Digital Commons Network^™

Body Dissatisfaction And Weight Bias In Children, Megan Janette Jensen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This article reviews the rate of body dissatisfaction and weight bias among young children. It was initially hypothesized that body-image begins much earlier than adolescence, where most interventions take place. Out of fifty articles read on the subject, forty-five peer reviewed articles were included in this review. The findings of these articles were synthesized for a comprehensive review on the topic. Results suggested that weight bias begins around three years of age, while body dissatisfaction begins around age five for girls, and seven for boys. Rates of body dissatisfaction among children were similar to the rate among adolescents, averaging out …

Transcriptomic Analysis Of Honey Bees Exposed To Organosilicone, Matthew Brent Thompson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Honey bees play an important role in agriculture and the decline of honey bee populations worldwide has generated concern. While the application of pesticides in agricultural settings is often implicated in the deterioration of honey bee population health, pesticide applications contain more than just pesticides; they also contain adjuvants that may have detrimental effects to bee health. One known effect of one type of adjuvant is the suppression of immunity-related genes and consequent increase of viral load in larvae. We investigate the effects of one class of adjuvant, organosilicone surfactants (OSS), on adult honey bee health. In a laboratory based …

Becoming An Artistic Entrepreneur: The Nuts And Bolts Of Running A Successful Artistic Venture, Collette Nicole Cook

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The music industry is shifting away from the traditional concert in traditional venues. New and innovative concert experiences are beginning to be designed to continue to find ways to speak to new audiences. As a musician, entrepreneurial skills are becoming more and more mandatory in creating a long-lasting career. Despite the thousands of people who graduate around the country with a music degree each year, the number of traditional music jobs as a major symphony orchestra member or touring soloist are becoming more and more difficult to land, causing many graduates to have to find work in a different field …

A Case Study Of The Driven 2 Teach Program: Site-Based Experiential Professional Development For History Teachers, Hadyn Bowen Call

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Driven 2 Teach is a privately funded program for history teachers in the state of Utah. The program emphasizes the importance of teacher travel to educate history teachers in the places where history happened. This study investigated the program’s influence on participant gains in learning about history and how to best teach about the past, social studies professional development, teacher beliefs, and changes in instructional practices. This study utilized a case study methodology, autoethnography, and six interconnected frameworks: Professional development, experiential education, site-based learning, pedagogical content knowledge, teacher beliefs, and professional learning communities. This study helps demonstrate the effectiveness of …

Examining Different Patterns Of Children’S Early Dual Language Development And Nonverbal Executive Functioning, Audrey C. Juhasz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Children from non-English-speaking homes often lag behind their English speaking peers academically. However, people who speak two languages often have better executive functioning skills than people who speak only one language. Executive functions are neurologically-based skills related to managing oneself to achieve a goal. The relation between bilingualism and executive function may be due to how two languages are processed in the brain. However, it is unclear if more balanced bilinguals experience larger gains in executive function than people who are less balanced.

Children from low-income homes are at a disadvantage as compared to children from homes with higher incomes. …

Evaluating Michigan's Food, Agriculture, And Resources In Motion (Farm) Science Lab As A Modality For Agricultural Literacy, Amelia J. Miller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Michigan’s Food, Agriculture, and Resources in Motion (FARM) Science Lab is a 40-foot mobile classroom outfitted with 10 learning stations including scientific equipment and iPads. This quasi-experimental study analyzed preexisting data provided by Michigan Agriculture in the Classroom to evaluate the effectiveness of the FARM Science Lab mobile classroom as a method of teaching agriculture-themed, standards-based lessons to third- through fifth-grade students in order to increase their understanding of agriculture. From January through June 2018, more than 1,258 students participated in these lessons and completed the pretest and posttest and 72 teachers completed the post survey. Research questions not only …

Understanding Industry’S Expectations Of Engineering Communication Skills, Lilian Maria De Souza Almeida

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The importance of communication in the engineering profession is widely acknowledged by various stakeholders, including industry, academia, professional engineers, and engineering students. Even though alternative strategies to help students improve their ability to communicate professionally have been approached by many engineering programs across the country, research indicates a continued dissatisfaction of employers when it comes to the performance of engineers as communicators in the workplace. This perspective suggests efforts to improve students’ communication skills in universities may be inconsistent with workplace needs, revealing an apparent gap between what is taught and what is expected from engineering professionals. This gap provides …

Staying Upright By Shutting Down? Evidence For Global Suppression Of The Motor System When Recovering Balance, Caleigh Goode

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Background: When automatic, yet unwanted action is quickly inhibited, short-lived suppression throughout the motor system ensues. This type of response inhibition causing an all-over motor suppression effect is referred to as global suppression. Although response inhibition is essential for behavioral flexibility, widespread motor suppression may delay action reprogramming. In reactive balance control, even fleeting suppression of the motor system could interfere with our ability to adapt compensatory reactions quickly enough to avoid a fall.Whether this concept of global suppression is occurring in situations that pose a postural threat is undetermined.

