Digital Commons Network^™

The Intersecting And Additive Nature Of Vulnerability: Dehumanizing Or Protecting?, Megan Berry-Cohen

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Recent research has examined how extra-legal factors such as emotions and stereotypes impact legal judgment decisions regarding traditionally vulnerable populations. Less work has explored not only what makes a group vulnerable, but how people perceive, interpret, and apply that vulnerability. The current research therefore integrates psychological theory and legal models to understand vulnerability and its implications. Three studies examined the roles of various factors, including dehumanization and empathy, in understanding how people respond to vulnerable individuals in general and then to women who have survived sexual violence.

In Experiment 1, I manipulated sex (female vs. male), age (older: 60 years …

Who Fears Strangers And Spiders: Political Ideology And Feeling Threatened, Thomas Lukaszewicz

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In this study, I evaluated the correlations between threat sensitivities and political ideology. Two hypotheses were tested. First, I hypothesized that conservatives would have higher social threat sensitivity than liberals, with social threat defined as a threat dependent on outgroup or social actions (Barclay & Benard, 2020). Second, I hypothesized that conservatives would have higher disgust sensitivity than liberals. To test these and related hypotheses I used a 2018 Qualtrics national demographically representative sample that included 1031 participants. To operationalize threat sensitivity, I used items asking participants to rate how threatened they felt by various fears. These individual items were …

Addressing The Need For Training More School Psychologists To Serve Toddlers And Preschoolers With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Therese L. Mathews, Edward J. Daly Iii, Gina M. Kunz, Ashley M. Lugo, Paige Mcardle, Katy Menousek, Kevin A. Kupzyk

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has risen significantly in the past two decades. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of mental health providers who have specialized training in delivering evidenced-based services to this population. Early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) is an evidenced-based treatment recommended for toddlers with ASD, and school psychologists are uniquely positioned to help children with ASD receive it. However, many school psychologists do not receive adequate training in this subspecialty. This paper makes recommendations to school psychology training programs about how to add or improve training in this subspecialty based on the results of an Office …

Safety In Policy: An Assessment Of The Utilization And Perceived Efficacy Of Sex Offender Legislation, Morgan Graham

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Current sex offender legislation in the United States is the result of a number of laws passed during the 1980-1990s. This study evaluates the efficacy and perception of these laws in Nebraska, including registration, community notification, and housing restriction policies. Using data from the Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey (NASIS), 1,814 people from 2008 and 1,232 people from 2017 were examined to determine the efficacy and popularity of sex offender legislation and how the data has changed over time. Results showed that only a minority of Nebraskans have accessed the registry. Of those who checked, women and individuals with children …

Engagement Is Everything: Principals' Perceptions Of Their Role In Teacher Engagement, Jennifer Hellbusch

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The effects of student engagement on academic achievement are studied by and large, leaving a lack of emphasis on teacher engagement. In seeking out research and literature on “engagement” and “education,” scholars focus on the importance of student engagement. Numerous studies examine the relationship between student engagement and learning (Carini, et al., 2006). Conversely, exploring teacher engagement and how principals view themselves as responsible for promoting that engagement is a topic that is understudied and will provide recommendations for principals as well as district level leaders.

Defined, teacher engagement not only includes the behavior of teachers, but also encompasses “a …

Population Health Metrics During The Early Stages Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Correlative Pilot Study, Marie A. Severson, David A. Cassada, Victor C. Huber, Daniel D. Snow, Lisa M. Mcfadden

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Background: COVID-19 has caused nearly 1 million deaths in the United States, not to mention job losses, business and school closures, stay-at-home orders, and mask mandates. Many people have suffered increased anxiety and depression since the pandemic began. Not only have mental health symptoms become more prevalent, but alcohol consumption has also increased during this time. Helplines offer important insight into both physical and mental wellness of a population by offering immediate, anonymous, cheap, and accessible resources for health and substance use disorders (SUD) that was unobstructed by many of the mandates of the pandemic. Further, the pandemic also …

