Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Accomplished Education Leaders' Perspectives On Competition, Capacity, Trust, And Quality, Robert Lee Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

From 2017 to 2019, the primary strategy to improve public schools in the U.S. was increasing competition through the expansion of charter schools and the promotion of vouchers to send public school students to private schools. The problem this presented was that key education leaders had not provided adequate input and feedback into this strategy. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gather the perspectives of accomplished education leaders on how Tiebout's theory of competition and the concept of the Ontario K-12 School Effectiveness Framework impacted quality, trust, and capacity. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with a purposeful …

The Relation Of Court Appointed Special Advocate Education To Foster Care Outcomes, Leah Danelle York

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program is an organization that utilizes lay volunteers as advocates for children in foster care to improve outcomes for those children. The effectiveness of CASAs in achieving permanency outcomes for children in foster care has been established; however, the literature has significant methodological flaws and is outdated. The purpose of this study, guided by the theory of change and social cognitive theory, was to explore whether CASA self-efficacy, through a proxy measure of education level, is related to permanency outcomes such as reunification with parents and rate of reentry to the foster care system …

Accounts Receivable Management Strategies To Ensure Timely Payments In Rural Clinics, Anthony N. Medel

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Healthcare business leaders in a rural clinic setting can enhance profitability by implementing strategies to ensure timely payments. The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine strategies applied by healthcare leaders in rural clinics to improve profitability. The population included 10 rural clinic managers and billing staff from 5 rural clinics in the southwestern region of the United States. The conceptual framework for this study was Wernerfelt's resource-based value theory. Implementing Yin's multiple-step data analysis process, data from semistructured interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed to identify strategies used by rural clinic managers and billing staff to enhance …

Assessing Perceptions Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among A Cohort Of Noncontracted Rotc Cadets, Stephen P. Gontz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Stigmatization has shown to negatively impact service members with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Published research has shown stigma to significantly affect service members through increased suicide, homicide, unemployment, homelessness, and criminal justice system interaction rates. Additionally, stigma also affects overall readiness and cohesion of the military organization. However, little research has focused on the perceptions of Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets about service members with a combat-related stress disorder in which they will eventually be charged with leading. The purpose of this quantitative study was to measure a cohort of ROTC cadets and determine their perceptions about service members …

Male Perspectives Of Lateral Violence In Nursing, Benita Kinard

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Lateral violence is an intentional and harmful behavior in the workplace by one employee against another. In nursing lateral violence has impacted the performance of nurses as well as patient care. Research suggests that lateral violence behaviors are still prevalent in the nursing workplace and that there have been few interventions to change these behaviors or address the power dynamics that cause them. Though most of the research on lateral violence has been conducted on female nurses, the population of male nurses is growing. Thus, the purpose of the study was to explore lateral violence in the workplace from the …

Dissertation Mentor Communication Style And Behavior As Predictors Of Student Stress And Satisfaction, Julienne Inez King

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many graduate students (60%) do not complete their program of study. It is important for

universities to find ways to increase student completion rate. The general problem is that

online U.S. universities are faced with a high rate of PhD student drop out resulting in an

increased number of students not being able to complete their doctoral studies. The

purpose of this multiple linear regression study was to identify predictor variables of

dissertation student stress and overall dissertation satisfaction. Deci and Ryan's self

determination theory and Lazarus' theory of cognitive appraisal were used to guide this

research to identify how …

Post-Hurricane Sandy Coping Strategies And Resilience Factors Among People With Disabilities, Miriam Mukasa

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

People with disabilities are likely to experience difficulties overcoming the impact of natural disasters. Few scholars have focused on this population's ability to recover and handle stress following a natural disaster. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and describe coping strategies and resilience factors that people with physical or mental disabilities used in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Resilience theory was used as the theoretical framework. Through face-to-face interviews, 10 persons with disabilities shared their experiences of coping and resilience. A lens of interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to identify emergent themes related to persons with disabilities' …

Integrating Health Care Systems To Maintain Quality Care And To Manage Cost, Marilynn Noble

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The rising cost of health care in the Philippines is a concern for the Department of Defense and TRICARE beneficiaries. The purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional research study was to determine the efficacy and acceptability of a different method to deliver health care to increase access to health care and decrease out-of-pocket costs while maintaining quality of care for TOP Standard beneficiaries who receive health care under the Philippine Demonstration. Secondary data was used to determine the acceptability of an alternative reimbursement methodology to decrease cost but maintain access to quality care. The Andersen's behavioral health care model and the …

