Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Brief Online Acceptance And Commitment Training For Enhancing Outcomes Of A Cultural Competence Intervention, Elizabeth Tish Hicks

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In an increasingly diverse and multicultural society, there is a pressing and practical need for interventions to help professionals improve their cultural competence. Cultural competence trainings that target psychological flexibility in addition to knowledge, awareness, and skills may produce more efficacious results. The current study will examined the utility of targeting psychological flexibility (the ability to maintain contact the present moment and current internal experiences and to choose contextually appropriate, values-consistent behaviors, regardless of what one’s internal experiences are) as a process to enhance the impact of a cultural competence intervention with an Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT)-enhanced cultural competence …

Psychosocial Effects Of Shared Book Reading, Amy Halling

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many studies have examined the academic benefits of parents reading with their children, but few studies have looked at the psychological and social benefits, and even fewer have related the quality of shared book reading to psycho-social benefits. This study looked at whether positive and negative reading interactions during shared book reading predicted parent-child relationships, child social skills and child academic skills. Twenty-five parents of 4-year-olds read a story with their child and completed parent relationship and child social skills questionnaires. The reading interactions were then coded into two separate composite scores: positive and negative. Positive interactions did not significantly …

Temporal Bisection Dynamics, Mahdi Shafiei

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Temporal bisection is a behavioral task used to study how we perceive time. However, it is not fully clear how time perception should be interpreted in different variations of this task. Moreover, it is not understood why the results of this task are often different for human and animal subjects. Understanding parameters of this task and making a connection between human and animal experiments may help researchers to understand how time is perceived in the brain and consequently disorders involving time perception.

In this thesis, I propose a computational model that A) provides researchers with a framework to study the …

A Translational Investigation Of Reinforced Behavioral Variability: Implications For Promoting Behavioral Variability In Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Ann Galizio

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Behavioral variability is sometimes adaptive and can be maintained by the delivery of reinforcement. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show restricted and repetitive behaviors. Therefore, interventions to promote behavioral variability in individuals with ASD are needed. The present line of research was designed to inform such interventions by investigating reinforced behavioral variability from basic, applied, and translational perspectives. Each of these laboratory studies involved participants making sequences of well-defined responses, which were compared to previous responses. Responses that meet a variability contingency (i.e., were sufficiently different from previous responses) produced rewards. Studies 1 and 2 were basic experiments, …

Harmonic Delay Reduction, Jay E. Hinnenkamp

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Stimuli which, during the life of an organism, acquire the ability to increase the probability of behavior that they follow are called conditioned reinforcers. The concurrent-chains procedure has been used to study conditioned reinforcement for over 60 years. During this time several different models have been developed to explain how stimuli become conditioned reinforcers. The three experiments of this dissertation introduced a new quantitative model of conditioned reinforcement (DRT_H) and tested its predictions against four existing models. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that DRT_H improves upon the accuracy of its predecessor, delay reduction theory (Fantino, 1969), …

Framing Climate Change In Local Context: Newspaper Coverage Of Climate Change In Three Mountain Towns In The Intermountain West Compared To National Coverage, Tyler J. Spradlin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Past research has focused on how journalists cover and frame the issue of climate change or global warming in mainly nationally circulated newspapers. This study compares and contrasts the framing of climate change between two nationally circulated newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and three intermountain west community newspapers, Jackson Hole News & Guide in Jackson Hole, WY, Summit Daily in Summit County, CO, and Park Record in Park City, UT. This research incorporates the five generic frames, responsibility, conflict, human-interest, economic consequences, and morality frames defined by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) …

The Affordable Care Act In The States: Fragmented Politics, Unstable Policy, Daniel Beland, Philip Rocco, Alex Waddan

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

Many argue that the frustrated implementation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) stems from the unprecedented level of political polarization that has surrounded the legislation. This article draws attention to the law's “institutional DNA” as a source of political struggle in the 50 states. As designed, in the context of US federalism, the law fractured authority in ways that has opened up the possibility of contestation and confusion. The successful implementation of the ACA varies not only across state lines but also across the various components of the law. In particular, opponents of the ACA have experienced their greatest …

Clinical Work With Adult Male Incest Survivors: Therapeutic Themes And Perspectives, Kathryn B. Rosenberg

