Digital Commons Network^™

Meconium Metal Concentrations And Infant Temperament And Development, Fiona Fogarty

Dissertations and Theses

BACKGROUND: Prenatal exposure to metals poses significant health consequences for early childhood development. Understanding the factors influencing metal concentrations that infants are exposed to in-utero is crucial for developing targeted interventions, particularly when maternal characteristics and environmental factors, may contribute to varying levels. Meconium offers insight into in-utero exposures for the developing infant, and the effect of each individual metal may be mediated or exacerbated by another and therefore should be studied in the context of a mixture. The effect of metal mixture exposure, as measured in meconium, on milestone and temperament outcomes has yet to be determined.

DESIGN: …

The Role Of White Racial Identity Development In Leadership Practices: An Interpretive Phenomenological Study In White Educational Leaders, Kaitlyn Ryan

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined how white educational leaders experience and make meaning of their racial identity development as they lead adult professional learning focused on racial equity and culturally responsive practice. Grounded in Helms’s White Racial Identity Development (WRID) model and guided by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), the study explored the lived experiences of ten white leaders across PK–12 and Institution of Higher Education (IHE). Data were collected through three semi‑structured interviews per participant and analyzed using IPA’s six‑step process. Five major themes emerged: transformational experiences that shifted leaders’ understanding of race and privilege; the critical role of white affinity …

Bridging The Gap: Strengthening The Integration Of Theoretical Knowledge And Practical Application Among Social Work Students In Practicum Education., Franzeska Sampson-Bacchus

Publications and Research

This study examined challenges Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) students face in connecting classroom learning to field practice. It explored: (1) barriers to applying theory, (2) the role of faculty and field instructors in supporting integration, and (3) effective educational interventions. A survey was given to students in capstone and field placement courses. Findings revealed that students often struggle due to nervousness, fear of making mistakes, and difficulty translating theory into practice. While some supervision included discussions linking theory to practice, many students reported these conversations were inconsistent. Supervision often emphasizes agency tasks over reflective learning. Three key themes were …

Techne 2024-2025, Elena M’Bouroukounda, Jieun Yang

TECHNE

This edition of TECHNE focuses on spotlighting students’ work through the use of whitespace. Its format allows images to stand alone and shine, while also being in harmony with the work that surrounds it. Through space, our students’ intentions breathe freely. Briana Carrasco, Editor-in-Chief, B.Arch Class of 2026.

Understanding Workplace Psychological Safety Among Latina Professionals: An Exploration Of Intersectional Experiences, Michal Tapia

Theses and Dissertations

Latina professionals represent one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. workforce, yet they remain disproportionately underrepresented in executive and C-suite roles. This disparity reflects structural conditions that shape access to voice, support, advancement, and decision-making authority.

This mixed-methods study examined psychological safety among 145 Latina professionals across the United States, defined as the belief that one can speak up, ask for help, disagree, or raise concerns without fear of negative consequences (Edmondson, 1999, 2019). The study explored how identity, relationships, leadership, workplace support, inclusion, mentorship, and structural barriers shape psychological safety at work.

Quantitative analyses showed that workplace support …

Therapist Approaches To Disclosure And Associated Clinical Understandings Of Therapist Pregnancy In Psychodynamic Therapy, Alanna Doherty

Dissertations and Theses

Background: Therapist pregnancy is both an intensely evocative force and an unavoidable disturbance in the therapeutic relationship, that leaves the therapist with novel clinical issues and decisions to attend to while also undergoing significant personal change and potential psychic strain. It is also a strikingly understudied clinical phenomenon. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the process of disclosure of therapist pregnancy from the perspective of the therapist, to better understand how and why particular disclosure choices are made, and to examine disclosure as a site where personal needs and clinical decision-making intersect. Specifically, it builds upon the thematic categories identified …

Constitutional Powers Midterm Exam, Jordan Reitzfeld

Open Educational Resources

Students apply constitutional principles and court decisions to contemporary questions about the powers of Congress, the president, and the judiciary. They defend positions on possible reforms and analyze property rights, copyright, and trademark issues.

Annotated Bibliography Assignment For English 201, Sara Whitestone

Open Educational Resources

In this English 201 assignment, students investigate a research question about happiness and build an annotated bibliography through 15 scaffolded, low-stakes steps involving research, source evaluation, reflection, drafting, feedback, and revision. They use the same sources to write papers in two different disciplinary genres, adapting their selection and use of evidence to each genre’s conventions, audience, tone, and style. The process emphasizes personal intellectual engagement, responsible use of AI, self-assessment, and the understanding that strong academic writing develops through sustained revision.

