Digital Commons Network^™

Do Allyship And Motivation Influence Women’S Cognitive Functioning And Self-Regulation After Witnessing Sexism?, Christina Garasky

Dissertations

Prior research shows the effects of sexism can accumulate over time, resulting in severe negative, cognitive, affective, motivational, and physiological consequences for women; however, most research focuses on the consequences of being a direct target of sexism, and the cognitive and motivational consequences of being a witness of sexism have not yet been fully explored. Additionally, while it is thought that allyship can help mitigate the consequences of sexism, minimal research has tested this relationship. It was proposed that shifts in reactive approach motivation (RAM); aimed to protect against anxiety and negative affect, may direct attention away from goal-oriented behaviors, …

Homegrown: Pastor Advocacy For Victims Of Sex Trafficking, Julie Heifner

Dissertations

Human trafficking consists of both sex trafficking (ST) and labor trafficking (LT) and is a growing problem for the United States. The Federal Human Trafficking Report (2019), states that Missouri is ranked ninth in the country for active criminal human trafficking cases. This issue is particularly prevalent in our churches because churches serve vulnerable populations and predators may be drawn to churches. Religious academic literature about pastor advocacy for victims of ST is lacking, while popular news sources reference case after case where pastors are the predators. This study consisted of nine Christian pastors who currently served in a pastoral …

Increasing Testicular Self-Examination Practices In Male College Students, Christopher Mccoy

Dissertations

A significant number of males attending colleges and universities in the United States have limited or no current knowledge of testicular cancer and screening practices (Tosun, Gul, & Arikan, 2020).

Lack of knowledge of testicular cancer and practice of testicular self-examinations.

The evidence-based health promotion project aimed to increase testicular self-examination practices in male college students and increase their knowledge of testicular cancer.

The Impact Of Firm Size, Job Embeddedness, And Job Engagement On Turnover In Public Accounting Firms, Amy Cooper

Dissertations

Retention in public accounting firms has been and continues to be a top concern in the accounting profession. The direct and indirect cost of turnover; the decrease in accounting enrollment and graduation; the Great Resignation; and changes to work environments due to the pandemic elevate what was already a serious problem into a critical problem for the accounting profession. The size of public accounting firms is a well-used descriptor when employees talk about where they work. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the size of firm in predicting an employee’s level of job embeddedness and …

Topological Data Analysis Of Weight Spaces In Convolutional Neural Networks, Adam Wagenknecht

Dissertations

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have become one of the most commonly used tools for performing image classification. Unfortunately, as with most machine learning algorithms, CNNs suffer from a lack of interpretability. CNNs are trained by using a training data set and a loss function to tune a set of parameters known as the layer weights. This tuning process is based on the classical method of gradient descent, but it relies on a strong stochastic component, which makes the weight behavior during training difficult to understand. However, since CNNs are governed largely by the weights that make up each of the …

Effects Of The Imposter Phenomenon On First-Generation Students’ Academic And Co-Curricular Engagement, Ethan Sykes

Dissertations

First-generation college students experience many barriers transitioning to college, such as impostorism. Administrators must understand how the imposter phenomenon impacts student engagement, to increase retention. The researcher utilized a mixed-methods approach to explore the prevalence of the imposter phenomenon among community college and private university students. Furthermore, the study examined how impostorism manifested in academic and co-curricular settings. The survey sample consisted of 216 total participants, with 91 who identified as first-generation students. Eight students participated in the interviews. For the purpose of the study, first-generation students were those whose parents did not complete a bachelor’s degree. The researcher utilized …

K-12 Teachers’ Retention Of Arts Integrated Professional Development, Roxane Mcwilliams

Dissertations

Arts integration is an interdisciplinary teaching model in which the arts become a conduit for the contextualization and understanding of non-arts content. Research has shown this approach increases academic engagement and content retention (Rinne et al., 2011). The use of arts integration also provides gains for teachers. Teachers perceive their practice more innovative and better able to reach the needs of diverse learners (Bellisario & Donovan, 2012). For the benefits of arts integrated learning to be achieved, teachers must acquire the knowledge and techniques of this teaching model. This requires knowledge in both arts content as well as the pedagogical …

A Delphi Study Of Possibilities Of Learning By 2035: Identify And Describe The Educational Changes For High Schools In California That Are Possible And Probable By 2035 As Perceived By A Panel Of Experts, Guillermo Lopez

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this Delphi study was to identify and describe the educational changes for high schools in California that are possible and probable by 2035 as perceived by a panel of experts. In addition, the purpose was to determine the level of desirability of educational changes identified as probable by a panel of experts. Finally, the purpose was to describe the actions necessary to promote the desirable educational changes by 2035 as perceived by the expert panel.

