Digital Commons Network^™

Can Videogames Be Addicting? An Investigation Into The Specific Game Features And Personal Characteristics Associated With Problematic Videogame Playing, Gregory Pouliot

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The number of individuals who play videogames has increased dramatically in recent years. Unsurprisingly, the frequency with which patients seek psychotherapeutic services to help cope with problematic videogame playing (PVGP) behaviors has also risen. Thus, explorations into the specific characteristics of PVGP are essential now more than ever before. However, the current state of the literature primarily relies on comparisons between PVGP and pathological gambling, utilizing modified measures of the latter to assess the former. To date, no studies have attempted to adapt the diagnostic criteria for substance use disorder (SUD) in an effort to understand PVGP within the context …

From Goal-Striving To "Right Intention": A Grounded Theory Analysis Of Interviews With Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Participants, Julia E. Field

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) helps people to manage stress reactivity through contemplative practices such as meditation. The creator of the program, Kabat-Zinn (1994), defines mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (p. 4). Shapiro et al. (2006) clarified this definition as consisting of three mechanisms of mindfulness. In particular, their mechanism “intention” captures Kabat-Zinn’s phrase “on purpose.” Historically, mindfulness practices were intended to cultivate compassion and insight; thus, practitioners’ intentions need to be included in a psychological model of mindfulness (Shapiro & Schwartz, 2000). In keeping with their approach, this project …

Self-Reported Practices Of And Attitudes Toward Reading Among Elementary-Aged English Language Learners, Sarah M. Akers

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of self-reported attitudes toward and practices of at-home reading on English reading abilities in English Language Learners in 3rd through 5th grade. Students' English reading abilities were measured in terms of fluency, vocabulary/background knowledge, and comprehension. Scores from the school district's reading benchmarks and English language mastery test were also obtained. Attitudes toward both academic and recreational reading were assessed, and a survey was administered to obtain information regarding students' self-reported at-home practices of reading and access to reading materials. Data was collected in early spring and again in late …

Cracking Invisible Barriers: A Focus On Mental Health Service Use Among Immigrant Latinos In The United States, Evenor Alfonso Aleman

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Rapidly changing demographics often result in disparities in services offered for the population. Increasing Latino presence in many parts of the United States has yet to be recognized when developing adequate mental health care. This is specifically true with those who are less proficient in English. The purpose of this study is to explore the barriers many Latinos face when seeking mental health services. These barriers include sociological, cultural, and organizational factors that have been found to influence the underutilization rates of services by Latinos. By exploring these barriers, potential growth areas in the service provided for Spanish speaking clients …

How Multiculturalism Or Egalitarian Beliefs Of Teachers Influence The Type Of Cultural Information Gathered About English Language Learners, Anna C. Kim

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

English Language Learners (ELLs) represent the largest growing student body population in schools, yet among the lowest performing students in the United States with high dropout and grade retention rates (Waxman, Rivera, & Powers, 2012). Teachers are central in the process of improving academic success for English language learners; however, there is minimal information on teacher cultural belief systems in the educational context and about how their attitudes, views, and belief systems affect immigrant students (Hachfeld et al, 2011; Vedder et al., 2006). This current study sought to investigate how teachers’ cultural belief systems, whether multicultural or egalitarian, influences how …

Identifying Academic Protective Factors In Gifted Minority Students, Janei Kimberly Jackson

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

As the demographics of the United States continue to change rapidly, school psychologists will continue to play a role in meeting the needs of racially and ethnically diverse students. One major concern is the overrepresentation of certain ethnic minority groups (e.g., Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American) in special education, dropout rates, and school discipline and the underrepresentation of those same groups in gifted education programs. The purpose of the current study was to find what factors may be contributing to the academic success of gifted Black/African American students. The researcher conducted one on one interviews with nine Black/African American …

Using Mindfulness To Explore Worldview Perspective And Enhance Intercultural Development, Rebecca J. Heselmeyer

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Multicultural counseling competence is an important part of counselor preparation and continued education. Demographic projections for the United States indicate that the population will continue to grow in diversity in the coming decades, reinforcing the need for counselors to be well trained in multicultural counseling. Research on existing approaches to multicultural counseling training (MCT), meanwhile, has identified effective strategies as well as areas needing refinement. Quality MCT needs to challenge learners to explore their racial identity, confront biases, and reflect on intersections of identities within a greater socio-cultural context, all through a safe environment designed to meet a variety of …

