Education Commons^™

Child Development Degree Program: Careers Spotlight & Panel Discussion, Amanda Chorak, Jenae Pratscher, Dajah Bibbs, Brittany Alsvig, Kayla Deubel, Margaret Landis, Savannah Vaughan, Abigail Gentry, Alexa Gonzalez, Kaitlyn Fish, Ashley Camden, Kathleen Hammerberg, Sarah O’Neal, Kenzy Mallard, Sutton Bate, Kara Vallarta

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Join session via Microsoft Teams.

The Child Development program within the School of Education has continued to grow and strengthen its identity over the recent years. Students currently seek diverse career paths working with children and families following completion and graduation from the B.S. Child Development program. A group of undergraduate students from the spring 2024 CDEV 490 Senior Seminar will facilitate a discussion with a panel of helping professionals connected to the Child Development degree program. The panel discussion will give spotlight to the variety of career paths the degree prepares individuals for and will include both ONU Child …

Using Case Studies In The Classroom: Short Version Of A Presentation Made To The Nsta In Denver Mar 2024, Aggie R. Veld, Emily Blucker, Matthew Aude, Haley Lloyd, Madison Lockhart

Scholar Week 2016 - present

In the Fall of 2023 students in EDUC 383 middle and Secondary Science Methods explored science instruction using case studies. With the upcoming NSTA national conference, the students wrote a proposal to present on teaching with case studies, using one case study in particular, “The Savegre: A Model for Sustainability”, authored by Emilie Janes, an Olivet alum and Dr. Aggie Veld, Professor at Olivet. “While searching for a destination for the best spring break ever, five students in an ecology class happen upon a story of sustainability that inspires them to visit a tropical resort devoted to ecotourism.” Therein lies …

Survey Of The Performance Of 5 Nm Goldnanoparticles Within An Ssdna-Stabilizedbiosensor For The Detection Of Hg2+, Madalyn J. Zagajowski

ELAIA

The formation of a fluorescent biosensor complex consisting of 5 nm diameter gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) was conducted using a low-cost, efficient binding method. The analytical potential for the complex to detect mercuric ions (Hg2+) in an aqueous solution was assessed through the collection of UV-vis and fluorescence spectrometry data for the AuNP-ssDNA complex. The researcher aimed to investigate this potential in case the nanoparticles formed utilizing this method were too small to result in detectable fluorescence. To eliminate this possibility, the complex synthesized from this specific method was qualitatively evaluated to determine if it consistently and …

Analysis Of The Population Structure And Migrationhabits Of The Northern Leopard Frog (Lithobates Pipiens) At Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Gretchen A. Brinkman

ELAIA

Massive amphibian declines of recent years have pushed researchers to pursue population genetics surveys and assess the status of these essential components of many ecosystems. The Northern Leopard Frog (Lithobates pipiens) has continuously experienced population declines across the continental United States due to a combination of habitat losses and environmental changes. Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie houses a considerable portion of L. pipiens in Illinois, and the two creek watersheds studied within this location provide ideal conditions to support these animals. Because this prairie restoration project is a relatively recent development, further assessments regarding the population structure and degree of migration …

The Effect Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On The Self-Esteem Of College Students, Maggie J. Van Heemst

ELAIA

Background Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are known to predict negative health and mental health effects later in life. One in two Americans has experienced at least one ACE. This issue is prevalent across class, race, and ethnicity. However, little is known about ACEs and the young adult population. Methods A survey was conducted to measure ACEs and self-esteem in fifty college students. The hypothesis was a negative correlation between ACE and self-esteem scores. Results A small negative correlation was found between ACEs and self-esteem in college students. The average ACE score was 3.9 and the average self-esteem score was 16.78. …

Tracking Simulated Somatosensory Deficiencies That Affect Postural Stability Through Detrended Fluctuation Analysis, Cameron L. Steele

ELAIA

Falls are a prevalent problem among elderly populations. Falls increase the cost of healthcare, frequently cause severe injuries, and negatively affect quality of life. Lack of postural stability is a major contributing factor to falls, with postural stability defined as the correct biomechanical execution based on sensory feedback. Types of sensory feedback include vision, vestibular, proprioceptive, and somatosensory. This study focuses on the lack of postural stability in quiet standing (standing upright and still) due to somatosensory and vision deficiencies. To track these deficiencies, fifty-one subjects stood for sixty seconds on two force plates, and their center of pressure (COP) …

Evaluating College Students’ Health Literacyand Its Effects On Their Perceptions Of Informationconcerning Mask-Wearing In The Covid-19 Pandemic, Hannah S. Ketchum

