Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Estimating The Health Effects Of Adding Bicycle And Pedestrian Paths At The Census Tract Level: Multiple Model Comparison, Ross J. Gore, Christopher Lynch, Craig Jordan, Andrew Collins, R. Michael Robinson, Gabrielle Fuller, Pearson Ames, Prateek Keerthi, Yash Kandukuri

VMASC Publications

Background: Adding additional bicycle and pedestrian paths to an area can lead to improved health outcomes for residents over time. However, quantitatively determining which areas benefit more from bicycle and pedestrian paths, how many miles of bicycle and pedestrian paths are needed, and the health outcomes that may be most improved remain open questions.

Objective: Our work provides and evaluates a methodology that offers actionable insight for city-level planners, public health officials, and decision makers tasked with the question “To what extent will adding specified bicycle and pedestrian path mileage to a census tract improve residents’ health outcomes over time?” …

Teaching Dbt Skills To Daca Recipients And Their Families: Findings From An Echo Program, Frances Morales, Oscar F. Rojas Perez, Michelle Silva, Manuel Paris, Luz M. Garcini, Melanie M. Domenech Rodriguez, Alfonso Mercado

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) offers temporary administrative relief from deportation for undocumented immigrant adolescents and young adults who were brought as children to the United States. Accordingly, DACA has contributed to creating a different landscape of opportunities for this group. However, DACA has been and continues to be highly contested in the national political climate. Threats to DACA give rise to considerable anxiety, fear, and distress among its recipients, who face significant barriers to accessing mental health care services. Thus, a group of psychologists partnered with a leading immigrant rights advocacy organization and formed a reciprocal collaboration to …

Leading The Social Development Of Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Para-Educator Perspectives, Michelle Morehouse

Leadership Education Capstones

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore para-educator perspectives on implementing social development strategies for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the academic setting, students with ASD, receiving services through an individualized education plan (IEP), have the option to receive para-educator support.

Social development growth opportunities naturally occur throughout the school day, placing para-educators in situations where implementing social development support can enhance this growth. How do para-educators perceive this role as social development supporters? Do they feel equipped to implement social development support in the general education setting?

This study used a mixed methods design, through …

Teachers’ Use Of Email For Communication With Students’ Families, Matthew Ferry

Leadership Education Capstones

The educational system holds an important role and responsibility in the attempt to educate all the youth in the country. A critical dynamic in the success of educating America is connected to the teacher’s ability to use online communication to build strong teacher-parent relationships. The purpose of this research study was to explore the levels of training that teachers have experienced in teacher education programs and professional development opportunities and the impacts it had on online communication to parents for their students. The study utilized surveys to poll teachers on the training they experienced during their career and the frequency …

Does Coworker Support Buffer The Impact Of Work Interruptions On Well-Being?, Ruyue Sun

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Although being interrupted by a colleague at work is often a negative experience, in this study I ask the question of whether the impact of the interruption depends on the relationship you have with that coworker. This is important because coworker support may protect employees from the negative effects of work interruptions on employee well-being. In this study, I administered a survey to investigate the role of coworker support in the relationship between general work interruption and job satisfaction. Using an experimental vignette method, 181 participants (college students) were presented with scenarios with a fictional co-worker that presented either high …

Together Or Apart? The Effects A Parent's Relationship Dynamic Has On Their Child(Ren)'S Romantic Relationship, Kailee Delos Santos

University Honors Theses

The relationship between parents is considered one of the most influential interactions a child will experience; as it is usually the first relationship a child witnesses where personal values and interests develop (Stanger, 2019). Nonetheless, it is a consistently understudied population in family research and, when studied, children are primarily examined during adolescence and often only in the context of conflict and rivalry. Additionally, much of this research does not examine the effects of a child's romantic relationship on the larger family system. This thesis seeks to address this gap in the literature by understanding how the relationship of a …

The Word-Level Prosodic System Of Mangghuer, Teresa Ellen Arthur

Theses and Dissertations

Mangghuer’s prosodic system has been described as a stress system (Slater 2003), and alternately, because of a few minimal pairs, as a system that is undergoing tonogenesis. (Dwyer 2008). This thesis looks at new data to evaluate both of these claims. I analyze the prosody of native words and confirm that Mangghuer has a stress system. Duration is one of the indicators of stress, which has not been mentioned in previous literature. Potential minimal pairs are considered, including the minimal tone pairs that Dwyer found; her minimal pairs are not minimal pairs in my data. However, one set of nativized …

Weaving Ethnic Identity: Discovering The Threads Of Multilingual Diversity In The Fabric Of Group Identity Among Karen Communities Of Denver, Colorado, Charity J. Seidler

Theses and Dissertations

How do Karen immigrants use language within Colorado communities? My thesis answers this question through narrative case studies of six S’gaw Karen women. Many Karen refugees, who flee the decades-long conflict within their homeland in Myanmar (Burma), find themselves navigating life first in Thailand, and eventually in the United States as foreign-language speakers. These refugees encounter numerous linguistic and cultural barriers in their new U.S. homeland, where it is difficult to function in many domains if they do not have the opportunity to learn much English upon arrival.

