How could anxiety affect socializing skills in school
147649564
Anxiety, Affect, Amplification: MACOS and the Multi Media Classroom, 1963 1974
Twentieth century American schools trained students in the arts of self discipline, nudging them into the kind of behavior thought essential to participating productively in a capitalist democracy. Children learned to control their minds and bodies, to check the impulse to wander, to blurt, to daydream. They learned to look, think, and attend, to assess and analyze. Pictorial media, perhaps the century's other most powerful educational institution, posed a peculiar challenge for the guardians of this educational system. On the one hand, educators were convinced that they had to use educational media if they were to train modern citizens. They believed that to scrutinize a textbook picture, to examine a stereopticon slide, to watch a movie was to practice the perceptual and critical skills on which civic and political participation depended. On the other hand, educators worried that visual media's unpredictable power might impede their efforts to help students create rational, purposeful selves, selves that could choose and act independently. After all, pictures could provoke unpredictable visceral and physical responses in their viewers. Mass pictorial media upended the standard Cartesian account of the mind as a mental state separate from the body, and threatened the idea of subjects freely controlling their own thoughts and actions. Pictorial media pressed hard on the tender junctures between emotion and reason, body and mind, self and society, active consciousness and passive desire. Anxieties about media's impact on students flared in the 1960s and early 1970s, when a group of Cambridge based curriculum reformers led by psychologist Jerome Bruner launched a middle school social studies curriculum known as "Man: A Course of Study," or MACOS. MACOS relied heavily upon film, but did so in a radically different way than previous classroom films. Eschewing overt didacticism, the MACOS films offered up silent documentaries of various biotic and human communities. The aim of these films was to serve as primary sources that would encourage students to act as anthropologists, observing and discussing their contents accordingly. Whereas educators saw the intentional ambiguity and seeming artlessness of these well crafted documentaries as an advantage, critics viewed them as a liability. To evangelicals and political conservatives, the stark imagery and persuasive medium forced students into messy visceral terrain that had no place in American public schools. By the 1970s, the films had become a political football, cited by conservatives as evidence of everything that was wrong with American education. In this paper, I'll describe how and why the films were produced, used, and received by the various stakeholders in the curriculum. Building upon recent scholarship on the history of educational media, affect, and materiality, I'll explain how the MACOS controversy neatly illustrates the changing stakes surrounding the use and contents of classroom films in the 1960s and 1970s. In doing so, this paper will contribute to new understandings of the relationship between media, subjectivity and modes of political interaction in American schools.
Victoria E M Cain
8208949
Gender Difference and Test Anxiety Thesis submitted to The Graduate College of Marshall University In partial fulfillment of the Requirements of the degree of Educational Specialist in School Psychology By
This study compared male and female students in the 4, 6, and 10 th grades to see which sex had more test anxiety. The students are from a rural town in Southeastern Ohio. A total of 85 students filled out the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale. The students were given the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) two weeks prior to, one week prior to, and one week after the Ohio Fourth and Ohio Sixth Grade Proficiency Tests and the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) The hypotheses of this study are that the 10 grade females will have greater test anxiety than the 4 and 6 th grade males and females and the 10 grade males two weeks prior to the high stakes testing, one week prior to the high stakes testing, and their anxiety will decrease the most during the posttest. The results were analyzed using T tests. The results showed there was a significant difference between the 6 grade males and females during the pretest administration, with the males showing more anxiety. Gender Difference and Test Anxiety Introduction The Ohio proficiency exams for 4 and 6 grades test their knowledge in reading, writing, mathematics, citizenship, and science. In 2004, mathematics and science scores for the 4 grade and mathematics and writing for the 6 th grade rose. In the school year 2004 2005, the 4 grade reading and writing tests will be replaced by new achievement tests. Because the No Child Left Behind Act focused on mathematics last year and scores went up, could the language arts scores raise this year because that is the focus? The 10 grade will be given the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) Starting in 2005, students must pass this test to receive their high school diploma. There are nineteen states that currently have exit exams and five other states that are phasing them in by the year 2008. The test requirements were compiled by the Ohio General Assembly in 2001 (Ohio Board of Education, 2004) The General Assembly listed three purposes for the OGT. The state wants to make sure the students have at least high school levels of achievement in the subjects tested and that the students meet the federal requirement for high school testing. Like the proficiency tests for the 4 and 6 grades, the OGT also has five subjects. Reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies are the subjects the students need to know for the OGT. Because the OGT is new, teachers must change their curriculum to make sure all items are covered. The state of Ohio has given them two years to make this change. If the students do not pass the test on the first try, they can retake it in the fall, spring, and summer of their junior and senior years. So, does the fact that the students can retake the parts of the tests they failed make them less anxious, and if so, are boys or girls the least anxious? 1 Gender Difference and Test Anxiety The purpose of this study was to determine if male or female students have greater test anxiety on the high stakes testing. This information will benefit teachers, administrators, and parents. They will want to know this information because it will help them focus on who needs the most attention on test taking strategies or relaxation techniques before the tests. The hypotheses for this study were that the 10 grade females will have greater test anxiety two weeks before the high stakes testing compared to the 4 th and 6 grade males and females and the 10 grade males, the 10 grade females will have greater test anxiety one week before the high stakes testing and third, the anxiety levels will decrease the most for the 10 grade females during the posttest. Review of Literature Keith, Hodapp, Schemelleh Engel, and Moosbrugger (2003) found that emotionality, worry, interference, and lack of confidence are the four main areas that affect test performance. They came to this conclusion after administering the German Test Anxiety Inventory to 302 nursing students. They found that lack of confidence was the best predictor of test anxiety and interference was the weakest predictor. Oostdam and Meijer (2003) tested if worry, emotionality, and lack of confidence were better measures of test anxiety than worry and emotionality alone. They also wanted to know if test anxiety would inhibit performance on an intelligence test. Their subjects were 207 Dutch students aged 11 14 years old. Oostdam used the Test Anxiety Questionnaire to measure the subjects' anxiety levels. To measure the subjects' intelligence, the experimenters used three tests of verbal 2 Gender Difference and Test Anxiety ability, two tests of reasoning, and two tests of visual spatial ability from the Netherlands Differentiation Test. The results showed that measuring for worry, emotionality, and lack of confidence was better than measuring worry and emotionality alone. The results also showed that, for the subjects that had test anxiety, the negative effects went away after the first scale of the intelligence test was given. The researchers hypothesized one reason for this may be the students are nervous because they do not know what to expect and then they calm down after they start. Reidy (2002) studied the effect of anxiety on memory, by testing 45 undergraduate students assigned to a high or low anxiety group based on scores from the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory. Participants also rated 40 items (20 worry and 20 nonworry) on how often they thought about each. Finally, he had them fill out the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The study took place in a room, where a cartoon was shown on the overhead projector. First, the participants rated the 40 items, and then drew the cartoon from memory. After two minutes they were asked to write down all of the items they could remember. The results showed that low anxiety people think more about nonworry items and can recall these better. Highly anxious people, on the other hand, think about worry items more often but could recall both worry and nonworry items the same. So, while anxious people worry more often it does not affect their memories. In an experiment that studied accountability for testing in milepost grades, Stecher and Barron (2001) found that high stakes testing does have negative effects on 3 Gender Difference and Test Anxiety curriculum and teaching. The grades in this study were 4, 5, 6, and 7 in Kentucky. As an incentive for schools to do well on the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS) the teachers can receive monetary rewards for passing scores. The sample for this study was 72 schools for the elementary grades and 80 schools for the middle school sample. The study looked at professional development, school and class organization, curriculum and instruction, test preparation, and school level practices of the tests. A survey was completed by the teachers in this study. The results showed that teachers were more concerned with the subjects the students were to be tested on that year than any other subjects. It also showed that teachers in the 4, 5, and 7 th grades had more professional development hours than the 6 grade teachers. This showed that the school system wanted the teachers who had to give the proficiency tests to be better prepared than the other teachers in the school. Schonwetter, Clifton, and Perry (2002) studied effective teaching on student outcomes. They wanted to see if previous knowledge of a subject, perceived learning and achievement, different teaching styles, student differences (i.e. anxiety, gender, etc. and prior performances were related. Schonwetter had 418 undergraduate students participate in this study. The students were put into groups of 40 60 students and asked to fill out a questionnaire before the lecture. They then watched a taped lecture, wrote an achievement test, and filled out another questionnaire before they left. The results showed that the students who were familiar with the content thought they did well on the achievement test and did not learn much from the lectures. The students who did not know the content before the class did not think they did well on the 4 Gender Difference and Test Anxiety test but learned