Digital Commons Network^™

An Integrated Model For Information Adoption & Trust In Mobile Social Commerce, Fulya Acikgoz, Abdelsalam Busalim, James Gaskin, Shahla Asadi

Faculty Publications

Despite the growing importance of mobile social commerce (ms-commerce), little research has been conducted on the effects of informational and social factors on users’ post-adoption behavior. We, therefore, build on the understanding of mobile social commerce in the UK market and how it affects users’ post-adoption behaviors. Our theoretical model leverages the information adoption model, social support theory, and social influence theory. Data was gathered from 377 ms-commerce users from the UK and analyzed via Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM). The research findings show that both informational and social factors have a positive impact on information adoption in ms-commerce apps. Furthermore, …

Technological Health: A New Perspective On Individual Well-Being In The Digital Era, Tanner Skousen, J. Andrew Lear

Faculty Publications

An individual’s well-being encompasses various facets, including physical, mental, and social health. This paper proposes that in a technology-dependent world, practitioners and researchers must adopt a “technological health” perspective. Through conceptual inquiry and extensive literature review, we propose the concept of technological health, drawing from related concepts. We present an initial framework that explicates technological health through the dimensions of access to technology, ability to use technology, and autonomy over technology. Practically, this new perspective refocuses our understanding of technological challenges and invites an ideology of diagnoses and treatments to comprehensively address individual-level concerns associated with personal technology use. Academically, …

Transformative Learning Outcomes: Shifting The Learning Outcome Conversation From Assessment To Design, Mat D. Duerden, Jamin C. Rowan

Faculty Publications

What if the focus of learning outcomes shifted from telling students what they will know at the end of a course to who they will become? Learning outcomes have drifted away from informing curriculum design to providing parameters for external assessment. This article reviews this shift along with a proposal to reimagine learning outcomes as transformative learning outcomes. It discusses previous work on transformative learning outcomes and proposes a new conceptual definition: learning outcomes that articulate habits of mind or ways of being that students will develop because of a learning experience or sequence of learning experiences. Such learning outcomes …

A Labeled Magnitude Scale For Measuring The Anticipated Impact Of Immediate Experiences, Gary D. Ellis, Patti A. Freeman, Brian J. Hill, Jingxian Jiang, Kaylee Janes

Faculty Publications

Lundberg et al. (2022) recently developed a rubric for classifying experience impacts as ordinary, meaningful, memorable, or transformative. This article extends that contribution by developing a measure of anticipated impacts suitable for evaluating the anticipated impacts of immediate, structured experiences, such as heritage interpretation experiences, museum visits, and events. We developed a labeled magnitude scale (LMS) by calibrating six adverbial modifiers of impact intensity (negligible, slight, significant, profound, substantial, transformative) to judges’ ratings of ratio-scaled distances. We examined criterion-related evidence of validity using 2,867 experience observations from 594 university students who visited venues selected to advance their emotional connection to …

Barriers To Higher Education Daca Recipients Face In The United States, Natalie Porter

Ballard Brief

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a policy that provides temporary relief from deportation to young undocumented immigrants, as well as social security cards and legal work authorization to qualifying individuals. Students with DACA encounter a variety of barriers to completing higher education due to the nature of the DACA policy. DACA places restrictions on access to federal resources and state resources, inhibiting access to financial aid opportunities. DACA does not provide lawful status to recipients—this breeds uncertainty about the future, preventing DACA students from scholastic planning. The uncertainty of the future is exacerbated by the fact that DACA …

Sonata In Three Movements, Jeanine Eyre Bee

Inscape

I

Dolce

One of John’s earliest memories is her singing voice, sweet and pitted and gravely. Not in a deep, growling, Louis Armstrong kind of way, but in the way that water washes over sand—gentle, and just perfectly blemished by a pocked, rushing sound. Her voice, once beautiful and robust, was ever-after spoiled by a childhood bout of asthma, she said. But it was his mother’s voice that read to him every day. It was her voice that pushed him forward when he languished. And it was her lovely, flawed voice that sang him the English “ditties” that filled his …

Cover

Inscape

No abstract provided.

Newly Buried Grandmother Prepares To Enter The Spirit World, J S. Absher

Inscape

Heavier than she can ever remember, the rain is falling in spades. On her roof enormous hands pound boom-lay, boom-lay.

