Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Psychology

Despite the negative implications associated with increasing age for physical and cognitive health, emotional well-being appears to remain stable, if not improved, with age. This phenomenon is believed to be explained by age-related increases in motivation to regulate emotions and shifts in emotion regulation strategies to compensate for physical and cognitive declines. Yet, past studies have predominantly relied on self-report measures of dispositional strategy use that are particularly susceptible to retrospective biases, and where behavioral measures have been employed, use of regulation strategies has been limited to only one strategy at a time to modify emotional responses. Additionally, there has been limited prior research examining age differences in how emotion regulation strategies are flexibly adapted to shifts in salient contextual features (e.g., interpersonal context, type/intensity of emotion elicited) in daily life. As people often use multiple strategies to regulate their emotions and the contexts in which these strategies are implemented are ever-changing, evaluating the cumulative effects of simultaneous strategy use and strategy flexibility in daily life is critical for understanding the processes underlying age-related changes in emotional well-being. The current study recruited 130 young adults and 130 older adults for an online study where participants were asked to complete a daily diary measure of emotion regulation, in which they responded to questions about their emotional experience, emotion regulation strategy use, and salient contextual features of “episodes” in their daily life. Participants also completed questionnaires assessing overall emotional well-being including affect balance and emotion dysregulation. In Aim 1, we examined age differences in emotion regulation strategy use, variability, and flexibility (i.e., covariation of strategy use with changes in negative affect intensity) in daily life. Aim 2 investigated how strategy u (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ruchika Prakash (Advisor); Theodore Beauchaine (Committee Member); Charles Emery (Committee Member); Derek Isaacowitz (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Psychology

Metacognition describes the ability to represent and access our own cognitive processes. This ability is crucial for understanding and optimizing how we learn and remember, allowing us to avoid strategies that have not worked for us in the past, and to continue using strategies that have. Metacognition has been described as involving two components, monitoring and control, which may have different developmental trajectories. In the current project, we addressed several remaining questions about metacognition and its development. How do monitoring and control develop? How do these components interact? Is metacognitive proficiency malleable in childhood? What kinds of information do children rely on to monitor and control behavior? In 8 experiments, these questions were addressed by using scaffolding such as feedback and strategy instruction to improve metacognitive performance across the lifespan. In Experiment 1, 5-year-olds, 7-year-olds, and adults' metacognitive monitoring and control were tested in a task that required them to initiate these processes spontaneously, demonstrating developmental differences in both monitoring and control. In Experiment 2, 5-year-olds were presented with performance feedback, strategy instruction, or both to assess their effects on the monitoring and control components. Whereas feedback influenced task monitoring, it did not influence metacognitive control. In addition, whereas strategy instruction improved control, it did not influence performance monitoring. These findings were expanded upon in Experiments 3, 4, and 5, wherein 5-year-olds, 7-year-olds, and adults were provided with no scaffolding, strategy instruction, or feedback, respectively, to assess whether monitoring and control can function independently. Across the age groups, feedback improved performance monitoring, but not metacognitive control. In addition, strategy instruction improved control, but not performance monitoring. These findings suggest a dissociation bet (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Vladimir Sloutsky (Advisor); Andrew Leber (Committee Member); John Opfer (Committee Member) Subjects: Developmental Psychology; Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2014, Psychology

Switching between two different tasks involves cognitive flexibility, an ability that develops quickly during the preschool period. Studies of the development of children's cognitive flexibility have elucidated how this ability is influenced by bottom-up, perceptual aspects of a task, but the influence of top-down processes like task choice are less understood. In this study, we investigated whether task choice facilitates children's ability to switch between tasks. In Experiment 1, we manipulated whether children had the opportunity to select the task of their choosing (e.g., to sort by color or by shape) at the beginning of each block. Children in the “choice” condition were allowed to choose, but children in the “cued” condition received a random task sequence. Because children in the choice condition chose to switch tasks much more frequently than children in the cued condition, it was difficult to draw conclusions about performance. We equated for these differences in Experiment 2, where we yoked children and adults in the choice and cued conditions to complete an identical task. Differences in performance emerged only when children chose an adaptive, easier task sequence. In Experiment 3, we developed a task to measure potential individual differences in metacognition that may explain why some children benefit from choice. In Experiment 4, we measured both cognitive flexibility and metacognition, revealing a relation between children's voluntary task switching and their ability to strategically choose an easier task.