from the lecture. The results also showed that high school GPA had a positive effect for both groups while test anxiety negatively affected both groups. However, students not familiar with the subject had higher test anxiety and lower achievement than the students familiar with the subject. The experimenters broke down the results into male/female. Males had lower test anxiety and lower learning perceptions but they achieved higher than the females. Minnaert (2003) wanted to see if test anxiety was a moderator of test expectancy and memory of prose. He tested 292 undergraduate freshmen. He assigned them to either the No Retention Expectancy group or the Retention Expectancy group depending on the first letter of their last name. The subjects took a silent reading test and then a retention test. The Retention Expectancy group knew there was going to be a retention test, while the No Retention Expectancy group did not. Minnaert then tested each subject for test anxiety with the Mehrabian Achieving Tendency Scale. The results showed that both low and high anxiety subjects in the Expectancy group did better than everyone else. Also, high anxiety subjects in the No Expectancy group did worse than everyone else. The hypothesis that test anxiety would be a moderator was supported. Smith and Smith (2002) studied whether motivation and anxiety played a role in test performance. Their study consisted of 112 undergraduate students in educational psychology classes. The subjects had to take two tests for the class, the Posttest Index of Test Motivation, and the Posttest Index of Test Anxiety. Five days before the students took the educational psychology test they filled out the Learning and Study Skills 5 Gender Difference and Test Anxiety Inventory. The subjects were told that one of the class exams counted t
LeAnn Chandler
218883502
Developing a Method: How Dance/Movement Therapy Affects Pain, Anxiety and Quality of Life in Pediatric Oncology
Children diagnosed with cancer experience physical symptoms such as gastrointestinal distress, general illness, and pain related symptoms as well as psychosocial symptoms such as emotions of sadness, anger, fear, isolation from family members, and self esteem changes. A comprehensive understanding of these concerns and symptoms can develop a better means for communication and support of children and their families. Inspired by the potential for dance/movement therapy to decrease pain and anxiety and increase overall quality of life with the pediatric oncology population, the researcher explored the impact of dance movement therapy groups on 4 year old pediatric oncology patients with varying cancer diagnoses. Weekly sixty minute sessions took place with a heterogeneous group of at a suburban area pediatric children's hospital, the Lehigh Valley Reilly Children's Hospital. Two session plans focused on the goal of either decreasing pain or anxiety and increasing quality of life. The anxiety and coping skills session produced an observed shift from high energy in the form of loud rapid speech, fluid storylines, expansive and quick arm and leg movements to an observed calm energy in the form of deeper breathing, control over body and mind and clearer verbal communication. Due to the pandemic of Covid 19, information on pain management and dance/movement therapy could not be obtained. Suggestions for future studies include the use of dance/movement therapy during the cancer experience, with the pediatric oncology population focusing on predominant symptoms being experienced and how dance/movement therapy can be utilized to address the trauma that comes with a cancer diagnosis. DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY AND PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGY 3 Developing a Method: How Dance/Movement Therapy Affects Pain, Anxiety and Quality of Life in Pediatric Oncology "by using creative expression, a child or adolescent with cancer can express feelings about the course of the disease and tumultuous treatment through dance/movement, music and art. This outlet allows the patient to creatively and kinesthetically process the assaults of cancer and its treatment, and thus establish a stronger sense of self and improved quality of life." (Madden et. al. 2010, p.133) Introduction The National Cancer Institute reports that in 2018 an estimated 15,590 children and adolescents between the ages of 0 19 were diagnosed with cancer and an estimated 1,780 will have died from the disease in the United States (National Cancer Institute, n.d. To put this into more of a perspective, about 43 children each day are diagnosed with cancer. Children diagnosed with cancer experience physical symptoms such as gastrointestinal distress (nausea and stomachache) general illness (fatigue) and pain related symptoms and psychosocial symptoms such as emotions of sadness, anger, fear, isolation from family members and selfesteem changes (Linder et. al. 2018) A more comprehensive understanding of these concerns and symptoms can develop a better means for communication and support of children and their families. Pain and anxiety are prominent experiences of children diagnosed and undergoing treatment for cancer. Pain, as described by the International Association for the Study of Pain (2018) is an "unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage." Ruland and Hamilton (2010) noted within their study that pain parameters such as intensity, location and pattern were characterized as uncomfortable, annoying, feeling sore, treatment related, procedure related, headache, acute or DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY AND PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGY 4 chronic. Anxiety, as described by the American Psychological Association (2020) is "an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure." Ruland and Hamilton (2010) additionally noted that anxiety was characterized as general, social, school related, procedure related, treatment related, separation, nervous, and feeling. Dance/movement therapy, as defined by the American Dance Therapy Association is the "psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive and physical integration of the individual" (American Dance Therapy Association, n.d. Koch et. al. (2019) suggested that dance/movement therapy decreases anxiety and depression and increases quality of life as well as improve psychological functions like emotion regulation which can be facilitated through authentic expression, mind body integration and physiological changes. Similarly, the response to change, crisis and emotional and physical stress in our lives can significantly affect the immune system and illnesses that plague our bodies (Sherwood, 2008) Together, pediatric oncology and dance movement therapy creates medical dance/movement therapy. Cohen and Walco (1999) believed that including dance/movement therapy as part of the team addressing the psychosocial needs of the oncology children and adolescents, there would be more of an opportunity to facilitate a patient's ability to cope. Tortora (2019) went into more detail and described the goals of treatment utilizing dance/movement therapy; to improve stress management, improve quality of life, develop pain management techniques, reduce depression and anxiety, improve self image and body awareness, decrease fatigue, increase energy, build resilience and hope, increase self care, improve social support and learn to accept the unpredictability of life. Mendelsohn (1999) stated DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY AND PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGY 5 "The child's posture, movement or avoidance of movement, quality of movement, initiative or lack of it, and breathing patterns are all external manifestations of the child's state of mind" (p. 67) which reinforced the concept of the mind body connection. Majority of the research available focused on the effects of cancer on adults; there is minimal research on pediatric oncology, let alone the use of dance/movement therapy with pediatric oncology. Due to the limited research findings, childhood cancer statistics and academic concentration, this researcher was inspired to focus on dance/movement therapy with the pediatric oncology population. This researcher specifically observed if dance/movement therapy could decrease pain and anxiety and increase overall quality of life in pediatric oncology patients. The aim of this paper and of this method was to examine the effects of utilizing dance/movement therapy in conjunction with medical treatment as it relates to the patients physical and emotional symptoms of pain and anxiety. This thesis begins with a presentation of information and research on patient reported symptoms and experiences with a focus on pain, anxiety and quality of life, dance/movement therapy and medical dance/movement therapy, two sessions that focused on pain and anxiety that were implemented and the results. This thesis concludes with the discussion of the experience and calls for more research to be done within the field of pediatric oncology and dance/movement therapy. Literature Review Patient Reported Symptoms and Concerns To appropriately address the needs of the pediatric oncology population, one must understand their symptoms and concerns when navigating a cancer diagnosis. To create a complete picture, it would be beneficial to obtain information from the start of their journey, receiving a cancer diagnosis. According to the American Cancer Society (2019) children, between the ages of 114 DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY AND PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGY 6 years old, are commonly diagnosed with leukemia, brain and spinal cord tumors, neuroblastoma, Wilms tumor, lymphoma (including both Hodgkin and non Hodgkin) rhabdomyosarcoma, retinoblastoma, bone cancer (including osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma) When a child receives the diagnosis of cancer, their lives and the lives of their family and friends are altered. Emotions, such as anxiety, surface as a result of receiving this diagnosis and the unknown territory of treatments and their effects that will soon be explored. Mant et. al. (2019) revealed that children and young people felt restricted, isolated and distressed by their treatments and how they have affected their lives and additionally described parental and patient self reports indicating that children, in the first few months after diagnosis, experienced varying levels of anxiety and depression symptoms. The qualitative study by Mant et. al. (2019) aimed to understand the experience of learning you have cancer from a child's perspective, with the intention that a more comprehensive understanding can develop better means for communication and support of children and their families. Six children between the ages of 8 12 who were newly diagnosed with cancer participated in two interviews that utilized the draw and write technique. The results were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis, which focused on understanding how the individual made sense of their experiences. This analysis revealed five themes acknowledged by the participants. The first theme, shocked and scared indicated that the participants understood that their diagnosis was serious and potentially life threatening which lead to feeling distressed, angry, anxious, fearful and confused. Theme two, chemo is an awful thing described the participant's feelings about how chemotherapy has impacted their lives and the negative emotions associated with it. Many of the children described feeling restricted, sick and tired. Theme three, please talk to me, the more I know the better I feel, described how DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY AND PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGY 7 children felt more in control when the purpose of their treatment was communicated, leading to more cooperation with medical procedures. Theme four, I accepted treatment and quickly got used to it because I know I will get better, descri
