Digital Commons Network^™

Performance Measures For Managerial Decision Making: Performance Measurement Synergies In Multi-Attribute Performance Measurement Systems, Robert Andrew Fowke

Dissertations and Theses

This research tests for correlation between corporate performance and use of financial measures, nonfinancial measures, and number of balanced scorecard categories used. Literature notes a preference for managing by nonfinancial measures because financial measures are lagging indicators, but little empirical evidence is available on the relationship between nonfinancial measures and financial performance, and few companies are found to realize the benefits of nonfinancial measurements. The balanced scorecard has been studied to find the impact of diversity of performance measures, and anecdotal improvements have been reported, but there is a paucity of empirical evidence regarding how the use of a balanced …

Predictors Of Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors: Supervisor Job Stress And Work-Family Climate, Brittany E. Sale

Dissertations and Theses

Research indicates that supportive supervision, particularly work-family specific supervision, is key to reducing employees' work-family conflict (Allen, 2001; Eby et al., 2005; Thomas & Ganster, 1995). However, little research has examined the factors that contribute to supervisors' willingness or ability to provide this support. This study examined how supervisor job stress and perceptions of work-family climate influenced employee ratings of Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSB) using previously-collected data from a mid-western grocery chain. It was hypothesized that supervisor job stressors would impact FSSB, supervisor perception of work-family climate would impact FSSB, and the interaction of stressors and climate would impact FSSB. …

Child Welfare Workforce Turnover: Frontline Workers' Experiences With Organizational Culture And Climate, And Implications For Organizational Practice, Melanie Dawn Sage

Dissertations and Theses

Public child welfare agencies experience front line worker turnover rates as high as 25% a year. Worker turnover has significant financial costs to agencies, and has been linked to negative outcomes for children in care. Prior research has linked organizational factors, such as organizational climate, culture, and supervisor satisfaction, to turnover intent in child welfare populations. This research uses an empowerment framework to turn to workers directly to answer the question, "What are the organizational factors that lead frontline child welfare workers to stay or leave the agency, and what, then, are the implications for agency administrators?" This study relies …

The Creative Use Of Dance/Movement Therapy Processes To Transform Intrapersonal Conflicts Associated With Sexual Trauma In Women, Emily Fern Dayton

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract This qualitative research explores creative movement processes such as dance/movement therapy (DMT), authentic movement (AM), and creative dance (CD) as possible tools for transforming sexual trauma for women. Eleven movement professionals were interviewed in a semi-structured research format. My direct experience and knowledge of sexual abuse, sexual trauma, and creative movement processes are interwoven with the research question: do creative dance/movement therapy processes contribute to the dynamic of healing for women transforming sexual trauma? These findings are inconclusive for the greater population of survivors of sexual abuse and sexual trauma. However, there are indications that DMT, AM, and CD …

Anatomy Of Mishima's Most Successful Play Rokumeikan, Mami Harano

Dissertations and Theses

Mishima Yukio premiered the play Rokumeikan in 1956 and published it in 1957. For more than half a century, this play has been praised as one of the finest Japanese plays in the Post-War period. Rokumeikan is a multi-act tragic melodrama, set in 1886 (Meiji Period) in the Rokumeikan building. The play intertwines complex political cabals, intense loves and hatreds, and multiple deceptions embodying the conflict between political power and love. This essay explores the reasons why Rokumeikan has maintained its popularity over its fifty year long performance history and examines the critical reception of the play. My analysis of …

Between Non-Intervention And Protection: A Study On The Case Of Darfur And The Responsibility To Protect, David Ryan Lucas

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the obstacles in establishing a consistent and effective response framework for humanitarian catastrophe and the importance of maintaining a sustained dialogue to this end. It does so by recognizing the underlying conflict between two positions: the norm of non-intervention of states into the affairs of others, and the protection of individuals caught in the middle of violent conflict. The importance of working towards a resolution of this conflict is illustrated through the case study of Darfur, where a divided international community led an insufficient response to the crisis that can ultimately be judged as a failure. Lastly, …

War, Peace, And Principled Action: A Study Of Veterans And The Peace Movement, Laura Kay Wegener

Dissertations and Theses

Throughout the history of the United States (U.S.), there have been service members who, upon leaving the service, have spoken out against U.S. involvement in wars. The current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their increasing unpopularity, have contributed to this trend. Recently veterans have begun to come forward in larger numbers to speak out against the current wars and have self-identified as members of peace movements. The purpose of this research project was to explore veterans' understandings of the peace movement and their involvement in veterans' peace movement organizations. This study hoped to answer the following questions: 1) How …

A Structural And Functional Analysis Of Codeswitching In Mi Vida Gitana 'My Gypsy Life,' A Bilingual Play, Gustavo Javier Fernandez

Dissertations and Theses

The present study analyzed the language in the script of the bilingual play Mi Vida Gitana 'My Gypsy Life' (Malán, 2006) in order to better understand issues relating to codeswitching (CS). The analysis was done from a structural and a functional perspective and utilized various models developed by renowned CS scholars.

