Digital Commons Network^™

Investigation Of A Novel Behavioral Assessment Of Challenging Behavior In The Context Of Medical Necessity And Disability Theory, Madison S. Walker

All NMU Master's Theses

Individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities often engage in challenging behaviors that interfere with daily functioning and community participation. Many standardized assessments focus on indirect, descriptive measurements that emphasize frequency, while providing limited information about medical severity, ongoing management strategies, and functional outcomes. This misalignment may limit the clinical utility of assessments, as scores may not consistently align with medical necessity criteria or arguments supporting the maintenance of current treatments. The first study extends on Reyes-Martín et al. (2022), which reviewed 24 assessments of challenging behaviors, by further evaluating assessment characteristics relevant to clinical decision-making and treatment justification. Findings highlight variability across …

Autistic Traits And Mental Health Support Service Use Among Parents Of Young Children With Autism, Margaret Janse Van Rensburg, Robert Hock, Emmanuella Asabea Twum, Resia-Maria Cooper, Abigail K. Reza Jameson, C. Andrew Conway, Mark Ethan Feinberg

Faculty and Staff Publications

Parents of children recently diagnosed with autism often experience elevated psychological distress, yet little is known about whether parental autistic traits are associated with support-seeking. Using baseline data from a randomized controlled trial of a parent mentoring intervention, this study examined support use among 355 parents of children aged 18 months to 8 years whose child had received an autism diagnosis within the previous 12 months. Parental autistic traits were assessed using the Ritvo Autism and Asperger Diagnostic Scale–14 (RAADS-14). Overall, 36.1% of parents reported accessing support for stress, emotional, or mental health concerns, and 33.2% scored above the RAADS-14 …

What Fire Reveals: A Portfolio Of Integrated Practice, Harm Reduction, And Liberation-Centered Social Work, Jackie Brittain

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Hkc07 - Bayesian Conspiracy Theorists? Equivocal Signals And Persistent Polarization, Javier A. Granados Samayoa, Timothy Hyde

Oberlin College Kasper Economics and Business Working Paper Series

Conspiracy beliefs are the subject of a rich literature in psychology, which explains them through personal dysfunction. The corresponding economics literature is scant. We offer a demand-side model of belief in specific conspiracy theories with no biases, misspecification, or strategic manipulation. A conspiracy, by its nature, generates equivocal evidence about its own existence, because the same strength that produces more to detect also produces better concealment. We model belief in a specific conspiracy theory as learning about the strength 𝑞 of a cabal, a stand-in for the secretly coordinating actors of any conspiracy theory. In the baseline the cabal influences …

Hkc08 - Neglect At Your Own Risk? Evidence On Risk-Taking Prevalence And Motives From The Field, Saurabh Bhargava, Timothy Hyde

Oberlin College Kasper Economics and Business Working Paper Series

We study risky choice in a field setting where employees choose among goal-reward contracts resembling financial lotteries and where we observe both choices and beliefs. We find risk aversion and choice heterogeneity far exceeding expected utility predictions and unexplained by prominent behavioral motives like overconfidence, nonlinear decision weights, and loss aversion. We propose and experimentally validate a heuristic explanation for risk taking involving contingency neglect during pairwise evaluation. The heuristic fits the field and lab data better than leading alternative models, uniquely predicts the belief distortions and framing effects we document, and offers a potential explanation for empirical insurance puzzles.

Liah Greenfeld On Antisemitism As A Defining Characteristic Of The Monotheistic Civilization, Efraim Karsh

Comparative Civilizations Review

One cannot overstate the scholarly and intellectual loss occasioned by the untimely death of Boston University Professor Liah Greenfeld. Through her prodigious interdisciplinary research, Professor Greenfeld has established herself as one of the foremost social science theorists of our time and a worthy heir to the great firstgeneration nationalism scholars, in particular Eric Hobsbawm, Ernest Gellner, and Anthony Smith.

