Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Beliefs'
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McClung, Samuel Alan. "Peer evaluator beliefs analyzed within a teacher belief framework." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/186587.
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The purpose of this study was to describe the views of peer evaluators within a career ladder system in one school district in the Southwestern United States. The methods and data analysis used 3 parts of a theoretical framework developed by Lortie (1975): goals sought in the workplace (perspectives on purpose), effective teaching (and the effects of endemic uncertainties of teaching to effectiveness), and preferences in job tasks (logic of sentiments). Eleven peer evaluators were interviewed. The data from the interviews were qualitatively analyzed and presented. Among the findings, peer evaluators' perspectives on purpose included goals to gain experience for leaving the classroom. Peer evaluators' endemic uncertainties included the assessment of teaching and the description of an effective teacher. Within peer evaluators' logic of sentiments, they preferred to observe students and work with teachers. Peer evaluators disliked determining the compensation of teachers. Within their logic of sentiments, peer evaluators viewed teachers as a well-qualified group willing to continue their own professional growth. Peer evaluators found their relationship with teachers constrained because of their roles of assisting teachers in their professional growth and summatively assessing teachers. Implications of this study include the need for further study to describe the views of teachers involved in differentiated staffing in career ladder programs. Additionally, further study is needed to determine the relationship of the views of teachers within a career ladder program to the success of the policies and activities of these programs.
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Santos, Clara Maria Melo dos. "Good reasoning : to whom? when? how?; an investigation of belief effects on syllogistic and argumentative reasoning." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.296530.
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Meier, Martin. "Universal beliefs structures." [S.l. : s.n.], 2002. http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=970851073.
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Jardin, Charles E. "Irrational Christian beliefs." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 1985. http://www.tren.com.
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Queale, Peter R. "Oral health beliefs /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 1994. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09AR.PS/09ar.psq3.pdf.
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Nye, Gary D. Adkison Judith Ann. "Principals' leadership beliefs." [Denton, Tex.] : University of North Texas, 2008. http://digital.library.unt.edu/permalink/meta-dc-9747.
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White, Cindel Jennifer Melina. "Belief in karma : the content and correlates of supernatural justice beliefs across cultures." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/62559.
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Karmic beliefs, centered on the notion of ethical causation within and across lifetimes, appear in religious traditions and spiritual movements around the world, yet they remain an unexplored topic in psychology. I developed and validated a 16-item measure of belief in karma, and used this measure to assess the cultural distribution, cognitive content, and correlates of karmic beliefs among participants from culturally and religiously diverse backgrounds, including Canadian students (Sample 1: N = 3193, Sample 2: N = 3072) and broad national samples of adults from Canada (N = 1000) and India (N = 1006). Belief in karma showed predictable variation based on participant’s cultural (e.g., Indian) and religious (e.g., Hindu and Buddhist) background, but was also surprisingly common among people from cultural groups with no tradition of karmic beliefs (e.g., nonreligious or Christian Canadians). I demonstrate how karmic beliefs are related to, but distinct from, conceptually-similar beliefs, including belief in a just world and belief in a moralizing god. Finally, I provide preliminary evidence of intuitive conceptions of karma, and investigate how karma is related to self-reported prosocial behaviour and moral judgments. Karma is a form of supernatural justice belief, endorsed by many people from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds that lies at the intersection between beliefs about justice and morality, and beliefs about supernatural forces that shape the course of life’s events.Arts, Faculty of
Psychology, Department of
Graduate
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Belcher, Devon. "On words: An essay on beliefs, belief attributions and the ontology of language." Diss., Connect to online resource, 2005. http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/3178358.
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Lawrence, Christopher. "Permission to believe: descriptive and prescriptive beliefs in the Clifford/James debate." Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32789.