Kristin Ranke-Brown
199478287
The Effect of Internalizing Symptoms on Affect Recognition and Theory of Mind Performance in a Community Sample of Adolescents
Difficulties with social interaction are a hallmark feature of many clinical disorders, and one factor that may contribute to these difficulties is a deficit in social perception skills, such as affect recognition and theory of mind (ToM) The present study examines the effect of depressive and anxiety symptoms on social perception in a community sample of adolescents. Based on past research, we hypothesized that greater levels of internalizing symptoms would predict poorer performance on an affect recognition and ToM task. Twenty nine adolescent participants completed dimensional measures of depressive symptoms, worry, and anxiety sensitivity, as well as a standardized neuropsychological assessment of social perception. Regression analyses revealed that greater levels of internalizing symptoms did not significantly predict a global impairment of either affect recognition or ToM. However, greater levels of worry predicted an increased number of sad errors (b 0.10, SE 0.02, b .70, p .001) while greater levels of anxiety sensitivity predicted a decreased number of fear errors (b 0.05, SE 0.02, b .46, p .05) Greater levels of worry also predicted deficits in affective, but not cognitive, ToM (b 0.04, SE 0.02, b .50, p .05) These findings suggest that subclinical internalizing symptoms may have specific, but not global, effects on social perception in adolescents. Overall, this study highlights the importance of transdiagnostic research in adolescent populations to elucidating risk factors for clinical disorder and identifying appropriate targets for intervention. INTERNALIZING SYMPTOMS AND SOCIAL PERCEPTION 3 The Effect of Internalizing Symptoms on Affect Recognition and Theory of Mind Performance in a Community Sample of Adolescents Difficulties with social interaction are a hallmark feature of many mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, autism, aggression, and schizophrenia (Armijo, 2017; Saris et al. 2017; Van Meter et al. 2016) Beyond their impact on risk for clinical disorder, poor social skills can contribute to wide ranging distress and impairment in individuals' personal and professional lives, including higher levels of stress and loneliness (Segrin, 2017) a lack of close relationships (Davila Beck, 2002; Oltmanns, Melley, Turkheimer, 2002) and poorer performance at work (Muller, Schuler, Burton, Yates, 2003; Sperry Mesibov, 2005) Indeed, successful social interactions are critical in determining one's quality of life, and therefore much research has been devoted to examining the origins of social impairment across clinical disorders in an effort to identify targets for prevention and intervention. Deficits in Social Perception One important factor known to influence an individual's interpersonal success is social perception. Social perception is defined as the process of forming impressions of and making inferences about other people (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, 2010) In order to successfully make these judgments, humans, like many other species, rely on a variety of cues in their environment to help them interpret and predict others' behaviors. These cues may be external, such as a person's facial expression, body posture, or tone of voice. On the other hand, they may also be internal, such as a person's mood, intentions, feelings, or desires. Accurate interpretation of both these external and internal cues allows humans to interact socially and respond appropriately in different situations. Thus, deficits in the ability to carry out social perception are likely to play a key role in clinical disorders where individuals demonstrate an impairment in social skills INTERNALIZING SYMPTOMS AND SOCIAL PERCEPTION 4 (Morrison Bellack, 1981) Difficulties with two specific components of social perception have been most well studied with respect to risk for mental health problems: poor affect recognition, which corresponds to an individual's ability to interpret external cues, and deficits in theory of mind (ToM) which corresponds to an individual's ability to interpret internal cues. Affect recognition, or the ability to identify others' emotions from their facial expressions, is one of the most well studied components of social perception. Ever since Darwin suggested that facial expressions of emotion are universal (Darwin, 1872) this topic has been given much attention. Researchers around the world have corroborated Darwin's proposal, demonstrating high cross cultural agreement in the judgment of emotions based on facial expressions (Ekman, Sorenson, Friesen, 1969; Ekman, 1971; Ekman Friesen, 1971; Ekman, 1973; Izard, 1971) In fact, there are now seven emotions shown to be universally recognized by facial expression: anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise (Biehl et al. 1997) indicating that a consistent ability to recognize emotional facial expressions that has been conserved across cultures and generations. Furthermore, the development of affect recognition skills occurs early in childhood, with six year old children demonstrating near adult levels of accuracy on the recognition of sad and angry faces (Lawrence, Campbell, Skuse, 2015) These findings indicate that the ability to recognize others' emotions is critical to survival within a social species such as humans (Ekman, 1984) Affect recognition allows individuals to respond to others' emotions appropriately in different situations, and it also supports feelings of empathy, which are critical to building relationships (Davis, 1994) In sum, a deficit in affect recognition could have widespread impacts on one's social functioning. Another component of social perception that is critical to interpersonal success is theory of mind (ToM) or the ability to attribute unobservable mental states, such as belief, desires, and INTERNALIZING SYMPTOMS AND SOCIAL PERCEPTION 5 intention, to ourselves and others (Wellman, 1990) Recent models of ToM suggest that this complex ability is actually composed of two parts: cognitive ToM and affective ToM. Cognitive ToM refers to the ability to make inferences about others' beliefs and motivations, while affective ToM refers to the ability to infer what a person is feeling. According to the model developed by Shamay Tsoory and colleagues (Shamay Tsoory, Harari, Aharon Peretz, Levkovitz, 2010) cognitive ToM is a prerequisite for affective ToM, which also requires intact emotional empathy. This theory is supported by the fact that cognitive ToM is developed early in childhood, typically by age 5 (Astington Dack, 2008; Astington, Hughes, Zelazo, 2013) while affective ToM is thought to develop later in life, between adolescence and adulthood (Blakemore, 2008; Sebastian et al. 2011) The impact of ToM on social interaction can be seen across all age groups. Kids with good ToM abilities are better communicators (Slomkowski Dunn, 1996) more effectively resolve conflicts with friends (Dunn, 1996) are happier in school and more confident with their peers (Astington, 2004) and have better academic competence (Astington Pelletier, 2005) Likewise, in adults, this ability underlies human cooperation, deception, communication, and cultural learning (Liu, Sabbagh, Gehring, Wellman, 2009) The Impact of Mood on Social Perception Deficits Theoretical models posit that an individual's mood and affect play a key role in influencing accurate social perception. The most widely accepted theory to account for the various influences that affect may have on social judgments, called the Affect Infusion Model (AIM) was proposed by Forgas in 1995. According to the AIM, there are two informationprocessing strategies that are most likely to be influenced by one's mood or affect. First, in heuristic processing, individuals seek to construct a judgment using various shortcuts, and feelings are often used as one such shortcut to infer one's evaluative reactions to a target. For INTERNALIZING SYMPTOMS AND SOCIAL PERCEPTION 6 instance, in one study researchers found that participants reported more happiness and satisfaction with their life as a whole when in a good mood than when in a bad mood (Schwarz Clore, 1983) Thus, their feelings at the time of the call directly influenced their judgment of their overall happiness and life satisfaction via heuristic processing. Second, in substantive processing, individuals engage in the selective, constructive processing of available information that relies on a variety of learning, associative, and memory processes. Within this type of social judgment process, emotions influence judgment indirectly through their impact on processes like attention, encoding, and retrieval of specific pieces of information (Forgas, 1995) For instance, one study asked participants to watch a videotape of their own interactions the previous day and judge their own behaviors and those of their partner as either positive or negative. Happy subjects judged more behaviors as positive in both themselves and their partners, while sad subjects were more critical of their own behavior versus their partner's (Forgas, Bower, Krantz, 1984) This reflects the selective priming of self deprecatory but other enhancing cognitions, which often occurs in depressed individuals (Blaney, 1986) and demonstrates how mood indirectly affects judgment via memory and attentional processes in substantive processing. Several studies have provided empirical support for the AIM using mood induction experiments, where participants are manipulated to feel happy or sad for a brief period of time and then make social judgments. For example, a study done in 1984 by Clark and colleagues demonstrated that one's own arousal impacts the judgment of another's emotion, such that individuals with high arousal levels are more likely to judge another's positive emotions as joy, an emotion associated with high arousal, rather than serenity, an emotion associated wit
Merrimack ScholarWorks
150131927
The Effect of Internalizing Symptoms on Affect Recognition and Theory of Mind Performance in a Community Sample of Adolescents
