Browsing by Subject "African-Americans"
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Item Don’t forget about us : African-American collegiate students’ newfound perspectives on foreign language motivation, foreign language anxiety, and their beliefs about foreign language learning(2013-12) Gatlin, Nicholas Sherrod; Horwitz, Elaine Kolker, 1950-This study investigates African-American college students’ beliefs about foreign language learning, foreign language anxiety, motivations for language learning, and the extent to which the racial composition of a campus environment plays a role in those factors. 571 students across four universities completed three survey instruments: modified versions of the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (Horwitz, 1986), the Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992) respectively, the Foreign Language Classroom Academic Scale (Horwitz et al., 1986), and three open-ended questions on being African-American and learning a foreign language. Findings noted that one of three motivation factors for language learning was significantly different for campus environment. Post-hoc analyses indicated that participants at HBCUs were less likely to be the least motivated by short-term extrinsic goals for learning a foreign language than those at a PWI. African-American participants reported higher levels of foreign language anxiety than mixed groups of participants in previous studies and there were no significant differences in foreign language anxiety regarding campus environment and gender; but, there were significant differences for academic classification and the individual universities. Two of three motivation factors correlated with foreign language anxiety. Long Term Intrinsic: Discovery and Satisfaction—had a positive relationship with anxiety only at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI), whereas, Short Term Extrinsic: Minimal Investment had a negative relationship with foreign language anxiety at both PWIs and HBCUs, This factor also had the highest relationship with anxiety. The beliefs analysis indicated that African-American college students across campus environments displayed more similarities in their beliefs about foreign language learning than differences. Findings also noted few differences when compared to prior studies with other language learner groups. The belief category “African-American Expectations,” noted that African-Americans strongly believe that they are capable of learning a foreign language, and that learning a foreign language would benefit them in the future. The open-ended questions provided a wide range of perspectives to several of the beliefs about language learning, as well as motivation and anxiety from African-American college students. One major theme that emerged from the analysis focused on pressures African-American students face in the foreign language classroom.Item Examining the therapeutic compliment with African-Americans: a counseling technique to improve the working alliance(2009-05-15) Duncan, Bryan ThomasThe working alliance has received consistent empirical support relating the construct to psychotherapy outcome. There is no empirical research on any particular techniques that may prove useful at increasing the level of working alliance. In this study, the therapeutic compliment is defined, discussed, and compared with other therapeutic interventions to find its usefulness in therapy and its ability to impact the working alliance. 120 African-Americans from a large southwestern university and a medium southeastern university participated in this study by viewing one of six mock therapy sessions that had one of three different interventions: Therapeutic Compliment, Simple Compliment, and Advanced Accurate Empathy. The mock sessions were created to provide two levels of session relationship (high and low). The participants completed three measures, the Working Alliance Inventory, Hopefulness Scale, and Accurate Empathy Scale, to determine the perceptions of the different interventions. The study utilized multiple analyses of variances (ANOVAs) to compare the means of the three interventions.Statistical significance was not found with overall general working alliance scores from the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI). The individual subscales of the WAI, goals, tasks, and bonds, however; did reveal significance when comparing the interventions across one level of the session relationship (high). The interventions were not statistically different from each other in terms of perceived hopefulness and empathy. No significance was found when comparing the interventions with perceived hopefulness of outcome or level of perceived empathy. The implications from this study include a first look at the use of complimenting in therapy and a first attempt to analyze a specific technique to create an influence on the working alliance. Further research is still needed to understand which techniques are more beneficial at creating an affect on the working alliance.Item Sins of the father shall visit the child(2007-05) Jones, Corey Emanuel, 1976-; Abraham, Lee E.This thesis accounts the process of developing and performing my one-man show on the disproportionately high rate of Black male incarceration in America and some of the causes and effects of this social epidemic.Item The value of multicultural marketing : increasing sustainable behaviors among African-Americans with market segmentation(2015-05) Queen, Candace Danielle; Atkinson, Lucinda; Mackert, MichaelIn the communications industry marketers and advertisers are in constant conversation regarding the need for ethnic multicultural marketing. Many brands have forgone the concept, adopting total market strategy methods to reach the changing general market. Others have gone further, promoting cross-cultural tactics. At the same time, childhood obesity is rising at an alarming rate in the United States and African-Americans children rank the highest. Despite numerous campaigns there still remains a large disconnect between the African-American community and health specialists trying to reduce the number of obese children. This study highlights why the ability to focus on ethnic segmentation and to develop messages that resonate well within that segment is critical, particularly when the purpose is to incite a strong behavioral change that may conflict with cultural norms. The Social Learning Theory and Health Belief Model serve as the theoretical framework for the research questions outlined in the study.