Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Single Session Of Acceptance And Commitment Therapy To Promote Health-Related Behavior Change: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Monica Barreto

Dissertations

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified physical activity, nutrition, and sleep as three key health-related behaviors that can help the prevention of chronic disease. Only a fraction of the population met the recommended guidelines across these domains. It is important to develop interventions that can be simultaneously focused, flexible, efficient, and efficacious as a means of impacting population health. This study examined the efficacy of a single 60-minute Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) session targeting health-related behavior change and compared it to an information-only wait-list (WL) control condition. Forty-five collegians (Mage = 22.35 [6.91], 78% female, 56% …

A Comparison Of The Effects Of Sustained Silent Reading And Reciprocal Reading On Reading Motivation For Middle School Students With Reading Delays, Margaret Uwayo

Dissertations

Research suggests that secondary students with reading delays may lack reading motivation, which can be defined as the temporal reinforcement value of texts for an individual. However, reading motivation may be a critical component of their acquisition of reading proficiency. The purpose of the current study was to compare the effects of two research-based reading interventions - sustained silent reading and modified reciprocal reading - on the reading motivation of middle school students with reading delays. Participants were four 6th-grade students who were grouped into dyads in a reading intervention classroom. The primary dependent variable was book engagement under pairing …

Deliberation For Devolution In The Public Sphere: A Case Study From Pakistan, Beenish Kulsoom

Dissertations

Genuine democratic deliberation on design of institutional rules is possible only when the state apparatus and political and civil society are engaged in communicative interexchange, exchanging ideas, and speaking in a language understood and accepted by all others. Moreover, in such an exchange the interlocutors do not hold back their thoughts to achieve strategic control in order to subvert the communicative engagement. The deliberative theory of democracy advocates communicative engagement between state and society actors that results in institutional rules that are accepted by all.

The advocates of the theory of deliberative democracy argue that while the state is the …

Examining The Effects Of Cell Phone Use On Caregiver Supervision And Child Injury Risk, Mckenna Corlis

Dissertations

Unintentional injuries are the leading killer of children in the United States. Research indicates caregiver supervision decreases child injury risk, but has not examined how different distractions may affect this relation. Specifically, research has not considered if and how caregiver cell phone use affects child injury risk. Given the prevalence and distracting effects of cell phones noted in previous studies, it is imperative to examine how caregiver cell phone use and child injury risk relate.

The present study examined how distractions influenced caregivers’ ability to tend to their child and their child’s engagement in risky behavior. Using a within-subjects design, …

Banking Supervisory And Regulatory Policy In Developing Countries: An Analysis Of Determinants And Impacts, Nanda Ayu Wijayanti

Dissertations

A decade after the Great Recession in 2007/2008, many developing countries are still struggling to devise appropriate policy actions that enhance banking supervision and regulation and help mitigate large-scale crises in the future. This uncertainty has also left lingering impacts on economic growth, especially in developing countries that have weak institutional mechanisms. This study examines how banking supervision and regulatory reforms are determined in the cross-national context of advanced and developing countries. Using time series, cross-sectional data on 180 countries over a period of 12 years (1999-2011), the purpose is to explore the roles of exposure of financial crisis, trade …

From The Boots On The Ground: A Comparison Of The Attitudes And Beliefs Of Military Members And Mental Health Professionals Regarding The Moral Injury Construct, Karis L. Callaway

Dissertations

An increasing amount of research conducted in recent years indicates that, in addition to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, moral injury is a key concept to recognize when considering the deployment experiences of service members. Although related to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, which is a fear-based mental health diagnosis, moral injury is a distinct concept. It acknowledges the possible prolonged negative psychological, social, and spiritual consequences that may occur after experiences that challenge and transgress one’s deeply held moral beliefs. Events such as perpetration of harm, failing to protect or prevent harm, and witnessing or learning about distressing acts committed by influential others …

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Adolescent Depression, Anhedonia, And Behavioral Therapy, Alison A. Delizza

