Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Understanding Individuals’ Perceptions Of Oak Wilt And Its Implications For Invasive Species Management, Matthew Morrissey

Masters Theses

Oak wilt, a thought-to-be exotic, invasive fungal disease preys upon oak tree species (Quercus sp.) and has begun to cause die-off in oak stands throughout the state of Michigan, with potential for increased cases and subsequent death. Despite efforts to treat the disease, there is no guaranteed treatment for already-infected oak trees. The best option is to control the infection and prevent its spread, by methods such as disconnection of root systems, removal of infected trees, and informed pruning. Given that humans play a role in oak wilt’s artificial spread, it is imperative that the public understands their …

The Use Of High And Medium Resolution Imagery To Detect Agricultural Land Cover In Chinese Cities: A Case Study Of Nanjing 2000 To 2015, Erik Breidinger

Masters Theses

According to McGee and Ginsburg’s desakota hypothesis, rapidly growing Asian cities differ from large Western cities in their land cover/land use (LC/LU) as they retain a significant portion of agricultural land and labor despite rapid urbanization. However, significant amounts of agricultural production within desakotas takes place in plastic greenhouses, causing a unique problem when calculating LC/LU estimates via traditional remote sensing techniques. While greenhouses appear equivalent to developed land spectrally, their purpose is entirely agricultural. This study provides an improved method of calculating greenhouse land-cover as agricultural land-use using Jiangning District in the city of Nanjing as the study area …

Fostering Hope: The Christian Healthcare Chaplain In A Caring Relationship, Felix O. Otuorimuo

Masters Theses

In 2017, the data from suicide prevention resource center (National Survey on Drug Use and Health) showed an increasing rate of 10.6 million persons between the ages 18-65 that have had suicidal thoughts, a precipitating factor from hopelessness that triggers the goal of killing themselves. Given this challenge, the study seeks to understand how the Christian healthcare chaplain in a caring relationship, fosters biblical hope as spiritual care intervention to persons with suicidal thoughts to promote recovery, repair and restoration. The research was designed to use purposeful sampling to collect responses by anonymous online survey from 35 Christian healthcare chaplains …

The Effects Of Ambient Benevolent Sexism And Its Implications In The Workplace, Amanda E. Mosier

Masters Theses

"The purpose of this study was to examine women's reactions to witnessing benevolent sexism (i.e., ambient benevolent sexism). Female participants (n = 59) witnessed another woman being treated with hostile sexism (HS), benevolent sexism (BS), or no sexism and their reactions were examined in respect to a) working memory capacity, b) task-specific self-efficacy, c) mental intrusions of incompetence, and d) negative affect. The study also examined how participants' personal endorsement of BS impacted the relationship between sexism condition and the outcome variables. Results indicate that there were no direct effects of sexism condition on the outcome variables, though there was …

The Effects Of Health Care Expenditures On Health Outcomes In West Africa: Analysis Of Selected 14 Countries From 2000 To 2018, Oluwaseun Kilanko

Masters Theses

This study has examined the impact of health expenditure on health outcomes in the selected West African countries. The health outcomes used in this study are infant mortality, under-five mortality, and maternal mortality rates. A panel data set for 14 countries for the period 2000‒2018 was used. Aside from examining the role of total health expenditure on the health outcomes, we examine whether public and private healthcare expenditure could have dissimilar health outcomes. This research used panel data estimation method. Panel data has some advantages over the cross sectional analysis and time series analysis in the sense that it controls …

Relationship Of Self-Construal To Perceived Availability And Seeking Of Social Support By International Students Studying Abroad In The United States, Yue Zhang

Masters Theses

This study was created to examine the relationship between different self-construals and the behavior of seeking social support or the perceived availability of social support. We recruited 84 international students who currently study abroad in the United States. Participants completed the Singelis Self-construal Scale (SCS; Singelis,1994) and a Social Support Scale created for the current study. The SCS measured the degree to which participants’ self-construals are Independent (IND) or Interdependent (INT). The Social Support Scale presented five different scenarios and asked participants to rate activities responding to two types of social support (tangible support and emotional support). I predicted that …

I Am A Citizen: An Examination Of The Civic Lives Of Adults With Cognitive Disabilities, Jihed Ncib

Masters Theses

This project lays down a foundation to study the civic lives of people with cognitive limitations. Considering the lack of research on the issue, the findings lean more toward theory building. Drawing on in-person interviews conducted with institutionalized individuals with intellectual disability (ID), this work attempts to clarify the impact of their disability on their civic lives. The questions that will be answered relate to their issue preferences, voting behavior, partisanship and mobilization, political awareness, and the influence of their circle on their citizen participation. Getting input directly from people with ID, instead of their proxies, will improve our understanding …

