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John Goodwin (1594-1665) is said by his biographers to have converted from Calvinism to Arminianism, in a matter of months, in the year 1647. Thereafter Goodwin went on to write several Arminian works, including Redemption Redeemed in 1651. In this dissertation it is argued that his conversion was neither as rapid nor radical as has been argued hitherto. Progressively and with increasing clarity of expression he rejected the hypothetical universalism imbibed during his formative years, particularly what he perceived to be its deterministic component. 'Calvinism' is a misnomer for what he rejected. His theological development, discernible from a diachronic consideration of his earliest extant sermons and writings from the 1630s and early 1640s, was towards a soteriology wherein God's grace and a man's free will work concurrently, but wherein every stage of a man's conversion and perseverance is ultimately determined by man himself. His theological trajectory, therefore, was away from something akin to hypothetical universalism and towards this principle of humanly determined concurrence. The dissertation focusses on the doctrine of perseverance in particular, and considers the array of discrete arguments that Goodwin makes in Redemption Redeemed for the possibility of total and final apostasy by true believers. It is shown that the whole panoply is consistent with and underpinned by this humanly determined concurrence principle. The analysis of these arguments is then used to make a systematic comparison with some important prior Arminian works on perseverance, in order to draw conclusions concerning his contribution to the advancement of the Arminian cause. John Owen (1616-83) responded to Goodwin's work by publishing The Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance in 1654. From the context and content of Owen's response to Goodwin's arguments, it is shown that Owen's arguments reflect a divinely determined concurrence principle. He teaches that God's grace is effectual in every stage of a man's conversion and perseverance, such that God is the ultimate arbiter of man's destiny; but that his grace never operates in such a way as to compel a man to believe or persevere against his will. This analysis is then used to make comparisons with Goodwin's work, and with influential prior Reformed works on perseverance, from which conclusions are drawn concerning Owen's distinctive contribution to the perseverance doctrine. By comparing Goodwin's position and Owen's in terms of these two underlying principles, it is shown that there is a material difference between the anti-Arminian case that Goodwin proceeds to rebut and the anti-Arminian case that is in fact made by Owen. In important respects, Goodwin's argument does not engage with the position contended for by Owen and the antecedent authors whose works are considered herein. While this does not necessarily detract from the internal logical coherence of Goodwin's positive case, it does expose a lacuna in his negative case as expressed in Redemption Redeemed. It is a lacuna that undermines the claim that it was 'Calvinism' that Goodwin rejected, or even 'destroyed', as some have suggested - at least in so far as the term 'Calvinism' is understood as referring to the theology of Owen. Either because Owen wrote second, or because he had well understood the Arminian case from Goodwin and his antecedents, there is not a corresponding dramatic lacuna in Owen's anti-Arminian case.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover the college graduate experience of a junior officer who decided to finish their bachelor’s degree despite any temptation to drop out of school; participants were selected from a midwestern military installation. The guiding theory of this study was Duckworth’s grit theory; the study related to her theory by examining participants’ passion and perseverance and their relation to the motivation in the context of choice to finish the goal of graduating from college and commissioning as an officer in the U.S. Army. This qualitative design used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach; data collection consisted of an interview, a letter to their former self, and a focus group. The participants were all junior military officers who leaned heavily on their family values and school standards, and each had established goals to match their plans; their chosen institution was culture-driven, cared for the wellbeing of the individual, and constantly worked to change the student’s outlook. The study revealed that these one-time students expected both their college and military training to be a difficult lifestyle, but all were set to make the sacrifice and enrolled in school with the intention of joining the military. Each step of the study aimed to help participants clarify background information, bring to light behaviors, and help recall past events. The central research question addressed the experience of the participant's decision to push through their trials; the study described how motives affected them and what drove them despite the challenge. It also revealed the power of connection and the need for belonging in the context of community.

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to interpret the experience of resilience in teachers in juvenile corrections facilities. The theory guiding this study is the self-determination theory, which Richard Ryan and Edward Deci developed. Self-determination theory is a means to understand human motivation. The methodology to be used is a hermeneutic phenomenological approach using interviews, exhibit scenarios, and a journal reflection prompt from 13 voluntary participants of teachers and former teachers with experience in long-term juvenile corrections facilities from around the United States. Although the education field has challenges in any setting, the challenges specific to working in a long-term secure corrections facility housing teenage youth were the primary focus of this study. All data were analyzed using the hermeneutic circle in which the whole was interpreted through the individual parts, and the individual parts were interpreted through the whole, allowing for the preunderstandings of the researcher to be used to build a horizon between the past and the present. The participants revealed many unique challenges to their environment, including educational gaps, the need for safety, and the importance of building relationships with their students. The participants revealed their ability to build resilience by reflecting on their calling for their job, belief in a higher power, strong desire to help their students, and practicing self-care. The interpretations of the data collected showed that teachers had to build resilience continuously to avoid burnout, they held a passion for helping their students over their passion for teaching, and they thrived on the extra challenges of the juvenile correction facility.

Arising from the complications of an underprivileged and impoverished background this thesis focuses on exposing the grotesque consequences of conflicting ideologies through personal and societal suffering while in search of universal connections to showcase the need for compassion and understanding. My artistic practice is utilized as an entry point to have difficult discussions, a tool for teaching themes of injustice, inequality, and mistreatment. The traumatizing experience of poverty or corruption has the potential to be transmuted into something beneficial. I utilize discarded, low valued, unwanted, and damaged materials in my artmaking to symbolize transfiguration, an advanced state of former self. What seems hideous has its own beauty. What seems rotten and ugly has the potential to be adapted into something beneficial, any suffering we have experienced should not and has not gone to waste. The wisdom and resilience that arose from the experience will serve you in the future. This attempt at an honest, unflinching exploration of self and society is to shift perspectives away from apathy, towards thoughtfulness for other's struggles.

