Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Empirical Evaluation Of Metadata For Video Games And Interactive Media, Rachel I. Clarke, Jin Ha Lee, Andrew Perti

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Despite increasing interest in and acknowledgment of the significance of video games, current descriptive practices are not sufficiently robust to support searching, browsing, and other access behaviors from diverse user groups. To address this issue, the Game Metadata Research Group at the University of Washington Information School, in collaboration with the Seattle Interactive Media Museum, worked to create a standardized metadata schema. This metadata schema was empirically evaluated using multiple approaches—collaborative review, schema testing, semi-structured user interview, and a large-scale survey. Reviewing and testing the schema revealed issues and challenges in sourcing the metadata for particular elements, determining the level …

Permitting Joint-Control In Asymmetric Dependence Relationships: Investigating A Strategy For Increasing Trust, Michael Ioerger

Dissertations - ALL

Most work related to trust in dyadic interactions has focused on the establishment and development of trust in situations where partners are of relatively equal status and have the ability to impact each other's outcomes (Rempel, Holmes, & Zanna, 1985; for a review Simpson, 2007a; 2007b). However, many social interactions can be characterized as asymmetric dependence situations where the outcomes of one partner (i.e., the dependent partner) are completely controlled by another (i.e., the controlling partner). The current work investigated trust in the context of one-off asymmetric dependence interactions, and experimentally explored one strategy for increasing trust in these exchanges. …

Effects Of Ultrasound As Visual Feedback Of The Tongue On Generalization, Retention, And Acquisition In Speech Therapy For Rhotics, Greta Sjolie

Dissertations - ALL

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to provide an initial comparison of exposure to ultrasound visual feedback of the tongue and no exposure to ultrasound in speech therapy for postvocalic rhotics (the /r/ family of sounds). Effects of the two treatments on acquisition, retention, and generalization were explored in participants ages 7-9.

Methods: A single-subject randomized block design replicated across four participants was used. Each week for seven weeks, one session containing high frequency ultrasound use and one session containing no ultrasound use were randomly ordered. A Training Probe List and Generalization Probe List consisting of monosyllabic words, multisyllabic …

The Behavioral Impacts Of Property Tax Relief: Salience Or Framing?, Phuong Nguyen-Hoang, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

New York State’s School Tax Relief Program, STAR, provides state-funded exemptions from school property taxes. From 2006-07 to 2008-09, these exemptions were supplemented with rebates, which arrived as a check in the mail. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether these two algebraically equivalent but administratively distinct policies of tax relief led to different behavioral responses. Drawing on behavioral economics, we explore the impact of STAR on the price elasticity of demand for school quality based on the concepts of salience and framing. Our main results are that the behavioral impact of the STAR provisions are larger (1) …

Income Sorting, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

"We'd Always Return To This Center:" Understanding Urban Space As A Dakota Place In Mni Sota Makoce, Kelsey Marie Carlson

Dissertations - ALL

This thesis intends to bring to popular consciousness the historical and ongoing injustices committed against Indigenous peoples by sharing the knowledges and experiences of a number of Dakota people in Minnesota. Part landscape analysis, part ethnography, and by most substantially relying on narrative and lengthy excerpts from interviews, I challenge the dominant notion that Minnesota is a non-Native space. Rather, Mni Sota Makoce, the land where the waters reflect the sky, with a place called Bdote at its center, forms the traditional territory of the Dakota Oyate, the Dakota Nation. More specifically, this thesis tells a story about Dakota peoples' …

Detecting At-Risk Drinking In University Primary Care: Validity Of The Audit-C, Clare Elizabeth Campbell

Dissertations - ALL

Research has shown that primary care physicians are more likely to discuss alcohol use with their patients when brief screens are routinely administered. One such screen, the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C; Bush, Kivlahan, McDonnell, Fihn, & Bradley, 1998), has yet to be validated for detecting at-risk alcohol consumption and negative drinking consequences among students presenting to a university student health service for primary care. Accordingly, the proposed study aimed to assess the construct validity of the AUDIT-C among students (N = 387) recruited from Syracuse University's University Health Service (UHS). Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analyses were used to …

Dancing With Gender: A Reception Analysis Of Chinese Women's Viewing Experiences Of Ann Hui's The Golden Era, Li Chen

Dissertations - ALL

The issue that this study addressed was the unprivileged status of women audience members and women directors in the male dominated Chinese film industry. To investigate this problem, the purpose of this study was to explore how Chinese women audience members produce different meanings in terms of gender identity and gender relations through viewing The Golden Era (2014), directed by a female filmmaker Ann Hui. To deeply understand the viewing experiences of Chinese women audience members, this qualitative research project was designed as a reception analysis. To gather data, interviews with 18 Chinese women with viewing experiences of this film …