Difficulties with social interaction are a hallmark feature of many clinical disorders, and one factor that may contribute to these difficulties is a deficit in social perception skills, such as affect recognition and theory of mind (ToM) The present study examines the effect of depressive and anxiety symptoms on social perception in a community sample of adolescents. Based on past research, we hypothesized that greater levels of internalizing symptoms would predict poorer performance on an affect recognition and ToM task. Twenty nine adolescent participants completed dimensional measures of depressive symptoms, worry, and anxiety sensitivity, as well as a standardized neuropsychological assessment of social perception. Regression analyses revealed that greater levels of internalizing symptoms did not significantly predict a global impairment of either affect recognition or ToM. However, greater levels of worry predicted an increased number of sad errors (b 0.10, SE 0.02, b .70, p .001) while greater levels of anxiety sensitivity predicted a decreased number of fear errors (b 0.05, SE 0.02, b .46, p .05) Greater levels of worry also predicted deficits in affective, but not cognitive, ToM (b 0.04, SE 0.02, b .50, p .05) These findings suggest that subclinical internalizing symptoms may have specific, but not global, effects on social perception in adolescents. Overall, this study highlights the importance of transdiagnostic research in adolescent populations to elucidating risk factors for clinical disorder and identifying appropriate targets for intervention. INTERNALIZING SYMPTOMS AND SOCIAL PERCEPTION 3 The Effect of Internalizing Symptoms on Affect Recognition and Theory of Mind Performance in a Community Sample of Adolescents Difficulties with social interaction are a hallmark feature of many mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, autism, aggression, and schizophrenia (Armijo, 2017; Saris et al. 2017; Van Meter et al. 2016) Beyond their impact on risk for clinical disorder, poor social skills can contribute to wide ranging distress and impairment in individuals' personal and professional lives, including higher levels of stress and loneliness (Segrin, 2017) a lack of close relationships (Davila Beck, 2002; Oltmanns, Melley, Turkheimer, 2002) and poorer performance at work (Muller, Schuler, Burton, Yates, 2003; Sperry Mesibov, 2005) Indeed, successful social interactions are critical in determining one's quality of life, and therefore much research has been devoted to examining the origins of social impairment across clinical disorders in an effort to identify targets for prevention and intervention. Deficits in Social Perception One important factor known to influence an individual's interpersonal success is social perception. Social perception is defined as the process of forming impressions of and making inferences about other people (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, 2010) In order to successfully make these judgments, humans, like many other species, rely on a variety of cues in their environment to help them interpret and predict others' behaviors. These cues may be external, such as a person's facial expression, body posture, or tone of voice. On the other hand, they may also be internal, such as a person's mood, intentions, feelings, or desires. Accurate interpretation of both these external and internal cues allows humans to interact socially and respond appropriately in different situations. Thus, deficits in the ability to carry out social perception are likely to play a key role in clinical disorders where individuals demonstrate an impairment in social skills INTERNALIZING SYMPTOMS AND SOCIAL PERCEPTION 4 (Morrison Bellack, 1981) Difficulties with two specific components of social perception have been most well studied with respect to risk for mental health problems: poor affect recognition, which corresponds to an individual's ability to interpret external cues, and deficits in theory of mind (ToM) which corresponds to an individual's ability to interpret internal cues. Affect recognition, or the ability to identify others' emotions from their facial expressions, is one of the most well studied components of social perception. Ever since Darwin suggested that facial expressions of emotion are universal (Darwin, 1872) this topic has been given much attention. Researchers around the world have corroborated Darwin's proposal, demonstrating high cross cultural agreement in the judgment of emotions based on facial expressions (Ekman, Sorenson, Friesen, 1969; Ekman, 1971; Ekman Friesen, 1971; Ekman, 1973; Izard, 1971) In fact, there are now seven emotions shown to be universally recognized by facial expression: anger, contempt, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise (Biehl et al. 1997) indicating that a consistent ability to recognize emotional facial expressions that has been conserved across cultures and generations. Furthermore, the development of affect recognition skills occurs early in childhood, with six year old children demonstrating near adult levels of accuracy on the recognition of sad and angry faces (Lawrence, Campbell, Skuse, 2015) These findings indicate that the ability to recognize others' emotions is critical to survival within a social species such as humans (Ekman, 1984) Affect recognition allows individuals to respond to others' emotions appropriately in different situations, and it also supports feelings of empathy, which are critical to building relationships (Davis, 1994) In sum, a deficit in affect recognition could have widespread impacts on one's social functioning. Another component of social perception that is critical to interpersonal success is theory of mind (ToM) or the ability to attribute unobservable mental states, such as belief, desires, and INTERNALIZING SYMPTOMS AND SOCIAL PERCEPTION 5 intention, to ourselves and others (Wellman, 1990) Recent models of ToM suggest that this complex ability is actually composed of two parts: cognitive ToM and affective ToM. Cognitive ToM refers to the ability to make inferences about others' beliefs and motivations, while affective ToM refers to the ability to infer what a person is feeling. According to the model developed by Shamay Tsoory and colleagues (Shamay Tsoory, Harari, Aharon Peretz, Levkovitz, 2010) cognitive ToM is a prerequisite for affective ToM, which also requires intact emotional empathy. This theory is supported by the fact that cognitive ToM is developed early in childhood, typically by age 5 (Astington Dack, 2008; Astington, Hughes, Zelazo, 2013) while affective ToM is thought to develop later in life, between adolescence and adulthood (Blakemore, 2008; Sebastian et al. 2011) The impact of ToM on social interaction can be seen across all age groups. Kids with good ToM abilities are better communicators (Slomkowski Dunn, 1996) more effectively resolve conflicts with friends (Dunn, 1996) are happier in school and more confident with their peers (Astington, 2004) and have better academic competence (Astington Pelletier, 2005) Likewise, in adults, this ability underlies human cooperation, deception, communication, and cultural learning (Liu, Sabbagh, Gehring, Wellman, 2009) The Impact of Mood on Social Perception Deficits Theoretical models posit that an individual's mood and affect play a key role in influencing accurate social perception. The most widely accepted theory to account for the various influences that affect may have on social judgments, called the Affect Infusion Model (AIM) was proposed by Forgas in 1995. According to the AIM, there are two informationprocessing strategies that are most likely to be influenced by one's mood or affect. First, in heuristic processing, individuals seek to construct a judgment using various shortcuts, and feelings are often used as one such shortcut to infer one's evaluative reactions to a target. For INTERNALIZING SYMPTOMS AND SOCIAL PERCEPTION 6 instance, in one study researchers found that participants reported more happiness and satisfaction with their life as a whole when in a good mood than when in a bad mood (Schwarz Clore, 1983) Thus, their feelings at the time of the call directly influenced their judgment of their overall happiness and life satisfaction via heuristic processing. Second, in substantive processing, individuals engage in the selective, constructive processing of available information that relies on a variety of learning, associative, and memory processes. Within this type of social judgment process, emotions influence judgment indirectly through their impact on processes like attention, encoding, and retrieval of specific pieces of information (Forgas, 1995) For instance, one study asked participants to watch a videotape of their own interactions the previous day and judge their own behaviors and those of their partner as either positive or negative. Happy subjects judged more behaviors as positive in both themselves and their partners, while sad subjects were more critical of their own behavior versus their partner's (Forgas, Bower, Krantz, 1984) This reflects the selective priming of self deprecatory but other enhancing cognitions, which often occurs in depressed individuals (Blaney, 1986) and demonstrates how mood indirectly affects judgment via memory and attentional processes in substantive processing. Several studies have provided empirical support for the AIM using mood induction experiments, where participants are manipulated to feel happy or sad for a brief period of time and then make social judgments. For example, a study done in 1984 by Clark and colleagues demonstrated that one's own arousal impacts the judgment of another's emotion, such that individuals with high arousal levels are more likely to judge another's positive emotions as joy, an emotion associated with high arousal, rather than serenity, an emotion associated wit
Sarah A Bottari
225773458
READING TO LEARN (RTL) THROUGH STORY BOOKS: MOVING BEYOND PHYSICAL SCHOOL ACCESS TO EPISTEMOLOGICAL ACCESS IN A GRADE R CLASSROOM IN THE EASTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA
Learning to read is a basic skill and right that each child must be endowed with in school. Reading enables active, civic, social and economic participation. This is made possible through reading to learn. However, South Africa is faced with a daunting task to improve literacy development. From the assessments done South African learners are ranked the worst performers compared to worse off countries. Despite all, there is minimal investment in emergent literacy directed towards grade R to develop literacy behaviours. Grade R is the backbone of all the basic literacy skills that are employed in the future grades. It appears access for this cohort is only physical, past the school gate, but not epistemological. It is at the backdrop of the above that this study focused on creating opportunities for and developing Grade R learners' emergent literacy skills. As interventionist pedagogy, RtL within an interpretivist approach was applied to weave through the learning experiences of Grade R learners with story books as learning tools; and explore the extent scaffolding in RtL affects their development of emergent literacy skills. Observations and learner work samples are used as data generation tools. Basing on the emerging post intervention data, I argue that the use of RtL pedagogy develop emergent literacy skills in Grade R learners. Keyword: epistemology, access, Zone of proximal development, scaffolding, Reading to Learn. 1. BACKGROUND TO STUDY Academic achievement hinges on the ability to read. This is a prerequisite skill which all learners should be equipped with to engage with learning content. However, in South Africa learners' incapacitation is twofold, their reading skills are compromised to the extent that a greater percentage can neither read nor read to learn. Hence writing from what they have read becomes almost a challenge. In this regard they are pulled away from academic success. It has proved through national and cross national literacy assessments that South African children, especially from former blacks' only schools, perform two grades below that of their counterparts in other African countries. Against this background the issue of access is interrogated as to whether it is real or it is cosmetic despite education being a constitutional right. It appears it is superficial because a greater number of learners cannot engage meaningfully with the content at their disposal. Consequently, it pushes us to investigate how school success can be ensured from grade R, as the reading and writing skills children need to function at school are acquired long before they reach school going age. Against this backdrop, this study aims at using Reading to Learn (RtL) pedagogy in an English Home language grade R classroom to develop emergent literacy skills in the learners through Action research. 