Four studies were undertaken with the aim of investigating primarily task conditions associated with perseveration on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). In addition, the last study examined the possibility that perseveration may be associated with a reduced emotional reaction to feedback received during the WCST. The prevalent idea regarding perseveration has been that it is a result of an inability to disengage from a behaviour that is "overlearned" or that has become habitual (Milner, 1963). Following this premise, it was initially hypothesised that perseveration on a particular response would increase as reinforcement of this particular response increases. In the first study, the standard WCST as well as two variations differing in number of correct consecutive trials per category (CCT) (WCST5 and WCST15) were administered to twenty individuals with brain injury and an equal number of healthy participants. The purpose of the study was to examine a possible dif ference in perseveration when individuals were offered more (15) or less CCTs (5) for each sorting category on the WCST. Contrary to predictions, the healthy group showed significantly fewer perseverative errors and total errors on WCST15 when compared both to WCSTI0 and to WCST5 although no significant difference was found between WCST10 compared to WCST5. The brain injured group showed significantly more perseveration on CST15 compared to WCSTIO but not compared to WCST5. Also CSTIO and WCST5 were not significantly different in terms of perseveration. However, after the exclusion of individuals who did not complete any categories, the results resembled those of the healthy group. Overall the results indicated that perseveration is not likely to be a result of an inability to inhibit well-learned responses. The second study was an attempt to confirm the findings of the first study whilst eliminating the possibility of a practice effect. Twenty individuals with closed head injury were administered either WCST5 or WCST15. Perseveration was not found to be significantly different between the two groups tested. It was suggested that the results were inconclusive owing to the exceptionally high perseveration scores of the participants. The study highlighted a serious methodological issue, namely that the effect of number of CCT cannot be accurately assessed on individuals with exceptionally high perseveration scores. The third study included sixteen individuals with traumatic brain injury and four individuals with Korsakoff's disease who were tested on either WCST5 or WCST15. Apart from the number of CCT, both versions differed from the original in that ambiguous cards were removed and participants were allowed to determine the sequence of sorting categories. The aim of this study was to confirm earlier data, investigate the effect of ambiguity and alter the task to ensure that at least one sorting category being completed. Data analysis revealed that, as expected, the group that was tested on the WCST15 produced significantly less erseverative errors when compared to the group that was tested on the WCST5. The final study aimed firstly at confirming preceding findings but more importantly at further investigating a possible link between perseveration and an inefficient use of cues. Damasio's idea of the somatic marker (1991) was adapted in an attempt to examine whether perseveration is linked with a decreased emotional reaction to feedback on the WCST. High perseverators (individuals with 20% and above perseveration) were expected to show a lower Skin Conductance Response (SCR) indicating a reduced emotional response to feedback received by the examiner. In addition SCR after negative feedback was expected to be higher than SCR after positive feedback owing to the corrective nature of the negative cue. Twenty-six participants without neurological history were administered either WCST5 or WCST15. As in the third study, the sequence of sorting categories was undetermined and ambiguous cards were removed. The study supported earlier findings showing that perseveration is significantly lower on WCST15 compared to WCST5. No significant differences in SCR were found between high and low perseverators or between negative and positive feedback. In addition, SCR was not proven to be significantly lower for negative feedback compared to positive feedback. Consequently, the idea that perseveration is associated with a decreased emotional reaction to feedback, was not supported. Overall, with the exception of the second study, the findings contradicted the prevalent idea that forming a strong "response set" would increase perseveration. In fact, they indicated that performance on the WCST is facilitated by a stronger response set, and perseveration decreases. This view is inconsistent with the way perseveration is viewed in the current literature but is consistent with early conceptualisations of perseveration (Grant and Berg, 1948, Gormezanno and Grant, 1958 or Pribram, 1961) that suggest that perseveration may be linked to ambiguity or unreliability of feedback. However, the findings of the fourth study did not provide evidence for a decreased emotional reaction to cues among perseverators during the WCST. Further investigation would be helpful in deciphering the relationship between perseveration and the use of external feedback.

“Coping with Adversity and Trauma in War: The Perseverance of Alabamian Confederate Soldiers in the American Civil War” examines how Alabamians fighting for the South persevered from 1861 to 1865 as they faced wartime conditions. Confederates from Alabama—like other Confederate and Union soldiers—suffered much during the American Civil War: long marches, inclement weather, sleep deprivation, lack of clothing and food, harsh living conditions, sickness, separation from family and friends, unpredictable conditions, and most of all, traumatic experiences. As early as 1861, Alabamian soldiers fighting for the South experienced extraordinary hardship. In the face of such adversity, Alabamians persevered and did not give up the will to fight. In short, by relying on family, faith, and hope for the future throughout the American Civil War, Alabamian soldiers persevered through adversity and trauma to contribute significantly to the firm stand of the Confederacy.

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study is to understand perseverance in young single mothers who have earned a college degree. The theory guiding this study is Duckworth’s theory of grit since many students who complete undergraduate degrees experience barriers related to the components of grit. Participants for this study were single mothers who have completed a college degree from an institution of higher learning in central Pennsylvania by the age of thirty. Data for the study were collected utilizing one-on-one interviews, personal timelines, and focus group discussions. Data were analyzed using Moustakas’ data analysis processes, including horizonalization, reduction, and elimination to determine the invariant constituents; clustering and thematizing the invariant constituents; identifying themes; constructing textural descriptions of the experiences; and finally construction textural-structural descriptions of the meanings of the experiences.

