Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“Analysing The Gap” If And What Is Causing The Gap In Voter Turn Out Between National And Local Elections, Max Rubin

MPA Major Research Papers

Local governments touch citizens’ lives every day. They build and repair the roads we drive on. They pick up our garbage and recycling that we place on our curbs. They build and maintain green space and ensure water comes from our taps. Each day a citizen in a municipality relies on a feature of their local government works. In contrast, our federal government is remote. They deal with national issues such as the environment, defence, and fisheries. They work on global, not local, agreements and relationships with other national governments. Yes, they set out income tax and regulations, but for …

Accountability: A Canadian Municipal Examination On The Impact Of Vehicle And Equipment Training Programs On Preventable Collisions With Municipal Fleet Assets, Jessica Ruddell

MPA Major Research Papers

Annually, close to 1,000 Canadian workers die due to work-related injuries, exposures and disease. A lack of training and skills can contribute to this loss of life for many. Employers of all kinds, including municipalities, have a responsibility to protect workers and reduce risk to the organization through training activities. Known hazards, like the operation of vehicles and equipment require training before a worker can be deemed competent. Inevitably, preventable and non-preventable collisions will occur involving fleet vehicles and equipment. Documenting and analyzing preventable collisions as part of a collision investigation program, can help organizations understand why preventable collisions are …

Methodological Guidelines For Focus Groups With Children From Developing Regions, María J. Peñaherrera-Vélez, Angélica Ochoa Avilés Phd, Nancy Arpi, Elisabeth Rodas, Gabriela Zúñiga, Elena Jerves

The Qualitative Report

Qualitative research with children has gained recognition in recent years. Nevertheless, special considerations should be analyzed before conducting focus groups with children from developing countries where methodological guidelines are scarce. This article provides methodological guidelines for conducting focus groups with children from developing countries based on an extensive literature review and our experience in urban and rural areas in Ecuador. Peculiarities of urban and rural contexts are highlighted, and child-friendly strategies are proposed. We conclude that focus groups can be conducted successfully with urban and rural children from low-and-middle-income countries if their specific circumstances, such as language and cultural diversity, …

Exploring The Dynamics Of Negotiating Everyday Sexism In India: A Daily Diary Study, Sudha Shashwati, Parul Gupta, Preeti Kapur

The Qualitative Report

This study was undertaken to investigate the negotiation of everyday sexism encountered by college going young adult women in India in an urban context. An open-ended daily diary form was constructed, and 185 such forms were filled by 58 women enrolled in various colleges of a central university located in Delhi, India. These were analysed by content analysis with the help of NVivo software with a focus on target and type of sexism reported as well as response to sexist incident faced. The findings of this study reveal that participants chose inaction (53%) more than confronting sexism (47%), and reasons …

The Information Literacy And The Infodemic In Covid-19 Pandemic At Kampala International University, Justina E. Ogbonna Cln, Jackline E. Kiwelu

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Access to reliable information in times of emergency is important. However the quantum of information during emergency may cause infodemic. The study investigated the role of information literacy in mitigating infodemic in COVID 19 pandemic. A survey was conducted among educators and students in School of Mathematics and Computing (SOMAC), Kampala International University (KIU), Uganda. The findings reveal that: majority of the respondents (50%) either agreed or strongly agreed that they evaluated information before use; on the state of their emotions, respondents were confused, overwhelmed, alarmed and anxious; 50% were able to access the information with ease, while 50% could …

Approachability And Mask-Wearing During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Literature Review, Lauren Dehaan

Honors Theses

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic greatly impacted many aspects of life. Due to the airborne transmission of this respiratory disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a statement in early April of 2020 recommending that people wear face masks as part of an effort to reduce the spread of the virus (CDC, 2020). Mask-wearing presented a plethora of adjustments in many areas of life. In this literature review, we focus on the sociological impacts that mask-wearing had on sociability and approachability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Studying the sociological impact of COVID-19 serves to inform both mental …

Approachability And Mask-Wearing During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Literature Review, Lindsay Kovach

Honors Theses

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic greatly impacted many aspects of life. Due to the airborne transmission of this respiratory disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a statement in early April of 2020 recommending that people wear face masks as part of an effort to reduce the spread of the virus (CDC, 2020). Mask-wearing presented a plethora of adjustments in many areas of life. In this literature review, we focus on the sociological impacts that mask-wearing had on sociability and approachability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Studying the sociological impact of COVID-19 serves to inform both mental …

