Education Commons^™

Threats To School Safety: Examining Levels Of Community Violence And Its Relation To School-Related Threats, Dorie Ross

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite significant media attention provided to school-based acts of violence, these tragic incidents are relatively rare across school environments, leading to increasing challenges in identifying students who may pose a threat. Previous approaches to school discipline, including policies such as zero tolerance, resulted in significant racial disparities among students who received disciplinary consequences inconsistent with the severity of their behaviors or threats. Alternatively, a relatively recent approach that emerged following a series of school shootings in the 1990s was school threat assessment, which focuses on prevention rather than prediction. While it is important to determine students who may pose a …

A Critical Analysis Of The Graduate Socialization Of Racially Minoritized School Psychology Students, Tatiana J. Broughton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

By centering the voices of racially/ethnically minoritized school psychology graduate students I sought to understand how racially minoritized individuals experience their socialization process into the field, to critique and expose oppressive structures in place in their graduate programs, and to utilize garnered information to provide implications to address and dismantle oppressive structure within school psychology programs. Additionally, I sought to provide insight for school psychology training programs by identifying antiracist practices that minoritized graduate students view as supports in their training programs. Participants were eight racial/ethnic minoritized graduate students who participated in one to two virtual interviews discussing their experiences …

Engaging In Self-Directed Leisure Activities During A Homework-Free Holiday: Impacts On Primary School Children In Hong Kong, Vicky C. Tam, Phoebe Chu, Viola Tsang

Journal of Global Education and Research

Homework is a core pedagogical tool used by schools around the world. Yet concern for heavy homework load has been raised regarding stress on students and families and how it may overshadow opportunities for non-academic development. Drawing support from Self-Determination Theory and Hope Theory, an innovative intervention project was designed to create homework-free opportunities for school children to take part in freely chosen self-directed leisure activities. The project was implemented in four primary schools in Hong Kong during the Easter holiday in 2017 and 2018. A mixed-method evaluation was conducted to appraise the experiences of student participants as well as …

Enter The Battleverse: China's Metaverse War, Josh Baughman

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Qualitative Examination Of Sex Therapists' Perspectives Regarding Women With Low Sexual Desire, Tatiana C. Bryan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Female sexual desire disorder is often discussed in the literature, but there is a paucity of data on how sex therapists conceptualize and treat this disorder. To address a gap in the current literature, this study collected the perspectives and attitudes of clinicians working with patients presenting with low sexual desire. This qualitative study aimed to understand how sex therapists’ conceptualization of female sexual desire disorder is used to make decisions about diagnosis, treatment, and assessing patient progress. Grounded theory methodology was used to examine the attitudes and beliefs held by sex therapists. Results were used to generate a framework …

Distributed Leadership: Formal Leadership, Barriers, And Facilitators For Multi-Tiered Systems Of Support, Joseph D. Latimer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Currently, educators are exposed to an increased environment of accountability, which prioritizes student academic achievement. That environment of accountability is reinforced by multiple pieces of legislation that also call attention to the implementation of multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). Even with these federal mandates, educators are continuously overwhelmed implementing MTSS and often leverage distributed leadership practices such as school leadership teams to carry out school improvement tasks. Both distributed leadership practices and MTSS are directly impacted by the practices of formal leadership (i.e., principals). In addition, enablers of and barriers to distributed leadership for MTSS should be investigated. This current …

Surveying The Landscape Of Numbers In U.S. News, John Voiklis, Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein, Bennett Attaway, Uduak G. Thomas, Shivani Ishwar, Patti Parson, Laura Santhanam, Isabella Isaacs-Thomas

Numeracy

The news arguably serves to inform the quantitative reasoning (QR) of news audiences. Before one can contemplate how well the news serves this function, we first need to determine how much QR typical news stories require from readers. This paper assesses the amount of quantitative content present in a wide array of media sources, and the types of QR required for audiences to make sense of the information presented. We build a corpus of 230 US news reports across four topic areas (health, science, economy, and politics) in February 2020. After classifying reports for QR required at both the conceptual …

Effectiveness Of An Early Literacy Intervention For Increasing Teen Parents' Child-Directed Speech And Conversational Turns, Deborah H. Christie

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children’s language ability upon entry to kindergarten is a powerful predictor of reading achievement throughout elementary school; yet disparities in children’s language growth have been detected as early as 18 months of age. These disparities have been linked to the quantity and quality of speech provided to children as they are learning to talk. The current study employed a single-case multiple-baseline across participants experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of an early literacy intervention to increase teen parents’ child-directed speech and conversational turns. The intervention was delivered one-on-one via videoconferencing by a teen parent peer coach. Participants included teen parents …

