Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Circumventing Ableism: A Grounded Theory Study Exploring Caregiver Strategies To Promote A Positive Identity, June Furr

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This qualitative research study explores how caregivers and persons with disabilities navigate the rhetoric of disability and caregiving through the interviews of fifteen caregivers and fifteen persons with disabilities using the lens of grounded theory and Burke’s (1952) dramatistic pentad. Significant findings describe how focused disability description can circumvent ableism when rhetorical resources that assist caregivers and persons with disabilities to navigate the rhetoric in disability descriptions are provided. Disability description theory includes the three stages that define, collaborate and revise, and practice and apply a disability description. This qualitative research offers an introduction into the phenomenon of …

Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy Through A Trust In Science Training Intervention, Nathan Dumessa

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Vaccine hesitancy is an ongoing public health issue that has been underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic and has implications for future pandemics and other vaccines. This research aimed to understand and address the factors associated with hesitancy. Study 1 was a correlational study that measured several factors that could predict vaccine hesitancy among Black and White participants recruited online (n = 364). Findings suggest that trust in science was the strongest predictor of attitudes towards the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness, which in turn strongly predicted vaccine hesitancy. Study 1 established the direct and indirect relationships between several predictors of …

Contrasting Public And Private Approaches To Private Land Conservation In The United States: Local Government, Land Trust, And Landowner Viewpoints, Anna Overby

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In the United States (US), low-density, non-contiguous development, termed sprawl, has long been of widespread concern. Since the 1970s, rural residential sprawl, or exurban sprawl, has grown faster than any other development pattern. Exurban sprawl is development beyond the urban/suburban fringe with ties to the urban environment, such as employment and consumption, rather than to rural economies. Exurban sprawl is highly consumptive of land and has implications for conservation, natural resource management, agriculture, and communities. This study explores two main avenues of exurban sprawl prevention in the US: voluntary conservation easements and local government growth management regulations. The use of …

Essays In Urban Economics, Terrence Jewell

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My dissertation focuses on the impact of housing demand shocks on neighborhood change and internal migration. My first chapter uses house prices to measure the amenity value households place on new stadium construction in a hosting city. The second chapter studies the impact of two amendments to California’s Proposition 13. Namely, Proposition 60 and Proposition 90 allowed individuals over age 55 to transfer the assessed value of their homes to a replacement dwelling of equal or lesser value in the same county or different county, respectively, without a change of ownership reassessment. In this chapter, I study the removal of …

Understanding Job Satisfaction In The National Park Service, The Needs Of Black Employees, And The Decision-Making Of Managers, Akiebia Hicks

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According to the 2020 U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, the National Park Service (NPS) was ranked the 353rd best place to work out of the 411 government agencies surveyed, with an engagement score of 61.3%, which was lower than the 69.0% average amongst government agencies. This survey is performed annually and asks employees to score their employer in the following categories: leadership, empowerment, pay, teamwork, innovation, recognition, response to COVID-19, and work-life balance. The scores are divided by a quartile key. In every category except “innovation,” the NPS landed in the lower quartile, causing the need …

Investigating And Addressing Tiger Conservation In The Himalayas, Pramod Kumar Yadav

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In 2010, tiger conservation received global attention following a dangerously low estimation of 3,200 tigers in the wild. In response, leaders from the 13 tiger range countries committed to doubling the wild tiger population by 2022. In recent years, tiger numbers have increased considerably in the Himalayan region as the species is venturing into higher-altitude landscapes. As the tiger and human populations increase in the region, the probability of the two species interacting also increases. Therefore, this dissertation, comprised of three independent studies, aimed to identify, and address tiger conservation issues in the Himalayan region from a social science perspective. …

The Role Of Attention Control In Automation Performance, Claire Textor

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Research in human-automation interaction has demonstrated that some individuals are more severely impacted by the negative effects of unreliable automation (i.e., exhibit lower performance) than others. A body of work has sought to explain this variability through individual differences, primarily investigating the role of working memory. However, not all studies have demonstrated a clear relationship between working memory capabilities and performance when using automation. Engle’s (2002) controlled attention theory of working memory posits that the relationship between working memory and other cognitive constructs such as fluid intelligence can be explained through a shared reliance on attention control. Studying the role …

Validating A Human Trafficking Screening Tool For Women Returning To Uganda From The Middle East, Jason Pope

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Human trafficking is a global issue. Denying its existence creates an atmosphere where it can thrive. Therefore, visibility is a key step in prevention. Human trafficking screening tools bring visibility to this hidden issue. Identifying individuals who have experienced human trafficking is essential for preventing it from happening in the future. Identifying survivors of trafficking allows them to be provided aftercare and opens the doors for prosecuting those who perpetrate harm against others.