Postemancipation Landscapes And Material Culture: The Bethel Community And The Benjamin W. Jackson Plantation, Sarah Elizabeth Loftus

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation explores the history and archaeology of a postemancipation community that developed around the Benjamin W. Jackson Plantation in Bethel, Texas, particularly concentrating on the transformation of the landscape through the rise of black land ownership and material culture collected at two households occupied by generations of the Davis family. The Davises were tenant farmers whose ancestors were previously enslaved on the plantation and members of the family continued to occupy the lands through the 1950s. In the decades following emancipation the antebellum landscape of the Benjamin Jackson plantation and the Bethel community in East Texas were slowly transformed …

Effects Of An Expressive Writing Intervention Aimed At Improving Academic Performance By Reducing Test Anxiety, Stephanie Lauren Spielberger

Dissertations - ALL

This study examined the effectiveness of a brief, class-wide, expressive writing intervention aimed at improving academic performance and decreasing test anxiety. This study included 110 students from six undergraduate psychology classes. In the first phase of the study, students completed a trait test anxiety measure and a demographic survey. In the second phase of the study, students completed a pre-intervention state test anxiety measure, responded to a 10-minute writing prompt (expressive or neutral), and completed the same state test anxiety measure, and then were administered an in-class exam. Approximately half the students were randomly assigned to the expressive writing group, …

Middle-Class Identity And Hindu Women's Ritual Practice In South India, Nicole Allyse Wilson

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation takes up the issue of social change via an exploration of a middle-class, multi-caste Hindu women’s religious group in south India called the Śri Maṅgala Vināyagar Satsang Group (SMVS). It utilizes the group members’ narratives about rural-urban difference and modifications to Hindu women’s rituals to explore the continuous construction of middle-class identities in the changing social milieu of contemporary India. In considering the role of ritual in the (re)formation of middle-class identities and communities amongst the SMVS group women of this dissertation, it becomes evident that particular rituals, while earlier indicating a certain caste affiliation (e.g., recitation of …

Learning By Game Design For Library Instruction: A Multiple Case Study, Angela Usha Ramnarine-Rieks

Dissertations - ALL

Despite the importance placed on information literacy in fostering lifelong learning, helping students develop the skills required of critical thinkers and independent learners are limited. This study contributes to the burgeoning discourse on alternative instructional approaches to teaching information literacy and focuses on the use of game design in learning environments.

The appeal of gaming among the younger generation of learners has led to the increasing use of games in learning environments. Within recent years, some innovative academic libraries have begun adopting games as a platform for information literacy instruction. While the literature recognizes game design as fostering higher-level learning …

Reconfiguring French Secularism: The Mosque As The New Multicultural Space Of Young Muslims, Ayse Ozcan

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation explores the ways in which secularism communicates with Islam both as a socio-political concept and as daily practice in the context of France. Most studies examine this process through the uses of the headscarf or within the framework of terrorism. This study suggests a fresh perspective by using an experimental spatial analysis with a focus on the major mosques and the practices of mosque congregants. It poses the question how French Muslims reconcile French secularism (laïcité) with Islam through the use of the mosque space. In this respect, mosques are transformed into alternative multicultural spaces where the secular …

Research Brief: "Military Service Absences And Family Members’ Mental Health: A Timeline Followback Assessment", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief examines mental health correlating with a parent's absence during a military deployment. The findings show that adolescents were affected by a military parent being absent from significant events, and that they would benefit from programs that offer pre and post-deployment briefings. In the future, research should investigate how contact during military deployment affects the service member and their family.

Research Brief: "Impact Of Parents' Wartime Military Deployment And Injury On Young Children's Safety And Mental Health", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the relationship between the mental health of military children and parental deployment. In policy and practice, healthcare providers and teachers should understand the risks during the post-deployment period and the DoD should implement programs to help military families during the post-deployment period. Suggestions for future research include conducting a study over time on this topic, as well as expanding the sample to include longer and multiple deployments and various age groups of children within military families.

Missing Perspectives: Servicemembers' Transition From Service To Civilian Life (Foreword And Key Highlights), J. Michael Haynie, Nicholas Armstrong

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This initial report, aptly titled Missing Perspectives, serves as the inaugural publication in what will be a continuing series of IVMF research papers and commentary, highlighting issues and opportunities related to veterans’ transition broadly, and higher education specifically.

Missing Perspectives: Servicemembers' Transition From Service To Civilian Life (Data Brief), Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief contains data concerning military servicemembers' transition to civilian life.

