The U.S.-Mexico Border And Housing Prices: Understanding The Impact Of Border Fencing On Property Values, Mary Jane Macarthur

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Building a barrier on the US-Mexico border has been a hot-button issue for a couple of decades. Not only do people disagree on the effectiveness of walls and fences, but there has also been debate on whether they generate positive or negative externalities on localities. Using data on construction of the US-Mexico border fence, as well as housing data for Yuma County, Arizona, I attempt to identify the treatment effect of fence construction on nearby housing prices, which may serve as an indicator of some of the external impacts of walls and fences. Mine is the first study to quantify …

Household Perceptions And Patterns Of Crop Loss By Wild Pigs In North India, Bivash Pandav, Lakshminarayanan Natarajan, Ankit Kumar, Ajay A. Desai, Banteibor Lyngkhoi

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Loss to cultivated crops by wild pigs (Sus scrofa) is widespread and can jeopardize low-income farmers. In India, although there is lot of political interest in the problem, efforts to understand the patterns, correlates, and underlying reasons for wild pig conflict continue to be minimal. We quantified loss of wheat (Triticum aestivum) to wild pigs and assessed the spatial patterns of damage in a forest settlement of Van Gujjar (Haridwar, India), which is a dairy-based pastoralist community. We chose a 4-km² cultivated area comprising 400 farmlands (each measuring 0.8 ha and belonging to a family) and …

Interactions Between Humans, Crocodiles, And Hippos At Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe, Ivan Marowa, Joshua Matanzima, Tamuka Nhiwatiwa

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Human–wildlife conflicts (HWCs) are on the increase due to shrinking space that results in increased competition for land, water, and other natural resources between humans and wildlife. Investigating the occurrence of HWCs is important in that the results can be used to formulate better management policies and strategies. In this paper, we describe the nature of HWCs emerging between humans and the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) and between humans and the African hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius; hippo) on Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe. Lake Kariba is the second largest manmade lake by volume in the world. Conflicts involving humans …

Training Needs And Role Development Of School Psychologists Providing Substance Use Interventions: An Exploratory Study, Kiersten Bell

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Adolescence is the time when many individuals begin to use substances (alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs) in an exploratory manner. This exploration can have lasting impacts upon a student’s neurological development with wide ranging impacts. Adolescents who use substances may experience greater difficulty achieving academically, increased risk for criminality, and comorbid mental health disorders at an elevated rate. Schools are the location where the majority of students receive mental health support, and a location where substance use interventions can occur. School personnel can be trained to conduct Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) interventions to address adolescent substance …

Uncovering Stories: Investigating Factors That Contribute To Parent Experiences In Eligibility Meetings, Joshua Knight

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Federal guidelines outline school communication with parents as a necessity throughout the special education process. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) states that parents have the right to participate in their children’s educational involvement, including but not limited to: Individualized Education Program Meetings (IEP), due process proceedings, and any components of evaluation and individual services provided to their child. While law mandates that schools proactively communicate with parents, in many aspects, parents may often feel disconnected from aspects of the special education process, particularly eligibility meetings (Bucknavage, 2007). Further, results of the component selections within the eligibility determination for …

Evaluating Outcomes Of Trauma-Sensitive Trainings In Schools: A Rapid Review, Laëtitia Sakponou

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Trauma-sensitive schools focus on forming supportive relationships and safe spaces which help build resilience in students. School psychologists have been providing professional development opportunities for school personnel. When evaluating a professional development training, collecting data on teacher acceptability is crucial to understanding factors impacting implementation integrity. The present study is a review of existing literature and seeks to understand how teacher feedback is evaluated and what factors teachers report as impacting implementation. Three publications were selected as participants to be analyzed. Synthesized themes found included the importance of providing foundational knowledge, the significant impact of system climate, and the value …

Exploring The Cultural Humility And Practices Of School Psychologists In Virginia, Bailey Brooks

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

This present study investigated the relationship between cultural competency and years of school psychology experience. In addition, this study determined how well school psychologists understand cultural humility. This study aimed to bridge the gap between school psychology research and that of other fields, as well as the paradigm shift from having a cultural competency lens to a cultural humble lens. Results of the present study indicated there is a statistically significant relationship between knowledge of appropriate assessments and interventions for racially and ethnically minoritized students and years of experience. Additionally, no statistically significant relationship was found between other sub-domains of …

Am I Black Enough? – Identity And Belongingness Of Second-Generation African Students, Muna Yusuf

