Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Actual And Perceived Air Pollution On U.S. Twitter Sentiment, George R. Garcia Iii

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Objective

This study examines the associations between actual and perceived air pollution (PM_2.5, AQI, and ground visibility), weather information, and expressed sentiment via US Twitter. Heterogeneity in the associations across date and county characteristics are also explored.

Methods

A sentiment index was constructed using 27,827,828 geotagged U.S. tweets posted between May 31 and November 30, 2015. Associations between AQI category changes and the sentiment index were estimated using multi-cutoff regression discontinuity models. Associations between same-day and lagged PM_2.5, ground visibility, and the sentiment index were estimated using weighted linear regression models. Models include weather variables and …

How Has Covid-19 Changed Consumer Participation In Value Co-Creation?, Katelynne Hinckley

Student Works

This research documents value co-creative interactions between firms and consumers during the Covid-19 pandemic. I offer insights based on theory to explain how and why consumers are changing, especially in relation to service industries. The context of Covid-19 demands that both companies and consumers adapt by shouldering a greater burden of the value creation process in order to create value that is at least comparable to and, at most, exceeding that of pre-pandemic times. The extent to which a consumer or a firm becomes a greater participant than before is highly dependent on the industry and Covid-19 restrictions. While many …

The Communicative Effects Of Anonymity Online: A Natural Language Analysis Of The Faceless, Caleb Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

An ever-increasing number of Americans have an active social media

presence online. As of March 2020, an estimated 79% of Americans were active

monthly users of some sort. Many of these online platforms allow users to

operate anonymously which could potentially lead to shifts in communicative

behavior. I first discuss my compilation process of the Twitter Anonymity

Dataset (TAD), a human-classified dataset of 100,000 Twitter accounts that are

categorized by their level of identifiability to their real-world agent. Next, I

investigate some of the structural differences between the classification levels

and employ a variety of Natural Language Processing models and …

Connected: A Return To Ecological Awareness In Traditional And Modern Media, Jacob Reese

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis responds to the claim that traditional literary forms and narrative structures have contributed to the global climate crisis by perpetuating anthropocentric viewpoints and reinforcing the modern fixation on progress in industrial cultures. Ecocritics argue that by creating an unrealistic separation between humans and their environment in their narratives, artists are allowing the ecologies and spaces which create a cohesive world to become a mere setting for the social or psychological human drama rather than serving as an integral part of the narrative. With these criticisms in mind, this thesis provides an analysis of three pieces of traditional and …

Group Gender Composition: A Field-Experiment Evaluating Individual Levels Of Group Satisfaction And Perceived Group Effectiveness, Jacob Davis

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Group collaboration is commonly used in educational and professional settings. This paper will identify whether female-majority groups are more likely to see positive group dynamics than female-minority groups. Group dynamics in this project will be measured as individual levels of group satisfaction and group effectiveness. I use data from a field experiment where university students who took a weekly study group class had their experience evaluated with monthly surveys. My results find no statistically significant relationship between female-majority group conditions and perceptions of group satisfaction or group effectiveness.

Effects Of Background Noise On Speech And Language In Young Adults, Tyson G. Harmon, Christopher Dromey, Brenna Nelson, Kacy Chapman

Faculty Publications

Purpose: To investigate how different types of background noise that differ in their level of linguistic content affect speech acoustics, speech fluency, and language production for young adult speakers when performing a monologue discourse task.

Method: Forty young adults monologued by responding to open ended questions in a silent baseline and five background noise conditions (debate, movie dialogue, contemporary music, classical music, pink noise). Measures related to speech acoustics (intensity and frequency), speech fluency (speech rate, pausing, and disfluencies), and language production (lexical, morphosyntactic, and macro-linguistic structure) were analyzed and compared across conditions. Participants also reported on which conditions they …

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Psychological Distress, And Fathering Behaviors, Kevin Shafer, Scott D. Easton

Faculty Publications

Objective

This study examines the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), internalized and externalized psychological distress, and six measures of parenting behavior among fathers in the United States.