Emotional Perspectives On Existential Threat: Evaluating The Rationality Of Climate Anxiety, Rachael Lange

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis seeks to answer the following question: Is climate anxiety a rational emotion? In order to arrive at an answer, several queries embedded in the main question must be addressed. This paper will outline a theory of emotion in order to define anxiety, assess climate change as a specific emotional object, and compare the rationality of anxiety using two evaluative standards. Climate anxiety is an emerging emotional phenomenon experienced in response to the perceived detrimental effects of a warming climate. Due to the novel identification of this contemporary emotional phenomenon with the established emotion of anxiety, there has thus …

The Emergence Of Convergence, Shana M. Sundstrom, David G. Angeler, Jessica G. Ernakovich, Jorge H. Garcıá, Joseph A. Hamm, Orville Huntington, Craig R. Allen

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Science is increasingly a collaborative pursuit. Although the modern scientific enterprise owes much to individuals working at the core of their field, humanity is increasingly confronted by highly complex problems that require the integration of a variety of disciplinary and methodological expertise. In 2016, the U.S. National Science Foundation launched an initiative prioritizing support for convergence research as a means of “solving vexing research problems, in particular, complex problems focusing on societal needs.” We discuss our understanding of the objectives of convergence research and describe in detail the conditions and processes likely to generate successful convergence research. We use our …

Employing Respondent Driven Sampling (Rds) To Recruit People Who Inject Drugs (Pwid) And Other Hard-To-Reach Populations During Covid-19: Lessons Learned, Roberto Abadie, Patrick Habecker, Kimberly Gocchi Carrasco, Kathy S. Chiou, Samodha C. Fernando, Sydney Townsend, Aníbal Valentin-Acevedo, Kirk Dombrowski, John T. West, Charles Wood

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Background: Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) is an effective sampling strategy to recruit hard-to-reach populations but the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of this strategy in the collection of data involving human subjects, particularly among marginalized and vulnerable populations, is not known. Based on an ongoing study using RDS to recruit and study the interactions between HIV infection, injection drug use, and the microbiome in Puerto Rico, this paper explores the e􀀀ectiveness of RDS during the pandemic and provided potential strategies that could improve recruitment and data collection.

Results: RDS was employed to evaluate its effectiveness …

Nefdc Conference Program, Fall 2022, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Conference Programs

New England Faculty Development Consortium Conference Program, Fall 2022

Theme: Authentic Learning: Developing Students as Independent Thinkers

Friday, October 21, 2022 Hogan Center, College of the Holy Cross Worcester, Massachusetts

Conference Chairs: Eric Matte, Landmark College and Jackie Boivin, Bridgewater State University

Conference Proposal Chairs: Kellie Deys, Nichols College and Kim Burns, Dr. Kim Burns Coaching and Consulting

Keynote Speaker: Dr. José Antonio Bowen, Teaching Change with the New 3Rs

Upcoming NEFDC Opportunities: Spring 2023 Virtual Brown Bag Workshop Series and the Exchange Call for Submissions

Conference At-a-Glance

Open Mic

Poster Descriptions

Concurrent Session 1 – 55 Min. Interactive Session …

How Search Committees Assess Teaching: Lessons For Ctls, Katharine Phelps Walsh, Laura Ochs Pottmeyer, Deborah Meizlish, Chad Hershock

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study updates and expands upon past work on how tenure-track hiring committees evaluate teaching effectiveness to provide centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) current data as they support graduate students and postdocs navigating the academic hiring process. In this study, 166 hiring committee chairs from nine academic disciplines and a variety of institution types (e.g., Baccalaureate, Master’s, and Doctoral) responded to survey questions addressing how they evaluate teaching effectiveness for tenure-track positions. Results indicate that hiring chairs across institution types and disciplines value a candidate’s teaching effectiveness. Hiring committees use a variety of documents to gather information about an …

Centering Black Women Faculty: Magnifying Powerful Voices, Christen Priddie, Dajanae Palmer, Samantha Silberstein, Allison Brckalorenz

