Looking In The Mirror: Including The Reflected Best Self Exercise In Management Curricula To Increase Students’ Interview Self-Efficacy, Jennifer Robertson, Noelle Baird, Mathew Mclarnon

Management and Organizational Studies Publications

Students often choose to pursue a business major during their post-secondary education to increase their chances of securing employment post-graduation. However, evidence suggests that many recent business degree graduates struggle with underemployment, highlighting the importance of examining how post-secondary institutions can better prepare students for the transition to work. In the current study, we investigated how including a personal strengths-driven intervention, the Reflected Best Self Exercise (RBSE), in management curricula may help better prepare students for securing employment by increasing students’ confidence in their ability to succeed in an employment interview (i.e., by enhancing interview self-efficacy). Using a pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental …

Exploring How Covid-19 Impacts Relationship Dynamics Among Cohabitating Heterosexual And Female Same-Sex Couples, Mishele Kaplan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This qualitative study investigates the experiences of cohabitating heterosexual (n=10) and female same-sex couples (n=8) during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how these couples utilized dyadic coping and relational resilience to manage pandemic-related stressors and how their gender identities influenced their responses. Employing a phenomenological approach informed by feminist, queer, and dyadic coping theories, the study reveals that couples strengthened their bonds during the pandemic through intentional communication and novel activities. The findings of the study also highlight that societal perceptions of gender roles continue to exert pressure on individuals, but female same-sex couples demonstrated greater adaptability by challenging these …

Too Many Constructs In The Kitchen: Toward A Feature-Based Approach To Mistreatment, Sarah Carver

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The field of workplace mistreatment has grown considerably over the last two decades yet continues to be plagued by construct overload and measurement challenges. Constructs such as incivility, bullying, abusive supervision, and social undermining are definitionally distinct in terms of their frequency, intensity, and intentionality but this is seldom explicitly measured. Across three studies, we created and developed the Features of Mistreatment (FOM) measure to explicitly measure frequency, intensity, and perceived intentionality. In Study 1 (N = 282), we examined the psychometric properties of the initial 28-item FOM measure and revised the subscales to four items each. We found …

Acquisition Of Main-Clause Wh-Questions In Egyptian Arabic-English And Spanish-English Bilingual Children, Riham H. Mohamed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the production and judgment of Egyptian Arabic (henceforth EA) main-clause wh-questions in EA-English bilingual children living in Ontario, Canada, or in the United Kingdom. The three comparison groups are EA monolingual children and EA monolingual adults living in Egypt, and first-generation Egyptian immigrants. The results are compared to previous research on the acquisition of obligatory subject-verb (S-V) inversion in Spanish wh-questions.

The focus of this study is to investigate the potential role of cross-linguistic influence in narrow syntactic structures. Until fairly recently, it was believed that only structures that exhibit syntax-pragmatics interfaces are vulnerable to cross-linguistic influence …

Beyond Rank Attainment: Examining The Nature And Function Of Dominance And Prestige In Teams, Lynden Jensen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Social hierarchies are fundamental to human societies, shaping group dynamics and outcomes. Ongoing debates attempt to understand their functional and dysfunctional consequences. While the conflict account of hierarchy emphasizes the potentially detrimental conflict-inducing effects of hierarchies, the functionalist account proposes that hierarchies create contexts conducive to coordination. This study investigates if team-level dominance and prestige processes might account for these diverging consequences of hierarchy with dominance fueling conflict-prone environments and prestige nurturing coordination processes. Additionally, it examines whether the inherently competitive nature of team-level dominance yields more favorable outcomes in highly competitive, zero-sum, contexts.

Across two studies, I investigated the …

Needs Assessment And Program Evaluation Of A Peer Mentorship Program For Undergraduate Health Sciences Students, Chris W. Ruffell

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Abstract

High post-secondary degree dropout rates cost individuals, institutions, and governments around the world hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and these rates appear to be increasing in many parts of the world. Peer-mentorship programs have been proposed as a cost-effective method for increasing post-secondary success and ultimately reducing dropout rates, however, few studies to date have evaluated programs that were designed using student feedback. The purpose of the present study was to take an existing peer-mentorship program, modify it using feedback collected from students, and quantitatively evaluate the results. Survey responses suggested that the program improved student transition to …

Neural Responses To Magnetic Orientation Information In Songbirds, Madeleine Ir Brodbeck

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Effective navigation and orientation is essential for animals to survive. The study of migratory birds provides insights into these processes, particularly through mechanisms like the geomagnetic compass, which uses Earth's magnetic field for directional information. A brain region in songbirds relevant to this is cluster N, known for its potential role in processing geomagnetic information. Notably, cluster N appears exclusive to nocturnally migratory birds, being active solely at night, and lesion studies reveal that an intact cluster N is necessary for geomagnetic compass orientation. However, given the scarcity of empirical data concerning cluster N, substantial questions persist regarding its function. …