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William Clifford's ‘The Ethics of Belief' proposes an ‘evidence principle': …it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence (1877, 1879:186). Its universal, absolutist language seems to hide something fundamentally correct. We first argue for excluding prescriptive beliefs, and then consider further apparent counter-examples, culminating in more restricted, qualified wording: If anything is morally wrong, then it is morally wrong within the category of descriptive belief to believe anything knowingly or irresponsibly on insufficient evidence in the absence of any conflicting and overriding moral imperative except when the unjustified believing is outside the believer's voluntary control. We test this against William James's counter-claim for qualified legitimate overbelief (‘The Will To Believe', 1896, 2000), and suggest additional benefits of adopting an evidence principle in relation to the structured combinations of descriptive and prescriptive components common to religious belief. In search of criteria for ‘sufficient' and ‘insufficient' evidence we then consider an ‘enriched' Bayesianism within normative decision theory, which helps explain good doxastic practice under risk. ‘Lottery paradox' cases however undermine the idea of an evidence threshold: we would say we justifiably believe one hypothesis while saying another, at the same credence level, is only very probably true. We consider approaches to ‘pragmatic encroachment', suggesting a parallel between ‘practical interest' and the ‘personal utility' denominating the stakes of the imaginary gambles which Bayesian credences can be illustrated as. But personal utility seems inappropriately agent-relative for a moral principle. We return to Clifford's conception of our shared responsibilities to our shared epistemic asset. This ‘practical interest we ought to have' offers an explanation for our duty, as members of an epistemic community, to get and evaluate evidence; and for the ‘utility' stakes of Bayesian imaginary gambles. Helped by Edward Craig's (1990, 1999) ‘state-of-nature' theory of knowledge it provides a minimum threshold to avoid insufficient evidence and suggests an aspirational criterion of sufficient evidence: Wherever possible, a level of evidence sufficient to support the level of justification required to be a good informant, whatever the particular circumstances of the inquirer.
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Lu, Xinyue. "Could Intuitions Be Beliefs?" Scholarship @ Claremont, 2015. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/630.
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Amin, M. "Beliefs about difficult feelings." Thesis, Canterbury Christ Church University, 2012. http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/11178/.
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Section A provides a review of the emotional and experiential avoidance literature with a focus on determining the proximal psychological factors that might lead individuals to avoid experiencing feelings. This section highlights the importance of beliefs, judgements and appraisals about the acceptability of negative emotions, as well as fears about the physical, psychological and social consequences of tolerating internal distress as potential drivers of emotional avoidance. Section B describes the development of a new scale to identify and measure beliefs about experiencing difficult emotions. The paper gives a background and rationale for the study and outlines the methodology that was utilised to construct and psychometrically evaluate the Beliefs about Difficult Feelings Scale (BDFS). 304 participants completed the scale online along with related measures. The six clusters of beliefs that emerged from a factor analysis of 90 pilot items include Catastrophic Beliefs, Emotions are Useful, Negative Evaluation from Others, Emotions are Exhausting/Frustrating, Emotions are Transient and Emotions are Pointless. The psychometric properties of the final 29-item BDFS are promising. The new measure demonstrated good internal consistency, test-retest reliability and construct validity, however further psychometric evaluation is needed on new samples to verify these preliminary findings
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WIMBERLY, YOLANDA HILL. "ADOLESCENT BELIEFS ABOUT INFERTILITY." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1022004818.
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O'Dell, Nicholas West. "Decision-Making Ability Beliefs." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461084976.
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Montgomery, Bradley. "Measuring Gender Status Beliefs." The Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595462306435782.
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Grutzik, Cynthia 1961. "Teachers' beliefs about learning." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291861.
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This is a study of six elementary school teachers' personal constructs about learning. I used ethnographic methods to interview each teacher twice. The questions guiding this study are: How do these teachers believe learning happens? How clearly do they express these beliefs? And who are these teachers as learners themselves? My premise is that teachers must also be learners, and must be aware of their own learning if they are to help others learn. Besides being interested in whether or not these teachers were familiar with their beliefs, I was interested in their view of knowledge, whether constructivist (knowledge created by the learner) or objectivist (knowledge transmitted to the learner). I found that some teachers were more familiar with their beliefs about learning than others. This seemed to be related to the kinds of opportunities they had had for discussion and reflection: workshops and inservice sessions, or long-term training programs.
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Edwards, Lee Thomas. "The relationship between rigidity of belief and threat arousal in encounters with differing beliefs /." Digital version accessible at:, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Edmonds, Ellen. "Osteoporosis knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors of college students utilization of the Health Belief Model /." Thesis, [Tuscaloosa, Ala. : University of Alabama Libraries], 2009. http://purl.lib.ua.edu/67.