Methodology: The Delphi method was used as a mixed methods approach to build consensus among experts. Fifteen experts from diverse secondary …

The Efficacy Of An Antenatal Probiotic Intervention To Reduce Residual Group B Streptococcus, Emily M. Malloy

Dissertations

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. The current prevention strategy involves universal antenatal screening for GBS and IV intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP) for those who test positive. Despite this approach, up to 80% of cases of early onset GBS neonatal disease are in infants born to birth givers who screened negative for GBS, which can be described as residual GBS.

Probiotics are a primary prevention strategy for antenatal GBS. This was a substudy of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Participants in the parent study were randomized to probiotics verses placebo and the major …

The Infinite Mindset: A Phenomenological Study Of Exemplary Student Affairs Leaders, Kevin Giang

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and describe how exemplary leaders in the field of student affairs perceive the practices of Simon Sinek’s Infinite Mindset Framework are embedded within their organizations to inspire the achievement of extraordinary results. A further purpose of this study was to understand the organizational supports and barriers these exemplary leaders perceive affect the development of an infinite mindset.

Methodology: Interviews were used to explore and describe how exemplary student affairs leaders perceive the five practices of Sinek’s Infinite Mindset are embedded within their organizations. The study seeks to explore and make …

Culturally Responsive Library Leadership In The California Community Colleges, Melanie Aponte Chu

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this ethnographic qualitative study was to identify and describe how community college library leaders utilize culturally responsive leadership strategies when leading their organizations, based on Horsford et al.’s (2011) Culturally Relevant Leadership (CRL) framework.

Methodology: This study identified and described culturally responsive leadership strategies of library leaders at the California Community Colleges (CCCs). As part of a thematic team, the researcher designed an interview protocol in alignment with the four dimensions of the CRL framework: professional duty, personal journey, pedagogical approach, and political context. Fourteen participants were identified and selected using criterion sampling, with participants meeting …

Where Have All The Surgical Nurses Gone? Staffing Shortages In Surgical Departments Post Covid-19 Shutdowns, Phoenix Neal

Dissertations

March 2020 changed the healthcare field entirely. When the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the United States in early 2020, it was recommended that surgical departments nationwide shutdown altogether or at least decrease their workloads to exclusively emergent procedures. This step was taken both to save surgical equipment for more critical patients and to offload those staff members from surgical departments to more critical areas in the hospital systems.

This exploratory study was completed to investigate the impact of COVID-19 surgical department shutdowns on current surgical staffing. This research explored different factors such as health insurance availability, childcare availability, shift change, …

The Lived Experiences Of Icu, Med-Surg, And Er Nurses In The United States Attempting To Breastfeed During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Amy Seay

Dissertations

Breastfeeding is important to promote the health of both mothers and babies (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2021). Many mothers experience workplace barriers and stress which negatively impact breastfeeding duration (McCardel & Padilla, 2020; Nagel et al., 2022). However, a gap in the literature exists surrounding specific barriers and the impact of stress on U.S. nurses who breastfeed. Specifically, workplace challenges and stress among nurses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic lack exploration.

This interpretive phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of ICU, Med-Surg, and ER nurses who attempted to breastfeed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Roy’s adaptation model was …

Anti-Woman Invective On The Early Modern Stage: Abuse, Degradation, And Resistance, Savannah Xaver

Dissertations

On the early modern stage, gendered epithets like “strumpet,” “mermaid,” “minx,” “hobby horse,” “courtesan,” “drab,” and “whore” are not just markers of misogyny. Instead, these insults harm the male user as well as their female target. My cross-playwright and cross-genre connections show the complex, wide use and impact of anti-woman terms. A wide-ranging study of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries reveals that gendered insults signify masculine mental decline in tragedies as well as comedies and tragicomedies. In tragedy, the increasingly violent language of male slur users – like, for example, the frustrated Othello, who declares, of his wife, …

The Relationship Among Emotional Intelligence, Coping Strategies, And Occupational Burnout For Child Protective Service Workers, Yvette Longoria

Dissertations

There are low retention rates of child protective service caseworkers and this impacts the quality of care of the families served. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence, coping strategies and occupational burnout for CPS caseworkers. In addition, examining the relationship between education type, education level, and caseload size as it relates to emotional intelligence, coping strategies, and occupational burnout among child protective caseworkers. The theoretical framework utilized was the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping. A convenience sampling was used to collect participants employed as FBSS or CVS caseworkers at Texas Department of …

Felicidad Aplataná: How Dominican Migrants Living In The Nordic Countries Make Sense Of Their Happiness, Ivanna Lajara

