Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Impact Of Globalization On Access For Individuals With Disabilities, Katherine Williamson

Honors Theses

This comparative ethnomethodology study is focused on the global context elements that help explain public policies and its consequences on types of access available to individuals with disabilities in the United States Midwest and West Africa. The goal of this study is to identify the role of individuals with disabilities in a global society by answering two research questions. First, what are the public policies in place for physical, social, and educational access in the United States Midwest and West Africa? Second, how is physical, social, and educational access being provided in the United States Midwest and West Africa? The …

Improving Evaluation In Nonprofit Organizations: A Study Of How Evaluation Requests For Proposals Are Developed, Responded To, And Fulfilled, Nakia S. Matthews

Dissertations

It is often necessary for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to formulate a Request for Proposal (RFP) to procure essential contracted services. This is most common when seeking the services of an external evaluator. Since most NPOs do not have internal evaluation staff, developing an appropriate RFP can be quite challenging. With limited literature and resources to guide NPOs on how to prepare RFPs, the process for procuring qualified evaluators can be even more daunting. This lack of resources and supports can lead to insufficient or incomplete RFPs, subsequently narrowing the pool of qualified potential bidders and reducing the extent to which …

Wmu International News Fall 2015, Haenicke Institute

WMU International News

• Internationalizing the arts
• Friends from Kurdistan find musical home at Western
• 5 Music lessons from South Vietnam
• Note taken on this WMU trombonist on an international stage
• Flutist composer coins new genre, Universal Americanism
• Music WMU professor takes worldly approach in researching the healing power of music
• Dominican Republic art calloborative brings interactive exhibit to WMU
• Cross-cultural graphic designer and artist conjoins east and west technology and creativity
• Coupling art and architecture opens doors to China for WMU professor
• Book Arts in Venice study abroad program
• Engineering alumnus masters theater in India
• Dancer becomes vehicle for social change in Panama

Bullying And Victimization Among Children Raised By Grandparents, Oliver W. Edwards

GrandFamilies: The Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy

Increasing numbers of school-age children are being raised by their grandparents. Yet, a dearth of research investigates the children in these families. The few studies suggest the children experience higher levels of academic, behavioral, and emotional difficulties than their peers. These behaviors are often associated with involvement in bullying, but no empirical research investigates bullying among children raised by their grandparents. This current study helps to fill the noted lack of research in this area and the gap in the literature by investigating the intersection of these two important phenomena – bullying and children raised by their grandparents. This study …

Pedagogical Approaches To Multicultural Education Within Teacher Preparation Programs, Mark Steven Barajas

Dissertations

Despite national standards established in 1979, U.S. teacher preparation programs have struggled to incorporate comprehensive, multicultural teacher education into existing curriculum (Sleeter, 2008). The weakness of multicultural training in most teacher preparation programs is theorized as a major contributor to the persistent achievement gap between students of color and White students (Ferguson, 2003). Furthermore, literature indicates White teachers frequently hold lower expectations for racial and ethnic minority students compared to White students and these lowered expectations often manifest as lower academic achievement (McKown & Weinstein, 2007).

This study provides empirical data regarding multicultural education within teacher preparation programs. Individual course …

Learning To Learn And Naming Through Receptive And Expressive Identification, Kelli Perry

Dissertations

Poor or no language skills are typical of most preschool children with autism (American Psychological Association, 2013). Language can be divided into the two components of receptive, or listener, skills and expressive, or speaker, skills. Recommendations for sequencing language instruction vary across the different behavior-analytic instructional models (Lovaas, 1981; Barbara & Rasmussen, 2007; Sundberg & Partington, 1998; Sundberg, 2008). The current study sought to examine those recommendations using young children (three- to four-years-old) with limited vocal repertoires and to explore the acquisition of learning to learn (Harlow, 1949) and naming (Greer & Ross, 2007). This research (1) adds to the …

Canning Jars And Patterns Of Canning Behavior: A Study Of Households On The Hector Backbone, New York. 1850-1940, Jayne Ann Michaels

Masters Theses

Typically, late 19^th or early 20^th century domestic sites contain fragments of a common item: canning jars. Such is the case regarding 21 sites along the Hector Backbone in New York State. These sites, investigated by the Finger Lakes National Forest Farmstead Archaeology Project, produced a rich sample of over 250,000 artifacts and thousands related to canning.