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Over the course of the past few years, research regarding Black students has continued to increase. However, a lot of the research regarding Black students has focused heavily on the experiences and outcomes of African American students. Due to the history in the United States, the term Black has become synonymous with African American, leaving out the experiences of many second-generation African children. This explanatory mixed-methods design study examined second-generation African students’ ethnic identity and sense of belonging within the Black community in their school system. This study also compared reported levels of belongingness in college experiences versus high school. …

Binge-Watching And The Spacing Effect, Michael R. Austin

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Binge-watching, defined as consuming at least three episodes or three hours of video media in one sitting, is an increasingly prevalent behavior in the digital age. But scant research exists investigating how binge-watching affects memory for what was watched. Literature surrounding the spacing effect, defined as superior memory for information presented repeatedly across longer spans of time, would predict a memory deficit for binged material. However, findings from previous unpublished research by Fogler and colleagues do not align with this prediction. To investigate the dissonance, the aim of this research is to replicate and extend the work of Fogler and …

Investigating The Self In Self-Report, Samantha L. Boddy

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Self-report items are ubiquitous in social sciences and services and medical centers. However, there is some concern about whether people are able to accurately report about themselves. One well-known source of concern is social desirability bias (SDB) or socially desirable responding (SDR), which involves people providing overly-positive responses about themselves that better align with social norms than might their actual attitudes or behaviors. However, several researchers (e.g., Brenner & DeLamater, 2016; Hadaway et al., 1998) suggest that a person’s identity in the area of interest may bias their responding. Specifically, that people interpret and respond to items in terms of …

Exploring Perceptions And Needs Of Rural Teachers To Enhance School Psychologists' Advocacy And Support Of Gender And Sexual Minority Students, Emily Walsh

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Gender and Sexual Minority (GSM) students are at a disproportionate risk for victimization in schools. They are especially vulnerable in schools that lack protective policies, have limited access to resources, and exist within conservative and unaccepting communities. These schools may be more common in rural communities. The purpose of the present study was to explore rural teachers’ perceptions of school climate and their readiness and willingness to support GSM students. Recommendations are provided for school psychologists to be able to understand and address their own schools’ needs in providing a positive school climate for GSM students.

Challenges Faced By Academic Libraries Due To Resource Sharing And Networking Models, Helic Mario Barretto, Pranay Sawant Dessai

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

Each day millions of books, journals and ephemera are being published and to keep track of these books and literature and to provide them to the information seeking community is a herculean task for Academic Libraries. The difference between good or bad data can be explained as to how accurately the information is dispersed to the academic community. In these circumstances, it becomes significant for libraries to collectively come together and help each other by forming a resource sharing model. Across the globe numerous such models have been formed but most of them struggled to thrive on a long …

Absent And Present: The Mental Health And Wellness Of Ontario Teacher Leaders Using A Catholic Social Justice Approach, Jennifer C. Wojcik

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Abstract

The purpose of this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) is to present a Problem of Practice (PoP) at Trinity Forever Catholic School (pseudonym: TFCS). This is the limited focus on teacher-leader mental health and wellness (MhW) stemming from a lack of resource organization by school and board leadership levels. Current MhW resources are not focussed on the health and well-being of educators. It is necessary to navigate resources that minister to the common good and dignity of all teacher-leaders. This exercise is important to the work of a teacher-leader who is serving TFCS under long-standing conditions that impair MhW. Catholic …

Warning! Explicit Material: The Effects Of Adolescent Pornography Use On Risky Sexual Behavior Over Time, Emily Jensen-Schvaneveldt

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the longitudinal effects of adolescent pornography trajectories on risky sexual behavior, as well as predictors of pornography trajectories. Data was taken from Waves V-X of the Flourishing Families Project, which included a sample of 463 families. A zero-inflated Poisson growth mixture model was run to determine class participation and growth trajectories. Findings revealed that gender and religiosity significantly predicted class participation, and class participation significantly predicted risky sexual behavior. While this study did have limitations, this study adds to the previous literature by examining adolescent pornography trajectories over an extended period of time.

Information Needs And Seeking Behavior: A Pakistani Perspective, Rida Anmol, Ghalib Khan Dr, Izhar Muhammad

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

No abstract provided.

