Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Carrying Accessibility Forward, Katie Quirin Manwiller

University Libraries Faculty Publications

Recording, presentation slides, script, and follow-up questions of the December 1, 2021, ACRL Distance and Online Learning Section Instruction Committee: Carrying Accessibility Forward with speaker, Katie Quirin Manwiller. This past year certainly cast a spotlight on the importance of accessibility in online teaching and learning. Accessibility, however, is more than best practice checklists, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), or legalities. In this forum, Katie Quirin Manwiller, Education Librarian and Assistant Professor at West Chester University, shares her knowledge of disability and accessibility, addressing what the future could hold for universal design for learning (UDL) and practical ways to implement UDL …

Trends Of Armed Conflict In Kenya From 1997 To 2021: An Exploratory Data Analysis, Peter Kimani, Caroline Mugo, Henry Athiany

Graduate School of Media and Communications

Armed conflict patterns have drastically changed since the post-cold war period. In Sub-Saharan Africa, armed conflict continues to be persistent and on the rise. Kenya has not experienced civil war, but has experienced intra-state conflicts which display themselves as political, natural resources, ethnicity, land, and environmental conflicts. This study aimed to identify patterns and trends of armed conflict in Kenya. Secondary data from Armed Conflict and Location Events Data (ACLED) for the period 15th January 1997 to 25th February 2021 was used. Exploratory data analysis and generalized additive model were used to identify patterns and trends. For the period studied, …

Cross-State Differences In The Processes Generating Black–White Disparities In Neonatal Mortality, Benjamin Sosnaud

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Research

The U.S. Black neonatal mortality rate is more than twice the White rate. This dramatic disparity can be decomposed into two components: (1) disparities due to differences in the distribution of birth weights, and (2) disparities due to differences in birth weight–specific mortality. I utilize this distinction to explore how the social context into which infants are born contributes to gaps in mortality between Black and White neonates. I analyze variation in Black–White differences in neonatal mortality across 33 states using 1995–2010 data. For each state, I calculate the contribution of differences in birth weight distribution versus differences in birth …

Gumbrell's "The Amazing A-Z Of Resilience: 26 Curious Stories And Activities To Lift Yourself Up" (Book Review), Meredith Ader

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Barber And Barbers' "Is Daddy Coming Back In A Minute?: Explaining Sudden Death In Words Very Young Children Can Understand" (Book Review), Tina Craft

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Shaul's "Our Brains Are Like Computers!: Exploring Social Skills And Social Cause And Effect With Children On The Autism Spectrum" (Book Review), Susanah J. Wilson Hanson

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Sagan And Witheys' "What I Do To Get Through: How To Run, Siwm, Cycle, Sew, Or Sing Your Way Through Depression" (Book Review), Jennifer M. Brady

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Client Predictors Of Therapeutic Alliance In Court-Mandated Substance Use Treatment, Yasmine Punceles

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of the current study was to investigate predictors of therapeutic alliance among a sample of 46 adults with substance misuse who were convicted of felony offenses and court-mandated to attend substance use treatment as part of their probation requirements. For this study, I purposed four hypotheses: (1) older participants will report a stronger therapeutic alliance with their therapist. (2) women will form a stronger therapeutic alliance with their therapist than men, (3) higher levels of distress will be associated with lower therapeutic alliance, and (4) people with more extensive criminal and substance use histories to have poorer therapeutic …

Maternal Self-Care Beliefs In Relation To Emotion Regulation Difficulties And Coping Skills, Chloe Poole

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project is part of a community-based intervention research project in rural Appalachia called Mom Power. Mom Power is a trauma-informed parenting intervention developed to improve mental health and parenting among high-risk mothers with young children. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between maternal self-care beliefs, and maternal emotion regulation and coping skills. It was hypothesized that self-care beliefs would be negatively associated with emotion regulation difficulties and positively associated with coping skills. To date, 53 mothers oversampled for psychosocial stressors (e.g., low income, mental health difficulties, trauma histories) have completed self-report questionnaires on self-care, emotion …

Reported Motivations For Non-Medical Use Of Prescription Stimulants In A Sample Of Community College Students, Taylor Wexler