Background

Prior research on ACEs and parenting has focused almost exclusively on mothers, specific types of childhood adversity, and the intergenerational transmission of abuse, neglect, and other traumatic experiences. This study extends the literature by considering ACEs in fathers, using a multidimensional measure of ACEs, and multiple measures of positive and negative fathering behavior.

Method

Using the ecological model of father involvement, this study is based on a national sample of more …

Finances, Depressive Symptoms, Destructive Conflict, And Coparenting Among Lower-Income, Unmarried Couples: A Two-Wave, Cross-Lagged Analysis, Melissa A. Curran, Xiaomin Li, Melissa Barnett, Olena Kopstynska, Alexa B. Chandler, Ashley B. Lebaron

Faculty Publications

Following from an adapted family stress model (FSM), we used two-wave, secondary data from the Building Strong Families project, focusing on 4,424 primarily lower-income, unmarried couples expecting their first child together. We used cross-lagged analyses to test the directionality of the associations among financial difficulties, depressive symptoms, destructive interparental conflict, and coparenting alliance for both fathers and mothers when children were 15 and 36 months old. Two of the three hypotheses provided support for the FSM. First, destructive conflict predicted coparenting alliance (but not the reverse). Specifically, higher destructive conflict at 15 months for both fathers and mothers predicted lower …

A Commentary On Establishing Norms For Error-Related Brain Activity During The Arrow Flanker Task Among Young Adults, Peter E. Clayson, Emily S. Kappenman, William J. Gehring, Gregory A. Miller, Michael J. Larson

Faculty Publications

We suggest that a large data set for the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe) components of the scalp-recorded event-related brain potential (ERP) recently published as normative is not ready for such use in research and, especially, clinical application. Such efforts are challenged by an incomplete understanding of the functional significance of between-person differences in amplitudes and of nuisance factors that contribute to amplitude differences, a lack of standardization of methods, and the use of a convenience sample for the potentially normative database. To move ERPs toward standardization and useful norms, we encourage more research on the meaning of …

Second Languange Acquisition Of /S/ -Weakinging In A Study Abroad Context, Earl K. Brown, Alicia Harley, Bret Linford

Faculty Publications

This study examines the second language (L2) development of variable /s/-weakening in the spontaneous speech of L2 learners of Spanish who studied abroad in either Dominican Republic, where /s/-weakening is widespread, or central Spain, where /s/-weakening is much less common. Learners’ realizations of /s/ were coded impressionistically and acoustically by measuring voicing, center of gravity, and duration. The results show that regardless of the study abroad location, students did not change the amount of sibilance they produced over time. However, they became more nativelike with respect to /s/-voicing and duration. Additionally, whereas some linguistic factors were found to significantly constrain …

Religiousness And Levels Of Hazardous Alcohol Use: A Latent Profile Analysis, Peter J. Jankowski, Sam A. Hardy, Byron L. Zamboanga, Lindsay S. Ham, Seth J. Schwartz, Su Yeong Kim, Larry F. Forthun, Melina M. Bersamin, Roxanne A. Donovan, Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Erica A. Hurley, Miguel Ángel Cano

Faculty Publications

Prior person-centered research has consistently identified a subgroup of highly religious participants that uses significantly less alcohol when compared to the other subgroups. The construct of religious motivation is absent from existing examinations of the nuanced combinations of religiousness dimensions within persons, and alcohol expectancy valuations have yet to be included as outcome variables. Variable-centered approaches have found religious motivation and alcohol expectancy valuations to play a protective role against individuals’ hazardous alcohol use. The current study examined latent religiousness profiles and hazardous alcohol use in a large, multisite sample of ethnically diverse college students. The sample consisted of 7412 …

The Roles Of Identity Formation And Moral Identity In College Student Mental Health, Health-Risk Behaviors, And Psychological Well-Being, Sam A. Hardy, Stephen W. Francis, Byron L. Zamboanga, Su Yeong Kim, Spencer G. Anderson, Larry F. Forthun

Faculty Publications

Objectives: This study examined the roles of identity formation and moral identity in predicting college student mental health (anxiety and depressive symptoms), health-risk behaviors (hazardous alcohol use and sexual risk taking), and psychological well-being (self-esteem and meaning).