Information Needs And Seeking Behavior Of Faculty Members: A Case Study Of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan, Rida Anmol, Ghalib Khan Dr, Izhar Muhammad

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

College libraries play vital role in the development of education and achievement of the institutional objectives. For the information professionals study on information needs of users is of significant importance for provision of effective information services. This study was an attempt to investigate information needs and seeking behavior of faculty members working on regular basis in the male degree colleges of District Karak. The study was aimed to identify purposes of information needs and seeking behavior, preferred sources, methods employed to obtain needed information and problems faced by them while using their college libraries. Data was collected through questionnaires using …

Police Spending And Crime Rates: Evidence From U.S. Cities, 1985 – 2010, Daniel Padrick

Theses and Dissertations

Panel data covering the largest U.S. cities from 1985-2010 is used to reevaluate the endogeneity issue between policing and crime rates. Crime rates are not found to be a strong predictor of police spending, indicating that reverse causality is not as severe an issue as frequently thought. Increases in police spending result in modest decreases in certain index crimes.

Exploring Bottled Water Purchase Intention Via Trust In Advertising, Product Knowledge, Consumer Beliefs And Theory Of Reasoned Action, Carolyn A. Lin, Xiaowen Xu

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

As the bottled water market is projected to grow continuously worldwide, so is the plastic waste that pollutes the environment. The beverage industry’s marketing campaigns have played an important role in sustaining the popularity of bottled water. Social science theory-based empirical research examining how consumers make bottled water consumption decisions remains limited. To help fill this literature gap, the current study tested a conceptual framework to explore the influence of trust in bottled water advertising and perceived product knowledge on consumer beliefs about bottled water, in conjunction with theory of reasoned action. The study surveyed a sample of college students …

Spinning At The Border: Employee Activism In 'Big Pr', Camille Reyes

Communication Faculty Research

This article extends Coombs and Holladay’s (2018) social issues management model to provide new perspectives on activism and public relations. It also fills a gap in the literature on internal activism by analyzing the case of The Ogilvy Group and their employees, many of whom pushed for the agency to resign its work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Through a textual analysis of a leaked transcript documenting a meeting between Ogilvy management and internal activist employees, the communicative tasks of definition, legitimation, and awareness (Coombs & Holladay, 2018) are explored in a way that complicates identity and power. As …

Sustaining Cross-Departmental Programmatic Change For Reparative Description At The University Of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center, Megan M. Mummey

Library Presentations

No abstract provided.

Redesigning College Savings (529) Plans To Achieve Inclusive Child Development Accounts: A Policy Brief Developed By Cda Experts And Researchers, José Cisneros, Margaret M. Clancy, William Elliott Iii, Amanda Feinstein, Martha Kanter, Muneer Karcher-Ramos, Clint Kugler, Julie Peachey, Colleen Quint, Thomas M. Shapiro, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

In this policy brief, prominent Child Development Account (CDA) experts and researchers recommend changes in policies and practices for state college savings (529) plans. If adopted, the changes would make possible the use of the 529 plans to deliver CDAs for all children in the United States. In a companion brief, they present the case for a nationwide CDA policy and identify design principles.

Perceived Neighborhood Cohesion Buffers Covid-19 Impacts On Mental Health In A United States Sample, Jennifer W. Robinette, Georgiana Bostean, Laura M. Glynn, Jason A. Douglas, Brooke N. Jenkins, Tara L. Gruenewald, David A. Frederick

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective

This study examined whether perceived neighborhood cohesion (the extent to which neighbors trust and count on one another) buffers against the mental health effects of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

The XXX University National COVID-19 and Mental Health Study surveyed US adults (N = 3965; M age = 39 years), measuring depressive symptoms, staying home more during than before the 2020 pandemic, and perceived neighborhood cohesion.

Results

A series of linear regressions indicated that perceiving one's neighborhood as more cohesive was not only associated with fewer depressive symptoms, but also attenuated the relationship between spending more time at …

The Case For A Nationwide Child Development Account Policy: A Policy Brief Developed By Cda Experts And Researchers, José Cisneros, Margaret M. Clancy, William Elliott Iii, Amanda Feinstein, Martha Kanter, Muneer Karcher-Ramos, Clint Kugler, Julie Peachey, Colleen Quint, Thomas M. Shapiro, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

In this policy brief, prominent Child Development Account (CDA) experts and researchers present the case for a nationwide policy to provide CDAs and build assets for all children in the United States. The authors identify principles for CDA policy design. In a companion brief, they discuss policy and practice changes to make college savings (529) plans far more inclusive.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems For Archaeology Using Photogrammetry And Lidar In Southwestern United States, Imai Bates-Domingo, Alexandra Gates, Patrick Hunter, Blake Neal, Kyle Snowden, Destin Webster

