Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Stem Education On Women, Jasmine Gloden

University Honors Theses

This inquiry seeks to establish the effect of a STEM education on labor market outcomes for women. Gender differences in interest and performance in STEM fields begin at an early age, and remain steadfast through education and into the labor market. Due to factors like lack of female role models in STEM, gender stereotypes, and lack of growth mindset in terms of intellectual abilities, women can be discouraged throughout their education from continuing in a STEM education or pursuing a STEM occupation. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, I determined the effect of a STEM education for …

The Influence Of The Mothers Of The Plaza De Mayo On Contemporary Feminist Movement In Argentina, Ni Una Menos, Alexandria Blackwill

University Honors Theses

This thesis aims to explore the development of Argentine feminism between the Madres Plaza de Mayo and Ni Una Menos movements. This study will examine the extent to which the Madres have established a permanent human rights framework that provides a structure for contemporary movements in Argentina. First, the socio-cultural and economic conditions in which the Madres emerged are dissected, including the results of Peronism and Eva Perón's influences on Argentine culture as explored through a feminist lens. Next, the tactics used by the Madres to subvert patriarchy and instead use oppression to their advantage are analyzed through their conceptions …

Disrupted Course Delivery In The Covid-19 Landscape: Consequences For University Student Stress And Mental Health, Madison M. Eki

University Honors Theses

University students have experienced a massive disruption in the path to their academic goals. The Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted populations of students internationally. They have incurred physical and psychological distress. In this paper, the literature and data collected about how the pandemic affected the stress levels of students at universities will be analyzed and a recommendation for future research will be made. The purpose of this literature review is to analyze data and publications pertaining to the mental health and perceived stress of students resulting from Covid-19. There is an emphasis on the severity of the ways that their …

Trouble Within The Fold: The Communal Response To Madness In Medieval Europe, Alice P. Holland

University Honors Theses

Medieval descriptions of mental distress can inform us on a range of subjects, from community organization to diagnostic and interpretive practices. While we often employ the medical model of understanding disability presently and, while this model was still present in the Middle Ages, medieval individuals often understood mental distress as a religious phenomenon. This paper utilizes two miracle collections written in the twelfth century: The Miracle Collections of Thomas Becket and the Miracle Collection of Our Lady of Rocamadour. Miracle collections record miraculous occurrences at a saint's shrine. Many of these miracles documented healings and, of these healings, some …

'Night, Mother: A Thesis Production, Naomi R. Bowers

University Honors Theses

This paper is my reflection on the process of directing and producing the 1981 play 'Night, Mother by Marsha Norman. Overall, the mission of this piece is to catalog the journey from pre-production to the final product. I decided on this script in particular because of my own experiences with Epilepsy and mental illness, and the ways the play raises awareness of these often taboo topics. The cast was composed of two actors of a similar age, and due to time constraints, blocking was reduced to only what was essential. With help from my advisers and team, the end product …

Investigating The Efficacy & Implications Of Abstinence-Based Drug Education, Sophia Hanken

University Honors Theses

The United States has a long and complex history surrounding substance use. Drug education programs have become widely implemented in American schools and the media. Policy, rhetoric, and ideology have directly affected the curriculum of drug education programs. Drug education in the United States centers around substance abstinence. While well-intended, abstinence-based drug education is not a pragmatic solution for reducing substance-related harm or promoting health. The purpose of this thesis is to critique two of the most widely used abstinence-based drug education programs; Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) and Project ALERT. These programs often emphasize the dangers of substance use …

Addressing The Body Mass Index Using A Teaching Math For Social Justice Lens, Riley J. Wolfe

University Honors Theses

Teaching Math for Social Justice (TMSJ) lessons are designed to explain math in social justice contexts. TMSJ leads to better engagement with math content by providing relevant contexts. Because the field is so new, there are math topics not yet covered and areas of social justice that also have gone unaddressed by TMSJ. One of these topics is the problem of weight discrimination. This paper will explain how Body Mass Index (BMI) can be used as a jumping off point to introduce the issue of weight discrimination. Then, a detailed lesson plan is provided which connects the historical origin of …

Assessing The Efficacy Of Physical Prehabilitation On A Total Knee Arthroplasty, Zen S. Miyashiro

University Honors Theses

Prehabilitation is a rather new method of approach to the physical therapy setting in which patients attend therapy sessions to prepare for their upcoming surgery. Researchers hypothesize that if patients enter a procedure with higher levels of strength and function, they will be able to recover from their surgery quicker and more successfully. This literature review assesses different approaches that numerous studies have taken with regards to prehabilitation for patients about to undergo a Total Knee Arthroplasty. Majority of the studies conclude that there needs to be further research done to yield consistent results. Based on what has been done, …

