Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Exploration Of The Facilitators And Barriers Of Inclusion And Participation For Children With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities At Informal Education Settings, Julia M. Ranieri

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation addresses the current practices, facilitators, and barriers toward inclusion and participation for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, including intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) at informal education settings (IES). The first research paper is a scoping review examining practices for supporting participation at IES for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Characteristics of studies, practices used to promote inclusion, and outcomes measures were identified. The findings of this study emphasized the current practices being utilized at IES for children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

The second research paper is qualitative descriptive study of the facilitators and barriers to inclusion for children with IDD at …

Women And Western Mission: A Case Study On The Christian Khasi And Garo Tribal Women, Rosemary Philip

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Western mission justified a mission to the Global South that was ingrained with the dominance of its culture and values. Women’s mission, as a tool of this mission, patronized themselves as the ‘care-taker’ of the ‘subjugated’ women of the Global South. This mission promulgated new ways of thinking and prescribed new gender roles and values to the Global South. In doing so, it framed the traditional roles and cultural values of the non-Western world as oppressive and replaceable. Subsequently, Women’s mission along with Western feminism and Feminist theology as a broad idea has been challenged by feminists from the Global …

Optimizing Music Learning: The Effects Of Contextual Interference On Memorization, Carmen Andrea Wong

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to assess if blocked or interleaved practice learning was more effective for memorizing music, and to assess if metacognitive judgements aligned with performance. The study included 21 proficient pianists who regularly engage in piano practice. Participants learnt two excerpts and two technical studies, and played them from memory on both day 1 and day 2 of testing. Performances were recorded and rated by an expert in the field on a percentage scale. A two-way repeated measures ANOVA analysis revealed no significant main effect of day on practice schedule, (F(1,20) = .15, p = 0.70, …

But I’M Bad At Math: Students’ Feelings About Math And Intention To Declare A Degree In Psychology, Danielle H. Ward

Brescia Psychology Undergraduate Honours Theses

The current study investigated the association between math anxiety, math self-concept, and math self-efficacy with intention to declare a degree in psychology. Additionally, the study investigated whether knowledge of the statistics requirement in psychology was associated with psychology degree intentions and whether the three math factors were associated with time since last math course. Undergraduate students completed a questionnaire concerning their intention to pursue a psychology degree, the revised version of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Anxiety Scale, the Self-Description Questionnaire III Mathematics Subscale, and the Mathematics Self-Efficacy Scale. Results revealed no significant relationships between scores on the three math scales and …

Evaluating The Impact Of A Compassion Focused Therapy Group On Parent And Caregiver Psychological Flexibility, Katarina M. Guillen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Compassion focused therapy (CFT) for parents and caregivers is an emerging evidence-based intervention that aims to teach caregivers how to manage their own stress and frustration, as well as co-regulate their children’s emotions and self-soothing capabilities. Previous research has found that CFT interventions can improve parental self-compassion, psychological flexibility, and increase their sense of self-efficacy. The present study aimed to determine whether parental burnout and psychological inflexibility can be reduced through a novel CFT caregiver protocol. Results of the present study provide preliminary support for the utility of the intervention. Analyses of relations between constructs as well as the quantitative …

3d Morphometric Analysis Of Late Paleoindigenous Projectile Points From The Mackenzie I Site, Northwestern Ontario, And Surrounding Regions, Dave Norris

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Despite decades of archaeological investigations into the presence of people in northwestern Ontario during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene there is still a tenuous understanding of the timing and origins of those past groups that moved across the region. This is mainly a result of small sample sizes, acidic soils (that degrade organic materials) and low recoveries of diagnostic tools such as projectile points. The discovery of an uncharacteristically large Paleoindigenous site, the Mackenzie I site, east of Thunder Bay, yielded recoveries of artifacts in numbers never seen in the region. The exceptionally large number of projectile points recovered …