For the structural analysis, I utilized concepts and ideas put forth in the three-tiered typology created by Muysken (2000) and the Matrix Language Frame model developed by Myers-Scotton (1993). The results of this portion of the study showed that some form of CS, whether occurring between turns or within …

Globalization; But Under What Conditions? -- The Case Of The E.U., Michaelangelo Anastasiou

Dissertations and Theses

The present study explores the relationship between trust placed in national institutions and opinion of globalization. A secondary data analysis is conducted using data collected by the European Commission in a 2004 Eurobarometer survey of European Union (EU) citizens on various issues regarding the EU, globalization and national challenges. A prominent theme in the literature is that, in recent times, globalization has had the effect of compromising the sovereignty of nation-states. This has generated a backlash of nationalistic attitudes wherein globalization is posited in opposition to the nation-state. This surge in nationalism has reinforced a culture wherein any external force …

Music And Conflict Resolution: Exploring The Utilization Of Music In Community Engagement, Mindy Kay Johnston

Dissertations and Theses

This study is based on interviews conducted with twenty-two musician-activists in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States in 2009 to explore perspectives about the role of music in community engagement with the aim of considering how music might be used in the field of conflict resolution. The study followed the qualitative approach of constructivist grounded theory as designed by Charmaz (2000, 2002). Two themes, "Music for Self," and "Music for Society" emerged from interviews and comprise the internal and external meanings of music to the research informants. The results of the study indicate that the relationships people have …

Exploring School Engagement As A Protective Factor For Youth At Risk Of Joining Gangs, Lorraine M. Escribano

Dissertations and Theses

Research on gangs has traditionally focused on identifying the risk factors associated with youth gang membership in multiple developmental domains with limited attention on examining the protective factors that may buffer youth from joining gangs (Howell & Egley, 2005). Educational and psychological research have found robust evidence that school engagement protects youth from a host of risky activities and negative outcomes (e.g., substance use, dropping out of school) and may hold promise in also protecting youth from gang involvement. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is three-fold: (1) to identify students who are at risk for gangs; (2) to …

La Palabra Es Salud: A Comparative Study Of The Effectiveness Of Popular Education Vs. Traditional Education For Enhancing Health Knowledge And Skills And Increasing Empowerment Among Parish-Based Community Health Workers (Chws), Noelle Wiggins

Dissertations and Theses

Popular education is a mode of teaching and learning which seeks to bring about more equitable social conditions by creating settings in which people can identify and solve their own problems. While the public health literature offers evidence to suggest that popular education is an effective strategy for increasing empowerment and improving health, there have been no systematic attempts to compare the outcomes of popular education to those of traditional education. The goal of La Palabra es Salud was to conduct such a comparison among Latino, parish-based Community Health Workers (CHWs). The study employed a quasi-experimental design, mixed methods, and …

Solving The Childcare And Flexibility Puzzle: How Working Parents Make The Best Feasible Choices And What That Means For Public Policy, Arthur C. Emlen

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

This monograph’s contribution to knowledge was two-fold: 1) reliable measures of the quality of childcare as perceived and assessed by the parents themselves; and 2) discovery that the quality of the care chosen by working parents depends upon the amount of flexibility they can muster from their immediate environment at work, at home, or from accommodating childcare providers. It doesn’t matter which source of flexibility works best for them. It’s the flexibility that allows optimum choice. The findings suggest that public policy should recognize the vast diversity of parental choices and the flexibility needed to improve their choices. That means …

Residential Segregation And Social Integration: Do Blacks And Whites Differ?, Joongbaeck Kim, Hyeyoung Woo

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

While it is well known that racial residential segregation affects social behaviors and various outcomes of individuals, research about the relationship between residential segregation and social integration is limited. We examine how residential segregation is associated with three types of social integration: formal, informal, and advisory integration, and whether the associations differ for Blacks and Whites using data from the Americans’ Changing Lives survey. Our results show that residential segregation is negatively associated with advisory integration for both Blacks and Whites. It also predicts lower levels of formal integration for Blacks, but not for Whites. We did not find significant …

Bulletin: General Catalog Issue 2010-2011, Portland State University

Bulletin & Curriculum Change Documents

No abstract provided.