1.2. Literacy challenges countrywide It is stated in the constitution that, all children have a right to a free and quality education (Republic of South Africa, 1996) However, this appears not to be the case because the issue of quality and epistemological access is questionable. To realise this right, several milestones such as policy changes; curriculum changes; and providing fee free education in poor community schools have been reached since the onset of democracy. Despite multiple policy changes, curriculum transformation, free education for the (c) IJARW ISSN (O) 2582 1008 June 2020 Vol. 1 Issue. 12 www.ijarw.com IJARW1278 International Journal of All Research Writings 27 marginalised communities, there are snail steps in literacy development. Results of the 2011 Annual National Assessments (ANA's) for example revealed that learners' mathematics abilities decline steadily as they progress through school (Badat Sayed, 2014) Similarly, out of 50 African countries, South Africa performed the worst on the PIRLS cross country literacy assessments (ibid. It is against this background that literacy challenges experienced in the education system remain obstacles in improving educational quality and epistemological access at schools (Zimmerman and Smit, 2014) 1.3. Literacy challenges specific to grade R According to Cooper. Murray. Tomlinson, Vally, (2015) Grade one learners in South African schools enrol in formal schooling with very few or little emergent literacy skills. Several factors contribute to this demise, including the neglect of explicit early literacy and language development of grade R learners (ibid. In the same vein, Mohangi et.al. (2016) argue that grade R challenges in rural settings contribute to the neglect of explicit literacy development in grade R. Among many, they identified infrastructure and provisioning; pedagogical challenges; and management and support challenges. 1.4. Formal literacy instruction The evolution of formal literacy instruction in the grade R classroom appears to limit the development of emergent literacy skills. Of great significance is the obsession with paper and pencil, rote learning at the expense of play time (Excell Linington, 2011) This is against the dictates of emergent literacy instruction. At grade R emphasis is on oral language, visual perception skills, emergent reading and emergent writing (through modelling and pretence/fantasy) The formal literacy activities imposed carry no meaning for the grade R child (Excell Linington, 2011) The main culprit could be the anxiety on teachers to get learners ready for the grade 1 formal curriculum (DBE, 2011b) Besides, there may be no play resources hence teachers resort to the wrong approach. However, Bloch (2006) argues, when babies learn to talk, there is no anxiety on the part of parents to get them ready to learn oral language because there is the knowledge that they eventually will. Therefore, Bloch (2006) advises that teachers give children the same support, affirmation, and feedback that will help them learn emergent literacy skills without the anxiety of formal learning readiness. It is against this backdrop that RtL is explored as a pedagogic paradigm in the present context, to accelerate emergent literacy skills in a grade R classroom. RtL has been applied with success in Australia where it emanated; in South Africa (Mataka, 2018) (Millin Millin, 2015) Uganda; Kenya (Lucas, McEwan, Ngware Oketch, 2014) Portugal; Spain; Swede; Denmark; Scotland and the Netherlands (Coffin, Acevedo, Lovstedt, 2013) 2.STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The reading crisis in South Africa seems not to be getting any better. It appears there are multiple factors but the key factor seems to be the lack of teaching explicit reading to learners by teachers (Klapwijk, 2012) resulting in non readers. It is at the backdrop of the above argument that teaching of reading explicitly should be extended to the grade R classroom using RtL pedagogy for accelerated development.
Tawanda Wallace Mataka Tawanda Mukurunge Takura Bhila
59332570
Teacher Interventions Used To Reduce Test Anxiety: Does Free Writing Before a Test Help Reduce Anxiety?
The focus of this study is to look at how common testing anxiety is among students and how teachers can work with their students to reduce this anxiety. The study examines and discusses past research to see what causes test anxiety and what methods have been effective in the past in reducing this anxiety. Then, based on past research, a similar study is completed in my high school honors geometry classroom to determine whether the suggestions given by past researchers will decrease reported test anxiety in my students. TEACHER INTERVENTIONS USED TO REDUCE TEST ANXIETY 2 Introduction Testing is one of the main ways used to assess students. However, testing might not reflect a students' actual knowledge due to many factors. One of these factors is test anxiety. Hashemi and Mashayekh (2011) define test anxiety as a mental condition in which people can become distressed to the point that it can affect how they perform before, after, or during a test. Testing is part of our culture, especially in the United States. Students begin testing in school at a very young age, continue testing through graduation, are tested throughout college, and, most often, must be tested to be qualified in their field of study. It is estimated that between elementary school and graduation from high school, students will take around 1,000 tests (Hashemi Mashayekh, 2011) This is a shockingly high number of tests, meaning that each academic year students will have taken around 83 tests. Teachers need to help students learn to control high testing anxiety because it could affect their performance. The students' anxiety could lead to scores that are lower than the optimal score that they could have achieved and do not give teachers an accurate representation of the students' knowledge. Cizek and Berg (2006) explain that, "Previous research has demonstrated that test anxiety can have a negative impact on grade point average and that children with high levels of test anxiety are more likely to drop out of school" (as cited in Barterian, Carlson, Goforth, Segool, Won Der Embse, 2013) The major goal of assessment is to measure how well students are meeting learning objectives. If testing anxiety is interfering with students' performance, then tests are not accurately portraying what students do or do not know, not giving the teachers an accurate description of whether our students are learning the desired objectives set by the state and teacher. TEACHER INTERVENTIONS USED TO REDUCE TEST ANXIETY 3 Test anxiety has been studied for a very long time. It interests many people because of their personal experiences with tests and how testing anxiety has affected their own performance, especially on important tests such as the ACT and SAT. This topic particularly interests me because, throughout my elementary and high school years, I experienced high test anxiety. As will be discussed later, certain people are more susceptible to experiencing testing anxiety. Because of my personal experience, I am interested into looking at what causes this anxiety and how I, as a future teacher, can alleviate some of the anxiety that my students may be experiencing. I know that I am not the only person who has or is currently experiencing test anxiety. According to High Von der Embse, Barterian, and Segool (2013) 10 40% of students experience test anxiety to the point that it is affecting their performance. High stakes testing is becoming more prominent and important for students to graduate, to get into college, start a career, and is also affecting how teachers are rated. Thus, test anxiety rates are likely to continue to rise. The increase of testing creates a dire need for teachers to do things in their classroom to help students overcome their anxiety so that they can perform to the best of their ability. Literature Review Test Anxiety Definition Hall Brown et al. (2005) agree with Hashemi and Mashayekh's definition of test anxiety. Hall Brown et al. (2005) reports that "Test anxiety can be described as physiological, cognitive, and emotional response created by stress experienced during the assessment, and, it in a sense, has a negative contribution on the students' attitudes towards courses" (as cited in Dogar, Gurses, Gunes, Kaya, Yolcu) Test anxiety is a performance based anxiety (Hashemi Mashayekh, 2011) which is a feeling a person has in a situation where performance really TEACHER INTERVENTIONS USED TO REDUCE TEST ANXIETY 4 matters or when there is a lot of pressure to do well. Examples of when someone can feel performance based anxieties include before an important sports game, a big performance, or a presentation in front of a large audience. Many of the same symptoms one may feel before one of those big events are the same feelings that someone experiencing test anxiety can feel before a test. Hashemi and Mashayekh (2011) list some of the symptoms. Symptoms of test anxiety include both mental symptoms such as guilt, anger, helplessness, and worry, and physical symptoms such as sweaty palms, headaches, nausea, feeling cold or hot, and losing focus. One of the most commonly cited symptoms of test anxiety in students is the feeling of "blanking out," not being able to recall the information that was previously learned. Many thoughts during a test can include past experiences, expectations, and feelings of low or high self esteem. When negative thoughts occur, according to Beilock and Carr (2005) and Grimmley and Banner (2008) it is assumed that negative thoughts about the situation and/or the consequences will take over some of the limited working memory resources, which then cannot be used for recall of information (as cited in Hoogerheide, Mavildi, Paas, 2014) This assumption explains why people report the feeling of "blanking out" during a test, even on easy questions! Who Test Anxiety Affects Not every person will experience test anxiety, and each person who does have test anxiety will experience a different amount. In all of the studies researched, the authors cite three different categories of anxiety levels: low, moderate, and high. People who fall under the category of experiencing high amounts of test anxiety are the ones who experience most of the negative symptoms that were discussed above. To reiterate, Von der Embse, Barterian, and Segool (2013) report that 10 40% of students experience test anxiety that can be categorized at the high level (Goh, Liem, See Yeo, 2015) In addition, "Test anxieties appear to be increasing TEACHER INTERVENTIONS USED TO REDUCE TEST ANXIETY 5 in step with the increased national emphasis on standardized testing. The majority of students rate schoolwork and exams as the major sources of worry and stress in their lives" (as cited in Hashemi Mashayekh, 2011, p. 2150) Teachers can help reduce the major source of stress in these students' lives if they are willing to try to teach their students to manage their stress and change some things in their classroom that will help decrease their stress. These topics will be explored later. Now that we understand the prevalence of test anxiety among students, we can look to which students in our classroom are most likely to experience this anxiety. In a study completed by Dogar, Gurses, Gunes, Kaya, and Yolcu in 2010, the researchers found that females are more likely to experience test anxiety. The assumed reason that females experience higher rates of test anxiety is because they, along with minorities, experience stereotype threat. A stereotype threat is "the possibility that a poor performance will confirm negative assumptions about the group to which