Doctoral Dissertations

For psychotherapists, encountering clients who have experienced sexual trauma or abuse is inevitable, whether or not the abuse is disclosed to the therapist; however, mental health professionals receive extremely limited (if any) training on how to identify or effectively support adult clients who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Many people who experienced CSA, especially those who identify as male, remain isolated and invisible in their suffering as adults even within therapeutic spaces, facing what feel like insurmountable barriers – both internal and external – to getting help. When sexual abuse is intrafamilial, these barriers are both amplified and …

Business Education: How Culture And Leadership Impact Organizational Outcomes, Joyce Lemay, Chris Kaiser

Business Faculty Publications

Leadership and organizational culture influence the outcomes of any business. Many companies look at various information to measure results but may not know how to manage the information or interpret it in a way to make ethical and effective decisions. Many organizational cultures are broken and leadership needs to better understand how culture impacts the required outcomes. This article reviews the demands of a broken culture and creative ways to impact culture to ensure effective organizational outcomes. In times of crisis, like COVID-19, organizational culture can direct, redirect, or worsen the desired outcomes. The ability to analyze, understand and positively …

Geology, Soils And Climate Of The Margaret River Wine Region, Peter J. Tille, Angela Stuart-Street, Peter S. Gardiner

All other publications

This report is an extract from the broader description and analysis of the Geology, soils and climate of Western Australia's wine regions. It expands on the brief descriptions in the second edition of 'Viticulture' (Coombe & Dry 2004) concerning the soils and landscapes of Western Australia’s main wine growing regions. We have tailored this report extract to the specific needs of the Margaret River wine region. It contains local soil names and soil-landscape zones and systems maps.

The wine industry recognises the importance of giving customers an understanding of the vines’ environment and how that may influence wine character …

Strengthening Coordination Among Extension Service Providers For Improved Provision Of Agricultural Extension And Advisory Services: A Case Study From Kenya, Kevan W. Lamm, Fallys Masambuka-Kanchewa, Alexa J. Lamm, Kristin Davis, Silim Nahdy

Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education

Implementation of decentralized and pluralistic policies in provision of extension services has led to increased availability of actors providing extension services to farmers in most developing countries including Kenya. What is unique about extension services providers is that they have a shared goal of improving agricultural productivity. However, in some cases these providers differ in their knowledge regarding the practices or knowledge that is required to improve agricultural productivity. Lack of shared knowledge among providers has contributed to delivery of uncoordinated and duplication of efforts thereby limiting the effectiveness of efforts in extension services delivery. Moreover, in some cases lack …

Implicit Attitudes, Explicit Attitudes, And Priming: A Preliminary Analysis Of Factors Affecting Use Of Force Decisions, Christopher Allen Forepaugh

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines the effects of priming, situational factors, and attitudes on deadly force decision making. A small sample of undergraduates completed high-fidelity deadly force simulations. Simulation results were compared across experimental conditions and various attitudinal and demographic factors. Participants were generally accurate when assessing the threat posed by suspects. Participants primed to expect a threat were more accurate in their decisions but were no more likely to shoot an unarmed suspect. Participants were more accurate when responding to unarmed suspects. Participants more likely to exhibit implicit bias were less accurate. Several attitudinal and demographic traits were associated with deadly …

The Political Personality Of 2020 Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden, Anne Marie Griebie, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This working paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of former U.S. vice president Joe Biden, Democratic nominee in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, from the conceptual perspective of personologist Theodore Millon.

Psychodiagnostically relevant data about Biden were collected from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with DSM-III-R, DSM-IV, and DSM-5.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and …

The Resurrection Of Jewish Religion At The Turn Of The 20th And 21st Centuries: The Case Of Ukraine, Viktor Yelenskyi

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article deals with the complexities of Judaism’s revival in Ukraine, where Jews have enriched the Jewish civilization with Hasidism, gifted the Jewish world with a whole plethora of outstanding Jewish figures and a remarkable cultural heritage both tangible and intangible, and where their religion underwent a monstrous destruction during the Holocaust and the Soviet anti-religious persecutions. Today's Judaism in Ukraine is a complex mixture of at least six decisive components. That is, (i) more than 20 centuries of the Judaism’s history in Ukrainian lands; (ii) the "great religious comeback," which unfolded in the world in the late 1970s; (iii) …

Economic Impact Study: United Methodist Community House Expansion, Christian Glupker, Leslie Muller, Julie Cowie, Grand Valley State University

Other Faculty Publications

In 2019, United Methodist Community House (UMCH) commissioned IFF, a real estate consulting firm, to perform a strategic facility plan. This strategic plan’s needs assessment included the following: A new senior center, expanded child development center, and relocation of administrative offices.

