Digital Commons Network^™

Use Them Or Lose Them: Inservice Teacher Perceptions Of The Usability And Sustainability Of Facilitated Individual Education Program Meeting Training And Learned Techniques, Robin O'Shea

Dissertations

Effective collaboration among family professional partnerships (FPPs) and work groups such as a multidisciplinary individualized education program (IEP) team has been identified as a critical characteristic in developing a specially designed program for students with a disability. Unfortunately, educators often do not feel prepared to interact and collaborate with colleagues, parents, and community partners due to limited instruction and practice during preservice coursework or in-service professional development workshops. Thus, there continues to be the need for guidance on how to prepare preservice and licensed educators to collaborate effectively within IEP team meetings. An emerging IEP meeting practice called facilitated IEP …

A Leadership Laboratory: Exploring The Use Of Case-In-Point Pedagogy To Develop Complex Thinking In Leaders, Erica Corley Jackson

Dissertations

Leadership scholars have identified a growing gap between the complexity of 21^st century organizations and the capabilities of individuals in positions of leadership to adequately address these challenges. This gap has contributed to a so-called complexity crisis—a situation in which the demands placed on those in leadership positions increases “at a rate that significantly outstrips the rate at which” leaders are cognitively developing (Rich-Tolsma & Oliver, 2016, p. 1). One way to respond to this growing need for complex adult thinking is through metacognitive development initiatives. However, finding educational methods to promote metacognitive development has proven to be …

Inviting The Outside In: Nature's Contribution To Counselor Wellness, Naomi Medina

Dissertations

The positive influence of nature on client wellness and psychological health (BonhamCorcoran et al., 2022) is well reflected in the emergence of nature-based counseling interventions such as wilderness therapy, walk talk therapy, and horticulture therapy, among other counseling modalities that involve aspects of the natural world (Lewis et al., 2022). This suggests that the inclusion of nature within the counseling session could also contribute to the wellness of the counselor. The purpose of this research was to determine the extent to which presence of nature contributes to counselor wellness and which of the five senses may play a greater role …

Electrodialysis Process For The Simultaneous Treatment Of Reject Brine And Capture Of Carbon Dioxide, Jawad Mustafa

Dissertations

Desalination plants are highly efficient in producing desalinated water for potable applications. However, the process also generates reject brine, which is highly concentrated saline water. In order to produce 1 liter of potable water using desalination, approximately 1.5 liters of reject brine is generated. The disposal of reject brine presents a significant challenge for the desalination industry. Typically, this waste product is discharged into the sea, causing environmental damage, and polluting marine life. Moreover, certain countries heavily rely on desalination to meet their potable water needs, which results in the emission of greenhouse gases. As desalination plants consume a significant …

Threading Memory: Performing Animacy In Text, Memorial, And Travel, Alex Keith Davenport

Dissertations

This dissertation explores the process of creating and touring a community-sourced memorial quilt for the anti-mountaintop removal activist Julia “Judy” Bonds, who died in 2011. As a practice, the project positions memorialization as a possible framework for social movements to utilize when faced with loss that allows for actions that honor members of the movement while still engaging in consciousness raising and organizing efforts. From a theoretical standpoint, the practice of memorialization—especially when it is intentionally designed to align with the practices/legacy of the person(s) being remembered—is also considered through an object oriented ontology perspective, providing insight into the affective …

Cultivating Community: Investigating Performances Of Community In Ecovillage Settlements, Alex Lockwood

Dissertations

This dissertation considers the subject of ecovillages, intentional ecologically-oriented sustainable communities developed in the U.S., and the different understandings of community involvement, structure, and challenges that members of these communities confront in their efforts at managing these time and labor-intensive settlements. Informed by the work of performance ethnographers and critical phenomenologists, I consider twelve interviews I conducted on-site and electronically with people living in ecovillage settlements. Taking these interviews and my own observations from on-site visits to two ecovillages as entry points, I conducted a phenomenological analysis informed by a critical phenomenological ethos of these accounts, highlighting five motifs that …

Oiko-Logic In Literature, Elias Joshua Taylor

Dissertations

My study utilizes ecocriticism, eco-Marxism, and posthumanism to discover how the sympathetic practices of both reading and ecology provide us with what I call an oiko-logic. Specifically, I read Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, and John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing. In Gulliver’s Travels we see Gulliver as an ecological threat in every journey, and Swift says that this is because we forget ourselves and deliberately choose to not attune—sometimes even choosing destruction. For Swift, we bungle things no matter which system we try, and we create degenerative devolution despite the fact that we can help. …

Student Movements, Politics, And Policy In Chile, 2001 – 2012, Leesa Rasp

Dissertations

Chile has frequently been touted as an economic miracle, the “Jaguar of Latin America”. Boasting the strongest economy in South America, due to severe neoliberal economic structural adjustments made under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, it has long been held up as the perfect exemplar of economic growth and stability, as well as the poster child for the effectiveness of neoliberal economics. After the re-establishment of democracy in 1990, political conditions improved as well; the country enjoyed a decade of stability and peace under its first two democratically-elected governments.

