Digital Commons Network^™

Orienting Pacha: Value As Action In The Late Horizon Xauxa-Pachacamac Axis, Ridge C. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

The Andean Late Horizon (ca. AD 1438–1532) was a period of exceptionally rapid and far-reaching cultural change. Over this short span of only a few generations, the Inka ethnic group established an empire that was greater in size than any other pre-colonial American polity. The Inka accomplished their expansion without the use of certain institutions (i.e., a standing army, formal writing system, monetary system, or price-setting markets) that the received anthropological wisdom has long held as being necessary preconditions to imperial expansion. Standard explanations of Late Horizon culture change tend to overemphasize the roles of environmental constraints, social evolution, and …

Student Perspectives On Feedback In A Spanish Medical Interpreting Course, Allison Rebecca Brimhall

Theses and Dissertations

Medical interpreter education is a fast-growing field in which learners sometimes receive inadequate feedback to help them improve their interpreting skills (Sultanić, 2021). This qualitative study focused on students’ perspectives on the different types of feedback given in a university Spanish medical interpreting course. Interviews and written reflections were analyzed to investigate what students personally considered to be the outcomes of the class and how feedback given in the course was associated with their development of interpreting skills and self-efficacy. Students reported that they found the most meaningful improvement through (1) guided self-assessment to discover gaps in their abilities, (2) …

Parental Incarceration As A Predictor Of Legal Cynicism, Mackenzie Joy Heim

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have established that legal cynicism is linked to violence, deviant behavior, and crime. In response to the potentially dangerous implications of a legally cynical society, research in recent years has attempted to identify experiences and conditions that play a role in the development of legal attitudes. Given that youths' familial and social conditions appear to be influential predictors, this study tests the relationship between parental incarceration and legal cynicism. Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study were used for this analysis. Results from three OLS regression models indicate that parental incarceration is not a significant predictor of …

The Perception Of At-Risk Students On Caring Student-Teacher Relationships And Its Impact On Their Productive Disposition, Brittany Hopper

Theses and Dissertations

The importance of a positive, caring relationship with students in the classroom is under-researched in mathematics education. Research shows that a positive student-teacher relationship can have many long-term positive results for the student. Many of these results directly impact a student's productive disposition towards mathematics. At-risk students are in greater need of positive relationships and an increase in productive disposition. Using Joan Tronto's (1993) elements of care, I examine the student perspective of these kinds of relationships and how the student sees development of their own productive disposition.

Math Achievement Opportunity For American Mexican Children In Mexico: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis Using Multilevel Data, Jimmy E. Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

Since the U.S. Recession of 2008, more Mexicans are leaving than coming to the United States. Many Mexican families return to Mexico with their U.S.-born--or American Mexican--children and youth. Approximately 700,000 American Mexican children and youth are now living and attending K-12 schools throughout Mexico (Gándara & Jensen, 2021; Jacobo-Suárez, 2017; Jensen et al., 2017; Passel et al., 2012). They are part of a broader category of students who have educational experiences on both sides of the border often referred to as transnational students. Return migration to Mexico presents both challenges and opportunities that affect their adaptation to Mexican schools. …

The Reciprocal Relationship Between Group Therapeutic Relationships And Group Member Symptom Improvement: An Archival Analysis, Aileen Marie Rands

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers and clinicians have long recognized that therapeutic relationships play a fundamental role in client symptom change during treatment. At the same time, it has been proposed that improvement in client symptoms is associated with improvement in therapeutic relationships. To date, very few studies have investigated this reciprocal relationship; even fewer have examined group therapeutic relationship factors. The present study is an archival analysis on Group Questionnaire (GQ) (i.e., positive bond, positive work, and negative relationship) and Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45) data that aims to analyze the reciprocal relationship between group therapeutic relationships and client symptom change. More specifically, this study …

Settler-Author Allyship In Centering Indigenous Ecologies: Communal Will Through Collective Environmental Guilt In This Tender Land And Caleb's Crossing, Elena Marie Arana

Theses and Dissertations

The January 2021 edition of PMLA housed an entire cluster on "Indigenous Literatures and the Anthropocene," in which at least four of the eight non-Indigenous contributors directly addressed and supported a call for learning from and collaborating with Indigenous voices. The unanimity of the discussion dissolves somewhat drastically when considering exactly how this should be done, leading Melanie Taylor to voice one of the framing questions of the cluster: "If it is increasingly clear that not all members of Anthropos are equal drivers of the Anthropocene, and that not all are uniformly compromised by its havoc, how can we begin …

The Protective Potential Of Family Relationship Strength As It Relates To Suicidal Thoughts And Behavior In Ace-Exposed Adolescents And Emerging Adults, Collin Wright

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Introduction: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are known to cause higher incidences of Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors (STBs) in young people. Family Relationship Strength (FRS) is a known protective factor against STBs. However, there is little research on the protective nature of FRS once ACEs have been experienced by a young person. The aim of our analysis is to examine whether the strong protective nature of FRS holds true even in ACE- exposed youth.