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Wingert, Heather Dianne. "The label gifted, parent beliefs, transmission of beliefs and impact on the child." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq24365.pdf.
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Spardello, Mollie E. "Creativity Beliefs of Elementary Students: Self-efficacy, Self-esteem and Beliefs in Between." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2012. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/art_design_theses/123.
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Creative development in students is an important aim for the art educator. The visual arts class can be a realm for exploring and nurturing creativity in students. While all students may not grow up to produce works of art outside the classroom, visual arts education can impact a student’s understanding of their own creativity. This paper explores the creativity beliefs of elementary students. The research seeks to understand the implicit theories or beliefs of creativity that shape creative self-efficacy and what factors may influence these beliefs in students.
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Howarth, Stephanie. "Believe it or not : examining the case for intuitive logic and effortful beliefs." Thesis, University of Plymouth, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/3322.
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The overall objective of this thesis was to test the Default Interventionist (DI) account of belief-bias in human reasoning using the novel methodology introduced by Handley, Newstead & Trippas (2011). DI accounts focus on how our prior beliefs are the intuitive output that bias our reasoning process (Evans, 2006), whilst judgments based on logical validity require effortful processing. However, recent research has suggested that reasoning on the basis of beliefs may not be as fast and automatic as previous accounts claim. In order to investigate whether belief based judgments are resource demanding we instructed participants to reason on the basis of both the validity and believability of a conclusion whilst simultaneously engaging in a secondary task (Experiment 1 - 5). We used both a within and between subjects design (Experiment 5) examining both simple and complex arguments (Experiment 4 – 9). We also analysed the effect of incorporating additional instructional conditions (Experiment 7 – 9) and tested the relationships between various individual differences (ID) measures under belief and logic instruction (Experiment 4, 5, 7, 8, & 9). In line with Handley et al.’s findings we found that belief based judgments were more prone to error and that the logical structure of a problem interfered with judging the believability of its conclusion, contrary to the DI account of reasoning. However, logical outputs sometimes took longer to complete and were more affected by random number generation (RNG) (Experiment 5). To reconcile these findings we examined the role of Working Memory (WM) and Inhibition in Experiments 7 – 9 and found, contrary to Experiment 5, belief judgments were more demanding of executive resources and correlated with ID measures of WM and inhibition. Given that belief based judgments resulted in more errors and were more impacted on by the validity of an argument the behavioural data does not fit with the DI account of reasoning. Consequently, we propose that there are two routes to a logical solution and present an alternative Parallel Competitive model to explain the data. We conjecture that when instructed to reason on the basis of belief an automatic logical output completes and provides the reasoner with an intuitive logical cue which requires inhibiting in order for the belief based response to be generated. This creates a Type 1/Type 2 conflict, explaining the impact of logic on belief based judgments. When explicitly instructed to reason logically, it takes deliberate Type 2 processing to arrive at the logical solution. The engagement in Type 2 processing in order to produce an explicit logical output is impacted on by demanding secondary tasks (RNG) and any task that interferes with the integration of premise information (Experiments 8 and 9) leading to increased latencies. However the relatively simple nature of the problems means that accuracy is less affected. We conclude that the type of instructions provided along with the complexity of the problem and the inhibitory demands of the task all play key roles in determining the difficulty and time course of logical and belief based responses.
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Mahaffey, Brittain Lynn Abramowitz Jonathan S. "The development of obsessive beliefs the influence of parents' beliefs and parenting style characteristics /." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,2781.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009.Title from electronic title page (viewed Mar. 10, 2010). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Psychology Clinical Psychology." Discipline: Psychology; Department/School: Psychology.
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Burton, Amy. "Beliefs about Binge Eating: Psychometric Properties and Clinical Utility of the Eating Beliefs Questionnaire." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/19627.