Branding In Motion: How Animation And Branding Intersect To Support Nonprofits In Need, Shannon M. Steed

University Honors Theses

Nonprofits often don’t receive the kind of attention needed to garner a wide audience. Especially during the pandemic when the world has largely gone online, it can be a challenge for many of these organizations to adapt to the fast-paced digital landscape. This is largely due to a lack of access to resources and modern design practices to create more community visibility. This thesis is an exploration of how thoughtful design can bring these nonprofit events a new life. I created design systems for two nonprofit events, each with a digitally-focused approach and a focus on deeply considering the audience. …

Trans Men: Precarious Manhood And The Paradox Of Hegemonic Masculinity, Alexander-Lee K. Kinmore

University Honors Theses

This thesis utilizes existing literature on gender essentialism, gender socialization, precarious manhood theory, and transphobic discrimination in order to examine the ways in which transgender men conceptualize their internal male identity and respond to threats like discrimination and violence. Transgender men have an essential male identity that does not depend on their sense of masculinity and develops during childhood while they are living in a body considered biologically female. Their experience of early gender socialization allows them to understand masculinity and femininity as concepts that exist in different levels within us all, and does not rely on hegemonic masculine ideals …

Maternal Socioeconomic Status And Infant Low Birth Weight: Interactions Across Generations, Kira M. Anderson

University Honors Theses

This article examines the interplay between low birth weight (LBW) and socioeconomic status (SES) across generations. Transgenerational research of LBW and SES is limited and poses certain challenges and nuances. A literature review was conducted which gathered studies that analyze both LBW and SES for two or more generations. Results of these studies are mixed, but the body of research is suggestive of patterns in which LBW and low SES may mutually exacerbate each other across generations. Furthermore, the research suggests that these patterns may be more severe among Black women. This paper calls into question the consequences that these …

The Cult Fascist: Establishing Cultic Behavior In Proud Boys And Incels, Aj Ashland

University Honors Theses

Is the Alt-Right a cult? Certainly, we can see religious fervor intertwine with politics as we see in the far-right, with artwork of Trump being crucified like Jesus, pierced in his side by Nancy Pelosi analogous to Longinus (Cole, 2020), or in the golden statue of Trump at CPAC (Beauchamp, 2021). But, do we see similar, potentially cultic, behavior within Alt-Right groups? It turns out we do see this behavior. Within this study, I determine via the Advanced Bonewits' Cult Danger Evaluation Frame what level of cultic behavior exists within Incels and Proud Boys. In doing so, I intend to …

Ours Lived Lived: Faculty Responses To Stem Students' Lived Experiences, Stan Nguyen

University Honors Theses

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields have historically had low undergraduate retention rates. To aid in counteracting this, classroom exercises, or 'belonging interventions' can play a vital role in keeping new STEM students motivated through the "cultural shock" period of the college transition. However, much is still unknown about STEM instructors' perceptions on belonging interventions in STEM classrooms. Would understanding students' lives and experiences in the past and present help them make better informed decisions in their teaching practices?

To answer this question, we drew upon results from a belonging intervention conducted by the Biology Education Research (BER) group …

Understanding Male Sexual Victimization: An Expository Synthesis, Grecia D. Robledo Maciel

University Honors Theses

Sexual victimization is typically analyzed in our society through a gender-based lens, with the typecast scenario being that of a female victim and male offender. Because of this, male sexual victimization has been severely understudied, with many believing it is less common than it actually is. This lack of research and stigma surrounding the topic has severe consequences for male victims, who often face the same challenges in recovery as female victims, but with an added layer of complexity. Sexual scripts, gender roles, and male rape myths all contribute to this issue by framing women as "ideal victims" and minimizing …

Meet Students Where They Are: Centering Wikipedia In The Classroom, Diana E. Park, Laurie M. Bridges

Communications in Information Literacy

There is a common classroom refrain, “Don’t use Wikipedia; it’s unreliable.” Unfortunately, this simple dismissal of the world’s largest repository of information fails to engage students in a critical conversation about how knowledge within Wikipedia is constructed and shared. Wikipedia is available in almost 300 languages, it is the top result in most Google searches, and it provides free, well-sourced, information to millions of people every day. However, despite these positives, there is uneven geographic, historical, and cultural representation; there are well-known information gaps related to women, gender, and sexual identity; and the majority of Wikipedia editors are white, …

The Needle And The Pen: A Retrospective On Eighteenth Century Life, Consumerism, And Dress In Relation To Modern Garment Production, Madeleine F. Beer

University Honors Theses

Within the realm of feminist scholarship of history, it has been said that "human stories can be told as effectively with the needle as with the pen" -Serena Dyer

Throughout history, craft deemed "women's work" has been undervalued on all levels but aesthetic. Gendered creative practices have been the focus of dress and craft historians; and such works have begun to reverse the emphasis of women as simply consumers and instead push forward the narrative of women as creator and producer.