they belong" (Paul, 2013) Because of the stereotype threat, females tend to perform lower than what they are capable. The study continues to report that students who have siblings that are seen as successful and intelligent are also more likely to experience test anxiety (Dogar, Gurses, Gunes, Kaya, Yolcu, 2010) Students who feel that they cannot reach the expectations that their siblings may feel more under pressure to perform well. However, the largest group of students who reports having high test anxiety are those with low self efficacy and self image. Cassady (2004) supports this idea by explaining that test anxiety is highly correlated with low performing students and students with poor study skills. The two statements have a strong connection. Low performing students typically have a lower self confidence than those who are consistently performing well in school. Many people may believe that these students are unmotivated to try hard. However, Culler and Holohan (1980) found that, "Students TEACHER INTERVENTIONS USED TO REDUCE TEST ANXIETY 6 with high test anxiety have been shown to study as much or more than their low anxiety peers, but the methods of study reported by the high anxiety group were highly repetitive and less effective" (as cited in Cassady, 2004, p. 571) From this, we can deduce that students who are not performing well on tests are often trying to study but just not doing so effectively. Once the students arrive for the test, they may feel confident because of the amount of studying done. When the test is distributed, the students realize that they do not know what they thought they did, increasing their anxiety. The students may not understand why they are incapable of succeeding. Then, on future tests, these students will develop the belief that they will always perform poorly, no matter how hard they try (Cassady, 2004) The students begin to see tests as threatening and begin to develop learned helplessness. Bandura (1989) reminds us that low levels of self efficacy are associated with a motivational orientation that is characterized by learned helplessness. So we must ask: What can teachers do to help their students with high test anxiety perform better, with less stress leading up to the exam? Ideas on How to Reduce Anxiety in the Classroom First, we must consider how psyc
Kimberly E Lentz
55275643
The Relationship Between Pretend Play Processes and Anxiety
The current research was designed to examine how pretend play is related to anxiety. This relationship with pretend play needs more investigation in order to be able to assess and identify those with anxiety. This is important because pretend play could be used as an intervention to reduce anxiety. It was hypothesized that pretend play is correlated with anxiety; if a child has better pretend play skills, parents are more likely to rate their child's anxiety lower than parents of children with poorer pretend play skills. The current study examined cognitive and affective play processes, which include organization, imagination, comfort with the play, and frequency and variety of affect expression. Cognitive and affective play processes were used to test the relationship with anxiety. The participants were 15 preschool aged children. Measurements for anxiety were done by parental report with the BASC 2 and play was measured with APS P. It was hypothesized that pretend play would correlate with parent report of their child's anxiety; the better the play skills, the lower the anxiety. Based on previous research of gender differences in anxiety indicating that females are more anxious, it was predicted that females would be rated as more anxious than males. Correlations were analyzed to examine the relationship between play and anxiety. T tests were conducted to examine gender differences. No significant correlations were found between pretend play and anxiety. There was no significant difference between anxiety in males and females. Although no correlations were found between pretend play and anxiety and gender differences in anxiety were not found, further research needs to be done due to this study having a small sample size. This was the first study that examined the relationships between pretend play and anxiety in preschool aged children. Therefore, a larger sample size is needed before conclusions can be drawn and recommendations for further research are discussed. Running head: PRETEND PLAY AND ANXIETY 3 The Relationship between Pretend Play Processes and Anxiety Many researchers have found that play is correlated with coping (Russ, 2004) It is believed that children use play as a way to solve problems within their lives (Russ, 2004) According to Russ, play stimulates emotion because children are pretending, which allows them to feel a full range of emotions. Both affective and cognitive pretend play processes have been found to relate to emotion regulation and expression (Christian, Russ, Short, 2011) With affect expression in pretend play, children learn how to act out their negative emotions by coping and learning problem solving skills. They find creative ways to solve their problems that can apply to other areas in their life. For example, more frequency and variety of affect expression in the child's play relate to better coping skills (Christian, Russ, Short, 2011) This supports the theory that affective play processes relate to coping, which in turn could relate to reducing anxiety. Children who engage in good pretend play typically have more developed coping abilities. In addition to affect expression in play, better imagination, organization, and comfort in play correlates with coping. Russ (1988) conducted a study where she found a relationship between divergent thinking and teachers ratings of fifth grade males. The more creative the problem solving skills were during pretend play, the more they should generalize to problem solving skills in their daily lives. Therefore, more imagination used during play correlated with better coping. Christiano and Russ (1996) later found a positive relationship between play and coping and a negative relationship between play and distress in 7 to 9 year olds. Perry and Russ (1998) found that fantasy in pretend play related to frequency and variety of self reported coping strategies. The coping measure was self reported by school aged children housed in a homeless Running head: PRETEND PLAY AND ANXIETY 4 shelter. Children who demonstrated good fantasy skills reported greater frequency and variety of coping strategies when faced with stressful situations (Perry Russ, 1998) Therefore, more imagination correlated with better coping abilities. Later, Goldstein and Russ (2000 2001) conducted a study on first grade children. They found a positive correlation between the Affect in Play Scale (APS) imagination score, a standard measure that assesses cognitive and affective processes in school aged children, and children's self report on how well they would be able to cope with a specific situation. The imagination score related to total frequency and variety of coping strategies. All together these coping studies used different samples of children, had different researchers, and different measurements for coping. A variety of scores on the APS scale were correlated with coping, indicating that both cognitive and affect play processes relate to coping abilities. Previous research has also found that pretend play relates to anxiety. Christian et al. (2011) conducted a study where first to third grade children were assigned to an anxious mood induction condition or a neutral mood induction condition. They found that children with a greater baseline of state anxiety had less organization in their play narrative. Therefore, the more anxious the child was, the less organization was in their play. Christian et al. (2011) also found that positive affect expressed during play was related to the relationship between the level of self reported state anxiety and condition assignment. Children in the anxious mood induction condition reported that their mood returned to a neutral or positive state after they participated in play. This suggests that pretend play can increase positive affect when children are feeling anxious. Overall, Christian et al. (2011) suggested that pretend play therapies may be useful for those with anxiety to cope. Likewise, Moore and Russ (2008) also found that play interventions were effective in reducing anxiety in typically developing school aged children. Running head: PRETEND PLAY AND ANXIETY 5 Similarly, Malcom Watson found that anxiety was related to pretend play in children (1995) Watson argues that pretend play becomes more complex when it involves social interaction and collaboration. To support this theory, Watson (1995) conducted a study where he assigned children to a free play or story condition. He found that highly anxious children in the free play condition showed a greater decrease in anxiety than the children in the story condition. This supports the theory that play correlates with anxiety. He also found that highly anxious children expressed more pretend play than manipulative or functional play. This supports the theory that anxiety is correlated with specific pretend play processes. However, Watson found that highly anxious children participated more in pretend play during situational anxiety. Watson also found that pretend play was preferred after an anxiety provoking situation. Children participated in play to express their emotions and cope with the stressful situation. This supports the theory that the use of pretend play is related to anxiety reduction and coping skills. Evidence of anxiety correlating with pretend play supports the use of pretend play as an approach to psychotherapy. Based on psychodynamic theory, children use pretend play to control their negative emotions such as anxiety (Russell Jarvis, 2003) Play therapies are proposed to work due to the gradual exposure and extinction of their anxiety. Pretend play also allows children to express their anxiety and cope better with stressful experiences. For example, Fonagy and Target (1994) conducted a study of 800 children being treated for anxiety and depression in a clinical setting where all received treatment. Most treatments took up to 2 years and about 80% of the children were almost free of their symptoms after play therapy. Burns Nader (2011) also found that pretend play in a medical setting correlated with anxiety reduction in young patients. Even though there is research to support that anxiety is correlated with pretend play skills in school aged children, there needs to be more research examining these relationships in Running head: PRETEND PLAY AND ANXIETY 6 preschool aged children. Furthermore, previous research has not looked at pretend play processes separately in this age range. Specifically, the relationships between imagination, organization, comfort in play, variety and frequency of affect and anxiety in preschool aged children need to be examined. Hypotheses 1. It was hypothesized that pretend play would correlate with parent report of their child's anxiety; the better the play skills, the lower the anxiety. 2. It was hypothesized that both cognitive and affective play processes would relate to anxiety. Better organization, imagination, and comfort with play would correlate with anxiety. More frequency and variety of affect expression would correlate with anxiety as well. 3. Based on previous research of gender differences in anxiety indicating that females are more anxious, it was predicted that females would be rated as more anxious than males. However, it was hypothesized that pretend play processes would remain correlated with anxiety levels in both genders.