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Introduction. Prior research has found high rates of behavioral health concerns, including several forms of substance use, among community college students. However, the prevalence of non-medical use of prescription stimulants (NMUS) as well as the motivations driving NMUS among community college students is unknown. Methods. Survey results from 13 community colleges within the Tennessee Board of Regents school system were evaluated to explore 1) rates of NMUS, 2) reported motivations for NMUS, and 3) how demographic characteristics including race, age, and income differ based on self-reported reasons for NMUS. Results. NMUS was reported by approximately 9% of the overall sample. …

Examining The Current Role Of Out-Of-State Buyers In The Tri-Cities Within The Confines Of Residential Real Estate, Paul Arrowood

Undergraduate Honors Theses

We are seeing an influx of out-of-state buyers into Tennessee, and the Tri-Cities area specifically. As a major emerging housing market in the US, the Tri-Cities is being inundated by people from all states and walks of life seeking a better life in Appalachia. Although the reasons vary by person, many agree that political alignment, taxation levels, and the quietness of this area lends itself to population growth. While most members of the housing industry have noticed this uptick in out-of-state buyers, few have taken the time to analyze their own records or review the empirical evidence that is present …

Contextual Variations In Associations Between Measures Of Aggression And Withdrawal And Functioning With Peers: A Replication Study, William M. Bukowski, Meelanie Dirks, Ryan Persram, Jonathan Santo, Dawn Delay, Luz Stella Lopez

Psychology Faculty Publications

Data from 790 older school-age (Mage = 10.2 years, SD = 1.2 years) girls (N = 427) and boys from Barranquilla, Colombia (N = 449) and Montréal, Canada (N = 331) were used to replicate findings reported by Valdivia et al. (2005). This prior study revealed contextual variations in the association between two measures of social behavior, specifically aggression and withdrawal, and two measures of effective functioning with peers, specifically sociometric preference and friendship. The Montréal participants were primarily from families with European backgrounds. The ethnicity of the participants from Barranquilla can be described as Latinx/Caribbean. Multilevel analyses provided evidence …

Predicting Self-Esteem And Depressive Symptoms From Social Skills In Youth With And Without Autism Spectrum Disorder, Emma Wilkinson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at increased risk for low self-esteem and depressive symptomatology. Poor social skills may be associated with depression and self-esteem in ASD populations, yet these relationships remain understudied. Previous studies are limited by lack of comparison between youth and parent report of social skills and lack of comparisons to clinically relevant samples. This study seeks to compare predictive relationships between parent and youth-reported social skills, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms across youth with ASD and youth with similar clinical vulnerabilities. Hierarchal regression analyses revealed that youth-reported social skills account for significant variance in self-esteem, parent-reported …

Tightening Your Grip : The Unintended Consequences Of Export Control Policies, Keon C. Weigold

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines the effects that policies instituted to restrict the diffusion of technology between countries have on the development of technology and international relations. Diffusion restrictions such as export controls or strategic trade controls are often instituted for the purpose of increasing the national security of the implementing country. However, this project theorizes that these types of restrictions can have unforeseen effects on the level of technological development in the implementing country and other countries around the world. The implementing country will see a decrease in their relative level of technological development while other countries around the world will …

The Acquisition Of Variation In Future Time Expression By High School Student Learners Of Spanish In Upstate New York, Erika E. Clarkin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The present dissertation sets out to investigate the acquisition of variation in future-time expression by English speakers L2 learners of Spanish in a high school setting. I explore the variable use of the morphological future, the periphrastic future, and the present indicative to express the future time in Spanish by the participants. A total of 2,282 tokens were collected at three different times during the school year. The participants were attending year six of Spanish instruction. The study takes into consideration previously published research on the use of future markers by native speakers and by non-native speakers. The present study …

Properties Of Curriculum-Based Measurement For Mathematics : An Investigation Of The Average Growth, Variability, And Precision Of Three Forms, Arianna Doss

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

CBM for mathematics assesses growth in accuracy and fluency of basic math skills using content from a student’s curriculum. CBM for mathematics can include single-skill measures (SSM), skill-based measures (SBM), and general-outcome measures (GOM). Past research on growth rates in CBM for mathematics has focused on GOMs and has relied on estimations of weekly growth rates, but more information on expected growth rates and their precision for these measures is needed for practice. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by examining weekly growth rates and their precision for one SSM containing multiplication problems, one SBM containing addition …