Research Question: Is muscle activity in …

Educational Policies Committee Program Proposal, Emma Eccles Jones College Of Education And Human Services, May 1, 2019, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

The Department of Nursing and Health Professions in the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services proposes offering an online Bachelor of Science Nursing degree completion.

The Effects Of A Yoga Intervention On Cognitive Function In Older Adults, Elizabeth Edwards

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Cognitive decline and reduced cognitive function presents a serious risk to the older adult population. As the population of individuals over the age of 65 continues to increase, this presents a need for effective solutions to help people sustain healthy, independent lifestyles. Currently, physical activity is recommended for physical health in older adults and has shown evidence in maintaining cognitive function. In particular, the mind-body practice of yoga is a promising form of physical exercise that shows positive cognitive benefits. While the effects of yoga appear to be promising, the current literature is lacking scientific rigor. This study investigated the …

Friends Or Foes? Composition And Creative Writing, Christopher N. Davis

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

In the current realm of collegiate English, there exists a polarized separation between two fields: composition and creative writing. Though there are a number of ways these two fields intersect, they are seen and taught as distinct entities, and have been so for much of the last three decades. Some scholars see the blending of the two fields as potentially hindering to students’ writing development in either field – the idea that attempting to do two things at once, rather than focusing on each one at a time, will inevitably result in less-effectiveness in both. Others see creative writing as …

Stop-Signal Reaction Time Correlates With A Compensatory Balance Response In Older Adults, Derek England

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Response inhibition involves stopping undesired and automatic actions allowing for behavioral flexibility. This ability is theoretically able to contribute to fall prevention, which older adults are known to have difficulty with. Although much has been learned from cognitive psychology regarding response inhibition, translation to the challenge of balance recovery is unclear. Recently a correlation has been found between performance on a standard test of response inhibition called the Stop Signal Task (SST) and a balance test that required inhibition of a reactive step in young adults. This highlights a neural mechanism for stopping action across different behavioral contexts in …

"I Wanted Her Dead More Than Voldemort": Examining People's Hatred Of Dolores Umbridge, Jessica Griffeth

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This Plan B thesis explores the question: Why do audience members detest Dolores Umbridge so much? Dolores Umbridge is an incredibly hated woman in the Harry Potter series who has attracted attention from audiences, but Umbridge has not been studied fully by scholarship. When scholars do discuss Umbridge, they typically focus on her cruelty while ignoring her other characteristics. Looking at popular internet audience reactions to Umbridge, however, shows the complexities of Umbridge’s character by revealing what Louise Rosenblatt calls the “transaction” between the audience and the texts, and scholarship has ignored that “transaction.” Using quantitative and qualitative methods to …

Holistic Assessment Of Narrative Discourse: A Progress Monitoring Tool, Teigan Beck

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to design and evaluate the validity, developmental sensitivity, and scoring reliability of a rubric for measuring the holistic quality of stories for preschool and school age children.

Method: 224 children, ages 4-7, told stories in a single structured context which were then scored by a group of trained raters using the Holistic Assessment of Narrative Discourse (HAND) to evaluate aspects of its psychometric adequacy, specifically validity, developmental sensitivity, and inter-rater reliability.

Results: The results showed that the scores on the HAND were a valid measure of narrative quality that were sensitive to developmental …

The Relationship Between Narrative Proficiency And Syntactic Complexity Of Spontaneously Generated Stories Elicited From Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder As Compared To Those Elicited From Children With Developmental Language Disorder, Samantha Winward

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of a narrative intervention on narrative proficiency and the use of complex sentences for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).

Method: Two multiple-baseline across participants studies were conducted. Five participants with ASD ages 8 to 12 and six participants with DLD ages 6;7 to 10;4 participated in each study. Narrative proficiency and syntactic complexity were examined during baseline, intervention, and follow-up periods.

