Digital Commons Network^™

Staying In The Game: A Study On Mentorship And Persistence Of Women Ncaa Division Iii Athletics Directors, Myranda Hope Nash

Dissertations

Mentorship and persistence among women NCAA Division III Athletics Directors (ADs) remain underexamined despite their significance for leadership continuity. With women comprising only 33% of Division III ADs, intentional mentorship is essential to advancing gender equity in collegiate athletics. This qualitative study analyzes interviews with ten women ADs to examine mentorship structures, professional trajectories, and psychosocial outcomes. Seven themes emerged: institutional culture and alignment; supervisors as mentors; queen bee syndrome; career pathways; influential leadership; Clutterbuck’s mentorship phases; and psychosocial support. Informal mentorship proved most effective, frequently developing into sustained professional relationships. Participants reported increased confidence, validation, and emotional support, particularly …

The Impact On General Education Students’ Perceptions Of Their Peers With Special Needs When Implementing An Inclusive Buddy Club Program, Katherine Coker

Dissertations

The aim of this study is to explore the impact on general education students’ perceptions of their classmates with special needs after participating in a buddy club. By fostering peer interactions in structured, inclusive settings, the buddy club creates opportunities for students to interact and better understand the experiences of their peers with special needs. There is a lack of research regarding the positive or negative impact of partnering elementary-aged general education students with their special needs peers. Therefore, this study is framed by the following research questions: (1) What are general education students’ perceptions towards their classmates with special …

Statistical Approaches In Evolutionary Biology: Using Threespine Stickleback Fish To Test Fisher's Geometric Model And Evaluate Methods For Handling Missing Data, Aaron Mathew Myrold

Dissertations

This thesis explores two distinct yet complementary aspects of evolutionary biology. The first chapter tests predictions from Fisher's geometric model of adaptation using a finely resolved fossil sequence of Gasterosteus doryssus spanning approximately 21,250 years. I analyze phenotypic changes in three armor traits during adaptation to a new environment and find that while step sizes follow the predicted exponential distribution—with many small steps and few large ones—they do not adhere to the model's temporal prediction that large-effect mutations should fix early in the adaptive walk. This discrepancy likely reflects adaptation from standing genetic variation rather than de novo mutation. The …

“Remember, You Are Not A Superhuman”: The Lived Experience Of Rest, Unrest, And Leadership In Special Operations, Trey Zoda

Dissertations

U.S. special operations forces (SOF) operate in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments that demand cognitive clarity, emotional regulation, and relational presence. While previous research on SOF readiness has addressed physical fitness, resilience, and sleep, little attention has been given to the psychological dimensions of rest and their implications for leadership. The purpose of this qualitative, transcendental phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of psychological rest and unrest in U.S. government SOF and the perceived influence of these states on their leadership. Guided by Moustakas’s transcendental method, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with SOF personnel. They were …

Middle-Level Teachers’ Attitudes On Disciplinary Literacy Instruction In The Non-Ela Classroom, Katherine E. Bowers

Dissertations

The persistent gaps in student achievement, particularly in the context of discipline-specific literacy skills, across public schools in the United States continue to widen. With a focus on South Carolina, this study investigates how professional development efforts have sought to address these gaps and enhance literacy instruction. Despite many initiatives, testing scores and teacher perceptions reveal limited progress in literacy outcomes. The study discusses a key challenge: the lack of substantial literacy instruction beyond English language arts (ELA) classes, resulting in a growing disparity between literacy mastery and the current reality. The research acknowledges the existence of literacy-focused professional development …

Leadership Communication And Symbolic Language In Organizational Change: A Study In Higher Education, Christine Fischer

Dissertations

Higher education institutions face growing pressures related to affordability, accessibility, and trust. In this environment, leadership communication, especially symbolic language that frames transformation as mission-aligned, plays a central role in shaping organizational change. This qualitative single-case study examined how leaders at a private Christian liberal arts college used metaphors, narratives, and values-based discourse to communicate an innovative tuition model and how this language influenced stakeholder perceptions, engagement, and resistance. Data included 26 leadership communication documents, a metaphor-based faculty and staff survey, and eight semi-structured interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis and metaphorical analysis were used to interpret symbolic language, meaning-making processes, and …

