Masticophis bilineatus

Number of Pages: 4Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Masticophis taeniatus

Number of Pages: 6Integrative BiologyGeological Science

A Case Study Analysis among Former Urban Gifted High School Dropouts

The dropout social problem has been the focus of researchers, business and community leaders, and school staffs for decades. Despite possessing significant academic high school capabilities, some gifted students drop out of school. The research problem for this study includes, how and why former gifted urban high school students chose to drop out. The conceptual framework for this case study is Bronfenbrenner\u27s human ecology theory. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of what lead former gifted urban students to dropping out of high school. Using purposive sampling, 4 participants, two men and two women, were selected for semi-structured interviews. The sample included an African-American, Filipino, Caucasian, and Haitian/Cuban/Syrian, whose ages ranged from 38-77 years old. The semi-structured interviews were analyzed using first, second, and pattern coding. The resulting themes were (a) family discord, (b) school not interesting, and (c) no role model, and (d) minimum family participation. The former gifted high school students\u27 dropout experiences were rooted in the microsystem perspective of the human ecology theory. The implications for social change from this study findings may help inform those who manage and teach gifted programs about the mindsets of students in gifted services

Enhancing Provider Knowledge on the Benefits of LARC Use in Teens

The present study investigated the effects of introducing an educational intervention to enhance the knowledge of family and obstetric providers in the rural area on the benefits of Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARCs) use in teens. Teen pregnancy is associated with many different health risks including eclampsia, endometritis, and systemic infections. These mothers are also at risk of poverty, lower education levels, reduced employment, and dependence on government assistance programs. Apart from their lack of knowledge on the different types of contraceptives available, many teens do not take their oral contraceptives appropriately. LARCs can include IUDs or implants that prevent unwanted pregnancy up to 20 times better than pills, patches, or vaginal rings. However, it has been found that the majority (97%) of female teenagers aged 15-19 who had sexual intercourse used condoms followed by 65% of them using the withdrawal method and 53% using a pill form of birth control and only 20% of these females had ever used LARCs. This quasi-experimental research project was posted to a social media website for providers who are currently providing care to teens in a family or obstetric practice. This post contained an educational intervention followed by a posttest that generated data through the Qualtrics website. The data collected was then evaluated to assess whether there was an increase in the providers knowledge of the most recent research on the benefits of LARC use in teens after education on this topic was provided

The effect of self-operated prompts on leisure participation by persons with mental retardation

The use of permanent prompts for individuals with severe disabilities has been shown to be effective in acquiring new skills, improving the accuracy and maintenance of existing skills, and in eliminating the need for trainer prompts. However, this technology has not been evaluated for its potential impact in promoting leisure participation. In this study, two men with mental retardation were administered auditory and/or visual prompts to investigate their effect on increasing participation in a leisure activity. In addition, their performance was evaluated to establish whether continuous versus intermittent schedules of the prompts would influence participation. The data were collected using a partial interval observation system and evaluated using a multiple baseline and an alternating treatment design. While both men increased their participation modestly in the leisure activity, there was no substantial difference between the two prompting schedules

Essays on Mixture Models

When considering statistical scenarios where one can sample from populations that are not of interest for the purposes of a study, bivariate mixture models can be used to study the effect that this missampling can have on parameter estimation. In this thesis, we will examine the behavior that bivariate mixture models have on two statistical constructs: Cronbach\u27s alpha \cite{C51}, and Spearman\u27s rho \cite{S04}. Chapter 1 will introduce notions of mixture models and the definition of bias under mixture models which will serve as the central concept of this thesis. Chapter 2 will investigate a particular psychometric issue known as insufficient effort responding (IER), which we model as a mixture model, while Chapter 3 will deal with mixture models in a more general setting. Chapter\u27s 2 and 3 will demonstrate that the sign of the bias and the bias under bivariate mixture models for Cronbach\u27s alpha and Spearman\u27s rho, respectively, are polynomial functions in the mixing proportions of the underlying distributions. This will be followed in each chapter by simulation results and observations