Black Protection: Black Social Media Competency And Urban, Black Adolescents On Social Media, Taylor A. Williams

Dissertations

While urban, Black adolescents interact with racial identity content on social media, their identity is primarily shaped through offline experiences and later reflected or reinforced online. Through the concept of Black social media competency (B-SMC), this study examined the relationships between Black urban adolescents’ social media use, exposure to race-related content, and experiences navigating the digital environment. The study used a qualitative design, grounded in the phenomenological and ecological frameworks, with 21 adolescents recruited from two urban, Midwestern schools and programs to participate in semi-structured interviews, and data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify patterns in how the participants …

Evaluating The Motivations Of Participants In Online Equine Extension Courses, Sarah Vos

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Traditional program evaluations emphasize participant demographics, knowledge gain, behavior change, and program impact. However, evaluating participant motivation can provide addition insight into why participants enroll in extension programs and help explain participant engagement and persistence throughout a program. The purpose of this study was to evaluate participant motivation in two online equine extension courses and examine potential relationships between motivation, demographics, and course delivery method, and describe participant engagement in Virtual Horse Judging Camp (VHJC). This cross-sectional study utilized convenience sampling of participants in two online equine extension courses, Horse Adult Leader Training and Educational Resource (HALTER) and VHJC. The …

Issue 26: Labour, Poverty, And Health Concerns Of Migrant Women And Girls Working As Kayayei In Ghana's Urban Centres, Comfort Baidoo, Robert Mcleman

International Migration Research Centre

Over the past four decades, growing numbers of women and girls have left northern Ghana for the country's cities, drawn by the promise of work, independence, and a chance to support their families. Many end up as kayayei, head porters who carry goods through Accra's crowded markets for a negotiated fee. Their labour keeps the informal economy moving, yet it comes at a steep personal cost: unpredictable earnings, punishing physical strain, unsafe housing, and a healthcare system that too often leaves them out. This brief draws together the available evidence on the economic and health conditions of kayayei in Greater-Accra. …

Knowledge, Physician Communication, And Psychological Predictors Of Willingness To Engage In Dementia Risk Reduction Across The Lifespan, Thomas Fisher

Dissertations

Dementia represents a growing global public health concern, with increasing evidence suggesting that a substantial portion of dementia risk may be attributable to modifiable lifestyle and health-related factors. However, relatively little is known about public knowledge of these risk factors, willingness to engage in dementia risk reducing behaviors, and psychological factors that may be associated with willingness. The present study examines these factors among adults living in the United States across the lifespan. Participants (N = 308) completed an anonymous online survey assessing dementia risk-factor knowledge, willingness to engage in dementia risk reducing behaviors, primary care provider communication regarding dementia …

Black Adolescents' Understanding Of Racial Trauma: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, Winifred Wilson

Dissertations

Over the past two decades, scholars have increasingly recognized that chronic stress from racism can cause racial trauma in Black individuals. However, research on the impact of racial trauma on Black adolescents remains limited. Understanding the language and experiences of Black adolescents is essential for identifying and addressing the biopsychosocial effects of racial trauma. This study used interpretive phenomenological analysis to examine how 12 Black adolescents (9 boys, 3 girls, aged 14-17) from the Midwest conceptualize, experience, and cope with racial trauma. Participants completed two interviews: an initial session exploring their understanding and experiences, and a member-checking interview (completed by …

Analysis Of A Process-Based Approach To Case Formulation And Treatment With Acceptance And Commitment Therapy, Callum Smith

Dissertations

Process-Based Therapy (PBT) is a novel approach to clinical research and practice. PBT is proposed as an alternative model to classic diagnostic frameworks. It emphasizes conceptualizing psychological problems through adaptive and maladaptive processes of change. The aim of current PBT research is to develop reliable methods of organizing change processes into network models. In network models, change processes are presented in nodes connected by lines and arrows to represent the interacting relationships between those processes for a given individual. The present project aims to evaluate the inter-rater reliability and predictive validity of a novel semi-structured interview method to aid in …

Love’S Dialects: Proposed Additions In Emotionally Focused Therapy For Intercultural Couples, Nicola Heurich

Dissertations

Intercultural romantic relationships have become an increasingly prominent feature of contemporary society due to globalization, migration, and cross-cultural exchange (Livingston & Brown, 2017). However, these partnerships are also associated with elevated levels of relational distress and higher rates of conflict, separation, and divorce, underscoring the need for culturally responsive approaches in couple therapy (Bustamante et al., 2011; Genç & Su, 2021).