It's Not My Phone, It’S Me: Investigating Smartphone Presence And Predictors Of Smartphone Reliance, Ana C. Ruiz Pardo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Objectives: Smartphones are nearly ubiquitous and as a result, researchers have sought to study whether there are negative consequences that result from this inescapable device. Extended exposure to seemingly endless resources, entertainment, and communications has brought forward the issue of smartphone reliance and the effect of smartphone presence on cognition. This dissertation investigated the effect of smartphone presence on cognition and predictors of smartphone reliance using six studies. Chapter 2 (one study): A replication of Ward et al.'s (2017) second study was completed. Participants completed a difficult working memory task and a response inhibition task while leaving their smartphone either …

Canada Must Strongly Support Marshall Plan 2.0, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

"Canada Must Strongly Support Marshall Plan 2.0" discusses the urgent need for a modernized Marshall Plan to aid Ukraine amidst the ongoing conflict with Russia. The proposed plan aims to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure, promote sustainable energy solutions, and enhance food security in alignment with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. The document highlights the critical role of international cooperation, with Canada positioned as a key leader in mobilizing support and resources. It emphasizes the necessity of immediate and substantial financial investment to prevent further devastation and foster a vision of peace and reconstruction for Ukraine.

Development Of A New Measure Of Political Ideology, Vanessa M. Sinclair

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Ideology is central to political psychology, but despite recent renewed interest in studying political ideology, its measurement is inconsistent. Ideology scales are numerous and heterogeneous in content. Further, there is disagreement on whether ideology is unidimensional multi-dimensional, and what the nature of these dimensions are. These inconsistencies limit the generalizability of conclusions made about ideology as it relates to political views and behaviour. There is a clear need for a conceptual model that is grounded in theory, and for a well-validated scale that organizes and quantifies ideology. Chapter 1 reviews the state of ideology measurement and identifies plausible dimensions supported …

Neural Activity During Story Listening Is Synchronized Across Individuals Despite Acoustic Masking., Vanessa C Irsik, Ingrid Johnsrude, Björn Herrmann

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Older people with hearing problems often experience difficulties understanding speech in the presence of background sound. As a result, they may disengage in social situations, which has been associated with negative psychosocial health outcomes. Measuring listening (dis)engagement during challenging listening situations has received little attention thus far. We recruit young, normal-hearing human adults (both sexes) and investigate how speech intelligibility and engagement during naturalistic story listening is affected by the level of acoustic masking (12-talker babble) at different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). In Experiment 1, we observed that word-report scores were above 80% for all but the lowest SNR (-3 dB …

Rethinking Walkability And Developing A Conceptual Definition Of Active Living Environments To Guide Research And Practice, Melissa Tobin, Samantha Hajna, Kassia Orychock, Nancy Ross, Megan Devries, Paul J. Villeneuve, Lawrence D. Frank, Gavin R. Mccormack, Rania Wasfi, Madeleine Steinmetz-Wood, Jason Gilliland, Gillian L. Booth, Meghan Winters, Yan Kestens, Kevin Manaugh, Daniel Rainham, Lise Gauvin, Michael J. Widener, Nazeem Muhajarine, Hui Luan, Daniel Fuller

Geography & Environment Publications

Background

Walkability is a popular term used to describe aspects of the built and social environment that have important population-level impacts on physical activity, energy balance, and health. Although the term is widely used by researchers, practitioners, and the general public, and multiple operational definitions and walkability measurement tools exist, there are is no agreed-upon conceptual definition of walkability.

Method

To address this gap, researchers from Memorial University of Newfoundland hosted “The Future of Walkability Measures Workshop” in association with researchers from the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium (CANUE) in November 2017. During the workshop, trainees, researchers, and practitioners …

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Of Tpmt Genotype-Guided Azathioprine Treatment Compared To Standard Treatment For Patients With Moderate/Severe Ulcerative Colitis, Ali Unsal

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study assessed cost-effectiveness of pharmacogenomics (PGx)-based azathioprine (AZA) compared to standard AZA therapy for ulcerative colitis (UC) patients in Canada. A patient-level Microsimulation model was developed to compare the lifetime costs and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained by a hypothetical cohort of UC patients with age and sex characteristics. The parameters used in the model were derived from the published literature and costs from the Ontario Schedules of Payments and published sources. The results were summarized in terms of the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Compared to standard AZA, PGx-based AZA care was the dominant strategy with 0.17 incremental QALYs …