Catholics, Calvinists, and Arminians deny absolute assurance of salvation. Instead, they imagine only “degrees of,” “a measure of,” “a kind of,” or “some level of” assurance before final judgment. Scholarly analyses of assurance often prioritize earlier studies, not Scripture. Therefore, few question whether partial assurance even meets the Biblical threshold. This dissertation seeks a fresh inductive analysis of John’s Gospel, a book challenging the scholarly consensus. Numerically, John’s divine truth-claims regarding eternal life/assurance far exceed other Biblical books. Careful exegesis of John vindicates absolute assurance and refutes partial assurance. Regeneration occurs the moment one believes Christ has irrevocably saved him forever. Unlike the Westminster Confession, John’s Gospel validates absolute assurance as of the essence of saving faith. Inherent in Christ promising believers eternal life is the immediate and absolute assurance of that life the moment one believes Christ’s saving promise (John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47). Assurance is not contingent on post-conversion obedience or life-long perseverance in faith and good works. John’s Gospel asserts that believers have already passed from death into life and are certain of it. After a historical survey, the dissertation defines absolute assurance (it is not “hope,” “inward evidence,” “a three-legged stool,” “the Spirit’s inner witness,” or “fruit of the Spirit”). It also contains how to obtain absolute assurance, absolute assurance in John’s Gospel and other New Testament books, refutations of objections to absolute assurance, and absolute assurance’s practical results. This dissertation verifies: (1) Absolute assurance is not a novel theology; (2) Calvinism and Arminianism preclude absolute assurance; (3) Christ’s promises in John’s Gospel establish absolute assurance as of the essence of saving faith. Believers in Christ possess eternal life at the moment of belief. They are sure of it, because eternal life is what Christ promised them. Expressions of uncertainty are tantamount to disbelieving Christ’s promise.

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to fill critical gaps in literature by understanding an Airman’s view of spiritual fitness, how spiritual fitness contributes to overall fitness, resilience and readiness, and what steps could be taken to improve Air Force spiritual fitness programming. To ensure equitability, Airmen were split into two different tenure-based groups: Active-duty Low Tenure (ADlt) and Active-duty high tenure (ADht). ADlt had an average age of 27.9 years old (SD=3.2), were 90% male, 60% White/Caucasian, and 30% Catholic/30% Christian. ADht had an average age of 34.7 years old (SD=2.0), were 100% male, 80% White/Caucasian, and 50% Christian. Spiritual fitness was reported by the following percentages of Airmen as contributing to the other three CAF domains: Physical domain – 70%, Mental domain – 100%, and Social domain – 95%. Readiness (95%) and resilience (90%) were also outlined as heavily impacted by an Airman’s spiritual fitness. Spirituality encouraged Airmen’s physical fitness through the idea that a healthy body is part of a spiritual discipline, the idea that it is part of Air Force requirements, and the idea of treating the body as a temple. Spirituality contributes to mental fitness through trusting in God's promises, providing perspective to reassess situations, and providing a focal point to maintain positivity. Spirituality contributes to social fitness by serving as a source of people who provide a team mentality, support and accountability. Spirituality contributes to readiness by providing strength/excellence in Christ, inner purpose to motivate to action, and living by the Word. Spirituality contributes to resilience by individual perspective and finding strength in God’s word. Airmen suggested four areas to strengthen core values, which were truly embracing and inhabiting the Air Force core values, holding a stronger faith in God, and reinforcing the need to live up to personal core values. Airmen noted that cognitive reframing and prioritization, and doing good for others as methods to aid in strengthen a healthy perspective. In strengthening perseverance, Airmen outline four key areas, which were intentional self-reflective moments, greater religious accommodation/more chaplain interaction, greater devotion to developing spiritual fitness, and inspiring a stronger reliance on others/accountability. Recommendations to strengthen purpose were loving other people and creating shared values and goals, bringing a unique perspective to everyday situations, and continually working on one’s spirituality. Lastly, four key areas were uncovered in strengthening spiritual fitness, which will also impact an Airman’s ability to meet the demand of their assigned missions. Those areas were: Listening to and understanding other Airmen and their plights, educating the force more on spiritual fitness and the spiritual domain of CAF, spending more time in working on self-development in spiritual fitness, and authenticity. This study directly contributes to the understanding of spiritual fitness within the United States Air Force. Contributions to the field of Industrial and Organizational Psychology can be seen in this study through real-world experiences of Airmen and how spiritual fitness guides their readiness, resilience, physical fitness, mental fitness, and social fitness. This study also contributes to faith-based interventions and spiritual applications for non-military organizations.

Research has shown that positive psychological traits, such as perseverance, may be associated with the maintenance of health behaviors aimed to prevent commonly fatal diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease, stroke). Although there is limited research in this area, the current study examined whether there was an association between self-reported perseverance, behavioral perseverance, and distress tolerance with various health behaviors (e.g., sleep, physical activity, nutrition, vaping, alcohol use, general health status, and COVID-19 behaviors). A novel methodology was implemented for this study that employed using the online mirror tracing task as a measure of behavioral perseverance. A sample of young adult participants (N=763) enrolled in undergraduate courses at West Virginia University completed the perseverance of effort subscale from the Grit Scale, the Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS), Pandemic Stress Index, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and various items from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) using an online survey system. A subset of this sample (N = 48) volunteered to participate in the second portion of this study in which they completed the online mirror tracing task and pre- and post- measures of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Multiple, ordinal, and logistic analyses were independently conducted with self-reported perseverance, behavioral perseverance, and distress tolerance as the predictor variables and health behaviors, positive and negative affect reactivity, and COVID-19 impact as the criterion variables. Mediational analyses were conducted to examine the effect of perceived importance and difficulty of maintaining health behaviors as potential mediators for any significant associations between measures of perseverance and measures of engagement in various health behaviors. Multiple regression analysis showed that distress tolerance significantly predicted global PSQI scores, such that participants with higher distress tolerance scores reported engaging in better sleep. In addition, distress tolerance predicted general health status and COVID-19 impact in ordinal regression analyses. The variables of self-reported perseverance and behavioral perseverance did not significantly predict any health behaviors. Each health behavior that was significantly predicted by distress tolerance (e.g., sleep quality and general health status) were examined in mediational models. One mediation model revealed significant indirect effects in that perception of difficulty in maintaining healthy sleep behaviors partially explained the association between distress tolerance and sleep quality. No other indirect effects were observed. This study highlighted the potential importance of distress tolerance as a relevant factor in explaining whether young adults engage in some important health behaviors and suggest that future research is warranted in using this measure to explore questions of interest to health psychologists.

