UA cloudflare authentication

Theses and Dissertations - Department of Educational Studies in Psychology, Research Methodology, and Counseling

Permanent URI for this collection

https://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/102

Browse

Browsing Theses and Dissertations - Department of Educational Studies in Psychology, Research Methodology, and Counseling by Author "Adams, Natalie G."

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The academic achievement gap between African American and White students: an exploratory study on reading achievement and intrinsic motivation
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2009) Herron-McCoy, LaMonica Lanell; Thoma, Stephen; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    The purpose of this study was to explore the academic achievement gap between upper elementary African American and White students. This study sought to assess any relationships between whether academic reading, students attitudes toward reading, and academic intrinsic motivation related to ethnicity. This study also sought to assess whether differences in reading achievement, attitudes, and intrinsic motivation varied by ethnicity, gender, or SES. Participants in the study were students enrolled in grades 4 through 6 in a rural West AL school district. Students with parental consent participated by completing the Children's Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Gottfried, 1990) to assess motivation and the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (McKenna & Kear, 1990) to assess reading attitudes. Scores from the SAT 10 and Dibels were also utilized to assess reading achievement. Results indicated that based upon the population observed that SES is an outstanding variable in this study. In addition to research suggesting evidence that SES is a major correlate of the achievement gap, the focus turned towards a specific aspect of SES which is wealth. Children from wealthy families acquire more experiences through provisions of social and cultural capital which may be supportive in explaining the disparities between African American and White students in academics, including reading achievement and intrinsic motivation.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Impact of moral judgment and moral disengagement on rape-supportive attitudes in college males
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2009) Carroll, Jessica Ashley; Thoma, Stephen; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    Sexual aggression and, more specifically, non-stranger sexual assault, commonly referred to as date rape, has been documented as a serious problem on college campuses for at least three decades (Fezzani & Benshoff, 2003). Current research shows that college fraternity men are more likely to rape or sexually assault college women than non-fraternity men (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993; Boumil, Friedman, & Taylor, 1993; Sanday, 1990). This study supplemented the existing explanations for high incidence of sexual assault by confirming a hypothesized model to explain rape-supportive attitudes in fraternity males. Specifically, this study hypothesized a model in which moral disengagement and moral judgment explained the rape-supportive attitudes of fraternity members. The Moral Disengagement Scale, Defining Issues Test-2, and Sexual Assault Vignette were administered in a cross-sectional study to undergraduate fraternity (N=66) and non-fraternity males (N=134). Preliminary analysis indicated that fraternity men were significantly higher than non-fraternity men on moral disengagement (t (198) = 12.27, p<.05, d = 1.7), lower on measures of moral judgment (t (198) = 3.85, p<.05, d = .58) and higher on measures of rape-supportive attitudes (t (198) = -5.10, p<.05, d=-.74). The path analysis indicated that there were significant relationships between the variables in the hypothesized model, and a t-test for parallelism indicated that there were significant differences in the paths for fraternity and non-fraternity men. The relations among constructs and significant differences in scores indicate that future research on ethical interventions should be explored.