Yet, beginning approximately ten years after the transition to democracy, …

The Motherhood Crusade: Rural Low-Income Mothers, Support, And Empowerment, Christina Castellano

Dissertations

Previous research has shown that postpartum women with untreated mental health conditions are more likely to fail to manage their own health, have inadequate nutrition, abuse substances, experience abuse, be less responsive to their baby’s needs, have fewer positive interactions with their baby, experience difficulties breastfeeding, and question their abilities as a mother. Rural culture plays a complex role in the transition to motherhood, influencing whether mothers seek out and use resources. While more is known about location and access issues, less is known about how rural culture and, more specifically, how empowerment and social support impact postpartum experience. The …

Testing And Refining An Integrated Ethically-Driven Environmental Model Of Clinical Decision-Making In Emergency Settings, Lisa Adams Wolf

Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between multiple variables within a model of critical thinking and moral reasoning that support and refine the elements that significantly correlate with accuracy and clinical decision-making.

Moving Forward By Looking Back: How Family Firms Create Competitive Advantage By Embracing Their History, Adam Goldman

Dissertations

Family businesses are the engine that drives the United States economy. While extensive implications have been made in the literature about the advantages or disadvantages of family-owned businesses compared to non-family-owned businesses, the focus of this study was to show how small to medium-sized family-owned firms (FF SMEs) based in the United States can use their unique history to create a competitive advantage. Drawing on imprint theory and the resource-based view (RBV), this history-informed study helped identify the impact that founder imprints, business traditions, and storytelling have on the business performance of FF SMEs. Using quantitative methods, the findings of …

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 …

A Delphi Study Of Possible, Probable, And Desirable Futures At 4-Year U.S. Higher Education Institutions By 2035, Mary Cutia-Pluff

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify and describe educational changes at 4-year higher education institutions that are possible and probable by 2035 as perceived by a panel of experts. Additionally, 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 actions necessary to promote the desirable educational changes by 2035 as perceived by the panel of experts.

Methodology: The Delphi method was used to survey 17 higher education experts from diverse disciplines. Four survey rounds gathered qualitative and quantitative data regarding …

Effects Of Adaptive Expertise On Counseling Self-Efficacy: The Mediating Role Of Adaptive Performance, Jiaying Meyer

Dissertations

Counseling and psychotherapy expertise research have been focused on three major areas, namely, characterization of Master Therapists, performance of Healing Involvement, and application of Deliberate Practice. The constructs of adaptive expertise and adaptive performance have never been investigated in the context of counseling or psychotherapy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the relevance of adaptive expertise in psychotherapy by studying the relationships between adaptive expertise, adaptive performance, and counseling self-efficacy. A total of 460 psychotherapy practitioners from a variety of disciplines and experiences participated in the study, and they included counseling, psychology, social work, and others with …

Synthesis And Evaluation Of Biologically Active Phosphorous Heterocycles And Lipid A Antagonist Compounds, Saroj Kafle

Dissertations

Cyclophostin and cyclipostins are naturally occurring organophosphates with common structural core units and different phosphate ester substituents. Cyclophostin is a cyclic phosphate triester with a chiral center at phosphorous and C-3a carbon atom while the cyclipostins have characteristic alkyl substituents with varying chain lengths at the phosphate center. Long-chain substituted monocyclic phosphate (2b) and phosphonate (2a) analogs of cyclophostin and cyclipostin are promising inhibitors against serine hydrolases acetylcholinesterase with an IC₅₀ in the nanomolar range.

Biologically active β-lactones and lactams owe their activity, in part, to ring strain. The ring opening of β-lactones and lactams …

Implementation Of Established Guidelines To Determine The Correlation Of Antipsychotic Use And Fall Rate Occurrence Amongst Inpatient Long-Term Care Residents, Cynthia L. Hardy

Dissertations

The use of psychotropic medications may impact fall rates among senior adults. Despite evidence-based approaches to minimize psychotropic medications use, the project site had a gap in implementing one leading to high fall rates. The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental quality improvement project was to determine if the implementation of the Center for Assisted Living Guidelines for Reducing the Use of Antipsychotic Medications in Nursing Homes would impact fall rates when compared to current practice among geriatric patients in a long-term care facility in rural New Mexico over four weeks. Neuman's Systems Model provided the theoretical underpinnings for this project.