This study validated a human trafficking screening tool and developed a standard for interpreting the results. This study aimed to develop a tool that could identify human …

Essays On Labor Market Size And Job Match Quality, Lan Lan

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This dissertation is comprised of two essays that delve into the construction of a major-related labor market and its correlation with college graduates’ job match quality. Investigating the job match quality of college graduates for different majors in large cities is crucial, as it provides evidence on which majors tend to yield better job matches. This contributes to the study of the return on major while also shedding light on how city size impacts individuals’ ability to find jobs that align with their educational level and major, thereby enriching the study of the benefits of agglomeration.

The first chapter examines …

The Myth Of Perfection: Charting The Rhetoric Of Veteran Disability For A Course To Stability, Nicholas Rader

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This dissertation rhetorically analyzes discrimination in Western institutional discourses and documentation procedures, such as architectural texts and procedures, through a historiographic lens. An analytical methodology will be offered to show how discrimination of intersectional bodies is historically informed and reaffirmed by the manipulation of Western myths and mythos. Specifically, by mapping navigational mathematics and cartographic methods over rhetorical, architectural, and historiographic theory, it will be shown how the manipulation of Western myths establishes and reifies patriarchal discrimination that eventually fissions into eugenicist logics in nineteenth and twentieth century France, England, and the United States. In modernity, the practice of manipulating …

The Erasure Of Rural West Texas Voices In Higher Education Institutions An Autoethnographic Study Of Minoritized Students Of West Texas In Their Journey To Obtain Success In Higher Education Institutions, David Whaley-Weems Sr

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I was once told there is a person in the world who has locked within his or her mind the framework for the cure for cancer or even the ability to create an energy model that will revolutionize how society consumes natural resources. Now imagine if I told you I have seen that person alive and well working as an oil well driller on a rig in Mentone, Texas. The first question most people would ask is, “Why is the person drilling in the middle of nowhere Texas instead of impacting the world by way of displaying his or her …

Essays On The Economics Of Sports Wagering Markets, Jacob Lamb

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Economists have long been enamored with using wagering markets and sports data to answer various economic questions. Wagering market data are readily available to answer any number of questions relating to sports and economics. However, most studies surrounding wagering markets have focused on searching for inefficiencies and, consequently, profitable betting strategies against the house. This dissertation takes a different approach, focusing on the information that can be extracted from efficient wagering markets and using that information to answer economic questions. Rather than hunting for inefficiencies, this dissertation confirms the efficiency of wagering markets and uses wagering markets to answer questions …

Essays On Manufacturing And Growth, Hugo Vaca Pereira Rocha

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The first chapter of this dissertation studies the role of human capital in generating economic convergence through its impact on manufacturing productivity growth and allocation of labor across sectors of the economy. I confirm and extend existing results showing that productivity in manufacturing – unlike its economy-wide counterpart – has exhibited convergence; that is, countries further behind the technology frontier tend to catch up to those on the frontier. I then show that the convergence in manufacturing is (a) somewhat accelerated by countries’ tertiary education levels and (b) faster in high-tech industries. Perhaps surprisingly, this is not driven by tertiary …

Exploring The Interpretation Of Difficult Heritage At Football Grounds In Spain, Portugal, And Germany, Felipe Bertazzo Tobar

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European football heritage-based attractions such as stadium tours and museums, often characterized by an uncritical, celebratory, and nostalgic approach to football pasts, have become highly visited attractions important to cultural and commercial interests of football clubs. As the heritage field in Western countries experiencing a period of reckoning after numerous social movements challenged the meanings and interpretations of difficult pasts, this study aimed to comprehend how and why football clubs interpret their difficult heritage linked with European authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century. Specifically, this dissertation sought to understand what role local cultural, political, and/or economic considerations played in the …

Meaning Matters: Cognitive Crafting As A Sensemaking Mechanism And Motivational Process To Enhance Gig Driver Well-Being, Gwendolyn Paige Watson

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As the gig work sector of the workforce continues to grow, organizational psychologists must actively contribute to raising the bar for gig drivers (e.g., ride-hailing, food delivery) so that they are not merely surviving but also thriving through their work. In my dissertation, I tested cognitive crafting as a positive meaning-making process that helps gig drivers make sense of their interactions with customers, generates positive, motivating states such as work engagement, and promotes positive outcomes such as work-related well-being and job satisfaction. My dissertation employed a mixed-methods design. The daily diary built on qualitative data results that identified interesting - …

“We Felt Powerful And Rebellious”: Contested Spaces, Lesbian Identity, And The Evolution Of Separatism, Sarah Cooper