Women's Empowerment And Its Impact On Reproductive Health Outcomes: Evidence From Nepal, Samyukta Ghimire

Masters Theses

The percentage of women utilizing maternal health care services in Nepal is relatively less than women in other South Asian countries. Moreover, large socio-economic and regional disparities have been the root causes for lower utilization of health care leading to increasing maternal mortality. Using a national representative sample of 9,475 women (2011) and 9,875 women (2016) from Nepal, I examine the impact of women empowerment in relation to prenatal care, place of delivery and postnatal care (3Ps) outcomes. A composite Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI) based upon responses is also constructed to include three empowerment domains namely, attitude toward violence, social …

Investigating Auditory-Based Spatial Reorientation Abilities In Individuals With Dyslexia, Leanna Pantier

Masters Theses

Dyslexia, a common learning disorder, is currently understood to affect the processing of visual and auditory information. The ability to efficiently process the environment to reorient in space is an integral part of navigating the world, but possible impairments in dyslexia have not been fully addressed. In this study, the ability of individuals both with and without dyslexia to use auditory information in a spatial reorientation task was examined to further explore the processing deficits involved in dyslexia. Participants with and without dyslexia did not perform significantly differently when learning (training trials) and during probe test trials. Additionally, individuals found …

Support From Above The Glass Ceiling: Narratives Of Women As University Student Leaders, Rebecca Schwartz

Masters Theses

Using qualitative methodology. the researcher examined motivations, social support networks, and challenges college women face in student leadership positions. Four semi-structured interviews were conducted at a midsized university in the Midwest with college women in various positions of organizational leadership. The researcher identified motivational factors for women to apply for leadership positions as well as described the social support network that exists for college women in positions of leadership. Challenges college women face in achieving higher leadership positions were also identified. Lastly, recommendations were made for student affairs professionals and women in leadership based on the research findings.

Vote Choice Of Minority Groups: Emphasizing Their Issue Preferences, Md Kamrul Islam

Masters Theses

In explaining vote choice of minority groups, scholars of American politics often characterize them as natural democrats. They argue that they have become natural Democrats because of their minority identity and the constraints they faced throughout the history of the United States. However, this thesis questions the characterization and highlights the issue preferences of minority groups; it analyzes whether their issue preferences have an impact on shaping their vote choice. By analyzing the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) 2016 survey, this thesis has explored that minority groups vote for candidates who pay greater emphasis on the issues they care about. …

Student Use Of Institutional Social Media, Hayley Elizabeth Hanger

Masters Theses

This study is a quantitative exploration of student use of their university's social media accounts at a mid-sized Midwestern institution. The survey was conducted via Qualtrics and was emailed to all undergraduate on-campus students. T-tests showed that differences in reason for use existed across gender, race, and first-generation status. Chi Square test results showed a statistically significant gap between the amount of White and non-White students following institutional social media accounts. Descriptive statistics also indicated that lack of awareness is the driving reason students do not follow institutional social media accounts. Recommendations were made to increase advertisement of social media …

Middle And High School Teachers' Praise And Reprimand Delivery, Emma Riedesel

Masters Theses

The benefits of increasing teacher praise and decreasing teacher reprimand (for both students and teachers) is well-established in the literature. The purpose of this study was to expand the literature on teachers' natural use of praise and reprimand, specifically in terms of how teachers deliver praise and reprimand. Sixty-six middle (sixth through eighth grade) and high school (ninth through twelfth grade) teachers' delivery of praise and reprimand to individual (one student), small clusters (two to six students), and large groups (seven or more students) during a 20-minute observation were examined. Teachers delivered significantly more general praise to individual students, rather …

The Transition Of Male Student-Athletes To A Division I College, Tori Harrison

Masters Theses

Using a qualitative methodology, the researcher studied high school student-athletes transitioning to becoming college student-athletes at the Division I-level. The study was narrowed down to six, second-year male student-athletes. There were two participants from baseball, two from football, and two from men's track and field. These participants were interviewed and asked a range of questions about their high school experience, their legal guardians' involvement in high school and in college, what their recruiting process was like, and how they managed their transition from high school to college. The interview was broken up into three parts to better understand their transition: …

College Students Experiences Participating In International Alternative Break Trips, Dayton L. Ehrlich

Masters Theses

This study sought to explore undergraduate students’ experiences participating in international alternative break trips. A qualitative approach was used to understand the motivating factors as well as the impact the trip had on them. Participants included three female undergraduate students who had participated in an international alternative break trip in Mexico were interviewed one-on-one. The results demonstrated there were multiple different motivating factors and impacts the students experienced. The motivating factors consisted of student involvement, they were all personally invited on the trip, practicing a new language, opportunity to leave the country, and service was not a motivator. The impacts …