What's Up Newsletter, January 2019

What's Up Newsletter

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Milwaukee, WI

St. Dominic Deaf Center, January-February 2019

Saint Dominic Deaf Center

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Houston, TX

Saint Dominic Deaf Center Finding Aid

Who Runs The World: The Impact Of The Gender Of Clerks On The Legal Profession, Taylor Bernstein

Honors Theses

This paper investigates the role of gender on law clerks from the federal appellate clerks. There has been significant scholarship on the importance of the gender of judges and on the role and influence of law clerks; however, to this date there has been no analysis of how the gender of law clerks may or may not influence the clerkship experience. This honors thesis seeks to address that question and shed light on important aspects of the federal judiciary and the legal profession. I have approached this inquiry through descriptive and qualitative analysis, focusing on law clerks from this millennium. …

Covert Singing In Anticipatory Auditory Imagery, Tim A. Pruitt, Andrea R. Halpern, P. Q. Pfordresher

Faculty Journal Articles

To date, several fMRI studies reveal activation in motor planning areas during musical auditory imagery. We addressed whether such activations may give rise to peripheral motor activity, termed subvocalization or covert singing, using surface electromyography. sensors placed on extrinsic laryngeal muscles, facial muscles, and a control site on the bicep measured muscle activity during auditory imagery that preceded singing, as well as during the completion of a visual imagery task. Greater activation was found in laryngeal and lip muscles for auditory than for visual imagery tasks, whereas no differences across tasks were found for other sensors. Furthermore, less accurate singers …

'Fresh Seal Blood Looks Like Beauty And Life': #Sealfies And Subsistence In Nunavut, Edmund Searles

Faculty Journal Articles

In this paper, I analyze the various functions, meanings and affects associated with seal hunting, eating and sharing seal meat, wearing sealskin clothing and posting #sealfies. Drawing on several decades of research with hunting and gathering families in the eastern Canadian Arctic, and starting with the cultural premise that hunting seals unites the worlds of humans, animals, and spirits, I argue that the seal is a prominent metaphor for the Inuit self. By extension, I examine how Inuit use #sealfies as an extension of other subsistence practices, as a way of making identity (personal and collective), and as a way …

A Hybrid Cognitive Architecture With Primal Affect And Physiology, Christopher L. Dancy

Faculty Journal Articles

Though computational cognitive architectures have been used to study several processes associated with human behavior, the study of integration of affect and emotion in these processes has been relatively sparse. Theory from affective science and affective neuroscience can be used to systematically integrate affect into cognitive architectures, particularly in areas where cognitive system behavior is known to be associated with physiological structure and behavior. I introduce a unified theory and model of human behavior that integrates physiology and primal affect with cognitive processes in a cognitive architecture. This new architecture gives a more tractable, mechanistic way to simulate affect-cognition interactions …

An Exploration Of The Role Of Mentoring On The Leadership Skills Of African American Senior Leaders In A Corporate Setting, Regina A. Stephens

Dissertations

This study explored the lived mentoring experiences of African American senior leaders who report directly to Vice Presidents or Presidents in a corporate setting, and how those mentoring experiences played a role in their leadership skills. African Americans having the guidance to appropriately navigate an organization to acquire those positions continue to be perplexing. Mentoring could be one essential step to help African Americans to prepare to lead in a corporate setting. Mentoring is a growth and development technique that has been in existence for quite some time and has helped many to understand how developmental relationships have proven its …

Exploring The Leadership Experiences Of Male Military Spouses: An Exploratory Qualitative Inquiry, Christina L. Parsons

Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore the leadership experiences of male military spouses who serve as primary caregivers in the home. The primary objective of this research was to illuminate the voices of male military spouses from the various branches of military service to share their lived experiences and with specific regard to their leadership qualities. The goal of this research is to allow male military spouses to use their own words to describe their leadership experiences and to understand the context of that leadership inside the military culture. Pleck’s Gender Role Strain was used as the …

Human Resource Management And Innovation: Perceptions Of Hr Leaders, Jeremiah Nelson

Dissertations

Creativity and innovation are essential for organizations to identify, create and exploit their competitive advantages to succeed in an increasingly complex and dynamic business environment (Ceylan, 2013; De Tienne & Mallette, 2012; Sharifirad & Ataei, 2012). Human capital is an important source of competitive advantage, but little is known about how human resource (HR) managers, as the functional owners of this resource, perceive their influence of innovation. The roles of HR professionals have evolved. Where they were once strictly administrative, they now function as business partners supporting strategy and offering leadership. These changes can create situations of role ambiguity and …