Missing Perspectives: Servicemembers’ Transition From Service To Civilian Life, Corri Zoli, Rosalinda Maury, Daniel Fay

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

The report prioritizes an evidence-based approach through targeted surveys, interviews, and focus groups and centers the perspectives of recent servicemembers (active-duty, reserves, National Guard, veterans, and their families) in its analyses. Research findings are based on multi-method studies of servicemembers in their multiple roles: as warfighters, civilians, students, professionals, employees, and family members, among others. Research results are designed to elevate the public, academic, and policy discourse on Post- 9/11 servicemembers, to inform recommendations to improve post-service transition, and to form the foundation for a second study on best strategies for servicemembers in higher education and civilian careers.

In Memory Of Wallace Oates, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Research Brief: "Economic Well-Being Among Older-Adult Households: Variation By Veteran And Disability Status", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the impact of veteran and disability statuses on poverty and material hardship among elderly veterans. In policy and practice, veterans should use support services, such as the VA and local veterans groups, and social workers should take into account veteran and disability statuses when determining needs; the VA could change their income support programs to help disabled veterans. Suggestions for future research include accounting for individual differences among households and looking at how elderly veteran poverty affects family members.

Research Brief: "Receipt Of Employment Services Among Veterans Health Administration Users With Psychiatric Diagnoses", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This study found that about four percent (4.2%) of VHA users with psychiatric diagnoses accessed employment services in a given year. VHA patients with a psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia had higher odds of accessing employment services relative to VHA users with other psychiatric diagnoses, including PTSD, depression, and other anxiety disorders. In practice, veterans should be aware that receiving VHA employment services should not affect VA benefits and should discuss their medical and financial benefits with benefits advisors and other appropriate advisors. In policy, Policymakers could consider allocating funds to further study the efficacy and effectiveness of various employment services …

Research Brief: "Ptsd Treatment-Seeking Among Rural Latino Combat Veterans: A Review Of The Literature", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief summarizes a scholarly article of the same name. It reviews a literature review of research conducted among rural Latino Veterans and the incidence of PTSD among these veterans.

Fall/Winter 2015 Vol.15 No. 1, School Of Information Studies

iSchool Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Fall/Winter 2015 Vol.15 No. 1, School Of Information Studies

School of Information Studies - Newsletters

No abstract provided.

“The Commitment Problem”: Spending To Zero To Maximize The Efficiency Of The Collections Budget, Robert M. Cleary

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

The difficulty for a library to spend their collections budget efficiently is a timeless problem. The diversity of a typical budget, with its mix of one-time and continuing funds, for an array of resources that have both regular and sometimes irregular frequencies, provides great challenges. Approval plans, usually expending one-time funds, generate expenditures that contain high variability on a weekly basis. Standing orders for serials fall into the same category. With some effort, it is possible to expend all continuing funds. But it is the commitments that do not result in expenditures, with funds remaining in cash balances that can …

Issue 67, Autumn 2015, Society Of Bead Researchers

The Bead Forum: Newsletter of the Society of Bead Researchers

The Bead that Gives Its Power to Priests in Dogon Country, by Tonia Marek • The Glass Bead Sequences at Mapela Hill, Zimbabwe: A Preliminary Report, by Rina Faria • Borneo International Beads Conference 2015, by Deborah Zinn • The Omphalos of Delphi, by Karlis Karklins.

Estimating The Effects Of The Minimum Wage In A Developing Country: A Density Discontinuity Design Approach, Hugo Jales

Center for Policy Research

This paper proposes a new framework to identify the effects of the minimum wage on the joint distribution of sector and wages in a developing country. I show that under reasonable assumptions, cross-sectional data on the worker's wage and sector can identify the joint distribution of the latent counterparts of these variables; that is, the sector status and wage that would prevail in the absence of the minimum wage. I apply the method in the “PNAD”, a nationwide representative Brazilian cross-sectional dataset for the years 2001 to 2009. The results indicate that the size of the informal sector is increased …

Catching Up On California, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Employment Situation: October 2015, Institute For Veterans And Military Families

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

The reports are issued by the IVMF on the first Friday of each month, and represent the month-to-month change in the employment situation of America's veterans. The reports also include an overview of noteworthy news, policy and public/private sector initiatives positioned to impact the employment situation of veterans.

Cointegration Of Matched Home Purchases And Rental Price Indexes –Evidence From Singapore, Badi Baltagi, Jing Li

Center for Policy Research

This paper exploits the homogeneity feature of the Singapore private residential condominium market and constructs matched home purchase price and rental price series using the repeated sales method. These matched series allow us to conduct time series analysis to examine the long-term present value relationship in the housing market. Three key findings are obtained. First, we fail to establish a cointegrating relationship between the home purchase price and rental price based on nationally estimated indexes. Second, area-specific indexes demonstrate strong cross-correlations, invalidating the use of first generation panel unit root tests that ignore these cross-correlations. Third, Pesaran’s CIPS test indicates …