Digital Commons Network^™

Job Posting, Megan Paul, Nina Williams-Mbengue, Courtney Harrison

QIC-Tips

A job posting must be informative, clear, transparent, and appealing to potential child welfare job candidates. It should also be candidate-centric and answer questions candidates often ask, especially any key information that has turned out to be a dealbreaker for people later in the process. This QIC-Tip is designed to highlight actionable strategies to create a good job posting. Please note that the information presented is not meant to override or supersede local, state, or federal legal civil service or human resources guidance.

Think of the job posting as a marketing opportunity for your agency and highlight the positive aspects …

Physiological Distancing Affects Climate Change Through Spatial Differences, Janette Williams

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Psychological distancing is best described as the human ability to separate ourselves socially, temporally, and spatial and use it to manipulate our perspectives. It is the belief that in order to perceive or understand the information, you have to be within a spatial range(Harvard Business Review,2015). Psychological distancing has been linked to climate change perspectives based on spatial differences. People who are closely affected by climate change and experience more are going to have more ideas and be proactive. The reduced distance by spatial differences correlated with perceptions of climate change. People who are farther from the coast and experience …

Roots Of Passion In Environmental Unl Students, Shane Vrbicky

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

“Passion” is an elusive idea - a simple word invented by man - able to depict vastly different realities and meanings dependent entirely on the user. Highly influential in nature, the simple thought of a passion within human beings can evoke a wide spectrum of strong emotions from pure joy and satisfaction to utter desperation and dread. Sometimes people have never known a life without their passion, guided by a headstrong feeling towards a path they have always dreamed of. Sometimes people can never seem to find passion, not knowing where to look and yet constantly chasing after it. Sometimes …

Heart-Stopping Rollercoasters: Restorative Practices, Motivation, And The Formation Of A Science Identity, Zachary Schafer

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

This paper explores the crossroads between restorative practices and science education. In this crossroads, a case study between teacher and learner is explored to reveal the implications the tandem between restorative practices and education has for motivation and identity formation. The paper ends with practical suggestions for the teacher in the classroom.

Listening For Common Ground In High School And Early Collegiate Mathematics, Gail Burrill, Henry Cohn, Yvonne Lai, Dev P. Sinha, Ji Y. Son, Katherine F. Stevenson

Department of Mathematics: Faculty Publications

Solutions to pressing and complex social challenges require that we reach for common ground. Only through cooperation among people with a broad range of backgrounds and expertise can progress be made on issues as challenging as improving student success in mathematics. In this spirit, the AMS Committee on Education held a forum in May 2022 entitled The Evolving Curriculum in High School and Early Undergraduate Mathematical Sciences Education.¹ This article is a report on that forum by the authors listed above, who were among the organizers and presenters.

New Paradigms In Band Performance: An Analysis Of Three Prototypes, Scott Walker-Parker

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

This document seeks to propose new paradigms in band performance through inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinarity. Initial inspirations were drawn from performance innovations shaped by the new music theater which became popular in the 20^th century. Key concepts which were used throughout the creative, planning, logistic, rehearsal, and performance processes are analyzed in three recitals through prototypes of new paradigms in band performance. These concepts include accessibility and community, nonverbal/multimodal performance and instruction versus time, and nonverbal/multimodal communication.

The document has been organized in a manner which highlights successes and breakdowns of each process so future refinement can be made. …

Analyzing The Effect Of Guided Nature Walks On Human Behavior, Jake Duffy

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Several studies have identified a gap in the understanding of what guided nature walks does for the individual person, and the extent to which guided nature walks and interpretive signs improves individual pro-environmental behavior and attitudes. This study surveyed over 300 people on their reactions to certain types of signs and the influence that those signs had on the individuals’ desire to return outdoors. Our results showed an overwhelmingly positive reaction to signs with ecological or systems-based information that could be utilized on their walk, while signs that taught an environmental or historical feature of that area were not appreciated …

Perception Of Nature Based On Childhood Experiences, Kaitlyn Richards

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

It is essential that humans view themselves as a part of nature rather than viewing themselves as separate from it. Especially with issues on the rise such as climate change, habitat destruction, and the degradation of natural resources. Childhood experiences with nature are critical in developing pro-environmental behaviors (Duzenli, 2019). Pro-environmental behaviors are defined as attitudes and actions that focus on the improvement of environmental conditions, while also being vigilant of ways to reduce negative impacts on the environment (Tian, 2022).

