Comparing Zoos and the Media as Conservation Educators

ABSTRACT

Resident non-participation is a major contemporary issue for the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (Udvar-Hazy Center), a recently opened companion facility to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. The current study investigates the motivations and characteristics of local non-visitors. Residents from three surrounding counties comprised the study population and, as part of the larger study, responded to statements pertaining to reasons for non-visitation to the Udvar-Hazy Center, derived and modified for a museum context from the leisure constraints literature. Analysis of non-visitors, about one-half of the sample, resulted in the identification of relatively homogenous minimally-constrained, awareness-constrained, time-constrained, and access-constrained clusters. Managerial implications of these findings are considered.     

Perceptions of Submissiveness: Implications for Victimization

Some researchers have suggested that a precondition of affective submissiveness may increase the likelihood of female victimization in sexual assault, whereas others have suggested that criminal offenders use perceptions of vulnerability when selecting a victim. In this study, based on American college students, men (decoders) rated videotaped women (encoders) dominant versus submissive using a semantic differential instrument. Cue evaluators analyzed the body language and appearance of the videotaped women using a Likert instrument. The results suggest that (a) men form differentiated perceptions of dominant versus submissive women, (b) such perceptions substantially rely on nonverbal cues, (c) dominant and submissive women display visually different behaviors and appearances, and (d) men tend to select submissive females for exploitation.     

Differences in Student Perceptions of Secondary Vocational Education: Implications for Multicultural Career Counseling

Comparative analysis of 204 African-American and White students' perceptions toward secondary vocational education revealed that students formed perceptions toward these programs from a multidimensional perspective. Generally, African-American female students held positive perceptions whereas African-American male students held negative perceptions toward vocational education programs.     

Exploring Positive Learning Experiences in the Context of Practical Theological Education

Abstract. This article presents findings from an empirical study exploring student and teacher perspectives on positive learning experiences in practical theological education. Forty‐five students and twenty teachers were interviewed in focus groups in four educational institutions delivering programs in practical theology. The findings indicated that students valued practical theological education when it enabled them to think critically in relation to their personal or professional experience, and that students valued tutors, their peers and a flexible curriculum design in promoting this kind of learning. There was a high correlation between students’ views of positive learning experiences and what tutors perceived as important qualities that they hoped their students would develop. Difficulties associated with the students’ lack of clarity about the learning process and the tensions between academic and professional contexts are also discussed.     

Perceptions of Americans and the Iraq Invasion: Implications for Understanding National Character Stereotypes

This study examines perceptions of the "typical American" from 49 cultures around the world. Contrary to the ethnocentric bias hypothesis, we found strong agreement between in-group and out-group ratings on the American profile (assertive, open-minded, but antagonistic); Americans in fact had a somewhat less desirable view of Americans than did others. Within cultures, in-group ratings were not systematically more favorable than out-group ratings. The Iraq invasion had a slight negative effect on perceptions of the typical American, but people around the world seem to draw a clear distinction between U.S. foreign policy and the character of the American people. National character stereotypes appear to have a variety of sources and to be perpetuated by both cognitive mechanisms and socio-cultural forces.     

Assessing Mission-Related Learning Outcomes at Zoos and Aquaria: Prevalence,Barriers, and Needs

ABSTRACT

The authors investigated the current practices for assessing mission-related learning outcomes at institutions that belong to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) in North America. A survey instrument was sent to 207 education directors in order to examine each institution's efforts in conducting audience research and evaluating the impact of their mission. Survey results from 97 institutions revealed that a large proportion of zoos and aquaria conduct visitor research; however, most only collect measures related to operational performance and not measures concerning mission-related learning outcomes such as knowledge gains, affective reactions to animals, or intended conservation actions. Large institutions tended to collect more information than smaller institutions. Most responding institutions also indicated a need for additional data to evaluate their mission performance. Not surprisingly, the most prevalent barriers for conducting visitor research were found to be inadequate staffing capacity and budgets. Most institutions clearly understand the need for additional mission-related research efforts. Because most institutions already conduct some audience research, incremental efforts, such as pooling resources or common measuring standards could yield deeper understanding of the mission performance in zoos and aquaria.     

