Digital Commons Network^™

Factors Influencing Attrition In 35 Alzheimer’S Disease Centers Across The Usa: A Longitudinal Examination Of The National Alzheimer’S Coordinating Center’S Uniform Data Set, Shanna L. Burke, Tianyan Hu, Mitra Naseh, Nicole Fava, Janice O’Driscoll, Daniel Alvarez, Linda Cottler, Ranjan Duara

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: A lack of understanding of the causes of attrition in longitudinal studies of older adults may lead to higher attrition rates and bias longitudinal study results. In longitudinal epidemiological studies of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, high rates of attrition may cause a systematic underestimation of dementia prevalence and skew the characterization of the disease. This can compromise the generalizability of the study results and any inferences based on the surviving sample may grossly misrepresent the importance of the risk factors for dementia. The National Institute on Aging outlined a National Strategy for Recruitment and Participation in Alzheimer’s Disease …

Air Pollution, Neighborhood Deprivation, And Autism Spectrum Disorder In The Study To Explore Early Development, Laura A. Mcguinn, Gayle C. Windham, Lynne C. Messer, Di Qian, Joel Schwartz, Lisa A. Croen, Eric J. Moody, Ana G. Rappold, Multiple Additional Authors

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: To examine whether neighborhood deprivation modifies the association between early life air pollution exposure and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we used resources from a multisite case–control study, the Study to Explore Early Development.

Methods: Cases were 674 children with confirmed ASD born in 2003–2006; controls were 855 randomly sampled children born during the same time period and residents of the same geographic areas as cases. Air pollution was assessed by roadway proximity and particulate matter

Results: Neighborhood deprivation modified (P_{for interaction} = 0.08) the association between PM2.5 exposure during the first year of life …

Disability At The Intersections, Dara Shifrer, Angela Frederick

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Complete and accurate understandings of stratification depend on more regular consideration of disability. To build sociologists’ recognition of disability as a socially constructed axis of stratification, we first demonstrate the construction of the disability category through classic legitimating processes: moral attributions, biological attributions, separation, and dichotomization. Expanding understandings of basic processes of stratification, we then document the centrality of disability in the social construction of class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and age. Finally, we show various ways disability functions as an axis of stratification in intersection with other key axes of stratification.

Fiscal Year 2019 Report, Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative

Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative Publications and Presentations

Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative fiscal year 2019 annual report.

Creating Successful French Immersion Programs In North America, Katherine Modlin

University Honors Theses

Language immersion education (with various related approaches called bilingual and dual-language education) is a complex topic that includes many different linguistic, educational, social, and political facets. There has been much debate about the best method with which to educate children in a language that is not their mother tongue. While the goal of language immersion education is to immerse a child in the second language, in order for the child to be bilingual there must remain a support system for their first language. Many researchers have sought to determine the best way to achieve these two goals, to gain a …

Upstream Predictors Of The Need For Developmental Education Among First-Year Community College Students, Mathew C. Uretsky, Stacey L. Shipe, Angela K. Henneberger

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective/Research Question. How do student- and school-level factors measured in the final year of high school contribute to the odds of a student being assessed to need remediation in Math during the students’ first community college enrollment? Methods. The present study draws on five years of linked secondary and post-secondary administrative records and includes the academic records for 18,814 students attending 228 high schools across 24 jurisdictions in Maryland. We used a series of multilevel models (MLM) to address the research question. Results. Using MLM, we identified both student and school-level factors, drawn from the final year of high school, …

Hiv, Stigma, And Attribution Of Causal Emotions, Zoe Elizabeth Larson

Dissertations and Theses

Stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS is considered a major barrier to the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. Attribution theorists have examined stigmatizing attitudes as a product of causal emotions; to wit, people face greater judgment and stigmatization when their actions are perceived as controllable and less stigmatization when actions are perceived as out of the realms of personal control. The current study examined attribution of causal emotions for three different circumstances of HIV acquisition, which varied in their perceived controllability. The results showed statistically significant differences in participant evaluations of responsibility, blame, and anger. Statistically significant correlations were found …

The Tangle Of Institutional Care And Control At A Shelter For Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth, Liat Tzvia Mayer

Dissertations and Theses

My cultural anthropology master's thesis focuses on the workings of Inanna House, an emergency shelter/residential program for commercially sexually exploited (CSEC) youth in Portland, Oregon. In the summer of 2017, I did participant observation and interviewed youth and direct care staff members at the CSEC shelter I had been working at for 2 years. I begin by situating ideas about domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) within larger historical, legal, economic, and political contexts. I consider concepts of childhood, race, class, gender, and sexuality on the story of DMST in the United States.