“I Love What I Do, I Just Don't Love Where I Do It,”: An Exploration Of Job-Related Tension And Well-Being Of Professional Academic Advisors, Cynthia Cruger

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the intersection of job-related tension and workplace well-being among professional academic advisors through the lens of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. The purpose of the study is to address a gap in advising scholarship by exploring job demands and resources in advisors’ experiences in different advising models and institution types. A scoping literature review addresses advising as a profession, positive organizational psychology frameworks such as the PERMA model, and job-related tension concepts like role overload and ambiguity. Existing research indicates advisors have high job satisfaction despite job tension, and the JD-R theory is used to set a …

The Bigotry Of The Future: Ai Recruitment Tools & Hiring Discrimination Law, Lily Manshel

City University of New York Law Review

As one-click applications and a competitive job market result in hundreds of applicants per listing, hiring tools that use Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) promise recruiters a convenient way to sort through the crowd and find the “perfect” candidate, all while eliminating human bias. These tools—which include resume screeners, gamified assessments and personality tests, and video interviewing software—are proliferating so rapidly that their ubiquity is positioned as inevitable by both the software companies that produce them and the employers who use them. However, the use of these automated decision-making tools creates a paradox under existing antidiscrimination law: the systems clearly perpetuate and …

Conflict Analysis With Chatgpt, Yeju Choi

Open Educational Resources

This assignment asks students to apply the conflict mapping method to a conflict of their choice and evaluate appropriate resolution processes and strategies. Students use ChatGPT as a structured “peer” to generate alternative perspectives, then compare AI-generated recommendations with their own analysis grounded in course concepts. By designing intentional prompts and critically assessing areas of agreement and disagreement, students evaluate the usefulness and limitations of AI in conflict analysis while reinforcing analytical, evaluative, and reflective skills central to conflict resolution practice.

Annotated Bibliography Assignment, Daryl Wout

Open Educational Resources

This assignment engages students in comparing AI-generated and human-generated annotated bibliographies. Students first read a psychology research article and create their own annotated bibliography summarizing the study’s purpose, literature, hypotheses, design, findings, and implications. They then use ChatGPT to generate an AI-based bibliography and critically compare it to their own work, evaluating accuracy, completeness, and usability. The exercise emphasizes critical reflection on the capabilities and limitations of AI for research tasks, while encouraging students to integrate effective AI strategies into their scholarly practices without compromising independent analysis.

Why We Stayed, Why We Left: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study Of Hispanic/Latino Child Welfare Professionals’ Experiences Of Organizational And Safety Culture, Cynthia Franco

Theses and Dissertations

This hermeneutic phenomenological study examines the lived experiences of Hispanic/Latino child welfare professionals who were formerly employed at a large urban public child welfare agency. Despite the growing representation of Hispanic/Latino children and families in child welfare systems and the strong vocational commitment of Hispanic/Latino professionals, this group remains underrepresented in the workforce and experiences notable patterns of early attrition. Grounded in safety science and psychological safety frameworks, this study explores how organizational culture, leadership practices, and identity-related dynamics shape professional meaning-making, well-being, and decisions to remain in or leave the field.

Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and …

In Their Own Words: Why First-Generation Minority Students Take On Leadership Roles At Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Suzette Ramsundar Ed.D

Theses and Dissertations

While there is an abundance of research on student leadership and how it impacts student retention (Tinto, 1987 and Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), it is typically from the university's perspective. This phenomenological study, however, investigated the experiences and perceptions of first-generation minority students who commuted to campus and pursued leadership roles at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). Utilizing phenomenological methodology, this research examined the lived experiences of eight student leaders to understand how they made meaning of their leadership engagement.

Student leaders in this study shared the details of the significant challenges they navigated, including financial pressures, commuting demands, cultural barriers, and …

Physical Therapist Assistant Mobility Handbook, Sandra M. Ribeiro Dr., Emie Hyman

Open Educational Resources

This is a manual that will move through the various formats of mobility. As part of the Physical Therapist Assistant Program, students must gain knowledge and skill acquisition to support independence. One such way is to help individuals gain or regain mobility. There are many ways that individuals can access their environments. The choice of type of mobility depends on many factors and changes over time. Students must develop an understanding of such factors in making decisions and learn to safely foster forms of mobility. The ones developed in this manual will cover bed mobility, transfers, wheelchair mobility, and ambulation. …

Appendices A, B, C, D, & E For "In Their Own Words: Qualitative And Quantitative Analyses Of What Students, Staff, And Faculty Say About Vertical Transfer", Alexandra W. Logue, Vita Rabinowitz, Kerstin Gentsch, David Wutchiett, Barbara Condliffe, Sophia Sutcliffe, Yoshiko Oka, Stephanie Abbeyquaye, Rhina Torres, Nayeon Yoo, Kyle Du

Publications and Research

Deposited here are the Appendices (A, B, C, D, & E) for an article to be published in 2026 in Journal of Postsecondary and Student Success. The abstract of this article is:

