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All Master's Theses

Theses/Dissertations

2018

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Gorilla Life-Stage Comparison Of Head Orientation, Lisa Wilding Jan 2018

Gorilla Life-Stage Comparison Of Head Orientation, Lisa Wilding

All Master's Theses

Staring by primates, as well as other species of animals, can be perceived as a threat and averting that gaze can minimize potential conflict. Given that gorillas are highly sexually dimorphic, they may use this staring and gaze aversion strategy more than physical contact. Due to the shape of the eye and the pigmented sclera in some primates, eye gaze can be difficult to determine, whereas, head orientation may be a more salient cue. The current study documents developmental differences among age-sex classes of captive western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in six head orientation categories (Head Toward …

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Development Of The Clark And Becker Scale Of Symptomatology (Cbs): Symptom-Level Item Performance, Michael Clark Jan 2018

Development Of The Clark And Becker Scale Of Symptomatology (Cbs): Symptom-Level Item Performance, Michael Clark

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Depression and anxiety are common, often comorbid, mental disorders. Many researchers have developed efficient self- and clinician-report measures of depression and anxiety. Most of these existing measures of depression and anxiety measures yield overall or specific subscale scores. The Clark and Becker Scale of Symptomatology (CBS) was designed to measure individual symptoms of depression and anxiety. It utilizes a different type of bipolar scaling to aid in accurate symptom endorsement. Unlike other pre-existing measures, the CBS is designed to be interpreted at the symptom level. The CBS was administered to a nationally representative sample (n = 530). Concurrent validity …

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Enrichment Assessment For Geriatric African Old World Monkeys Under Human Care, Amanda E. Osborne Jan 2018

Enrichment Assessment For Geriatric African Old World Monkeys Under Human Care, Amanda E. Osborne

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I proposed a study that determines whether enrichment regimes used for geriatric African Old World monkeys living under human care are effectively eliciting affiliative and active behaviors. I wanted to determine if alternating enrichment types used by the zoo staff were eliciting different social behaviors and locomotion in non-human primates based on different factors including ages, species, and sexes. My data collection took place at the Association of Zoos and Aquarium (AZA) accredited, Oregon Zoo in Portland, Oregon. I conducted my research from 11 June to 5 August 2017. I collected data from eight individuals of varying ages from three …

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Derived Textual Control In Recreational Activity Schedules With Children With Autism, Holly Kolb Jan 2018

Derived Textual Control In Recreational Activity Schedules With Children With Autism, Holly Kolb

All Master's Theses

Activity schedules are commonly used with individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. The primary advantage of activity schedules is that they help the learner complete tasks independently. One child with autism, who was familiar with using pictorial activity schedules, participated in this study. This study was done to examine the use of a conditional discrimination procedure for helping children with autism transfer from the use of a pictorial activity schedule to the use of a textual activity schedule. The participant was exposed to a conditional discrimination training procedure before being tested for the ability to follow a textual activity …

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Spike-Based Classification Of Uci Datasets With Multi-Layer Resume-Like Tempotron, Sami Abdul-Wahid Jan 2018

Spike-Based Classification Of Uci Datasets With Multi-Layer Resume-Like Tempotron, Sami Abdul-Wahid

All Master's Theses

Spiking neurons are a class of neuron models that represent information in timed sequences called ``spikes.'' Though predominantly used in neuro-scientific investigations, spiking neural networks (SNN) can be applied to machine learning problems such as classification and regression. SNN are computationally more powerful per neuron than traditional neural networks. Though training time is slow on general purpose computers, spike-based hardware implementations are faster and have shown capability for ultra-low power consumption. Additionally, various SNN training algorithms have achieved comparable performance with the State of the Art on the Fisher Iris dataset. Our main contribution is a software implementation of the …

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Slip Estimation From Real-Time Gps In Cascadia, Jesse Senko Jan 2018

