Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Educational psychology; Cognitive psychology'

A gap in the knowledge of literature was found in that no research had been performed examining the effect different physical learning environments have on cognitive load levels. This is important because high cognitive load levels are known to affect learning. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study is to examine the relationship between the overall, intrinsic, and extraneous cognitive load and the physical learning environment (online and traditional classrooms) of undergraduate college students in an Introduction to Psychology class, at a medium-sized liberal arts college. Cognitive load theory provides a framework that has been used extensively to promote learning. Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental activity imposed onto the learner. Research noted what has not been examined is how different physical learning environments may affect cognitive load. For this study, the physical learning environment is the place where learning takes place. Three research questions sought a correlation between cognitive load levels and the physical learning environment, online or traditional classroom. The Leppink scale was used to measure cognitive load. A survey was sent, one week in December, until the minimum sample size was determined. Data were determined using a Spearman correlation. The findings indicated no significant relationship exists between Overall Cognitive Load and the physical learning environment (r _s = –0.011, p > 0.05), Intrinsic Cognitive Load and the physical learning environment (r_s = –0.082, p > 0.05), and Extraneous Cognitive Load and the physical learning environment (r_s = 0.086, p > 0.05). Recommendations for future research include looking at gender differences and testing at different times during the semester.

Many studies have investigated problems with the ability achievement discrepancy (AAD) method of diagnosing specific learning disabilities (SLDs). The definition of an SLD includes the presence of a deficit in one or more cognitive processing systems. Researchers in other studies found that the AAD method overdiagnoses English language learners and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and underdiagnoses students with cognitive processing deficits. Although SLD diagnostic methods have been widely researched, much less information is available regarding SLD diagnostic methods that predict important student outcomes, such as high school completion. The General Abilities Index (GAI) is an SLD diagnostic method that can identify cognitive processing deficits. This study examined the relationships between cognitive processing deficits and the GAI method, high school completion status, performance on state standards assessments, and SLD eligibility. Using a multivariate, nonexperimental design, this study analyzed 149 datasets from records of students tested for an SLD between 1996 to 2013. A GLM analysis found that several types of cognitive processing deficits predicted math and writing performance on the state standards assessment and predicted not being diagnosed with an SLD, while the GAI method failed to predict any relationship with the dependent variables. Positive social changes from this study may include improved SLD diagnostic practices and improved educational interventions that target the cognitive processing deficits. Improved educational outcomes for SLD persons may reduce the high rates of unemployment, substance abuse, and incarceration experienced by the adult SLD population.

This study was an initial investigation of the relationship between self-presentational concern and chronic injury. An experiment with two manipulations was conducted to determine how situational self-presentational concerns affected expressions of toughness that may be linked to health-damaging behaviors that cause chronic injury. Covariates of self-presentational concerns and mental toughness were measured and determined to be equivalent across groups so that effects could be attributed to the manipulations. For a manipulation of situational self-presentational concerns, collegiate middle-distance and distance runners assigned to experimental groups read a passage. The passage was based on the components of a self-presentation model, impression motivation and impression construction. It indicated the need for runners to score high on toughness questionnaires to be evaluated favorably by coaches and governing bodies of the sport in order to achieve goals. All participants completed two questionnaires pertaining to mental toughness and tough attitude toward training through pain and injury. Expressions of mental toughness related to confidence and control were higher for participants exposed to heightened levels of situational self-presentational concerns than participants lacking the exposure. For a second manipulation, participants in one of the experimental groups were additionally exposed to a prototype describing the performance of the most successful runners on the mental toughness questionnaire. Expression of mental toughness of these participants did not differ significantly from other participants, failing to provide evidence of the prototype-matching process. Participants' expression of tough attitude toward training through pain and injury did not differ in relation to exposure to either manipulation. The results support the integration of self-presentational concerns related to mental toughness as a psychological antecedent in a model linking stressful, athletic situations and chronic injury.

Drawing on research in the fields of neuroscience, reading cognition, and the history of writing, the author explores the condition of reading today. Rather than accepting the apocalyptic pronouncements that the Internet is "dumbing down" current readers, the author argues for a more nuanced understanding of the effects of digital media. He argues that the literacies needed for the new digital realm are not new, but are literacies developed over thousands of years. The author argues for the need of more education and instruction in the use of digital media, and that the digital realm requires new proprioceptive (spatial awareness) abilities to navigate.