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Binge eating (BE) is a core feature of eating disorder presentations, common to bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa (binge/purge type), and binge eating disorder. A sound understanding of the underlying mechanisms that maintain BE is crucial for developing effective treatments. The aim of this thesis was to better understand the metacognitive factors that maintain BE, such as the positive, negative, and permissive beliefs about BE described by Cooper, Wells and Todd (2004). This thesis reports a series of studies that aimed to validate and improve upon an existing measure, the Eating Beliefs Questionnaire (EBQ). The EBQ is a self-report tool that measures positive and negative metacognitive beliefs about BE. The first study aimed to validate the EBQ by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis and investigate the psychometric properties of this measure. The second study extended this measure with the addition of a scale that assesses permissive beliefs about BE. The second study also presented a short-form of the revised three-subscale EBQ, the EBQ-18. A third study validated the factor structure and psychometric properties of the EBQ-18 in both a clinical and non-clinical sample. Across the psychometric studies, the EBQ and EBQ-18 were found to provide valid and reliable measures of beliefs related to BE, with evidence for test-retest reliability, and treatment sensitivity. Furthermore, differences in EBQ and EBQ-18 scores were observed between clinical and non-clinical samples, and clinical cut-off scores were identified. In the final empirical chapter, a metacognitive and behavioural model of BE was proposed and tested using structural equations modelling; the new model provided a good fit to the data. These studies further contribute by enhancing the theoretical understanding of the metacognitive maintaining factors involved in BE.
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Steel, Caroline Helen. "The Interrelationaship Between University Teachers' Pedagogical Beliefs, Beliefs about Web Technologies and Web Practices." Thesis, Griffith University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367311.
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Educational technologies in university education are widely promoted for their potential to enrich, enhance and extend student laearning experiences (Hedberg, 2006). In the last decade, Learning Management Systems (LMS) have become a standard educational technology solution at most universities. While LMS have been purchased with enthusiasm, they have not always been integrated into university teacher practices with the same enthusiasm, and little work has been completed to assess differential effects across individual teachers, contexts and disciplines. If universities hope to encourage uptake of LMS and other technologies, studies are required to examine how teachers reconcile and translate their beliefs in these envirnments. Research into university teacher beliefs has suggested that belief systems infiltrate teacher thinking, planning, decision-making, behaviour and their application of educational technologies (Bain, McNaught, Lueckenhausen, & Mills, 1998: Reeves & Reeves, 1997).Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Languages and Linguistics
Arts, Education and Law
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Gach, Lauren Sherrill. "A Study of Teachers' Espoused Instructional Beliefs." FIU Digital Commons, 2001. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/53.
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The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ espoused instructional beliefs and whether they differed in relation to schools’ socioeconomic status, extent of teachers’ educational background, or extent of teachers’ classroom experience. The study comprised a total of 242 Miami-Dade County public school educators who responded to a thirty-nine question Likert scale, Literacy Instructional Practices Questionnaire. Eighteen schools, three from each of the six regions, were purposively selected based on the socioeconomic status of students. Nine participants were interviewed using semi-standardized interview procedures and open-ended questioning techniques. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) results revealed that teachers’ espoused beliefs concerning the instruction of literacy and forces and influences affecting instruction do not significantly differ depending on schools’ socioeconomic status, extent of teachers’ educational background, or extent of teachers’ classroom experience. The majority of teachers appear to follow a top-down generated direct instruction model. Generally, students are taught as a whole class and ability grouped for specific skill instruction utilizing commercially produced reading and language arts texts. There was no evidence of a relationship between teachers’ espoused beliefs concerning the model of instruction that they practice or teachers’ espoused beliefs concerning research and its application to practice and the three independent variables. Interview data corroborated much of the information garnered through the questionnaire. However, interview participants espoused the belief that research did not influence their selection of instructional practices. Although teachers perceive of themselves as eclectic in their espoused instructional beliefs, they appear to follow a skills based direct instruction pedagogy in practice. Much of what teachers believe constitutes effective practice, few researchers recommend, affirming the findings of Calderhead (1993) and the National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board (U.S. Department of Education, 1998, p. 18) that “educators rarely know research, seek it out, or act in accordance with its results.”
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Pilditch, T. D. "Communicated beliefs : the interplay of evidence and truth values in erroneous belief acquisition and maintenance." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2017. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1551676/.