Slip Estimation From Real-Time Gps In Cascadia, Jesse Senko

All Master's Theses

Current systems for rapidly characterizing earthquakes are based on seismic, teleseismic, and Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (DART) buoy data. These systems have significant limitations that hinder them from making rapid and accurate assessments of large earthquakes used for local tsunami warnings where run-up can occur minutes after the earthquake. Seismic and teleseismic networks saturate around Mw 7.0. Tsunami waves take tens of minutes to reach the buoys, so rapid assessment is impossible. GPS overcomes these limitations for large earthquakes. GPS does not saturate, and the offsets being detected occur very quickly after an earthquake. This thesis develops …

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Sex Differences In Glycosylated Hemoglobin In Mauritian Origin Long-Tailed Macaques (Macaca Fascicularis), Ricardo A. Fernandes Jan 2018

Sex Differences In Glycosylated Hemoglobin In Mauritian Origin Long-Tailed Macaques (Macaca Fascicularis), Ricardo A. Fernandes

All Master's Theses

Diabetes is a common metabolic condition that affects the body’s ability to maintain normal glycemic control. This disease process can occur in primates. Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) range throughout Southeast Asia and were introduced to Mauritius approximately 400 years ago. This genetically unique population has been the source of a large proportion of captive individuals used in research and macaques are the preferred animal model for diabetic research. Additionally, long-tailed macaques are successful in exploiting habitat overlapping with humans. This urbanization results in changes in the normal diet of these animals which can contribute to poor health outcomes …

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Talking About How: Variation In The Use Of How And Its Definition, Maili Jonas Jan 2018

Talking About How: Variation In The Use Of How And Its Definition, Maili Jonas

All Master's Theses

This study identified the patterns that represent the unconventional ways that students used how in academic essays, determined the frequency of each pattern, and for the sake of comparison, searched for those patterns in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), in both the spoken and academic written registers. The results showed that a sample of first-year students at Central Washington University (CWU) used the complementizer how as that in their essays, a usage more common in spoken registers. However, there was some evidence of how as that in academic COCA searches, showing that the usage may be in the …

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Coloration, Camouflage, And Sexual Dichromatism In The Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus Oreganus), Jefferson Brooks Jan 2018

Coloration, Camouflage, And Sexual Dichromatism In The Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus Oreganus), Jefferson Brooks

All Master's Theses

In some viperid snakes, natural selection has shaped coloration and patterning to match local habitats, and for males to show greater warning coloration than females due to a less sedentary lifestyle. The Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus) is likely the most abundant ambush predator in eastern Washington, yet little is known about its color variation, how color patterns interact with their habitats, and if male and female snakes show differences in patterning or color. To explore how snake color might interact with the colors of their environment, I used standardized digital photography to record both snake and substrate coloration. …

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Data Visualization And Classification Of Artificially Created Images, Dmytro Dovhalets Jan 2018

Data Visualization And Classification Of Artificially Created Images, Dmytro Dovhalets

All Master's Theses

Visualization of multidimensional data is a long-standing challenge in machine learning and knowledge discovery. A problem arises as soon as 4-dimensions are introduced since we live in a 3-dimensional world. There are methods out there which can visualize multidimensional data, but loss of information and clutter are still a problem. General Line Coordinates (GLC) can losslessly project n-dimensional data in 2- dimensions. A new method is introduced based on GLC called GLC-L. This new method can do interactive visualization, dimension reduction, and supervised learning. One of the applications of GLC-L is transformation of vector data into image data. This novel …

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Life In The Dirt: Factors Influencing The Behavior And Distribution Of Spea Intermontana In Eastern Washington State, Corey Brumbaugh Jan 2018

Life In The Dirt: Factors Influencing The Behavior And Distribution Of Spea Intermontana In Eastern Washington State, Corey Brumbaugh

All Master's Theses

I divided my thesis into two major studies focusing on the Great Basin Spadefoot Toad, Spea intermontana, at the Beverley Dunes (Beverley, WA). The first study explored the effects of temperature and water level on the rate of metamorphosis. We gathered data on rates of development, survival, body mass, snout-vent length, and hind leg length of metamorphs under 4 treatments: 20C x High Water, 30C x High Water, 20C x Water Loss, and 30C x Water Loss. These data show that temperature has a stronger effect on the overall rate of metamorphosis of Great Basin Spadefoot Toads. The second …