A Weaver
151242380
Social Anxiety and Drinking Behaviors in College Students: Mediated by Alcohol Outcome Expectancies Specific to Social Situations?
Understanding the relationship between social anxiety and problematic drinking is a difficult task. Studies examining this relationship have commonly found a positive correlation between socia l anxiety and drinking behaviors, although the literature is marked by mixed results. If social anxiety does positively predict alcohol use, then what accounts for this relationship? Some researchers posit that alcohol outcome expectancies may be a mediator for this relationship. Alcohol outcome expectancies specific to the context of social evaluative situations may be a stronger mediator than general alcohol outcome expectancies. A study to test this mediation was conducted with xxx undergraduate students. Results showed that alcohol outcome expectancies specific to socially evaluative situations significantly mediated the relationship between social anxiety and problematic drinking. Also, alcohol outcome expectancies specific to socially evaluative situations was a stronger mediator in the relationship between social anxiety and problematic drinking than general positive alcohol outcome expectancies. Regression analyses showed that after controlling for social anxiety and demographic variables, fear of negative and fear of positive evaluation were not significant predictors of problematic drinking, though alcohol outcomes expectancies specific to socially evaluative situations remained a significant predictor. Running Head: Social Anxiety Drinking 2 Social Anxiety and Drinking Behaviors in College Students: Mediated by Alcohol Outcome Expectancies Specific to Social Situations? College is a major transitional period for many individuals. In many cases, college life involves attending social gatherings where consumption of alcohol is common, possibly even encouraged. The social aspect of college may become increasingly difficult to handle for individuals who have problems with social anxiety (Schry, Roberson Nay, and White, 2012; Ham Hope, 2006) Socially anxious individuals have to make a choice between facing the discomfort of social situations in an attempt to experience college life or attempting to avoid these situations, which may be less anxiety provoking but also may prevent them from having an authentic college experience (Ham Hope, 2006) Social anxiety typically involves a fear of evaluation, either negative or positive (Bogels et al. 2010; Wallace Alden, 1995; Weeks et al. 2010) Fear of negative evaluation occurs when an individual is afraid of being judged negatively by others (Bo gels et al. 2010) Fear of positive evaluation, a relatively new concept, occurs when an individual is afraid of being praised by others in fear of not being able to live up to the new expectations derived from that praise (Wallace Alden, 1995; Weeks et al. 2010) The relationship between problematic drinking and social anxiety is a commonly studied topic. Although there have been mixed results (Buckner et al. 2009; Ham, 2009; Ham, Zamboanga, Bacon, Garcia, 2009; Kushner, Abrams, Borchardt, 2000) the most common finding is a positive link. Researchers theorize that alcohol use may make social situations more tolerable to individuals with social anxiety by relieving their fears of evaluation and other anxiety symptoms (Khantzian, 1985; Quitkin, Rifkin, Kaplan, Running Head: Social Anxiety Drinking 3 Klein, 1 972; Tran, Haaga, and Chambless, 2002) Researchers have described this use of alcohol as a "self medicating" coping strategy (Khantzian, 1985; Quitkin, Rifkin, Kaplan, Klein, 1 972) This relationship may be mediated by alcohol outcome expectancies, the outcomes an individual believes alcohol use is likely to result in (Tran, Haaga, and Chambless, 2002) The belief that drinking alcohol may help alleviate the symptoms of social anxiety is an example of a positive alcohol outcome expectancy. Alcohol expectancies can be either positive, meaning they are beneficial, or negative, meaning they are problematic (Brown, Goldman, Inn, Anderson, 1 980; Goldman, Del Boca, Darkes, 1999; Ham, Carrigan, Moak, and Randall, 2005) Studies have shown that alcohol expectancies may be influential in the relationship between problematic drinking and social anxiety (Ham, Carrigan, Moak, and Randall, 2005; Kidorf Lang, 2009; Tran, Haaga, and Chambless, 2002) This paper will review the literatures on social anxiety, fear of evaluation, alcohol outcome expectancies, and problematic drinking, as well as the relationships among these variables. Then, the current study will be described that was designed to examine alcohol outcome expectancies specific to socially evaluative situations as a mechanism through which social anxiety may be linked to problematic drinking. This study examined the correlation between social anxiety and problematic drinking as mediated by alcohol outcome expectancies specific to socially evaluative situations. Social Anxiety According to Vriends and colleagues (2014) social anxiety is described as a persistent fear of situations in which an individual may be evaluated. This fear may result in these individuals preferring to be alone, becoming depressed, abusing Running Head: Social Anxiety Drinking 4 substances, and/or many other negative outcomes (Vriends et al. 2014) Socially anxious individuals have distorted thoughts about how others perceive them (Vriends et al. 2014) This, in turn, may lead to a hypersensitivity to being evaluated negatively. Thus, individuals with social anxiety problems tend to be affected more by the way that others view them compared to less socially anxious individuals (Carrigan and Drobes, 2004) In addition to worrying about what others think about them, socially anxious individuals tend to negatively self evaluate themselves, an example being a belief that they lack social skills or positive personality characteristics. The fear of being evaluated and the constant negative self evaluation may lead to distress in these social situations as well as problematic anxiety related symptoms (Vriends et al. 2014) Socially anxious individuals tend to cope with their fear of social situations by using avoidance, which can be either cognitive (e.g. distracting themselves) or behavioral (e.g. completely avoiding the situation or drinking) Avoidance, either cognitive or behavioral, tends to be what socially anxious individuals think is the quickest way of relieving their intense anxiety related symptoms (Beck, Emery, Greenberg, 1985) Social anxiety has become increasingly more common in traditional aged college students (Schry, Roberson Nay, White, 2012) The prevalence rate of social anxiety disorder has been found to be approximately 19% in undergraduate students (Van Ameringen, Mancini, Farvolden, 2003; Beidel, Turner, Stanley, Dancu, 1989) whereas, other studies have found the prevalence rates of social anxiety in college aged students to be as high as 33% These rates are elevated compared to the general population's prevalence of7 to 13% (Russell Shaw, 2009) Running Head: Social Anxiety Drinking 5 Why is social anxiety so prevalent in college students? College is a social environment where students make a major transition from late adolescence into early adulthood. Going to college involves many situations that could provoke extreme anxiety for persons with social anxiety. College involves the gathering of thousands of students on a daily basis leading to a dense population on campus and a social network that may be far larger than those found in high school or adult life (Nordstrom, Goguen, Hiester, 2012) Many college classes may enroll hundreds of students and may involve an individual's first experiences with public presentations. Likewise the college living environment (e.g. dormitories) can be distressing for socially anxious individuals because of the close living quarters and the dense population of other students. College involves a high degree of socialization, suggesting college may be highly distressing for socially anxious individuals if they do not learn to cope with their anxiety (Nordstrom, Goguen, Hiester, 2012) Age may be another factor involved in the high rates of social anxiety in college students. Their age, typically 18 to22 years, places them between the typical ages of onset and the worsening of social anxiety symptoms. The age of onset is between 10 to 16 years old, and symptoms generally continue to worsen until approximately the age of 24 years before stabilizing (Nordstrom, Goguen, Hiester, 2012) The symptoms associated with social anxiety may be highly distressing to college students. Schry, Roberson Nay, and White (2012) reported that social anxiety is related to students being less assertive and seeming more vulnerable to their peers. Likewise, social anxiety in college students is correlated positively with levels of alcohol use and social isolation (Dahl Dahl, 2010) College students tend to avoid reporting their Running Head: Social Anxiety Drinking 6 symptoms until it becomes extremely distressing or impairing (Schry, Roberson Nay, and White, 2012) likely due to the students' fears of how they will be viewed if they report their symptoms. Fear of Evaluation Fear is a word commonly associated with social anxiety. Social anxiety involves an individual having an overwhelming fear of being evaluated or judged. Fear of negative evaluation (FNE) is the most common fear associated with social anxiety (Bo gels et al. 2010) Individuals high in fear of negative evaluation typically will avoid social situations where they may be judged or evaluated negatively. Individuals with high fear of negative evaluation tend to have a recurring belief of being judged by others negatively in nearly all social situations, including recreational, professional, and educational settings (Bogels et al. 2010; Heimberg et al. 2014) Avoidance behaviors are common among individuals with high levels of fear of negative eval
Toby Board
62878857
Factors Affecting Identity Theft Anxiety Level in College Students