Retaining And Supporting Graduate Racially Minoritized Students: A Critical Analysis, Patricia Y. Gills

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to critique the racial status quo of a school psychology graduate training program by gaining the perspectives of former and current racially minoritized students from the program. Additionally, this study aimed to utilize this information to provide implications for how to dismantle the racist and oppressive structures within the school psychology program. This study also aimed to analyze the success of research recommendations in helping racially minoritized students defeat the systemic barriers to completing a school psychology program. I conducted one-hour, semi-structured interviews of eight school psychology graduate racially minoritized students from the school psychology program. I …

Development And Validation Of A Scale To Measure Songwriting Self-Efficacy (Sses) With Secondary Music Students, Patrick K. Cooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social cognitive theory was developed to explain how individuals learn, in part, by witnessing the behavior of others. Self-efficacy is a construct within social cognitive theory which indicates the beliefs that an individual can be successful at a task under specific situational demands. The sources of self-efficacy include self-evaluating past experiences to predict future success, comparing our abilities to those around us, the verbal and social feedback we get from others, and the physiological feelings we experience when engaged in or thinking about the task. Measures of self-efficacy have been shown to be accurate predictors of successful learning outcomes, achievement, …

School Nurses’ Attitudes And Perceptions Toward Supporting Students With Chronic Health Conditions In An Ecological System, Destiny L. Singleton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic health conditions impact one in four school-aged youth (Van Cleave, Gortmaker, & Perrin, 2010). Supplemental to the medical challenges that students with chronic health conditions face, they also are at risk for a variety of academic, behavioral, and social-emotional adversities. Using an ecological approach for addressing the diverse needs of students with chronic health conditions has been deemed valuable due to the array of key stakeholders, institutions, policies, and cultural norms that impact the development of the pediatric population. A key stakeholder in supporting the functioning of school-aged children with chronic illnesses is the school nurse. School nurses’ skills …

Directing Attention In Second Language Phonological Contrast Learning, Laura Conover

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Why are some people better at learning new languages than others? There is a rich body of research examining this issue from multiple perspectives and at all levels of language. This study attempts to add to that knowledge at the most fundamental level of language by examining potential influences on the learning of novel phoneme contrasts. The purpose of this study was to explore whether individual differences in attentional capabilities would help adults learn a non-native phonological contrast, and whether providing explicit directions that would guide the learners’ attention could help boost their performance. VCV recordings of the Thai /p/ …

Counseling Clients With Traumatic Brain Injury: Exploring Counselors’ Perceived Knowledge, Comfort, And Self-Awareness, Michelle Bradham-Cousar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The number of traumatic brain injury (TBI) diagnoses continues to rise each year. Counseling is a critical factor in TBI treatment, and although numerous studies have investigated TBI outcomes, a paucity of researchers have studied professional counselors’ knowledge, comfort, and self-awareness when working with TBI clients. Due to the diversity of counselor caseloads, it is likely that counselors will serve clients with a dual diagnosis that includes TBI. These dual diagnoses include depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, psychosis, or another neurocognitive disorder. The purpose of this study was to explore counselors’ knowledge, comfort, and self-awareness when working with individuals with …

Facilitating Early Intervention Through Teacher Training In Brief Functional Behavior Assessment, Casie L. Peet

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nearly 30% of students who enter state-funded early childhood education programs exhibit significant problem behavior, putting them at risk for long-term adverse behavioral and academic outcomes. Tier 2 behavioral interventions might not be effective for all when delivered in a one-size-fits-all fashion suggesting that individualizing behavioral intervention to the student’s specific concerns may be. To do so, it is necessary to collect problem identification data indicative of each student’s concerns and function of problem behaviors. This question is particularly pertinent in early childhood settings where educators have a wide range of training experiences and backgrounds. Early childhood teachers are essential …

Distributed Leadership: Leadership Teams And Implementing Multi-Tiered Systems Of Support, Joseph D. Latimer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary educational legislation in the last 30 years has reflected the age of accountability in which positive student academic outcomes and yearly student progress are the main goals of the school system. In addition to accountability legislation, schools are mandated to implement multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) to provide a continuum of services for all students. To implement MTSS and the necessary system changes, many schools are using distributed leadership models and practices such as leadership teams to maximize the human and material resources available. This study examined the conceptualization and enactment of distributed leadership in a school that is …

Exploring The Association Of Academic Psychological Capital And Experiential Learning With Academic Performance, Diane Kutz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research study expands upon the body of research seeking to define the effect of Academic Psychological Capital (Academic PsyCap) and student Participation in Experiential Learning on one success measure of students, Academic Performance, as measured by grade point average (GPA). It also seeks to investigate the moderating effect of Experiential Learning on the relationship between Academic PsyCap and Academic Performance. The study argues that Social Cognitive Theory and Broaden and Build Theory supported a reciprocal relationship between Academic PsyCap and Participation in Experiential Learning Activities and the positive relationship between both constructs and Academic Performance.