I strive to make work that is both aesthetically pleasing and informative. Textiles reflect the human experience, weaving linear …

A Review Of Animal Welfare And Current Enrichment Methods For Captive Marine Mammals, Ashleigh I. Richardson

University Honors Theses

Animal care and conservation facilities such as zoos, aquaria, and marine mammal parks often utilize a variety of enrichments to deter stereotypic behaviors and improve overall animal welfare. Facilities that go through the intense accreditation process of one or more accreditation organizations must uphold the animal care standards and education requirements that these organizations call for. These care standards typically include regulations regarding animal training and enrichment, though the extent to which these regulations go into detail often vary from species to species and between organizations. The goal of this review was to assess the current standard of animal enrichment …

Terrestrial Movements, Activity Patterns And Habitat Use By Kinosternon Scorpioides (Testudines: Kinosternidae) In Palo Verde National Park, Costa Rica, Jose M. Mora, Franklin E. Castaneda

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Scorpion Mud turtle, Kinosternon scorpioides, is a widely distributed, semiaquatic species known to engage in regular terrestrial movement and terrestrial estivation. We studied terrestrial behavior in this species in Palo Verde National Park, northwestern Costa Rica. We determined terrestrial activity patterns by searching for active individuals during transects along 3.4 km of trails. We determined the distance that turtles traveled between the wetlands and estivation sites by fitting 10 terrestrially active individuals with a thread-bobbin tracking device attached to the rear of the carapace. We identified sex and marked and measured every turtle found active. We accumulated 92 observations …

Trajectories Of Cognitive Functioning In Later Life: Disparities By Race/ Ethnicity, Educational Attainment, Sex, And Multimorbidity Combinations, Ana R. Quiñones, Siting Chen, Corey L. Nagel, Anda Botoseneanu, Heather G. Allore, Jason T. Newsom, Stephen M. Thielke, Jeffrey Kaye

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Evaluating multimorbidity combinations, racial/ethnic background, educational attainment, and sex associations with age-related cognitive changes is critical to clarifying the health, sociodemographic, and socioeconomic mechanisms associated with cognitive function in later life. Data from the 2011–2018 National Health and Aging Trends Study for respondents aged 65 years and older (N = 10,548, mean age = 77.5) were analyzed using linear mixed effect models. Racial/ethnic differences (mutually-exclusive groups: non-Latino White, non-Latino Black, and Latino) in cognitive trajectories and significant interactions with sex and education (advanced cardiovascularmultimorbidity; metabolic multimorbidity; advanced cardiovascular-metabolic multimorbidity; and neither advanced cardiovascular nor metabolic multimorbidity). In covariate-adjusted models, Black …

Scenario Acceleration Through Automated Modelling: A Method And System For Creating Traceable Quantitative Future Scenarios Based On Fcm System Modeling And Natural Language Processing, Christopher W.H. Davis

Dissertations and Theses

Scenario planning is used extensively in strategic planning because it helps leaders broaden their perspectives and make better decisions by presenting possible futures in story form. Some of the benefits of using scenarios include breaking away from groupthink, creating better products, acceleration of organization learning and reducing bias. Product development teams, particularly for digital products, are gaining more autonomy in organizations and tend to manage risk by undergoing very short development iterations on their products while leaning on their consumers for feedback -- a process known as agile development. This method tends to limit the perspective of the team and …

The Db Community Vis-À-Vis Environmental, Health, And Societal Grand Challenges: Innovation Engine, Plumber, Or Bystander?, Anastasia Ailamaki, Leilani Battle, Johannes Gehrke, Masaru Kitsuregawa, David Maier, Christopher Re, Meihui Zhang, Magdalena Balazinska

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This panel considers the role of the database research community in addressing humanity's greatest challenges. Are we an innovation engine, tool providers, or are we standing on the side while other research communities take the lead?

"I Just Had To Do Most Everything": Gender, Settlement And American Empire In The Far West, Hannah Alexandra Reynolds

Dissertations and Theses

The field of settler colonial studies has made huge strides in recent years toward problematizing the establishment of the United States on stolen land and the nation's steady, violent expansion across the continent. Settler colonial framework provides a rich opportunity for historians of the American West to reframe white settlement on the frontier, especially that which was made possible through land grant legislation such as the Homestead Act of 1862. As the families who took up land grant property sought new opportunities for themselves, they also acted as drivers of U.S. territorial acquisition. This process was inherently gendered, in terms …

Consortium Capabilities For Enterprise Blockchain Success, Matt Kaufman, Stanton Heister, Kristi Yuthas