Methods: A sample of 139 patients at the Brigham Young University Comprehensive Clinic (aged 12-25) was obtained from the BYU Marriage and Family Therapy Practice Research Network. …

Returning Thanks To God And Others: The Relational, Prosocial, And Emotional Consequences Of Transcendent Indebtedness, Jenae Marie Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Gratitude and indebtedness facilitate cooperative relationships and altruism. Although most of the world endorses some belief in God, gratitude and indebtedness to God have not received adequate empirical attention. The "Gratitude to God" research initiative was created to address this gap, of which the current project is an appendage. This project encapsulates a multiphase research proposal, including three parts; a pilot study and two experimental studies. The purpose of the pilot study (N = 475) was to create and test experimental manipulations for the two experimental studies. Experiment 1 (N = 659; highly religious emerging adult sample) was a 3x2 …

Positive Psychology Interventions In An Sla Context: A Semester-Long Study Of The Impact Of Positive Psychology On The Well-Being And Language Development Of English Language Learners, Carolee Rogers

Theses and Dissertations

This article reports on a study investigating the effectiveness of positive psychology interventions (PPIs) in an Intensive English Program (IEP) for non-matriculated university students. Interventions based on the PERMA model for wellbeing (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment) were implemented through weekly 65-minute lessons and short daily activities. Each lesson introduced an aspect of the PERMA model such as positive emotion or achievement. Along with this focused instruction, students concurrently engaged in language learning activities. Teachers also provided short daily activities for reinforcement throughout the week. Six classes received these interventions, while three classes served as a control group …

Physical Place And Online Space: Permeability, Embodiment, And Gender In Two Online, Synchronous Critical Multicultural Teacher Education Courses, Elizabeth Finlayson Harris

Theses and Dissertations

This semester-long microethnography explores how the emotional geography in two online, synchronous critical multicultural education courses are shaped by online interactions and infrastructures as well as social frames. Using a microethnographic approach, video data, interviews, and open-ended questionnaires revealed patterns of interactions suggesting an online emotional geography characterized by a duality of physical place and online space. Key findings suggest that the levels of permeability in student and instructor's physical location influence how online participants gave or received emotion gifts and performances in online spaces. This study further supports emergent research suggesting gender frames as relevant in students' level of …

The Effects Of Dialogic Reading On The Oral Language Ofâ Diverse Kindergarten Students, Abigail Figgins

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if dialogic reading involving diverse kindergarten students would significantly affect narrative language. Various studies have corroborated the effectiveness of dialogic reading instruction on the expressive vocabulary of monolingual children. However, few studies have examined oral narrative language outcomes, especially with diverse students. A total of 142 kindergarten students were randomly assigned to a treatment group or control group. Each child in the treatment group received 14 weeks of whole-class dialogic reading instruction from their kindergarten teacher two times per week for 20 minutes each session in their classroom. The dialogic reading program …

Conceptualizing Parental Support In K-12 Online Education, Courtney N. Hanny

Theses and Dissertations

External support, such as that provided by parents, plays an important role in helping students in K-12 online education engage in their education and obtain academic success. The Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE) framework has been proposed as one way of conceptualizing the communities that support students, including the roles that parents and guardians play. Research studying parental support in online education could benefit from the structure offered from the ACE framework, but, due to the framework's novelty, it has not been widely applied in research. The first article in this thesis sought to use the ACE framework to synthesize …

Parental Perceptions Of Elementary Aged Children Learning To Code, David Daniel

Theses and Dissertations

Little research has been conducted to understand the role that parents play in children learning to code even though coding has become a necessary skill for students to successfully study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subjects. After identifying five factors that would influence parental perceptions, we developed a survey and administered it to parents of elementary aged children. We validated the survey using a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. To be considered valid, factors needed to meet three of the following four fit statistics: RSMEA < 0.08, SRMR < 0.08, CFI > 0.9, TLI > 0.9. Items needed to have a factor loading > 0.3 with a …

The Caregiver's Conflict: The Toll Of Death And Dying On Nurses' Mental Health And Wellbeing, Madison Brown

Student Works

A major responsibility for nurses is caring for patients during the end-of-life process, as well as helping families and patients cope with the death and dying process. It is well known that death and dying greatly impacts families, but little holistic research has been done on how death and dying impacts nurses’ mental and emotional wellbeing. Using databases Google Scholar, Web of Science, and EBSCO, 14 articles were analyzed regarding the impact of death on nurses’ mental health. Results show that the age of a patient plays a bigger role on death impact than nursing specialty does, as younger patients’ …