The objective of this thesis is to explore the potential of these common artifacts to yield important information about these Backbone households. Specifically, my questions include: when did these households adopt canning and who were they?

The intentional decision to include …

Impact Of Athletic Identity And Emotional Competence On Athletes’ Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help, Garett V. Weatherhead

Dissertations

Athletes have been found to have more negative attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help than non-athletes (Watson, 2005) despite experiencing comparable amounts of mental illness (Markser, 2011). The purpose of the present study was to examine factors that are associated with athletes’ help-seeking attitudes, including athletic identity and emotional competence. A sample of 144 college student-athletes from a small, private Midwestern college in the United States participated in the study. The athletes competed at the NCAA Division III level. Participants were asked to complete the following measures: Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993), Attitudes Toward Seeking …

Partnering Library Research With Presentation And Writing Services At Western Michigan University’S Hcob Communication Center, Lumarie Guth, Marty Deming Maytnier

University Libraries Faculty & Staff Presentations

The development of the learning commons and embedded librarianship are two of the most recent responses to the downward trend in traditional reference statistics for academic libraries. Reference librarians are rethinking how to demonstrate the added value of their services and reach users at their point of need both online and face‐to‐face. Trends in the building of learning commons and service centers have led to the integration of support services such as tutoring, writing assistance, computer access, collaborative study zones, and research help in order to provide a one‐stop shop for students. For the past two years, business librarians for …

Challenges Facing Female Leaders Of Color In U.S. Higher Education, Fredah Mainah, Vernita Perkins

International Journal of African Development

Despite a myriad of challenges including the slow pace of rising to the top and the low compositional diversity in most university leadership, women of color are becoming increasingly visible in higher education leadership. This paper investigates the phenomena of the growing numbers of women of color in top positions, with the aim of debunking the myth of the invisibility of black women in leadership positions in higher education. The findings indicate that although women in the U.S. earn the majority of postsecondary degrees and 26.4% of college presidents are women, with 4.5% of them being women of color, women …

Wmu International News Summer 2015, Haenicke Institute

WMU International News

• Bronco Athletics and Hall of Famers
• World Cup play preps Colombian for Bronco pitch
• Midfielder from Seville finds home on Bronco pitch
• Top-ranking Chilean a pro on and off the courtX
• Champion is the name and aim for this Bronco golfer
• Former NHL coach and international hall of famer leads Bronco Hockey
• Coaches worldwide keeping an eye on this German
• Freshman forward already signed to NHL’s Oilers
• Canadian gold medalist now a Bronco V-baller
• European standout takes the court at WMU
• Nationally ranked Croatian chooses WMU for education and athletics
• Seven-foot Senegalese center ready to dominate Bronco basketball

Preserving Wmu’S Musical Heritage: Digitizing Aging Magnetic Tape Audio Recordings, Marianne Swierenga, Christina Doane

University Libraries Faculty & Staff Presentations

Western Michigan University has decades worth of unique recorded content on aging magnetic media. WMU’s School of Music has a particularly rich collection of recordings featuring student and faculty ensembles, visiting artist performances, and graduate recitals. Facing the possibility of losing these invaluable recorded sound artifacts through obsolescence or decay, the University Libraries realized we could wait no longer and needed to develop a preservation and digitization strategy to ensure long term access.

Alignment Of Mission Statements With Hiring And Evaluation Processes Of Faculty At Higher Education Institutions Approved By The Academic Quality Improvement Program (Aqip), Nancy M. Foster

Dissertations

In 1999 when the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association created the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) path for accreditation, they instituted a new format for the documentation of evidence of meeting accreditation criterion called a Systems Portfolio. This study involved the analysis of the Systems Portfolios from 36 institutions to check for alignment of their mission statements, and stated faculty hiring and evaluation processes. Each Systems Portfolio was analyzed for themes found in previous research on mission statements and documentation of the processes for hiring and evaluation of faculty. Additionally, institutions from three Carnegie Classifications were compared …

Using Dynamic Lndicators Of Basic Early Literacy Skills (Dibels) Oral Reading Fluency Data To Predict Michigan Educational Assessment Program Outcomes, Lisa Lockman