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This thesis explores the interplay between evidence (in terms of clarity, quantity and order) and source factors in the uptake and maintenance of second-hand, erroneous beliefs. Through a series of online paradigms, we demonstrate the uptake of a communicated belief (e.g., “Option A is better than option B”) is conditional upon early experiences, given an unknown source. Further, we show that such a consolidation of belief then leads to a confirmation bias, wherein beliefs are maintained despite long-run contradictory evidence. Importantly, we demonstrate that such a bias occurs despite participants being motivated towards accuracy (as opposed to belief-maintenance), and the presence of counterfactual information. We accordingly forward an integrative confirmation bias account of consolidated belief maintenance. The focus then turns to explore the gatekeeping role of early experiences. Using short-term fluctuations in evidence, we not only demonstrate the impact of the first few pieces of evidence in consolidating beliefs, but that such effects are interruptible. Taking insights yielded from the Bayesian source credibility model, the perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the source are then manipulated in conjunction with initial evidence. In line with predictions, beliefs from credible sources show consolidation prior to initial evidence, subsuming its role. Conversely, beliefs from dubious sources once again demonstrate the critical impact of initial evidence. Findings are related to the role of source cues and early experiences in increasing the confidence in a belief’s validity, placed within the wider theoretical context, and novel implications for reliability updating are demonstrated. These empirical findings are then extrapolated to belief propagation in online networks using Agent-Based Modelling. This work demonstrates that the structure and incentives present in online networks exacerbate societal level erroneous belief uptake. Implications are drawn to literature including persuasion, placebo effects, and opinion dynamics, along with phenomena including superstition and pseudoscientific beliefs.
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Merzah, Mohammed. "KNOWLEDGE AND HEALTH BELIEFS ABOUT TYPE II DIABETES AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS USING HEALTH BELIEF MODEL." OpenSIUC, 2014. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/1485.
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Background: Type II diabetes, which is known as non-insulin dependent diabetes, has become an epidemic worldwide. In the United States, diabetes affects 25.8 million people which represent 8.3% of the population. Out of 25.8 million, 23.22 million people have Type II diabetes. According to the National Statistics Vital Report, Type II diabetes was the number seven cause of death in the USA and it can be prevented. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the overall knowledge and health beliefs about Type II diabetes among a sample of undergraduate students; the second purpose was to assess the relationship between the overall knowledge and health belief subscale. Methods: A cross-sectional and descriptive survey design was used. An existing knowledge and health belief instruments was adapted. In the 2014 spring semester, a non- random convenience sample of over 200 undergraduate students who enrolled in Foundation of Human Health 101- class were surveyed in order to assess knowledge and health belief about Type II diabetes. The Health Belief Model provided the theoretical framework for this study. Results: Overview of the participants in this study was provided through conducting a descriptive analysis. Majority of the participant were female, aged between eighteen and twenty, and Caucasian. Data analysis revealed that the overall knowledge about Type II diabetes among participants was low. For the individual health beliefs, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, and perceived barriers to Type II diabetes were low; however, perceived benefits to engaging in healthy behaviors was high. Having other problems more important than worrying about diet and exercise, and not knowing the appropriate exercise to perform to reduce the risk of developing Type II diabetes were the major barriers among participants. A positive, weak, statistically significant correlation was found between overall knowledge and total belief of benefits to engaging in healthy actions. At the same time, a negative, weak, statistically significant correlation was found between overall knowledge and total belief of barriers to engaging in health lifestyles. Results from multiple regression revealed that knowledge was best predicted by race/ethnicity. Family history, stress level, and level of exercise were the best predictors of perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers, respectively. Perceived severity was not predicted by any of the independent variables.
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Beachel, Debi K. "Alcohol beliefs versus alcohol behaviors." Menomonie, WI : University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2005/2005beacheld.pdf.
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Auton, Heather. "Paranormal Beliefs and Personality Traits." TopSCHOLAR®, 2001. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/677.
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The current study examined the non-skeptic view of paranormal belief, suggesting that belief in the paranormal does not indicate psychopathology. This study examines the non-pathological personality traits present in paranormal believers by using a broad personality test. One hundred and one participants completed the Paranormal Belief Scale (PBS) and the Personality Research Form (PRF) in order to examine the differences among the personality traits of high and low paranormal believers. High and low paranormal belief was determined by the participants overall score on the Paranormal Belief Scale. The results indicated that there were only two significant personality differences among high and low paranormal believers. High believers scored significantly higher on the PRF scales of Aggression and Defendence. However, there were no differences on any other scales. The current results indicate that high and low believers do not differ on traits considered non-pathological.
