States

Cooperative Research Center Directors: Importance and Satisfaction of Factors in the Work Environment Related to Organizational Performance (open access)

Cooperative Research Center Directors: Importance and Satisfaction of Factors in the Work Environment Related to Organizational Performance

This study explored the importance attached to and the degree of satisfaction with 53 job aspects in the work environment of cooperative research center directors. A survey instrument was mailed to the 105 individuals identified as directors of research units that are (a) committed to multidisciplinary or engineering research, (b) organized as integral units of a university, and (c) supported and funded by industry and other sources. Responses were categorized into two groups: directors involved in NSF (National Science Foundation) Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC), and directors involved in other types of cooperative research endeavors. A 69% response rate was obtained. One purpose of this study was to measure: (a) factors that influence job satisfaction; (b) factors likely to influence center performance; and (c) success factors in industry/university cooperative research. This study was also designed to: (a) compare job attitudes between the two groups of directors; (c) determine the relationship between measures of importance and satisfaction for each group; and (d) develop predictive models of centers' performance using collected data; Directors assign a high degree of importance and a low degree of satisfaction to the majority of the job aspects; and they tend to be somewhat dissatisfied with those factors …
Date: May 1989
Creator: Kraska, Beverly Rzeminski
System: The UNT Digital Library
Police Academies at Community Colleges in Texas (open access)

Police Academies at Community Colleges in Texas

The problem of this study was selected aspects of public community college non-credit law enforcement training programs in Texas. Purposes of the study were: (a) to examine the development of police academies at community colleges in Texas; (b) to provide normative data describing the academies in terms of background, organization and administration, adequacy of facilities and equipment, personnel, student policies and practices, the program administrator's perceptions of internal and external support, involvement of outside forces and the extent of the program, and (c) to provide data which community colleges can use in organizing and developing police academies.
Date: December 1989
Creator: Wells, David A. (David Andrew)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Academic Achievement of National Social Fraternity Pledges Compared to Non-Fraternity Students (open access)

Academic Achievement of National Social Fraternity Pledges Compared to Non-Fraternity Students

This study examined the academic achievement of national social fraternity pledges compared to non-fraternity students at the University of Texas at Arlington. It was done to determine whether significant differences existed between the grade point averages of pledges of social fraternities and those of students who did not pledge a social fraternity, and to determine whether significant differences existed among fraternities when compared with each other with respect to academic achievement. This study was meant to provide a research design that could be used by other colleges and universities with fraternities to conduct the same comparison of academic performance. In the fall semester of 1989, 164 pledges were selected as the population for the study to be matched with non-fraternity students based on Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, age, sex, classification, academic major, and number of hours attempted. A T-test of like groups was performed on the entire population with no significant difference found at the .05 level between all the fraternity pledges and all the matched pairs. A T-test of like groups was performed on the pledges from each separate organization and there was a significant difference among three of the fraternities. Two of the fraternities had significantly higher …
Date: August 1990
Creator: Gardner, Kent Lee
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Presidency of William M. Pearce, Jr.: A History of Texas Wesleyan College From 1968 to 1978 (open access)

The Presidency of William M. Pearce, Jr.: A History of Texas Wesleyan College From 1968 to 1978

For almost two hundred years, liberal arts colleges dominated the American system of higher education. The Wesleyan movement into education was a missionary movement to provide an education to those denied this privilege by the class prejudices of the eighteenth century. Founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Texas Wesleyan University (originally known as Polytechnic College) began in 1891 with 11 faculty members and 173 students. It has survived despite the hardships of The Depression, economic adversities, and a severe financial crisis in the 1980s. Today with 73 faculty and 1,550 students, Texas Wesleyan remains committed to its original mission that the goal of education is the development of each student to his or her greatest potential. William M. Pearce, born in the woman's dormitory of Seth Ward College in Plainview, Texas, resigned his position as executive vice-president of Texas Technological University to become the thirteenth president of Texas Wesleyan College in June 1968. Upon assuming office, Pearce realized the need to concentrate his efforts on those things in need of repair and improvement. There was no faculty organization, no tenure, no formal budget process, and Texas Wesleyan was lacking many other standards usually found in institutions of higher education. …
Date: May 1990
Creator: Taylor, Melodye Smith
System: The UNT Digital Library
Development of an Expert System to Teach Diagnostic Skills (open access)

Development of an Expert System to Teach Diagnostic Skills

The primary purpose of the study was to develop an expert system that could C D perform medical diagnoses In selected problem areas, and C2) provide diagnostic Insights to assist medical students In their training. An expert system Is a computer-based set of procedures and algorithms that can solve problems In a given domain. Two research questions were proposed. The first was "Given a problem space defined by a matrix of diseases and symptoms, can a computer-based model be derived that will consistently perform accurate and efficient diagnoses of cases within that problem area?" The second question was "If the techniques derived from the model are taught to a medical student, is there a subsequent improvement of diagnostic skill?" An expert system was developed which met the objectives of the study. It was able to diagnose cases in the two problem areas studied with an accuracy of 94-95%. Furthermore, it was able to perform those diagnoses in a very efficient manner, often using no more than the theoretical minimum number of steps. The expert system employed three phases: rapid search by discrimination, confirmation by pattern matching against prototypes, and elimination of some candidates (impossible states) by making use of negative …
Date: August 1990
Creator: Elieson, S. Willard (Sanfred Willard)
System: The UNT Digital Library