Still Lending You The World: The Toledo Lucas County Public Library In The 21st Century, Cade Clem

Honors Projects

This research paper focuses on how the Toledo Lucas County Public Library (TLCPL) has adapted to the 21st century, with an emphasis on the impact of digital materials and the Internet. This paper looks at these changes primarily through three lenses: official policies, services and programs, and internal culture. This paper uses quantitative data to determine if TLCPL has maintained overall growth in areas such as number of cardholders, customer counts, circulation, computer usage, and program attendance. These numbers show that, while not always maintaining growth, TLCPL has adapted quite well to the 21st century, bringing in record high numbers …

The Effects Of Intimacy And Parental Bonding On The Psychological Well-Being Of University Aged Women, Samantha G. Delmage

Brescia Psychology Undergraduate Honours Theses

This study investigated whether students who had high perceived parental bonding and low fear of intimacy would have a more positive level of psychological well-being. Additionally, the study sought to determine any differences between a single parent household and a two parent household. The sample consisted of 93 female undergraduate students in University in London, Ontario. An independent t-test revealed there was no significant differences in bonding between a single parent household and a two parent household. A multiple regression analysis revealed that perceived parental bonding and fear of intimacy were significant predictors of psychological well-being. A significant positive correlation …

Trait Sadism In Bdsm Practitioners And Non-Practitioners, Marley Russell

Psychology ETDs

Sadism is an elusive construct within psychology. Multiple types are studied without clear psychometric or theoretical distinctions, and operationalizations of these respective sub-constructs lack validity. This study explores the empirical distinction between two sadism types: consensual sexual sadism (i.e. in the context of BDSM) and trait sadism. Trait sadism is widely synonymized with “everyday sadism”, but here conceptualized as a higher-order construct encompassing both everyday and a novel “prosocial sadism”. I develop and pilot the BDSM Identities and Behaviors (BIB) checklist in a sample of BDSM practitioners. I then compare those practitioners to non-practitioners on trait sadism and dark triad …

Exploratory Study Of Undergraduate Pre-Health And Nursing Student Differences In Development, Bergen Johnson, Grace Rellinger

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

There is a great deal of research on how the professionalization and work of medical students, physicians, and nurses affect them, including burnout, stress, and empathy loss. We are interested in the earlier development of these trends and whether they already begin among undergraduate students pursuing health or nursing professions. There is a substantial knowledge gap in the differences and commonalities between pre-health, nursing, and students who have left health professions already. This research explores some of these commonalities and differences that begin developing quite early in nurses’ and physicians’ education. We look specifically at aspects we have labeled as …

Effects Of Religion And Health On Humility In Undergraduate Pre-Health And Nursing Students, Bergen Johnson

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Physicians who display greater humility tend to have better communication with patients, who then self-report as having better health (Ruberton et al. 2016). Research shows that older adults with increased humility have better self-rated health (Krause 2010). Religiosity also relates to humility in older adults, with more religious individuals scoring higher in humility (Krause 2010). Due to the benefits of humility for patients and physicians, the early character development of humility in undergraduate pre-health and nursing students is of interest — especially as this is a time of rapid character change and development (Clydesdale 2007). This study investigates whether the …

Conceptualizing Hope As A Virtue, Isabella Musherure, Esther Turahirwa

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

The purpose of this study is to develop a quantitative measure for conceptualizing hope as a virtue while expanding on the psychological framework of hope theory. Hope has predominantly been studied in positive psychology under Snyder's Hope Theory framework (Snyder, 2002). However, its current definition does not encompass a virtuous definition of hope, something that is inherently good. Hope Theory predominately studies hope as a personal trait that promotes individual success and well-being (Schornick et al., 2022). Virtues are a target of much scientific focus and a theoretical framework has recently been proposed to further its empirical study (Fowers et …

Religion’S Impact In Foreign Policy, Alexis Potapczak

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

This research paper analyzes religion's involvement in foreign policy concerning the time period that the United States was involved in the Cold War. Previous contributions to the research of foreign policy show that religion does have a profound impact, and now can be applied to theories surrounding the Cold War. I theorize that Cold War foreign policy was strongly influenced by Christian rhetoric and practices. I will compare the current ways of quantifying the involvement of religion in foreign policies with decisions made by the United States' foreign policy leaders during the Red Scare. Decision makers', like congressmen and President …