Research on intercultural couples remains limited both within and beyond Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and despite increased recognition of cultural factors, there is still insufficient guidance on navigating differing cultural contexts within a dyad (Linhof & Allan, 2018).

The …

Adverse Childhood Experiences And Juvenile Offending: Client-Factor Variations And A Novel Intervention Approach, Madison M. Dobreff

Dissertations

Adverse childhood experiences have consistently been identified as risk factors for juvenile offending. However, this relationship is complex and varies based on individual factors. This critical literature review not only examined the current research on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and juvenile offending but also identified client factor variations that influence the relationship. Client factors examined throughout include race/ethnicity, gender, age, internalized and externalized mental health symptoms, positive internal factors, familial and external social support, educational engagement, environmental factors, and positive childhood experiences. The relationship is further complicated by examining the effects of multiple client-factor variations on the adverse …

An Evaluation Of Staff Training To Teach Implementation Of Functional Analysis Of Inappropriate Mealtime Behavior, Lauren Marie Lightner

Theses and Dissertations

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) along with other feeding disorders are prevalent in both neurotypical children along with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities. Children with feeding challenges often exhibit inappropriate mealtime behavior (IMB) to avoid consuming non-preferred foods. It is pertinent to determine the function of IMB in order to create an efficacious treatment; one such assessment is the functional analysis (Iwata et al. 1982/1994). Iwata et al. (2000) taught students how to implement a functional analysis of self-injurious behavior using behavioral skills training. Since the assessment’s development, it has been extended to various …

Before Urgent Fury: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Grenada During The Ford And Carter Administrations, Nicholas Jake Durell

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

When the United States pulled out of Vietnam in 1973, it experienced a military and psychological defeat unlike any in its modern history. Following President Richard Nixon’s resignation from the Watergate scandal, Gerald Ford, the House Minority Leader who had become Vice President, now assumed the presidency of a deeply fractured nation. As the Cold War persisted, Washington struggled to reassert its superpower status globally while desperately avoiding further foreign entanglements. Consequently, the Ford administration adopted a cautiously detached approach to foreign policy, a strategy vividly illustrated by its posture toward the Eastern Caribbean. This calculated ambivalence, continued by the …

Issue 25: Beyond Blame: Gender-Based Violence Prevention And African Diaspora Communities In The Waterloo Region, Halima Ahmed, Valdrin Dragusha, Stella Omonigho, Fadhilah Balogun

International Migration Research Centre

Gender-Based Violence (GBV) remains a critical social, public health, and governance challenge in Canada, particularly for migrant and refugee women (Tastsoglou, 2025). This is increasingly prominent at the local level in the Waterloo Region, particularly for African and racialized diaspora communities navigating settlement, integration, and institutional access. While multi-level governance and frameworks exist at the city, regional, provincial, and federal levels to address GBV, they tend to work in silos, and local implementation gaps persist. The gaps are shaped by cultural stigma, fragmented service delivery, precarious immigration status, formalinformal networks of support, and unequal access to culturally responsive support systems. …

Autistic Students' Experiences With Hybrid Flexible Instruction In Higher Education: An Interpretive Phenomenological Study, Tracey Nicole Barr

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

During the twenty-first century, autistic learners have enrolled in colleges and universities in greater numbers; however, the majority of research focused on their experiences in higher education has found them to be less academically successful than their neurotypical peers. The academic skills that autistic students bring to higher education are often tempered by social, emotional, and self-regulative challenges. The body of research focusing on autistic learners’ experiences in higher education is currently limited and focused primarily on fully in-person and online course models. No extant research has focused on autistic students’ experiences with hybrid or blended course models.

