Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Three Essays On Us Agricultural Insurance, Taehoo Kim

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Agricultural insurance programs such as crop insurance and Dairy Margin Protection program (MPP-Dairy) are managed by United State Department of Agriculture (USDA). The objective of these programs is to help farmers manage their financial risk. Agricultural insurance programs have played an important role for farmers in terms of maintaining farm profitability. There are several potential problems with insurance programs, such as moral hazard and adverse selection, which make them inefficient.

With respect to these problems, three research gaps are identified: i) moral hazard in prevented planting (PP), ii) choice of PP and planting a second crop, and iii) selecting margin …

Utilizing Act Daily As A Self-Guided Mobile App Intervention For Depression And Anxiety In A College Counseling Center, Jack A. Haeger

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

College counseling centers (CCCs) have experienced funding and staffing setbacks in recent years, resulting in higher caseloads, counselor burnout, and bloated waitlists. Mobile Health (mHealth) interventions may offer a cost-effective and innovative solution. The authors developed ACT Daily, a prototype mHealth app based in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This study examined the feasibility and possible efficacy of ACT Daily as a brief intervention for individuals placed on CCC waitlists.

A sample of 11 depressed/anxious clients waitlisted at a local CCC enrolled in the study, which followed a pre-post, open trial design. Participants received a brief online training that covered …

Perceived Alzheimer's Disease Threat As A Predictor Of Behavior Change To Lower Disease Risk: The Gray Matters Study, Christine Clark

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Alzheimer’s disease is a growing public health concern with an estimated five million Americans currently afflicted. That number is projected to triple by 2050 as the baby boomer generation approaches age 65, the most common age where people begin to show symptoms of cognitive decline stemming from changes in the brain related to Alzheimer’s. Since there is currently no cure or preventive pharmacological treatment, AD prevention research is now recognized as an important enterprise. Modifiable lifestyle factors that can reduce AD risk or delay its onset have been identified as reasonable targets for behavioral intervention, including increased physical activity, healthier …

Interpreting Risk: Variations And Explanations Of Resident Perceptions Of Hydraulic Fracturing Impacts, Adrian B. Uzunian

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Hydraulic fracturing has increasingly become a global phenomenon that has induced the public to be suspicious of the impacts of this process. As this new process has been fraught with controversy, it is important to gain further understanding of how different people perceive the risks associated with oil and gas development. Focusing on the Eagle Ford Shale region, located in South Texas, I examine how social position and source of information is related to perception of environmental and health risks. I do this by conducting a qualitative analysis of interviews from two counties experiencing hydraulic fracturing development, examining the most …

Review Of Archives In Libraries: What Librarians And Archivists Need To Know To Work Together, Amber D'Ambrosio

Journal of Western Archives

Review of Archives in Libraries: What Librarians and Archivists Need to Know to Work Together.

We Have Only Scratched The Surface: The Role Of Student Research In Institutional Repositories, Becky Thoms, Betty Rozum

Library Faculty & Staff Presentations

Student research, in the form of theses and dissertations, is nearly ubiquitous in institutional repositories (IRs) across the US. However, students at many institutions contribute far more to the scholarly landscape of their communities. This presentation will explore this untapped well of potential material, report on survey data about perceptions of possible benefits of archiving this student work, and encourage discussion of this exciting new avenue of opportunity for libraries.

A Population-Based Analysis Of Increasing Rates Of Suicide Mortality In Japan And South Korea, 1985–2010, Eric N. Reither, Sun Jeon, Ryan K. Masters

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Background: In the past two decades, rates of suicide mortality have declined among most OECD member states. Two notable exceptions are Japan and South Korea, where suicide mortality has increased by 20 % and 280 %, respectively.