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Geographic Classification Of Wines Using Their Elemental And Water Isotopic Composition; Special Emphasis On Washington State, Usa, Shirley Orellana Jan 2018

Geographic Classification Of Wines Using Their Elemental And Water Isotopic Composition; Special Emphasis On Washington State, Usa, Shirley Orellana

All Master's Theses

The frequency and scope of wine fraud cases have increased worldwide, leaving wineries vulnerable to damage in reputation and potential lost revenue. In the United States of America, Washington State (WA) is the second-largest premium wine producer where wine fraud could have a significant impact on the industry. In an effort to reduce this risk, advanced analytical instrumentation and statistics were employed to chemically characterize, and thus geographically classify, 118 wines from 4 major wine producing regions located on 3 continents, including 64 wines from WA. Focus was on the analysis of inorganic and chemically stable tracers that are conserved …

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Attitudes Toward Anonymous Public Nudes, Marianna Wendt Jan 2018

Attitudes Toward Anonymous Public Nudes, Marianna Wendt

All Master's Theses

While technologically-mediated expressions of sexuality have been previously studied, there is very little research regarding anonymous public nudes (APNs). APNs are nude photographs which are taken or cropped so as not to include the face or other identifying characteristics, and posted on the Internet. This differs from sexting in that the photographs are meant to be seen by an audience of strangers online, rather than one or a few trusted individuals. The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of APNs. Sixty-seven male and 160 female students over the age of 18 were recruited from Central Washington University to …

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Comparisons Of Captive Gibbons’ (Hylobatidae) Intrapair Behaviors Indicative Of The Pair Bond, Samantha Jones Jan 2018

Comparisons Of Captive Gibbons’ (Hylobatidae) Intrapair Behaviors Indicative Of The Pair Bond, Samantha Jones

All Master's Theses

I aimed to better understand captive gibbons’ pair bonds by studying behaviors that may indicate the relationship’s quality. I completed this research at The Gibbon Conservation Center (GCC) in Santa Clarita, California and observed four species: eastern hoolock (Hoolock leuconedys), Javan (Hylobates moloch), and pileated (Hylobates pileatus) gibbons; and a siamang (Symphalangus syndactylus). I conducted research from 19 April- 29 May 2017 using scan and focal animal sampling. I focused on nine pairs, and recorded gibbons’ grooming bouts, affiliative/agonistic/play behaviors, mating, behavioral synchrony, locomotion, and proximity. Previous researchers focused on duetting in …

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Effects Of Pre-Exercise Ice Slurry Ingestion On Physiological And Perceptual Measures In Athletes With Spinal Cord Injuries, Alexis Moore, Kelly Pritchett, Robert Pritchett, Elizabeth Broad Jan 2018

Effects Of Pre-Exercise Ice Slurry Ingestion On Physiological And Perceptual Measures In Athletes With Spinal Cord Injuries, Alexis Moore, Kelly Pritchett, Robert Pritchett, Elizabeth Broad

All Master's Theses

Athletes with spinal cord injuries (SCI) have an impaired ability to thermoregulate during exercise, leading to an increased core temperature (Tcore) due to a decrease in sweat response. Elevated core temperature may result in premature onset of fatigue and decreased athletic performance. Therefore, precooling techniques that decrease Tcore before exercise may increase the storage capacity for metabolic heat production, thereby improving exercise performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of pre-exercise ice slurry ingestion as a precooling method in elite athletes with SCI during a match simulation. Employing a field-based, counterbalanced-design, subjects were …

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Determination Of The Oxidative Capacity Of Soot Toward Gsh And Characterization Of Soot Physicochemical Properties, Kaylee Troth Jan 2018

