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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Gender Expansive, And Queer+ Client Experiences Discussing Consensual Nonmonogamy In Therapy: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, Evan Wendell Engle-Newman

Dissertations

This dissertation presents the findings from an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study on how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender expansive, and queer+ (LGBTGEQ+) clients experience discussing consensual nonmonogamy (CNM) in therapy. This study explored how five individuals made meaning of their experiences discussing CNM with current or prior therapists. The meaning they made of these experiences were situated in the context of social and cultural factors that influenced their discussions of CNM in therapy.

There were three research questions for this study including one primary question and two guiding sub-questions. The primary question was: what are the experiences of LGBTGEQ+ …

Investigating Undergraduate Students’ Statistical Literacy In Media Contexts, Samuel Waters

Dissertations

As the uses of data in society continue to expand, it is vital to prepare students to engage with data in meaningful and critical ways. Undergraduate introductory statistics courses provide an opportunity for students to develop important knowledge and skills for interpreting and questioning statistical information in social contexts. The purpose of this convergent mixed methods study was to use quantitative assessment data and qualitative interview data to investigate the statistical literacy of students in an undergraduate introductory statistics course in media contexts. This study defined statistical literacy using Watson and Callingham’s (2003) six-level construct. Specifically, this study investigated students’ …

From Foster Care To College Graduation: A Qualitative Study Of The Experiences Of College Graduates Who Aged Out Of Foster Care, Antonia Irene Thomas

Dissertations

Students who have spent time in the foster care system encounter a myriad of barriers and challenges to academic success. Among these challenges is attending post-secondary school and completing a college degree. High school academic performance, knowledge of the college application process, and lack of financial support are some factors that act as barriers to post-secondary attendance. Lack of support and difficulty navigating the college experience can negatively impact the ability to complete college. Even in instances of desire and academic ability to attend college, many of these students never attend, or do not complete and obtain a degree. Between …

Revealing The Impacts Of Teachers’ Lived Experiences With Burnout: An Educational Criticism Study, Joanna Laurx

Dissertations

The purpose of this educational criticism study is to describe the experiences of burnout for four teachers in a western state school district. To represent and illustrate these experiences, Eisner’s methodology, educational connoisseurship and criticism, was utilized. Three research questions guided this study; How do teachers describe experiences of burnout?; How do teachers describe the impact of curriculum on burnout?; How do teachers perceive burnout impacts their instruction and interactions with students? Data for this study was collected on the four participants through a one-on-one interview, two focus groups, two classroom observations, and artifacts and analyzed using emotions and values …

Beliefs Of California And Colorado Parents, School Professionals, And School Administrators Around Providing Comprehensive Sexuality Education To School-Aged Youth With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities, Michelle Aleen Kalos

Dissertations

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are victims of sexual assault at a rate seven times higher than people without IDD (Shapiro, 2018a). “One of the best ways to stop sexual assault is to give people with intellectual disabilities the ability to identify abuse and to know how to develop the healthy relationships they want” (Shapiro, 2018b, p. 1). Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) could be a scientifically accurate, evidence-based, age-appropriate, culturally relevant, and inclusive educational experience for youth with IDD (Koch et al., 2024). However, only around 16% of students with IDD were likely to receive sex education in …

Meaning In Occupational Therapy Practice: A Mixed Methods Study Exploring Perceived Meaning And Burnout In Occupational Therapists, Rebecca Lauren Reinhardt

Dissertations

Decreasing burnout and increasing retention of occupational therapists (OTs) is a pressing issue in the field as attrition rates and intention to leave the profession are on the rise. One of the core tenets of occupational therapy (OT) practice is supporting recipients with engaging in meaningful occupations to promote wellbeing. While burnout in the profession has been more widely researched, very little research has explored how OTs perceive meaning in their own practice. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the lived experiences of how OTs perceive meaning and meaning gaps in the profession, as well as …

Emerging Adulthood, Identity Conflict, And Self-Compassion’S Impact On Mental Health Interference Of Collegiate Student-Athletes, Courtney Amber Shields