Methods: Population and suicide mortality data were collected through national statistics organizations in Japan and South Korea for the period 1985 to 2010. Age, period of observation, and birth cohort membership were divided into five-year increments. We fitted a series of intrinsic estimator age-period-cohort models to estimate the effects of age-related processes, secular changes, and birth cohort dynamics on the rising …

Ideal Elves? Expressing A 3-Dimensional Personality In A 2-Dimensional Space, David Tauber, Joshua Wanner

Student Research Symposium

Published in 2007, the Ideal Elf is a classic article studying character creation in Online Games. It used quantitative methods to address the difference between the idealize self of individuals surveyed, and the online characters they create. In their survey they found the difference between an individuals ideal self and the traits of the character they created was considerably smaller than the difference between the difference between the individual’s ideal self and their actual self. From this they suggested the creation of characters in game is partially a way for individuals to express their ideal selves. Our research attempted to …

Implementing A Measurement Feedback System In A Psychology Graduate Training Clinic, Elizabeth Wynn, Molly Mechammil, Michael Levin, Rick Cruz

Student Research Symposium

Measurement feedback systems (MFS’s) are software tools that help behavioral health clinicians routinely track their clients’ symptoms and collaborate with their client to make decisions concerning treatment. Research has shown that the use of MFS’s may improve clinical decision-making and that it is correlated with greater treatment gains and lower dropout rates when compared to the use of clinicians’ judgement alone. However, there are various factors that can impede the efficacy of these tools. One of these factors is the attitudes of clinicians toward MFS’s. Clinicians have been found to hold predominantly negative attitudes towards MFS’s which poses a major …

Optimizing Delay Discounting Procedures, Jodi Siri, Jillian M. Rung

Student Research Symposium

The purpose of the current research is twofold: 1) to identify the causes and typical frequencies of nonsystematic data in three commonly used discounting tasks, and 2) to test and optimize these delay discounting procedures to reduce the amount of non-systematic data that is produced. Experiment 1 will be the first study to explicitly examine the frequency of nonsystematic data obtained across these three procedures, which will identify which method is the most reliable procedure for producing systematic data. While many of these procedures have been widely used, the procedural parameters (e.g., delay range, monetary amounts) have varied greatly across …

Liberalis, Spring 2016, Utah State University

Liberalis

Freedom to Think, Discover, and Create. The alumni magazine for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Utah State University.

A Match Made In Data Heaven: Libraries Partnering With The Office Of Research, Betty Rozum, Becky Thoms

Library Faculty & Staff Presentations

As requirements for data capture and sharing increase, offices of research are looking for partners in providing these services. Guess what? They are looking for you. They are looking for your repository services. You, in turn, find a valuable partner in identifying faculty data and research needs and embed yourself more deeply into the research ecosystem.

At Utah State University, Betty Rozum, Data Services Coordinator, and the repository team, led by Becky Thoms, have worked with their Office of Research and other campus stakeholders, such as Central IT, to provide exemplary data support services to USU faculty. During the webinar, …

Enhancing Teaching & Learning: Libraries And Open Educational Resources In The Classroom, Erin Davis, Britt A. Fagerheim, Becky Thoms, Dory Cochran

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

Academic libraries continually adjust services to adapt to the ever-changing landscape in higher education. In response to the broken textbook market, libraries are becoming actively involved in the open educational resources (OER) movement. Although there is not a formal program in place, librarians at Utah State University explored a collaborative approach to integrate OER in faculty members' courses. One goal of the effort was to work closely with faculty to consider course objectives and learning outcomes when evaluating and incorporating OER. This article identifies a streamlined process for targeting courses most suited for OER adoption and outlines a process of …

Memeing Grandma: Bridging The Gap Between The Archives And Pop Culture Through A Historical Photograph Meme Contest, Clint Pumphrey, Darcy Pumphrey

Library Faculty & Staff Presentations

No abstract provided.

