Published research demonstrates an association between exposure to media sexual content and a variety of sex-related outcomes for adolescents. What is not known is the mechanism through which sexual content produces this "media effect" on adolescent beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. Using the Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction, this…

The present study examined the structural relations of social influences, task values, ability beliefs, educational expectation and academic engagement for both boys and girls. The structural equation modelling analyses provided nationally representative evidence of gender differences in: (1) the links from teacher-student relationship and peer…

Considerable evidence indicates that student motivation and use of learning strategies are related. There is insufficient understanding, however, about their reciprocal effects--whether motivation affects strategy use, the converse, or whether the effects are bidirectional--and which components of motivation and strategies are involved. A two-wave…

This study aims to conceptualize disobedient pupil behavior within the more general framework of antisocial behavior and to reveal how two forms of aggressiveness are related to disobedience. Disobedience, in the context of this article, covers disruptive pupil behavior or discipline problems when the pupil is aware of breaking a standard set by…

The study was designed to validate a model for a successful aging process and examine the gender differences in the aging process. Three hundred twelve participants who were 65 or older completed a Taiwan Social Change Survey that measures four factors that define successful aging process: including physical, psychological, social support, and…

This investigation examines the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures to develop and validate scales to measure environmental responsibility, character development and leadership, and attitudes toward school for environmental education programs servicing middle school children. The scales represent outcomes commonly of interest to…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine factors that predict industry-level career change among MBA graduates. Design/methodology/approach: The study analyzed longitudinal data from the Management Education Research Institute (MERI)'s Global MBA Graduate Survey Dataset and MBA Alumni Perspectives Survey Datasets, using principal component…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between distributed leadership, teachers' academic optimism and student achievement in learning. The study targeted public elementary schools in Taiwan and adopted stratified random sampling to investigate 1500 teachers. Teachers' perceptions were collected by a self-report scale. In…

Externalising behaviours such as substance misuse (SM) and conduct disorder (CD) symptoms highly co-ocurr in adolescence. While disinhibited personality traits have been consistently linked to externalising behaviours there is evidence that these traits may relate differentially to SM and CD. The current study aimed to assess whether this was the…

This three paper dissertation presents and tests a model for effective intergroup communication. The first paper reviews evidence of positive and negative consequences of interracial contact and presents a theoretical model of intergroup dialogue (IGD) focused on promoting positive and avoiding negative outcomes. The second paper tests the…

It is generally believed that Business to Business (B2B) e-commerce has a great impact on business performance improvement. Considerable research also shows that another dependent variable, B2B e-commerce success, can be a good overall measure of B2B systems. This paper investigated and examined the impact of several factors, which are either…

Purpose: This study tested a theoretical model of volunteering benefits and examined the mechanism through which volunteering benefits older adults. Design and Methods: This is a 2-wave study of 253 older adult volunteers serving in 10 volunteer programs. Older volunteers completed the mailed surveys in 2005 and 2006. Structural equation modeling…

Friendships are essential for adolescent social development. However, they may be pursued for varying motives, which, in turn, may predict similarity in friendships via social selection or social influence processes, and likely help to explain friendship quality. We examined the effect of early adolescents' (N = 374, 12-14 years) intrinsic and…

Cramer's (1999) model of self-concealment and willingness to seek counseling was extended to examine the role of positive and negative social experiences in a sample of 235 college students reporting a psychological, academic, or career issue. Structural equation modeling indicated that self-concealment predicted willingness through the mediators…

Ordinal variables are common in many empirical investigations in the social and behavioral sciences. Researchers often apply the maximum likelihood method to fit structural equation models to ordinal data. This assumes that the observed measures have normal distributions, which is not the case when the variables are ordinal. A better approach is…