Gender And Environmental Sustainability: A Cross-National Analysis On Political Representation Of Women And Subsequent State Sustainability, Erin O'Sullivan

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

The literature focusing on the relationship between gender and environmental sustainability is vast. Research has focused on how gender relates to pro-sustainable behavior but fails to analyze this beyond individual action. Research has also found positive correlations between women’s representation at a state’s political level and different factors of state sustainability. However, literature has fallen short on analyzing if there is a causal effect between these factors. This study aimed to fill this gap in the literature and analyzes how the ratio of women in parliament in a state affects the state’s environmental sustainability. Although the results showed no statistically …

Examining The Psychology And Human Behavior Of Sustainable Living: The Impact Of Socioeconomic Status On Climate Change Education, Samantha Nielsen

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Climate change education has become increasingly important as the world faces the challenges of a rapidly changing environment. However, not all individuals have equal access to this education, and socioeconomic status has been identified as a barrier to climate change knowledge. This thesis explores the impact of socioeconomic status on climate change education through a survey-based approach, using the Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey to investigate the relationship between income and degree of education with climate change concern and community interaction. The study finds a significant correlation between higher levels of education and climate change concern, as well as greater …

Rails To Trails Program: Neighborhood Dynamics In Lincoln, Nebraska, Emma Mccormick

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

As cities increasingly move towards creating sustainable, equitable, climate-forward communities, city planners, advocates, and policymakers have begun to focus increasingly on improving access to greenspaces. Studies around the globe have documented the importance of greenspace for multiple individual, group, and community level outcomes. Simultaneously, extant research suggests that access to greenspaces frequently reflects social inequality in urban spaces, stratifying such access by race and socioeconomic composition of neighborhoods. However, few research projects have examined potential unintended consequences, such as contemporary housing issues like gentrification, that greenspaces can create for community infrastructure here in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Evaluating Ecosystem Health Of The Salt Creek Basin Through Two-Eyed Seeing, Shelby Serritella

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Few instances of prior research into socio-ecological health have brought together both Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Western science, especially in Nebraska. This study attempts to fill this gap in Lancaster County, Nebraska by using “Two-Eyed Seeing”. This equitably combines both Indigenous Knowledge Systems (qualitative data), obtained through oral interviews with Indigenous community members, and Western science (quantitative data), obtained through USGS, UNL, and U.S. Drought Monitor databases, to assess ecosystem health. Changes to the Salt Creek Basin were collected and analyzed through this Two-Eyed Seeing framework. Results found that there are high levels of consensus between both knowledge systems regarding …

Measuring Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In The Child Welfare Workforce, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

QIC-Tips

Some child welfare professionals have stated that there is a critical need for systemic changes to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, but where do child welfare agencies begin? Although change is never easy, the starting place on the journey to have a diverse, equitable, and inclusive (DEI) workforce is relatively simple. It starts with you—a child welfare supervisor, manager, or administrator. Start by considering what you think you know. Is your knowledge based on perception or data? What experiences shape your perceptions? What tools do you have to measure your workforce? Administrative data sets and surveys that gather both qualitative …

Beyond Dualities Of Place: West Bottoms Kcmo, Keleigh Ketelhut

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

West Bottoms, Kansas City, is a historic, industrial neighborhood adjacent to downtown and splitting the Kansas/Missouri border. Formerly home to livestock trading, It is a place currently known for its lawless character and grit. Like many urban cores, it has grabbed the attention of developers, including current stakeholders in SomeraRoad, a New York-based developer, partnering with HOK Kansas City to masterplan the district and redevelop the portion adjacent to the Historic Core.

Like many urban redevelopment projects, the locals who live, work, and play here have concerns that the West Bottoms may succumb to conventional placelessness development, washing out the …

Correlation Between Fire And Preservation In The Pacific Northwest And Most Cost-Efficient Mitigation Tactics, Liam Doherty-Herwitz

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

This study was conducted entirely online with occasional help from advisors and editors on zoom meetings. I completed the research in Lincoln, Nebraska. A meta analysis of online data has been conducted to form the answers to my hypotheses and research questions. I used specific keywords and phrases in research databases, and search engines such as google scholar to point me towards the answers I was looking for. The keywords and phrases were split up into four different categories which are mitigation techniques, ecosystems, fire severity: PNW, and fire season: PNW. The reason the topics land preservation and fire science …