Affect Perception In Computer Mediated Communication, Rachel E. Townsend, Chris Allen

Student Research Symposium

The perception of affect influences the subjective perception of an individual’s environment (Isbell & Burns, n.d.). Accurate affect perception leads to increased resilience and positive coping mechanisms when faced with daily life stressors (Robinson, 2012). Communication technologies have revolutionized the ways in which individuals connect to one another professionally and socially (Walther, 1996). This study investigated accurate affect perception in computer mediated communication (CMC) from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Communication research posit several theories to accommodate the ways in which we communicate using CMC (J. B. Walther, 1996). Personality research has documented the correlation between the traits extraversion and neuroticism with …

The New Normal: Goodness Judgments Of Non-Invariant Speech, Julia R. Drouin

Honors Scholar Theses

Previous research has found that perceptual learning, or normalizing the idiosyncratic phonemes of speech, causes a shift in speech sound category boundaries. The present study examined if perceptual learning was limited to the boundary or if also caused a shift in internal category structure. Seventeen individuals participated in three behavioral tasks to explicate this question. In the Lexical Decision task, participants were trained in either /s/-biasing or /ʃ/- biasing context. In the Goodness Judgment task, participants rated a continuum of sounds on perceived /s/ goodness using a designated scale. Finally, in the Phoneme Identification task, participants listened to the same …

Skill, Trust, And Deployment: Who’S Your Buddy?, Julianne Sutton

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

Whether or not the gender of a potential buddy in hypothetical military scenarios influenced the participant’s decision was assessed. The 25 participants were divided in three groups: one control group, and two experimental groups. The participants were given a role-playing packet with eight scenarios. After each scenario, the participant was asked to choose an option for a buddy to accompany the participant. Four buddy options were given, each ranging in degrees of Relevant Skill or Knowledge, Relevant Experience, and Attitude towards Task. The experimental groups were also given a fourth variable of Gender Identity; where female participants had transgender or …

The Journey From Tragedy To Hope: The Experience Of Christian Undergraduates, David M. Johnstone

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Using the case study approach, I interviewed seven student leaders at an evangelical university in the Pacific Northwest. Their common feature, other than attending the same institution, was that they had all experienced tragic or traumatic situations at some point in their lives. In spite of this experience, they were able to display a hopeful outlook on life. The purpose of this study was to discern elements or themes that were common to their stories. I was particularly looking for themes that might explain what helped them move on from their traumatic experiences into a perspective of hope. I anticipated …

Development Of A Personal Visioning Guidance System, Mariano Tosso

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The primary intent of this project was to formulate a novel guidance system to help individuals gain clarity and understanding of their "inner vision" of a desired future state. My secondary goal was to enrich the palette of resources and tools available for coaching individuals in their discovery and crafting of personal and/or professional visions. Initially, I conducted an extensive literature review that inspired my approach. Then, I followed a process for assessing existing visioning tools and then imagining new opportunities to create, conceptualize, and craft at least five novel visioning tools.

The project outcome includes a Personal Visioning Guidance …

Believe The Lie: Source Monitoring Errors For Repeated Lies, Laura L. Heisick

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Identification Of Morphemes And The Effect Of Memory Load On Second Language Learning, Hannah Hebert

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Mindfulness And Distress Disclosure On Emotional Expression, Kelsey E. Eitel

USC Aiken Psychology Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a mindfulness exercise on participants’ distress disclosure (as measured by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). I employed a trauma written disclosure paradigm as an analogue to a therapy session in regard to disclosure. It was predicted that participants who were asked to engage in a 15-minute mindfulness exercise prior to writing about a personally traumatic event would use more emotion and cognitive processing words in their writing samples (i.e., increased distress disclosure), as compared to the participants who simply listened to a neutrally valenced audio clip. Participants were …

The Universal Design Paradigm: An Examination Of Real-Time, C-Print, Meaning-For-Meaning Transcription And Individual Differences In Learning, Amanda Boone

HIM 1990-2015

The intent of this thesis is to guide further research and discussion of C-Print, meaning-for-meaning transcription and its applications to today’s dynamic classroom settings under a Universal Design Paradigm. Evidence suggests that providing these captions can benefit Deaf and Hard of Hearing populations and also that concise, textual representations of information increase retention for average learners in multimedia settings. Individual differences were considered and low internal control participants did significantly better on exams when material was captioned compared to when it was not. They also tended to outperform high internal control participants on captioned material exams.