Libraries At The Hub As The Federally Funded Research Wheel Turns To Open, Kipphut-Smith Shannon, Betty Rozum, Becky Thoms

Library Faculty & Staff Presentations

Libraries are strong partners in supporting researcher compliance with both funder public access policies and institutional open access policies, and are increasingly involved in research data management activities. The 2008 National Institutes of Health(NIH) Public Access Policy, requiring researchers to deposit copies of all NIH‐funded publications in PubMed Central, provided an opportunity for academic librarians to use their expertise in education and training, copyright, and author rights issues to assist with policy compliance. At the same time, many institutions began conversations about management of research data and adoption of institutional open access (OA) policies,requiring faculty to place copies of their …

Review Of Rights In The Digital Era, Tammy Lau

Journal of Western Archives

Book review of Rights in the Digital Era.

Making Strategic Decisions: Conducting And Using Research On The Impact Of Sequenced Library Instruction, Kacy Lundstrom, Pamela N. Martin, Dory Cochran

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

This study explores the relationship between course grades and sequenced library instruction interventions throughout psychology students’ curriculum. Researchers conducted this study to inform decisions about sustaining and improving program integrations for first- and second-year composition courses and to improve discipline-level integrations. Researchers began with transcript analysis but soon incorporated student surveys and a faculty focus group to supplement the data and influence future directions. Findings confirmed that students benefit from meaningful collaborations with the library at strategic, sequenced points in their curriculum, including at the discipline level. This research also provided concrete information that brought about change at the classroom …

Experience And Worker Flows, Aspen Gorry

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

This paper studies the role of worker learning in a labor market where workers have incomplete information about the quality of their employment match. The amount of information about the quality of a new match depends on a worker’s past job experience. Allowing workers to learn from experience generates a decline in job finding probabilities with age that is consistent with patterns found in the data. Moreover, workers with more past experience will on average have less wage volatility on new jobs, which is also consistent with the data. In contrast to the fact that the cross-sectional wage distribution fans …

Extending The Benefits Of Ebis To Marginalized Populations: Technology As A Powerful Ally, Melanie M. Domenech-Rodriguez

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Intersection Of Culture And Ethics: Updates From The Ethnic Minority Psychological Groups, Melanie M. Domenech-Rodriguez, Gayle S. Morse, Nabil Hassan El-Ghoroury, Helen H. Hsu, Kevin Washington

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Measuring The Effectiveness Of Experiential Date Nights: A Qualitative Study, Naomi Brower, Linda Skogrand, Kay Bradford

Human Development and Family Studies Faculty Publications

This qualitative study examines the experience of 13 couples who attended a relationship education date night in two metropolitan areas in a western state. The intent of these date nights was to reach audiences that may not attend traditional classroom relationship education. Reasons for, benefits of attending, and impacts were explored with participants. Findings indicate that the majority of participants had fun and enjoyed spending time together, learned qualities and skills of healthy relationships, and had positive learning experiences with other couples. Additionally, while most individuals’ reason for attending was to have fun, the majority experienced a positive impact on …

Review Of Encoded Archival Description Tag Library – Version Ead3, Jodi Allison-Bunnell

Journal of Western Archives

Review of Encoded Archival Description Tag Library – Version EAD3.

The Role Of Family-Led Disability Organizations In Supporting Families With Hearing-Related Concerns, Diane D. Behl, Janet Desgeorges, Karl R. White

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention: Volume 9 Issue 1, pages 1-53

A survey was conducted with state level chapters from Family Voices, Parent Training and Information Centers, and Parent–to-Parent USA to understand their current activities support families of children with hearing-related concerns and to identify gaps in their ability to support families of children who are D/HH. these organizations reported that they are contacted with parent requests for information in regard to family support opportunities, early intervention, referral sources pertaining to hearing concerns, financial help, and providing information about legal rights. Results showed that the greatest challenges for these organizations were related to needing to connect families to financial resources pertaining …

Coding By Choice: A Transitional Analysis Of Social Participation Patterns And Programming Contributions In The Online Scratch Community, Deborah A. Fields, Yasmin B. Kafai, Michael T. Giang