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Tanner, Rachael Jane. "Dysfunctional beliefs in social anxiety." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.288411.
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Cooper, Elizabeth N. "The beliefs of teacher educators." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/31110.
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This was an exploratory, descriptive study, focussed on the concepts used by certain teacher educators to describe their work. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 25 teacher educators who worked with undergraduate student teachers in one Canadian university. Their descriptions of the knowledge and the practice which they believed important to the successful completion of their work were classified. Themes were identified and compared to themes derived from a review of literature about teacher education. Three broad categories of belief about the nature of, and the relationship between, the theory and the practice of teacher education were identified. Sub-categories of two of the three broad categories were also identified. The categories which emphasized the primacy of theory were called naive deduction, classical rationalism and technical rationalism. The categories which emphasized the primacy of practice were naive induction, personal practical knowledge and inquiry. The third category emphasized the necessary interaction of theory and practice. Two other broad categories of belief were identified. They described teacher educators who believed student teachers acquire knowledge and skill best If teacher educators teach theory directly (reductionlsm) and those who believed student teachers learned best when helped to interpret experience (wholism). These beliefs were interpreted as being sustaining beliefs, that is, beliefs which serve as general guides to teacher educators' work. Some of these sustaining beliefs reflect the school context of teacher education, others the university context. As a result, teacher educators face dilemmas of choice.
It was concluded that this research provided some avenues for further investigation which may help teacher educators to understand more clearly the difficulties experienced when programs are developed or changed.Education, Faculty of
Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of
Graduate
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Larsson, Magdalena. "Beliefs regarding accommodation of dialects." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk och litteratur, SOL, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-16867.
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The aim of this paper is to investigate non-linguists' ideas about dialect accommodation. That is to say, the research questions concern people's beliefs about whether they accommodate their dialects to their interlocutors. In addition, one research question concerns people's suggestions as to why they adjust their speech and if differences between native and foreign languages can be found. The investigation was carried out as an informant survey and a total of 26 participants, between the ages 20 and 30, answered the questions. The data were analysed and discussed from a sociolinguistic and a sociopsychological perspective, with the theory CAT as a foundation for the interpretations. The results show that people believed they change their speech depending on conversation partner. This was thought of as subconscious behaviour and was mainly reflected upon afterwards. Furthermore, comments from the questionnaire concern changes in speech when talking to friends, when the interlocutor's dialect is distinct and when the informants visit a different geographical area. In addition, the informants have ideas about efficient communication when it comes to comprehensibility between the conversation partners' vocabularies as well as being on the same communicative level. The results from a native language accommodation situation and a foreign language accommodation situation showed similar ideas. That is to say, people's perceptions about accommodation did not differ much depending on what language they used.
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Yaghoub, Zadeh Zohreh. "Acculturation in beliefs and emotions." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2001. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp05/NQ63676.pdf.
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Sylwestrzak, Malgorzata T. "Do subjective beliefs affect obesity?" abstract and full text PDF (free order & download UNR users only), 2007. http://0-gateway.proquest.com.innopac.library.unr.edu/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:1446451.
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Gurajada, Navya. "Beliefs and knowledge about vegetarianism." Menomonie, WI : University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2007. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2007/2007gurajadan.pdf.
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Salzman, Diego A. "Emotions, beliefs and illusionary finance." Louvain-la-Neuve : Univ. Catholique de Louvain, 2007. http://www.gbv.de/dms/zbw/560234759.pdf.
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Walter, Benjamin A. "Epistemological beliefs: differences among educators." Thesis, Wichita State University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10057/2528.
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Epistemological beliefs are personal beliefs about learning and knowledge.
Epistemological beliefs have been found to have important implications for learning, for
example epistemological beliefs have been found to predict academic achievement
(Schommer, Calvert, Gargliette, & Bajaj, 1997), and may predict teaching practices
(White 2001). This study examined the epistemological beliefs of 83 (M= 16, F = 67)
practicing teachers, 62 of whom were enrolled in a graduate teacher education program.
