Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Assessing Rice Consumers’ Preferences And Willingness To Pay In Haiti, Cleeford Pavilus

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the last 30 years, rice has become the number one food staple in Haiti, and rice imports have outpaced domestic production to supply the country’s increasing rice demand. Policy makers support the claim that increasing local rice supply will not only reduce the dependency on imported rice but also upheave the national economy. However, there is a lack of information on Haitian consumers’ preferences for rice to aid the development of the local rice supply chain. This research aims to bridge that gap by assessing Haitian consumer preferences and willingness to pay for selected rice quality characteristics. The results …

Mindset, Mentor, And Money: How Each Influences College Success, Malachi Nichols

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Across society, the consistent influx of students enrolling in higher education institutions without a comparable increase in degree attainment has produced a heightened awareness and a desire to identify the factors related to influencing college success. This dissertation aims to develop a greater understanding of three potentially relevant factors and their respective influences in facilitating college success at the University of Arkansas. First, I evaluate the Student Talent Enrichment Program (STEP) Grant program, designed to fulfill low-income first-year students’ financial needs and encourage their persistence on to their second year of college. Second, I study the effectiveness of the BounceBack …

The Impact Of Coaches' Character On Youth Basketball Players, Natasha Hill

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

If utilized effectively, recreation and sports can serve as major tools for developing youth, improving the educational environment, and increasing the number of productive adults that are healthier physically and mentally to positively impact society. Most research targeting recreation and sports developing youth has the perspective primarily of parents and youth. Evaluating the character strengths of coaches and youth athletes who actively participate in team basketball is vital.

An exploration of the value of basketball and character strengths of (n = 64) youth athletes, between the ages of 12 to 16 years, and the impact of their involvement with coaches …

The Private School Advantage: Evidence From School Vouchers And Educational Leadership, Mohammad Danish Shakeel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

School choice is becoming increasingly popular around the globe. Broadly the term ‘school choice’ is used to describe the options available for families to send children to school(s) other than the one they are residentially assigned to. Private school choice interventions known as ‘school vouchers,’ offer public or private funding to enable families to send their children to private school.

Research in 1970s and 80s by James Coleman and his colleagues showed a private school advantage in student achievement and graduation rates, in comparison to traditional public schools. Competing evidence was presented by Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Lubienski in 2013, …

Participation Patterns In Private School Choice Programs In The U.S.: States, Schools, Students, Yujie Sude

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Private choice programs provide government resources to qualified families to enable them to enroll their children in private schools of their choosing. “Gold standard” experimental studies have found overall mixed impacts of voucher programs, one form of private school choice arrangements, on student academic achievement. Yet, these results face external validity challenges, as both states, schools, and students can choose to participate in private choice programs, generating selection issues.

This dissertation focuses on the decision-making of states, schools, and students in participating in private school choice programs. The first study estimates the effect of state-level social factors on private school …

Mixed Method Analysis Of Apparel Corporations For Future Policy Development, Lance Michael Cheramie

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study focused on analyzing the gaps and inconsistencies in sustainability reporting by conducting a needs assessment on 14 apparel retailing corporations. An analysis for new public policies that would enhance the sustainable efforts by apparel retailing corporations were explored. Additionally, the efficiencies of current sustainable practices were analyzed and the current trends were reported. This study provided a comprehensive review of apparel retailing corporations’ interest towards governmental support in developing policies for efficient sustainability practices and for standardized reporting.

A mixed methods approach was used with the primary focus being the evaluation of emission reduction, governmental influence, sustainability reporting, …

Localized Teacher Supply And Demand In Arkansas: An Exploration Of The Supply And Demand Of Teachers In Arkansas School Districts, Leesa M. Foreman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There have been widespread reports of an impending teacher shortage crisis in the U.S. for more than 30 years. In the U.S., there are claims of a widespread national shortage while research indicates teacher shortages are specific to certain subjects and schools. Part of the reason for the conflicting accounts is how shortage is identified and what information is used to assess it. In this study, I test whether a uniform teacher shortage exists across the state of Arkansas. I hypothesize that, rather than a universal shortage, teacher shortages are more likely to occur in certain regions and subjects. I …