Lighting The Way Of The Learner: Towards A Social Virtue Epistemology In Aḥmad Al-Ṣaghīr’S The Faqīh’S Lantern, Amani Khelifa

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis offers an original translation and analysis of a West African didactic poem in Islamic ethics and law, by the Mālikī-Ashʿarī Mauritanian scholar Aḥmad al-Ṣaghīr (d. 1272 AH/1856 CE) called The Faqīh’s Lantern (Miṣbāḥ al-Faqīh). In addition to the critical translation, I examine the poem thematically through the lens of social virtue epistemology. Chapter 1 sketches the background of the text and author, positioning the author historically as a product of a rich scholarly and pedagogical tradition while noting Mauritania’s contemporary place in the North American Muslim imagination. Chapter 2 is the translation of the text, making …

Developing And Validating A Measure Of Transformational Followership, Noelle Baird

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Leadership and followership are inherently interdependent, yet research has primarily focused on the unilateral influence of leaders. To advance a more balanced perspective and highlight how followers can positively contribute to the leadership process, I conceptualized and validated a measure of transformational followership. Transformational followership represents leaders’ perceptions of effective followership tendencies that enable productive, generative, and motivating engagements with and for their leader. After conducting a comprehensive literature review of both followership and leadership research, I created an initial item pool which was then subjected to rigorous testing across three distinct phases. Phase 1 leveraged feedback from organizational …

The Inclusion Of Gender Minority Communities In Survey Research: A Report For The Consortium On Electoral Democracy, Quinn M. Albaugh

Reports

No abstract provided.

Quantifying Neuromelanin Content Across Varying Magnetic Field Strengths: A Comparative Analysis, Laiba Rizwan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Neuromelanin (NM) is an insoluble dark pigment molecule that is found in the substantia nigra of the human brain. Due to its paramagnetic nature, NM can be imaged using MRI in the form of neuromelanin sensitive contrast. This method, known as Neuromelanin Sensitive Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NM-MRI) allows non-invasive imaging of the human substantia nigra through its by-product, NM. NM-MRI research has been mostly done using lower field strength (3 or 1.5 Tesla) MRI scans. The advent of high field strength imaging, e.g., 7 Tesla (7T) provides the opportunity to study neuromelanin production sites with higher spatial resolution and enhanced …

Confronting An Extractive Racialised Genre System: Black Lives Matter, Royalty Recovery And Musical Reparations, Olufunmilayo B. Arewa, Matt Stahl

FIMS Publications

Introduction to the chapter:

The political-economic practices of commercial music production may be plausibly analogised to a relation of plunder and redistribution, clothed in and (legally) legitimated by recording and publishing contracts. For African Americans, this was particularly true during the pre-Civil Rights era. During that time, entrepreneurs and companies that offered recording, song writing and publishing contracts to African Americans were able to take advantage of social-structural contexts of considerable societal racial exploitation and violence targeted at African Americans. Further, for all artists prior to (and even during) the digital era, the realities of the commercial recording industry have …

The Embodied Rhetoric Of Cognitive Labour, Shubhayan Chakrabarti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation traces the roots of neoliberal selfhood to the rationalist ontology of modernity in the 1600s. The historical tension between materialism and immaterialism is expressed in the historicisation of work into Fordism and post-Fordism where embodied factory toil is apparently replaced by immaterial work, recalling Descartes’ mind-body split. If post-Fordist work addresses the Marxist critique of alienation in its emphasis on entrepreneurial inner selves, it does not explain the post-Fordist preoccupation to efficiently “Taylorise” the body through obsessive productivity. I argue that the factory prevails in the entrepreneur’s adoption of factory efficiency as a learnt behaviour from the Fordist …

Fall Town Hall On Research Data Management, Megan Hurst, Christine Madsen, Kristi Thompson

Western Libraries Presentations

This Town Hall was held to share recommendations for Research Data Management at Western that result from a gap analysis to understand the RDM needs at Western, conducted by Athenaeum21, a strategy and technology consultancy engaged by Western for this work. The recommendations will inform the implementation of Western’s Research Data Management Strategy, which shapes Research Data Management at Western for all researchers, grant funded or not, student or faculty, regardless of discipline.