ELAIA

Background Mask-wearing was a controversial and polarizing phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beliefs concerning mask-wearing differed depending on sources of information concerning the pandemic, levels of health literacy, political leaning, demographics, or other factors. This project attempted to connect college students’ level of health literacy to their understanding of and adherence to mask-wearing in the COVID- 19 pandemic. There is a gap in research connecting health literacy to understanding information concerning pandemics and an even bigger lack of studies conducted that relate college students’ health literacy to their perception of illnesses or pandemics. It is important to understand the impact …

The Effect Of Masks On Allergic Rhinitis Symptomsrelated To Ragweed And Its Influence On College Students, Katherine A. Knutte

ELAIA

Background This study explored the effect of masks on allergic rhinitis related to ragweed. Research shows surgical and KN95 masks reduce nasal symptoms arising from dust, pollen, and ragweed. Other studies have contradictory findings about the effect of masks on ocular symptoms. Very few studies have examined the effect of masks on early and late allergic rhinitis. Methods This qualitative study involved thirty college students aged 18 to 25 from Olivet Nazarene University with self-reported or physician-diagnosed allergic rhinitis on November 15, 2022. Participants were randomly assigned to a control (no mask), surgical, or KN95 mask group and walked around …

A Curriculum Designed To Teach Elementary-Age Children In Diverse Settings The Kingdom Concept Of Loving One’S Neighbor, Abigail J. Flood

ELAIA

United States Census data from 2020 show that the country is becoming increasingly diverse and urbanized. Other research shows children are aware of race from an early age and can pick up biases and stereotypes by watching the adults around them. However, there are no children’s ministry curricula that specifically address how children should navigate differences from a biblical perspective. To fill this gap, a children’s ministry curriculum was written to model how children can love their neighbors like Jesus did, especially those who look different from themselves. The curriculum is comprised of an introduction for the ministry leader, five …

Assessment Of Walls With Phase Change Materials Through Synergistic And Performance Measures Using Experimental And Simulated Test Houses, Cory J. Enfield

ELAIA

Current research on living and working spaces continues to strive to identify the most energy-efficient methods for heating and cooling, and many novel technologies have emerged from the research. One of the most promising, and the topic of this quantitative analysis, is the retrofitting of phase change materials (PCMs) into the walls of structures. Research has shown positive results, such as a reduced transfer of heat through walls, when PCMs are retrofitted into wall construction. The present research takes previously gathered data from test houses, built with typical North American framing, and simulates an additional fourteen test houses from the …

Police Officers’ Perceptions Regarding Their Interactions With The Disabled In Kankakee County, Jilliann M. English

ELAIA

Background Previous research shows the rate of crime against people with disabilities is significantly higher than the general population. Despite this, gaps in the training and resources for officers to assist those with disabilities may exist. Eadens et al. (2008) explored this issue by evaluating officer attitudes towards intellectual disabilities. Kankakee County has a significant disabled population, and Illinois is ranked very low in the improvement of related policies, making this a valuable area of interest. Methods This study utilized the modified version of the Social Distance Questionnaire (SDQ) used by Eadens et al. (2008), which is both qualitative and …

Identifying The Optimal Pedagogy For Preparing Undergraduates For The Mcat Exam, Alyssa J. Black

ELAIA

Excelling on the MCAT is an essential step for undergraduate students preparing for a future as a physician in the medical field. Previous research has made links to MCAT performance and success in the medical field, yet there is a lack of research on how to best prepare undergraduate students for this extensive exam. Various research has been done on assessing the most effective studying strategies for undergraduates on typical collegiate exams, which students often translate to their MCAT studying. To assess the effectiveness of these practiced pedagogies on the MCAT, a social science experiment using a pre- and post-test …

The Effect Of Education On Support For Tnr As A Method Of Feral Cat Management, Kaitlyn F. Bishop

ELAIA

A feral cat is a cat that is untamed and not suitable for placement in a home. Through their naturally high rate of reproduction and lack of population management, feral cat populations have grown exponentially, leading to overpopulation. Feral cats effect their communities through their impact on wildlife, financial burden, and health risk to both humans and other animals. Due to the impact feral cats place on their communities, multiple management methods have been suggested. Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is a humane, effective method of management; however, controversy surrounds its use. Existing studies have determined that age, gender, and past experiences with …

Preprocessing Of Astronomical Images From The Neowise Survey For Near-Earth Asteroid Detection With Machine Learning, Rachel Meyer