The six case studies are based on recorded sociolinguistic qualitative open interviews. …

August 2022 Table Of Contents Newsletter - Library Databases, Kayla Birt Flegal, Sudha Anand

Table of Contents Newsletter

August 2022 Dean's Preface:

One of our most necessary research resources has, in my opinion, the worst name. Database. We subscribe (usually via an annual subscription or an occasional one time purchase) to nearly 200 and despite our best efforts there seems to be no better name for these powerful boxes of information!

Library databases include an increasing range of content from Articles and Images to Videos and Zeitungen and the library website provides a couple of pathways to search for and access this content. Our Databases A-Z list provides direct access to each database which allows you to search …

Evaluation Of The Time To Ask Program At St. Croix Regional Family Health Center, Mary Lindsey Smith Phd, Evelyn Ali Bs, Tyler Egeland Ba

Substance Use Research & Evaluation

The goals of the Time to Ask (TTA) education and quality improvement program are to increase the capacity of the interprofessional care team to effectively, efficiently and compassionately discuss alcohol use with their patients through screening, brief intervention, and referral (SBIRT) as well as to expand regular screening and monitoring of unhealthy alcohol use at the practices. This infographic is a summary of a participant feedback following the TTA program at St. Croix Regional Family Health Center. For more information, please contact Lindsey Smith at m.lindsey.smith@maine.edu

Lanthorn, Vol. 57, No. 01, August 1, 2022, Grand Valley State University

Volume 57, August 1, 2022 - April 10, 2023

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Characterization Of Municipal Water Sources For The Mexico-Lerma-Cutzamala Basin Region, Ian F. Hirons

Sustainability and Social Justice

The Mexico and Toluca Valleys in central Mexico are part of one of the most heavily populated megalopolises in the western hemisphere where consistent access to safe, affordable, and quality water sources figures to be a decisive challenge in the era of climate change. This professional project report compiles a range of statistics and information about the vital liquid for 29 municipalities located in and around the Mexico City and Toluca areas. This contribution is derived from a broader team research endeavor that seeks to gauge the impacts and adaptive processes to climate change within those regions. By doing so, …

Political Differences In Air Pollution Abatement Under The Clean Air Act, Andrew G. Meyer, Zach Raff, Jason M. Walter

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

In this paper, we study how local politics affect state level implementation of a critical federal environmental policy, the Clean Air Act, in the electricity generation sector. The analysis focuses on the installation of capital intensive air pollution abatement technology in highly regulated “nonattainment” areas, which violate federal air quality standards. The primary research design uses a regression discontinuity in the vote share for Republican governors and event study analyses of close elections. In nonattainment areas, Republican gubernatorial control differentially decreases new air pollution abatement capital spending by 90% and the probability of installing the most effective nitrogen oxide abatement …

A Theory Of Crime And Vigilance, Jorge Vásquez

Economics: Faculty Publications

This paper develops a theory of crime in which potential victims elect their vigilance levels. When vigilance expenses are greater than expected property losses, an increase in penalties raises crime, namely, a criminal Laffer curve emerges. This curve is higher and peaks earlier when victims face higher costs. Thus, the government may wish to subsidize vigilance rather than increase penalties. Indeed, an increase in penalties may shift the vigilance levels further away from their socially optimal ones. Finally, the crime rate first rises and then falls in the property value at stake, which is consistent with the empirical evidence.