Dissertations

As globalization evolves and the number of migrants and cross-cultural interactions among world citizens increases, understanding various aspects of immigrants’ experiences, including their happiness and subjective well-being will become fundamental to organizations, governments, and societies. However, there are substantial cross-cultural differences in how people understand their happiness, make sense of experiences that influence happiness, and how large-scale social trends, such as globalization, relate to the individual migration perspectives (Uchida and Ogihara, 2012). Research affirms culture as a key factor influencing happiness (Ye et al., 2015) and living in a foreign country may not only impact one’s perspective on life, but …

Statistical Clustering Of Networks With Additional Information, Paul Atandoh

Dissertations

As the online market grows rapidly, many companies and researchers are interested in analyzing product review dataset which includes ratings and text review data. In the first project, we mainly focus on analyzing the text review data. In the current literature, it is common to use only text analysis tools to analyze review dataset. But in our work, we propose a method that utilizes both a text analysis method such as topic modeling and a statistical network model to build network among individuals and find interesting communities. We introduce a promising framework that incorporates topic modeling technique to define the …

Development Of Modeling Tools To Determine The Effects Of Customer Diversification On Customer Lifetime Value Volatility In Higher Education, Oscar Neal

Dissertations

As societies become increasingly global the competition for customers continues to increase. In competitive markets, it is important to identify a process to acquire and retain the most profitable customers. To discriminate customers, it is important to understand the value different customers bring to an organization. Much research has been done modeling customer value using customer lifetime value, however, there is limited research on the effect current customer diversity has on future customer lifetime value of future customer portfolios.

In this dissertation, a Lifetime Value Model considering the interaction between customer diversity, revenue management, and customer lifetime value in an …

Exposure To Videos Of Police Brutality Against Black Americans And Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Among U.S. Adults, Ingrid Rauk

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine in a diverse sample of U.S. adults the relationship between exposure to videos of police brutality against Black Americans and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Exposure to videos of police brutality against Black Americans is believed to have emotional and psychological effects on the viewer and may be considered an indirect (i.e., vicarious) form of exposure to trauma (Alang et al., 2017; Bor et al., 2018; Bryant-Davis et al., 2017). Prior research has established a positive association between experiences of racial discrimination and trauma symptoms (Kirkins et al., 2018). Previous research on psychological reactions …

Use Of Reddit For Social Science Research: A Review Of Current Use, Exploration Of Potential Sampling Error, And Practical Demonstration Using Reddit To Study Post-Pandemic Teacher Resignation, Caryn Davidson

Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of three separate studies related to using the social media platform Reddit for social science research. The first paper provides an overview of current social science research that uses Reddit. The second paper explores the impact of sampling choices and potential sources of error when selecting Reddit data to study. The third paper maps the topics of a sample of posts tagged with the #Resignation flair in the r/Teachers subreddit from three months across school year 2021-2022 including reasons why teachers are leaving the post-pandemic classroom.

The practice of using Reddit for social science research is …

Socially Aware Natural Language Processing With Commonsense Reasoning And Fairness In Intelligent Systems, Sirwe Saeedi

Dissertations

Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises to deliver ever more user-friendly consumer applications, recent mishaps involving fake information and biased treatment serve as vivid reminders of the pitfalls of AI. AI can harbor latent biases and flaws that can cause harm in diverse and unexpected ways. It is crucial to understand the reasons for, mechanisms behind, and circumstances under which AI can fail. For instance, a lack of commonsense reasoning can lead to biased or unfair decisions made by Machine Learning (ML) systems. For example, if an ML system is trained on data that is biased or unrepresentative of the real …

Student Experience And Learning In A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience, Allison Witucki

Dissertations

Scientific research is advocated as an important experience for undergraduate STEM majors. Involving undergraduates in research early on in their educational careers can potentially prevent attrition and encourages students to pursue post-graduate education and careers within the field. However, research opportunities for undergraduates can be difficult to obtain. Many students may not realize that research opportunities exist, or there is limited availability for undergraduates to work in a faculty member’s research laboratory. Luckily, an educational model for involving scientific research in a course, also known as a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE), can provide more widespread opportunities for students to …

Exploring The Information-Seeking Behaviors And Decision-Making Processes Of Couples In Response To Unfamiliar Tornado Threats, Chih-Chun Rosie Lin

Dissertations

The unique disaster, tornado, causes significant damage and casualties in the US every year, and tornado warnings are crucial to helping people take protective action and reduce the negative impact, especially in an unfamiliar situation. It is important for authorities to better understand how households in low-risk areas rely on information, perceive risk, and make protective action decisions because tornadoes can occur in many geographic locations and might cause significant damage. However, tornado information search behavior and the dynamic decision-making process are not well understood in the existing literature. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effect of the interaction …