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

Enterprise blockchain projects have great promise. They can cut costs and promote efficiency through disintermediation, increase transparency for tracking intercompany transactions, expand knowledge through consortia databases, and improve workflows through shared business processes. Despite its potential, blockchain technology has failed to produce promised benefits for enterprise networks. While the underlying technology has advanced rapidly, managerial capabilities needed to form and manage blockchain consortia have lagged, and as a result, few consortia have succeeded. This chapter reviews the extant literature on blockchain consortia and provides a framework that identifies (1) foundational conditions that precede effective consortium formation, (2) capabilities required for …

For Art's Sake: An Exploration Of The Persistence Of Imposter Syndrome And Low-Self Confidence In Creative Fields, Mckinsey Carroll

University Honors Theses

Inspired by personal experiences as a graphic design student and those of my peers, this qualitative creative thesis discusses the prevalence of insecurity, imposter syndrome, and similar mental health struggles in creatives, and the ways in which these experiences or tendencies can inhibit us and stifle our creativity. Through my research, I learned that there are many ways in which graphic design as a field is uniquely affected by these issues, and that there exists a glaring need for conversation, particularly in academic spaces. This prompted the development of my personal interactive workbook titled "For Art's Sake" in which I …

Must Be Present To Win: Principals' Perspectives On Exclusionary Discipline, William Jeremy Cohen

Dissertations and Theses

One of the persistent challenges in United States elementary schools is the ongoing use of exclusionary discipline practices. In Oregon, despite the application of a number of legal and policy shifts intended to reduce the use of suspension and expulsion in K-5 and K-8 schools, particularly for students of color, there continues to be an increase year-to-year of the number of students being excluded, the percentage of students excluded, and an increasingly disproportionate use of exclusion for students of color. Although the research shows that removing students from the learning environment does not improve student behavior nor improve overall school …

Centering On Bipoc Experiences In Multi-Stakeholder Processes With Marisa Zapata, Marisa A. Zapata

PDXPLORES Podcast

Involving BIPOC experiences and perspectives in multi-stakeholder processes is like making Jazz. In this episode, Associate Professor Marisa Zapata, director of the Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative at PSU discusses how convening a process is like composing jazz music in which stakeholders listen closely to one another and add individual contributions that enhance the whole.

Click on the "Download" button to access the audio transcript.

Behind Closed Doors, Kaylee Inloes

University Honors Theses

Child sex trafficking is an increasing problem among Black, Indigenous, and girls of color and the media is ignoring them. Most child sex trafficking victims are girls and women of color. Minority women and children are being sold like they are property and used for sexual activities. Using content analysis, I analyzed three different forms of media, including Willamette Weekly article Portland Police's "Human Trafficking" Arrests Aren't What They Seem, the film Cuties (2020) and a young adult fiction book, The Life I'm in (2021). Through a critical race feminist lens, I analyzed the connections between race, gender, and …

Development Of The Chemistry Mindset Instrument (Chemi) For Use With Introductory Undergraduate Chemistry Students, Deborah L. Santos, Jack Barbera, Suazette R. Mooring

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Chemistry education research has increasingly considered the role of affect when investigating chemistry learning environments over the past decade. Despite its popularity in educational spheres, mindset has been understudied from a chemistry-specific perspective. Mindset encompasses one's beliefs about the ability to change intelligence with effort and has been shown to be a domain-specific construct. For this reason, students’ mindset would be most relevant in chemistry if it were measured as a chemistry-specific construct. To date, no instrument has been developed for use in chemistry learning contexts. Here we present evidence supporting the development process and final product of a mindset …

Interpreter Access For The Deaf Community Before And During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Isabella C. Updyke-Welch

University Honors Theses

It has been estimated that 1 out of every 20 Americans are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (HoH).

More research is required to determine how people used ASL interpreters in medical settings but ran into complications with the process of accessing accommodations and interpreters. There is a lack of research that outlines the Deaf community’s preferences when it comes to interpretation options in medical settings. Additional research is required to determine what interpretation options would provide the most benefit and be the most accessible to members of the Deaf community, and all individuals with varying levels of hearing loss.

This …

Developing An Assessment Model For Entrepreneurship Ecosystems Using Hierarchical Decision Model: Case Study Of Riyadh City, Mustafa Kamal Almuzel

Dissertations and Theses

Entrepreneurship is one of the major drivers of economies. Countries that aim to improve their economies by increasing entrepreneurial activities and its effectiveness need to develop an effective entrepreneurship ecosystem. This ecosystem combines a set of domains and factors that create a healthy environment for entrepreneurs. The analysis shows that there is limited research about structured assessment methods to evaluate the entrepreneurship ecosystems.

Therefore, this research objective is to introduce a universal assessment model that can be adopted in different cities for implementing an effective entrepreneurial ecosystem. This will be achieved by addressing three main research questions. 1) What are …