Method: The sample comprised 9,500 college students (aged 18–25 years, mean = 19.78, standard deviation = 1.61: 73% female; 62% European American), from 31 different universities, who completed an online self-report survey. Results: Structural equation models found that identity maturity (commitment making and identity synthesis) predicted 5 of the health outcomes (except sexual risk taking), and moral identity predicted ail of the health …

Mentor Modeling Mismatch: Power Dynamics In Cooperating Teacher's Modeling For Preservice Teachers, Morgan Christensen

Theses and Dissertations

Through the use of interview and observation data, collected over two years, this qualitative study describes the perceptions, attitudes, and experiences of two Cooperating Teachers (CTs) and their assigned Pre Service Teachers (PST; n = 12) who were mentored over the course of two Special Education practicum experiences and five CT professional development trainings. Special attention was focused on the ways that CTs and PSTs describe modeling and how CTs’ modeling seemed to affect the CT/PST relationship. Participant responses were analyzed using a qualitative narrative method and indicated that CT’s use of modeling served primarily as a socializing process in …

Identity Dimensions And Related Processes In Emerging Adulthood: Helpful Or Harmful?, Rachel A. Ritchie, Alan Meca, Vanessa L. Madrazo, Seth J. Schwartz, Sam A. Hardy, Byron L. Zamboanga, Robert S. Weisskirch, Su Yeong Kim, Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Lindsay S. Ham, Richard M. Lee

Faculty Publications

Objectives: The current study evaluated the mediational role of well-being in the relationship between identity development and psychosocial functioning. Method: A sample of 7,649 undergraduate students (73% female: mean age = 19.95, standard deviation = 1.98: 62% Caucasian) completed measures of personal identity, well-being, internalizing symptoms, externalizing problems, and health-risk behaviors.

Results: Results revealed that (a) identity exploration and commitment were negatively associated with internalizing symptoms, health-risk behaviors, and externalizing problems through well-being, (b) ruminative exploration was negatively associated with well-being and positively associated with externalizing problems, and (c) increased levels of ruminative exploration appear more detrimental for men than …

Seamus Heaney And The Role Of The Political Poet, Alex Coleman

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Full Issue Fall 2020

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

"Was Is Not Is": "Give Unto Them Beauty For Ashes" (Isaiah 61.1-3), Katey Workman

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Not Too Ferocious For Liberty Bell Readers: The Slave Woman's Justified Reactions And Retaliations, Elizabeth Daley

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Examining Criteria For Adulthood Among Young People In Sabah (East Malaysia), Walton Wider, Norazah Mohd Suki, Melanie L. Lott, Larry J. Nelson, Sew Kim Low, Gertrude Cosmas

Faculty Publications

This study aims to identify perceived adult status and to explore the criteria for adulthood of young people in Sabah (East Malaysia). The differences in such criteria based on gender and student status are also examined. Data collected from 208 respondents were analyzed via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The empirical results of CFA revealed six criteria for adulthood: family capacities, norm compliance, interdependence, biological transitions, role transitions, and chronological transitions. However, the independence factor was discarded for further analysis because of having weak item loadings. In addition, the ANOVA test showed that women have …

Indigenous Adult Illiteracy In The Andean Region Of South America, Alexa Ballard

Ballard Brief

Indigenous adult illiteracy is often prevalent in poorer, less economically stable regions, such as the Andean Region of South America, specifically Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. The issue stems from several factors, such as language discrepancies, high dropout rates, and lack of access to quality education. Consequently, illiterate indigenous adults are more likely to suffer from poor health and low-quality employment. Women are more likely to suffer domestic violence and discrimination, and in general, illiteracy for both men and women contributes to decreased civic engagement and economic stability. Several programs currently exist to help illiterate individuals in the Andean Region, such …

Peace (Shanti), Jamie Marquis

Inscape

At the end of the hour, I lay in corpse pose, shavasana, on my bright-orange yoga mat. My thoughts swam around and around until they trickled out of my eyes and I realized that I was crying. A familiar pang of grief in my chest seems to accompany me everywhere I go: school, work, home, the gym. Will it ever go away? That grief seems unattached to any particular event in my life. I’m tired of feeling this way. I’m tired of feeling sad for no reason. I’m tired of the emotional and physical exhaustion that accompanies this grief. …

I Am Trying To Stop Doing That Same Thing, Caroline Mccann

Inscape

No abstract provided.