Results: All of the children in the ASD increased in narrative and syntactic complexity by the end of the study. …

Exploring The Impact Of Positive Peer Views Of Girls On School Engagement In Middle School Girls, Christine E. Hansen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study focused on the types of messages female middle school students receive about their gender from their peers. Specifically, it looked at microaggressions, which are sexist messages from peers, and microaffirmations, which are positive and affirming messages from peers. There were four goals of this study. First, to check if the Students Affirming Girls in Middle School scale (SAG-MS), a scale created for this study, could consistently measure microaggressions and microaffirmations. Second, to look at the relationship between when girls experience puberty and microaggressions and microaffirmations. Third, to measure any differences in the number of microaggressions and microaffirmations girls …

Adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (Adhd): Relationship Between Parental Symptomatology, Child Behaviors, And Parenting Behaviors, Robyn Jeppson-Frandsen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience impairment in cognitive, scholastic/vocational and interpersonal domains. The goal of this study was to gain more information how adult ADHD symptomatology impacts parenting behaviors, specifically, overreactivity and laxness. This study found that parental ADHD symptoms were associated with greater overreactive parenting behavior. Differences between mothers and fathers were assessed and no significant difference in ADHD symptomatology or parenting behaviors were found. The combination of adult ADHD symptoms and child behavior, above and beyond parental depression, was found to be a statistically significant predictor of parental overreactive behavior, while this was not the case for …

Empathy In The Middle-School History Classroom: The Effects Of Reading Different Historical Texts On Theory Of Mind, Empathic Concern, And Historical Perspective-Taking, Jared P. Collette

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Theoretical and empirical evidence indicate a possibility that reading certain types of historical texts could improve different constructs of empathy that include theory of mind (ToM), empathic concern (EC), and historical perspective-taking (HPT).The objective of this study was to compare the effect of reading a collection of primary documents in comparison to a historical narrative on ToM, HPT, and EC for adolescents in an eighth-grade history class. Students were randomly assigned to read either a historical narrative or a collection of adapted historical documents with approximately the same length, and reading level. This researcher controlled for student comprehension scores, ToM …

Standards-Based Grading: A Correlational Study Between Grades And End-Of-Level Test Scores, Tyler R. Poll

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As students move from grade level to grade level and onto college, their grades have an impact on the number of opportunities available to students. The competition for entering college and earning a scholarship are at an all-time high and the grades students earn have a direct impact on future opportunities. Grading practices vary by teacher causing students’ grades to mean different things.

Standards-based grading practices focus on removing teacher bias and puts emphasis on the learning students can demonstrate. Students are given assessments to determine learning and are given multiple opportunities to show what they have learned. Emphasis is …

Landscape Of Stress: Does Drought Prevail Over Anthropogenic Activity In Influencing Cortisol Levels And Fitness In The Pacific Fisher?, Jennifer R. Kordosky

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Fishers (Pekania pennanti) are a species of concern in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone released to mobilize energy in response to stress and has been used as an indication of an individual’s physiological response to its environment. By collecting samples of fisher hair and measuring an individual’s cortisol, we examined the physiological stress response of the animals to human disturbances (housing density, road density, habitat type, and silvicultural treatements) and drought (tree mortality) in their home ranges. Using AICc model selection, we found that levels of tree mortality within a fisher’s home …

Latino Stepcouples’ Experiences Two Years After Stepfamily Education And A Narrative Study Regarding Changes In A Latino Stepfamily Two Years After Stepfamily Education, Sheryl Ann Goodey

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

There are two studies in this dissertation. Both are about couples in a stepfamily who attended stepfamily education called, Smart Steps: Embrace the Journey. The first study explored how 13 Latino stepcouples felt the concepts they learned in stepfamily education influenced their couple relationship, parenting, and their family. Participants ranged in age from 25 to 43. They were interviewed two years after participating in the course. They talked about positive changes that happened in their couple relationship, parenting relationship, and their family as a result of participating in stepfamily education. It was also found that the course helped them …

Narrative Identities Of Early-Return Missionaries From The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Jillian Ferrell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Leaving home to become a missionary is important for many young adults in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (CJC). Some missionaries return home from their missions before their anticipated return date and struggle to make sense of who they are while facing judgment from members within the church communities and families. Little is known about the experience of identity development for early return missionaries (ERMs). There have not been many chances for ERMs to share what it means to them to have come home early from their mission. This study investigated the process of how ERMs make …

Youth Prevention Programs: A Framework For Conducting Mediation Meta-Analyses, Morgan A. Kawamura

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Often for prevention program designs, researchers are interested in understanding the processes through which a program impacts a targeted outcome. Mediation analysis assists in identifying not only how a program influences an outcome, but also which intermediate variables (i.e., mediators) cause the effects between a program and an outcome to occur. Mediation analysis explains why a program works, which is useful for program developers in creating effective prevention and intervention-based programs.