Study America

Researchers can use small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), also known as drones, to make observations of historical sites, help interpret locations, and make new discoveries that may not be visible to the naked eye. A student team from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University gathered data for historical site documentation in New Mexico using the DJI Phantom 4 Pro V2, DJI Mavic Pro 2, DJI M210 and DJI M600, and senseFly eBee. Utilizing these drones, student analysts were able to take the data gathered and create georectified orthomosaic images and 3D virtual objects. At Tularosa Canyon, at a site known as the Creekside …

Nurse Retention In Workplace Adversity, Deborah Lewis

Student Scholarly Projects

Practice Problem: Nurse turnover rate and lack of retention are issues that have an impact on safe patient care, patient mortality, quality outcomes, and patient experiences in the acute care units at the identified project setting. Turnover leads to excess labor utilization of overtime and increased hospital costs.

PICOT: The PICOT question that guided this project was (P) In acute care hospital nurses, how do (I) nurse retention strategies (C) compared with no nurse retention strategies (O) reduce nurses’ intention to leave and increase job satisfaction over (T) eight weeks?

Evidence: Twenty-one articles were reviewed that identified autonomy, recognition, …

Census Tract Patterns And Contextual Social Determinants Of Health Associated With Covid-19 In A Hispanic Population From South Texas: A Spatiotemporal Perspective, Cici Bauer, Kehe Zhang, Miryoung Lee, Susan Fisher-Hoch, Esmeralda Guajardo, Joseph Mccormick, Isela De La Cerda, Maria E Fernandez, Belinda Reininger

Student and Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown that various social determinants of health (SDOH) may have contributed to the disparities in COVID-19 incidence and mortality among minorities and underserved populations at the county or zip code level.

OBJECTIVE: This analysis was carried out at a granular spatial resolution of census tracts to explore the spatial patterns and contextual SDOH associated with COVID-19 incidence from a Hispanic population mostly consisting of a Mexican American population living in Cameron County, Texas on the border of the United States and Mexico. We performed age-stratified analysis to identify different contributing SDOH and quantify their effects by …

Parchman Farm Penitentiary Exists As Modern-Day Slavery: A Position Paper, Savannah Plaisted

Sociology Between the Gaps: Forgotten and Neglected Topics

No abstract provided.

Odt Flow: Extracting, Analyzing, And Sharing Multi-Source Multi-Scale Human Mobility, Zhenlong Li, Xiao Huang, Tao Hu, Huan Ning, Xinyue Ye, Binghu Huang, Xiaoming Li

Faculty Publications

In response to the soaring needs of human mobility data, especially during disaster events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated big data challenges, we develop a scalable online platform for extracting, analyzing, and sharing multi-source multi-scale human mobility flows. Within the platform, an origin-destination-time (ODT) data model is proposed to work with scalable query engines to handle heterogenous mobility data in large volumes with extensive spatial coverage, which allows for efficient extraction, query, and aggregation of billion-level origin-destination (OD) flows in parallel at the server-side. An interactive spatial web portal, ODT Flow Explorer, is developed to allow users …

Testing The Effects Of Two Field-To-Fork Programs On The Nutritional Outcomes Of Elementary School Students From Diverse And Lower-Income Communities, Kimberly R. Hartson, Kristi M. King, Carol O'Neal, Aishia Brown, Toluwanimi Olajuyigbe, Shakeyrah Elmore, Angelique Perez

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to evaluate the effects of two farm-to-school programs, specifically the Field-to-Fork Multi-visit Program (N  =  264) and the Field-to-Fork After-school Club (N  =  56), on nutritional outcomes of elementary school students (third to fifth grade) from urban, diverse, and lower-income communities. Data were collected via self-report surveys measuring: (a) knowledge of recommendations for daily fruit and vegetable intake; (b) fruit and vegetable consumption; (c) knowledge of cooking a healthy recipe using vegetables; and (d) desire for farm fresh foods at school. Statistical analyses included McNemar’s and Wilcoxon signed rank tests. The …

Health Equity And Quantifying The Patient Experience: A Case Study, Maria R. Moreno, Brandon Sherrets, Danielle J. Roberts, Kristen Azar

Patient Experience Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic has invigorated efforts to address health inequities disproportionately burdened by racial/ethnic groups and individuals of low socioeconomic status. Measuring and monitoring patient experience is crucial to understanding why the gaps exist and identifying mechanisms necessary to close them. Electronic health records and digital health tools hold much promise in this regard and can lead to change. We present a case study describing the innovative efforts undertaken at Sutter Health, a large integrated health network in Northern California, to quantify gaps in health equity using electronic platforms and visualization modalities. More work is needed to identify and address …