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Drawing on theoretical perspectives from lesbian studies, queer theory and studies and, feminist rhetorics while using rhetorical analysis, interviews, and archival research, this project traces the relationships lesbians have had to place, through case studies. To date, research on how space occupancy or land practices have contributed to the constitution of a contemporary lesbian identity in the United States lack scholarly attention. My following chapters ask: how has separatism historically and at present contributed to the constitution of lesbian identity? To answer, I turn to archival evidence of women’s lands in Southern Oregon, Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, and Olivia Travel. …

Two Essays In Human Capital, Illia Polovnikov

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This dissertation is comprised of two essays on human capital. I analyze how early-life human capital boost shapes micro-level outcomes among disadvantaged children in the US. In the second chapter, I study the productivity convergence among OECD countries and evaluate to what extent the labor force’s sectoral allocation (due to different human capital profiles across countries) contributes to it. In the first chapter, which is joint work with Jorge Garc´ia and William Dougan, we analyze a large-scale trial of an early-childhood education program targeting premature, low-birthweight children, thereby oversampling twins. We find that failing to account for this oversampling obscures …

Impact Of Personalized Interactive Storytelling On Suspension Of Disbelief In Clinical Simulation, Audra Renee-Smith Xenakis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The literature review found suspension of disbelief (SOD) in clinical simulation heavily weighted on educators alone within high-fidelity environments. The project examined a co-created narrative background story applied to a simulated patient’s clinical profile to determine achieving an improved connectedness toward the simulated patient leading to enhanced SOD and enhanced levels of learning and reaction. The studied population was third-semester associate degree nursing students over 18 years of age with prior clinical simulation experience who were not repeating the semester. The research methodology used a quantitative experimental design with cluster sampling, randomization, and post-Likert-scored questionnaires. The intervention group co-created personalized …

Positive Psychology For Mdd And Ptsd: A Systematic Review Of Treatment Benefits And Efficacy, Jackson Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Positive psychology was founded by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 2000 as a psychological school of thought that focused more on identifying and building up a client’s positive strengths instead of just focusing on their mental health deficits. The question asked in this systematic review is as follows, “Is there a unique benefit to treating MDD or PTSD with positive psychotherapeutic interventions and does it result in lower rates of suicide/relief from severe MDD/PTSD?” Objective: The objective of this literature review and meta-analysis was to examine the evidence and determine if positive psychology-based interventions such as PsyCap, IPPI, and …

Forming And Maintaining Intimate Friendships As A Twentysomething, Molly S. Burke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emerging adulthood is a life stage of great change, and often instability in relationships and attachment (Demir et al., 2015; Lane et al., 2017; Shulman & Connolly, 2013). Intimate friendships can be a moderating factor and assistance in gaining stability and increasing life satisfaction (Demir, 2021; Demir et al., 2015; Sanchez et al., 2020). This study used grounded theory methodology (Creswell & Poth, 2018) to develop a model of the process which Twentysomethings undergo while forming and maintaining intimate, or best, friendships. Through interviews with best friend pairs, this study found three main phases of the best friend process: forming …

Attitudes Towards Mental Health, Spiritual Seeking, And Well-Being, David Mitchell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Religion plays a crucial role in many peoples’ lives, shaping the way they interact with the world and react to stressors. The Relational Spirituality Model (Sandage & Shults, 2007) posits that individuals’ relationship with God resembles humans’ relationships with one another. That is, relationships consist of intimacy and closeness as well as independence and time away from each other, otherwise known as dwelling and seeking. Previous literature has analyzed the relationship between spiritual coping and well-being, yet none have analyzed the relationship between spiritual seeking and overall well-being using attitudes towards mental health as a moderator. Participants were 84 undergraduate …

Crossing Over: A Description Of Dual Status Youth In Taylor County, Texas, Kimberly S. Putnam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores and describes the experiences of ten dual status youth in Taylor County, Texas by examining the factors of race, sex, child welfare allegation, and juvenile justice offense. A review of the literature suggests that this population has unique challenges in and outside the courtroom, including being at increased risk for disparate outcomes in later adolescence and adulthood. This study compared single-system child welfare and juvenile justice data from Texas DFPS Region 2 and Taylor County to raw data provided on a sample of ten dual status youth identified in Taylor County from 2017–2021. Findings included a disproportionately …

