Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On The Well-Being Of People Incarcerated In United States Prisons, Kimberly Rivera

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the population as a whole. However, the incarcerated population (which also experiences a variety of health disparities) has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Due to overcrowding, poor ventilation, and lack of resources, the incarcerated population already is at a heightened risk for negative health outcomes, made worse by the recent pandemic. To adapt to the rapidly changing conditions during the pandemic in 2020 and into 2022, new safety measures were implemented, but the unintended consequences associated with the implementation of these procedures have yet to be examined empirically. I conducted a qualitative content …

“It’S Loving Yourself For You”: Happiness In Trans And Nonbinary Adults, Elliot Tebbe, Haley L. Bell, Kendal Cassidy, Sonia Lindner, Emily Wilson, Stephanie L. Budge

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Expanding upon the larger body of literature that focuses on adverse mental health concerns among trans and nonbinary (TNB) populations, emerging research has recently begun to investigate positive outcomes and psychological well-being among TNB people. This study contributes to this growing area of research by investigating one subjectively experienced aspect of well-being—happiness—among TNB adults residing in the central Great Plains region of the United States. For this study, 20 TNB adults participated in semistructured interviews where they were asked to reflect on how they experienced happiness generally and in relation to being TNB, and what fostered or impeded their happiness. …

Test–Retest Reliability And Sensitivity Of A Brief Clinical Monitoring Measure For Transgender And Gender Diverse Adults: The Trans Collaborations Clinical Check-In (Tc3), T. Zachary Huit, Natalie R. Holt, Alexander Farquhar-Leicester, Rebecca L. Brock, Richard Mocarski, Nathan Woodruff, Debra Hope

Trans Collaborations Academic Papers

The current study aimed to examine the test–retest reliability and sensitivity of the Trans Collaborations Clinical Check-In (TC³) in a 3-month period with four assessment points at baseline, 1, 2, and 3 months to examine its utility as a clinical progress monitoring measure. This study builds on the initial validation study conducted by Holt et al. (2019). The sample of 32 transgender and gender diverse (TGD) participants were chosen who met screening for at least modest depression and anxiety, and did not have other significant risk factors (e.g., mania, self-harm). Participants completed a battery of measures that assessed …

Promising Findings That The Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators’ Program (Chime) Strengthens Early Childhood Teachers’ Emotional Resources: An Iterative Study, Holly Hatton-Bowers, Caron Clark, Gilbert R. Parra, Jessica L. Calvi, Michael Yellow Bird, Pearl Avari, Jaclynn Foged, John Smith

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Findings suggest that an eight-week mindfulness compassion-based program, Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators (CHIME), is a feasible professional development intervention for early childhood (EC) teachers to support their emotion regulation and psychological and workplace well-being. We offer preliminary evidence that learning about mindfulness, self-compassion, and social-emotional learning supports EC teachers in strengthening their knowledge and application of practices to be more mindful and less emotionally reactive and emotionally exhausted at work. In analyzing both EC teacher feedback and survey data from two pilot studies, there was promising evidence that participating in CHIME enhanced awareness of emotions and the development of …

Psychometric Evaluation Of The Transgender Congruence Scale, T. Zachary Huit, Allura L. Ralston, J, Kyle Haws, Natalie Holt, Debra A. Hope, Jae Puckett, Richard Mocarski, Nathan Woodruff

Trans Collaborations Academic Papers

Introduction Despite increased attention to transgender and gender diverse (TGD) issues in psychological literature during the past decade, gaps remain for psychometric validation of TGD-specific measures. Kozee et al. (Psychology of Women Quarterly 36(2):179–196, 2012) addressed such gaps by creating the Transgender Congruence Scale (TCS), measuring gender acceptance and feelings of gender congruence between internal and external attributes across a broad range of gender identities. The current study extended Kozee and colleagues’ work by further examining the psychometric properties of the TCS.

Methods Between October and November of 2017, 210 transmasculine, transfeminine, and gender diverse adults between ages 19 …

Husker To Husker Nightline: A Peer-Run Warm Line Texting Service Development At University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Audrey Wilhelm

Honors Theses

A desire to develop a service where students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) could reach out to their fellow students in search of improving their mental health and well-being laid the groundwork for this project. After reviewing various ideas, a peer-run warm line service best matched the goals of the project. After completing preliminary research, costs and benefits of warm lines were compared to determine the operations and best practices for warm line services. Obtaining funding for the development of this service was another main focus because funding is required for this idea to become a reality. Consequently, this …

Atheism As A Concealable Stigmatized Identity: Outness, Anticipated Stigma, And Well-Being, Dena M. Abbott, Debra Mollen

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

In a preliminary exploration of atheists using a concealable stigmatized identity framework, we investigated outness, identity magnitude, anticipated stigma, and psychological and physical well-being. Atheists (N = 1,024) in the United States, completed measures of outness, atheist identity magnitude, anticipated stigma, and psychological and physical well-being online. Consistent with predictions, we found small but significant associations between (a) anticipated stigma and well-being, (b) social components of atheist identity magnitude and outness as well as well-being, and (c) outness and well-being. A significant and moderate association was found between anticipated stigma and outness. There were significant, small indirect effects of …

Workforce Well-Being: Personal And Workplace Contributions To Early Educators' Depression Across Settings, Amy M. Roberts, Kathleen C. Gallagher, Alexandra Daro, Iheoma Iruka, Susan Sarver

Buffet Early Childhood Institute Reports and Publications

Building on research demonstrating the importance of teachers' well-being, this study examined personal and contextual factors related to early childhood educators' (n =1640) depressive symptoms across licensed child care homes, centers, and schools. Aspects of teachers' beliefs, economic status, and work-related stress were explored, and components of each emerged as significant in an OLS regression. After controlling for demographics and setting, teachers with more adult-centered beliefs, lower wages, multiple jobs, no health insurance, more workplace demands, and fewer work-related resources, had more depressive symptoms. Adult-centered beliefs were more closely associated with depression for teachers working in home-based settings compared …

Spiritual Well-Being And Its Relationship To Resilience In Young People: A Mixed Methods Case Study, Lindsay Smith, Ruth Webber, Erica Defrain

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Questions have arisen recently about the role of spiritual well-being in strengthening resilience of youth. To explore this association, this case study focused on the relationships and connectedness of young people who attend one religious organization as a means of enhancing their spiritual well-being. In line with the purposes of an instrumental case study, different sources of data (quantitative and qualitative) were collected on the phenomenon of interest—spiritual well-being. A theoretical purposive sample of 65 people participated in the study. A mixed methods research approach guided this case study, which incorporated both single- and multicase study techniques. Through an abductive …

Does Being Rural Matter?: The Roles Of Rurality, Social Support, And Social Self-Efficacy In First-Year College Student Adjustment, Allison L. Bitz Phd

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

One out of every three first-year college students will not return for a second year of college (Postsecondary Education Opportunity, 2010). Due to a variety of factors, minority students are at an even higher risk of dropping out of college. Rural youth, comprising approximately 22% of the nation’s total youth, form a significant minority population; yet the rural student experience in college has not yet been widely considered in research. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore college adjustment and its predictors among first-year students, with an emphasis on the role of rurality in college adjustment. Social self-efficacy, …