This interpretive …

Exploring Discretionary Benefits’ Impact On Michigan Public Sector Employees, Sydnie N. Smith

Master of Public Administration Capstone Papers

Productivity, well-being, and retention are factors that impact organizational success and goal attainment; in the public sector in Michigan, employees are the most valuable asset. This research paper seeks to answer the following question: How does the adoption of unlimited PTO policies shape workforce morale, productivity, and retention in public sector employment? Current research into paid leave policy’s impact on employees is scant, it is further limited in the scope of public sector employees. This paper believes that research is needed to determine the relationship between paid leave benefits and employee productivity, well-being/morale, and retention as it could improve public …

The Black Student Union At Northern Michigan University: Leadership, Community, And Institutional Change Through Student Activism, Marlanaysia Rosser

Master of Public Administration Capstone Papers

This paper explores how the Black Student Union (BSU) at Northern Michigan University (NMU) has influenced and contributed to the development of support systems for Black students in alignment with broader historical movements. Through archival records and four interviews with former BSU leaders, this study examines the impact of student activism on institutional change, leadership development, and community. The findings revealed that student activism at NMU reflected many of the concerns and strategies occurring across the nation during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. While the experiences of BSU members and institutional support shifted across generations, BSU remained a …

Wisdom In Counseling And Psychotherapy: A Conceptual Model For Practice, Mitchell Waters

Posters

Wisdom is increasingly recognized as an important construct in counseling and psychotherapy, yet its clinical application remains underdeveloped. This article presents an integrative model of wisdom as a dynamic, context-sensitive capacity that coordinates cognitive, affective, temporal, and spiritual processes in response to complex life challenges. The model includes four dimensions: (a) cognitive-affective integration, combining emotion and reason; (b) temporal integration, linking past experiences with future possibilities; (c) intrinsic spirituality, fostering meaning-making and reducing egocentric bias; and (d) regulatory flexibility, enabling adaptive shifts among domains. Implications for therapeutic practice, outcomes, and future research are discussed.

More Than A Profession: A Calling In Social Work, Paulette Lingle

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

The Price Of Possessiveness: How Parental Materialism Undermines Child Psychological Wellbeing, Miao Li

Sociology Publications

Materialism, a value system that places the pursuit of possessions at the core of happiness and life meaning, is a dominant cultural force in modern societies. While its associations with individual well-being are well-documented, its intergenerational implications remain understudied. This study conceptualizes materialism as a potential family stressor contributing to the intergenerational transmission of stress. An intergenerational crossover model of materialism was tested using data from 1,996 parent-child pairs in Zhengzhou, China. Results indicate that higher parental materialism is associated with stronger materialistic values in children, weaker family relationships, and more frequent parental comparisons, each of which is linked to …

Understanding College Student Expectancies Of Simultaneous Engagement In Multiple Risk Behaviors: A Measurement Development And Model Testing Study, Shelby Whalen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Risky behaviors, actions that may cause physical, psychological, social, or economic harm to oneself or others, are prevalent among college students. While significant research has focused on single high-risk behaviors of alcohol use, drug use, gambling, and gaming separately, students frequently engage in multiple high-risk behaviors simultaneously, such as drinking alcohol while gambling. Research shows that students have distinct and specific expectancies about what happens when they engage in a risk behavior, however, minimal research has examined students’ perceptions or reasons for simultaneous poly-risk behavior engagement. This multi-phase project characterized students’ outcome expectancies for simultaneous poly-risk behavior combinations, developed and …

The Memphis Gambling Screen: A Clinical Validation Study Of An Enhanced-Readability Self-Report Measure For Gambling Disorder, Natasha Bourgoin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Precise identification of gambling disorder can be difficult when commonly used screeners vary in clarity and diagnostic accuracy. The Memphis Gambling Screen (MGS) was developed as an enhanced-readability self-report measure to improve item comprehension and strengthen the diagnostic accuracy of DSM-5 gambling disorder. This study evaluates the psychometric properties and diagnostic accuracy of the MGS with a combined sample of individuals seeking treatment for problem gambling or substance use disorder and college students with a recent history of gambling (N = 232). Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the MGS, and another commonly used measure, the Problem Gambling Severity Index …

Weathering More Than Storms: Understanding The Mental Health Disparities Of Black Farmers In The Appalachian Region, Aliyah Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Black farmers in Appalachia represent a vital and historically marginalized population within one of America’s most economically distressed regions. Black farmers have endured generations of systemic racism, resulting in land loss, economic hardship, and mental stressors. This study examines the intersection of race, agriculture, and behavioral health to illustrate how structural barriers and cultural stigmas shape the mental well-being of Black farmers across Appalachia.