Seidman Research Office at Grand Valley State University was retained by UMCH to perform an economic assessment of the IFF strategic facility plan. This economic assessment will:

(A) evaluate the economic impact of construction of proposed senior center;

(B) evaluate the economic impact of UMCH operations;

(C) evaluate the economic impact of expanded child development center; and

(D) quantify …

Where Is The Community? A Qualitative Case Study Of A School Closure In An Urban School District, Anthony Mcwright

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies: Doctoral Research Projects

Family and community engagement are a proven strategy for strengthening schools. Across the United States, parents and community members have pressed school boards and district leadership for more transparency and broader participation in decisions about school turnaround. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand the decision-making process for the school closure of Rocky Mountain High School, a neighborhood school in an Urban School District in the Rocky Mountain West and the impact it had on the community. To better understand this dilemma, a case study method was used to identify real-life perspectives of community members associated with …

Mock Jurors' Perceptions Of "I Don't Know" Answers In Child Testimony, Leanza Greenlee

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Attorneys questioning child witnesses often ask complex questions that negatively impact children’s accuracy and consistency. Research has shown that instructing children to answer confusing questions with “I don’t know” can improve their accuracy, but little research has examined the impact of using this strategy on jurors’ perceptions of child witness credibility. The present study assessed 702 mock jurors’ perceptions of a 4- or 10-year-old child witness in a fabricated sexual assault trial transcript. Number of “don’t know” responses were manipulated, and half the jurors were told about the “I don’t know” instruction. Results demonstrated that greater numbers of “I don’t …

Performance Management Training Evaluation In An Autism Treatment Facility, James D. Morrison

Dissertations

The demand for Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA) has increased dramatically since 2010 (Burning Glass Technologies, 2019). A core component of a BCBA’s role is to provide supervision to Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analysts (BCaBA) and other paraprofessionals. Currently there is a lack of research on effective supervision training in the ABA literature. This study evaluated a supervision training program based on the Operant Model of Effective Supervision developed by Komaki (1986). The training developed for this study incorporated basic OBM concepts such as behavioral pinpointing, feedback, and goal setting as well as concepts such as work sampling, which the …

Ethnic Identity, Stress, And Anxiety In Latinx University Students At Predominantly White Institutions, Anel Arias

Dissertations

Research indicates that ethnic minority-related stressors contribute to poor mental health outcomes in Latinx university students. There are inconsistent results of the moderating role of ethnic identity in ethnic minority stress and mental health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine whether ethnic identity moderates the relationship between ethnic minority stress and trait anxiety in Latinx university students attending predominantly White institutions (PWI). The secondary purpose of this study was to explore the effects of ethnic minority stress on trait anxiety symptoms.

Participants were 256 Latinx (67.6% women, n = 173; 31.3% men, n = 80) undergraduate and …

Identifying Smokestacks In Remotely Sensed Imagery Via Deep Learning Algorithms, Kenneth Moss

Masters Theses

Locating smokestacks in remote sensing imagery is a crucial first step to calculating smokestack heights, which allows for the accurate modeling of dioxin pollution spread and the study of resulting health impacts. In the interest of automating this process, this thesis examines deep learning networks and how changes in input datasets and network architecture affect image detection accuracy. This initial image detection serves as the first step in automated object recognition and height calculation. While this is applicable to general land use classification, this study specifically addresses detecting smokestack images. Different dataset scenarios are generated from the massive Functional Map …

Final Project Report, Zhenyu Wang, Pei-Sung Lin, Srinivas Katkoori, Mingchen Li, Abhijit Vasili, Runan Yang

CTEDD Final Project Reports

No abstract provided.

Final Project Report, Carolyn Mcandrews

CTEDD Final Project Reports

No abstract provided.