This study utilized the Epistemic Beliefs Inventory (EBI) (Schraw, Bendixen, & Dunkle,
2002) and the four-quadrant method (Schraw & Olafson, 2008) to measure participants'
epistemological beliefs. Differences were found among educators based on education
level, education program, gender, age, licensure type, and order in which participants
received the instruments. The four-quadrant method was found to have small correlations
with the EBI. Limitations and implications are discussed.Thesis (M.Ed.) -- Wichita State University, College of Education, Dept. of Counseling, Educational, and School Psychology
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Bird, Tera L. "Examining Native American epistemological beliefs." Thesis, Wichita State University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10057/5376.
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The purpose of this study is to examine the epistemological beliefs of Native Americans in order to gain a better understanding of their beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning. Fifteen adults were interviewed to obtain information related to their beliefs about the source, justification, stability, and structure of knowledge as well as their beliefs about the speed of learning, ability to learn, and their degree of trust in authority. Results confirmed that women attributed a larger percentage of the ability to learn from inborn characteristics, while men attributed a larger percentage of the ability to learn from learning how to learn. The results also confirmed that older participants were more likely to believe that the average person learns moderately fast, participants that disliked math were more likely to believe that the average person learns moderately fast, and participants that liked math were more likely to believe that the average person learns fast.Thesis (M.Ed.)--Wichita State University, College of Education, Dept. of Counseling, Educational and School Psychology
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Seabright, Paul. "Bounded beliefs and Keynesian speculation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.328011.
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Cottrell, M. "Secular beliefs in contemporary society." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.371636.
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Craig, Jaime. "Persecutory beliefs and social reasoning." Thesis, Bangor University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.327460.
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Hodge, Keith M. "Cognitive foundations of afterlife beliefs." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.534725.
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Whittle, Peter. "Causal beliefs and psychiatric disorder." Thesis, University of Exeter, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.337740.
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Accoroni, Alex. "Professionals' beliefs about schizophrenic disorders." Thesis, Open University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.390551.
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Sheldon, Lisa. "Dissociation, core beliefs, and psychopathology." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.299514.
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Jaina, J. "Relationships and self efficacy beliefs." Thesis, Cranfield University, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.392249.
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Taylor, J. "Exploring experiences of unusual beliefs." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2018. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3022864/.
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Antilici, Francesco. "Can infants reason about beliefs?" Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2018. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/21294/.
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At what point in development does the capacity to reason about what people think emerge? While developmental psychologists have been investigating this question for more than thirty years, the evidence they have gained so far is conflicting. On the one hand, the results of traditional, direct false-beliefs tests, which involve asking participants how a person with a false belief will act, suggest that most children under four years of age are still unaware that beliefs can be false. On the other hand, false-belief tests using indirect measures, such as, for example, looking times or anticipatory looking, suggest that even infants ascribe false beliefs to other people. As many have noted, these results pose a deep developmental puzzle. In this work, I defend the claim that infants can already reason about beliefs. On the one hand, I argue that alternative interpretations of indirect false-belief tests fall short of the mark. On the other, I argue that the fact that young children fail direct false-belief tests can be explained in either of two ways, both of which are compatible with the claim that the capacity to reason about beliefs emerges early on. The first option is to maintain that young children fail because of performance difficulties. This type of position has been defended by other authors, but I argue that the particular proposal I put forward (which I call the processing-time account) offers a better account of the evidence. In contrast, the second option (which I call they hybrid approach) is one that, to the best of my knowledge, no one else has defended so far. This consists in arguing that direct and indirect false-belief tests recruit distinct cognitive systems, each of which can independently sustain the ability to reason about beliefs, but which follow different developmental trajectories. After exploring these two options, I consider which is best supported by the evidence.
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Inal, Ibrahim. "Essays on beliefs and knowledge." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/22914.