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the perseverance experiences of first-generation students at one community college in the Southern United States. Tinto’s internationalist theory served as the theoretical framework for the study, which sought to answer the central research question: How do first-generation students at community college in the Southern United States describe their perseverance experience from their first to second year of college? There were four sub-questions included in the study: (1) How do college students describe the events that led them to persevere from their first to their second year of college? (2) How do college students describe the preparatory instances from high school that were most beneficial to their second year of college? (3) How do students who completed their first year of college describe the most impactful experience on their success and perseverance? (4) How do college students describe the instances which had an adverse effect on their perseverance experiences? Purposeful opportunity sampling was employed to obtain a sample population of 12 first-generation community college students who had shared experiences relative to the phenomenon of persistence. Data to examine the phenomenon in-depth were obtained using interviews focus groups, as well as a reflective writing assignment which revealed 10 themes that included: (a) motivation, (b) peer support, (c) institutional support and interventions, (d) class and academic experience, (e) special skills learned, (f) engagement, (g) learning opportunities, (h) interpersonal experiences, (i) academic challenges, and (j) COVID-19. The study findings, limitations, and recommendations for further study were provided.

Grit, or passion and perseverance in pursuing long-term goals, is a non-cognitive factor positively related to age and education level, and inversely related to frequent career changes (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007; Duckworth & Quinn, 2009). It is less clear, however, whether undergraduate students in the midst of college study show more grit the further along they are in their program. Furthermore, for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), low within-major grades, concerns over ill-preparedness after high school, and lack of confidence in laboratory skills, time management, and maintaining enthusiasm, may contribute to differences in grit between STEM and non-STEM majors during the early years of study (King, 2015; Otrel-Cass, Cowie, & Campbell, 2009; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). With greater rates of students switching from STEM to non-STEM majors than in the opposite direction, despite little difference in grades between STEM majors who switch and those who persist, it seems that STEM majors with higher grit may remain in STEM programs, while those with lower grit may accumulate in non-STEM programs (Ackerman, Kanfer, & Calderwood, 2013; Brainard & Carlin, 1998; Kokkelenberg & Sinha, 2010; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997; Thompson & Bolin, 2011). Differences in STEM versus non-STEM grit also may depend upon whether social and behavioral science disciplines, and health science disciplines, are included in STEM (Chen, 2013; Langdon, McKittrick, Beede, Khan, & Doms, 2011; National Science Board, 2015, 2016; U.S. Census Bureau, 2014, July 10). The goal of this study is to test the following hypotheses: 1) undergraduates report increasing grit in going from freshman to senior level; 2) undergraduate STEM majors report lower grit than non-STEM majors early in college, but higher grit than non-STEM majors later in college; and 3) this difference is increased when social and behavioral sciences or health sciences are considered STEM, and decreased when considered non-STEM. Subjects for the study were undergraduate college students recruited through Mechanical Turk ("Amazon Mechanical Turk [Website]," 2018), as well as at a Pacific Northwest community college through posting of flyers, announcements in class, and general calls for participation via college email. Through online self-report, participants completed the eight-item Short Grit (Grit-S) Scale (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009), while also providing GPA and major field of study by self-report. In general, this study finds that 1) four-year undergraduate subjects show higher scores in total Grit-S and the Consistency of Interest grit dimension when upper division (junior, senior) compared to lower division (freshman, sophomore), while community college students show higher Consistency of Interest when sophomore compared to freshman. Also, 2) STEM students generally show lower total Grit-S and Consistency of Interest compared to non-STEM students throughout college, but higher scores in the Perseverance of Effort grit dimension in the upper division. Additionally, 3) when considered STEM rather than non-STEM, health science students generally narrow the difference between STEM and non-STEM S-Grit and Consistency of Interest at the lower division, while social science students generally narrow that difference at the upper division. Findings from this study will help post-secondary educators identify academic disciplines where persistence is more highly correlated to grit than other disciplines. Educators then can focus on modifying those identified programs, such as through academic and career advising, tutoring services, and teaching methods that may raise student engagement (e.g., use of internet-based components, in-class poll-taking activities, and in-class group exercises), to better address student grit levels and match students to programs of best fit (Brint, Cantwell, & Saxena, 2012; Community College Research Center & American Association of Community Colleges, n.d.; Gasiewski, Eagan, Garcia, Hartado, & Chang, 2012; Maltese & Tai, 2011).

Abstract: This study explores the connections between the writer’s workshop approach and high school students’ perceptions of their own resilience. The research includes multiple-case studies of student participants being taught in a high school writer’s workshop, as well as one teacher participant. The data related to the factors of resilience and the writer’s workshop was triangulated using the following methods: field notes observing teacher instruction, student work, and peer conferencing; individual, semi-structured interviews with the teacher and students; and documents including teacher handouts and student writing and reflections. Utilizing hermeneutic and psychoanalytic theoretical lenses, the data was coded to find patterns and emerging themes: using process to build confidence; the power of writing; anxiety, risk, and failure; collaboration and communication; and the role of the teacher as an acknowledger, mentor, and guide alongside. Through these themes, the study finds that the writer’s workshop is a valid and valuable approach for the high school English classroom in both the teaching of writing and fostering many factors of resilience in students.