Dissertations

Adolescent depression is a significant public health problem, however the current characterization of depression as a categorical label is problematic for understanding individual phenomenology, interindividual variability, and best treatment practices (Lewinsohn, Solomon, Seeley, & Zeiss, 2000). Anhedonia has been posited as a process underlying depression that may contribute to poorer outcomes (Gabbay, 2015). The current project examines large samples of adolescents diagnosed with depression to identify common features at a symptom level and the relationship these features have with behavioral therapy outcomes. Four phases of analyses were completed to 1) examine symptomology of multiple depressed adolescent samples in order to …

Sexual Coercion: The Role Of Communication And Heteronormative Beliefs, Brianna Lindley Forbis

Dissertations

Sexual assault is a pervasive issue on college campuses, with large numbers of students experiencing sexual assault during their college careers (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000). Sexual assault is often perpetrated by a known offender, which has brought increased attention to forms of sexual assault that do not necessarily include violence or the direct threat of violence. Sexual coercion is one such construct that has received increased attention in the literature, with several studies finding associations between heteronormative beliefs and sexual coercion (Eaton & Matamala 2014; Haworth- Hoeppner, 1998; Vanwesenbeek, 1998). Aims of the current study included further exploring the …

Constraints And Context: Testing The Effects Of Anthropogenic Noise And Social Factors On Avian Signaling Behavior, Erin E. Grabarczyk

Dissertations

Rapid human-generated environmental change has irrevocably altered the natural world. Understanding how animal populations respond and persist within these modified landscapes is critical for mitigating associated negative environmental impacts. For organisms that rely on vocal communication, anthropogenic noise masks signals, reducing the area over which vocalizations can be heard. For birds, noise overlaps with songs males use to defend breeding areas and attract mates, both critical aspects of reproduction. In response to noise, males adjust their song structure, but whether they actually benefit from song changes is unknown. Moreover, it remains unclear whether noise disrupts communication by affecting interactions with …

Measuring Contextual Factors Associated With Experiential Avoidance Using A Behavior Analogue Paradigm, Meaghan M. Lewis

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between levels of state and trait experiential avoidance across two different contexts using behavior analogue methodology. Performance on the cold pressor task (threshold, tolerance, endurance, and intensity; Zettle et al., 2012) was compared to performance on a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST; Kirschbaum et al., 1993) to obtain a behavioral measure of experiential avoidance that was standardized across these four behavioral indices. Data were collected from a convenience sample of undergraduate students (N = 133) from college classrooms on the campus of Western Michigan University. …

A Phenomenological Investigation Of Women’S Infertility And Miscarriage Grief Experiences, Tristan Mcbain

Dissertations

Infertility and miscarriage are reproductive losses that often produce grief reactions in affected women. This phenomenological study investigated the grief experiences of infertility and miscarriage through the ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief frameworks in order to better understand both the obscurity of reproductive loss and how the resulting grief may be invalidated.

Sixteen women volunteered to participate in this study and each fell into one of the following three categories: women affected by infertility without miscarriage (4); women affected by miscarriage without infertility (4); and women affected by infertility and miscarriage (8). A phenomenological hermeneutic approach was utilized to uncover …

Inequality, Patronage, Ethnic Politics And Decentralization In Kenya And Botswana: An Analysis Of Factors That Increase The Likelihood Of Ethnic Conflict, Rei Gordon

Masters Theses

Scholars have recommended numerous institutional arrangements for mitigating ethnic conflict in divided societies. Electoral systems are often considered to have an impact on ethnic conflict, and scholars have recommended both proportional representation systems and majoritarian systems for their respective effects on mitigating ethnic tensions. However, in a cross-national analysis of 18 sub-Saharan democracies, I find no impact of electoral systems on ethnic conflict. Countries employing proportional representation systems and majoritarian systems are compared according to three measures of ethnic conflict, yet neither electoral system correlates with higher or lower levels of conflict. In the interest of identifying factors that do …

Cisgender Fragility, Zachariah Graydon Oaster

Masters Theses

Cisgender people in the United States are socialized in an environment that shields them from gender-identity-based stress. Like the construct of white fragility (DiAngelo, 2011), cisgender persons exhibit defensive behavior in response to encountering any gender-identity-based discomfort. Once triggered, defensive acts and false claims are deployed in an attempt to return to a state of comfort and normalcy. The stress that cisgender persons feel, and the defensive actions that they take upon encountering such gender-identity-based discomfort is what I refer to herein as Cisgender Fragility.