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

While massive online communities have drawn the attention of researchers and educators on their potential to support active collaborative work, knowledge sharing, and user-generated content, few studies examine participation in these communities at scale. The little research that does exist attends almost solely to adults rather than communities to support youths’ learning and identity development. In this chapter, we tackle two challenges related to understanding social practices that support learning in massive social networking forums where users engage in design. We examined a youth programmer community, called Scratch.mit.edu, that garners the voluntary participation of millions of young people worldwide. We …

Review Of Becoming A Trusted Digital Repository, Module 8 Of Trends In Archives Practice, Kevin C. Miller

Journal of Western Archives

Review of Becoming a Trusted Digital Repository, Module 8 of Trends in Archives Practice.

Utah’S Oldest Show The Most Concern For Future Water Shortages, Viviane Baji

Research on Capitol Hill

Utah is set to double in population by 2050. It is unclear whether current water supplies will be able to accommodate the needs of the future growth. Young people will be in their prime when water shortage predictions come to fruition, so it is important to know how concerned they are about the water issues that will affect them. An understanding of the relationship between age and water shortage concern may also contribute to the development of social science theories relating age and environmental attitudes and behavior.

Research Question: "Are young people more concerned about water shortages?" to understand how …

Link Between Cognitive Status And Motivation To Make Lifestyle Changes To Prevent Alzheimer’S Disease: The Gray Matters Study, Randi Hovey, Austin Dopp

Research on Capitol Hill

Research on prevention strategies have shown promising results for delaying onset of Alzheimer's disease with simple lifestyle changes.

Preventable medical conditions linked to increase risk for AD include:

• high blood pressure
• sedentary lifestyle
• poorly managed diabetes

Several behavioral factors have been associated with risk of developing the disease. These include:

• sleep quality
• stress-management
• social engagement
• cognitive activity

Although there are known genetic factors, current estimates attribute less than 35% of all diagnoses to heredity alone.

Barriers To Health Care Access For Cache County Refugees, Michael Hoggard, Julie Gast

Research on Capitol Hill

There are over 300 refugees resettled in Cache County, Utah (figure 2). Despite coming from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, the Cache County refugee population shares similar circumstances in regards to access to health care:

(a)96% of working adults are employed at the same job
(b)Refugees have access to the same social services
(c)None of the refugee populations speak English as a native language.

The purpose of this study is to understand key physical, structural and cultural barriers that prevent Cache Valley refugees from

(a)Utilizing work-provided health insurance or Medicaid when seeking medical treatment and
(b)Seeking necessary medical procedures.

An Analysis Of Domestic Violence In Mass Media & Motion Pictures, Renee Delcambre

Research on Capitol Hill

Mass media have a curious and powerful position of influence within our culture making it a critical component in creating, altering, and/or mimicking current ideologies within society.

Motion pictures often incorporate life-like situations or plots into their stories which can contain controversial or taboo topics. One of these situations involves abuse within intimate, adult relationships. Choices made in how the abuse and characters are depicted is called framing. This strategy is a deliberate means of including and excluding certain information and/or details. It is a tactic used to provide the viewer with a carefully “framed” picture.

This analysis reveals the …

The Urban Prison: Socioeconomic Vortexes In Latino Neighborhoods, Armando Porras, Aaron Wyatt

Research on Capitol Hill

This research shows how metropolitan cities throughout the United States are continuously impacting the lives of ethnic minorities.

In the United States, Latina/o individuals have been born into socioeconomic vortexes. In other words, they have grown up in areas where secure jobs have disappeared and a variety of other factors force them to live in damaged communities that do not foster economic and social progression.

By analyzing several works of literature written by Latina/o authors who lived in barrios that faced these challenges, as well as research addressing crime and the lack of law enforcement in marginalized neighborhoods, we have …