This research analyzed higher education constituencies’ statements about vertical transfer (student transfer from community to bachelor’s colleges). Data consisted of both focus group excerpts involving dozens of students, staff, and faculty, and of answers to open-ended survey questions completed by thousands of students and faculty. Results were generally consistent using both qualitative (topic identification) and quantitative (bigram frequency and sentiment analysis) analyses. The results were also compared …

Info 7000: Fundamentals Of Library And Information Science, S E. Hackney

Open Educational Resources

This course is designed to serve as a broad introduction to the field of Library and Information Science, to give you a general idea of the history, norms, prevailing trends, and future directions of the field and the professions associated with it. This includes ‘traditional’ librarianship, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions, as well professions in the information, data, and technology sectors. This course will delve into the labor that the people in these professions do, and introduce some of the skills and knowledge needed to do that work.

Mad Or Uncontrollable? Reading Female Madness In Three Gothic Texts, Amy Marie Bueno

Dissertations and Theses

My thesis employs comparative close reading framed by disability studies to analyze representations of female madness in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, and Isabel Allende’s “If You Touched My Heart.” Drawing on theories of socially constructed disability, it argues that Bertha, Antoinette, and Hortensia are framed as “mad women” not through inherent pathology, but through patriarchal violence, colonial domination, and institutional power. By integrating the social model of disability with feminist theory, this thesis examines how women are rendered disabled within societies influenced by Social Darwinism and eugenic ideologies.

This thesis further incorporates Gothic theory and …

Executive Self-Management Of Reading And Writing For College Students With Adhd, Jiajie Li

Dissertations and Theses

Background. College students with ADHD often experience difficulties with self managed academic tasks, for which there are currently few specific interventions. The present study examined associations among ADHD symptom severity, executive functioning, academic achievement, and perceived helpfulness of reading- and writing-focused sessions within a cognitive-behavioral intervention for college students with ADHD. Method. N = 41 undergraduate students (Mean age = 21.32 years, SD = 2.74; 70.7% female) with ADHD were recruited into a 12-week group-based cognitive behavioral intervention for executive functioning difficulties. Two sessions were devoted to skills and strategies specific to academic tasks, Reading for Retention and Planning, Organizing, …

The Ick Factor: Explaining The Term Through Lenses Of Sexual Disgust And Avoidant Attachment Style, Maxum O'Halloran

Dissertations and Theses

The phenomenon of the “ick” has gained significant traction in the context of modern romantic relationships, particularly across social media platforms, where individuals describe trivial negative traits and habits in potential and current romantic partners. Despite their trivial nature, icks are often treated as meaningful dealbreakers, raising questions about whether they reflect genuine psychological processes or are simply a social media trend. The present study examined whether the presence of an ick influences perceptions of attractiveness and dateability, and whether individual differences in sexual disgust sensitivity and attachment style help explain icks and reactions to icks. Participants (N = 236) …

Relational Spirituality And Maternal Coping In Carceral Contexts: A Participatory Action Study Of Meaning-Making And Mental Health Among Formerly Incarcerated Mothers, Jessica Peters

Dissertations and Theses

Maternal incarceration carries significant psychological, familial, and community consequences, yet limited research centers the mental health experiences of mothers themselves. This study explored how religious and spiritual engagement shape mental health and coping among formerly incarcerated mothers using a participatory action research framework. Guided by this, small groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 mothers in collaboration with a community-based organization. This approach prioritized lived experience and aimed to reduce barriers to participation among a population often mistrustful of research institutions. Data were analyzed thematically to identify patterns in psychological distress, coping strategies, and meaning-making. Findings revealed pervasive and …

Shared Burden, Potential Space: A Qualitative Study Of How Psychodynamic Therapists Work With Intergenerational Transmission Of Historical Trauma, Shaun J. Halper

Dissertations and Theses

The intergenerational transmission of trauma (ITT) has been investigated since the 1960s, beginning with research on the descendants of Holocaust survivors. Few qualitative studies, however, have taken up how psychodynamic therapists experience their treatments with adult patients with ITT. This study uses Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (APA) to analyze adult ITT treatments from the perspective of psychodynamic psychotherapists. Ten licensed clinicians in the NYC tri-state area participated in semi-structured interviews, which were organized around three research aims: how clinicians conceptualized and identified ITT, what effective clinical interventions they used, and how they understood the impact of therapist-patient sameness or difference (regarding …

Syllabus: Guttman Psyc101: Introduction To Psychology, Natalia Lara Gonzalez

Open Educational Resources

The present syllabus includes materials to be used for an introduction to psychology class. The topics range from basic cognitive, behavioral and developmental psychology to social sciences and nature vs. nurture debates. The syllabus also includes an abnormal psychology open access textbook where students can access details on mental health conditions which they present on at the end of the semester.