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

While much of the quantitative research on Black women faculty has taken a comparative approach to understanding their experiences, this study provides a counternarrative, centering their experiences as faculty. This large-scale, multi-institution glance at Black women faculty helps to give us an overview of these women across the country, looking at who they are, where they are, how they spend their time, and what they value in undergraduate education. This study allows us to strengthen various arguments made in qualitative studies of Black women faculty and amplify their perspectives and experiences. Furthermore, it reaffirms and reinvigorates the need for educational …

Data-Driven Iterative Refinements To Educational Development Services: Directly Measuring The Impacts Of Consultations On Course And Syllabus Design, Chad Hershock, Laura Ochs Pottmeyer, Jessica Harrell, Sophie Le Blanc, Marisella Rodriguez, Jacqueline Stimson, Katherine Phelps Walsh, Emily Daniels Weiss

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Evidence-based practice in educational development includes leveraging data to iteratively refine center for teaching and learning (CTL) services. However, CTL data collection is often limited to counts and satisfaction surveys rather than direct measures of outcomes. To directly assess impacts of consultations on course and syllabus design, we analyzed 94 clients’ syllabi (32 faculty, 62 graduate students and postdocs) before and after consultations. Faculty and non-faculty clients demonstrated significant change following consultations (6% and 10% gains in syllabus rubric scores, representing 50% and 31% of possible gains and effect sizes of 0.73 and 1.04 standard deviations, respectively). We compared faculty …

Professionalization And The Forgotten System: Observed Practices And Perceptions At The Intersection Of Informal And Formal Faculty Development, Janie Brennan, Todd Fernandez, Joe Tranquillo

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The professionalization of disciplines often leads to formalization of disciplinary training. As professionalization occurs, informal training roles are typically supplanted as the normative method of training but can continue to exist in parallel with formal methods. As in other fields, the ongoing professionalization of faculty development has created significant formalization of training. While the positive impact of formalization is clear in many areas of faculty development, little is known about how formalization affected the informal roles, activities, and perceptions that served to train faculty. This exploratory study reports on data gathered at a workshop designed to document and share stories …

A Case Study In Teaching Inclusive Teaching, Zitsi Mirakhur, Christopher Chen, Sarah Schwarz

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

As the college student population grows increasingly diverse, there is a need for instructors—including graduate student instructors (GSIs)—to have a set of pedagogical tools that enables them to create inclusive classroom environments, those that consider their students’ identity and provide equal opportunities for learning. However, the literature on how to support GSIs develop these skills is still nascent. In this article, we report on two strategies—one diffuse and one direct—we used while training GSIs and the ways in which they changed GSIs’ understanding of what inclusive teaching entails. We find that our direct model might have increased GSIs’ awareness of …

Megasotl: Supporting Pedagogical Research Across Multiple Institutions, Sara Nasrollahian Mojarad, Laura Cruz

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

MegaSoTL projects are scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects that generate evidence of learning from multiple institutions. While being increasingly practiced, MegaSoTL projects and their potential contribution to improve higher education pedagogy remain understudied in higher education literature. In this article, we introduce Transparency in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (TILT) and ManyClasses projects as two MegaSoTL case studies, and we describe their research goals, processes, and administration. We then discuss the potentials and challenges of MegaSoTL projects for educational developers to promote SoTL at micro and mega levels. The article concludes with recommendations to develop a collaborative …

Stress Arising From The Covid-19 Pandemic: Impacts On Coparenting Quality And Child Internalizing And Externalizing Problems, Michelle R. Ebrahim

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Since emerging in late 2019, the highly contagious coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has caused worldwide disruptions, with major shutdowns in school, work, and other aspects of life. These stressors uniquely impacted families with young children. The present study investigated the impact of the pandemic on family functioning and risk for child internalizing and externalizing problems during the first year after the pandemic. The study included three waves of data collection from a larger longitudinal study aimed at understanding how couples navigate the prenatal-postpartum transition and the impacts of the family on early child development. We found that family pandemic-related stress was …

The Freedom Collection 2017–2021: Part 2, Uncl Members’ Subject Usage Preferences And Profiles, David C. Tyler

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: White Papers

With data supplied by a colleague, the author looked into the by-subject downloading activities of the members of the University of Nebraska Consortium of Libraries (UNCL): University of Nebraska at Kearney, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Nebraska Medical Center, and University of Nebraska Omaha.