The study was conducted …

Temporal Discounting And The Assessment And Treatment Of Academic Procrastination, Anthony Concepcion

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many individuals engage in procrastination at some point in their lifetime. Although procrastination is usually not detrimental, for college students, academic procrastination is correlated with adverse health effects (e.g., anxiety, depression, sleep hygiene) and poor academic performance (Akinsola, et al., 2007; Ferrari, et al., 1995). Furthermore, the prevalence of academic procrastination is high with reports of up to 95% of college students engaging in detrimental amounts of procrastination (Hussain & Sultan, 2010). Notably, students enrolled in online courses are likely to be at greater risk to experience adverse consequences associated with procrastination (Elvers, et al, 2003). Previous studies have focused …

The Interactive Effects Of Associative Response Priming And Personality Traits On Insight Problem Solving Over Time, Yu-Chu Yeh, Pei-Hsin Li, Chung-Wei Lin

Journal of Global Education and Research

Priming effect is, in a great part, an implicit learning mechanism; it may influence insight problem solving both consciously and unconsciously. The present study investigates interactions between personality traits and priming effects in insight problem solving involving novel object associations in complex situations over time. Based on the findings of past literature, a two-path (conscious vs. unconscious process) model exploring the moderation effects of two personality traits (emotional creativity and Big Five personality traits) were analyzed in this study. One hundred and fifteen college students participated in a randomized block design experiment (non-primed vs. primed) which included three runs of …

Parent Perceptions Of The Acceptability, Effectiveness, And Experience Of Engaging In The Group Stepping Stones Triple P Intervention For Parents Of Children With Disabilities, Tara B. Delach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The challenges associated with parenting are often compounded for parents of children with developmental disabilities. Children with developmental disabilities are at increased risk for exhibiting mental health concerns and challenging behavior compared to their typically developing peers. Parents who are raising a child with a disability tend to experience increased demands, higher levels of stress, and greater challenges associated with the physical, emotional, and behavioral needs of their children than do parents of typically developing children. Parent training interventions grounded in social learning theory and behavioral principles have proven to be effective in improving both child and parent outcomes in …

Effects Of Quantitative Literacy On Healthcare Decision-Making: An Aural Context, Robert G. Root, Sonia Bhala

Numeracy

We propose a relationship between sensory modality, numerical formatting, and performance on a survey simulating healthcare decision-making. We examine the current literature on aural health literacy, and specifically aural literacy coupled with health numeracy. We then create a survey instrument called the Bhala test for this purpose and demonstrate that it is moderately internally consistent and provides results that correlate with the NUMi assessment, a widely accepted measure of health numeracy. The quantitative information provided in the Bhala test has two treatments, percentage and natural frequency formats, in an effort to determine which format is easier for subjects to use …

Influences Of Reasoning And Achievement Motivation On Complex Problem Solving In A New Microworld Operationalization, Stephan Bartholdy, Ulrike Kipman

Journal of Global Education and Research

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) can be defined as those psychological processes that enable a person to achieve goals under complex conditions, which are characterized by their complexity, connectivity, dynamics, lack of transparency, and polytely. Although many hypothesized influences have previously been tested concerning their relevance for the process of solving complex problems (e.g., general intelligence), results were often found to be rather heterogeneous. As this was found to be partially caused by fundamental differences between measurements of CPS, a new operationalization was used in the present study: Following the Microworld approach, CPS was assessed in the simulation game Cities: Skylines …

Health-Promoting Behaviors And Subjective Well-Being Among High School Students, Nicholas David W. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In positive psychology, a greater emphasis is placed on the presence of indicators of both physical and mental health. This study examined the relationship between 12 health-promoting behaviors and subjective well-being (SWB; e.g., happiness) in a sample of 450 high school aged youth from five high schools in two states. Participants reported on their dietary habits, physical activity, abstinence from tobacco products, abstinence from alcohol, and sleep hygiene (i.e., 8 unique components) as well as a multidimensional assessment of SWB (i.e., life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect). It was hypothesized that increased engagement in each of the health-promoting behaviors …

Book-Sharing As A Context For Fathers And Mothers To Enhance Language Development Of Their Preschool Children, Yagmur Seven