Gratitude For Goats, Sage Gallagher

Inscape

Sage Gallagher loves to create as it helps her define, understand, and enjoy life. She began painting in oil during her time at BYU studying Humanities in the late 80’s (graduating in 1991 after her mission to Peru) and picked it up again more seriously when her children entered school full time in 2014. She counts her family of five children, one daughter-in-law, a granddaughter and an animator/entrepreneur husband as her most important creation. She attends workshops to improve her skills and has shown her work in Boston, New York and throughout the state of Utah. Sage grew up on …

Mystic Guide, Gary Hall

Inscape

Gary Hall has two art degrees from BYU: a BFA with an emphasis in ceramics completed in 1995, as well as an MFA in ceramics completed in 2007. In the years between his degrees and up to the present time Gary has worked at bronze casting foundries in the Utah Valley area learning all the aspects of transforming clay sculptures into cast bronze. Gary served in Utah Army National Guard from 2011 to 2017 and has stated that many of his experiences as a soldier have influenced his art. Currently Gary teaches intro to sculpture classes at UVU and works …

Hell Is A Road, Kath Richards

Inscape

I died on an annual work retreat and found out that Hell is a road trip with my co-worker Dwayne, who I hate so bad. I’ve had to share a cubicle with him for the last three years and he always brings— brought—fish to work which he’d microwave, because gains, and he drank two mixes from his blender bottle every day, one around ten, one at three, and the metal ball shaking against the plastic bottle made me Want To Die.

The Covenant Path, James Goldberg

Inscape

1. And Jerusalem still dances in your dreams—rises like a wave, then leans, careens into captivity. You wake to hunger and thin Liahona-longing for a home.

My Mother's Scars, Alexandra Malouf

Inscape

I. My mother wakes to a flatness on her chest and thinks of her mother waking to that same absence forty years before. The history of a family written on the bodies of descendents. In stormy weather her nerves pulse sharply in that scar reopened over and over, where surgeons’ plows left ragged lines. My mother’s scar glares cold with past lives all purple-green

Full Issue

Inscape

No abstract provided.

The Plagiary Of The Daughters Of The Lamanites, Alan Goff

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

Repetition is a feature of all ancient Hebraic narrative. Modern readers may misunderstand this quality of biblical and Book of Mormon narrative. Biblical and Book of Mormon writers believed that history repeated, with what happened to the ancestors happening again to their posterity. Fawn Brodie and her acolytes misapprehend Book of Mormon narrative when—instead of at least provisionally granting that God might exist, can intervene in history, and tenaciously reenacts events from the past while the recorders of such repeated stories firmly believed in the historical reality of the narratives they recounted—they attribute such repeated stories to Joseph Smith’s imputed …

Japan's Sacrificial Daughter: Sexual Exploitation In Post-War Okinawa, Kathryn A. Blau

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

This essay investigates the prolonged US occupation of Okinawa post-1952, uncovering hidden forms of violence, particularly sexual exploitation against women. Despite portraying Okinawa as a sacrificial entity for the greater good, the paper reveals historical patterns of abuse dating back to Japanese military brothels during World War II. Post-occupation, over 200 cases of rape and assault against Okinawan women were documented, with minimal legal support. The narrative juxtaposes revered wartime nurses with stigmatized sex workers, highlighting the persistent inequality, even after Okinawa's 1972 return to Japan.

The essay explores how international dialogue sidelines women's voices, shifting the focus from victims …

Count Me In, Darlene Young

Inscape

There are days when, visiting a depressed friend, I find her houseplants are dying in the background while she claims all is well but also days when the morning percolates in carnation pink glory behind and above the smog, dewbangling the cobwebs.

Declared Guiltless Justification By Faith In The Latter-Day Saint Classroom, Stephan Taeger

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Religious educators can face unique challenges when teaching the doctrine of grace. Some students struggle with excessive guilt and do not think they are doing enough to live the gospel. Others think that grace somehow excuses their sins. Helping students better grasp the doctrine of justification by faith can help them feel peace with God while inspiring them to be more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. This article uses the words of scripture, modern prophets, and trusted scholars to clarify this doctrine and discusses how understanding it removes guilt and inspires obedience to God’s commandments. The concluding section provides practical …

Helping Students To Take Charge Of Their Own Testimonies, Clark G. Gilbert

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

This message focuses on President Russell M. Nelson’s invitation to “take charge of your testimony,” given in a worldwide devotional to young adults. It is meant to be a resource to religious educators to help their students deepen faith. Elder Gilbert shares his own personal faith journey as an example of what it means to work for, own, nurture, and take care of a testimony. Religious educators are given five suggestions to help students take charge of their testimonies: (1) exercise agency, (2) be a light to others, (3) ask questions in faith, (4) look to truth-filled sources, and (5) …

“An House Of Prayer For All People” A Guide To Christ’S Cleansing Of The Temple, Joe Cochran

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

This article explores the contextual background of Christ’s cleansing of the temple as recorded in the four Gospels. An analysis of scriptural and historical evidence can help teachers and learners better understand what Christ cleansed and for whom his actions were undertaken. Discovering specific meaning and purpose behind the Savior’s words and actions in the temple helps establish this event as yet another witness of the loving, compassionate, and justice-seeking Savior we all know well.