Committee: Vladimir Sloutsky (Advisor); John Opfer (Committee Member); Andrew Leber (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Developmental Psychology; Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2001, Political Science

The cross-disciplinary efforts of civil-military relations have to date shown relatively little empirical evidence on the differences between civilian and military strategy. Yet, a variety of theories of behavior at international and domestic levels rest on assumptions about differences between civilians, the military, and subgroups of each. This research used content analysis to systematically measure and assess differences between specified groups in their communicated strategies, which were gathered from four domains: analysis, organization, operations, and planning of US actors from 1995-2000. The results are significant for those interested in strategy and civil-military relations. Eight hypotheses about offensiveness, uncertainty outlooks, and use of history were tested. An enduring theoretical notion about civil-military relations is supported by evidence that the military is significantly more offensive than comparable civilians, but the difference was only large in doctrine. Most importantly, offensiveness is critically related to context: “whether-to” deliberations of strategy reveal a more offensive civilian group, while only “how-to” discussions support the “offensive military” paradigm. Civilians are also greater users of history than the military. The difference was most significant in doctrine and national missile defense, and civilians invoke the current case and most recent war more often than the military—a strong indication that civilians are predisposed towards case-based reasoning. Civilians and military are also assessed as approximately equal in including uncertainty in strategy, but civilians are significantly less uncertain in doctrine, and more uncertain in NMD. An important proposition offered is that groups may include more uncertainty when they feel competence in or responsibility for strategy. Civil-military scholars are advised in future studies to consider that subgroups may consistently vary in values, beliefs and behavior in their a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Donald Sylvan (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, EDU Teaching and Learning

The purpose of this research is to describe and understand the ways in which deaf middle school students understood and solved compare word problems, and to examine their overall strategy use in learning mathematics. The participants in the study were deaf middle school students, attending a residential state school for the deaf. Most of them used sign language as their primary language and who had different communication modes and learning styles. This study used grounded theory to shape its methodological framework. Data were collected using four methods. 1) A think-aloud technique was utilized in order to explore the complex cognitive processes of solving word problems. 2) Interviews were conducted using a structured questionnaire, to determine deaf students' use of self-regulation learning strategy. 3) A computation test was administered to assess the students' computation abilities, which are necessarily related to word problem solving. 4) Student background surveys were administered to examine their primary language environments at home. The think-aloud protocols were video recorded, then transcribed and analyzed using a constant comparative method. Four problem-solving behaviors were found in this study. First, deaf students have more difficulty understanding inconsistent language (IL) problems than consistent language (CL) problems. That is, they committed reversal errors on IL problems more frequently than on CL problems. These reversal errors resulted from their lack of syntax knowledge, lack of ability to make inferences from the problem details, lack of fractional knowledge, and use of key word strategy. Second, the students tended to use key word strategy, which is identified as a direct-translation approach (DTA), as they read and solved word problems, regardless of the problem type. Unlike hearing students in previous studies, most deaf students used a meaning-based approach (MBA) with easier problems and a DTA approach with complex problems. Third, (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Douglas Owens (Advisor); Scot Danforth (Committee Member); Brenda Brueggemann (Committee Member) Subjects: Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2003, Educational Policy and Leadership