To date, research on Binge Eating Disorder is limited compared to studies on other eating disorders, including Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Given that Binge Eating Disorder recently became an independent diagnosis in the DSM-5, has significant medical implications, and commonly involves psychiatric comorbidity, it is worthwhile to explore contributing factors and evidence-based treatment for the disorder. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is an evidence-based treatment for Binge Eating Disorder, and most experts agree that while it yields positive treatment results, there is room for improvement in treatment. Shame is an important contributing factor in the development and maintenance of Binge Eating Disorder. The purpose of this review of the literature was to examine shame literature in order to explore potential methods for improving evidence-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Binge Eating Disorder. The importance of researching Binge Eating Disorder is reviewed, and then shame is explored from a cognitive behavioral standpoint. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Binge Eating Disorder is outlined, and limited techniques that address shame in treatment are identified. Recommendations for addressing shame more directly in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Binge Eating Disorder are then made prior to suggestions for future research.

The aim of this study was to examine children's reasoning about the fairness of differential treatment by teachers and to determine if there were circumstances under which children may consider differential treatment to be acceptable. Participants (n = 76), ages 6 to 11 years, evaluated hypothetical stories entailing unequal distributions of different educational goods: quantity of work, turns to read aloud, and individual attention from the teacher. The teacher's rationale for the differential treatment was systematically varied in order to determine whether it altered participants' evaluations. In addition to a condition in which no rationale was given, four different rationales were proposed to underlie the differential treatment: differentiating instruction for high achieving students, differentiating instruction for struggling students, preferential treatment for favored students, and preferential treatment for boys.

The findings showed that differential treatment in the form of individual teacher attention was most acceptable to students, followed by differential assigned work, and lastly differential turns to read aloud. Children drew a distinction between the condition in which no rationale for the differential treatment was provided and the conditions in which they were. When a rationale was not presented to explain the teacher's behavior, the majority of participants rejected the differential treatment. When rationales were introduced, participants were significantly more likely to endorse differential treatment for struggling and high achieving students than for favorite students or boys. Participants were also significantly more likely to endorse differential treatment for struggling students than for high-achieving students. Analysis of justifications supporting children's evaluations of differential treatment indicated that children drew a distinction between differentiated instruction and preferential treatment.

The presence of age differences in children's judgments of differential treatment depended upon the particular educational good at stake and the teacher's rationale. When no rationale for the differential treatment was provided, 6-7 year old participants were significantly less likely to endorse differential treatment than either 8-9 year old or 10-11 year old participants. When a rationale for differential treatment was presented, there were only two conditions (out of twelve) in which significant age differences emerged. Although the majority of participants favored modified work for high achieving students, 6-7 year old participants were significantly less likely to favor it for high achievers than 10-11 year old participants. Further, 10-11 year old participants were significantly less likely to favor extra turns for struggling readers than 8-9 year old participants.

Previous research had not yet examined justice reasoning as applied to the distribution of educational opportunities in the form of differential treatment. The present study found evidence that children as young as 6 years did not equate fairness with simple equality of treatment, but recognized that special needs may warrant an unequal distribution of the teacher's individual attention, extra opportunities to read aloud, or a modification of assignments. The findings add complexity to the view that the justice concept of equality emerges earlier in ontogeny than the justice concept of merit or need. In this study, participants across ages 6 to 11 years considered claims to equality, merit, and need (i.e., the acceptability of differential treatment for high achievers and struggling students). The results present a more nuanced picture of children's justice conceptions than has been discussed in earlier work.

The Ironman Triathlon is an epic endurance event consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run. There is paucity in the literature relating to how athletes learn how to negotiate this event. This qualitative study was conducted over a 9 month period, to align with the 2013 Ironman training and racing season. Seven athletes were selected for participation in the study. Utilizing a case study approach, the Ironman athletes' learning pathways were examined through in-depth interviews and audio and video content personally captured by the participants.

The learning pathways revealed the athletes initially learned through cognitive means, i.e. social interaction, reading, Internet sources, and the observation of others. As athletes traversed the learning pathway, they subsequently operationalized the knowledge they learned and constructively made it meaningful to their respective personal training and racing situations. At the terminal end of the learning pathway, the athletes operationalized the learned content in an experiential learning cycle. During the entire learning pathway, the athletes practiced the learned content, which is best characterized as behavioral learning. The audio and video content provided by the athletes empirically validated the interviews.

The interviews with the athletes were coded. Some unifying themes emerged from the data independent of cognitive, constructivist, behavioral, or experiential learning theories; e.g. the importance of mental toughness, the understanding of pain during the training and racing process, how success is measured, the importance of training with a power meter, and motivating factors.