ELAIA

Asteroid detection is a common field in astronomy for planetary defense, requiring observations from survey telescopes to detect and classify different objects. The amount of data collected each night is continually increasing as new and better-designed telescopes begin collecting information each year. This amount of data is quickly becoming unmanageable, and researchers are looking for ways to better process this data. The most feasible current solution is to implement computer algorithms to automatically detect these sources and then use machine learning to create a more efficient and accurate method of classification. Implementation of such methods has previously focused on larger …

Kankakee In Deindustrialization: An Oral History Approach, Rachel H. Shepard

ELAIA

The City of Kankakee was an industrialized city that prospered economically for decades. Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, economic trends shifted for Kankakee and the surrounding communities. The major factories, such as Roper Corporation and A.O. Smith, migrated their source of production from Kankakee to other regions of the United States and abroad during the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, the declining industrial economic activity led to changing community perceptions. Kankakee is an example of the “Rust Belt” region, a region in the Midwestern and Northeastern States of the United States where declining industrial activity occurred throughout the …

Deepfake It Til You Make It: How To Make A Short Film, Adam G. Lee

ELAIA

A recent development in the realm of computer technology is the deepfake. Deepfakes, which train a computer model to digitally superimpose one person’s face onto another body in a separate video, has its uses for good and for ill, with the unfortunate tendency to the latter. The vast majority of deepfakes are used for pornography, most commonly depicting female celebrities as the subjects. At the less notable level, it is also often used for revenge pornography. These aspects of deepfake technology are rarely discussed in mainstream media, which tends to focus on the less harmful uses, such as those for …

Effects Of The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Of 2017 On Nonprofits’ Charitable Contributions, Megan J. Drenth

ELAIA

Background The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), passed in 2017, significantly altered individuals’ taxes for all filing statuses, notably increasing the standard deduction. By nearly doubling the standard deduction, it considerably decreased those individuals choosing the itemized deduction. Due to this, it may impact charitable contributions, a major source of nonprofits’ revenues. Prior studies projected a variety of stances regarding changes in giving levels due to the TCJA. This study attempted to determine the overall effect of the TCJA on nonprofits, as well as within the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) major groups Education, Health, Human Services, Public …

Analysis Of Botulinum Toxin A And Interacting Proteins In Skeletal Muscle Cells: An Investigation Into The Mechanisms Of Botulinum Toxin A As A Treatment For Chronic Exertional Compartment Syndrome, Lauren R. Kee

ELAIA

Background Chronic exertional compartment syndrome (CECS) is a condition in which muscle tissue expands against the surrounding fascia during activity and is compressed along with the nerves and blood vessels within the muscle compartment, leading to abnormally high intracompartmental pressure (ICP) and debilitating pain. Treatment typically includes fasciotomy, which results in significant levels of CECS recurrence; however, botulinum toxin A (BoNT-A) injection has recently been seen to decrease both ICP and pain through an unknown mechanism with little to no recurrence. Methods In this study, PyRosetta was used to model the probability of docking interaction between BoNT-A light or heavy …

Sport Specialization And Injury Risk In Naia Athletes, Connor H. Cavanaugh

ELAIA

Background Sport specialization is defined as intense year-round training in a single sport while excluding other sports. Though some studies have supported a relationship between increased levels of sport specialization and injury risk, others have contradicted this. Previous literature has also suggested that sport specialization levels increase dramatically throughout high school, though this hypothesized increase and possible relationship between sport specialization and injury risk has not been investigated in posthigh school athletes at the NAIA level. Methods This study aimed to investigate the possible relationship between sport specialization and injury risk, as well as how sport specialization levels change throughout …

Impact Of Mindfulness Training On Test Anxiety In College Students, Lindsay Alcock

ELAIA

Background Mindfulness is defined as the state of giving full attention to a stimulus, internal or external, without inducing judgment or becoming reactional about the feelings experienced, positive or negative (Davis & Hayes, 2012). Previous studies have investigated the relationship between mindfulness techniques and the reduction of anxiety (Chambers et al., 2008; Macdonald & Olsen, 2020); a smaller number of studies have considered test anxiety (Cho et al., 2016; Sparks, 2017). Prior research has used multiple mindfulness techniques to measure the impact on test anxiety, but few have isolated mindfulness trainings to compare the relative impact of each type on …

History Lessons From Esther: The Leopold Von Ranke Lecture Delivered At The Phi Alpha Theta Induction Ceremony, Kent R. Olney