Dissertations

Schools are under legislative pressure to ensure students make adequate progress each year, and therefore, must identify students in need of intervention at early grade levels. Educators use diagnostic tools to measure student progress, attempting to determine which children may be most at risk for future reading failure. The Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is widely used for early identification of students who have risk factors. This study incorporated a quantitative, correlational, ex post facto design to examine the relationship between students’ third grade scores on the spring DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) assessment and their fifth grade …

Family Resilience And Sojourning Japanese Families In The U.S., Mitsuyo Izumi

Dissertations

This study examined processes of family resilience sojourning Japanese parents reported using while raising children (between the ages of 4 and 8) in the U.S., the relationship between family resilience and child behavior and impact of stressful life events, and predictors of the impact of stressful life events and child behavior. Seventy mothers and 37 fathers from six Japanese educational institutions completed self-report questionnaires. Measures included Japanese translations of the Family Resilience Assessment (Duncan Lane, 2011), Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997), the Impact of Stressful Life Events Scale (Hasui et al., 2009), the Kansas Marital Satisfaction (Schumm et al., …

Careers In Aging: Increasing Interest And Investigating Career Paths, Paul Cunnington

Masters Theses

This qualitative study explored the perspective of young professionals on how to increase interest in choosing a career in the field of aging and how their own career path led to their current employment in the field of aging. Fifteen professionals in the field of aging, ranging in age from 23 to 34, participated in semi-­‐structured interviews. Data were analyzed using a thematic analysis. Results confirmed prior research that professionals working in the field of aging come from a variety of disciplines. Participants noted attractive aspects of a career in the field of aging, including flexibility and mobility. To increase …

Ways In Which Community Involvement May Influence Girls’ Education In Senegal, Babou Ndiaye

Masters Theses

This study attempts to examine through the lens of social feminist theory the ways in which community involvement may influence girls’ education in Senegal. It highlights the extent to which networking, advocacy, and meaningful interactions between community and school may contribute to improving access, learning conditions, and academic achievements for girls. The paper also provides an analysis of the adverse effects of community involvement on girls’ education in Senegal. It underscores the extent to which patriarchy and class interfere to shape community involvement and undermine girls’ education, in terms of both access and quality. The paper further sketches a combination …

Mothers Who Choose Traditional Public Education In Times Of Economic Stress, Criticism, And District Reform, Brian W. Davis

Dissertations

As districts attempt to achieve higher accountability for student results while making complex decisions to balance budgets, it has become increasingly more common to restructure or reorganize educational delivery systems in ways that affect children and their families. Understanding how families and, in particular, mothers translate their experiences with structural and other changes enacted by the schools serving their children can assist in defining a new strategic direction of renewal, growth, and revitalization.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the experiences of 18 mothers, and their children, who were participants in multiple school reform initiatives in an …

Wmu International News Spring 2015, Haenicke Institute

WMU International News

• New sensor to monitor impacts on the gridiron
• Dominican Republic Ph.D. candidate a leader in green manufacturing at WMU
• Delivering fuel efficiency and reduced emissions key for Ford engineer
• Electrical engineer seeks new semiconductor for optoelectronics
• Improving communication systems drives computer science researcher
• CEAS alumnus improves health care commerce
• Degree research evolves into new company for WMU alumnus
• Roundabout ways to improve transportation captivate Tanzanian fellow
• Raspberry Pi focus of undergraduate research project
• Comparative learning key in WMU’s Engineering in China program
• ESL courses first step for future Congolese engineer

Using Streaming Video In E-Learning Or In The Classroom, Michele D. Behr

University Libraries Faculty & Staff Presentations

This workshop presents an overview of using videos in classroom teaching as well as e-learning classes. WMU Libraries collections of streaming videos can be easily used in face-to-face classes, and embedded in e-learning. Instructional video DVDs are also available. The workshop also covered the process of embedding videos and video clips in websites and classes in D2L.

Title Ix And The Impact Of Athletic Leadership, Ceceilia Parnther, Jennifer Deranek, Scott Michel

The Hilltop Review

Abstract

This literature review will discuss the history of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 and its value in higher education today through a critical feminist thought lens. It is known that despite Title IX, gender equality does not exist in intercollegiate athletics. In addition to discussing the history of Title IX, the article will highlight the challenges and triumphs of female athletic directors and senior women’s administrators and briefly discuss the role on coaches, athletic trainers and student-athletes.

Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 provided equal opportunities for women in athletics and academics …