Social Identities At Work : How Do Multiple Social Identities Influence Organizational Attraction?, Aileen Dowden

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Social Identity Theory posits that people hold a social identity from which they derive meaning to groups and organizations they join. That individuals use group affiliation to serve social identity concerns is a hallmark of social identity theory. In these studies, two social identity concerns were tested, social adjustment and value expression, to examine if people could hold both or neither concerns simultaneously (study 1) and how they influenced attraction to organizations (study 2). For study 1, archival data was analyzed using latent class analysis to extract groups of respondents for different levels of social identity concerns. Five classes were …

Are There Individual Differences In The Foreign Language Effect?, Rita Gross

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

AbstractA foreign language effect (FLE) occurs when the language a problem is presented in influences its outcome (Keysar et al., 2012). So far, it has been unclear under which conditions the FLE appears (Driver, 2020; Dylman & Champoux-Larsson, 2020). One hundred and sixty-eight Arabic-English bilinguals from Prince Sultan University were presented with the Trolley Dilemma (a low-conflict, impersonal moral dilemma) and the Footbridge Dilemma (a high-conflict, personal moral dilemma) and responses to these dilemmas were measured on a slider indicating likeliness to take a suggested action. Participants saw Dilemmas either in a gain-frame or a loss-frame condition, and in either …

The Gaze Of The Consumed : A Lacanian Approach To The Italian Cannibal Films, David Kelly

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

“The Gaze of the Consumed: A Lacanian Approach to the Italian Cannibal Films” not only acts as a brief chronicle of the subgenre of Italian exploitation films centered around cannibals, but as an exploration of the constructs that hold such a subgenre together. With a foundation in Lacanian psychoanalysis, this essay discusses the ramifications of assigning terms such as “savage” and “civilized,” as well as the issue with entering into such a discourse with presupposed Western notions of civility. The Italian cannibal films exemplify the circular nature of the mere anthropophagous act, putting forth the conceptualization of the “Gaze of …

Economic Sanctions And Opportunism, Keith A. Preble

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Sanctions busting refers to instances where third-party states increase their material support for states targeted by economic sanctions by increasing trade as well as foreign aid and investment, which, in turn, minimize the economic costs that sanctions imposed on target states. This concept privileges the sender and contributes to the “sender bias” inherent in the literature on economic sanctions. My dissertation instead argues that the terms sanctions opportunism may better reflect the nature of the processes at work when third-party states engage in sanctions busting either for commercial profit or as a “black knight” (or a combination of them both). …

Organization Change And Institutional Environment : Employee Influence And Financial Management Of Public Retirement Systems In The U.S, Hao Sun

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Previous attempts to understand and examine the employee influence on the financial performance of public retirement systems have produced inconsistent results. There have been different understandings and ongoing debates over the main variables to include in the models and the direction (positive vs. negative) of the association. What are the roles of public employees within the financial management of public retirement systems? What are the main variables that define employee influence? To answer these questions, this dissertation project, based on organization theory, first attempts to construct an exploratory measurement framework of employee influence from three aspects, external environment, perceived influence, …

Enhancing Civic Engagement Through Leadership Education, Lori E. Kniffin, Sonalini Sapra

eJournal of Public Affairs

Many civic engagement courses require students to work with community members to make progress on complex problems, which in itself can be a practice of leadership. Yet there is little evidence that leadership development is strategically incorporated in civic engagement courses. Therefore, we taught eight leadership sessions over two semesters in the Principled Problem Solving Scholars Program at Guilford College. This study examines the perceived impact of leadership curriculum on the personal practices of leadership and the civic engagement for 14 undergraduate students. We present the findings through three themes highlighting (1) the shifts in the students’ philosophies of leadership …

Legislators’ Perceptions Of Public University Student Lobbying Efforts On Public Higher Education Legislation: A Case Study, James J. Krotz, Lisa M. Rubin

eJournal of Public Affairs

College students have a legitimate interest in many policy issues that affect their campuses, but are they effective in lobbying their state representatives for their interests? Elected members of the Kansas state legislature were surveyed to determine if student lobbyists were effective in influencing legislator’s decision-making on matters of public higher education policy in Kansas. Interest group theory was utilized as a lens to view results of legislator perceptions. Findings suggested that 70% of legislator participants never altered their view on an issue after meeting with a college student lobbyist. Responses aligned with partisan politics, with Democrats more likely to …