This theoretical construct of Cisgender Fragility is nuanced through intersectional synthesis of queer and race …

Trends In Irs, Future Planning, Preservation, Paul Gallagher

Digital Commons+ Great Lakes User Group 2019 Meeting

We will take some time do discuss the big picture issues of where IRs are going, how to plan for the future, long term preservation, how can we partner with bepress to achieve our goals, and any other topics that interest the group.

Various Topics, Maira Bundza

Digital Commons+ Great Lakes User Group 2019 Meeting

Registered participants expressed an interest in various topics dealing with IRs from ADA accessibility, metadata, data sets, assessment, OER, libraries as publishers. We will try to get to as many topics as the group wishes.

Transitioning To All Digital Theses Deposits, Todd Bruns

Digital Commons+ Great Lakes User Group 2019 Meeting

Eastern Illinois University has utilized a moderated deposit method for incorporating theses into our institutional repository, The Keep: Students deliver print copies of their thesis to the library, which are then scanned, digitized, and uploaded to our catalog and the IR. Over the course of the past six months we have worked toward transitioning to all digital uploading. This discussion presents lessons learned and developed work-arounds that may benefit other institutions moving in the same direction.

Long Road To Capturing All Dissertations And Theses, Maira Bundza

Digital Commons+ Great Lakes User Group 2019 Meeting

Western Michigan University started its repository in 2011 and approached the Graduate College about entering dissertations and master's theses. A workflow evolved for current theses, but what about the older ones? The goal has been to get every dissertation and theses written at Western into the repository. It has been a long and winding road, but the goal is in sight.

Faculty Work/Expert Gallery/Selected Works, Shandon Quinn

Digital Commons+ Great Lakes User Group 2019 Meeting

After a brief introduction, the group will have an opportunity to discuss how to engage faculty, ideas for workflows and organization systems for checking rights and uploading faculty work. Questions can include all aspects of faculty work, the Experts Gallery or Selected Works.

What's New And What's Coming, Shandon Quinn

Digital Commons+ Great Lakes User Group 2019 Meeting

We’ll hear about what is around the corner in the Digital Commons roadmap, including harvesting, integrations, and other features to support content population or increased IR impact. Plenty of time for questions.

Bepress Culture: The Past And The Present, Greg Borman

Digital Commons+ Great Lakes User Group 2019 Meeting

Covering historical and recent developments in the company culture of bepress

Introduction And Welcoming Remarks, Julie Garrison, Maira Bundza

Digital Commons+ Great Lakes User Group 2019 Meeting

Dean Garrison will welcome us to our user group meeting and ScholarWorks librarian Maira Bundza will provide and introduction to the day and ask all present to share something about their repository and what they would most like to discuss at this meeting.

Analysis Of The Demands Of A Student Athlete, Jaret Curtis

Honors Theses

College athletics has become a staple in our society today. In this analysis, I do a detailed analysis of the demands of a collegiate student athlete. To be more specific, I look at how participating in college athletics affects hirability post-graduation. I am currently a football student athlete here at WMU so I have first person access to this information and can relate very well to this topic. I obtained information by taking an autobiographical approach and applying my experiences as a student athlete and using outside research to answer the question of whether or not being a student athlete …

Book Review, Fikresus Amahazion

International Journal of African Development

Book review for How Sub-Saharan Africa Can Achieve Food Security and Ascend Its Economy to the Initial Stages of Light Industrialization by Woldezion Mesghinna. 881 pgs.. ISBN: 978-145753-963-3.