Next, I explore the ways humans and institutions …

Do Corporate Owned Adaptive Learning Platforms Perpetuate Banking Style Learning? Integrating Technology For Activism Into Transformational Sustainability Education, Tina M. Garner

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

We live in a world that tends to be controlled by corporations. The public school system should be wary of the problems that corporate control has on education. Even though public schools should not have corporate influence, the fact remains that they do, and this perpetuates Freire's banking style learning. Through time, the corporate influence in education was through educational materials such as book sales. Since the decline of the use of books and the growth of the use of technologies, corporations have followed suit through the sales of Adaptive Learning Platforms. Through leveraging the technology which students enjoy using, …

The Relationship Between Undergraduate Research Training Programs And Motivational Resources For Underrepresented Minority Students In Stem: Program Participation, Self-Efficacy, A Sense Of Belonging, And Academic Performance, Jennifer Lindwall

Dissertations and Theses

Although calls for a more diverse workforce in biomedical fields have been widespread, racial and ethnic gaps in biomedical degree attainment persist. In order to succeed, URM STEM students must persevere despite numerous challenges and stay continuously motivated on the long road to degree attainment in biomedical disciplines. Past higher education research has identified two key self-appraisals, a sense of belonging and self-efficacy, as crucial for student success. These beliefs, which can serve as motivational resources for students, include students' convictions about whether they are a valued member of their academic community and whether they have what it takes to …

Papers Please: Immigration, Enforcement, And Remmitances, Jose A. Rojas-Fallas

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

This research aims to analyze and present the economic reaction visible in immigrants, unauthorized or not, in Arizona during the period in which SB 1070, a law that allowed state police officers to stop and ask for proof of residency from anyone that the officers deemed to “have the appearance of an immigrant”. To make the analysis on how this may have had economic implications in immigrants, an attempt to answer how remittance activity changes in immigrant communities in the context of a change in law enforcement jurisdiction, as seen by the SB. 1070 law enacted in Arizona is made. …

“Let Me Have My Untrammeled Growth” Gender, Education, And The Colonized Intellectual In Nervous Conditions, Dustin C. Rozier

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

This article utilizes Frantz Fanon's ideas of the "colonized intellectual" from his text The Wretched of the Earth to examine the state of education in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Condition. By applying the various states of the "colonized intellectual" to the novel's main characters, an understanding of the benefits and trials of education in the former colonized state of Rhodesia is discussed in relation to ideas of gender, patriarchal cultural roles, and the modern colonial state. Examples from the novel are utilized as evidence in this literary analysis alongside the theoretical ideas of Fanon and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Masculinity In Fraternities: Impact On Campus Sexual Violence, Alisha K. Ram

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

The literature on fraternities and sexual violence has suggested that some fraternity members are more likely to adopt and maintain the values found in hegemonic masculinity (Sanday, 2007). This is significant as it can aid our understanding of how fraternities and hegemonic masculinity play a part in promoting and engaging in sexual violence. This paper investigates existing literature on masculinity and how hegemonic masculinity is enforced through fraternity participation. The literature review explores condoned behaviors and beliefs that endorse negative masculine values, which are fostered in the social fraternity lifestyle between brothers. Those values paired with the strong male social …

"I Don't Want To Be Ashamed, I Want To Learn About My History": Racial Isolation In Portland’S White Schools, Rae R. Stevenson

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Students of color in predominantly white school systems face significant challenges in their path to positive racial identity development due to racial isolation. Their journeys through the education system are impacted by a lack of same-race peers and educators, and the challenges they face are amplified by neighborhoods that are equally devoid of same-race community members. This paper explores the experiences of self-identified members of the African diaspora in predominantly white schools in Portland, Oregon. Their stories were collected through semi-structured qualitative interviews. Analysis is informed by critical, feminist and constructivist perspectives, and utilizes a narrative approach. The experiences shared …

How Does Wasta Bolster Regimes? The Case Of Tunisia, Issrar Chamekh

Dissertations and Theses

This paper aims to highlight the impact of democratization on wasta by examining the everyday performance of wasta, or the use of connections and informal networks to acquire services. Despite its widespread use, I find that it is understudied as an explanatory variable in the literature on democratization and authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa, with Tunisia as a case study. In this paper, I argue that wasta can potentially have a consolidating effect on regimes. I examine the ways that wasta is encoded in everyday language. Using literature from Pragmatics, specifically Goffman's dramaturgical model, I find that …

Does X Mark The Applicant? Assessing Reactions To Gender Non-Binary Job Seekers, Kelly Mason Hamilton