The Relationship Among Previous Exposure To War And Conflict, Acculturation, And Identity Formation Among Adolescent Refugees, Jessica Guler

HIM 1990-2015

This thesis examines the relationship among previous exposure to war and conflict, acculturation, and identity formation among adolescent refugees. It was hypothesized that US acculturation would mediate the association between exposure to war and conflict and identity development among adolescent refugees. Participants included 33 adolescent refugees (16 males and 17 females) ranging in age between 11 and 17 years (M = 14.61, SD = 1.48), who were recruited through a refugee resettlement service provider located in Orlando, Florida. Country of origin included Cuba (n = 25), Iraq (n = 4), Jordan (n =1), Haiti (n =1), Colombia (n =1), and …

Toward A Model Of Team Decision Making Under Stress, Alyssa Marshall

HIM 1990-2015

Today's organizations are increasingly relying on teams, rather than individuals, to complete tasks in the workplace. For some teams, these tasks require them to make high stakes decisions under stressful conditions. In military, medical, and emergency response fields, for example, workers are regularly asked to make decisions under high time pressure, uncertainty, and risk. The purpose of this study is to summarize previous team decision-making perspectives and create a model for team decision-making under stress. A literature review was conducted to examine the current state of team decision-making research. Several existing models of the team decision-making process were identified, representing …

Art Therapy And Cognitive Processing Therapy For Combat Ptsd: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Melissa Campbell

EVMS School of Health Professions Theses & Dissertations

Five veterans were recruited for this randomized controlled trial examining the effects of art therapy in conjunction with Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for veterans with combat PTSD. The results of this study supported our hypothesis that art therapy in combination with CPT would be more effective, and indicated that art therapy is a powerful form of treatment for this population and needs to be explored further. Other goals of this study were to gain a basic understanding of the benefits of art therapy for combat veterans with PTSD and if it should be included as a standard treatment for this …

Relations Between Teachers' Implicit Theories Of Intelligence, Standardized Achievement Testing, And Classroom Goals, Sydnie W. Ringle

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

An achievement gap between ethnic minorities and whites continues to exist within the US, as well as between the US and varying countries (Peterson, Woessmann, Hanushek, & Lastra-Anadon, 2011). Research has identified several factors that contribute to this gap, such as differences in curricula across countries, teacher quality, and school funding. In addition to these factors, teachers’ implicit theories of intelligence may also contribute to the achievement gap. Whether teachers view intelligence as fixed (entity theory) or malleable (incremental theory) can impact instructional practices, specifically the use of performance and learning goals. Performance goals focus on evaluation, ability, and performance …

The Effect Of Group Level Factors On Affective Convergence In Teams: An Agent Based Model, Chaunette Marie Small

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research supports the idea that affective convergence occurs in teams. The phenomenon of group affect has been well documented, however the group level conditions through which affective convergence emerges has received very little research. The current study helps to fill this gap by using agent-based modeling to examine affective convergence under varying group conditions. Agent-based modeling is a recently developed approach to research that uses the power of computers to model individual level behaviors and examine group level emergent constructs. The current study examined display rule presence, display rule breadth, social influence, interdependence, and team size on affective convergence. …

The Mental Organization Of People's Permanent And Situational Attributes, Kathleen Larson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis investigated whether readers would integrate physical descriptions of characters into one coherent mental representation or if they would keep mental representations separate. The integration of multiple concepts has been examined in the context of the fan effect, which is the finding that an increase in the number of learned associations for a concept can result in an increase in retrieval times and error rates (Anderson, 1974). However, there is typically not a fan effect when people are able to organize the related information into a single integrated situation model (Radvansky & Zacks, 1991). Previous studies investigating the fan …

Effects Of Licensed And Unlicensed Negation On The Activation Of Negated Concepts, Kevin Autry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on the activation of negated concepts has demonstrated situations in which negated concepts are less active than non-negated concepts (e.g., MacDonald & Just, 1989) as well as situations where negated and non-negated concepts are equally active (e.g., Autry & Levine, 2012, in press). Based on the pragmatic inference hypothesis (Levine & Hagaman, 2008), the present experiments tested the hypothesis that the activation level of negated concepts is a function of the context in which they occur. In two experiments, the activation level of target concepts was measured following licensing or non-licensing contexts using lexical decision and reading times. Although …