Each year, millions of Americans are becoming the victims of identity theft and this is one of a number of serious, growing and widespread issues. Examining the factors that affect anxiety levels of identity theft victims and determining whether there is any significant relationship between these factors are an important issue. In this paper, a research model is presented to determine whether electronic devices self efficacy, electronic devices usage and information security awareness are the main and direct factors that affect identity theft anxiety level in college students. This study performed several analyses on a developed questionnaire to ensure validity and reliability. After examining all proposed hypotheses, it was found that electronic devices self efficacy and electronic devices usage have significant impact on identity theft anxiety level of the students. The data also support a relationship between information security awareness of the students and their identity theft anxiety level. This research also showed that gender, employment status, race, and age have moderating effects on all hypotheses. The outcome of this study indicated that more information should be provided to students regarding how to take proactive measures in using their electronic devices in order to avoid identity theft. Introduction Identity theft means stealing someone's personal information and using it without their permission. The list of consumer complaints received by the Federal Trade Commission in 2011 [1] indicates that for the 12 th year in a row, identity theft complaints are in the top of the list. Among 1.8 million complaints that were filed in 2011, 279,156 or 15% were identity theft complaints. Nearly 25% of the identity theft complaints were related to tax or wage related fraud [1] In December 2010, the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics announced that about 11.7 million people were the victims of identity theft, which constitutes five percent of people age 16 or older in the U.S. [2] In 2007, identity theft was on the list of the top ten consumer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission. According to Paganini [3] in the FBI report of scams in 2011, identity theft was in second place and had jumped from the top ten crimes in 2007 to the top two in 2011, which obviously must be considered as a serious issue. The Federal Trade Commission report [4] shows that identity theft was the number one complaint category in the Consumer Sentinel Network for calendar year 2014 with thirteen percent of the overall complaints. Government documents/benefits fraud (39% was the most common form of reported identitytheft, followed by credit card fraud (17% phone or utilities fraud (13% and bank fraud (8% Other significant categories of identity theft reported by victims were employment related fraud (5% and loan fraud (4% Thirty two percent of identity theft complainants reported they contacted law enforcement. Of those victims, eighty eight percent indicated a report was taken. Florida is the state with the highest per capita rate of reported identity theft complaints, followed by Washington and Oregon [4] A six factor computer anxiety model has been developed [5] that consists of computer literacy of basic computer skills, self efficacy on learning how to use computers, physical awareness while using computers such as breathing or sweating, attitudes toward computers, positive belief regarding the benefits of computers to society, and negative beliefs on effects of computers. While there is little information on the perceptions and awareness that college/university students have about identity theft, considerable research has been done with this group on a range of crime and justice related topics. A review of the literature shows a lack of studies on the perception held by college/university students about identity theft [6] and there has been a void in research related to information security awareness and identity theft anxiety levels among students [5] Also, there has been a void in literature review related to electronic devices self efficacy. Thus, with increasing identity theft complaints and with very little research in this area on higher education students, this study investigated the effect of electronic devices usage, electronic devices self efficacy and information security awareness on identity theft anxiety level among college students in southeast Michigan. Also, grade level, gender, age and race of the students were examined to determine whether they have any influence on these relationships. The impact of these factors on identity theft anxiety level has not been tested in prior research using descriptive methodology. Methodology In this research, quantitative methodology was used by utilizing an electronically distributed survey, as presented in the appendix, to measure each construct of the research model utilizing the six factor computer anxiety model that was developed in [5] The six factors in computer anxiety model are computer literacy of basic computer skills, self efficacy on learning how to use computers, physical awareness while using computers such as breathing or sweating, attitudes toward computers, positive belief regarding the benefits of computers to society, and negative beliefs on effects of computers. A sample of 187 students from a university located in southeast of Michigan was considered and a purposive sampling method was used. Cross sectional or correlation analysis was utilized to examine the research questions. The followings are the hypotheses examined in this study: H1. There is a positive effect of electronic devices self efficacy on identity theft anxiety level among students in southeast of Michigan. H2. There is a positive effect of electronic devices usage on identity theft anxiety level among students in southeast of Michigan. H3. There is a positive effect of information security awareness on identity theft anxiety level among students in southeast of Michigan. H4. Educational level of students and electronic devices self efficacy are in a positive relationships with identity theft anxiety level among students in southeast of Michigan. H5. Educational level of students and information security awareness are in a positive relationship with identity theft anxiety level among students in southeast of Michigan. H6. Educational level of students and electronic devices usage are in a positive relationship with identity theft anxiety level among students in southeast of Michigan. Instrument This study consisted of three independent variables and one dependent variable. The dependent variable was anxiety level caused by fear of identity theft. The independent variables were electronic devices self efficacy, electronic devices usage and information security awareness. Age, gender, race, and educational level were used as demographical variables, which could be considered as covariates. The survey used a 7 point Likert scale with the ratings of strongly agree, agree, slightly agree, neither agree nor disagree, slightly disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree for anxiety, electronic devices self efficacy and information security awareness variables. Demographic Characteristics of the Sample The demographics analysis of the participants are presented in Tables 1 5 that include gender, age, educational level, race, and device ownership. Table 1: Gender of the Participants Gender Male (82) 43.9% Female (105) 56.1% Table 2: Age of the Participants Age Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent 19 7 3.7% 7% 20 29 110 58.8% 110% 30 39 37 19.8% 37% 40 49 18 9.6% 18% 50 59 12 6.4% 12% 60 3 1.6% 3% Total 187 100.0% Table 3: Educational Level of the Participants Educational level Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent Undergraduate 92 49.2% 49.2% Graduate 75 40.1% 89.3% Doctoral 20 10.7% 100.0% Total 187 100.0% Table 4: Race of the Participants Race Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent American Indian/Native American 2 1.1% 1.1% African American 10 5.3% 6.4% Asian 25 13.4% 19.8% Hispanic/Latino 13 7.0% 26.7% White/Caucasian 126 67.4% 94.1% Other 11 5.9% 100.0% Total 187 100.0% Table 5: Device Ownership of the Participants Device Ownership Frequency Percent Netbook 11 5.9% Desktop 58 31% Laptop 170 90.9% Mobile phone 125 66.8% Internet enabled mobile device (Smartphone, tablet, etc. 144 77% Dedicated e book device (Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, etc. 43 23% None of the above 8 4.3% All the above 2 1.1% For electronic devices usage, the survey provided multiple checkbox options as Likert scaling is designed to measure people's attitudes and awareness [7] The analysis of device usage are shown in Table 6. Table 6: Device Usage of the Participants Options Frequency Device Usage Always Frequently Occasionally Rarely Never Social Networking 91 55 20 13 8 Reading content (e books, articles, etc. 49 72 48 15 3 Accessing email 148 38 1 0 0 Text messaging 130 43 6 5 3 Searching for Information 133 51 3 0 0 Getting directions 97 63 20 7 0 Playing content 63 47 41 25 11 Listening to music/Watching videos 80 57 34 14 2 Banking 68 62 38 14 5 Filing Taxes 34 25 30 26 72 Shopping 32 64 56 26 9 Utility billing 58 43 32 15 39 News 64 73 32 12 6 Weather 87 66 21 7 6 Research 81 66 25 9 6 School Work 105 55 15 7 5 Company Work 68 35 18 27 39 Medical Bill 27 25 31 37 67 Analysis A survey questionnaire was designed to measure each construct of the research model. Out of 251 students who participated in the survey, only 187 completed the entire survey. Thus, only complete responses were used for data analysis and all incomplete responses were excluded. Survey Monkey was used to collect the information and SPSS, Minitab, Statgraphics Centurion software were used to analyze the collected data. The statistical analysis of the surveyed data using different techniques included reliability analysis, normality testing, distribution fitting, factor analysis, validity, and hypothesis testing. The Cro
Sushma Sanga Ali M Eydgahi