Dissertations

Prior research identified a strong connection between experiences of being a collegiate student-athlete with mental health-related struggles; however, little research has been conducted into how the competing identities of student and athlete within a heavy identity developmental period (emerging adulthood) might be impacting mental-health interference. The purpose of this quantitative study was to understand how emerging adulthood, student identity, athletic identity, and the conflicting role of student-athlete identity had in mental health interference on training, competition, and willingness to see a sports psychologist within collegiate student-athletes as well as how self-compassion moderated these relationships. The following research questions guided this …

Reinforcement Learning And Virtual Human Animation: A Novel Approach To Data-Driven Animation, Portraying Dynamic, Flexible Human-Like Behaviours, Vihanga Gamage

Dissertations

Virtual characters require animation capable of portraying dynamic, context-sensitive human-like behaviours. Several approaches to generating such animation have been developed, but each carries limitations. Motion capture can produce high-fidelity animation but is expensive and ill-suited to systems that must respond in real time. Physics-based reinforcement learning (RL) enables flexible, dynamic behaviour portrayal, yet relies on simulation feedback signals that are unavailable for social gestures. Supervised approaches can learn social behaviours from motion capture data but yield agents with limited flexibility and generalisation.

This thesis presents RLAnimate, a model-based, data-driven RL framework for character animation that enables a single agent to …

Rural Secondary Principals’ Perceptions Of Their Role In Transition Planning For Students With Disabilities, Christina Natascha Ruffatti

Dissertations

The purpose of this instrumental case study was to investigate rural secondary principals’ perceptions of their role and challenges experienced in transition planning for students with disabilities. Transition planning for students with disabilities has been federally mandated since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1990), emphasizing positive postsecondary outcomes. However, limited research has existed on principals’ roles, particularly in rural contexts.

Participants included 11 principals from small rural districts across 5 regions in Colorado. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using a hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding, guided by Kohler et al.’s (2016) Taxonomy for …

Cognitive And Affective Factors Related To Geoscience Academic And Career Choice, Amanda Diane Manzanares

Dissertations

Recruitment and retention continue to be a challenge for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. Research shows that both cognitive and affective factors influence student learning, which can then shape academic and career choice. Therefore, my alternatively formatted dissertation includes three articles examining two STEM disciplines: geosciences and Interdisciplinary Environmental and Sustainability programs adding to prior research and further uncovering specific factors that could predict student educational and professional aspirations.

Regarding cognition, students often begin STEM courses with pre-existing mental frameworks, also referred to as schemas that are formed by their prior experiences. These schemas may conflict with established …

Measuring The Accuracy Of Hierarchal Linear Models And Visual Analysis For Evaluating Single-Case Designs, Justin Myers

Dissertations

Behavior analysts often use single-case experimental designs to evaluate behavioral interventions. Data are typically analyzed through the visual analysis of graphs. Visual analysis has several limitations, however. Visual analysis has only moderate inter-rater reliability and small effects can be difficult to detect, especially if data are variable. Hierarchal Linear Models (HLMs) have been proposed as method for quantifying results of single-case designs. HLMs are a type of statistical model that can evaluate the effectiveness of treatment with nested data, whereby sessions are nested within treatment conditions. An advantage of HLMs over other statistical tests is that they do not require …

Examination Of Caregiver Supervision Practices And Beliefs Among Caregivers Of Children With Bleeding Disorders, Sophia Noelle Prokos

Dissertations

Abstract: Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for young children in the United States, and children with chronic medical conditions such as bleeding disorders are at elevated risk for injury and more severe outcomes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2021; Mayes et al., 2009; Shen et al., 2016). While caregiver supervision is a known strategy for injury prevention (Damashek & Corlis, 2017; Morrongiello et al., 2011), limited research has examined how supervision beliefs and practices differ for caregivers of children with bleeding disorders. The present study compared caregiver supervision, injury attitudes, and injury history between …