Dissertations and Theses

The number of individuals who identify as a non-binary gender has almost tripled over the last 10 years. This growing population, and the legal protection against sex discrimination afforded to them under Title VII, puts a responsibility on employers to better understand their experiences in the workplace. The purpose of the current study was to examine how disclosing a non-binary gender identity when applying for jobs influenced hiring outcomes. Specifically, my study assessed (a) hiring managers' beliefs about non-binary gender identities, (b) how those beliefs impacted hiring managers' perceived ability to provide social support to prospective applicants, and (c) how …

Tragic Ways Of Killing A Lesbian: A Synchronic Analysis, Taylor D. Watt

University Honors Theses

Following an increase in queer characters over the last few decades, representation of the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, etc.) community on television has become a particularly rich field of inquiry for interdisciplinary scholars. One area of interest, the death of contemporary lesbian characters, remains fairly underdeveloped. This thesis attempts to identify structural patterns in the deaths of lesbian characters by subjecting their narrative arcs to structural analysis, specifically a method of linguistic analysis developed by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. I identify structural patterns in the deaths of 6 lesbian characters which took place between the years …

No Easy Answer: Representative Bureaucracy And Police Use Of Force, Jacob Herrera

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

The theory of Representative Bureaucracy is a well-studied concept in Public Administration, positing that more representative government agencies will lead to greater equity for underserved groups. This paper is review of empirical applications of the theory to the use of force by police and it will show that the work does not support the idea that more representative police departments correlate with lower rates of use of force against minority groups. Implications for future studies are addressed at the end of the article.

Leaders Of Global Virtual Teams: Implications For The Identification And Training Of Successful E-Leaders, Janae R. Rainbolt

University Honors Theses

The business environment is an ever-evolving enterprise, and as technology advances so do their operations, allowing for more businesses to become global. This increase in globalization has led to the problem of how to manage these activities around the world. Virtual teams have become one solution, but they present their own challenges in regards to how to effectively manage a team that is culturally diverse and lives in various times zones. Through the analysis of 91 research articles and texts on the topic of e-leadership, this research identifies the most prevalent indicators of the management practices of leaders of efficacious …

Fostering Racial And Ethnic Identity For Transracial Adoptees: The Importance Of Culturally Competent Transracial Adoption Training Programs For White Adoptive Parents, Emily J. Moxon

University Honors Theses

Transracial adoption, which is the adoption of a child of a race or ethnicity different from the race or ethnicity of the adoptive parents, is a relatively new practice with the first reported case in the U.S. in 1948 (The Adoption History Project, n.d.). As such, there is a limited amount of academic research that is currently available studying the effects of this practice on the Transracial Adoptee (TRA) in their cultural, ethnic, and racial socialization processes and on how well they adjust to a racialized society outside of their adoptive family unit. Since the 1940s, an estimated one million …

Can We Bring Notions Of Groups Back Into Research On Children’S Peer Groups? Differentiating Peer Groups At School According To Their Functions For Academic Development, Anamika J. Vaughan

University Honors Theses

Strategies to examine children’s peer relationships at school can be broadly distinguished into studies of Sociometric Acceptance (Social Status), studies of Social Crowds, studies of Friendship Groups, and studies or Social Networks of frequent interaction partners. Sociometric groups and social crowds are defined as social categories, that is, groups containing students with similar characteristics or lifestyles who often do not share close relationships. In contrast, friendship groups and groups of frequent interaction partners necessitate close and mutual connections between the members of each group.

This study focuses on interaction groups and the ways in which the labels that children assign …

High Rates Of Diabetes And Hypertension Amongst Non-Latinx African-American Women As Risk Factors For Low Birth Weight: Contributing Causes And Potential Solutions, Liliana Barber

University Honors Theses

This study sought to analyze the relationship between diabetes, hypertension, and low birth weight (LBW) amongst non-Latinx African American women. The Oregon Health Assessment Tool (OPHAT) served as a data base for the sample population. The sample population consisted of African American women between the ages of 25-39 that gave birth between 2013-2014. Relative risk ratios were calculated to determine the likelihood of delivering a LBW infant. The exposures for the risk ratios were: Prepregnancy diabetes (DM), gestational diabetes (GM), prepregnancy hypertension (HTN), and gestational hypertension (GHTN). An analysis of conditional factors that impact birth weight was also conducted. The …

Bret Assays To Determine Altered Function Of A D2dr Variant In G Protein-Independent And -Dependent Pathways, Alex R. Kunz

University Honors Theses

G protein-dependent and independent signaling pathways perform crucial roles in dopamine-related physiological and pathological processes. A pivotal role of dopamine in the CNS is the control of locomotion; disruption to dopaminergic systems, such as reduced striatal D2 receptor availability, contributes to the development of movement disorders. Affected members of a family with dystonia, a movement disorder, are heterozygous for a SNP in exon 4 of D2DR (c.634A>T p.I212F), a missense variant located within the third intracellular loop; specifically, the variation is in the middle of a short stretch of residues that have been found to be critical for binding …