Solar Energy Implementation In Rural Communities, Corie Gleason

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

This thematic analysis was completed in Nebraska, as it looked at how the state’s rural communities react to solar energy projects. Due to their strong sense of social and community identity, members of rural communities are often resistant to change and may have difficulty supporting new projects such as solar farms in their communities. However, these rural communities provide the necessary space for solar farms while still being in close proximity to the users of the energy that the farms produce. This study aims to explore what factors have made past solar projects successful and the ways in which those …

Student Perspectives Of Sustainable Transportation Use On A College Campus, Brynn Fuelberth

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

As climate change grows in relevance in society, attention has often been turned to large universities to look at what solutions can help minimize the impacts contributing to the devastation. Sustainable transportation is an alternative that can help combat these issues. This study specifically focuses on what sustainable transportation looks like at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), and what barriers and motivations are present in the undergraduate students’ eyes. This was investigated through an open-ended qualitative survey administered to the undergraduate population of the UNL. This study asks how students make their mode decisions in relation to sustainable transportation methods, …

How To Do Quantcrit: A Reflexive Account Of Applying Critical Quantitative Methods To A Study Of Black Women In Stem, Elizabeth Collins

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

There has been extensive research into the underrepresentation of minoritized students in STEM disciplines since the 1990s with limited success in improving the representation of Black women in math-intensive STEM fields. This dissertation aims to address how the guiding tenets of critical quantitative (QuantCrit) methods work when used with publicly available datasets and commonly used statistical approaches. Additionally, this dissertation provides a framework for how to apply reflexivity as a method while utilizing a QuantCrit approach. The publicly available HSLS:09 dataset is used as part of a reflexive study to demonstrate how the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) map …

Realizing The Good Despite Customer Mistreatment, Carissa Kim

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Unruly and rude customer behavior is on the rise. Estimates indicate that frontline employees experience ten episodes of customer mistreatment daily. Not only is customer mistreatment detrimental for the frontline employee (e.g., higher turnover, lower job satisfaction, lower well-being, and more), but also for customers that witness (e.g., emotional contagion) or engage (e.g., loss of morals) in these deviant interpersonal behaviors. Extending the body of research on customer mistreatment, my dissertation seeks to investigate silver linings or possible functional consequences of customer mistreatment. My dissertation draws from Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory to investigate the outcomes of mistreatment in …

The Examination Of Nonparametric Person-Fit Statistics As Appropriate Measures Of Response Bias In Ordered Polytomous Items, Mark F. Beck

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Survey research is ubiquitous within the social sciences; however, surveys are vulnerable to response biases. Response biases introduce construct-irrelevant variance into survey responses, which degrades the accuracy of conclusions drawn through the use of surveys. Nonparametric person-fit statistics have been shown to accurately identify response biases in dichotomous response data but are not well studied in polytomous response data. This study examines the accuracy of nonparametric person-fit statistics in polytomous response data. A 6 x 4 x 4 x 2 simulation study was conducted, with type of aberrancy (6), number of response options (4), dimensionality (4), and test length (2) …

The Role Of Gender And Curiosity On Transformational Leadership: A Mixed-Methods Study, Brooke Colleen Mott

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Environmental leaders are tasked with finding innovative solutions to dynamic environmental challenges. Leaders must gain and use new knowledge and experiences that motivate resolving gaps in one’s knowledge (i.e., curiosity) and thereby find forward-thinking solutions. Although curiosity is an integral part of human existence, it may be experienced in various ways. Studies have shown that men and women may possess different leadership styles. Nevertheless, the influence of curiosity on leadership between genders has not been as readily explored. Women exhibit unique characteristics for successful leadership in many contexts, but they are often underrepresented in natural resource management overall. Characteristics of …

Examining The Effect Of Word Embeddings And Preprocessing Methods On Fake News Detection, Jessica Hauschild

Department of Statistics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The words people choose to use hold a lot of power, whether that be in spreading truth or deception. As listeners and readers, we do our best to understand how words are being used. There are many current methods in computer science literature attempting to embed words into numerical information for statistical analyses. Some of these embedding methods, such as Bag of Words, treat words as independent, while others, such as Word2Vec, attempt to gain information about the context of words. It is of interest to compare how well these various methods of translating text into numerical data work specifically …

A History Of The Representation Of Women In Clinical Trial: Implications For Modern Health Care, Madison Gulizia

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The male body is the medical baseline for all things regarding health care. Whether it is education or an actual trip to the doctor’s office, female bodies are still viewed as the “smaller male body.” The physiological differences in the male and female body range from the cellular level to whole body systems. These differences can mean millions of different things, depending on what avenue of discussion is taken. There are differences in the ways genes are expressed, leading to a variety in metabolic pathways, the digestive system, and the nervous system. A specific area that requires attention is the …