Community College Executive Leaders And Emotional Intelligence: A Phenomenological Study Exploring How Community College Executive Leaders Utilize Emotional Intelligence (Ei) To Lead Their Organizations, Seblewongel Ayalew

Dissertations

Purpose: This phenomenological research aimed to identify and describe the lived practices of California community college executive leaders who lead their institutions using Emotional Intelligence (EI) through the lens of Goleman’s four EI domains.

Methodology: This study used phenomenological research that identified and explained California community college executive leaders’ lived practices associated with the leaders using EI in the workplace to determine their EI skills and emotional awareness. The community college executive leaders participated in interviews in formal and informal settings to identify and describe their lived experiences.

Findings: Examination of the qualitative data from 15 community college executive leaders …

A Critical Analysis Of Discrepancies In Behavioral Health Program Ratings By Evidence-Based Practice Registers For Behavioral Health, Miranda Jade Lee-Easton

Dissertations

Decision makers in the behavioral health disciplines are under increasing pressure to identify and implement evidence-based practices (EBPs). These decision makers often do not have the time or expertise to assess primary studies of program efficacy or effectiveness. They could benefit from tools to assist them in identifying and implementing EBPs. One tool is an evidence-based practice register (EBPR). Prior studies have documented that when multiple EBPRs rate a given program, they may come to seemingly conflicting program ratings. The prior research concerning the reason for these conflicts is sparse. The purpose of the present study is to understand how …

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, …

Reflections On A Promise: Student Experiences At A Two-Year Promise Institution And Their Educational Aspirations, Danielle Lemmerman

Dissertations

College students and their families have to shoulder more of the burden in college costs due to rising tuition. To deter students from adding to the national student loan debt, promise programs have been launched to eliminate cost as a barrier to postsecondary education. Programs vary in design and may cover partial tuition, full tuition, or both tuition and fees. Currently, there is a dearth of research on the experiences low-income students have attending a promise eligible institution, especially at the community college level. This qualitative case study explores the ways in which low-income undergraduate students describe their experiences at …

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 …

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 …

Experiences Of Female Muslim International Graduate Students With Children In The U.S.: Strategies To Cope With Academics And Family Life, Nizoramo M. Haitova

Dissertations

The literature on adult students, and in particular, graduate students with children, reveals that female students often struggle to balance their studies and home life due to juggling multiple roles. To date, research on student mothers has primarily focused on domestic students, with few studies examining the experiences of international student mothers, and even fewer studying Muslim international student mothers. The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of female Muslim international graduate students with children in the U.S., as well as to explore the coping strategies they employ in both academia and family life. Thus, the …

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 …

An Examination Of Well-Being Across Theories Of Career Development Using Latent Profile Analysis, Jessica Schultz

Dissertations

Multiple theories have been designed to better understand how elements of working can affect personal well-being (Dawis, 2005; Duffy et al., 2016a; Duffy et al., 2018). The Theory of Work Adjustment (Dawis, 2005), a classic trait-and-factor theory, proposes that job satisfaction is the result of how well the needs and values of the worker fit within the needs and expectations of the workplace. The Psychology of Working Theory (Duffy et al., 2016a) posits that acquiring decent work (i.e., jobs that provide safety, access to healthcare, adequate compensation, hours for rest, and congruent values) will lead to well-being. Additionally, this theory …

Factors Affecting Changes In Road Traffic Collision Related Injuries And Deaths Over Time: The Global And The United Arab Emirates Perspectives, Yasin Jemal Yasin

Dissertations

Road traffic collisions (RTCs) cause 1.35 million deaths per year worldwide. Approximately 50% of these deaths were among pedestrians and motorized 2-3-wheeler users. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), RTC deaths were higher compared to other high-income countries (HICs). The United Nations (UN) Decade of Action for road safety 2011-2020, aimed to reduce road traffic deaths by 50% by the year 2020. The aim of this dissertation was to investigate factors affecting changes in RTC-related injuries and deaths over time at global and UAE levels. Multiple research methods were used to investigate the research questions. Global data on pedestrian and …

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 …

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 …

Prevalence Of Metabolic Syndrome And It’S Associated Factors In Emirati Adults: The Uae Healthy Future Cohort Study, Shamma Jauaan Almuhairi

Dissertations

In the last few years United Arab Emirates showed a rapid growth in economic field which was associated with growth of other types of related diseases, specially in non-communicable disease; mainly type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM) & cardiovascular related diseases (CVDs). The presence of multiple risk factors simultaneously in Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) has been shown to increase the risk for atherosclerosis development in young and middle-aged adults. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors and has many different definitions according to different international organizations. Aims and objectives:This study has three main objectives; it aimed to estimate the prevalence …