Learners use various strategies to read and process nonfiction text. This study explored the use of underlining, highlighting, and taking notes within the text in both paper and computer environments. This research was specifically interested in whether the use of the strategies and medium affected student comprehension and retention; whether there were significant differences with respect to class, gender, and self-reported computer use on the student's comprehension and retention; and whether there was a relationship between a participant's self-reported computer ability, perceived control, and computer awareness with the use of online strategies. The participants for this study were 152 undergraduate students attending a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. Participants were solicited from regularly scheduled courses, consisted of 48 males and 104 females, represented a variety of majors, and ranged in age from 17 to 60. A quasi-experimental, within-subjects design was used with eight classes randomly assigned to one of four groups. All participants received the same initial set of directions, and were asked to read the same text and respond to the same sequence of online tasks. There were two between-subjects variables for this study: strategy use and medium. Participants were either given instruction on the use of strategies in the processing of nonfiction text and the encouragement to use such strategies while reading the text, or given neither additional instructions nor mention of the use of strategies. Participants read the text either on the computer screen or on paper. Time (pretest, posttest1, posttest2) was the within-subjects variable. Participants who used strategies performed better than those who did not use strategies. Participants who read the text on paper performed better than those who read from the computer screen. On the comprehension measure, medium was significant for those who used strategies. On the retention measure, use of strateg (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Suzanne Damarin (Advisor) Subjects: Education, Technology

PHD, Kent State University, 2009, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Psychological Sciences

Simple and complex span tasks are thought to measure separate memory constructs. Recently, though, Unsworth and Engle (2006) proposed that simple and complex span tasks tap the same construct based on the reasoning that both similarly predict performance on measures of fluid intelligence (gF) when items in secondary memory (SM) are equated. Two studies were designed to evaluate (1) whether Unsworth and Engle's findings could be replicated and (2) whether individual differences in strategy use could account for their findings. Results demonstrated that, after equating the number of items retrieved from secondary memory, simple and complex span performance was similar and both equally predicted performance on gF tasks. Moreover, individual differences in effective strategy use partially accounted for these findings. That is, effective strategies were produced equally often on simple and complex span tasks after items in secondary memory were equated, but they did not account for the span-gF relationships.

Committee: John Dunlosky PhD (Committee Chair); Maria Zaragoza PhD (Committee Member); Joel Hughes PhD (Committee Member); Michael Kane PhD (Committee Member); Donald Bubenzer PhD (Other) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Education, University of Akron, 2011, Secondary Education

Self-regulated learning refers to students taking responsibility for what and how they learn in the classroom, and how it affects their thoughts and actions in their academic requirements. This action research case study sought to investigate the use of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies and beliefs of secondary high school juniors enrolled in the International Baccalaureate English A1 curriculum at an urban secondary school. The focus of this study was students' behavior and beliefs through LASSI testing, phenomenological interviews, student journaling, classroom observations, and artifacts in an authentic classroom setting in the final semester of their junior year. The self-regulated learning strategies of Zimmerman and Pons (1986) were the foundation for this study in an attempt to align the SRL strategies and student beliefs with the International Baccalaureate student profile. Data were gathered through LASSI testing, triadic interviews, student journaling, external observations, and artifacts (an assigned research paper), and the results triangulated with the International Baccalaureate student profile and mission of "learning to learn." Emerging themes became apparent and were explored as the interview process continued at 3-week intervals. The emerging self-efficacy beliefs and strategy use elicited future questions as the results were analyzed and new interview questions were formulated. LASSI testing results were compared with students' interviews and journaling, as well as their reflection letters concerning their research projects. The SRL strategy of collective efficacy, or social assistance from peers, is considered to be the key factor in achieving academic success by all the subjects. The successful students employed forethought and goal-setting, and strategic planning, and found particular intrinsic value in their academic tasks. They valued student engagement, social assistance, and self-control processes. Their volition, or will to succe (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Harold Foster Dr. (Advisor); Catharine Knight Dr. (Committee Member); M. Kay Alderman Dr. (Committee Member); Susan Colville-Hall Dr. (Committee Member); Huey Li-Li Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Curriculum Development