Effect Of Oil Price Shock On Monetary Policy In Nigeria: A Vector Autoregressive Analysis, Ama Agyeiwaa Abokwah

International Journal of African Development

This paper examines the effects of oil price shocks on interest rate, real GDP and real effective exchange rate in Nigeria using a vector autoregressive (VAR) model. The results from the impulse response function suggests that positive oil price shocks have no effect on the interest rate (monetary policy), real exchange rate and real GDP. This result suggests that monetary policy in Nigeria does not respond to oil price shocks. Both the impulse response functions and variance decomposition analysis to a large extent confirmed that oil price shocks are only able to explain a small proportion of the forecast error …

Intergovernmental Authority On Development And East African Community: Viability Of Merger, Andualem Zewdie

International Journal of African Development

Constituting a regional economic community has immense benefits to the societies within a given region. Regional Economic Communities (RECs) would play an inevitable role in increasing people to people interactions and gradually forging interdependence in different sectors, which used to limit government to government. Often, such bondage within given RECs among states in general and societies in particular paves the way to address the ills of the respective societies in a collaborative manner. In fact, it is plausible to argue that there is a conducive environment to constitute and build up RECs in the present globalizing world. Parallel to the …

Opportunities And Challenges For Community-Based Ecotourism Development: The Case Of Alatish National Park, Northwest Ethiopia, Kassegn Berhanu

International Journal of African Development

Contrary to traditional forms of tourism such as mass tourism, ecotourism has widely been recognized as an economic diversification and developmental tool, and an appropriate approach for conservation of natural resources for destinations with tourism heritage possessions as it provides protection and economic incentives. The aim of this study is to assess opportunities and challenges for community-based ecotourism development. A mixed research approach was devised and a cross-sectional research design was used. Tools of primary data collection were questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews and observation checklists. Secondary data were collected from related articles, research and documents obtained from offices. Quantitative …

Listen To The Voices Of Maasai Women In Kenya: Ensuring The Well-Being Of Their Families Through Collective Actions, Taeko Takayanagi

International Journal of African Development

This is an ethnographic study that provides insight into grassroots activities managed by Maasai women leaders in the Narok area of Kenya. Four women’s narratives were used as a basis of analysis to demonstrate their roles in facilitating grassroots activities to improve village women’s well-being despite gender discrimination and multidimensional constraints. The women’s group leaders commented that low literacy had a negative influence on Maasai women’s development; however, the issue of illiteracy could be overcome through cooperative learning during women group activities in their village. The results showed that the women’s group leaders played a facilitative role in improving women’s …

Nutrition And Trade Liberalization In Africa, Ismaelline Eba Nguema

International Journal of African Development

Trade openness and nutrition are concepts that are closely related. Openness could contribute to an improvement in nutrition under only certain conditions. These include improved export earnings, ultimately the import capacity of the countries participating in the exchange, and maintaining a sufficient level of agricultural production. The objective of this article is to analyze the link between trade liberalization and nutrition in Africa.

Trade openness and nutrition are concepts that are closely related. Openness could contribute to an improvement in nutrition under only certain conditions. These include improved export earnings, ultimately the import capacity of the countries participating in the …

Understanding Remittances In Eritrea: An Exploratory Study, Fikresus Amahazion

International Journal of African Development

Migration has been characterized as a fundamental component of the human experience, and today there are several hundred million international migrants around the world. Although migrants leave their home country, they maintain links, particularly through remittances. Economic remittances supplement the domestic incomes of millions of poor families and are vital for many developing countries. This paper explores economic remittances into Eritrea, examining the particular trends, amounts received, and how remittances are generally consumed. Additionally, the paper explores general perceptions about remittances and their impact upon society in Eritrea. Based on interviews and focus group discussions with individuals and households across …

Editorial Note, Sisay Asefa

International Journal of African Development

Chief Editor Sisay Asefa discusses the articles in Vol 5 n. 2 of the International Journal of African Development.