U.S. schools teach predominately to the analytical, left-brain, which has foundations in behaviorism, and uses a mechanistic paradigm that influences epistemic beliefs of how learning takes place. This result is that learning is impeded. Using discourse analysis of a set of Piagetian children, this study re-analyzed Piaget's work. This study found that, although the participating children answered from both an intuitive and an analytical perspective, Piaget's analysis of the interviews ignored the value in the intuitive, right-brain answers; Piaget essentially stated that the children were only doing valuable thinking when they were analytical and logical. Using other comparable re-analysis as the yardstick, this study extended Piaget's original interpretations. Implications for teaching and learning are also described. This study also extends a call for research into a pedagogical balance between analytic and intuitive teaching.

A web-based usability evaluation was conducted to examine the effects of two text-resizing methods on normal and low vision Internet users’ online reading experience. Normal or corrected to normal vision (N/CTN; N = 50) and low vision (N = 5) participants completed two blocks of four mock Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) reading tests on the experiment website using fixed width (FW) and text reflow (TR) text-resizing methods. Subjective visual fatigue scores, modified System Usability Scale (SUS) score, time on task, and accuracy were collected as dependent measures for user experience evaluation. Results showed that when FW method was presented in the second block, N/CtN participants’ visual fatigue continued to increase, along with a significant decrease in time spent on reading tasks. Such effects were not observed in TR method. Results of low vision participants were different from those obtained in lab settings, suggesting that testing environment may have played a role in low vision participants’ performance. Implications of the current research can be used to guide future web accessibility research in regards to online experiment design and recruitment of participants with visual impairments.

The human brain is an ongoing dynamic system not activated by experience but nudged from intrinsic activity into new network configurations during perception and learning. Ongoing neural activity during rest is assumed to reflect these intrinsic dynamics in a relatively closed system state. Traditionally, inter-regional connectivity in this system is measured by obtaining time-locked correlations in BOLD activity using fMRI. It is well documented, however, that neural activity unfolds across time and is not isolatent to some reference point.

This exploratory study is a theoretical analysis of how a lagged analysis of resting state dynamics in fMRI could represent persistent representations of knowledge in the neocortex. A novel procedure using both surface based maps and independent component analysis (ICA) is applied to a small group of 54 adolescents. The ICA methods appear to reveal lagged structures with different information than traditional resting state analysis. The group level results are symmetrical between hemispheres and may represent high level perceptual systems. 

The components obtained from this exploration are then used to attempt understand how these knowledge systems in neocortex frame mind-wandering frequency when reading aloud in a subset of 38 individuals. The results did not correlate with any known neural systems related to mind wandering, but the methods here are unique. One of the identified components shows significant difference in the lag structure of the occipital cortex as a function of mind wandering frequency during oral reading. This demonstrates that it may be worth exploring the timing in visual system to understand why individuals mind wander when reading aloud. Reverse inference is used to interpret results and suggest future approaches.

The Pencil-tapping Task is an assessment of key neuropsychological components such as cognitive inhibitory control (Smith-Donald, Raver, Hayes, & Richardson, 2007), attention, and working memory (Xue, Atkins-Burnett, Caronongan, & Moiduddin, 2011). These constructs are parts of executive function, which governs the brain’s ability to analyze and respond to its own processes. Given that executive function has been linked to number knowledge, expressive and receptive vocabulary, and classroom engagement (Fitzpatrick & Pagani, 2012), we may expect tests of executive function and its development to correlate with tests of cognitive functioning, academic achievement, and classroom behavior problems. This study, an analysis of archival data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey of 2009, seeks to find connections between inhibitory control, cognitive function, academic achievement, and behavior in one of the largest studies ever to feature the relatively new Pencil-tapping Task.

The central variable in this study, the Pencil-tapping Task, is used as an operationalization of inhibitory control development. Research questions seek to identify relationships between this task, a measure of receptive vocabulary development called the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn & Dunn, 2007), a measure of expressive vocabulary development called the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (Brownell, 2000), measures of language and mathematics skill development contained within the Woodcock-Johnson-III battery (McGrew & Woodcock, 2001), and measures of behavioral control observed by Head Start classroom teachers (West, Tarullo, Aikens, Malone, & Carlson, 2011).