Scholarship – Academic Affairs Office

The German historian, Leopold Von Ranke, noted the following: “Every epoch is immediate to God, and its value is not based on what emerges from it, but on its very existence.” My assignment was to respond to Von Ranke’s thoughts. I have done so by drawing on four observations made from the OT book of Esther. These observations pertain to truth, years, obscurity, and heroes; all of them matter to God and all of them should matter to the historian. In a sense, these four elements are the raw materials, or building blocks, of history in any generation. I conclude …

2023: The President's Dinner For Faculty And Staff, Olivet Nazarene University

President's Dinner Programs

Tammy and I welcome work colleagues and their spouses to this 73rd President’s Dinner! That’s a long time. Our professional forefathers and mothers attended the original Dinner in the late 1940s, having just been introduced to the Polaroid camera and the 33 rpm vinyl record. Today, we awe over Artificial Intelligence. My, how things have changed. What remains constant, however, is a called, competent, caring workforce for this University community! Not all universities are communities — of sufficient unity around common belief and practice. Our theme tonight is that we are “A Sent and Scented People” — sent by God …

Remote Learning: Impacting The Future Of Education, Jessica Hollewell

Ed.D. Dissertations

The Coronavirus-19 pandemic impacted society as well as multiple industries, including education. This qualitative research project aims to explore the perceptions of faculty in a small, Midwestern, private K-12 Christian school during the school shutdowns and subsequent remote learning time period from March 2020 to June 2020. Additionally, this research project aims to increase the awareness of the changing needs of students, educators, and families as well as facilitating the needed adjustments to trainings, planning, and resources for future remote learning sessions. The data for this case study was collected through semi-structured interviews at one school building with six faculty …

Commencement Program 2023, Olivet Nazarene University

Commencement Programs

The 110th annual commencement program of Olivet Nazarene College, Bourbonnais, IL, May 5 & 6, 2023.

First-Generation Black Male Students’ Experiences, And Relationships That Shaped College – To - Career Transition, Regina K. Smith

Ed.D. Dissertations

First-generation, Black, male students continue to lag behind their continuing-generation peers in degree attainment, leaving them deficient in obtaining the social and financial upward mobility higher education is expected to afford. Research finds that, despite Black males entering college with higher degree aspirations than their White peers, they were 6 times less likely to achieve them, and only 5% of Black males would eventually graduate with a degree or certificate within three years of enrollment, compared with 32% of White males (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2014). To close this persistent gap, this research sought to understand the activities, …

[Phi Delta Lambda Sponsored Session] "Scholar Adventures": Bibliographic Detective Work As An Academic Librarian, Emily Spunaugle, Karen Knudson

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Academic librarians support the research of their college or university community, but also conduct their own research. This presentation focuses on the intersection of the two, featuring the presenter's experience solving bibliographic mysteries of unique 18th century pamphlets and tracking down books heisted from her library 30 years ago.

Emily D. Spunaugle is Assistant Professor, Humanities and Rare Books Librarian at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. Her research is at the intersection of book history and women's writings of the long eighteenth century and appears in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Romantic Circles, Libraries: Culture, History, and …

Strategies For Supporting College Students Experiencing Grief, Rachel A. Guimond

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Grief and loss are a shared human experience. However, lacking cultural awareness of the impact of grief and insufficient social support can make managing the loss of a loved one very challenging for students. One strategy to support students who experience loss during college is the development of a course that addresses content related to the experience within supportive academic relationships. This presentation will explore research findings about student experiences of grief on college campuses and evidence-based practices for the development and implementation of an academic course on grief.

Specifications Grading Has Improved My Courses!, Bruce J. Heyen

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Specifications grading is a way of "restoring rigor, motivating students, and saving faculty time" as stated in the title of Linda Nilson's book promoting this method. While there are many variations across disciplines, I will present how I am using specifications grading in my Organic Chemistry courses. I label course objectives as essential or non-essential, and students must master these with a quiz score of 80% or greater to obtain the points. Students are allowed multiple attempts to master course objectives.

Literature Review Of Practical Insights Into The Use Of Brain Science And Learning Technology To Enhance Stem Student Learning, Keith Schimmel

Scholar Week 2016 - present

In recent years, college students, including those at Olivet Nazarene University, have experienced an increase in mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression. Researchers think technology is a significant contributor to this trend with social media undermining a viewer’s dignity through constant comparison and ruthless competition for attention. However, social media and teaching/learning technologies also have the potential to enhance efficient, effective student learning. This paper will present the best practices for use of social media and teaching/learning technologies based on a literature review in these areas.

The literature review will seek to tie together knowledge and best practices …

Olivet Nazarene University Annual Catalog 2023-24, Olivet Nazarene University

Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.