This mixed-methods study was designed to explore the relationship between self-assessed levels of grit and the qualitative factors veteran teachers report as contributing to their longevity in the role of classroom instructors. Forty-four (44) K-12 teachers from Southwestern Ohio, who had remained in the classroom for at least fifteen consecutive years, were recruited to complete the Duckworth (2016) 10-item Grit Scale and participate in individual, semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts were analyzed to identify factors that might have contributed to their perseverance. These factors were organized into four themes and interpreted through the lens of middle- and high-grit. Two teachers who scored low in grit were excluded from the comparative analysis. The remaining forty-two participants were evenly split between medium and high levels of grit. Four emergent themes were explicated: Teaching as a Higher Calling, Teaching as the Only Option, Teaching as Community, and Teaching as Contextual Joy. Each theme reflected both the positive influence of factors attracting teachers to remain in the classroom, and the negative influence of factors these teachers remained in the field in spite of. Illustrative quotes reflecting the sentiments of the teachers interviewed are provided. Comparative analysis revealed similarities and differences between middle- and high-grit teachers on two of the four themes: Teaching as the Only Option and Teaching as Contextual Joy. The duality of these themes, reflecting both positive (because of) and negative (in spite of) influence were reflected in the interview transcripts of both middle and high-grit teachers. Results of this analysis of perseverance among veteran classroom teachers are interpreted as providing a foundation for future studies of teachers persevering in a demanding profession that has grown increasingly challenging over the years. The term “teacherverance” is proposed to capture the essence of this special case of professional longevity to encourage additional research to identify ways to better support classroom teachers over the entire course of their careers.

The lack of knowledge about the end-time prophetic Scriptures and its inferences to Islamic eschatology appears to be a problem at Northcliffe Baptist Church. The purpose of this study is to raise awareness about the end-time Scriptures and prepare the congregants to expect persecution as normative in the Christian life. Islam is projected to overtake Christianity in a few decades and is proliferating at a rapid pace. The anti-parallel structure between Christian eschatology and Islamic eschatology is disconcerting. Islam denies Jesus’s divinity and advocates persecuting Christians if they do not convert to Islam. Suffering and persecution for the Lord are expected and desired according to Christian doctrine. Understanding the scriptures also helps believers at the Northcliffe Baptist Church to overcome the coming deception. A Christian Life Development (CLD) class was offered for the congregants as an intervention. Twenty-eight participants were surveyed before and after the three-week class. The results were analyzed and observed for any change in the knowledge of end-time Scriptures and the level of expectancy about religious persecution. This intervention increased the knowledge about the Christian and Islamic eschatology and their inferences by nearly 35 percent and knowledge about persecution by 22 percent. The researcher demonstrates that the intervention increased the awareness that persecution and suffering as part of the Christian life.

Adolescence and early adulthood are marked by increased exposure to novel situations, frequently accompanied by failure and uncertainty about future success. Decision-making in these contexts is often motivated intrinsically, without explicit promise for future reward. However, little is known about the neural systems that support perseverance in the face of challenge when extrinsic reward is not offered. In this dissertation, a multi-method program of research was employed to investigate the neurobiological contributors to perseverance in a sample of 13- to 30-year-olds (N=99, 61 females). Findings indicate perseverance is associated with differential neural response to the motivational value of information and regulation of neural systems tracking affective signals associated with negative feedback. Of particular import were motivational and value systems located in the striatum and medial prefrontal cortex, salience regions including the insula, and connectivity between the executive control system and fronto-insular regions. This research also identified age-related differences in perseverance decisions and neural functioning during a novel task assessing situational factors associated with motivation. Younger participants were less likely to persevere and demonstrated increased superior frontal gyrus activation to negative feedback, potentially reflecting less clear representation of the motivational value of negative feedback. A developmental shift toward increased valuation of positive feedback compared with monetary reward was also observed, consistent with extant understanding of reward sensitivity during adolescence. Finally, this research demonstrates individual differences in deliberative thinking and inflammation are associated both with perseverance behavior and neural response. Older participants reported more deliberative thinking, which was associated with perseverance and reduced activation in the salience network in response to negative feedback. Among adolescents, perseverance was associated with higher concentrations of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6, which was in turn associated with reduced insula activation. These individual difference findings highlight the importance of neural and biological response to feedback as a contributor to perseverance. Intrinsically motivated perseverance is associated with numerous positive benefits and this dissertation makes a substantial contribution to explicating how situational factors contribute to engaging with challenge despite failure.

The construction of equitable, ambitious mathematics classrooms in which students learn together hinges on teachers representing students’ mathematical struggle as supported and constrained by interactions they have with peers and teachers. However, commonsense narratives about “perseverance” locate the responsibility for struggling productively in the individual, diminishing or ignoring the role that interpersonal interactions play in students’ perseverance. Individualist orientations diminish teachers’ agency by placing responsibility for productive mathematical struggle with students. In contrast, group-oriented perspectives towards perseverance have the potential to broaden how teachers conceive of productive student thinking and empower teachers to work towards ambitious mathematics teaching practices. However, supporting teachers to locate perseverance in the collective is complex work. It is complicated by challenges professional developers face in organizing teachers for collaborative inquiry and by how entrenched individualist ideologies are in education—both traditional and reform—and society at large.This dissertation follows four high school mathematics teachers over a semester as they navigated tensions between commonsense individualist narratives of perseverance and ambitious visions of mathematics instruction. It explores how features of the professional development (PD) environment in which the teachers worked supported or constrained their collaborative inquiry. Interactions among the teachers and PD facilitator were observed and videoed. As summarized below, close examination of the work of these PD participants yields findings with implications for the research and practice of practice-based PD for mathematics teachers.Analysis examines how the teachers represented perseverance as they engaged in PD activities. How the teachers represented perseverance is situated in two broad but distinct discourses of mathematics teaching and learning, “traditional” and “ambitious.” Those discourses have ties to broader discourses and ideologies used in society at large, which tend to privilege individualist narratives. Focusing on representations of perseverance illuminates the explicit or tacit systems of categorization that the teachers used to organize people, phenomena, and ideas, which the teachers in turn used to make teaching decisions.The teachers were found to use both individualist and group-oriented representations of perseverance throughout the PD, with group-oriented representations gaining in explanatory power and prevalence as the PD progressed. Over time, the teachers increasingly used group representations of perseverance to explain successful perseverance and inquired into how they could support perseverance by encouraging students to build on each other’s mathematical thinking. Nonetheless, individualist representations of perseverance continued to hold significant explanatory power for the teachers, especially as first resort and to explain failed perseverance. Facilitation that problematized individualist representations of perseverance, frameworks that drew teachers’ attention to specific ways in which collaboration can support productive mathematical struggle, and iterative, collaborative classroom-video watching followed by collaborative planning were found to support inquiry that broadened the teachers’ horizons of observation around perseverance to include more group-oriented perspective. These findings strongly suggest that PD should be grounded in explicit theoretical frameworks, demand reasoning grounded in examples rather than justified by vague principles, and be guided by facilitation that explicitly problematizes individualist reasoning about students.