Effect Of Heterogeneity Of Variance On The Performance Of Anova F-Test And Its Alternatives: Simulation Based Study, Jay Lopez

University Honors Theses

Studies have shown that ANOVA F-test has a lower performance against heterogeneity of variances. It is important to provide more information on its alternatives and other methods that can prove useful. As a general guideline, Welch’s ANOVA is a perfect alternative with low type 1 error in all cases of different population variances. An addition to Welch’s ANOVA, Marascuilo’s alternative to this test gives a less accurate result but provides simpler calculation methods. Similar to Moder K. (2010) , Kruskal Wallis test and Hotelling’s T² test were taken into consideration. Kruskal Wallis test had higher type 1 errors similar …

Self-Disclosure And Physiological Responses Among Adults Who Stutter, Sulema Rodriguez

University Honors Theses

Purposes: (1) To explore self-disclosure, physiological and affective responses in easy and difficult speaking situations, (2) to investigate physiological and affective responses in self-disclosure and no self-disclosure speaking contexts, (3) to examine types of self-disclosure statements used along with physiological responses, (4) and to gain an understanding of reasons why and how adults who stutter choose to self-disclose or not self-disclose about their stuttering.

Method: Four adults who stutter were randomly assigned to self-disclosure and non self-disclosure speaking contexts. Heart rate, skin conductance, and affective responses were measured during the following focus areas: 1) start baseline, 2) anticipation of the …

The (Mis)Use Of One-Way Anova Testing In Sociology Research Papers And Their Implications, Nancy Yang

University Honors Theses

Null hypothesis testing has been used increasingly over previous years. Many papers have been released critiquing the use and interpretation of these tests, particularly in the fields of medicine and other physical sciences. This study considers the use of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) testing, a type of null hypothesis test, in sociology research papers. In this study, peer reviewed research articles have been gathered and analyzed based on their misuse and misinterpretation. Common misuses include proof of the null hypothesis and lack of further explanation of statistically significant results in relation to argument of the research. These interpretations, or lack …

Relationship Between Empathy And Language Proficiency In Adult Language Learners, Mika Sakai

Dissertations and Theses

This study reviews concepts and the mechanism of empathy, and the relationship between empathy and language proficiency, focusing on the aspect of cognitive empathy. It also discusses whether empathy levels could be developed by learning language to a highly proficient level. I compared the empathy levels between high and low proficiency second-language learners to determine if there was correlation between empathy and other factors such as gender, studying abroad, education background, and usage of a second language. I found that there was no relationship between empathy level and language proficiency level; however, there was one between empathy and gender. For …

Engaging In A Rural Deaf Community Of Practice, Kara Gournaris

Dissertations and Theses

The number of students taking American Sign Language (ASL) at the post-secondary level continues to increase as more Deaf-related graduate programs and employment settings require fluent ASL skills. Western Oregon University (WOU) is one of the few existing programs in the United States that offers four years of ASL instruction; however, as a rural university it has limited access to a Deaf community. The problem of practice is that students often have little exposure to rich language models who are fluent in ASL, which impacts their legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) in the local Deaf communities of practice (CoPs) and reduces …

"To Call Or Not To Call?" The Impact Of Supervisor Training On Call Center Employee Attitudes And Well-Being, Whitney Elan Schneider Vogel

Dissertations and Theses

Call center customer service occupations represent a growing proportion of the U.S. economy in the digital age. These roles are characterized by low control, high levels of emotional labor, and burnout. Turnover rates in call centers are often twice as high as in other industries. To combat these challenges, I delivered a supervisor-focused mental health training intervention targeted at improving supervisor supportive behaviors and employee outcomes. The indirect effect of supervisor training on employee outcomes related to perceived supervisor support, problem-focused coping, burnout, turnover intentions, and withdrawal behaviors were evaluated. A waitlist control design (N = 74) was used …

Architectural And Philosophical 'Makerspace' Redesign Impact On Teacher Beliefs And Practices: A Case Study, Rurik-Rory James Nackerud

Dissertations and Theses

Current jobs in a global economy require more complex cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, cooperation, creativity, and collaboration, in addition to content knowledge. To address these areas, researchers have suggested the use of a 'makerspace' in schools. As with many other establishments, my school remodeled the primary school to create a makerspace for developing these skills. What impact might a makerspace -- a physical as well as a curricular change -- have on teachers' individual and collaborative learning? The purpose of this case study was to describe how the makerspace concept and changes to classroom or instructional space influence …