General and special education teachers' knowledge of and attitudes toward students with HIV/AIDS

AIDS education is mandated in schools throughout the United States to educate students about the disease. Teachers are expected to assume the major role of disseminating this information; therefore it is reasonable to question how knowledgeable teachers are about HIV/AIDS and where their information is coming from. This study explored the knowledge and attitudes of general and special education teachers toward students with HIV/AIDS and investigated whether a relationship between knowledge and attitudes existed. Information was collected using the AIDS Knowledge and Attitude Survey (AKAS). The sample was limited to certified teachers resulting in 318 participants.^ Research questions were analyzed using descriptive statistics, frequencies, t-tests, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Scheffe post hoc analysis, and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation. Results indicated that general and special education teachers did not have complete knowledge about HIV/AIDS. Participants were knowledgeable regarding modes of transmission which may be the area of greatest concern for teachers, however, deficiencies were present within teachers' knowledge of general statements and facts and pathology. Among the ten demographic variables analyzed, six (gender, race/ethnicity, level of education, certification, instructional level taught, and classroom AIDS instruction) contained statistical significance.^ Analysis of attitudes indicated that general and special education teachers' overall attitudes toward students with HIV/AIDS were generally positive within clusters of Instruction and Fear, but not within Sensitivity and Communication. Among the ten demographic variables used for analysis only three (age, graduate enrollment status, and classroom AIDS instruction) produced statistical significance. Results found statistically significant relationships between Total Knowledge, all knowledge subtests, Fear, and Overall Attitudes. Statistical significance was also located on Total Knowledge, Pathology and Transmission knowledge subtests, and Sensitivity, as well as between Pathology and Instruction, and General Statements and Facts and Communication.^ The only variable determined to have statistical significance on both knowledge and attitudes was classroom AIDS instruction. Participants with previous AIDS instruction showed greater knowledge and possessed more positive attitudes. A review of previous research indicated training to be effective in increasing knowledge and fostering more favorable behavior toward persons with AIDS. Therefore, this study finds AIDS training to be beneficial for all teachers and is recommended during preservice education or through inservices for teachers already in the field. ^

A study of stock market linkages between the US and frontier countries

My dissertation investigates the financial linkages and transmission of economic shocks between the US and the smallest emerging markets (frontier markets). The first chapter sets up an empirical model that examines the impact of US market returns and conditional volatility on the returns and conditional volatilities of twenty-one frontier markets. The model is estimated via maximum likelihood; utilizes the GARCH model of errors, and is applied to daily country data from the MSCI Barra. We find limited, but statistically significant exposure of Frontier markets to shocks from the US. Our results suggest that it is not the lagged US market returns that have impact; rather it is the expected US market returns that influence frontier market returns The second chapter sets up an empirical time-varying parameter (TVP) model to explore the time-variation in the impact of mean US returns on mean Frontier market returns. The model utilizes the Kalman filter algorithm as well as the GARCH model of errors and is applied to daily country data from the MSCI Barra. The TVP model detects statistically significant time-variation in the impact of US returns and low, but statistically and quantitatively important impact of US market conditional volatility. The third chapter studies the risk-return relationship in twenty Frontier country stock markets by setting up an international version of the intertemporal capital asset pricing model. The systematic risk in this model comes from covariance of Frontier market stock index returns with world returns. Both the systematic risk and risk premium are time-varying in our model. We also incorporate own country variances as additional determinants of Frontier country returns. Our results suggest statistically significant impact of both world and own country risk in explaining Frontier country returns. Time-variation in the world risk premium is also found to be statistically significant for most Frontier market returns. However, own country risk is found to be quantitatively more important.