Perceptions of speakers with minimal eye contact: Implications for stutterers

One hundred and thirty-three college students responded to percentage definitions of “good,” “minimal,” and “no” eye contact. They also judged their perceptions of a speaker with “little or no eye contact” on a semantic differential scale containing 60 polarized adjective pairs regarding personality traits. The majority of the student respondents defined an individual with “good” eye contact as looking at his/her audience/listener 90–100% of the time. This is a more stringent definition than other literature has indicated. Furthermore, speakers with little or no eye contact were judged less favorably on 70% of the items, which indicates that low eye contact adversely affects perceptions of a speaker's personality. Therefore, stutterers need to be made aware of the importance of and determinants of effective eye contact in communication. Also, the development of effective eye contact needs to be incorporated as a major goal in stuttering therapy.     

Psychometric Aspects of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire: Implications for Clinical Assessment and Research

The Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ) is a self-report measure that assesses self-criticism and dependency, 2 personality traits that confer vulnerability to depression (Blatt, 2004 Blatt, S. J. (2004). Experiences of depression: Theoretical, clinical, and research perspectives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Over several decades, different, shortened versions of the DEQ have been constructed to offer an alternative to the complex scoring procedure of the original DEQ. This study explores the factor structure as well as the construct and convergent validity of the DEQ by comparing a clinical and nonclinical sample. We also compared the original DEQ with 5 shortened versions. There were 621 participants (358 university students and 263 outpatients). Fit indexes for models of the original DEQ did not meet minimum fit criteria. Moreover, the only versions with satisfactory fit were the Theoretical Depressive Experiences Questionnaire–21 (TDEQ–21) and the Theoretical Depressive Experiences Questionnaire–12 (TDEQ–12), which also showed acceptable construct and convergent validity. Finally, the diagnostic and clinical applicability of the DEQ is discussed.     

Fatherhood in the Canadian Context: Perceptions and Experiences of Sudanese Refugee Men

As they attempt to settle and adapt into Canadian society, new immigrants and/or refugees fathers face multiple stressors, some of which include underemployment or unemployment, social isolation, and changing roles within the family. Through a qualitative research involving in-depth interviews with 20 Sudanese refugee men recruited through a criterion sampling process based primarily on length of residency and age of children in Canada, this paper examines their perceptions and experiences as fathers in a large urban centre in Canada. Insights on the meaning of fatherhood, the values that guide their behaviour as fathers, their interactions with and aspirations for their children, and the challenges these men encounter as fathers in Canadian society are also provided.     

Perceptions of Microaggressions: Implications for the Mental Health and Treatment of African American Youth

Race continues to be a salient and impactful component of psychological well-being in diverse modern societies. Significant race based disparities in mental health with respect to children and youth have been noted. Such disparities are evident in both access to and types of treatment. Confounding this issue are the race based phenomena that shape the dynamics between mental health and disorder for African American children and youth. While all races of children experience typical childhood mental health challenges such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and Conduct Disorder, African American children who report perceived racism are more than twice as likely to have such disorders using Winnicott’s True and False Self as a framework, the following qualitative study explored how African American seventh grade students perceived personal racist encounters. Implications for treatment will be discussed within the context of therapeutic strategies.     

Perceptions of Parenthood Among Young Adults: Implications for Career and Family Planning

Motivations and expectations of parenthood were assessed in 505 female and male undergraduate students. Parents and those intending to have children agreed more strongly with intrinsic motivations and also endorsed more benefits for having children than did the unsure group. Those intending to have children estimated costs of parenthood to be significantly less than either parents or those unsure of having children. Women across all three parenting groups estimated the costs of parenthood to be higher than did male respondents. Results are discussed in the framework of violated expectations and the need for prepregnancy intervention programs.     

Common Themes in the Experiences of Mother-Daughter Incest Survivors: Implications for Counseling

A qualitative method was used to explore the phenomenon of mother-daughter incest. Common themes were extracted from in-depth interviews with survivors of mother-perpetrated sexual abuse, some of which parallel the experience of survivors of other forms of child sexual abuse, and some of which are more specific to mother-daughter incest. These themes are discussed in detail. Counseling implications are discussed and treatment recommendations are made for therapists working with adult survivors of maternal sexual abuse.     