Exploring The Effectiveness Of Mood Induction In Virtual Reality, Julia V. Ignaszewski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Mood induction procedures (MIPs) are commonly used by researchers who seek to examine affective states and their effects on other outcomes of interest. Despite their popularity, MIPs do not generate the same type of intense and influential emotions that are caused by life events, creating an empirical gap between naturalistic and experimentally manipulated emotion. Researchers have begun exploring the use of virtual reality (VR) to address these flaws, as its engaging and immersive nature could confer higher ecological validity for laboratory-induced emotions. This study compared the effectiveness of fear-elicitation via a VR cinema MIP to that of a standard film …

False Recognition: Revisiting The Account For Pictorial Encoding, Katarina Jovanovic

Western Libraries Undergraduate Research Awards (WLURAs)

False recognition is an inaccurate claim of having previously encountered a non-presented test item. Exceptionally high levels of false recognition are observed when participants are exposed to lists of semantically related words. Israel and Schacter (1997) showed that presenting pictures of items with their auditory label during the encoding phase significantly reduced false recognition relative to presenting only words with their auditory label. The current study excluded the auditory labels and instead investigated whether presenting pictures of items along with words during encoding would also reduce false recognition relative to presenting the written words only. The results provided no evidence …

A Transdiagnostic Examination Of Cognitive Heterogeneity In Children And Adolescents With Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Sarah Al-Saoud, Emily S. Nichols, Emma G. Duerden, Loretta Norton

Western Libraries Undergraduate Research Awards (WLURAs)

Children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) demonstrate extensive cognitive heterogeneity that is not adequately captured by traditional diagnostic systems. Using a transdiagnostic approach, a retrospective cohort study of cognitive functioning was conducted with a large heterogenous sample (n = 1529) of children and adolescents 7 to 18 years of age with NDDs. Measures of short-term memory, verbal ability, and reasoning were administered to participants with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), comorbid ADHD/ASD, and typically developing (TD) participants using a 12-item web-based neurocognitive testing battery. Unsupervised machine learning techniques were implemented to create a self-organizing map (SOM), …

A Short History Of Oer, Emily Carlisle-Johnston

Western Libraries Publications

No abstract provided.

Teachers’ Work: Communicating On Difficult Knowledge In Ontario Schools, Zsofia Agoston Villalba

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines how K-12 teachers in Ontario navigate the complexities of teaching "difficult knowledge"—topics such as racial and ethnic injustices, Indigenous perspectives, immigration experiences, and gender issues—within the parameters of the school and the curriculum. Utilizing an institutional ethnography approach, the study examines the curriculum as an institutional text that coordinates and shapes teachers’ practices. Working with and against the curriculum, teachers find innovative ways to engage their students on difficult knowledge topics. Based on interviews with 12 K-12 teachers, this research explores teachers’ work and pedagogical approaches. They employ diverse teaching methods like storytelling, open dialogues, and collaborative …

Investigating The Language Of Time: Evaluating The Use And Comprehension Of Before And After, Kimberley R. Henderson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Before-initial sentences are thought to be more difficult to comprehend than after-initial sentences because they structurally mismatch the temporal order of real-world events (Münte et al., 1998). Although event knowledge is known to affect how people understand before/after-initial sentences, little is known about the role of language knowledge in comprehending these sentences. A corpus analysis of before/after-initial sentences revealed that before typically is paired with a pronoun (Before he…) whereas after is paired with verb-ing (After leaving…). Participants' eyes were tracked while they read Before/After-pronoun/verbing sentences. Reading times did not match the …

Research Data Management In The Canadian Context: A Guide For Practitioners And Learners, Kristi Thompson, Elizabeth T. Hill, Emily Carlisle-Johnston, Danielle Dennie, Émilie Fortin

Western Libraries Publications

Research Data Management is a term for all the things that researchers do to structure, organize and maintain data before, during and after doing research. RDM is also an emerging discipline that is concerned with researching and developing ways to manage research data more effectively. But what is research data? Where is the push towards formal Research Data Management coming from? What are the requirements of good data management? Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners looks at these questions and more, all with a focus on Canadian guidelines, regulations and infrastructure.

Essays On The Economics Of Immigration, Phuong Vu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My dissertation consists of three papers studying the impact of social networks and employment mobility on Canadian immigrants, and the effects of economic conditions and immigration policy changes on international Ph.D. students in Canada. In the first paper, I use the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) to examine the effects of social networks on labour market outcomes of newly arrived Canadian immigrants. I find that the presence of initial networks at landing significantly increases the probability of getting a network job and reduces the probability of getting a formal job after landing. Across immigration categories, network effects vary, …

Smartphones For Smart Eating: Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Smartphone Applications On Improving Adolescent Food Knowledge, Heather A. Jantzi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Many Canadian adolescents have unhealthy eating habits which are risk factors for developing chronic diseases later in life. Food literacy plays a role in healthy eating habits but teens in Ontario currently lack sufficient nutrition education learning opportunities in home and school environments. Across health research, smartphones have been utilized as a novel medium to promote learning and alter behaviour. This thesis seeks to understand the effectiveness of smartphone applications at improving food knowledge in adolescents through (i) a systematic review of published interventions, and (ii) by investigating the efficacy of a novel location-based smartphone application. Findings from this thesis …