Importance Of Pelvic Floor Education And Rehabilitation Techniques For Adolescents And Young Adults: A Review, Katherine Laura Schmidt

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The pelvic floor is the collection of many muscles forming what is often called the pelvic girdle. Understanding the different muscles and their roles is an important part of pelvic floor education. Although both males and females have pelvic floors, there is a lack of knowledge of basic anatomy seen in adolescents and young adults. This review analyzes the importance of providing more education for students about the pelvic floor, gives examples of common pelvic disorders for young adults, and provides details on the physical therapy rehabilitation techniques offered today to treat these conditions.

The Presence Of Childhood Obesity In Nebraska And The Physiological Repercussions Of The Disease, Madison R. Bezousek

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Childhood Obesity can cause lifelong repercussions in children and adults. There has been stigma around the causes of obesity and its relation to lifestyle choices, without consideration of the genetic and syndromic causes. In this literature review the causes of obesity were investigated, along with the effect on the physiological systems and the enviornmental factors that are continuing the obesity epidemic. Preventing and treating lifestyle obesity is something that is seen to have the greatest effect on youth, especially with intergenerational obesity. Nebraska schools have implemented programs to encourage healthy living, and ongoing research is being implemented to reduce the …

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Strict Photo Id Laws On Election Turnout: Do They Discriminate Against Minority Voters?, Josh Gromowsky

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Over the last 20 years, states across the nation have passed photo ID laws requiring potential voters to provide a form of identification before they can cast their ballots. These laws have generated great controversy, with opponents of the laws accusing them of being racially discriminatory. Studies attempting to analyze their effects on turnout have resulted in differing results due to different methodologies, and no consensus has been reached in the academic literature regarding this topic. Recognizing that laws do not exist in isolation and that people can react to their implementation in different ways, this paper examines the effects …

Making Mistakes: Children’S Errors As Opportunities For Emergent Literacy Learning In Early Childhood, Clariebelle Gabas, Laura Cutler, Rachel E. Schachter

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Errors are a natural part of children’s knowledge building and learning experiences in early childhood (EC). Importantly, errors can be a powerful tool for tailoring instruction to children’s specific needs and supporting learning processes (Seifried & Wuttke, 2010). The leveraging of errors to support children’s emergent literacy learning became apparent to us when we examined data from a recent observational study of teachers’ practices in EC classrooms with children 3–5 years old. In our study of 400 classrooms, we identified the 30 classrooms in which children demonstrated the highest language gains and the 30 classrooms in which children demonstrated the …

Stop Kiss: A Scenic Design, Taylor Walters-Riggsbee

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

The purpose of this thesis is to document the design processes of the University of Nebraska Lincoln’s production of Stop Kiss by Diana Son, produced March 1-9, 2023, in partnership with the Nebraska Repertory Theatre. Documented is a complete representation of a scenic design process including discussion of practices and design methodologies, research plates, supporting analytical paperwork, preliminary sketches, digital renderings, and 1/4” scale model photos, a full set of drafting, painter’s elevations and a corresponding props and dressing list. Performance photos follow as an archive of the production process and performance photos.

Advisor: Joshua David Madsen

Women In Conflict: The Psychological Effect Of Propaganda In Conflict, Elizabeth Valerio-Boster

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In conflicts across the world, propaganda is used to encourage people to support causes whether than be freedom, revolution, or political or economic changes. Previous research has shown that propaganda that targets preexisting notions is particularly effective. Women have been found to be particularly susceptible to propaganda that has emotional implications. My research has been conducted to discover if propaganda that is centered around female empowerment is more effective in getting women to participate in conflict. I use accounts from women participating in conflicts to learn about the roles they play, and the number of women involved. These numbers are …

Undergraduate And Graduate Student Wellness At The University Of Nebraska-Lincoln: Current Trends And Future Directions, Emma Farson

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This study examined the impact of time and personal demographics on student well-being at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. This was exploratory research looking to identify any disparities in wellness among different demographics of individuals, if there were certain times within a semester that wellness was impacted, and if there were certain dimensions of well-being that are significantly impacted by being a student. A large sample of 3,837 surveys were used to evaluate these questions. None of the 10 dimensions of Wellness (Career, Creative, Cultural, Emotional, Environmental, Financial, Intellectual, Physical, Social, and Spiritual) were significantly impacted by different times in the …