Working Mothers' Decisions, Experiences And Feelings About Using On-Site Childcare, Stephanie Larae Hixson-Somanchi

Dissertations and Theses

On-site childcare is an ever-increasing form of childcare. By understanding the decisions, experiences and feelings of mothers using on-site centers, informed policy decisions about viable childcare models can be made. In the broadest terms current literature reveals that economic, societal, functional, and psychological factors influence a mother's decisions in regards to using childcare. This study used these markers as the basis for the development of questions to ascertain the experiences, feelings and decisions of mothers using on-site childcare. A phenomenological method was used. Twenty-four participants using on-site childcare from four organizations in different industries were located through a snowball sample …

Investigating Further Preservice Teachers’ Conceptions Of Multidigit Whole Numbers: Refining A Framework, Eva Thanheiser

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study was designed to investigate preservice elementary school teachers’ (PSTs’) responses to written standard place-value-operation tasks (addition and subtraction). Previous research established that PSTs can often perform but not explain algorithms and provided a four-category framework for PSTs’ conceptions, two correct and two incorrect. Previous findings are replicated for PSTs toward the end of their college careers, and two conceptions are further analyzed to yield three categories of incorrect views of regrouped digits: (a) consistently as 1 value (all as 1 or all as 10), (b) consistently within but not across contexts (i.e., all as 10 in addition but …

Internal Displacement In Colombia: Violence, Resettlement, And Resistance, Juan Esteban Zea

Dissertations and Theses

The majority of the estimated four million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia who have fled from their lands and homes have migrated to urban centers. This study, performed in Bogotá, Colombia between April and September 2009, examines how IDPs cope with living in a new, urban environment after violent displacement. I held interviews with IDPs, the non-displaced public, and government workers; performed participant-observation in government offices and neighborhoods; and examined archival material. The work examines cultural anthropological topics of violence, migration, and resistance. A discussion of state and structural violence reveals the current hardships many rural Colombians face. Analysis …

Engaging A Systems Approach To Evaluate Domestic Violence Intervention With Abusive Men: Reassessing The Role Of Community, Courtenay Silvergleid Wallpe

Dissertations and Theses

The domestic violence movement has had remarkable success illuminating the scope, prevalence and consequences of battering, but has been more limited in its ability to successfully intervene and prevent abuse of women by their intimate male partners. Surprisingly, there has been little research directed at understanding why intervention strategies with perpetrators are only minimally effective. Studies have focused on assessing the degree to which and for whom individual components such as arrest, prosecution and psycho-educational programs for abusive men are successful, but few explorations have attempted to describe limitations and challenges to the domestic violence intervention 'system as a whole'. …

Understanding The Development Of Self-Determination In Youth With Disabilities In Foster Care, Jennifer L. Powers

Dissertations and Theses

Youth in foster care who experience disabilities face many challenges as they transition out of foster care and into adulthood. In order to assist these youth, it is crucial to understand factors that may impact their self-determination, which research links to positive transition outcomes for youth with disabilities (Wehmeyer, Palmer, Agran, Mithaug, & Martin, 2000). While much of the existing research on the correlates and outcomes of self-determination focuses on young people with disabilities overall, and little is known about whether factors such as abuse, family stressors and extended length of time in care, and frequent placement changes influence self-determination. …

Designing Exhibits For Gender Equity, Toni Nicole Dancu

Dissertations and Theses

Gender equity has been a national and global aim for over half a century (Ceci & Williams, 2007; National Center for Education Statistics, 2003; National Science Board, 2008). While gains have been made, one area where inequity remains is spatial reasoning ability, where a large gender gap in favor of males has persisted over the years (Else-Quest, Linn, & Shibley Hyde, 2010; National Science Board, 2008; Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006). This gender gap in spatial reasoning has had substantial societal impact on the career interests of females in areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), contributing to the …

Psychosocial Responses To Spinal Cord Injury As Predictors Of Pressure Sores, Hanoch Livneh, Samuel T. Gontkovsky, Dobrivoje S. Stokic, Erin Martz