Final Report And User Guide, Kristine Williams, Jeff Kramer, Yaye Keita, Tia Boyd

CTEDD Final Project Reports

No abstract provided.

Frontmatter (Volume 40, Issue 6), Paul B. Mojzes

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

On Both Sides Of The Wall, Christoph Schmauch

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

"Since the emphasis of this paper is to be on the Cold War and its aftermath, I will only mention that the first ten years of my life I lived in Silesia, Germany, on the outskirts of Breslau/Wroclaw during the Nazi period of World War II. I will begin with the end of WWII, 1945, my experience for two years in the mountains of Silesia under Polish administration, and from 1947 to 1950 in the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany in Görlitz, and beginning in 1950 in Ost-Berlin, the capital of the German Democratic Republic."

The Place Deixis Of Modern Standard Arabic: A Closer Look At The Dimensional System And The Factors That Control The Choice Of Place Deictic Expressions, Ibrahim A. Alluhaybi

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations

This dissertation investigates place deixis in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) focusing primarily on two issues, 1) examining the dimensional system of place deixis in MSA as opposed to Classical Arabic, and 2) exploring the factors that control the choice of place deictic expressions in MSA: Distance (traditional factor), Visibility, and Contact/Control. While the previous literature focused on one-to-one comparison between Distance and one of the other factors (Imai, 2003; Jarbou, 2010; Peeters, Azar, & Ozyurek, 2014), this dissertation offers a more comprehensive comparison in which all of these factors are compared to each other in different contexts and settings. To …

On The Syntax Of West Kalimantan: Asymmetries And A'-Movement In Malayic And Land Dayak Languages, Carly Joann Sommerlot

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on five Malayic and five Land Dayak languages of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, exploring voice, A’-movement, and extraction asymmetries through a Minimalist framework. The main goal of this dissertation is to bridge the gap between documentation and syntactic analysis in a few ways: a) by using data from all underdocumented, and several undocumented languages; b) by providing syntactically motivated description of ten different languages; and c) by using contemporary syntactic principles, Case licensing and Phase Theory, to explain microvariation found in the voice system of these ten languages. Specifically, I offer an analysis of voice in West Kalimantan …

Swimming Upstream To Achieve The Dream: A Descriptive Phenomenological Study Of The Postsecondary Experiences Of Foster Care Alumni, Sharron Crear

Social Work Dissertations

Education has been deemed the "great equalizer" for the condition of man (Horace Mann, 1848). Studies have found that years of education and income are highly correlated--the higher the educational level, the higher the income (National Center for Education Statistics, 2017). Numerous studies highlight the benefits of attaining a college degree; however, college enrollment and graduation rates among young adults with foster care experience lag significantly behind those of their non-foster care peers. Despite increased policies and efforts at the federal, state, and local levels to improve the educational outcomes of this vulnerable population, poor educational outcomes are still prevalent. …

Non-Binary And Gender Expansive Young Adults: Perceptions Of Their Lived Experiences With Gender Identity, Devyn Adrian Box

Social Work Theses

Non-binary and gender expansive (NBGE) young adults face disproportionate rates of violence and discrimination within systemic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal contexts. Extant literature neglects the study of this population and their unique needs and experiences. This phenomenological study sought to answer the question, “what are the lived experiences of non-binary and gender expansive college students ages 18-24?” This study used a convenience sampling strategy with a snowball approach, and recruited college students across the state of Texas. A total of 10 participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. All participants identified as assigned female at birth (AFAB). 70% of participants …

Fear Of Blackness And Gentrification Of Black And Brown Neighborhoods In Chicago, Vanessa Ann Hentz

Social Work Theses

The gentrification of Black and Brown neighborhoods in Chicago is an ongoing process that deserves attention and analysis. The purpose of this scoping review was to determine the factors contributing to the gentrification of Chicago neighborhoods. The purpose included investigating if there is a fear of Blackness associated with the gentrification of Black and Brown neighborhoods. The methodology followed for the scoping review included the recommendations from Arskey & O’Malley’s (1994) Scoping Studies: Towards a Methodological Framework. This methodology included using the research question to gather the relevant articles to chart, summarize, and analyze the results (Arskey & O’Malley 1994). …