Behind Every Successful Diplomat Is Their Spouse: The Buffer Role Of Indian And Pakistani Diplomatic Spouses, Sania Shahid

Undergraduate Honors Theses

How do political dynamics between countries and the individual characteristics of diplomatic spouses affect their ability to take on a “buffer” role—that is, make interactions less contentious? The existing literature on diplomatic spouses focuses on gendered advantages that allow spouses to access unique information. Building on this body of literature, this study investigates the ideal setting for spouses to contribute to the diplomatic process. A content analysis was conducted of three memoirs written by diplomatic spouses, and this data was supplemented with semi-structured interviews of spouses of former or current bureaucratic elites from India and Pakistan. The analysis shows that …

Does Fear Of Government Corruption Affect Voter Turnout?, Ryan Nahmias

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

According to the Survey of American Fears (2020-2021) fear of corrupt government officials is the number one thing Americans fear: 79.6 % of them in fact. In addition, voter turnout is one of the quintessential pillars that allows a democracy to function properly. In this paper I will examine the extent to which fear of government officials’ corruption affects voter turnout. Using the data from the Chapman Survey of American Fears and variables from the American National Election Study between 2020 and 2021, I expect to find a moderately strong relationship between fear of government corruption and voter turnout. Moreover, …

The Work Of The Nazi Special Services Among The Protestants Of The Reichkomissariat Ukraine (According To The Top-Secret Materials Of The Nkvd-Nkgb), Oleksandr Korotaiev

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Studying the work of Nazi special services among the Protestant denominations of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine during World War II is an under-explored aspect of modern historical science. The article attempts to fill this gap by covering the work of the Nazi secret services, Gestapo1 and Sicherheitsdienst (SD),2 among Evangelical Christians (EC), Baptists (B), and Christians of the Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals, CEF) of the RKU. The basis of this study is the recently declassified documents and archival materials of the KGB of the USSR. The article first provides a brief analysis of the activities of the Soviet intelligence services (NKVD3) …

Re-Framing Gender: An Analysis Of Journalism’S Social Media Characterization Of Female Presidential Candidates During The 2020 Presidential Election, Taylor Kiernan

Dissertations

The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without those who supported me both academically and personally throughout this process.

I would like to thank my dissertation chair and mentor, Dr. Christopher Campbell whose expertise and guidance made this research possible. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members Dr. David Davies, Dr. Cheryl Jenkins, Dr. Laura Stengrim, and Dr. Fei Xue, for their guidance and advice during the research process, as well as their expertise in the classroom which molded my abilities as a researcher during my time at The University of Southern Mississippi.

I …

Obstacles To The Implementation Of Criminal Justice Reform, Matt Allen

Dissertations

Mass incarceration or overincarceration has gained significant attention over the last two decades, and criminal justice reform seeks to address it. This study uses constructivist grounded theory to examine the implementation of criminal justice reform legislation in Mississippi. Mississippi was chosen as the study setting because the state has been recognized as a national leader in enacting reform legislation and it has one of the nation’s highest incarceration rates. It is well established that policy implementation affects outcomes. Therefore, if the policies Mississippi is implementing are effective and they are implemented correctly, it stands to reason the state could benefit …

Testing The Relationship Between Confidence And Effort: A Behavioral Finance Perspective On The Problem Of Financial Literacy, Louie Bernard A. Jacob, Miguel Angelo S. Rabago, Hans Erickson A. Tan, Lawrence B. Dacuycuy, Gerardo L. Largoza, Maria Fe Carmen L. Dabbay

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

This experimental study tested the relationship between confidence and effort with the ultimate objective of discovering how these factors may influence financial literacy. This was done through a modified version of a slider test and ball allocation task. The population consisted of 85 random participants who were primarily approached through social media. A simple OLS regression, along with robustness checks, namely the Tobit model and instrumental variable (IV) regression model using Tobit estimators, were utilized to confirm the causal relationship between confidence and effort.

Glenn Hartelius: A Leader In Second Wave Transpersonal Psychology, Harris Friedman

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

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