“When Ye Shall See These Things Come Among You” A Survey Of Teachings On Modern Secret Combinations, Nicholas J. Frederick

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

One of the purposes of the Book of Mormon is to warn latter-day Gentiles about the dangers of modern-day secret combinations.” Such combinations led to the destruction of the Jaredites and the Nephites and, we are told, should not be dismissed or overlooked in our own modern day. So how ought we to identify a modern secret combination? What would such an organization look like? How can religious educators discuss secret combinations in a responsible manner? This article explores how modern prophets have described and defined secret combinations, from Joseph Smith up through the present.

Front Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

“Be Not Faithless, But Believing”, Brad Wilcox

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

esus Christ taught Thomas, and through him, all of us, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believed” (John 20:29). In the Americas, the Savior taught that those who have not seen and still believe are “more blessed” (3 Nephi 12:2). How are we more blessed not to see Him? By not compelling us to believe, the Lord leaves space for choice and for faith. Choosing faith is the act that welcomes God and Christ into our lives, and their involvement and influence bring the miracle of change. The goal is not just to see God and Christ—one …

Vital Gospel Nutrients, Dale G. Renlund

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Instead of sharing “spiritual Twinkies,” or shallow teachings, teachers can provide deep spiritual nourishment to students. Four spiritual principles, or “staples,” are essential to help students grow strong in faith: (1) nurturing students’ testimonies of Jesus Christ and the gospel, (2) fostering students’ personal relationships with teachers, (3) facilitating students’ confidence in addressing gospel questions, and (4) preparing students’ hearts to feel the Spirit.

"A Pattern In All Things That Ye May Not Be Deceived" Prophetic Themes As An Anchor In Book Of Mormon And Young Adult Religion Courses, Camey L. Andersen

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In a 2023 Seminaries and Institutes of Religion Annual Broadcast, Elder Clark G. Gilbert of the Seventy, Commissioner of the Church Educational System, emphasized five themes from the current prophetic messages that apply specifically to the young adults of the Church. This article will show how the prophetic themes shared by Elder Gilbert can be an anchor for faith in Jesus Christ and his prophets in young adult religion courses; can influence the curriculum for the course Teachings and Doctrine of the Book of Mormon; can influence teaching and ministering to students to strengthen testimonies of Jesus Christ, his living …

Expecting More, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Olivia Osguthorpe, Eastin M. Hartzell

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Trying to amplify the words of the prophets while helping religious educators throughout the world understand the hearts and heads of young adult students as they become lifelong disciples of Christ, Barbara Morgan Gardner, professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU; Matthew O. Richardson, professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU; and Sean Dixon, area director in the Utah South Area of Seminaries and Institutes, led a panel of young adult students. The young adult panelists included Matt Conway (Utah Valley University), Zoe Gomez Paz (UVU), Eastin Hartzell (BYU), Abigail Haven (BYU), Micah Johnson (BYU), and Olivia Osguthorpe …

Institutional Efforts To Amplify Prophetic Messages, R. Kelly Haws, C. Shane Reese, Chad H. Webb, Brian K. Ashton, Bruce C. Kusch, John S. K. Kauwe Iii, Alvin F. Meredith Iii

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In this panel, presidents from Church Educational System universities, Ensign College, and the administration of Seminaries and Institutes of Religion consider prophetic priorities, increasing one’s ability to recognize and amplify those teachings, and the blessings that come to young adults and others from understanding prophetic priorities.

Seminaries And Institutes Reach And Impact Update, Chad H. Webb

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

This article highlights efforts of Seminaries and Institutes instructors to support youth and young adults worldwide. It addresses concerns about previously declining institute enrollments, sharing strategies implemented to mitigate and reverse the trend. Feedback from focus groups emphasized the need for relevance, belonging, accessibility, and deepened conversion to Jesus Christ. As a result, initiatives such as workshops, new classes, and online options have been implemented. Notably, institute enrollments have increased by 20 percent, and seminary enrollment has also grown, with the programs adding over 126,000 students in the last three years. It emphasized the need for continual innovation, grounded in …

Addressing The Crisis In Meaning And Identity Through Covenant Relationship, Jenet Jacob Erickson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Our youth are experiencing a profound hunger for connection, evidenced by an epidemic of loneliness and increasing mental health challenges despite the seeming connectivity of a world swimming in social media. The deepest loneliness stems from disruption and disorder in family life, including ruptured or never formed family relationships. In answer to this relational fracturing, the gospel of Jesus Christ offers covenant belonging and connection. The revealed understanding of the nature of our covenant relationship with Jesus Christ and his work in enabling eternal bonds within the family and across the entire eternal family is at the heart of helping …

Front Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.