Determination Of The Oxidative Capacity Of Soot Toward Gsh And Characterization Of Soot Physicochemical Properties, Kaylee Troth

All Master's Theses

Fine atmospheric particulate matter (PM2.5) emitted during the combustion of fossil and biomass fuels is known to adversely affect human health. While the underlying mechanisms are thought to be driven by the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), specific particle characteristics responsible for this detrimental effect are not well understood. In this research, the quantitative determination of the biologically relevant antioxidant, glutathione (GSH), was optimized for use as an indicator of oxidative stress to shed light on relevant particle characteristics. This was accomplished via fluorescent spectroscopy for GSH determination by way of reaction with o-phthalaldehyde (OPA), a …

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Tsunami Excitation Estimation From Real-Time Gnss, Catherine Jeffries Jan 2018

Tsunami Excitation Estimation From Real-Time Gnss, Catherine Jeffries

All Master's Theses

Tsunami early warning systems currently comprise modeling of observations from the global seismic network, deep-ocean DART buoys, and a global distribution of tide gauges. While these tools work well for tsunamis traveling teleseismic distances, saturation of seismic magnitude estimation in the near field can result in significant underestimation of tsunami excitation for local warning (Wang et al., 2012). Moreover, DART buoy and tide gauge observations cannot be used to rectify the underestimation in the available time, typically 10-20 minutes, before local runup occurs. Real-time GNSS measurements of coseismic offsets may be used to estimate finite faulting within 1-2 minutes and, …

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Your Thoughts Projected: Television Comedies, Economic Content, And American Economic Attitudes, 1949-1990, Cody J. Lolos Jan 2018

Your Thoughts Projected: Television Comedies, Economic Content, And American Economic Attitudes, 1949-1990, Cody J. Lolos

All Master's Theses

This study analyzes the relationship between American television audiences and television comedies in the latter half of the twentieth century. The driving questions are how did television comedies depict economic content and how was that content related to American audiences' economic perceptions? By analyzing eight television comedy programs, this study asserts that not only did television comedies contain a substantial amount of economic content, including consumption, thrift, employment, and other significant and relevant economic factors, but the economic content found in television comedies accurately reflected Americans' economic attitudes over time. As a result, television comedies' economic content further correlated with …

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Hypertension Prevalence Trends Among Mexican-Americans: Nhanes 1999-2016, Sandra S. Valencia Jan 2018

Hypertension Prevalence Trends Among Mexican-Americans: Nhanes 1999-2016, Sandra S. Valencia

All Master's Theses

Hypertension is a grave health issue affecting millions of adults in the United States (US). Uncontrolled hypertension can lead to cardiovascular disease, including stroke, heart attack, and heart failure. Current National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2015-2016 data reports that 29% of US adults above the age of 18 have hypertension. The objective of this project was to determine current and past hypertension prevalence trends among Mexican Americans (MAs) and non-Hispanic whites (NH-Whites) using NHANES data from 1999 to 2016, as well as the current American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) blood pressure guidelines of …

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Stream Water And Soil Water Chemistry After The Table Mountain Wildfire, Washington, Usa, Vincent J. Roccanova Jan 2018

Stream Water And Soil Water Chemistry After The Table Mountain Wildfire, Washington, Usa, Vincent J. Roccanova

All Master's Theses

Analyses of major and trace elements, major ions, and nutrient concentrations were made to investigate how stream water and soil water chemistry changed over 16 months following the Table Mountain wildfire. Sites with different burn severity were also compared. The fire occurred in 2012 in Kittitas County, north of Ellensburg, Washington. Samples were collected at severely burned, moderately burned, and unburned field sites from within and adjacent to the wildfire perimeter. Total nitrogen concentrations increased in the second year after the fire in both the severely and moderately burned sites. In contrast, total phosphorus was variable at all three sites …

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Rock Features Of The Upper Klamath Basin: An Integrated Approach To Identification, Roman Jakien Jan 2018

Rock Features Of The Upper Klamath Basin: An Integrated Approach To Identification, Roman Jakien