North Versus South : Perception Of New Jersey Dialects, Hannah Faye Sanes Gash

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Previous studies have found marked differences among regional dialects amidst both large and small geographic locations. This study expands upon previous work on the perception of dialectical differences between Northern and Southern New Jersey. According to previous research, a major dialect boundary splits New Jersey into the two regions of Northern and Southern New Jersey. These two dialects have been found to be influenced by the New York City and Philadelphia dialects, respectively. In this study, a set of 28 talkers (14 male, 14 female) with an even amount from Northern and Southern New Jersey provided sentence-length speech samples which …

Middle-Earth's War On Terror: A Post-9/11 Reception Study On The Works Of J.R.R. Tolkien, James William Peebles

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how Americans can and do interpret Tolkien's works in light of 9/11 and its proximity to Peter Jackson's film adaptations hitting theaters.

The Diathesis-Stress Model Of Corruption By The Ruling Ring: Nature, Power, And Exposure In J. R. R. Tolkien’S The Lord Of The Rings, Faith R. Holley

Student Scholarship

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring seems to exert power over some characters more than others. Though these differences could seem like an oversight or a lack of continuity, they also offer the opportunity to examine the effects of the differential power of the Ring. If the Ring is addictive, as Tom Shippey claims in The Road to Middle Earth, then it is possible to examine the etiology of addiction to the Ring (126). In this thesis, I present a psychological reading of Tolkien that relies on a modern psychological theory, namely the …

High School Students Tell All: Analyzing Facebook Confession Sites, Chelsea Conrad

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Social media sites are gaining popularity, giving teenagers a venue to anonymously post secrets, rants, and insults. Recently, anonymous high school related Facebook confession sites have emerged. These sites, while not endorsed by the school, often contain the school’s name, mascot and location creating a forum for anonymous social interactions among high school students. Facebook confession sites have gained attention over concerns about cyber bullying and the potential negative influence on the reputation of schools. The purpose of this study is to analyze the language of Facebook confession sites to determine the degree of positive and negative emotionality as well …

Ciis Today, Spring 2014 Issue, Cakifornia Institute Of Integral Studies

CIIS Today

This volume is the Spring 2014 issue of CIIS Today, the Magazine of the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Attachment Representations And Mother-Child Dialogue, Baiba Barene

Open Access Theses

With the emerging linguistic competencies of the child, dialogue becomes a regular part of mother-child everyday interactions, and may serve as one of the mechanisms of transmission of attachment in early and middle childhood. The goal of this study was to investigate the hypothesis about the co-constructive nature of children's knowledge of secure base script. Formation of the secure base script is a result of child-caregiver interactions that have been consolidated into a unit of knowledge available for use in attachment related situations. Individual attachment narratives and mother-child co-constructed narratives were collected from 86 mother-child dyads when children were 3.7 …

Volume 06, Kristen Gains, Amanda Willis, Holly Backer, Monika Gutierrez, Cara O'Neal, Sara Nelson, Sasha Silberman, Jessica Beardsley, Jamie Gardner, Edward Peeples, Matthew Sakach, Tess Lione, Emily Wilkins, Kelsey Holt, Jessica Page, Jamie Clift, Charles Vancampen, Gilbert Hall, Jenny Nehrt, Kasey Dye, Amanda Tharp, Jamie Leeuwrik, Ashley Mcgee, Emily Poulin, Michael Kropf, Nick Pastore, Austin Polasky, Morgan Glasco, Laura L. Kahler, Melinda L. Edwards, Brandon C. Smith, Mariah Asbell, Cabell Edmunds, Amelia D. Perry, Alyssa Hayes, Irina Boothe, Perry Bason, James Early

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction from Dean Dr. Charles Ross

Caught Between Folklore and the Cold War: The Americanization of Russian Children's Literature by Kristen Gains

Graphic Design by Amanda Willis

Graphic Design by Holly Backer

Prejudices in Swiss German Accents by Monika Gutierrez

Photography by Cara O'Neal

Photography by Sara Nelson

Edmund Tyrone's Long Journey through Night by Sasha Silberman

Photography by Jessica Beardsley

Photography by Jamie Gardner and Edward Peeples

The Republican Razor: The Guillotine as a Symbol of Equality by Jamie Clift

Graphic Design by Matthew Sakach

Genocide: The Lasting Effects of Gender Stratification in Rwanda By Tess Lione and Emily …