The Effects Of Personal Growth Initiative, Grit, And Spirituality On Competition Anxiety In Student Athletes, Taylor Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Personal growth initiative (PGI) is an intrinsically motivated engagement in growth processes that contribute to their ability to excel in sporting performance (Robitschek, 1998), and PGI may also predict their grit as well. Like PGI, team cohesion influences both performance and well-being in athletes, and little research has explored how spiritually oriented coaching influences team cohesion. This study explored PGI, grit, competition anxiety, intrinsic motivation, and the impact of spiritual involvement in sports on team cohesion. A sample (N = 45) of collegiate athletes at private Christian universities completed self-report measures in a survey. PGI was not a significant predictor …

Mental Confidence In Alzheimer's Disease, Harrison Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A simple symptom like forgetfulness can lead to a gradual, subtle decline in the individual’s sense of identity. In dementia, self-efficacy is the foundation that allow individual to prolong their capacity of independence and identity. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prominent form of dementia with tens of millions in the world currently living with Alzheimer’s disease. AD is most often associated with impaired memory, confusion, language impairment, and unpredictable, agitated, aggressive, and paranoid behavior. While there are many studies examining the quality of life in individuals with AD, there are fewer investigating the psychological effects of AD on the …

Goal Setting And Student Retention, Hugh Castillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Student retention has been a problem with which higher education institutions must face. Institutions have employed numerous different programs and services to improve student retention. This study sought to open up a new way to improve student retention by utilizing a goal-setting intervention that focused on creating SMART goals for student areas of weaknesses. This study employed the use of a quasi-experimental interrupted time series to better understand how goal-setting interventions could impact the participant attitudes correlated to retention. It was shown that goal-setting interventions had no significant impact on likelihood of retention but did exhibit improvement in client engagement …

A Systematic Review Of Studies Of Self-Compassion Interventions For Trauma And Stress-Related Disorders, Kayla Wilkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to explore how the effectiveness of self-compassion interventions can reduce symptoms of trauma and stress-related disorders. Self-compassion can be an essential part of treatment for trauma and stress-related disorders. Self-compassion consists of three components: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. Self-compassion also relies on an individual to use emotional intelligence (e.g., emotional processing theory, meaning-making theory, polyvagal theory) to aid with increasing the level of self-awareness and appraising traumatic memories. For example, identifying post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms using self-compassion can promote emotional regulation, enabling awareness and acceptance of negative emotions caused by trauma. In addition, self-compassion can help …

Perceived Outcomes And Barriers Of Advance Care Planning From Healthcare Professionals, Faith Parsons

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advance care planning (ACP) is the process of aligning patients’ values and preferences to their future medical care. ACP is important in promoting patient autonomy and helping patients and their families prepare for end-of-life conversations. Healthcare teams, made up of physicians, nurses, or social workers, carry the responsibility to engage patients into such conversations. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of healthcare professionals regarding ACP outcomes and barriers. This cross- sectional study used survey responses of a convivence sample of 18 allied healthcare professionals and 4 physicians in a not-for-profit, faith-based hospital system in …

Moral Objections To Pornography: Does The Reason For Opposition Affect Consumption?, Grant Parker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent literature has suggested a link between self-described “problematic” pornography usage or pornography addiction and moral incongruence (Grubbs et al., 2022; Guidry et al., 2019). That is, when someone is morally opposed to pornography, they feel worse about their use of it. As of yet, however, no link has been established between specific reasons for objecting to pornography and their effects on consumption. Participants were 54 adults selected randomly using Amazon’s MTurk survey distribution platform. Respondents completed demographic questions and 6 scales measuring frequency of pornography use, objections to pornography, self-perceived problematic porn use, external and internal shame, God representations, …

Impact Of Community-Based Care Model On Child Welfare Professionals: A Study Of Workload, Job Satisfaction, And Turnover Intent, Kerri Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Much of the research on child welfare workers is in a traditional service model. However, there is a lack of empirical studies regarding childcare workers in a community-based care model. This study examines whether transitioning to the community-based model has positively impacted workers’ perspectives regarding turnover intention, job satisfaction, and workload manageability. A cross-sectional survey design was used with convenient sampling from a Texas Department of Family Protective Service Region that transitioned to the CBC model. The single source continuum contractor employed a sample of 125 potential respondents in the selected region. A total of 43 permanency workers responded to …

Special Education Teacher Attrition: K-12 Administrator Perspectives, Tia Alove Stevens-Hicks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Teacher attrition is a significant contributor to the teacher shortages, with preretirement attrition accounting for two thirds of all attrition. Special education teachers leave teaching at significantly higher rates than their general education peers. In addition, there is a greater demand for special education teachers due to the increase in public school students requiring special education services. As a result, many K–12 administrators and other educational leaders often fill vacant positions with unqualified or new teachers with less experience than their predecessors. Special education teachers have reported that teachers who remained in their positions reported high levels of administrative …