The Freedom Collection 2017–2021: Part 1, The Composition Of The Freedom Collection And Uncl’S Downloads By Member And Subject, David C. Tyler

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: White Papers

With data provided by a colleague, the author looked at the University of Nebraska Consortium of Libraries (UNCL) downloading activity of Elsevier's Freedom Collection for the 2017-2021 interval. Members include the University of Nebraska at Kearney, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Nebraska Medical Center, and University of Nebraska Omaha.

The author looked at activity by member and by subject at the level of journals' Library of Congress Classifications.

This report was submitted in the fall of 2022 to the UNL Libraries Collections Strategies Committee (CSC) and to the members of the Collections Strategies and Open Scholarship (CSOS) department.

The Role Of Intertemporal Preferences, Active Consideration Of Health Outcomes, And Simple Health Prompts On The Nutritional Quality Of Food Choices, Olivier Tuyizere

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter introduces the thesis by highlighting a brief review of intertemporal preferences, active consideration of health outcomes, and health prompts during food choices. The introduction paves the way for the following two chapters, which are related, but stand-alone papers.

In the second chapter, we explore a novel question: how does actively considering health outcomes (both current and future) during decision-making affect the nutritional quality of food choices? We explore this question with an online experiment on food choices. Our findings show that active consideration of health outcomes leads to choosing products with …

Executive Functioning In Language Learning Disabilities: Defining Executive Functioning, Executive Functioning Deficits, And Clinical Intervention Strategies To Support Children, Kaylie Trumble

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis aims to select a working definition of executive functioning (EF) to identify possible EF deficits and clinical interventions strategies to support children. Included are EF deficits, ways of assessing EF components, and intervention strategies for executive dysfunction in LLD. Scenarios are provided to demonstrate both matching strategies to a child and strength/deficit in EF, along with a sample intervention script.

Exploring The Direct Relationship Between Sustainability Leader Ecospirituality And Human Capital Sustainability Leadership Capacity: A Moderated Mediation Study, Krystal L. Gabel

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The primary purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if a sustainability leader’s ecospirituality significantly impacts one’s human capital sustainability leadership. The secondary purpose of this study was to determine if one’s psychological capital mediates this relationship and if one’s environmental attitudes moderate the relationships between ecospirituality, human capital sustainability leadership, and psychological capital.

Participants in this study included sustainability leaders in top positions at their organizations in the four highest-ranked countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the United Kingdom) on the 2022 Climate Change Performance Index. These individuals had positions of chief sustainability officer, head of sustainability, or sustainability …

Engaging Children With Animals Increases Their Awareness Of Their Footprint On Earth, Brett Foster

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Teachers should reserve time in their classrooms to connect curriculum to animals and environmental topics. Connecting core subjects like writing, reading, or even math to animals builds student investment in learning as they can connect the topics of animals to their lives. Animals are all around us and are a topic that students naturally spend a lot of time with and can easily identify in the world around them. There are several benefits of incorporating animals into the curriculum, including an increased sense of empathy, an awareness of their environmental impact, and an investment in their community.

I have focused …

The Textual Gutter: How Gene Luen Yang Redefines The Gutter In Boxers & Saints To Tell A Transnational Tale, David Lucas Jr

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This paper attempts to provide a new understanding of the gutter and how it is used to significant effect in Gene Luen Yang's, Boxers & Saints. This research draws upon the work of Scott McCloud to establish a framework for the theoretical applications of the gutter. Most prior research focuses on the gutter within the page. This article demonstrates how Yang pushes the concept of the gutter further by creating a new type of gutter that moves beyond the pages and across texts. Then the research attempts to demonstrate how the idea of the textual gutter heightens the transnational elements …

Work-Family Conflict, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is work-family conflict?