Personality Characteristics And Job Satisfaction Of Registered Dietitian Nutritionists In North Carolina, Paul Barton Moore

Dissertations

Organizational leadership, at any level, strives to increase performance and efficiency, among other outcomes. One way to accomplish this is by increasing follower job satisfaction. Literature indicates that there are intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence job satisfaction. These factors, however, have not been explicitly studied for the profession of nutrition and dietetics for the Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of personality characteristics and job satisfaction of Registered Dietitian Nutritionists in North Carolina. Personality characteristics were defined by the Big 5 Inventory personality test, while job satisfaction and its components were …

A Correlational Study To Examine The Relationships Between The Workplace Big Five Personality Profile And The Leading Managers 360 Assessment Of Senior And Mid-Level Managers, Maurice A. Ferrell

Dissertations

Much has been said about personality and leadership. Leadership was initially attributed to leaders only having certain traits and attributes (Nock, 1940). In the early 20th century, leadership traits were studied to determine what made certain people great leaders. The Great Man Theory of Leadership, which was introduced during this time period, suggested that leaders were born and not made. It was these unique physical traits and attributes that were credited with making great leaders. Herbert Spencer, a noted philosopher, sociologist, biologist and political theorist of the Victorian era, countered that the Great Man Theory was childish, primitive and unscientific. …

Sources And Atmospheric Oxidation Of Sulfur Dioxide And Formaldehyde Based On Wintertime Aircraft Observations Over The Eastern United States, Jaime R. Green

Dissertations

Plume intercepts from flights on the NSF-C-130 during the Wintertime Investigation of Transport, Emission and Reactivity (WINTER) campaign were used to estimate (1) the oxidation rates of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) under wintertime conditions and the factors that determine SO2 removal; and (2) to examine the oxidation, lifetime and source apportionment of formaldehyde (HCHO). Observations suggest that OH governs the rate SO2 oxidation in the eastern United States during winter. The range of mean oxidation rates during the day from power plants were 0.22–0.71%/hr, producing SO2 lifetimes of 13–43 days, if SO2 consumption is assumed to occur during 10.5 hr of …

Factors Influencing Whether Firms Engage In Apprenticeship, Christopher L. Harrington

Dissertations

This study is focused on current and future workforce needs and the use of apprenticeship to bridge those needs from the perspective of business leaders. The author seeks to expand research, looking at the factors influencing whether business leaders engage in apprenticeship or not. Top leaders and influencers of businesses with and without apprenticeship programs from 19 industry sectors throughout North Carolina completed an online cross-sectional survey. The results support that there is an association between worker availability, approach to skill mastery, perception of apprenticeship, and connection with the workforce development ecosystem and having or not having an apprenticeship program. …

Disciplining The Female Body Through Fitness: "Women Participating In Crossfit And Perceptions Of The Body", Noemi Dimuzio

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Women's self-surveillance has been shaped through nutrition, technologies, social media and fitness. Women are constantly struggling with disciplining their bodies to produce a particular body image. The use of technologies has produced images of ideal bodies of beauty, perfection and constant awareness of body parts. The body can be shaped and molded in a variety places, most notably the gym. Fitness allows for the construction of the perfect body. Fitness creates a constant urge to develop and change the body and produces self-surveillance and discipline. There has been a shift from the Western thin ideal image to a new fitness …

How Far Have We Come? A Comparison Of Jamaican Representations In Cool Runnings And Luke Cage, Israel Cariche Ramsay

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Representation of minority groups in popular media has been the cause of many debates in recent years. There has been outcry against the lack of diverse representations, and the kind of representation of minority groups. When powerful media organizations are representing minority groups, imperialism and post colonialism become part of the conversation. To look at the representation of minorities, I examined the representation of Jamaicans in two popular texts. The first is Cool Runnings, a 1993 film, and the second is season two of Luke Cage, a Netflix series released in 2018. In both of these instances, Jamaicans and Jamaican …