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The unifying theme of all three chapters of this dissertation is incomplete information games. Each chapter investigates two essential components, namely beliefs and knowledge, of incomplete information games. In particular, the first two chapter studies an alternative equilibrium notion of Sakovics (2001)- mirage equilibrium- and the final chapter introduces a new notion of metric to measure the distance between partitions. All relevant notations and definitions are defined for each chapter so that any of them can be read independently. In the first chapter, I restudy the Purification theorem of Harsanyi (1973) by relaxing the common knowledge assumption on priors for 2 x 2 games. I show that the limit of the (Mirage) equilibrium points in perturbed games generically converge to a pure strategy of the original complete information. This result, unlike the original one in which the limit is a mixed equilibrium point, is reminiscent of risk dominance criterion of Carlsson and van Damme (1993). I also study the conditions for different hierarchy levels that yields risk dominant outcome for coordination games. That is, I give conditions (first order stochastic dominance and monotone likelihood ratio order) that yield the risk dominant outcome of a coordination game as the limit of perturbed game ´a la Harsanyi (1973). In the second chapter, I attempt to provide a generalization of mirage equilibrium for dynamic games in the context of Cournot duopoly in which costs are private information. The task of extending the definition of mirage equilibrium is a nontrivial issue since it is not clear on which level of finite hierarchies of beliefs the update takes place. I take a short-cut to tackle this problem and instead of working on beliefs (probability distributions) directly, I work on the support of them. Broadly speaking, players update their beliefs by eliminating the support of ”types” that do not explain the opponents’ behavior. I show that the limit of this update process converges to a Nash equilibrium of the corresponding complete information game. I also show that the rate of convergence is linear. In the third chapter, I define a new metric to measure the distance between the partitions of a given finite set. I compare the proposed metric with the ones in the literature through examples.
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Tomchin, Ellen Menaker. "Teachers' beliefs about grade retention." Diss., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/71277.
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A multimethod approach was used to gain a better understanding of teachers' beliefs about retention in grades K-7. The participants in this study were the 135 classroom and specialty teachers in one school division (with six elementary schools, K-7). Two survey instruments were developed: (a) the Teacher Retention Belief Questionnaire designed to obtain teachers' explicit beliefs about retention, and (b) the Retention Decision Simulation designed to indicate the influence of academic performance, social maturity, ability, gender, size and age on the decision to retain students. Interviews were conducted with 36 classroom teachers representing a cross section of grade levels and retention practices to discover how teachers make retention decisions.
Findings suggest that teachers at all grade levels believe retention is an acceptable school practice and one they reserve the right to use. They believe retention prevents students from facing failure in the next higher grade. Teachers at all grade levels share common beliefs about the benefits for students retained in grades K-3, but are less certain about the positive effects of retaining students in grades 4-7.
Academic performance of the student is a key factor in determining whether a student will be promoted, but a number of other factors including maturity, ability, age, size, and effort, also influence teachers' decisions. Findings suggest that immaturity is a more important factor for K-3 teachers and low motivation and effort are more important for 4-7 teachers. Interview data reveal that while factors such as ability may be important in determining whether a child is retained, teachers interpret such factors differently.
Essentially most teachers retain students because they believe they are doing what "is in the best interest of the child." For some teachers this means giving the child time to develop academically or socially. For other teachers this means teaching the child the work ethic, if the child does not put forth effort, the child is retained.Ph. D.
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Abugattas, Escalante Juan Andres. "Beliefs in an Opaque Brain." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/71688.
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Peter Carruther's Interpretive Sensory-Access (ISA) theory of self-knowledge is an interesting account of the opaqueness of our own minds that draws upon a wide range of theories from cognitive science and philosophy. In the present paper, I argue that the theory's assumptions support the conclusion that the available perceptual evidence massively underdetermines all of an agent's second-order beliefs about her own beliefs. Such a result is far more negative than the ISA's well-known pessimism regarding self-knowledge. Furthermore, I also argue that, from the same assumptions, it is possible to build an argument to the effect that cognitive scientists trying to determine an agents' true behavior-causing attitude face similar underdetermination problems. Toward the end of the paper, I suggest that the theory's problems arise from a conflation of two different ways in which terms denoting propositional attitudes, such as 'belief', are used in its formulation. Distinguishing between the two usages of these terms, in turn, leads to a further distinction between two different senses in which we can talk about the 'opaqueness' of our own minds.Master of Arts