Framing The Problem To Meet The Policy Solution: An Embedded Mixed Methods Case Study Of The 2017 Michigan Opioid Laws, Leandra Hawkins Burke

Dissertations

The opioid crisis presents a wicked problem for public administration. Hundreds of thousands of people have died from opioid overdoses in the United States, and countless others have experienced severe opioid-related physical, psychological, and socioeconomic harms. Countering the opioid crisis has been difficult due to interdependencies across different drugs and multiple pathways for abuse and dependence. Many scholars, health providers, and politicians have called for a broad public health approach to combat the opioid crisis, but the full expanse of what that would entail has not yet been realized. What has been demonstrated is that interactions targeting a single aspect …

The Impact Of Feedback Timing On Work Performance When There Is A Long Duration Between Sessions, Priyanka B. Dave

Dissertations

Performance feedback is a powerful tool central to many functions at work, as it guides, motivates, and rewards employees’ behaviors. To better understand the function of feedback, previous research has examined the impact of feedback’s timing (proximal to the previous per-formance versus proximal to the next performance) on the effectiveness of feedback. However, the findings have been mixed across studies. Studies with less than 1-day between session dura-tions tend to find no difference between after-session versus before-session feedback. However, investigations with multiple-day between session durations tend to find improved performance with before-session feedback. This study used a counterbalanced across-subject design …

Examination Of The Association Between Parent Beliefs About Injury And Supervision Behavior, Felicia Acelia Diaz

Dissertations

Unintentional Injuries are the leading cause of death for children in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2021). Several studies have indicated that caregiver beliefs (such as locus of control) are associated with children’s injury risk (Damashek et al., 2005), but few studies have examined whether caregiver beliefs about injury are related to caregiver’s injury prevention behaviors, such as caregiver supervision. Examination of caregiver beliefs regarding supervision revealed that caregiver’s degree of belief in the preventability of childhood injuries predicted self-report scores on several measures of supervision. Caregiver’s degree of …

Mechanistic And Evolutionary Insights Into A Group Of Nicotine And Hydroxynicotine Degrading Flavoenzymes, Zhiyao Zhang

Dissertations

Flavoprotein amine oxidases (FAOs) are key enzymes in various kinds of metabolic pathways, mediating redox reactions via flavin cofactors. While most FAOs function as oxidases that readily reduce oxygen to hydrogen peroxide, a few outliers of the FAO family act as dehydrogenases that suppress the reaction with oxygen. The molecular basis for this divergence in function remains poorly understood.

The work presented in this study investigates the fundamental mechanisms of how flavincontaining enzymes activate or suppress their reaction with different electron acceptors to achieve high turnover rates. The overall body of work is divided into three different sections that (1) …

Collaborative Action In Education: Empirical Explorations Of The Role Of Partnerships In College Readiness Programs, Jose A. Sanchez

Dissertations

Education gaps exist in the United States in large part because not everyone has equal access to the educational resources or role models that will prepare them to seek a college education. To help combat this phenomenon, Federal and State Governments have promoted college readiness programs via collaborative partnerships between school districts, on the one hand, and colleges and universities, on the other.

To better understand the role that partners can play in creating and sustaining college-readiness programs, this study focused on the history and current practices of collaborations involving oversight of college readiness programs in two school districts. Partnership …

Human Resource Management And Black Teachers’ Employee Experience In K-12 Urban Public Schools, Danielle Renee Cooper-Williams

Dissertations

National teacher data indicate that publicly funded schools in the United States struggle to retain Black teachers in high-need urban areas and in comparison to other groups (Carver-Thomas & Darling Hammond, 2017). This qualitative investigation employed case study methodology. The case study focused on one school within a charter management organization (CMO), exploring interactions among Black teachers and their supervising administrators at the site and management organization levels. The study was organized around concepts articulated at the nexus of teacher retention scholarship and human resource management theory, two bodies of literature yet to be substantially integrated to understand Black teachers’ …

The Experiences Of Elite, Female Club Volleyball Players – An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Chelsea Brehm

Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the lived experiences of female athletes participating in national-level club volleyball in a Midwestern U.S. state. Amid increasing sport privatization and a growing emphasis on early sport specialization, female athletes in club volleyball are navigating complex pressures tied to elite competition, college recruitment, and psychosocial well-being. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this study sought to uncover how athletes experience and make meaning of their participation in this highly demanding sport structure.