Critical Incidents In Sustaining A Behavior Management Level System With Special Education Students In A Self-Contained School, Stephanie Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Level systems provide systematic support for teachers and students who need additional behavior support. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perspectives of faculty members from a self-contained school, for special education students with severe behavior needs, which has sustained the use of a school-wide, behavior management level system for nearly 30 years. A total of 11 faculty members were interviewed using the critical incident technique, a qualitative methodology used as an exploratory tool in early stages of research. Interviews detailed the observable behaviors and specific events, critical incidents, that helped or hindered the sustainability of their school's …

Aiding Semantic Memory Creation With Navigational Context, Thomas Benjamin Lyle Wasden

Theses and Dissertations

While we have traditionally understood the hippocampus to be involved in memory and navigation, it also appears that it has a role in language processing, creation and prediction. An obvious explanation for this is that language is impossible if linguistic signs cannot be remembered and retrieved. Because linguistic signs are definitionally biologically neutral or arbitrary, we must use the brain's apparatus for learning and storing information from the external world to store and retrieve them. Although plausible, this explanation fails to take into account the hippocampus' role in navigation as a contributing element in the processing, storage and retrieval of …

Comparative Sequence Analysis Elucidates The Evolutionary Patterns Of Yersinia Pestis In New Mexico Over Thirty-Two Years, M. Elizabeth Warren

Theses and Dissertations

Yersinia pestis, a gram-negative bacterium, is the causative agent of plague. Y. pestis is a zoonotic pathogen that occasionally infects humans, and is endemic in the western United States. History gives evidence of three main plague pandemics. The first, originating in Egypt in 541AD, is known as the Justinian plague. The second, perhaps most well-known, is thought to have emerged in 1347AD in China, and is called the Black Death. The third, and current plague pandemic, also emerged in China in 1855. In 1899, Y. pestis was established in California, and the plague in other parts of America evolved from …

Aligning Educational Practice With Institutional Purpose: A Case Study Of High Impact Practices In Higher Education, Jaynie Celeste Mitchell

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how one college in a large private university sought to benefit its students by implementing a program of faculty-mentored, co-curricular high impact practices (HIPs). This qualitative single case study uses confirmatory and exploratory document analysis to examine how an educational leader translated institutional purpose via unit leaders and program managers into the educational practice of faculty mentors. The researcher found stronger and weaker areas of alignment of institution purpose to educational practice across a systems theory-based purpose-to-practice continuum. Variety in the concentration of themes across the data may be due to how these themes were emphasized in …

Satanic Injustice: A Pentadic Rhetorical Analysis Of State Of Arkansas V Echols And Baldwin, Shaelee Bryne Erickson

Theses and Dissertations

Injustice continues to be a highly discussed topic in many scholarly disciplines, including rhetoric and law. Scholars in both fields are exploring how language in legal discourse contributes to systematic inequality, discrimination, and unfairness--racial and nonracial. This rise in scholarly interest correlates with civic concern, as there have been many court cases in the last few decades that have captured public and media attention. One of these cases involved Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, two teenage boys who were convicted for murdering three 8-year-old boys. Echols and Baldwin were tried during the late 20th-century satanic panic, a well-documented social phenomenon …

Effects Of Autonomy, Competence, And Relatedness On Employee Outcomes: A Literature Review, Joseph Wilson

Student Works

Most business organizations understand that employees are an essential part of their success and as such, much research has gone into understanding the most effective ways of eliciting favorable employee outcomes. The self-determination theory (SDT) is one result of the extensive research that has been done on the topic. SDT suggests a relationship between positive employee outcomes and the satisfaction of employees’ three basic psychological needs (TBPN): autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This literature review was undertaken to examine empirical studies that have researched the ways psychological needs are satisfied, and the effects of the TBPN on employee outcomes in the …

A Missing Piece In The K-12 Online Learning Puzzle: Professional Development For Online Teachers, Chad A. Turley

Theses and Dissertations

K-12 online learning continues to grow, and with it, the need for well-trained online teachers. This multiple-article dissertation explores K-12 online teaching professional development. A literature review describes research trends regarding unique strategies and competencies related to online teaching. It explores strategies such as acting as a facilitator, developing course knowledge, encouraging student engagement, interacting regularly with students, giving feedback, and developing time management skills. The literature review suggests that there is a lack of specific recommendations about what content should be covered and why professional development is beneficial for both teachers and students. Programs that incorporate online teaching professional …

Thalamic Shape Abnormalities Differentially Relate To Cognitive Performance In Early-Onset And Adult-Onset Schizophrenia, Derin J. Cobia, Chaz Rich, Matthew J. Smith, Pedro Engel Gonzalez, Will Cronenwett, John G. Csernansky, Lei Wang