All Master's Theses

Rock features are human-made rock structures, often created by native peoples in the past and currently recorded as archaeological sites. In the Upper Klamath Basin of Oregon/California, these features are often difficult to identify. As a result, some features are left unrecorded and unprotected from land management activities. To help protect these sites, a rock feature recordation system was developed, formatted to help archaeologists identify, classify, determine an origin, and assign a general age to rock features discovered in the field. This guide includes a series of dichotomous keys and recordation forms, supplemented with original illustrations and contextual data gathered …

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Variation In Past Counterfactual Constructions, Victoria Zencak Jan 2018

Variation In Past Counterfactual Constructions, Victoria Zencak

All Master's Theses

The two past counterfactual constructions under investigation in this study are the past counterfactual conditional (Type 3) and the past counterfactual wish complement clause (PCWCC). Each of these has both a standard and variant form. The verb in the standard forms is had + past participle; the verb in the variant forms is would have + past participle. Although reference books and textbooks acknowledge variant forms, generally describing them as informal or conversational, they have not received serious scrutiny. It was the goal of this study to see whether variant forms are currently common in usage and to understand more …

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Spatial And Temporal Characterization Of The Petrified Springs Fault, Central Walker Lane, Nevada: Documenting Middle Miocene Dextral Slip, Andrew Hoxey Jan 2018

Spatial And Temporal Characterization Of The Petrified Springs Fault, Central Walker Lane, Nevada: Documenting Middle Miocene Dextral Slip, Andrew Hoxey

All Master's Theses

The Central Walker Lane, NV is an active dextral shear zone superimposed on the western boundary of the Basin and Range extensional province. Approximately 25% of dextral shear along the Pacific-North American plate boundary accommodated in the Walker Lane, a NW-striking, intracontinental dextral fault system in eastern California- western Nevada. In the Central Walker Lane, shear is accommodated on five major NW- striking faults, one of which is the Petrified Springs fault, with poorly constrained slip magnitudes, slip rates, and initiation ages. We completed new detailed geologic mapping, combined with structural studies, and 40Ar/39Ar geochronology document offset …

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A Zooarchaeological Analysis Of Hole-In-The-Wall Canyon (45kt12) And French Rapids (45kt13) Sites: Ginkgo State Park, Washington, Matt Johnson Jan 2018

A Zooarchaeological Analysis Of Hole-In-The-Wall Canyon (45kt12) And French Rapids (45kt13) Sites: Ginkgo State Park, Washington, Matt Johnson

All Master's Theses

A taxonomic and taphonomic faunal analysis was completed for the entire zooarchaeological collection (n=5,354) for two prehistoric archaeological housepit sites, Hole-in-the-Wall Canyon (45KT12) and French Rapids (45KT13). Both sites are located near Vantage, Washington, within the inundated area of the Wanapum Reservoir. Work focused on compiling site records, projectile point analysis, and radiocarbon dating in order to study site chronology, as well as the faunal analysis itself. Site 45KT12 includes at least two occupations; one occurring around 2000 cal B.P., and one beginning around 1100 cal B.P. and continuing at least through 650 cal B.P. A single analytical unit was …

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Comparing Mothers’ And Fathers’ Helicopter Parenting As Predictors Of Self-Efficacy Among Emerging Adults In College, Jineui Kim Jan 2018

Comparing Mothers’ And Fathers’ Helicopter Parenting As Predictors Of Self-Efficacy Among Emerging Adults In College, Jineui Kim

All Master's Theses

This study examined the association between helicopter parenting and self-efficacy among emerging adults in college. While some existing research revealed that emerging adults could benefit from helicopter parenting, previous studies identified a wide range of negative outcomes of helicopter parenting on emerging adult’s psychological well-being. Also, previous research has shown that mothers and fathers play different roles in parenting. This study adds to understanding of this phenomenon by comparing the salience of mothers’ and fathers’ helicopter parenting as a predictor of self-efficacy among emerging adults in college. Data were collected from 175 participants between the ages of 18-24 by using …