Humbly More Religious: The Role Of Humility In Religious Change, Chloe Swanson, Hannah Fuller, Carmen Casper, Isabella Brady

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Recent polls indicate that rates of individuals in the United States who identify as currently religious are declining (Twenge et al., 2016). Events such as COVID-19, presidential elections, and personal adversity affect religious change, likely because such events threaten one's religious worldview. One understudied area of religious change is intellectual humility. Religious change may be more welcome and less destabilizing. We seek to better understand religious change by examining the critical role of humility. In this study, individuals who attended a ex-vangelical conference participated in a year-long longitudinal study where they answered surveys in both 2019 and 2020. These surveys …

Political Biases In State Supreme Courts, Jackson Uyl

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

The judiciary of the United States makes thousands of decisions a year that directly affect the political landscape of the United States. When judges make decisions, they purportedly make their rulings based on the rule of law presented for a given case. Judges, however, are not without biases and can be prone to make rulings that have been cultivated by their political beliefs. This study focuses on the political decision making of state Supreme Court justices and examines how they make decisions that are potentially politically motivated in cases dealing with criminal rights and economic liberties. My research examines how …

Does Visual Dominance Influence Looking Patterns In Adults?, Erin Vokal, Lars Overos, Lauren Tocco

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Language acquisition begins with learning names of common objects by discovering the link between the word and the object. Yet even this is difficult because many objects are often in view when an object's name is spoken. Research shows that children hold objects close to their faces, making them larger in view than other objects, which we call "visual dominance". Infants learn names of objects better when the object named is visually dominant (Yu & Smith, 2012). We want to test if visual dominance aids word learning even when objects are not being held. We will test this by displaying …

The Beyond Ethnicity Project, Corri Zimmerman, Rita Kagaju

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

This research centers on Latina/o/x students' perceptions of their racial identity in light of issues related to privilege, racism, colorism, and belonging as they navigate the social and racial dynamics of a Predominantly White Institution. Focusing on the lived experience of 23 U.S. and foreign-born Latina/o/x, this ongoing research seeks to understand how skin color and place of origin play a role in understanding and interacting with these themes. Initial findings reveal that white-identifying students feel like outsiders in spaces that are predominantly white and in spaces that are predominately Latina/o/x. International students in this study faced ignorance about their …

Religiosity And Conspiracy Theories, Mark Fields

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Conspiracy theories are a popular phenomenon because they affect core beliefs and, accordingly, their actions. As prevalent as conspiracy theories are, we do not know why some people believe them and others do not, nor do we know why some conspiracy theories are more 'infectious' than others. I theorize that there is a positive correlation between belief in organized religion and belief in conspiracy theories because both religion and conspiracy theories are based on faith rather than empirical knowledge. Conspiracy theories vary in their characteristics, and therefore the variation between conspiracy theories might have an effect on the amount of …

Can’T Escape Hell: Negative Religious Beliefs Persist Among Religious Dones, Carmen Casper, Chloe Swanson, Isabella Brady, Hannah Fuller

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Previous research on deidentification from religion explores the residual effects of religion (i.e., religious residue; Van Tongeren et al., 2021). We sought to understand religious residue effects, and predicted that although currently religious individuals would report the highest degree of religious cognition, religious dones would report greater religious cognition than never religious individuals. We examined negative religious beliefs, taboos, pattern detection, and superstitious thinking. A total of 925 participants from the United States and the United Kingdom were recruited through Prolific; 300 currently religious, 298 religious "dones" and 327 never religious (236 male, 578 female, 4 transgender, 1 other, 4 …

Infant Object Transference And Play Preference, Elianna Kuehn, Danielle Mitchell, Grace Sarafa

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

This study investigates the link between virtual object learning and physical object play. This concept is relevant for today's digital culture where infants are routinely exposed to online educational programs (Barr, 2010). Research is unclear, however, about if and how what infants learn about objects on screen (visual preferences) applies to play choices — primary contexts for early learning.