Narcocultura As Cultural Capital For Latinx Youth Identity Work: An Online Ethnography, Emiliano Villarreal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Why would young Latinxs want to be, talk, look, and act like narcos? This work analyzes the ways in which narcocultura has become an important source of cultural capital for many Latinxs. Narcocultura is the assemblage of music, video, television, and other forms of cultural production that feature figures of transnational narcotrafficking as central protagonists of their narratives. Based on a yearlong online ethnography, I examine the ways in which Latinx Facebook users appropriate and recontextualize narcocultura in their identity work through the lenses of LatCrit theory, critical discourse analysis, and personal lived experiences, which provided the departing point for …

Validating A Masculinity Scale In A Non-College Sample, Rubi Gonzales

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Sexual assault in the United States is prevalent. One out of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted rape or complete rape. Previous research demonstrates that hypermasculine attitudes are positively predictive of sexual aggression toward women. In these studies, researchers have continued to utilize outdated and inappropriate measures like the Hypermasculinity Inventory (1984) to assess hypermasculinity. Measures that assess hypermasculinity have only been validated on college samples. A modern measure of masculinity is the Auburn Differential Masculinity Inventory-23 (Burk, Burkhart, & Sikorski, 2004), which has been validated in college samples. The present research evaluated the psychometric …

The Sea Turtle As A Marketing Symbol For The Anti-Plastics Movement, Hannah Chiu

Pitzer Senior Theses

The anti-plastic straw movement uses the sea turtle to bring an empathetic symbol to broaden the scope of the plastics problem in the ocean, giving the public a powerful visual image for the first time in the history of the anti-plastics movement. In this thesis, I build on existing conversations on charismatic megafauna and flagship species, to explore the emerging anti-plastic straw movement and its use of the sea turtle as a symbol. I also provide an analysis of the imagery and comments on social media sites of green marketing companies and non-governmental organizations. These social media sites, such as …

Partisanship As Identity: The Hype, The Myth, And The Reality Of Polarization In The American Electorate, Mark Stinson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This work examines the existence and extent of polarization in the American electorate as a contemporary phenomenon based in hyper-partisan or “tribal” identity rather than as arising out of a more conventional ideological framework. This approach allows for the bypassing of more conventional questions such as the meaning of “liberal” or “conservative” or “in virtue of what is someone a liberal/conservative?”, and instead allows acceptance of a respondent’s ideological or partisan self-identification as a convenient label which does not require a monolithic set of political beliefs for its basis, although the prior or subsequent adoption of such a set of …

Associations Between Perceptions Of U.S. Immigration Enforcement Policies, Physical Health, Psychological Distress, And Health Care Utilization In A Hispanic Border Community, Isabel Katharina Maria Latz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Since the beginning of the current U.S. federal administration, immigration policies have become more restrictive and immigration enforcement has been strengthened. This cross-sectional survey study examines associations between perceptions of and experiences with current immigration enforcement policies and self-rated physical health, psychological distress, and health care utilization among Hispanic adults with different residency statuses in the U.S. Paso del Norte region. This study further investigates moderating effects of collective efficacy and engaged coping strategies on associations between policy perceptions and psychological distress.

The study sample included 211 Hispanic adult residents of the U.S. Paso del Norte Region (i.e., El Paso, …

Under The Skin: Psychophysiological Consequences Of Racial Discrimination, Miriam Josephine Alvarez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background. Attitudes toward one's ethnic group can have particular implications for health functioning among groups that are misrepresented or discriminated against by societal institutions. The present experiments tested the consequences of experiencing racism on psychophysiological stress and executive function. Resilience and ethnic identity are examined as a protective factors. Specifically, Experiment 1 testes how discrimination impacts (1) anxiety, (2) heart rate, (3) working memory, and (4) the role of resilience as a protective factor. Experiment 2 sought to (1) replicate Experiment 1, (2) explore the interaction of ethnic identification and perceived prejudice on stress among Latinxs, and (3) establish a …

Creating Spaces For Conversations On Conservation: A Case Study Of Joint Forest Management In East Sikkim, India., Paulami Banerjee

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Successful community-based natural resource management should include both resource professionals and local communities. Recognizing this fact, my research seeks to encourage more locally adaptive and collaborative forest governance that facilitates sustainable development by enabling grassroots participation. Specifically, I explore opportunities for developing a more sustainable relationship between India's Joint Forest Management (JFM) program and rural forest-dependent communities in Sikkim-a remote, northeastern state of India bordering Nepal to the west, the Tibet Autonomous region of China to the north and northeast, and Bhutan to the southeast. As an instrument for sustainable forestry management, JFM seeks to develop partnerships between forest user …