Movies On The Mind: Using Naturalistic Stimuli To Assess Perception, Cognition, And Awareness In Patients With Disorders Of Consciousness, Geoffrey Laforge

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Standardized behavioural assessments of awareness remain the gold standard for patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) and inform diagnosis, prognosis, and medical decision-making. However, recent neuroimaging research has identified a small but significant number of DOC patients who retain perceptual and cognitive abilities not evidenced by their behaviour. Therefore, it is imperative to develop assessment techniques to identify and characterize the conscious experiences of patients with DOC. This thesis presents a novel movie-based electroencephalographic (EEG) assessment of perceptual and cognitive function in DOC patients. In Chapter 2, we calculated EEG inter-subject correlations (ISCs) in healthy controls and DOC patients to …

Examining The Impact Of Financial Incentive Removal On Physical Activity: A Quasi-Experimental Study Of 584,760 Mobile Health Application Users, Sean Kevin Spilsbury

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

BACKGROUND: Government interest in using financial incentives (FIs) to stimulate physical activity (PA) is increasing. The cost of longer-term incentive interventions may be prohibitive, however. PURPOSE: To examine the impact of FI withdrawal on PA. METHODS: A 25-week retrospective pre-post quasi-experimental study was conducted with users of a FI-based mHealth app. Users from three Canadian provinces were included. Daily FI were removed in Ontario (ON; intervention) but not British Columbia (BC) and Newfoundland and Labrador (NL; control). Simple linear regression models were used to examine weekly mean daily step count after FI withdrawal. RESULTS: The total sample included 584,760 users …

Organizational Implementation Of Trauma And Violence Informed Care, Tanaz Javan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

For the past several decades, social and health services have increased their efforts to enhance service delivery and close the ‘science-to-service’ (or ‘evidence-to-practice’) gap by implementing effective interventions. At the same time, there has been growing recognition of the prevalence of trauma and violence in the lives of those served and those providing care and the impact of these experiences on service needs and interactions. This study explored the implementation of trauma- and violence-informed care (TVIC), a complex intervention focused on providing safety and choice for service users in the context of their life experiences and conditions, exploring factors that …

The War In Ukraine Will Have Global Consequences, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

The crisis in Ukraine has shown NATO’s commitment to its members while treating Ukraine and Georgia as partners. NATO won’t fight directly on Ukrainian soil but will protect its allies. The invasion has caused a major refugee crisis, with millions fleeing to neighboring countries like Moldova and Romania.

Countries like Canada are preparing to accept many Ukrainian refugees, given their large Ukrainian communities. Western nations are condemning Russia and imposing tough sanctions. There are also fears of nuclear escalation, similar to past Cold War tensions, prompting calls for new arms control talks.

This crisis threatens global peace and democracy, highlighting …

Implementing Health Impact Assessment As A Required Component Of Government Policymaking: A Multi-Level Exploration Of The Determinants Of Healthy Public Policy, Stephanie A. Simpson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

It is widely understood that the public policies of ‘non-health’ government sectors have greater impacts on population health than those of the traditional healthcare realm. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a decision support tool that identifies and promotes the health benefits of policies while also mitigating their unintended negative consequences. Despite numerous calls to do so, the Ontario government has yet to implement HIA as a required component of policy development. This dissertation therefore sought to identify the contexts and factors that may both enable and impede HIA use at the sub-national (i.e., provincial, territorial, or state) government level.

The …

Radiant Dreams And Nuclear Nightmares: Japanese Resistance Narratives And American Intervention In Postwar Speculative Popular Culture, Aidan J. Warlow

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This project explores three distinct sets of Japanese and American postwar popular culture texts to demonstrate that there is a continuum of Japanese cultural interest in pacifism through resistance narratives in speculative fiction. Through close readings of Godzilla, Mobile Suit Gundam and Akira, and Metal Gear Solid, which I compare with similar American texts, my project positions its objects of study as points of cultural resistance to hegemonic pro-American cultural products. Each text produces commentary on Japanese-American relations with specific respect to nuclear policy and military expansionism. Significant Japanese cultural producers have grown increasingly critical of Japanese-American …

Opportunity To Rid Europe Of Dangerous Nuclear Weapon Systems And Provocative Force Deployments, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

The crisis between Ukraine and Russia has brought NATO's role and diplomatic efforts to the forefront. NATO is committed to defending its members and supporting Ukraine and Georgia as partners, though their potential membership remains uncertain and requires consensus among NATO nations.