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Poor reading levels is a pervasive problem in the US. For example, two of every three eigth grade students in the US are estimated to demonstrate insufficient reading comprehension skills. Early use of decontextualized language, in which the language expressed is removed from the here and now, serves as a precursor of academic language proficiency. Starting as early as the third year of life, decontextualized language is less likely to be practiced in lower socio-economic status (SES) households. Although storybooks offer a rich context for practicing the language with young children, reading storybooks alone is not adequate to promote conversational …

Promoting Healthy Sleep Practices Among Parents Of Young Children: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial, Kristin Lynn Edwards

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

One of the most significant and underrecognized public health concerns in young children is related to the consequences of inadequate sleep. Inadequate sleep may result in problems related to behavioral regulation, executive functioning, and academic performance. ‘Sleep hygiene’, a term that describes consistent daytime and nighttime practices that promote healthy sleep, has been found to significantly increase sleep duration and improve sleep quality in the pediatric population. Researchers have found that many parents have a poor understanding of sleep hygiene. The purpose of this study was to determine if an educational intervention increased parental knowledge and practices of sleep hygiene …

Cognitivism In School Psychologists’ Talk About Cultural Responsiveness: A Critical Discourse Analysis, Sujay Sabnis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although there is an increase in publications on the topic of cultural responsiveness in school psychology, the research literature does not interrogate the discourse around cultural responsiveness and the modes of practices it enables. Using a preexisting dataset featuring interviews with 15 school psychologists, I analyzed the discursive formations characterizing the talk about cultural responsiveness. Data analysis using the critical discursive psychology framework illuminated the presence of cognitivism in participant talk. Critical discourse analysis drawing on Foucauldian theory of power effects revealed the ways in which cognitivism both enabled and constrained the discursive production of ‘culture’ and ‘cultural responsiveness’. Culture …

Book Review: Forced Confrontation: The Politics Of Dead Bodies In Germany At The End Of World War Ii, Christiane K. Alsop

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Numeracy And Social Justice: A Wide, Deep, And Longstanding Intersection, Kira Hamman, Victor Piercey, Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

We discuss the connection between the numeracy and social justice movements both in historical context and in its modern incarnation. The intersection between numeracy and social justice encompasses a wide variety of disciplines and quantitative topics, but within that variety there are important commonalities. We examine the importance of sound quantitative measures for understanding social issues and the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration in this work. Particular reference is made to the papers in the first part of the Numeracy special collection on social justice, which appear in this issue.

Early Identification Of Students In Accelerated Curricula With Signs Of Academic And Emotional Risk: Working With Teachers To Identify At-Risk Students, Elizabeth D. Storey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As part of a comprehensive, multi-tiered system of support for students’ emotional, academic, and behavioral success, effective universal screenings are essential to identify students who may benefit from early intervention and targeted prevention services (Strein, Kuhn-McKearin, & Finney, 2014). Although many screening procedures and methods have been developed and evaluated for general education populations, more research is needed on screening procedures designed for one traditionally underserved population in school-based mental health services—students in accelerated curricula (namely, students in Advanced Placement classes or in the International Baccalaureate program; AP/IB). When teachers are involved in universal screening procedures, regardless of student population …

Evaluating The Efficiency And Correspondence Of Trial-Based And Session-Based Functional Analyses In Controlled Settings, Sarah M. Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Functional analyses (FAs) are used to identify the maintaining contingencies of problem behavior. However, FAs present some limitations. Functional analyses can be time consuming. In this study we evaluated the efficiency and correspondence of a modified trial-based FA versus a session-based FA, in a controlled setting. We conducted both the trial-based and session-based FAs with five subjects that engaged in problem behavior. On average, the trial-based FAs were completed in 32.8% less time than the session-based FAs, and took 40% less meeting and calendar days than the session-based FAs. Based on the analyses of four Board Certified Behavior Analysts (Doctoral), …

The Intervention Path: The Experiences Of Mothers Seeking Help For Their Child With Atypical Behavioral Development, Renee Hoopes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pre-school aged children experience challenging behaviors at a relatively common rate. Research shows that approximately 10–25 % of preschool-aged children engage in challenging behaviors to a greater degree than would be expected for their age (Lavigne, Gibbons, Christoffel, Arend, Rosenbaum, Binns, Sawon, Sobel & Isaacs, 1996). Problem behaviors are often the result of a child not following a typical developmental trajectory. Atypical development appears when a child either lags behind or jumps ahead of typical peer progress in physical, cognitive, behavioral, and social development or in adaptive life skills. When children with challenging behaviors are left untreated, their everyday functioning …