Using ethnographic research methods, I worked with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) to conduct an exploratory study about developer perspectives on video game preservation. I conducted in-depth interviews with independent developers in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, a hub for Texas game development. These interviews explored developers' knowledge and awareness of game preservation as a topic of concern, archival culture and practices in the industry, and the IGDA's potential role in addressing issues related to preservation work. This research contributes to a growing body of literature on game preservation, urgently needed as many gaming technologies face obsolescence in the near future. I use Ellen Cushman's concept of "perseverance" to examine the difference between simply preserving video games for the future, and the perseverance of game development as a professional trade and artistic craft.

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand the experiences which motivated early childhood educators to persevere in their positions at the same early childhood education center, for five or more years, in south-central Pennsylvania. For the purpose of this research, perseverance was generally defined as continuous teaching at the same site for five or more years. The theory guiding this study was Herzberg’s (1968) motivation hygiene theory as it addressed experiences which impacted job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, directly impacting perseverance. One central research question and two supporting research questions were used to guide the study. The central question guiding this study sought to determine how early educators of five or more years in the same early learning program described their experiences and reasons for persevering. The research subquestions focused on how early educators described their experiences that caused them to persevere in their position and how early educators who persevered described the coping methods they used to face their challenges in the early education workplace. The sample consisted of 10 teachers from four early learning centers in south central PA. Centers were selected to allow for variation in type of program and quality rating as defined by the state’s quality assurance system. Teachers were selected based on program director’s advisement with consideration taken to allow for variance in participant demographics. Data was collected through semi structured individual interviews, a focus group interview, and observations. Moustakas’ (1994) guidelines were followed for transcendental phenomenological data collection and open coding analysis. The results provide insight into experiences which motivate early education teachers to persevere, which may allow early education programs to increase retention and better support student outcomes.

Student persistence in higher education has become an increasingly high priority as institutions seek to improve undergraduate completion rates. Traditionally, cognitive abilities such as aptitude and intelligence have been used to measure and predict whether a student will be successful in college. However, there is evidence that noncognitive abilities such as determination or effort are as important and as indicative of success as cognitive abilities. This nonexperimental, causal-comparative study utilized a multivariate analysis of variance to analyze archival data of 832 undergraduate students from a large private university to determine the differences between the overall grit score, perseverance of effort subscore, and consistency of interest subscore of students who persist and those who do not persist. For the purpose of this study, persistence was defined as a first-year undergraduate students’ retention at the institution from the first term to second consecutive term. No significant difference was found between students who persisted and those who did not. The findings indicate the usefulness of measuring college students’ overall grit scores and grit’s subscores in order to determine whether or not they will persist at the institution, and further opportunities are presented in order to accomplish more research on the relation of noncognitive abilities to student persistence at the college level.

This study addressed the lack of emphasis and understanding related to the benefits of the practice of ethical principal leadership. The purpose of this study, to address the noted problem, was to explore the practice of principal ethical leadership through acts of virtue and was viewed through the Framework of Foundational Virtues of Educational Leadership: consisting of the virtues of responsibility, authenticity, and presence (Starratt, 2004). This phenomenological study consisted of interviewing six principals in Northwest Ohio. Data were collected through interviews, observations, and written personal codes of ethics. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed in conjunction with other noted forms of data. This data produced the essence of the practice of ethical principal leadership through acts of virtue via the following five themes: the virtue of responsibility, the virtue of authenticity, the virtue of presence, the virtue of perseverance, and student centrality. The identified essence and themes of the study provide a greater understanding of, and benefits related to, the practice of ethical principal leadership through acts of virtue. Also, this study expands the literature related to ethical leadership and principal leadership by identifying practical and theoretical implications that impact both areas of leadership.

This study evaluates the variation between subcultural indulgence values and the values of the overarching culture they make up, as well as the variation among multiple subcultures. In addition, the study measures the relationship between an individual’s indulgence values and individualistic characteristics, those being passion, perseverance, and perceived economic mobility. This research can serve as a foundation for future studies evaluating the happiness of cultures and what that happiness is correlated with. The methodology used in this study can also enable researchers to test the correlation between the individualistic characteristics and indulgence values of members of that culture.

This was a descriptive study which examined the psychological components involved in the completion of a Ph.D. journey. I used a phenomenological approach to investigate doctoral program experiences (n=23), seeking to identify strategies, skills, and experiences commonly shared by successful Ph.D. students through a lens of Transformational Learning, Psychological Capital (PsyCap), and Emotional Intelligence (EI). Assessment measures included interviews, questionnaires, and the administration of both the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal (EIA) and Psychological Capital Questionnaires (PCQ). Findings revealed the presence of Grit, adequate support systems, balance, positive self-talk, and a moderately high level of PsyCap. A correlational analysis indicated a moderately strong positive correlation (r = 0.62) between EI and PsyCap. Finally, suggestions were provided for graduate departments to help support doctoral success.