Findings from the analysis will guide the development of a conceptual model based on constructs from the Social-Ecological Model (SEM), Intersectionality Theory, and Critical Race Theory (CRT). This study will use Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) conducted …

Wisdom In Counseling And Psychotherapy: A Conceptual Model For Practice, Mitchell Waters

Papers

Wisdom is increasingly recognized as a critical construct in counseling and psychotherapy, yet it remains conceptually diffuse and underdeveloped for clinical application. This article proposes an integrative conceptual model of wisdom that extends the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) WISE MIND framework by incorporating temporal and self-transcendent dimensions. Wisdom is defined as a dynamic, context-sensitive capacity to coordinate cognitive, affective, temporal, and spiritual processes in response to complex life demands. The model includes four components: (a) cognitive–affective integration, reflecting the synthesis of emotion and reason; (b) temporal integration, involving adaptive coordination of past experiences and future possibilities; (c) self-transcendent orientation, conceptualized …

Remotely Assessing Foundational Skills Of 5–14-Year-Old Children: A Six-Country Psychometric Evaluation Of The Remote Assessment Of Learning (Real), Elizabeth Hentschel, Sascha Hein, Nan Li, Clay Westrope, Julia Taladay, Gillian Valentine, James Leckman, Amira Abdurahman, Fatime Bachir, Farah Darwazeh

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Approximately 250 million children worldwide are out of school. There is growing consensus for investing in feasible, contextually appropriate, psychometrically tested, remote tools to support quality education in low-resource contexts, including low- and middle-income countries and crisis-affected contexts. Save the Children developed the Remote Assessment of Learning (ReAL) to assess 5–14-year-old children's foundational learning. Children (N = 4,840) were sampled from Cambodia, Mozambique, Niger, the occupied Palestinian territories, the Philippines, and Sudan, with an approximately equal proportion of male and female children within each country. The study assessed inter-rater reliability, factor structure, item slope and difficulty, criterion validity, …

Content Appeals And Messaging Used By Tik Tok Influencers Promoting Peptides, Hannah R. Gunter, Jack Dominick, Allison Komosa, Alexis Zeidner, Aida Calo, Richard M. Perloff

Student Scholarship

Peptides, small protein-like molecules that regulate important body functions, have exploded in popularity, in large part due to persuasive appeals on social media and a plethora of online promotions by social media influencers. However, there is large gray market of unregulated peptides that have serious side effects. This timely content analysis thoroughly examines how peptides are promoted on TikTok by prominent and popular male and female influencers. The study sheds light on the strategies influencers employ, and the disturbing fact that a small minority of messages mention side effects that users may confront or other adverse consequences of these supposedly-miracle …

The Comfort Cart Initiative: A Quality Improvement Intervention To Improve Patient Satisfaction In The Emergency Department, Heidy Cladimir Ayala

Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Project Abstract

The Comfort Cart Initiative: A Quality Improvement Intervention to Improve Patient Satisfaction in the Emergency Department

Purpose

The Comfort Cart QI project aimed to improve Emergency Department patient, parent, and guardian satisfaction by 10% over an 8-week implementation period.

Background

In healthcare, patient satisfaction is an important indicator of the quality of care provided, and many literature reviews suggest it is closely associated with patient-centered care.

 Methodology

The Comfort Cart intervention is an evidence-based quality improvement project employing a pre- and post-intervention design, conducted over an 8-week period, in the Emergency Department. The project was guided by Kolcaba's Comfort Theory …