Browsing by Author "Arthur, Nancy Marie"

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    Demands and coping strategies of post-secondary students
    (1993) Arthur, Nancy Marie; Hiebert, Bryan A.
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    International Students’ Perceptions of Their University-To-Work Transition
    (2019-11) Woodend, Jon D.; Arthur, Nancy Marie; Kawalilak, Colleen; Moules, Nancy J.
    International students are increasingly seeking a foreign education. Part of this increase is due to institutional goals for revenue generation and for diversifying the student population. At the same time, governments of developed countries such as Canada are creating incentives for international students to work in the destination country post-graduation to fill skilled labour shortages. Post-study, international students often face barriers when integrating into the workforce, defeating these policies and decreasing the value of a foreign education. Moreover, researchers have predominately focused on the in-study experiences of international students, particularly their academic adjustment. Few studies have addressed the post-study experiences of former international students. In my doctoral thesis, I sought to help address this gap by investigating the post-study experiences of former international students, three to five years post-graduation. Specifically, I used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to explore how former international students in Canada made sense of their transition out of university and into the Canadian workforce. Guided by a Systems Theory Framework, I used the results to offer insights into the barriers these former international students faced, how they were able to overcome them, and the influences that were important to their workplace transition. Implications included suggestions for policy-makers, universities, and career practitioners to help international students successfully navigate the transition into and out of study. By supporting former international students in their post-study transition, practitioners can help with concerns such as un/under-employment, universities can help improve the value of education, and policy-makers may recruit highly talented workers to address labour shortages.
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    Investigating Post-sport Adjustment Experiences of Former Canadian Major Junior Hockey Players
    (2018-12-18) McCoy, Lauren K.; Arthur, Nancy Marie; Moules, Nancy Jean; Paskevich, David M.; Kerr, Gretchen; Dimitropoulos, Gina
    This project explored the post-sport adjustment experiences of former Canadian major junior hockey (CHL) players in the years following their athletic retirement. This study was conducted using a qualitative, within-subjects, longitudinal research design to understand the manner by which elite CHL athletes make sense of their athletic retirement experiences across time. Four former CHL players participated in two semi-structured interviews; one occurred shortly after their athletic retirement and the next was conducted approximately 24 months later. Interviews were then analyzed in accordance with the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) method. Themes identified in each participant’s account were compared and contrasted across all participants to generate an in-depth portrayal that gave voice to participants’ athletic retirement and subsequent post-sport adjustment transitions. Results revealed that participants continued to have unresolved feelings about their athletic retirement and experienced conflicting emotions of both pride and embarrassment in relation to their athletic identity. Participants post-sport adjustment experiences focused on attempts to renegotiate self-worth and prove their worth off the ice. As the post-sport adjustment period progressed, participants described moving from avoidance-based coping strategies to increasing action-oriented coping strategies which facilitated feelings of control and autonomy. Recommendations for helping professionals are provided and highlight the need for person-centred and multi-level interventions to support athletic retirement transitions. Additional longitudinal research is required to further develop understanding of the ongoing effects of athletic retirement and elite athletes’ post-sport adjustment experiences across time.
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    Weight Bias as a Social Justice Issue in an Unjust World
    (2019-08-26) Nutter, Sarah; Russell-Mayhew, Shelly K.; Arthur, Nancy Marie; Ellard, John H.
    Weight bias is a widespread and persistent form of stigma. It negatively impacts individuals with large bodies across the lifespan and in multiple social contexts. The current research addresses two important gaps in weight bias literature: (1) the limited understanding of the nature of weigh bias, and (2) the limited direct connection of weight bias literature to social justice. This research connects weight bias literature to diverse approaches to social justice (distributive justice, procedural justice, and ecological justice) that provide the opportunity to more strongly situate weight bias as a social justice issue. Connecting this to counselling psychology, the current research also considers the implications of weight bias as a social justice issue for the education and practice of counselling psychologists. To contribute to the limited understanding of the nature of weight bias, this research extends previous correlational research on the relationships between the belief in a just world and weight bias. Utilizing justice motive theory, the impact of the justice motive on perceptions of individuals with large bodies, both within and outside of counselling, are considered. This consideration is followed by three experimental investigations of the impact of the justice motive on perceptions and evaluations of individuals with large bodies. The current research provides directions for both furthering our understanding of the nature of weight bias through consideration of the justice motive as well as for furthering the connection between weight bias and conversations related to social justice, with the goal of working towards equality for individuals of all body sizes.