Data collection included a demographic survey distributed to national-level athletes (n = 66) and in-depth, semistructured interviews with five female …

Understanding The Experiences And Perceptions Of Faculty Supporting Undergraduate Students With Mental Health Challenges, Jenna Ranee Parbati Jamieson

Dissertations

College is a big adjustment for students, and it doesn't come without its challenges, including being in a new place with new responsibilities. This is a stressful time that presents new obstacles and frustrations that can lead to increased stress, anxiety, depression, and mental health challenges that may cause faculty to engage and support undergraduate students with mental health challenges. As students adjust and transition to college, it is vital for university faculty to feel confident and comfortable supporting students from diverse backgrounds with varying levels of distress. By interviewing faculty, a better understanding of their lived experiences and perceptions …

Too Big To Fail? Using Microsatellites To Examine The Population Genetics Of Flathead Catfish (Pylodictis Olivaris) In Missouri Impoundments, Aaron Krolow

Dissertations

Flathead Catfish (Pylodictis olivaris) is a popular sportfish managed for recreational and commercial uses. Currently, managers in Missouri have implemented various reservoir-specific bag and length limits for P. olivaris to create sustainable populations of quality-sized individuals available for anglers to capture. In conjunction with field studies to estimate growth rates and size/age distributions, I developed and scored 15 microsatellite markers to estimate the effective population (Ne) and population structure within 10 Missouri reservoirs. I assessed the power of the markers to get acceptably precise estimates of Ne using NEoGen assuming life-history parameters (e.g., age at maturity, longevity and fecundity) estimated …

Difficulty In American Dramatic Literature, David Turkel

Dissertations

Speaking broadly, this dissertation explores the marginalization of American drama within the field of literary studies. In attempting to account for this marginalization, theater scholars have tended to invoke the genre’s supposed lack of “difficulty,” meaning its failure to pose meaningful interpretive challenges to its readers. However, this dissertation takes an alternative view of the matter, contending that if American drama has indeed been marginalized, it is not because literary studies departments have regarded it as intrinsically “simpler” than other literary genres; in fact, it is theater scholars who have been more likely to read the genre as simple, or …

Engagement Of Secondary History Social Science Teachers With Professional Development: A Phenomenological Study, Suzanne Paulazzo

Dissertations

Secondary social science teachers tend to feel disengaged and frustrated with their professional development (PD) experiences. They also feel that recommended meaningful practices appear to be time-consuming, require extra hours of preparation, and rely heavily on collaboration. Using phenomenological methodology, the dissertation research investigated secondary social science teachers' perceptions of their roles as educators, their professional growth, and their motivations for engaging in professional development opportunities. Nine male and one female teacher participants from a History-Social-Science Department in an urban public school in Northern California participated in an interview. This study addressed the following research questions: How do teachers perceive …

Resilience In Crisis: How Bipoc Educators Navigated The Challenges Associated With Covid-19, Racial Awakening, And The Move To Online Learning, Jannet Galicia Castrejon

Dissertations

An unprecedented number of BIPOC teachers exited the profession since June 2020 largely due to the challenges posted by the COVID-19 pandemic (Doan et al., 2024). This study aimed to investigate ways these educators coped with the heavy toll of the converging pandemic(s) by asking what, if anything, sustained them? Participants provided individual and group testimonios and shared snapshots of what it was like to teach and exist during this time via the photovoice methodology and reflected on the challenges and sources of support. BIPOC teachers described the following challenges: difficulty connecting with kids, first-hand and vicarious trauma, increased workload, …