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Pressure sores are a preventable, but common, secondary complication of a spinal cord injury (SCI). Research is limited concerning the influence of psychological factors in the development of pressure sores. The purpose of our ex post facto study was to examine the role that emotional responses and coping strategies play in moderating the relationships between demographic and SCI-related medical variables and the frequency and severity of pressure sores. Ninety-five individuals, who sustained a sudden-onset SCI, completed a self-report questionnaire sent to the population of patients that received post-injury rehabilitation services at a rehabilitation center in the southern U.S. Multiple regression …

"Everybody Goes Down": Metaphors, Stories, And Simulations In Conversations, L. David Ritchie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent work has shown that many problematic aspects of metaphor use and comprehension can be resolved through an account that includes both relevance and perceptual simulation. It has also been shown that metaphors often imply stories, and that stories are often metaphorical. Previous research on narratives has focused primarily on stories that appear either in formal literature or in structured interviews; this essay focuses on stories that occur as an integral part of conversation. It extends recent work on metaphor comprehension to show how use and comprehension of stories in natural, informal conversations can be usefully analyzed in terms of …

Pathos, Winter 2010, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editors: Joel Eisenhower and Richard Hernandez

Issue 11

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: Tito Capobianco, internationally renowned state director, returns for the fifth time to direct opera students; Middle East Studies graduate Peter Bechtold '61 brings his expertise back to Portland State; every year senior students work with hundreds of partners to solve—not just to study—community need; and more.

Understanding School Travel: How Residential Location Choice And The Built Environment Affect Trips To School, Yizhao Yang, Marc Schlossberg, Robert Parker, Bethany Johnson

TREC Final Reports

This project investigates issues related to parents’ decisions about children’s school transportation. This has become an important area of research due to the growing concerns that increased reliance on private automobile in school travel has led to adverse health impacts on children and negative impacts on environment. This study examines school transportation in the context of where families live and how families make decisions about school travel in the process of choosing their residence.

Using a middle-sized school district in Oregon State, we conducted a 5500-household survey and a number of interviews and focus groups. The study shows that parents …

“Why Are Those Leaves Red?” Making Sense Of The Complex Symbols: Ecosemiotics In Education, Creeping Snowberry, Sean Blenkinsop, Veronica Hotton

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Deciphering complex signals of constructed educational systems requires symbolic interpretation; deciphering complex signals that are inherently ignorant of their ecological roots requires a modification of a semiotic approach, which we call ecosemiotics. This paper examines one of many average classrooms through this veil of perception. As part of a larger reevaluation of learning in modern culture, we take apart some of the symbols of the classroom and its contained learning. The paper ends with the positing of several more ecosophically inclined teacher responses.

Symbolic Structures As Systems: On The Near Isomorphism Of Two Religious Symbols, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many symbolic structures used in religious and philosophical traditions are composed of “elements” and relations between elements. Similarities between such structures can be described using the systems theoretic idea of “isomorphism.” This paper demonstrates the existence of a near isomorphism between two symbolic structures: the Diagram of the Supreme Pole of Song Neo-Confucianism and the Kabbalistic Tree of medieval Jewish mysticism. The similarities of these two symbols in form and meaning are remarkable in the light of the many differences that exist between Chinese and Judaic thought. Intercultural influence might account for these similarities, but there is no historical evidence …

Decision-Making In Secondary And Tertiary Interventions Of School-Wide Systems Of Positive Behavior Support, Terrance M. Scott, Peter J. Alter, Michael Rosenberg, Christopher Borgmeier

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although the conceptual foundations of PBS at the universal level have been widely described and presented in the literature, secondary and tertiary interventions have been presented through very limited examples. This paper defines the key features of secondary and tertiary interventions and presents a decision-making process to guide schools through a continuum of strategies at these levels. The continuum is described in terms of a recursive loop, repetitively asking four questions: what is predictable about student failure, what is the simplest effective intervention, how can consistent implementation be achieved, and is it working? With each pass through this set of …

Practical Functional Behavioral Assessment Training Manual For School-Based Personnel, Sheldon Loman, Christopher Borgmeier

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

This participant's guide presents specific procedures for school-based personnel to conduct practical functional behavioral assessments (FBA). Practical FBA training methods presented in this workbook are designed to train school-based personnel with flexible roles in a school (i.e. personnel not directly responsible for providing regular instruction for students). The Practical FBA training methods are specifically designed for use with students that exhibit consistent problems that are not dangerous and have not been adequately addressed through previous assessment and intervention.