To make use of mediation analysis findings for preventive intervention programs, researchers need a comprehensive understanding of the mediators between various programs and outcomes. However, a comprehensive examination into …

Religiosity, Perfectionism, And Parenting Practices In A Latter-Day Saint (Lds) Sample, Trisha Chase

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Parenting practices greatly influence child behavior. It is important to study the relationship between parenting practices and child behavior in specific religious contexts. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) have not been extensively studied in the psychological literature despite there being a relatively large number of LDS individuals in the U.S. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of religiosity on parenting practices and child behavior outcomes in an LDS sample. The influence of perfectionism on religiosity and parenting practices was also studied. The relationship between parents’ interpretation of the bible and …

Experience Of Microaggressions: White Bystanders’ Physiological And Psychological Reactions, Alexandra K. Reveles

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The negative impacts of discriminatory events to the physiological and psychological stress of the recipient has been thoroughly documented. However, there is little to no evidence about the impacts to bystanders of these events, particularly White bystanders. Psychological impacts may emerge through academic achievement, which has implications for educational institutions and their diversity initiatives. This study examined the impact of witnessing discriminatory events on academic achievement, biological markers of distress, and emotional distress.

Academic achievement was negatively impacted for participants in the microaggression and blatant racism conditions when compared to a control condition. Study participants also experienced negative emotional impacts. …

The Ties That Bind: Identifying Connections That Facilitate Students’ Successful Re-Entry To Higher Education, Toni Asay

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The ubiquitous roadblocks to university graduation have been investigated, identified, and interrogated for 7 decades, yet the mystery of retaining students to graduation continues to elude even the most prestigious universities. This researcher’s approach to increasing graduation began with the concession that increasingly, students may leave school at some point due to one or more of the retention issues that we recognize all too well—finances, illness, family problems, pregnancies, and other educational obstacles. However, leaving school does not mean that there is no going back. Student’s dropout status changes when they re-enroll in school; they take on new identities as …

The Rise And Run Of Women Corporate Leaders, Alicia R. Ingersoll

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this research was to understand the contexts that support the barriers to women’s advancement and to identify the conditions under which women leaders overcome the barriers to attain top corporate leadership positions. I have identified and discussed three distinct approaches for understanding how we can increase women’s representation and influence in the executive and director ranks within top U.S. corporations. The first approach investigates the complexities of leveraging the social and cultural capital attained through post-secondary education in order gain entry into the corporate elite. The second approach examines gendered stereotypes of risk-taking versus the organizational risk-taking …

Methods For Meta–Analyses Of Rare Events, Sparse Data, And Heterogeneity, Brinley Zabriskie

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The vast and complex wealth of information available to researchers often leads to a systematic review, which involves a detailed and comprehensive plan and search strategy with the goal of identifying, appraising, and synthesizing all relevant studies on a particular topic. A meta–analysis, conducted ideally as part of a comprehensive systematic review, statistically synthesizes evidence from multiple independent studies to produce one overall conclusion. The increasingly widespread use of meta–analysis has led to growing interest in meta–analytic methods for rare events and sparse data. Conventional approaches tend to perform very poorly in such settings. Recent work in this area has …

Death Ends A Life Not A Relationship: The Embodied Mourning And Memorializing Of Pets Through Material Culture, Gemma N. Koontz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many individuals develop strong bonds with their pets, viewing them as close “furry” friends or family. When these beloved companions die, both their relational and physical absences are deeply felt. Lacking socially recognized rituals to mourn and memorialize their pets, owners turn to and adapt traditional “human practices,” primarily that of keeping meaningful or significant items of the deceased.

Using both personal experiences and perspectives from multiple fields, this thesis discusses the life-cycle of the human-animal bond, examines the types of items owners keep or create, and how these are used to facilitate both mourning (the outward expression of grief) …

Student Perceptions Of Connectedness At The American International School Of Utah, Diane Longhurst Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Connectedness has been identified as a powerful protective factor for adolescents. This study focused on the extent to which secondary students at the American International School of Utah (AISU) report perceptions of connectedness. Specifically, this work focused on school-level factors. It examined the extent to which participation in the school-wide interventions of Crew and Intensives influence perceptions of connectedness among AISU secondary students. Data collected provided insights about perceptions of connectedness within the AISU environment that may be used to inform current practices, identify additional student support needs, and improve future implementations.

An Explanatory Sequential research design was used. This …