Multi-level, simple regressions demonstrated that a measure of inhibitory control significantly predicted variance on measures of functioning, achievement, and classroom behavior problems. Large effect sizes were observed for the relationship between inhibitory control and cognitive functioning, as well as the relationship between race/ethnicity and cognitive functioning. These results are similar to those obtained by other researchers of preschool executive function development, and provide support for a general model of executive function predicting both cognitive functioning, academic achievement, and classroom behavior.

The purpose of the present study was to explore the influence of trust, help seeking/help giving, and relation-inferred self-efficacy on the onset of flow experience in a dyadic relationship between an elite athlete and their coach. The social cognitive theory of triadic reciprocal determinism was used to examine the relationship of the elite athlete and their trusted coach in a high-pressure athletic environment as it related to the ability of the elite athlete to achieve a flow state. Using a multiple case study approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five coach-athlete dyads. Data were analyzed using thematic network analysis (i.e., looking for thematic ties to established theory, as well as emerging themes). Prior research has focused on flow as a personally experienced phenomenon arising due to constructs that are largely self-controlled (e.g., loss of self-consciousness, merging of action and awareness, autotelic nature, centering of attention, feeling in control). Findings of this study, based on the triadic reciprocal determinism model, showed support for a more expansive model for flow in elite sport dyads, including behavioral, personal, and environmental influences, particularly in the area of trust. Based on findings of this study, recommendations are made for further research, including the necessity for sports flow research to move to a more applied focus using social cognitive theory. Implications of this line of research include uncovering the method by which an elite coach might create an environment in which flow experiences and improved performance outcomes might ideally occur for the athlete.

Emerging adulthood is recognized as a growing developmental stage that varies within and across cultures. Existing research generally characterizes this period as one of identity exploration, instability, self-reflection, and optimism. For many in this cohort, life events that were once organized into a stable sequence such as entering the workforce, marriage, and having children are increasingly a highly individualized and somewhat unstructured trajectory. This lack of structure provides opportunities and potential challenges to those transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. To this end, experiential acceptance may be an important target skill for intervention in guiding emerging adults through this tumultuous period.

Experiential acceptance is multiply defined in the literature, but is generally understood to be a present-focused approach that encourages a willingness to engage with one’s moment-to-moment experience, nonjudgment of moment-to-moment experiencing, and nonattachment to thoughts or feelings. This focus may be useful for both therapists to use as an intervention tool in helping clients to form an integrated sense of self; a developmental task that is predictive of mental health in young adults. Despite the apparent fit between experiential acceptance and the emerging adult age range, no studies to date have explored experiential acceptance as an intervention with this population.

Accordingly, the purpose of the current study was to qualitatively explore how therapists facilitate experiential acceptance with emerging adult clients. A sample of 5 client-therapist pairs from community counseling centers was selected, and two videotaped therapy sessions for each participant pair were analyzed. Inductive content analysis was employed, using open coding and abstraction methodology to create a hierarchy of themes. Results indicated that experiential acceptance, overall, was rarely employed by trainee therapists in psychotherapy sessions with emerging adults. The one parent theme that emerged across participants was termed Increasing Awareness. Comments aimed at increasing flexibility in thinking were also observed, but not across participants. It is hoped that this study will provide foundational information on experiential acceptance use in psychotherapy with emerging adults, which could be used to promote more attention to skill and theory integration in clinical training and spur future research on experiential acceptance use in therapy-as-usual.

Industries in which effective teamwork is critical for safe operations are quickly discovering the benefits of simulation-based training (SBT). Research has shown the aviation industry, military operations, and medical field utilize impressive simulations allowing people to refine their technical and nontechnical skills in a "no consequence" environment. Grounded in team cognitive and group dynamic research, researchers are focusing their efforts on how to effectively use simulation as a training tool. The focus of this study was to determine how the degree of simulation difficulty affects teamwork. With a unique high fidelity simulation lab, the participants completed 3 hour work shifts to a run a simulated regional airline. Teamwork was based on the following five variables: contributing to teamwork, interacting with the team, keeping the team on track, expecting quality, and having the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA's). The experimental design consisted of three teams randomly assigned to either a minimal, moderate, or maximum level of difficulty. After completion of the simulation, the participants completed an online survey for evaluations of their performance. The findings suggest some components of teamwork are affected by the design of the simulation, while others are not as susceptible to its effects. It was discovered the level of difficulty significantly affected individual and group performance in their expectation of quality and having relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA's). As simulation difficulty only affected two out of the five teamwork variables, this leads to the conclusion that generally a team will perform based on their level of team cognition and efficient group behaviors, not necessarily based on the degree of difficulty presented during a simulation.