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Sign Modulation By Chimpanzees To Produce Interrogatives, Kailie Dombrausky Jan 2018

Sign Modulation By Chimpanzees To Produce Interrogatives, Kailie Dombrausky

All Master's Theses

Native signers of American Sign Language produce interrogatives by holding signs for an extended duration while employing the questioning look. The questioning look is defined as raised eyebrows, a tilted head, and direct eye contact maintained for the duration of the utterance. Chimpanzees who communicate using signs have demonstrated modulation of signs including held sign, raised brow, and eye gaze. The present study used archived video data to compare the duration of signs when the chimpanzees did or did not employ the questioning look. In both single and multi-sign utterances, the chimpanzees held their signs for a mean of 0.6 …

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Water Demand, Adaptive Capacity, And Drought: An Analysis Of The Upper Klamath Basin, Oregon And California, Patricia Snyder Jan 2018

Water Demand, Adaptive Capacity, And Drought: An Analysis Of The Upper Klamath Basin, Oregon And California, Patricia Snyder

All Master's Theses

Freshwater demand and scarcity issues are an issue of global concern, in particular for the American West as global climate models suggest precipitation regime changes and an increase of drought. This research conducts a case-study of the Upper Klamath Basin, located in south-central Oregon and northern California, a microcosm of the arid and semi-arid American West that experienced an economically, socially, and ecologically impactful drought in the early 2000s. Through a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods this research: 1) identifies key stakeholders, their goals and key policies; 2) conducts an adaptive capacity assessment of water management within the basin; …

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Variability In The Debitage Of The Early Holocene Lithic Assemblages Of The Sanders (45kt315) Site, Alexis Dyson Jan 2018

Variability In The Debitage Of The Early Holocene Lithic Assemblages Of The Sanders (45kt315) Site, Alexis Dyson

All Master's Theses

This thesis applies an analytic strategy based on a Darwinian evolutionary theoretical framework to measure variation in the cost and performance of stone tool manufacture and use at the Sanders (45KT315) site over time. Using this model, this thesis identified the selective conditions present in the technological organization of stone tool assemblages at the Sanders site. These conditions were identified by measuring variability in the debitage using mutually exclusive paradigmatic classifications. The classifications measure technological, functional, and raw tool stone material property dimensions. This thesis identifies the extent that debitage could be used to address variability between the Lower Lithic …

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Criminological Self-Efficacy: Increased Or Hindered From Crime Tv Shows, Dorothy Moore Jan 2018

Criminological Self-Efficacy: Increased Or Hindered From Crime Tv Shows, Dorothy Moore

All Master's Theses

There is an age-old question that surrounds whether or not media have an effect on its viewers. There is substantial evidence that supports the claim that violent content in media may increase relational, physical, and/or overall aggression levels. The aim of the current study is to explore the relationship between several factors that may be related to one’s belief in one’s ability (self-efficacy) to commit and get away with murder. These factors are the amount of crime TV a person watches, aggressive tendency, recklessness tendency, and potential protective factors. It is hypothesized that the more crime TV watched, the higher …

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Confidence In Academic Testing: The Effect Of Induced Checking And Anxiety On University Students' Emotional Responses To, And Performance In, Academic Challenge, Elijah Bruner Jan 2018

Confidence In Academic Testing: The Effect Of Induced Checking And Anxiety On University Students' Emotional Responses To, And Performance In, Academic Challenge, Elijah Bruner

All Master's Theses

Academic tests such as the American College Testing (ACT), Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), and National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) have been used to assess academic aptitude. Research suggests that both test anxiety and test emotions (positive and negative) influence academic performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of test anxiety and uncertainty (i.e., re-checking items) on performance and test emotions. It was hypothesized that induced checking and participant anxiety would negatively predict performance and positive testing emotions, and positively predict negative testing emotions. It was also hypothesized that induced checking and anxiety would interact, with …

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