Quantifying The Return On Investment Of After School Programming, Ayesha Patel

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

Each fiscal year, there is a battle on Capitol Hill as lawmakers wrestle with reconciling political promises to financial reality. This process is completed with the goal of efficiently allocating scarce resources, in this case tax dollars and other government revenue, across the needs of the over 325 million diverse residents of the United States. Some budget items garner almost universal support, such as defense funding, infrastructure and education. While individuals may differ on how much funding each of these causes should receive, almost all agree that they should be funded by the federal government. Other budget items, such as …

The Effect Of Teacher Race On Student Perceptions In Low-Income Schools, Benton M. Brown

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, thousands of teachers of color lost their jobs as black students were integrated into mostly white schools. The number of black teachers in schools across the United States has never recovered resulting in a teaching workforce that is less diverse than the student population that they teach. Many studies have examined the possible impact of this discrepancy including the possibility that this has contributed to the black-white achievement gap that exists in the United States. Other studies have examined the non-academic impacts of a less diverse workforce including …

Throughput Of The Strategic National Stockpile Points Of Distribution, Maryann Fenwick

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Background and Significance

In the event of a national public health emergency, FEMA has a 48-hour timeline between the declaration of the emergency and the treatment of the last person in need of medical countermeasures (CDC, 2016b; Fisk, 2015; The National Academies of Sciences, 2017). The staff of the health department only is not enough to get the medications dispensed in the 48-hour requirement (CDC, n.d.). Senior nursing students are uniquely suited to fill the gap as they are not currently obliged to report to work as a nurse in emergent times and they have training that qualifies them to …

Evaluating An Academic Bridge Program Using A Mixed Methods Approach, Leslie May Yingling

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the demand for college degrees has increased, college enrollment has grown significantly, and economic forces have applied greater pressure on the higher education environment to produce more degrees and better post-graduation outcomes. Many public colleges and universities have felt these pressures distinctly because of their state funding environments and the specific expectations that exist within them. While college aspirations and attendance have broadly improved, achievement gaps persist along cultural, generational, and socioeconomic lines. In an effort to navigate and negotiate institutional goals, public expectations, economic needs, and educational ideals, institutions engage in diverse approaches to recruitment and retention. Academic …

Human Trafficking In The Wake Of Natural Disasters: Is The United States Any Different Than Third World Countries?, Samantha Stout

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research compares the impacts of devastating natural disasters on levels of human trafficking in developed countries to the impacts experienced in third world countries. The two disasters selected for this study were Hurricane Isaac in Louisiana and the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia. Factors selected to measure the impacts of the natural disaster include income level, homelessness, and unemployment rates.

Human trafficking is a crime that touches nearly every country around the world. It is known that human trafficking levels are impacted by factors including poverty levels of regions, political unrest, and even natural disasters. There is …

The Societal Impacts Of Private School Choice Around The World, Corey Adam Deangelis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the 2016 presidential campaign and the appointment of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary of the United States, private school choice – in the form of vouchers, tuition tax-credits, and education savings accounts – has become increasingly policy relevant. While an introduction of competitive pressures into the schooling sector may improve educational quality levels, the effects on societal outcomes such as national test scores, student effort, and criminality may be less clear. After all, traditional public schools were created to ensure that children from diverse backgrounds became proper citizens.

These three dissertation chapters empirically examine a largely underexplored area: the …

Who Teaches Where? A Descriptive Analysis Of Similarities And Differences Between Teachers In Traditional And Charter Schools In Pulaski County, Arkansas, Alexandra Merlyn Boyd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using survey data collected from 893 public school teachers in Pulaski County, Arkansas, this study looks for differences in traditional public school teachers and charter school teachers on their (1) backgrounds and teacher characteristics; (2) motivations for entering the teaching profession; and (3) attitudes towards school and teaching. A multivariate analysis of the data revealed that few differences exist between the two groups of teachers on their backgrounds, teacher characteristics, and motivations to enter the teaching field. However, charter school teachers were found to be more likely to have positive attitudes towards school policy changes, a stronger professional commitment to …