Helicopter parenting is frequently cited as a growing concern in popular culture andamong college administrators as limiting student development and perseverance, butdevelopmentally appropriate parental involvement is related to positive student outcomes.Previous research has found associations between helicopter parenting behaviors andnegative psychological outcomes, but limited empirical research has examinedperseverance- or education-related outcomes for college students. A random sample ofundergraduate students was selected and N=332 students from this sample completedmeasures of helicopter parenting, parental autonomy support, resilience, grit, academicbuoyancy, autonomy, competence, academic locus of control, G.P.A., and demographicinformation. A large negative correlation was found between helicopter parenting andparental autonomy support, providing support for the notion that these concepts have anegative relationship. Students who reported higher levels of helicopter parentingreported lower resilience, grit, and academic buoyancy, whereas parental autonomysupport was associated with higher levels on these variables. Helicopter parenting wasnot associated with G.P.A., but parental autonomy support was weakly related to a higherG.P.A. Results of exploratory mediation analyses were mixed, but lent preliminarysupport to the overall hypothesis that helicopter parenting behaviors are associated withnegative perseverance-related outcomes. Demographic factors were largely unrelated tohelicopter parenting, though younger participants reported greater levels of helicopterparenting than older participants.

Latinos are one of the fastest-growing ethnic minority groups in the United States. Yet they have the lowest college graduation rate of any racial or ethnic group in the United States. This report documents self-reflective, participatory processes I used, based on my personal experience as a Latina in higher education, to design engaging workshops and transitional objects to support the Latina community at the University of Texas at Austin. I propose that workshops promoting awareness of structural barriers, coaching in self-reflective techniques, and the co-creation of totemic objects that serve as transitional objects and aides-mémoires can empower young Latina women to persevere in higher education. The workshops were designed to use group storytelling, self-reflection and sharing methods to educate and empower young Latinas to create an on-going sense of agency and build stronger communities within higher education.

Understanding student learning is an open problem in the teaching of introductory statistical programming. Formative learning is observed when analyzing theinteraction between the learning environment and the student. This can be operationalized by viewing how students respond to the error messages they receivewhile programming. Current California Common Core State Standards: Mathematics(CA CCSSM) highlight perseverance as an overarching habit of a productivemathematical thinker. Perseverance can be measured as a type of formativelearning by measuring the time and attempts that students use to correct errors.The MOBILIZE project promotes statistical programming at the high school levelin the Los Angeles Unied School District while following the CA CCSSM. Logsof high school student statistical programming during the 2013-2014 school yearwere collected along with the errors that occurred. Using these logs, error blockswere formed that follow a student's interaction with an error message. With theerror blocks we were able to observe perseverance by students on multiple daysof curriculum. Our findings suggest that there was an increase in perseverance,because students increased in time spent and attempts made to correct an erroras the number of days of programming curriculum increased. Additionally, students who showed more perseverance were more likely to eventually fix an error.Descriptive variables were explored to provide background for the variation instudent programming errors.

Depuis la massification des systèmes éducatifs et la démocratisation de l'enseignement, le métier d'enseignant s'est complexifié (Tardif et Lessard, 1999), au point tel qu'un nombre inquiétant d'enseignants quittent la profession (Mukamurera, 2006). De plus, selon Houlfort et Sauvé (2010), les enseignants souffrent plus que jamais de maladies mentales causées en partie par leur travail. Pourtant, malgré ces faits, certains enseignants trouvent un sens au métier et réussissent à se développer une identité professionnelle affirmée qui les éloigne de la détresse psychologique et qui les aide à persévérer dans la profession. Ces mêmes enseignants éprouvent même du bien-être à évoluer dans le métier et se disent passionnés de l'enseignement. L'objectif général de recherche consiste donc à examiner les facteurs personnels qui favorisent le bien-être dans l'enseignement selon des enseignants persévérants du primaire et du secondaire. Pour répondre à cet objectif, cette recherche appuie son cadre théorique sur l'approche de la psychologie positive et approfondit deux concepts centraux : les dimensions du bien-être (Seligman, 2011) et les forces de caractère (Peterson et Seligman, 2004) qui ont été étudiées en contexte d'enseignement. Cette recherche de type qualitative utilise la méthode de Seidman (2001; 2006) qui s'attarde à la signification profonde des concepts à l'étude. Dans un souci de triangulation des méthodes (Karsenti et Savoie-Zajc, 2004), la carte heuristique a été utilisée lors des entrevues afin de s'assurer de la bonne compréhension des propos tenus par six participants lors des entrevues. L'analyse des données a été effectuée selon une approche inductive au regard des concepts centraux ainsi que de nouveaux éléments émergeant des propos des enseignants. Les résultats démontrent que parmi les cinq dimensions du bien-être, celle du sens, qui se décortique en 4 aspects (la construction identitaire, leur rôle significatif auprès des élèves, leur responsabilité sociale et le développement des élèves par l'atteinte d'objectifs) est au cœur du processus de création de sens du métier. Les autres dimensions prédominantes du bien-être que sont les émotions émotives et les relations positives y jouent un rôle d'auxiliaire. De plus, selon les répondants, trois nouvelles dimensions du bien-être se rattachent au contexte précis de leur métier : la passion pour l'enseignement, l'engagement professionnel et le sentiment de compétence. Enfin, pour ce qui est des cinq forces de caractère recensées, l'amour (bonté), la persévérance, la bienveillance, l'autorégulation et la créativité encadrent ce processus de création de sens par une interaction constante avec tous ces éléments. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Bien-être en enseignement, forces de caractère, passion de l'enseignement, persévérance, psychologie positive en éducation, sens du métier.