Work-family conflict is defined as “a form of interrole conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect” (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985, p. 77). Work-family conflict is often contrasted with work-family enrichment, which represents the positive spillover that can occur between the work and family domains. The idea of work-family conflict is grounded in resource drain theory, which suggests that individuals have limited physical, psychological, and social resources to draw on while performing in different roles. When individuals devote large quantities of their resources to one domain …

Work-Family Enrichment, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is work-family enrichment?

Work-family enrichment is used to describe the positive benefits derived from spillover between work and family. Specifically, work-family enrichment is formally defined as “the extent to which experiences in one role improve the quality of life in the other role” (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006, p. 73). This is often contrasted with the concept of work-family conflict, which represents the negative spillover between the work and family domains. Work-family enrichment is often distinguished by the direction of its effect; benefits from work that are applied to the family domain are termed work-to-family enrichment (WFE), and benefits from …

Ecological Interactions Disrupted By Habitat Alteration In The Neotropics, Aniko Toth, Andrew Allen, S. Kathleen Lyons, John Alroy

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Ecological interactions help determine the distribution of species across landscapes and play crucial roles in ecosystem services such as pollination, seed dispersal, and pest control1. Human disturbances, particularly habitat alteration, have the potential to modify or erase ecological interactions^2,3 and so jeopardise the processes they control. While examples of interactions becoming rewired under human influence have been recorded, studies of this process for speciose assemblages at regional to continental scales are uncommon⁴ and obstructed by logistical difficulties2. The consequences for ecological communities and people are therefore poorly understood. Here we show that human habitat alteration is associated with …

Deja Vu: Semantics-Aware Recording And Replay Of High-Speed Eye Tracking And Interaction Data To Support Cognitive Studies Of Software Engineering Tasks—Methodology And Analyses, Vlas Zyrianov, Cole S. Peterson, Drew T. Guarnera, Joshua Behler, Praxis Weston, Bonita Sharif Ph.D., Jonathan I. Maletic

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

The paper introduces a fundamental technological problem with collecting high-speed eye tracking data while studying software engineering tasks in an integrated development environment. The use of eye trackers is quickly becoming an important means to study software developers and how they comprehend source code and locate bugs. High quality eye trackers can record upwards of 120 to 300 gaze points per second. However, it is not always possible to map each of these points to a line and column position in a source code file (in the presence of scrolling and file switching) in real time at data rates over …

Employee Engagement, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is employee engagement?

Consensus on the exact definition of employee engagement is still evolving, but commonalities involve attitudes and behaviors related to high personal investment in one’s work. One definition is “a relatively enduring state of mind referring to the simultaneous investment of personal energies in the experience or performance of work” (Christian, Garza, & Slaughter, 2011, p. 95). The most commonly used measure of engagement, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, assesses engagement through three factors: vigor (high energy levels and persistence), dedication (enthusiasm and inspiration), and absorption (high concentration and engrossment) (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, & Bakker, 2002; Schaufeli, …

Students’ Self-Efficacy In Self-Regulation Together With Behavioural And Emotional Strengths: Investigating Their Self-Perceptions, Minna Ikävalko, Erkko Sointu, Matthew C. Lambert, Jaana Viljaranta

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Students’ self-perceptions are a foundation for educational and psychosocial development. In order to investigate self-perceptions, we need to recognise the preconceptions (e.g. doubts and confidence) students hold about themselves. In this study, we examined 10–16-year-old students’ (N=599) self–perceptions from the viewpoints of the sources of self-efficacy in self-regulation and behavioural and emotional strengths. Specifically, we used descriptive analyses to examine whether students’ ages or received pedagogical support played a role in how they perceived themselves, and whether these viewpoints are related to each other. Our results indicate that, in general, primary school students perceived their sources of self-efficacy in self-regulation …