The Effect Of Cognitive Biases And Organizational Constructs On Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation Success In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Pls-Sem Approach, Michael Davidson

Dissertations

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are crucial to enhancing organizational performance, efficiency, and strategic competitiveness in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). ERP adoption in SMEs has been known to fail, with more than 75% of the implementations considered failures. These barriers are compounded by cognitive biases, such as temporal discounting (TD) and optimism bias (OB), which skew the strategic decision-making process. The framework suggested in this paper explains the relationships between top management support (TMS), information quality (IQ), system quality (SQ), user satisfaction (US), optimism bias (OB), and temporal discounting (TD) and their impact on ERP implementation success (EIS) and …

Screening For Bullying In A Middle School Setting, Paige Bernau

Dissertations

Problem: Bullied youth are two and a half times more likely to experience depression and three times more likely to experience anxiety and suicidal ideation than their peers (Li et al., 2024). Schools represent a key access point for mental health support and treatment for youth (Duong et al., 2020). Despite this, schools typically do not have formal bullying screening integrated into student support services.

Methods: This program evaluation used a descriptive, observational design to evaluate a bullying screening program in a suburban middle-school. This program used the California Bullying Victimization Scale (CBVS) to assess for bullying victimization (BV) followed …

Implementation Of A Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Toolkit Postpartum, Eriola Arapi

Dissertations

Problem: Despite strong recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC, 2021) for HPV vaccination in individuals aged 9 to 26, postpartum women

are often overlooked as a target population. Every year in the U.S., oncogenic human

papillomavirus (HPV) infection causes approximately 330,000 cases of precancerous cervical

dysplasia and 12,000 cases of cervical cancer, the most common female cancer attributable to

HPV (Wang et al., 2024). Many providers miss the opportunity to offer the vaccine during the

postpartum hospital stay and the six-week visit—when patients are insured, motivated, and

more accessible.

Methods: This quality improvement (QI) project used …

Implementation Of An Evidence-Based Postpartum Depression Screening Tool In A Level Iv Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Morgan A. Takacs

Dissertations

Problem: Postpartum depression (PPD) affects up to 40% of mothers with infants admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), yet many remain undiagnosed due to the absence of standardized screening protocols. Early identification and referral to Perinatal Behavioral Health Services (PBHS) is critical to support maternal well-being and improve neonatal outcomes.

Methods: This evidence-based quality improvement project utilized a descriptive and correlational design to evaluate the impact of implementing the Patient Health Questionnaire-8 (PHQ-8) for PPD screening among mothers of infants born ≤ 32 weeks’ gestation in a Level IV NICU. A convenience sample of 29 mothers received the …

Evaluation Of A Behavioral Response Team To Decrease Use Of Violent Restraint, Katherine Skrade

Dissertations

Abstract Introduction: The purpose of this Quality Improvement project was to evaluate the implementation of the Behavioral Assessment and Response Team (BART) and evaluate its effect on occurrence and duration of violent restraints on non-psychiatric floors in a pediatric hospital. This QI project also aimed to correlate the use of the Broset Violence Checklist (BVC) to the utilization of the BART as a means of predicting patient escalation, as well as to assess the effect of booster education on the BVC and BART on bedside staff confidence in utilization of these resources.

Methods: Data was collected across three time periods: …

Implementing A Standardized Protocol To Screen For Depression In A Gastroenterology Outpatient Clinic, Catherine M. Karle

Dissertations

Problem: There is a lack of mental health screenings for depression taking place in outpatient gastrointestinal (GI) clinics. Outpatient gastrointestinal (GI) offices are not consistently screening patients for depression despite a rise in depression rates and the known adverse impact depression can have on the GI tract.

Methods: This Quality Improvement (QI) study used a descriptive research design guided by the Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice (JHNEBP) Model. Its purpose was to implement a 10-week PHQ-2/PHQ-8 depression screening protocol at a large midwestern health center's gastroenterology outpatient clinic. The study used purposive sampling, including all GI outpatients aged 18+ with …