Construct Validity Of The Teate Depression Inventory (Tdi) With A Middle Eastern/Arab American Sample, Dalia Bunni

Masters Theses

The purpose of the study was to examine the construct validity of a newer test used to measure depressive symptoms, the Teate Depression Inventory (TDI). The primary focus of the study was on Middle Eastern/Arab Americans (ME/AA). Previous research has demonstrated that ethnic minority groups may experience and present internalizing disorders, such as depression and anxiety differently than the majority ethnic group, White/Caucasian (W/C) individuals. Further, research suggests that there is a disparity in mental health care among ethnic minority groups, starting with detecting and diagnosing mental health disorders. Inaccurate detection and diagnoses informs inaccurate treatment, further creating a disparity. …

Exploratory Factor Analysis Of The Canadian Wechsler Intelligence Scale For Children-Fifth Edition For A Sample Of First Nations Students, Jessica Hanson

Masters Theses

Native Americans and First Nation students are overrepresented in special education and underrepresented in structural bias research of the intelligence measures that place them there. There are several empirical studies of test bias on the Wechsler scales due to their popularity within the school system, however there is little exploratory factor analysis research on these scales with the Native American Indian population. Further, the Native American Indian and First Nation population is a relatively small minority group compared to other racial and ethnic groups in North America and this group is underrepresented in government statistics and overlooked in funding for …

Obtaining And Retaining Engagement In Nonprofit Organizations, Sierra Price

Masters Theses

This project is a guide for directors to strategically communicate and display behavior that will influence volunteers to be engaged nonprofit settings. Engagement and motivation is influenced by communicative patterns from directors. Volunteer engagement can result to acceptance of leadership styles, clear understanding of vision, and building trust. Directors should minimize disengagement by fostering behavior that is correlated to working with volunteers in a partnership.

(Dis)Respect In The Classroom: A Gendered Perspective Of Academia, Abriana Nichole Vesconte

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine gendered practices and the experiences of women instructors within academia. Women face different challenges than men in the classroom, and many times, they are challenged by their students. In order to complete this study, I conducted narrative interviews with women faculty ranging from Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs), contractual instructors, as well as tenured and untenured professors at a Midwest university. I was able to interview eight women faculty members of varying positions. After completing the interviews and analyzing the data from each instructor, three prominent themes emerged. These themes are: (1) public …

"Mystery Meat" And "Bulldyke": Disciplining Gender And Silencing Women Sports Reporters On Reddit, Kayla J. Peterson

Masters Theses

Most of the sports industry is a male dominated space where women are very rarely accepted. We see men in the field, whether they work or play, defend the space and tell women reporters to “stay in their lane.” This study focuses on an online news-sharing site, reddit, and examines how sports fans take it upon themselves to defend sports as a male space. Reporters, such as Sarah Spain, Jemele Hill, and Doris Burke, are subjected to hundreds of comments that silence them and discipline them based on their gender. This study emphasizes the need for gender equality in what …

The Development Of The Late Adolescent Social Support Inventory And An Examination Of Social Support's Impact On Depression In Adolescents, Margaret Darlene Yeakel

Masters Theses

The current study set out to create the Late Adolescent Social Support Inventory (LASSI), a scale designed to measure adolescents' perception of the availability of social support in each of House's (1981) four types of social support and to explore the relationship between depression and types of social support in adolescents. There were 120 participants recruited from Central Illinois high schools and Eastern Illinois University. Participants completed the LASSI as well as the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale Revised (CESD-R; Eaton, Muntaner, Smith, Tien, & Ybarra, 2004). Due to the low number of participants recruited, we were unable to …

The Impact Of Academic Enablers Instruction On Academic Achievement Of Elementary School Children, Bryce Kirk

Masters Theses

The present study investigated the relationship between Academic Enablers (AEs) instruction and student achievement. Specifically, whether such behaviors and attitudes explicitly taught in a small group setting would improve students' academic performance. Students struggle academically and behaviorally for a variety of reasons, poor or lack of instruction, lack of motivation, or related to a disability, to recognize a few. Existing literature has identified several factors, (e.g., interpersonal/social skills, motivation, study skills, and engagement), known as AEs, that meaningfully contribute toward students' academic success. However, unlike previous studies that focused on such AEs in isolation, this study addressed this limitation and …

What We Expected From National Socialism: Hermann Rauschning And Danzig's Lnterwar Radical Right (1918-1942), Nima Lane