The conflict has caused a large refugee crisis, with many fleeing to neighboring countries. Diplomatically, leaked documents show NATO's approach to dialogue with Russia through the NATO-Russia Council, focusing on security and democratic issues.

Russia opposes NATO's eastward expansion, citing security concerns and unmet agreements like the 2014 Minsk Protocol. Discussions on reducing military tensions and promoting transparency …

The Impact Of Energetic Trade-Offs On The Developmental Trajectory And Life History Strategy Of Homo Sapiens: The Modern Human Female Phenotype, Laura Ann Hope Atkinson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study interrogates the relationship between early life environmental variability (measured through birth weight and age at menarche), and adult phenotypic outcomes in female athletes and non-athletes from the United Kingdom. Using anthropometric, and 3D body surface scan analysis, patterns of phenotypic variation were interpreted in a life history context. Significant correlations between birth weight, stature, and bi-iliac breadth were observed. Age at menarche had significant correlations with linear growth and body composition measures in both Pearson and Canonical Correlation analyses. Crural index was found to be negatively correlated with limb segment SA:Vol in opposition to the expectations of Allen’s …

Systematizing Dark Personality Traits Within Broader Models Of Personality, Radosław Rogoza, Christopher Marcin Kowalski, Donald H. Saklofske, Julie Aitken Schermer

Management and Organizational Studies Publications

Previous research has attempted to derive arguments for the categorization of traits as ‘dark’ without theoretical justification or rationalizations. We begin with a description of current conceptualizations of the darkness of traits followed by a new perspective on the catalogue of dark personality traits and the theoretical boundaries of different shades of darkness within the broader personality structure. Finally, we address the redundancy problem observed within the field on dark personality traits. Our analyses are offered as a guide to future research towards a more parsimonious and useful set of criteria (a “compass” of sorts) for inclusion within the “dark” …

The Contribution Of Attachment Styles And Reassurance Seeking To Trust In Romantic Couples., Lyndsay Elizabeth Evraire, David J. A. Dozois, Jesse Lee Wilde

Psychology Publications

The current daily diary study examined the moderating impact of attachment style on the association between excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) behavior and trust in romantic dyads. A sample of 110 heterosexual couples completed measures of attachment, ERS, and relationship trust. In line with prior research, an anxious attachment style was associated with higher daily ERS, and an avoidant attachment style with lower daily ERS. Lower levels of trust were also associated with greater daily ERS. Moreover, analyses remained significant while controlling for symptoms of depression. This study extended the literature by demonstrating that for women with an anxious attachment style, …

School-Level Perspectives Of The Ontario Student Nutrition Program, Mariam R. Ismail, Jason A. Gilliland, June I. Matthews, Danielle S. Battram

Geography & Environment Publications

The purpose of this study was to assess the implementation of a school snack program for children in elementary schools. School-level program volunteers’ experiences were explored using semi-structured interviews. Fieldnotes were taken during on-site school visits. Quantitative data were collected through a General Information Form and Weekly Logbooks. Seven elementary schools in Southwestern Ontario were invited and agreed to participate. Interviews (n = 27) revealed that volunteers valued the program for its universality, the excitement it created, the opportunity for students to try new foods, and the social interactions that it generated. Challenges included the burden on snack volunteers to …

Middle Powers And The U.S.-Iran Conflict, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

The article "Middle Powers and the U.S.-Iran Conflict" by Erika Simpson examines the geopolitical ramifications of the Trump administration's targeted killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. It explores Iran's military retaliation and the broader implications for Middle Eastern stability, including potential threats to NATO allies. The piece highlights the precarious position of middle powers like Canada, emphasizing their limited strategic options but potential role in advocating restraint and negotiation. The article also delves into the impact of the conflict on NATO unity, the potential for a power vacuum in Iraq, and the broader international legal and diplomatic challenges. It concludes …

