the data indicated support for the notion that greater stress and incivility positively predicted turnover intent