Lived Experiences of Subclinical Eating Disorder: Female Students' Perceptions

The aim of this study was to obtain an “insiders' perspective” on the lived experience of Subclinical Eating Disorder (SED) in female university students. Participants were 30 white, undergraduate females from the Potchefstroom campus of the North-West University in South African, (age range 18 years 6 months to 22 years). Data were collected using focus group interviews, drawings, letter-writing and self-reflective researcher field notes (Brocki & Wearden, 2006; Morse, 2003). For the analysis, the constant comparative text analysis method (Willig, 2001) was used. Emergent themes from the analysis included four main categories namely: Intra-, Interpersonal, Existential and Body-image. Subcategories of these themes spanned the following: Personal Brokenness, Personal Shame, Perceived Personal Inadequacy and Enslavement, Existential Vacuum, Perceived Social Pressure, Perceived Social Isolation and Body-image Dysfunction. Results were indicative of underestimation of SED-severity, its detrimental impact on participants' psychological well-being and high risk for escalation into full-blown eating disorders. An integrated, risk-protective model of secondary prevention, contextualised within psycho-social developmental perspectives is essential to understand SED in young adults.     

Military Veterans' Experiences with Suicidal Ideation: Implications for Intervention and Prevention

We sought to understand Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans' experiences with suicidal ideation. Semi‐structured interviews with 34 OEF/OIF veterans addressed circumstances leading up to disclosure of suicidal ideation during brief clinical assessments. We used an iterative, inductive and deductive thematic analysis approach. Results revealed three pervasive, persistent domains that reinforce the uniqueness of veteran suicidal thoughts: military culture, difficult deployment experiences, and postdeployment adjustment challenges. Within postdeployment, we identified four themes that serve as intervention targets: adjusting to civilian culture, changes to sense of self, feeling overwhelmed by stressors, and lacking life purpose or meaning.     

Spatial and Temporal Processing in Healthy Aging: Implications for Perceptions of Driving Skills

ABSTRACT

Sensitivity to the attributes of a stimulus (form or motion) and accuracy when detecting rapidly presented stimulus information were measured in older (N?=?36) and younger (N?=?37) groups. Before and after practice, the older group was significantly less sensitive to global motion (but not to form) and less accurate on a rapid sequencing task when detecting the individual elements presented in long but not short sequences. These effect sizes produced power for the different analyses that ranged between 0.5 and 1.00. The reduced sensitivity found among older individuals to temporal but not spatial stimuli, adds support to previous findings of a selective age-related deficit in temporal processing. Older women were significantly less sensitive than older men, younger men and younger women on the global motion task. Gender effects were evident when, in response to global motion stimuli, complex extraction and integration processes needed to be undertaken rapidly. Significant moderate correlations were found between age, global motion sensitivity and reports of perceptions of other vehicles and road signs when driving. These associations suggest that reduced motion sensitivity may produce functional difficulties for the older adults when judging speeds or estimating gaps in traffic while driving.     

Views on and Perceptions of Experiences of Touch Avoidance: An Exploratory Study

The aim of this study was to explore perceptions of physical touch by conducting semi-structured interviews with 14 participants, nine women and five men (M _age?=?25.1). A touch avoidance screening form was used to select subjects with the highest scores on touch avoidance as well as those with the lowest scores, that is, the greatest acceptance of touch, for the interviews (n?=?7 in each group). Data were analyzed using Burnard’s stage-by-stage process of coding and categorization. The identified superordinate themes were labeled: 1) safe haven, 2) skill, 3) physical appearance, 4) ambivalence and 5) fear. Among other findings, touch avoiders seemed to have a greater need for bodily intimacy as a confirmation of the romantic partner relationship than did touch accepters. It was concluded that the experience of physical closeness is complex, and the relationships with attachment theory were discussed. Further research was suggested to more thoroughly investigate the present findings on touch avoidance, as well as the origins of touch avoidance and its consequences for personal relationships and communication skills.