Going Viral: A Qualitative Analysis Of The Anti-Vaccine Movement & Social Media, Corinn Evancho Schumacher

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In the recent years of the rise of Web 2.0, health information has become more accessible. With this shift has come a reliance on social media to inform and educate the masses on vaccines. With the introduction of the Covid-19 vaccine, the conversation surrounding vaccines moved to the forefront of the United States’ zeitgeist from late 2021 to early 2022. In this research, I conducted a case study on the communication surrounding vaccines on social media while examining specific Facebook groups that advance the misinformation surrounding vaccines. I examined over 300 posts from four public Facebook groups in order to …

The Intersections Of Sex And Inequality In A Mixed Status Industrial London Sample, Anna Green

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Saint Pancras Burial Ground and its inhumated priests, paupers, aristocrats, and migrants provide a unique perspective into the interactions between sex and inequality in 18th and 19th century industrial London. Frequencies of caries, dental calculus, periodontal disease, linear enamel hypoplasia, periapical lesions, tuberculosis, treponematosis, rickets, and trauma among 224 females from St. Pancras were compared to 27 low-status females from Crossbones Burial Ground and 74 primarily high-status females from Chelsea Old Church Cemetery. Based on the information known about those buried at St. Pancras, it was hypothesized that the frequencies of health indicators in St. Pancras should fall between the …

The Effect Of Right-To-Work Laws On Subjective Well-Being: A Case Study Of Oklahoma, Tyler Qualls

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Using Oklahoma as a case study, this thesis applies a synthetic controls model to investigate the causal effect of right-to-work (RTW) laws on the well-being of the total population with a particular focus on the most affected subset, blue-collar workers and the less educated. The effect of RTW laws leads to a significant decrease in the happiness of blue-collar workers. To be specific, while results show a possible increase in unhappiness in the total population immediately following the adoption of the RTW law, for the more vulnerable blue-collar workers, the statistically significant negative effect of the law on happiness is …

An Empirical Study Of Rational Addiction: The Effects Of Quitting Aids On Smoking Cessation, Cade White

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores the relationship between the use of quitting aids and smoking cessation using United States (US) survey data from the 2018-2019 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS). Becker and Murphy’s (1988) theory of rational addiction implies that strong rational addictions must terminate abruptly. In other words, strong addictions only cease by the user quitting “cold turkey”. I empirically test this hypothesis using a “double-hurdle” approach, outlined by Jones (1994). A smoker’s decision to quit and their conditional quitting success is modeled in two stages. In the first stage, a probit model is estimated for their …

Making In The Midst Of Pandemic: The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Two Public Library Makerspaces, Stacey Woods

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on makerspaces in the United States which were subject to public health guidelines and challenged with limited/no access to facilities. This multi-case study examined two public library makerspaces, and addressed these research questions: (1) How did the pandemic affect makerspace operations and access, and the teaching and learning that occurs there? (2) How did makerspace leaders respond to the challenges of the pandemic? (3) How did makerspaces evolve during the COVID-19 pandemic? I developed the Conceptual Framework for Studying the Impact of Pandemic on Public Library Makerspaces which informed the …

Vertical Integration And Competitive Balance In Professional Sports: Evidence From Minor League Baseball, Qi Ge, Brad R. Humphreys, Alexander Eisert

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Major League Baseball (MLB) teams regularly call up players from their Minor League Baseball (MiLB) affliates to fulfill roster needs. This paper utilizes a manually collected panel of player call-ups between 1946 and 2019 and studies their impact on competitive balance in the minor leagues. Our results indicate an overall positive relationship between call-ups and competitive balance in the MiLB, with the pro-competitive effect primarily driven by the AA leagues and not AAA leagues. We also  find suggestive evidence of the effect being likely explained by the promotion of MiLB players to MLB, rather than the demotion of MLB players …

Environmental Justice Coalition Building In Virginia: The Fight Against The Acp, William White

Honors College

This qualitative study utilized snowball sampling and semi-structured interviews in order to understand environmental coalition building in Virginia during 2014-2020, a critical time during which activists came together to resist the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). Grass-roots activism has proven to be one of the most important elements in efforts to resist fossil fuel infrastructure such as the ACP. Understanding how activists with different perspectives can come together in common cause to form a successful environmental justice coalition a will help future movements advance policies to limit the effects of climate change and promote the cause of environmental justice.