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore personal and social benefits associated with participation in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ). Sixteen participants (2 head instructors and 14 athletes; M age = 33.8 years, M duration of involvement in BJJ = 5.5 years) participated in individual semi-structured interviews. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to qualitative data analysis. Results revealed participants reported a broad variety of benefits arising from their participation in BJJ. Personal benefits were self-confidence, analytical thinking, perseverance, stress relief, and physical health. Social benefits were respect and tolerance for others and community environment. Results revealed that the benefits were obtained through the adoption of traditional and modern types of guidance (i.e., teaching). Further, the results identified specific ways the athletes believe these outcomes transferred to their lives away from the sport.

Developing and maintaining a "completion mindset" is a necessary mental condition for online educational doctorate (EdD) and educational specialist (EdS) students to obtain their advanced degrees. The purpose of this research study was to examine the effect of a neuroeducational intervention on a volunteer convenience sample of EdD and EdS students enrolled in online research and analysis courses at a private central Virginia university to determine if the intervention would have a positive effect on the level of perseverance through the stages of practical inquiry when compared to a control group. The independent variable was a web-based instructional method consisting of seven weekly multi-media modules, a creativity survey to enhance intrapersonal knowledge, and a weekly self-report instrument to foster relatedness and to protect for treatment fidelity. The four dependent variables were end-of-course grades, a self-determination survey, and two persistence instruments. An experimental posttest, control-group only research design was used to measure the magnitude of the effect for this intervention. The problem addressed by this study was the high attrition rate for online doctoral students, and the potential for using a neuroeducational intervention to positively affect perseverance. Due to the short-term nature of this intervention (seven weeks), perseverance was defined as completion of the practical inquiry cycle; therefore, additional research will be required to explore the longitudinal impact on perseverance related to attrition rates. The null hypotheses were not rejected; however, the means of the treatment group were higher than the control group for all measures except autonomy.

This study examined the impact of "ability-based" and "effort-based" verbal reinforcement cues prior to task engagement in traditional sixth grade students attending Christian schools in northwest Indiana. Perseverance levels were measured during a numerically-based, problem solving task by tracking time signatures (in seconds) of the first, second, and third use of restricted "clues." The research population (n = 102) was randomly assigned into two groups (ability-cued and effort-cued). Statistical significance was found at all three measurements. Target measurement one revealed ME = 518.7 (SD = 310.7), MA = 402.4 (SD = 293.5), with two sample t(100df) = 1.94, p = 0.027. Target measurement two revealed ME = 645.9 (SD = 287.1), MA = 494.0 (SD = 296.8), with two sample t(100df) = 2.62, p = 0.004. Target measurement three revealed ME = 738.6 (SD = 249.1), MA = 586.6 (SD = 285.6), with two sample t(100df) = 2.86, p = 0.002. The null hypothesis stating ability-cued students would show greater levels of perseverance was rejected at all three measurement targets. Students receiving effort commendations prior to task engagement showed greater levels of perseverance than students receiving ability commendations.

Many coaches are becoming aware of the importance of developing mentally tough performers and are designing programs to develop it in their athletes. One of the most significant problems in designing these programs is the inconsistency in the definition and description of mental toughness. If programs are to be designed with the goal of developing mental toughness in athletes, the components of the construct must be identified. Based on the advantages that mental toughness can offer to the performer, this study was designed to develop an understanding of the components of mental toughness in sport. The purpose of this study was to identify the components of mental toughness as perceived by National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) coaches and was guided by two fundamental questions: what are the essential components of mental toughness? and to what degree are these components teachable (trainable). Twenty-two NCAA coaches were selected to participate from a mix of Division I, II, and III male sports teams. The procedures for this study were divided into a two-phase approach. Phase One consisted of each participant completing a questionnaire for the purpose of evaluating the importance and teachability (trainability) of 20 separate components of mental toughness. Phase Two consisted of follow-up, semi-structured interviews that provided further insight into the perspectives of the participants. The results of this study indicated the essential components of mental toughness based on their importance to the construct. The results also indicated the degree of teachability (trainability) of each component. A unique relationship between teachability and trainability was also revealed in this study. These findings provide a better understanding of the components of mental toughness and support the need for its development in sport.

The purpose of this study was first to determine the characteristics that distinguished persisters from nonpersisters in the fields of science and technology; second, to determine the effects of sex, college choice, parental income, parental educational background, GPA, and academic and social integration factors on persistence; and third, to suggest program implementation for assisting students in the science and technology disciplines to make choices in "fit" of characteristics to college environment. Subjects for this study were randomly selected from a group of 256 juniors at the University of California, San Diego who had initially selected science or technology as an incoming major. A researcher-designed questionnaire, the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, and the Pascarella and Terenzini scale were used to collect data for this survey research. The data were tested by chi-square analysis and analysis of variance and t-tests. Some of the findings of this study indicated that persisters and nonpersisters differed significantly in their satisfaction with faculty interaction and faculty concern for student development and teaching. Significant differences were found between persisters and nonpersisters in their confidence in their ability to persist and in their GPAs. Some of the findings also indicated that nonpersisters were mainly hindered by the competitiveness, the course grades, and the difficulty of the subject matter. Persisters were aided by prospects of career and job opportunities in the science and technology fields, family support, and the influence of faculty.

The purpose of this study was to measure perseverance time as related to the individual's need for achievement, past success or failure, the difficulty of a task, and the experimenter's instructions regarding its difficulty. The subjects used in this study were twenty-eight children, fifteen males and thirteen females, who ranged in age from eight years, six months to nineteen years and nine months, with the mean chronological age being twelve years and ten months.