Mental Health Concerns In Armenia, Morgan Rushford, Sara Jensen

Ballard Brief

Armenia is one of many countries whose population faces mental health struggles to a relatively high degree. However, the extent of these struggles is relatively unknown due to the country's underreporting of recent, accurate data on mental health statistics. Armenia's mental health crisis can be attributed to many factors. some of which include residual trauma from various events in the country's history (such as the Armenian Genocide and the earthquake of 1988), domestic violence, perpetuation of cultural stigmas that keep individuals from seeking help for mental illness, and lack of resources and healthcare infrastructure. A few of the most prominent …

Student Privacy In The Digital Age, Susan G. Archambault

BYU Education & Law Journal

Students and teachers need to understand what rules govern their digital experience in terms of data being collected from the systems and software they use. Students have a tendency to share personal information online, and are largely unconcerned about third-party access to their data.30 Furthermore, they may feel pressured to waive privacy rights in order to participate in classroom activities requiring the use of educational technology tools.31 The recent COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated this problem. In fact, The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and National Education Association (NEA) recently released new recommendations for the use of video conferencing platforms …

The Legal College Admissions Scandal: How The Wealthy Purchase College Admission To The Nation's Elite, Private Universities Through Donations, Gabrielle Wilson

BYU Education & Law Journal

This Article targets the issue of purchasing admissions to elite, private universities through legal, albeit manipulative donations. It will identify the harms purchasing admissions poses to the higher education system, as well as offer an analysis of some of the potential legal remedies to the issues. While the legal community tends to favor bright-line rules and perfect solutions, this Article does not aim to provide a magic potion that would act as a cure-all. Rather, this Article calls upon the legal community to recognize an issue afflicting higher education and to assert that a legal solution is not impossible. As …

Women And The Priesthood In The Contemporary Church, Barbara Morgan Gardner

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

During the last century there has been a prophetic emphasis on the understanding of women and their priesthood power and authority that has been unprecedented since the days of Joseph Smith. Through the use of scripture and teachings of our prophets and leaders of the restoration, this paper seeks to clarify the contemporary role of women in relation to their priesthood power and authority. By integrating the patriarchal priesthood—that priesthood entered into by Eve and Adam, lost during the time of Moses, and again revealed in our day in the Kirtland Temple—with the administrative priesthood found in the public Church …

Understanding Covenants Anew: Using Ancient Thought To Enrich Modern Faith, Jeffrey Thayne

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

In the first half of her book, Lane takes us on a tour of ancient worlds by introducing us to ancient words, such as bĕrît (covenant), gā’al (redemption), pānîm (presence of the Lord), and so forth, while deftly weaving linguistic and historical insights with personal narratives that ground these insights in the practical affairs of day-to-day living. In the second half of the book, Lane takes us on a tour of medieval art and images, centering on how art has been used to portray the Savior and His mission. Throughout the entire book, Lane centers the attention of the reader …

Full Issue

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Matthew Black And Mircea Eliade Meet Hugh Nibley, Gordon C. Thomasson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

As a graduate student, Gordon Thomasson had the opportunity to introduce two internationally renowned scholars to the publications and scholarship of Hugh Nibley: Matthew Black, an eminent scholar of ancient Enoch writings; and Mircea Eliade, famed chair of the History of Religions program at the University of Chicago. Upon hearing of Nibley’s Enoch discoveries, Black made an immediate, impromptu visit to BYU to meet him. Upon reading one of Nibley’s studies, Eliade proposed hiring him on the spot, exclaiming, “He knows my field better than I do, and his translations are elegant!”

The Practice And Meaning Of Declaring Lineage In Patriarchal Blessings, M. Steven Andersen

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

In this paper, I show that declarations of lineage in patriarchal blessings have, since the earliest days of the Restoration, evolved in terms of frequency of inclusion, which tribal lineages predominate, and understanding of the meaning of the declaration. I argue for a non- literal understanding consistent with scripture and science, but posit that these declarations have deep and important significance in connection with the gathering of Israel.