Choice-Based Games And Resilience Building Of Gender Non-Conforming Individuals: An Exploratory Study, Yuri M. Cantrell

Masters Theses

Research on gaming and user experience of the general population has been abundant, but gender non-conforming (GNC) individuals’ experiences had been largely overlooked until recent years. Using a phenomenological approach, the goal of this study is to find deeper understanding of this phenomenon by exploring what gaming experiences shape the identity of the participants. The exploration of gaming and gender non-conforming experiences through interviews can fill a gap in the current literature on gaming culture regarding this specific population. By taking a closer look at this topic, patterns and themes within games may provide insight to potential resilience building activities …

The Effects Of Remote Work On Organizational Culture: Examining The Effects Of External Social Support To Mitigate Social Isolation Within Organizations, Katherine Rogers

Masters Theses

While remote work is not an entirely new concept, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a massive increase in remote work for over a year for some individuals and organizations. Looking to the future, some companies have already developed remote work policies and stated their intentions to allow employees to work from home on a more consistent basis. There are various advantages and disadvantages to remote work for employees and their employers, as outlined in the previous literature. However, due to the short amount of time that remote work has been implemented for these organizations, there may be long-term …

Film Women Violence, Madison R. Ross

Masters Theses

As a condensed version of social reality, film has become a more common object of modern sociological and criminological investigation. As such, we can explore film to understand taken-for-granted as well as innovative constructions of social phenomena. Among these are gendered violence. We can use film to dig deep into its logics, elaborated in visual and narrative representations. Prior literature has analyzed crime films and the behavioral constructions within them, outlining the representations of serial homicide, rape, mass shootings and revenge. However, few studies have outlined films that do meaningful, non-voyeuristic representational work on the issue of violence against …

Essays On Conservation Investment For Biodiversity Under Future Uncertainties, Nawon Kang

Masters Theses

This thesis is built with two essays on conservation investment for biodiversity under future uncertainties by using a risk-diversification strategy based on modern portfolio theory (MPT). The first essay is about broad application of MPT in conservation investment allocation, next, the second essay advances the MPT with consideration of the availability of each asset. The purpose of the first essay is to identify optimal conservation investment allocations for target regions and species under uncertain conditions. We develop a two-step approach using MPT to estimate an investment portfolio represented by percentages of conservation investment allocated to counties and taxonomic groups (referred …

Examining The Effects Of Family Stress And Family Strengths On The Quality Of Mother-Child Relationships In Married And Unmarried Black Families, Deonte Hughes

Masters Theses

Mother-child relationships are complex, diverse, and change in response to internal and external factors that affect families and family life. For instance, Black children are more likely to live in households with unmarried parents. Even more, Black families are disproportionately more likely to be in poverty than the general population. Research on Black families tends to center association between family structure and poverty as mechanisms affecting mother-child relationships. There is little research on the role of economic hardship on familial relationships in Black families. Additionally, there is little research on the role of family strengths on familial relationships in Black …

Latinos In Massachusetts Selected Areas: Everett, Phillip Granberry, Vishakha Agarwal

Gastón Institute Publications

This report provides a descriptive snapshot of selected economic, social, educational, and demographic indicators pertaining to Latinos in Everett. It reflects a commitment by UMass Boston’s Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy to provide periodic updates on the growing Latino population in Massachusetts. The report on Everett is part of a larger series that covers cities and towns with a population of at least 35,000 residents in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with a significant Latino population. Each report analyzes data from the American Community Survey (ACS) conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau. We obtained the …

Latinos In Massachusetts Selected Areas: Framingham, Phillip Granberry, Vishakha Agarwal

Gastón Institute Publications

This report provides a descriptive snapshot of selected economic, social, educational, and demographic indicators pertaining to Latinos in Framingham. It reflects a commitment by UMass Boston’s Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy to provide periodic updates on the growing Latino population in Massachusetts. The report on Framingham is part of a larger series that covers cities and towns with a population of at least 35,000 residents in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with a significant Latino population. Each report analyzes data from the American Community Survey (ACS) conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau. We obtained the …

Latinos In Massachusetts Selected Areas: Malden, Phillip Granberry, Vishakha Agarwal

Gastón Institute Publications

This report provides a descriptive snapshot of selected economic, social, educational, and demographic indicators pertaining to Latinos in Malden. It reflects a commitment by UMass Boston’s Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy to provide periodic updates on the growing Latino population in Massachusetts. The report on Malden is part of a larger series that covers cities and towns with a population of at least 35,000 residents in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with a significant Latino population. Each report analyzes data from the American Community Survey (ACS) conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau. We obtained the …

Latinos In Massachusetts Selected Areas: Medford, Phillip Granberry, Vishakha Agarwal

Gastón Institute Publications

This report provides a descriptive snapshot of selected economic, social, educational, and demographic indicators pertaining to Latinos in Medford. It reflects a commitment by UMass Boston’s Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy to provide periodic updates on the growing Latino population in Massachusetts. The report on Medford is part of a larger series that covers cities and towns with a population of at least 35,000 residents in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with a significant Latino population. Each report analyzes data from the American Community Survey (ACS) conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau. We obtained the …