The ability to recognize that an object's image on a screen is the same as the physical object is referred to as object transference (OT). For example, OT would be the ability to see an image of a cow on a …

Infants’ Ability To Associate Objects And Their Names, Nycole Kragt, Chloe Swanson

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Language learning is a complex, dynamic process (Kaplan, 2008). Nevertheless, research indicates that infants as young as 6 months can learn the names for common objects (Bergelson & Swingley, 2012). Learning to associate objects and their names is a difficult task. However, research demonstrates that when infants see objects and hear their names simultaneously across multiple settings, they can begin to associate word-object pairings (Yu & Smith, 2008). This process is called "cross-situational learning." The present study uses eye-tracking to examine how infants accomplish cross-situational word learning. Infants are randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a naming condition where …

Religious Liberty In Modern American Constitutional Law, Leah Renkema

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

In its most recent completed term, the United States Supreme Court decided a number of key cases altering the placement of religious liberty in modern American constitutional law. While the Court has long struck different balances between preserving the constitutional mandates on both religious liberty and religious establishment, there has been a general consensus by those studying the Court that their interpretations over the past twenty years underneath the Roberts Court have trended towards the more accommodationist understanding of religious liberty. There is less agreement on what this newly composed Court and their recent decisions mean for the direction of …

Social And Emotional Knowledge In Hippocampal Amnesia, Ashley M. Trainor, Olivia Onderdonk

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

The hippocampus has been found to play a role in general semantic knowledge, but it is unclear if it plays a role in social and emotional semantics. This study seeks to evaluate the role of the hippocampus in social and emotional semantics through the study of patients with hippocampal damage and severe amnesia. Although previous literature has shown that individuals who have damage to their hippocampus show deficits in neutral words, we predict that the hippocampal amnesic group should show the same social-emotional knowledge as the healthy control group. For this study, we investigate this by using more sensitive measures …

Spartan Daily, April 13, 2023, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2023

Volume 160, Issue 31

Social Connectedness And Its Relation To Perceived Stress And Loneliness, Foluke Olusegun-Emmanuel

Brescia Psychology Undergraduate Honours Theses

This study evaluated university students’ levels of overall social connectedness, perceived stress, loneliness, and strength of social connection with different groups (family, friends, classmates, instructors, university community). Associations between the aforementioned factors were also investigated, and time-related changes to 2020-21 data during COVID-19. Undergraduate students (n = 100) at a university in London, Ontario, completed a questionnaire comprising the Social Connectedness Scale, questions about the strength of social connections with different groups, the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and the Perceived Stress Scale. A correlational analysis revealed significant, negative correlations between social connectedness and perceived stress and loneliness. A repeated measures ANOVA …

Working Memory During The Menstrual Cycle: A Study Of The Role Of The Different Phases Of The Menstrual Cycle On Working Memory, Daniella Brownrigg

Brescia Psychology Undergraduate Honours Theses

This study investigated the role of the menstrual cycle phases (Follicular, Luteal and Menstruation) on working memory components (verbal and visuospatial). Eighty-eight undergraduate students attending Brescia University college completed a survey regarding: demographics, menstrual cycle information and working memory cognitive tasks. The cognitive tasks were the Corsi Block Tapping Test and a shorter version of the Hooper Visual Organization test for visuospatial working memory; and the Forward Digit Span Test and the Semantic Verbal Fluency Subset: Animals from the Barcelona Test for verbal working memory. Participants were categorized into the different menstrual phases they were experiencing. No significant differences were …

Cybersecurity Workforce Development In Nigeria: Transforming The Cybercrime Gangs Into Cybersecurity Specialists, Olohi Favor Anteyi

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

This paper addresses the issue of cybercrime in Nigeria and the possibility of creating a cybersecurity workforce development program for cyber criminals to develop their skills for the cybersecurity profession, which may facilitate Nigeria’s economic development.

Facing Famine: Justice And The Case Of Unilateral Intervention, Tanner R. Brooks

Honors Theses

Through the course of this year, 900 thousand people will have to struggle through conditions of famine, and a total of 345.2 million will experience food insecurity of some kind. These concerning figures represent an over twofold increase since 2020.1 This presents a serious problem, as access to food is so plainly vital to every aspect of an individual’s existence. It should therefore be uncontroversial to assert the grave nature of the occurrence of famine and other food emergencies faced by so many today. Food emergencies are not merely a result of insufficient food, but rather the institutional policies enacted …

Cedarville Vs. Trevecca, Cedarville University

Baseball Programs

No abstract provided.