Masters Theses

This project uses Dr. Hermann Rauschning as a case study to analyze the transformation of the German intellectual right, stretching from his early career in the Weimar Era to the post-1945 era. Rather than offer a purely narrative biography, this study uses the figure of Rauschning to examine the fate of the German right from the Kaisserreich to the aftermath of World War II. Rauschning, born in 1887, was both a political and intellectual figure. However, these aspects of Hermann Rauschning are not necessarily separate. Although some historians see Hermann Rauschning as unique, I argue that he is in fact …

Impact Of Foreign Direct Investment On Export Performance: The Case Of Ethiopia, Wengelawit Kebede Tessema

Masters Theses

This study explores the impact of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) on Ethiopia's export performance. The topic is motivated by the huge investment Government of Ethiopia is making to attract FDI and its optimistic view regarding the role of FDI in boosting export performance. The vector autoregressive model (VAR) has been adopted to estimate the long run causal relationship among exports, foreign direct investment and GDP. Results for the cointegration test show that there exists a long run equilibrium relationship among exports, FDI and GDP. The estimated Error Correction Model finds FDI negatively affecting exports with a two-year gap. Our findings …

Income Inequality And Political Survival In Countries Around The World, Sahan Shrestha

Masters Theses

There are many factors that influence whether a political leader exits out of office or remains in power. In this thesis, we evaluate the impact of one important factor, income inequality, on the survival prospects of the leader using data for 152 countries for the period 1962 - 2015. We use a linear probability model, a logit model, and a Cox Proportional Hazard Model, all of which indicate that higher income inequality increases the probability of leader survival. To address the potential endogeneity of income inequality, I use a simultaneous equations model and the results hold. The results are also …

Social Anxiety And Fear Of Evaluation In Middle Schoolers, Leslie Hunt

Masters Theses

Social anxiety can have a significant effect on adults and adolescents alike, causing significant distress and impairment. Fear of negative evaluation has been found to be positively correlated to social anxiety in adults and adolescents. Thus, an individual who has social anxiety tends to worry that they will be judged negatively by others in social situations. More recently, fear of positive evaluation also has correlated positively to social anxiety in adults (Weeks, Heimberg, & Rodebaugh, 2008); thus, adults with social anxiety tend to also fear when they are given positive feedback, such as a compliment. This study examines the links …

Campus Community's Perception Of Victimization And Fear Of Crime Regarding Campus Violence And Safety, Gianna White

Masters Theses

This study was designed to test perceptions and perceived safety and how it relates to fear of crime regarding university campus violence and safety. Faculty, students, and staff were drawn from a Midwestern university of the United States. This research examined vulnerability to stress, gender, age, and status, and its significance to fear of crime in comparison to the participation in precautionary and avoidance behaviors and campus crime statistics. It was hypothesized that there would be a general fear of crime regardless of overall low levels of campus crime and that both men and women would participate in precautionary or …

Authoritarianism Both In Venezuela And Turkey, Furkan Burcu Yildiz

Masters Theses

In this paper, I undertake a comparative analysis of the authoritarian process in Venezuela and Turkey. In both countries, there are signs of political and economic instabilities. Therefore, I examine Turkey's and Venezuela's politics and economy to understand the reasons for authoritarian regimes. The comparison reveals that both countries are en route of authoritarianism; however, the motives are different. As for Venezuela. comparison grounds the argument that their authoritativeness relies on economic instability. On the contrary, Turkey has a stable economy while it has been struggling with political upheavals.

The result of this study pinpoints different ways for authoritarian regimes. …

A Journey Of Cross-Cultural Adaptation: An Autoethnography Of A Vietnamese Graduate Student In The American Classroom, Tram Nguyen

Masters Theses

Cross-cultural adaptation is not a new area of study, however, there is very little research focusing on the cross-cultural adaptation of Vietnamese students studying in America. The process of cross-cultural adaptation occurs naturally and necessarily regardless of the intentions of the individuals as long as they continuously engage in communication with the host environment and are functionally dependent on it. This research examines on the difference, the challenge and the way Vietnamese students have undergone throughout the process of adaptation from the original Asian culture to American culture, especially in the classroom context. The theoretical construct to guide the study …

Role Of Emotion Regulation In The Relationship Between Fears Of Evaluation And Social Anxiety, Jaismeen Dua

Masters Theses

Cognitive components influencing social anxiety have been well-researched for decades, especially fear of negative evaluation (Clark & Wells, 1995; Hofmann, 2007; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997; Schlenker & Leary, 1982). Relatively recent and emerging research has suggested a strong link between fear of negative evaluation and fear of positive evaluation, and how both of them influence social anxiety (Weeks, Heimberg, & Rodebaugh, 2008; Weeks et al., 2007; Weeks & Howell, 2012; Weeks et al., 2009). This study examined social anxiety in relation to both fear of negative evaluation and fear of positive evaluation. Findings from the study replicated previous research results, …