Putting The 'A' In Prosocial: Development And Validation Of A Measure Of Trait Altruism, Laura K.D. Johnson Msc

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Trait altruism reflects the tendency to perform behaviours with the goal of improving another’s welfare. Altruism is commonly measured using scales that assess how frequently the test-taker has performed specific prosocial actions. However, these scales assume that these behaviours are altruistically motivated and fail to consider what is known in the literature about the attitudes, values, and emotions that characterize altruistic individuals. Accordingly, altruism research would benefit from a new scale that draws upon the large body of interdisciplinary research and follows current best practices in scale development, as summarized in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 presents a review of the …

The Forgetting Of Fire: An Archaeology Of Technics, Thomas A. Doerksen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation applies the methods of Bachelard and Foucault to key moments in the development of science. By analyzing the attitudes of four figures from four different centuries, it shows how epistemic attitudes have shifted from a participation in non-human, natural realities to a construction of human-centred technologies. The idea of an epistemic attitude is situated in reference to Foucault’s concept of the episteme and his method of archaeology; an attitude is the institutionally-situated and personally-enacted comportment of an epistemic agent toward an object of knowledge. This line of thought is pursued under the theme of elemental fire, which begins …

Head Shapes And Toothaches: A Study Of Cranial Modification And Dental Pathology At Muna, A Late Pre-Hispanic Cemetery From The Archaeological Sanctuary Of Pachacamac (Lima, Perú)., T Naomi Nakahodo Moromizato

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis is a bioarchaeological analysis of cranial modification and dental pathology in a sample of human remains excavated from the pre-Hispanic MUNA cemetery. This cemetery was on the outskirts of the Archaeological Sanctuary of Pachacamac in the Lurín Valley. The cemetery was comprised of disturbed skeletal remains and relatively well preserved fardos funerarios (funerary bundles) from the Late Intermediate Period (1100-1470 CE) and early Late Horizon (1470-1532 CE). The results of this thesis show that the skeletal remains and fardos likely belonged to a single community, and the analyzed sample showed intra-site variation of the fronto-occipital cranial modification. The …

Championing Inclusive Education In Canada: Voices Of Educators, Advocates, And Researchers, Sydney K. Bota

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Previously conducted research overwhelmingly supports inclusive education for all students, however inclusive education is not always provided in Canada. This project aims to understand the current state of inclusive education in Canada. Participants included in this study were 33 experts in inclusive education in Canada and can be categorized into three groups: researchers, advocates, and educators. Chats regarding each participant’s experiences with inclusive education were transcribed and thematic analysis was used. Six themes emerged: Family; Values and beliefs; Definition of Inclusive Education; Networking/Connecting; Information, policy and implementation; and School systems. Results demonstrated that there are some happenings in inclusive education …

Developing Youth-Informed And Quality-Aware Spatial Accessibility Measures To Urban Parks Using A Survey-Based 2sfca Method In London, Ontario And Halifax, Nova Scotia, Zhe Chang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Park-related research has gained much attention in recent years, yet not enough studies have focused on the inequity of park accessibility and quality. These are crucial elements that influence youth’s park use, which in turn influence their physical, mental, and social development. Existing literature uses park size as the supply level to examine park accessibility but fails to consider any other park characteristics (e.g., amenities, general condition). This research developed youth-informed and quality-aware measures to consider the influence on park attraction by its quality and size rather than size only. This was implemented by consulting a youth advisory council to …

An Exploration Of Queer Women's Relationship With The Body And Physical Activity, Jade A. Bailey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Traditional physical activity contexts are male-dominated, cis-heteronormative, and perpetuate Western beauty standards. Research has identified that queer women experience the lowest rates of physical activity participation, compared to other LGBTQ+ groups. The present study investigated the relationship between queer women’s (N = 70) body image, physical activity behaviour, and experiences. Participants completed one virtual focus group and four themes were identified: The Queer Women’s Body is Political; (in)Visibility of Sexual and Gender Identity in Physical Activity; Hypervigilance to Maintain Safety and Reduce Perpetuating Gender-Based Violence; and Desire for Spaces that Foster Safety, Belonging, and Connection. Findings revealed that queer …

A Multi-Method Assessment Of The Impact Of Stress On Families’ Mental Health During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Andrew R. Daoust

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The COVID-19 pandemic was a pervasive disaster, creating stress for people across the globe. As such, understanding how pandemic-related stress has impacted individuals’ mental health is vital for guiding intervention programs and limiting the impact of future similar crises. This is especially true for youth, who are at heightened risk for mental disorder and may experience pandemic-related social stress as particularly aversive, given the developmental challenges unique to this period. Although substantial efforts have been made to measure the impact of the pandemic-related stress on individuals’ mental health, the pandemic’s relatively sudden onset has limited researchers’ abilities to conduct fulsome …