Structural Integrity Assessment Of Shell And Tube Heat Exchanger Tube-To-Tubesheet Joints Fabricated Using Conventional And Nonconventional Manufacturing Processes, Dinu Thomas Thekkuden

Dissertations

Tubes and tubesheets, integral components of shell and tube heat exchangers, have an important role in the functioning of the heat transfer between the tube-side and shell-side fluids. Tube-to-tubesheet joints act as a barrier to prevent the mixing of the transfer fluids in addition to aiding the structural rigidity of the shell and tube heat exchanger. Tube expansion process and welding are the manufacturing processes used for fabricating structurally rigid tube-to-tubesheet joints. Many instances of tube-totubesheet joint failures leading to the complete collapse of the heat exchangers demand attention to assessing the mechanical and metallurgical characteristics of tube-totubesheet joints fabricated …

Impact Of Teaching Mathematics With Four Teaching Strategies On Fifth Grade Students’ Learning Of Fractions Addition And Subtraction, Nabil Riziq Al Farra

Dissertations

There are different tools, resources, and materials that mathematics teachers may use to enhance the teaching and learning processes under many types of teaching strategies such as technology (e.g., videos and virtual manipulatives), real objects (e.g., concrete manipulatives), and other teaching strategies are traditional (e.g., lectures). Some of the most important things that a teacher has to consider is the students’ learning needs and how to reach to their minds by different teaching strategies with a variety of resources and assess which are more effective in students’ learning anddevelopment in mathematics.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the …

The Association Between College Instructors’ Trait Emotional Intelligence And Instructorstudent Relationship In A Uae Higher Education Institution, Salwa Habib Husain

Dissertations

The relationship between instructors and students in higher education institutions (HEIs) is a contributing factor to the students’ motivation to learn, emotional development and stability, and academic performance. The instructor’s trait Emotional Intelligence (EI) has been a focus in developing such positive relationships inside and outside the classroom setting. The extent to which instructors’ trait EI can contribute to a supportive and developmental relationship with students has not received due attention in research in the UAE. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the association between instructors’ trait EI and the Instructor-Student Relationship at one HEI in the …

Characterization And Genomic Analysis Of Two Escherichia Coli O157:H7 Bacteriophages Isolated From Pigeons, Mohamad I. Alolama

Dissertations

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, also known as EHEC, is a subset of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), and it has recently been identified as one of the principal foodborne pathogens. E. coli O157:H7 is the most important serotype of STEC for its role in causing foodborne illnesses. E. coli O157:H7 could cause various gastroenteritis symptoms such as diarrhea, hemolytic uremic syndrome, hemorrhagic colitis, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura and may cause death. Elimination of E. coli O157:H7 during food processing and storage is a possible solution. Bacteriophages have a significant impact on bacterial populations in nature due to their ability to …

Coordinated Location And Capacity Planning Of Fast Charging Stations For Electric Vehicles Using Multi Objective Approach, Asna Madathodika

Dissertations

With the growing concerns on the energy depletion and CO₂ emissions, electric vehicles (EVs) have marked a new paradigm in the transport sector. Installation of publicly accessible charging stations (CS), namely fast CSs are crucial for the large-scale deployment of EVs. However, randomly placing CSs without prior research affect EV owners, CS operators and grid operators. For instance, the location and size of charging stations affect the accessibility and convenience of EV users since users prefer charging stations that are easier to access without much traffic congestion in road networks. At the same time station should offer good service …

Nano-Supported Biocatalysts For Efficient Wastewater Remediation, Khadega Abobaker Al-Maqdi

Dissertations

The existence of various bioactive organic pollutants in wastewater and municipal water sources has raised concerns regarding their potential effects on human health. As a result, different techniques are being explored to effectively break down these persistent organic pollutants. Peroxidases have recently emerged as a new approach to remediation that may have advantages over traditional methods. However, evaluating the effectiveness of different peroxidases in breaking down various emerging pollutants can be time-consuming and difficult. In this study, a quick and reliable method was developed to test the degradability of 21 emerging pollutants by five different peroxidases (soybean peroxidase, chloroperoxidase, lactoperoxidase, …

Stories Of Me: Disability Identity Development In Persons With Adhd, Andrea R. Johnson

Dissertations

Theoretically, developing a strong sense of ADHD identity, adolescents can combat anxiety and stigma. Combatting anxiety and stigma can support student’s postsecondary success. How can teachers help? The study aims to explore the narratives of disability identity from the adult reflective perspective to identify potential recommendations for teachers. This mixed-methods study collected data through two semi-structured interviews of adults with ADHD, a focus group, and survey data from social media communities. The stories were analyzed for evidence of a sense of identity, pride, and self-esteem. The emerging themes provided recommendations for educators which included the need to foster relationships (teachers …