The Genetics Of Pain: An Exploration Of Gene-By-Environment Interactions And Their Effects On Pain, Mohamad F. Fakhereddin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The findings presented in this dissertation are part of the bigger SYMBIOME project which aims to use the biopsychosocial model of pain to develop a prognostic clinical phenotype for people that experience musculoskeletal (MSK) trauma. Chapter 2 presents an exploratory analysis to assess the relationships between genetic polymorphisms and pain severity and interference. Early childhood trauma was also explored as a moderator between genetic polymorphisms and pain outcomes. For pain severity, major allele carriers (A/A and G/A) of FKBP5 rs9394314 reported significantly higher scores than minor allele carriers (G/G). Further, major allele carriers who had at least one adverse childhood …

Soc4425g: Concussion Legacy Foundation Media Creation, Liana S. Forsyth Ba, Vanessa A. Nasturzio Ba, Rebecca Asselstine Ba, Florencia Sofia Ba, Yarin Gurevich Ba, Mark T. Bernardi Ba

Community Engaged Learning Final Projects

Concussion Legacy Foundation Center (CLFC) aims to educated youth in Ontario about concussion awareness and prevention. Our Community Engaged Learning task was to create social media content that would engage and educate youth about concussion in a fun and relevant way. Through the use of a popular social media platform, research, and personal testimonies from youth on their knowledge and interests our group was able to create several videos that inform youths ages 9-14 years old about concussions in a brief, engaging, humorous and fun way.

2022-1 A Partial Identification Approach To Identifying The Determinants Of Human Capital Accumulation: An Application To Teachers, Nirav Mehta

Department of Economics Research Reports

This paper views teacher quality through the human capital perspective. Teacher quality exhibits substantial growth over teachers’ careers, but why it improves is not well understood. I use a human capital production function nesting On-the-Job-Training (OJT) and Learning-by-Doing (LBD) and experimental variation from Glewwe et al. (2010), a teacher incentive pay experiment in Kenya, to discern the presence and relative importance of these forces. The identified set for the OJT and LBD components has a closed-form solution, which depends on experimentally estimated average treatment effects. The results provide evidence of an LBD component, as well as an informative upper bound …

2022-2 Robust Contracts In Common Agency, Keler Marku, Sergio Ocampo, Jean-Baptiste Tondji

Department of Economics Research Reports

Business activities often involve a common agent managing a variety of projects on behalf of investors with potentially conflicting interests. The extent of the agent’s actions is also often unknown to investors, who have to design contracts that provide incentives to the manager despite this lack of crucial knowledge. We consider a game between several principals and a common agent, where principals know only a subset of the actions available to the agent. Principals demand robustness and evaluate contracts on a worst-case basis. This robust approach allows for a crisp characterization of the equilibrium contracts and payoffs and provides a …

2022-7 Market Power, Taxation And Product Variety In The Brazilian Automobile Industry, Daniel Chaves

Department of Economics Research Reports

This paper empirically assesses the impact of a discontinuous tax schedule on prices, markups and product assortment in the Brazilian automobile industry. To this end, I estimate a structural, equilibrium model of demand and supply for over a hundred different models and engine sizes of automobiles. With the model estimates of price elasticities and marginal costs I quantify how market power impacts the progressivity of the discontinuous tax schedule. I also examine how firms would reposition their products to avoid the tax and quantify the impact of this repositioning on equilibrium outcomes.

2022-5 Estimation Of Parametric Binary Outcome Models With Degenerate Pure Choice-Based Data With Application To Covid-19-Positive Tests From British Columbia, Nail Kashaev

Department of Economics Research Reports

I propose a generalized method of moments type procedure to estimate parametric binary choice models when the researcher only observes degenerate pure choices-based or presence-only data and has some information about the distribution of the covariates. This auxiliary information comes in the form of moments. I present an application based on the data on all COVID-19-positive tests from British Columbia. Publicly available demographic information on the population in British Columbia allows me to estimate the conditional probability of a person being COVID-19-positively tested conditional on demographics