Graduate Student Retention: Examining Why Master’S Students Leave And What Motivates Their Return In A Large Public University System, Sonja Prophete

Theses and Dissertations

Graduate student persistence is a relatively unexplored area in the literature of higher education studies; specifically, at a multi-institutional scale at the master's level. This research study examines the factors which cause students to discontinue their master's degrees, and what conditions could possibly support them returning to their program at a large urban public university system. The current study was guided by Hoyt and Winn's (2004) distinction between non-returning students, and Bean & Metzner's (1985) theoretical model of student attrition. A sequential mixed-methods study was conducted to examine the institutional and environmental influences on students' decision-making processes.

The quantitative data …

Major And Institution Transfer Path Combinations And The Relaxed Lasso Method: Parsimonious Prediction Of Vertical Transfer Student Success, David Wutchiett, A. W. Logue, Martin Kurzweil, Colin Chellman

Publications and Research

The majors, institutions, and their combinations, which characterize transfer between higher education institutions relate to student success but introduce high-dimensionality and multicollinearity to statistical modeling. Relaxed lasso regression, a procedure blending regularized lasso models with unregularized refit models, selects variables and facilitates unbiased coefficient estimation in high-dimensional settings. Using a large sample of students transferring from associate to bachelor’s programs (n=28,166), we compared lasso and ridge regression parsimonious models predicting bachelor’s graduation and posttransfer GPA improvement, evaluating associations using unregularized parsimonious predictive models. Relaxed lasso parsimonious optimal models outperformed standard lasso and ridge regression models while including few of 702 …

Archives And Children's Knowledge, Elliott Kuecker, Ashley Rockenbach

Publications and Research

This article argues for the importance of collecting works created by children—not just about and not just for—in formal archival collections. Framed through the ideas of legitimate knowledge and epistemic injustice, this piece combines notions important to children’s rights activists and childhood studies scholars with the role archives can play in preserving children’s knowledge through child-created materials. The authors describe how researchers struggle to find work created by children within archives, impacting the ability to create child-centered research that centers children’s views of the world as prominently as adult views of the world. Some collections that do include child-created materials …

Ancient Wisdom & Its Cultural Relevance: Reimagining Deeper Learning In Science Classrooms Through The Lens Of Yoga And Vedānta, Raaghav Pandya

Publications and Research

Contemporary calls to reconceptualize how science is taught and understood have brought deeper learning to the forefront of education at-large for its emphasis on critical perspectives, creativity, and student-centered inquiry. Yet this paper argues that its prevailing framework remains constrained by Cartesian dualism, a materialist foundation that disassociates the individual from self, other, and nature, and falls short of addressing the mental health, environmental, and cultural challenges facing youth today. To address this limitation, this paper proposes a complementary convergence between deeper learning and the contemplative traditions of Yoga and Vedānta, whose ancient paradigms of self-inquiry, interconnectedness, and well-being offer …

What Race Means For Health Among Black Americans: How Microaggressions Shape Self-Efficacy And Readiness For Behavior Change, Amanda Lee Almond

Publications and Research

Objectives: Persistent racial disparities in cardiovascular health among Black Americans reflect not only structural inequities in the United States, but also the racialized meanings of cardiovascular disease reproduced through public and private health communication. Drawing on ecological systems theory, this research examines how beliefs linking race and cardiovascular disease are reinforced through routine clinical interactions and how these meanings shape health behavior change. Method: Across two experimental mixed-methods studies, a model integrating ecological, social–cognitive, and behavior-change frameworks was tested. In Study 1 (N = 374), health-message framing was experimentally manipulated to examine effects on self-efficacy and decisional balance while controlling …

A Brief Measure Of Decisional Balance For Health Equity Engagement Among Health Professionals, Amanda Lee Almond

Publications and Research

Racial health and healthcare inequities are sustained in part by health professionals’ beliefs about the benefits and costs of equity-focused action, yet no validated decisional balance measure exists for this domain. This study introduces and evaluates the Health Equity Decisional Balance (HEDB) scale. Eighty-eight health professionals completed the scale of ten proposed items assessing perceived pros and cons of engaging with health and healthcare equity work, along with a measure of Anti-Racist Efficacy (ARE) (Eschmann et al., 2023). Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the latent structure of the scale and its predictive validity. A …

Baking In The Disposition: The Wac/Wid World Through Translational Lenses, Joseph Franklin

Publications and Research

In a global perspective for WAC and other writing programs, the singular identifier of the nation still holds a dominance in articles, books, and conference presentations. But, how we understand relationships between different programs on the global writing studies map often demands a more nuanced unpacking than stable nation-markers can offer. Jonathan Hall (2023) calls us to take up “thinking with trans-” in WAC (p. 13). This chapter answers this call first by locating different pieces of global writing program scholarship along a spectrum from those that aim to establish a single, stable identity for a particular (often national) writing …