Assessing the Efficacy of Analytical Definitions in Hazing Education
Assessing the Efficacy of Analytical Definitions in Hazing Education by Paul Robert Kittle, Jr. A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Auburn University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Auburn, Alabama December 8, 2012 Keywords: hazing, definition, cognitive, extensional, analytical, bystander Copyright 2012 by Paul Robert Kittle, Jr. Approved by David C. DiRamio, Chair, Associate Professor of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Technology James E. Witte, Professor of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Technology Maria Witte, Associate Professor of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Technology Abstract Hazing is a problem that persists on college campuses and in high schools. According to Nuwer (2011) between 1970 and 2006, there was at least one hazing-related death each year on a college campus. Hazing education and prevention programs, such as speaker series, anti-hazing marketing campaigns, policy enforcement efforts, and sanctioning, which are frequently grounded in an extensional definition of hazing, have been present on college campuses for the past 20 years, yet the incidents of hazing are on the rise (Ellsworth, 2006; Nuwer, 2004). The literature repeatedly states that, due to the lack of a common definition, awareness and prevention efforts are often unsuccessful at increasing students’ awareness of hazing activities or reducing the likelihood that hazing activities will occur (Allan & Madden, 2008; Ellsworth, 2006; Hollmann, 2002; Shaw, 1992; Smith, 2009). Allan and Madden (2008) found that 91 percent of students who have experienced hazing do not identify themselves as being hazed. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not there were differences in students’ ability to identify hazing activities after treatment which consisted of reading either an extensional or analytical definition of hazing.
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