Faculty Publications

Early-onset schizophrenia (EOS) shares many biological and clinical features with adult-onset schizophrenia (AOS), but may represent a unique subgroup with greater susceptibility for disease onset and worsened symptomatology and progression, which could potentially derive from exaggerated neurodevelopmental abnormalities. Neurobiological explanations of schizophrenia have emphasized the involvement of deep-brain structures, particularly alterations of the thalamus, which have been linked to core features of the disorder. The aim of this study was to compare thalamic shape abnormalities between EOS and AOS subjects and determine whether unique behavioral profiles related to these differences. It was hypothesized abnormal thalamic shape would be observed in …

Always Running At Sunset, Amelia O'Neill

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis show includes paintings that depict scenes of the trails that my dog and I frequent in Utah. These paintings are a response to experiences I have in nature and explore my relationship with my dog and the surrounding flora and fauna along the local trails. The paintings include images of rocks, sticks, dirt, trails, dogs, clouds, and dried sunflowers in the wind. In addition to realistic depictions of nature, my paintings reflect on the psychological and emotional state of being in nature. The title of the show is Always Running at Sunset, which is meant to be taken …

The Relationship Between Traumatic Brain Injury And Disruptions In Heart Rate Variability And Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback: A Systematic Review, Leah D. Talbert

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Traumatic brain injury is a significant public health problem. Heart rate variability is a potential modality to measure physiological dysfunction following traumatic brain injury to assist in determining recovery time and the relationship between traumatic brain injury severity and recovery. To date, a summary of the evidence across injury severities and the possible role of heart rate variability biofeedback in traumatic brain injury treatment is lacking but needed to determine potential clinical utility. Participants and Methods: We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Systematic literature searches on CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus, and MEDLINE …

Physical Aspects Of Sexuality, Attachment, And Sexual Satisfaction, Chelsea Zollinger Allen

Theses and Dissertations

Healthy sexuality includes relational, emotional, and physical elements (Busby et al., 2021). However, there are gaps in what is known about the physical aspects of sexual relationships. Genital acceptance and physical sexual knowledge are two areas of physical relationships that may have an effect on the satisfaction of sexual relationships. Attachment, namely levels of anxious and avoidant attachment, is another factor that has been related to sexual relationships (Allsop et al., 2021; Bennett et al., 2019; Busby et al., 2020). Results from a dyadic sample of 515 couples who had been in a relationship for at least two years were …

Parents Of Children With Asd: The Effects That Having A Child With Autism Spectrum Disorder Has On Parents And Families, Emma Fisher

Student Works

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a largely prevalent disorder that is typically first diagnosed at a young age. This diagnosis can have extreme effects on the family members of these children with the parents or guardians receiving the greatest impact of these effects. Having a child with ASD can be detrimental to a parent’s mental health as well as to the family’s functioning capabilities. This literature review found and reviewed 11 articles to interpret the psychological effects that having a child with ASD has on parents. Additionally, this article aimed to determine the effectiveness of intervention programs that have been …

How Lucretius Uses Epic, J. Dean Murphy

Theses and Dissertations

I argue that Lucretius uses conventions of epic poetry and changes them to support his philosophical teachings. The proem of De rerum natura can be used to show how this occurs. The key moments within the proem include the invocation to Venus, how Venus is described as maternal and creative, the usage of socia to ask Venus for aid, the episode between Venus and Mars, and the establishment of Epicurean physics. I argue that the purpose of changing the expected conventions of epic is to better frame Lucretius' key idea of the purpose of life, namely reproduction.

"Do Not Blame Me": James Baldwin On White Christian Guilt And Racial Repentance, Celeste Lafollette

Theses and Dissertations

James Baldwin, a Black American writer, contends that the root cause of America’s racial problem is not necessarily prejudice or hatred but guilt. In his essay, “White Man’s Guilt,” Baldwin says that most of the arguments white people use today against the reality of America’s racial problem can be reduced to a plea: “Do not blame me. I was not there. I did not do it” (Price 411). In many of his essays, Baldwin explores white America’s long history of guilt, denial, and justification, and he explains that many white Christians—in an attempt to avoid blame and protect their power, …

Psychological Distress Of Spousal Caregivers Of Older Adults: The Moderating Role Of Marital Quality, Avalon White

Theses and Dissertations

Caregiving, specifically caregiver burden, is commonly related to decreased psychological well-being. Conversely, marital quality is positively related to psychological well-being, though existing literature presents mixed findings as to whether or not a gender difference exists in this relationship. The current study examined the relationship between objective and subjective spousal caregiver burden and psychological distress with marital quality as a moderator. Gender differences in this relationship were also explored. 1,066 spousal caregivers from the National Study of Caregiving (NSOC) were used to estimate cross-sectional moderation models and plot significant interactions in Mplus. Results indicated a significant positive relationship between subjective caregiver …