Healthcare Providers’ Lived Experiences During Pivotal Change, Lisa Raynelle Shelley

Dissertations

This phenomenological study examined healthcare providers’ lived experiences of psychological safety and administrative leader behaviors that influenced those experiences during pivotal change. While much research addressed psychological safety among frontline healthcare staff, a gap was noticed concerning providers. This study aimed to investigate the impact of psychological safety and administrative support on provider engagement, emotional response, and retention during periods of significant change. Data were collected via a survey containing multiple-choice and open-ended questions, followed by semi-structured interviews. Four findings emerged. First, the providers’ pivotal events generated themes of “workplace power dynamics,” “systemic and organizational change,” “transformational crisis,” and “physical …

Including Conscientiously: How Charter School Educators Experience Inclusion Education Implementation, Joe A. Petty

Dissertations

This narrative inquiry examined how charter school educators experience inclusive education implementation while confronting ableist systems that maintain exclusion through seemingly neutral practices. This research emerged from my lived experience of how educational structures systematically marginalize disabled students while appearing progressive. The study investigated two research questions: how support structures and leadership practices either perpetuate or dismantle ableist assumptions embedded in educational practice, and how educators negotiate tensions between implementing evidence-based inclusive strategies and addressing environmental factors that create the need for those strategies.

Data collection employed semistructured interviews with eight credentialed educators across two Southern California charter school sites, …

Assessing The Selection And Impact Of Completeness In Technical Measure Sets In Systems Engineering, Casey Eaton

Dissertations

Technical measurement is foundational in large-scale complex engineered systems (LSCES) design and contract awards due to the state of practice of systems engineering. Although technical measurement is ubiquitous in systems engineering practice, the selection and assessment of the impact of a set of technical measures is often heuristics-based, rather than based on empirical evidence or theory. Current technical measure set selection has been observed to be subject to many challenges which, in turn, can degrade system outcomes. Two main thrusts comprise the research: selection and impact. Motivated by the potential impacts of a poor set of technical measures, a significant …

A Rubber-Band System For Dynamic Incentivization Of Parallelized Gamified Objectives, Nicholas Diliberti

Dissertations

With the advent of videogames as the world's first mass-market interactive media, gamification has emerged as the premier way to harness powerful behavior-affecting gamified elements and place them in other contexts, such as education, fitness, and rehabilitation. This transposition, however, ignores a key tenant of user engagement: reward ought to be aligned with effort. Most, if not all, current gamification systems dispatch static reward allocations for their spread of gamified behaviors. In this paper, an alternative is presented: dynamic gamification. This dynamic gamification reads the user's current gamified state for indicators of aptitude, dynamically remaps rewards with a tuneable evaluation …

Becoming A Leader “On The Job”: An Exploratory Study Examining How Internal Interim Leaders Build Their Leadership Capacity While Nonprofit Executive Directors Are On Sabbatical, Michelle Schneider

Dissertations

Nonprofit organizations have long underinvested in leadership development, potentially hindering their ability to fulfill their missions effectively. This study examined the use of nonprofit organization sabbaticals that give executive directors time away while building the leadership capabilities of the interim leader. This research explored the on-the-job leadership development of six individuals who served as interim leaders in southern California nonprofit organizations during their executive directors' participation in a 3-month, foundation-funded sabbatical program.

In this study, data were collected through in-depth interviews with interim leaders. A formative influences timeline technique was employed to center the participant's voice rather than the interviewer's …

Living In The Hyphen: Creating Puentes Through Encuentros And Pláticas With Latinx Cross-Cultural Kids, Jennifer Jane Daby

Dissertations

Latinx cross-cultural kids, or children of immigrants, are often faced with a feeling of not belonging to mainstream American culture nor their parents’ home culture(s) of origin. As such, they are viewed through a deficit lens and forced to negotiate their sense of identity and belonging through language and culture to fit in. By embracing the concept of educación, using culturally responsive methods of encuentros and pláticas with cross-cultural kids and their families, this study intends to find ways to foster a sense of belonging for this population in schools through participants’ testimonies. It aims to find ways to bridge …

Church Ministers' Perceptions On Burnout And How It Shapes Their Leadership Practices., Jason Young

Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study explored how large church ministry leaders experienced burnout and how that burnout shaped their leadership practices. The study was motivated by a research gap concerning the lived experiences of ministers in large churches. Framed by the job demands-resources theory and the conservation of resources theory, the study sought to understand how the demands of ministry leadership and the availability of personal and organizational resources influenced the experience of burnout. The research employed a qualitative phenomenological design, utilizing semi-structured interviews. A purposive and snowball sampling approach was used to recruit 13 large US church ministry leaders. The …

The Impact Of Professionalism Education And Formative Feedback In Doctor Of Physical Therapy Students Utilizing The Abbreviated Cpi Feedback Form In The On-Campus Clinic Environment, William L. Scott

Dissertations

Problem

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) developed the Clinical Performance Instrument (CPI) to assess the professional behaviors required for a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) student to be considered "entry level" in their clinical training. Feedback from our clinical partners has indicated that, historically, students from the Andrews University DPT program have scored lower than students from other programs in several areas of the CPI during their clinical experiences. According to subjective reports from our clinical partners, these areas included safety, professional behavior, accountability, communication, and critical thinking. These five areas have been the focus of our efforts in …

Moral Identity And Its Relationship To Higher Education Mentoring And Community Service Engagement, Maria O. Rodriguez

Dissertations

Problem

A moral action is a result of the engagement of multiple psychological processes set in motion when an individual faces a moral conflict. Research suggests that an individual's moral reasoning and moral identity strongly influence the psychological processes that precede a moral action. Recent studies have shown that higher education positively influences students' moral reasoning; however, there is a lack of understanding as to the degree to which higher education can influence the moral identity of students.

Method

This study performed a quantitative cross-sectional study to investigate the relationship between independent variables—mentoring experiences and community service engagement—and dependent variables—moral …

Support Needs Of Agrarian Women To Build Household Livelihood Resilience: A Case Study Of The Mekong River Delta, Tran Thi Ngoc Tran

Dissertations

Problem

Rural livelihood faces significant challenges due to the increasing frequency and severity of climate change impacts. However, the development of women’s livelihood resilience remains constrained by gender-blind policies, limited sex-disaggregated data, and a lack of integration of gender-specific needs and priorities in resilience-building interventions. This study aims to address these critical gaps. This study aims at exploring the perceived support needs of rural agrarian women in building household livelihood resilience to climate change. Specifically, it seeks to (1) understand how household livelihood resilience is perceived by rural agrarian women, and (2) identify the support they require to effectively adapt …

The Relationship Between Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, And Anxiety Levels Among College Students In Saudi Arabia, Tahani Aljuaid

Dissertations

Problem

Anxiety is one of the most common psychological issues affecting youth globally and is particularly prevalent among Saudi adolescents and college students. Studies in Saudi Arabia have reported anxiety rates ranging from 48.9% to 66.2% among adolescents and high levels of generalized anxiety among university students, especially females (Aldosary et al., 2023; Alhabeeb et al., 2023). Poor emotion regulation has been identified as a key factor associated with anxiety and other mental health difficulties. In recent years, mindfulness has gained attention as a protective factor that promotes better emotion regulation and reduces anxiety symptoms. Despite this growing recognition, there …

From Devout Follower Of Muhammad To Committed Disciple Of Jesus: Principles And Methods Of Transition Phase Discipleship Among Adventist Believers From A Muslim Background In Ethiopia, Temesgen Bulti Besha

Dissertations

Islam is the second most dominant religion in Ethiopia commanding about 34 percent of the over one hundred ten million population of the country. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has not been successful, until recently, to effectively reach this large and growing Muslim population. In the last decade and half, hundreds of Ethiopian Muslims are coming to faith in Christ through the ministry of the Church. However, church members, leaders, and disciplers lack adequate understanding of the transition phase discipleship during which the new believers from Muslim background (BMBs) go through considerable challenges such as persecution, lack of social and economic …

War-Displaced International Students: A Qualitative Study Of Factors Influencing The Integration Of Ukrainians At A Midwestern Healthcare College, Ivan Riapolov

Dissertations

Problem

The war in Ukraine has disrupted the country’s higher education system, displacing Ukrainian students and affecting their mental well-being. These students encounter numerous challenges while adapting to new academic and cultural environments abroad. Higher education professionals must recognize and address the unique experiences and needs of international students by region of origin to better serve these populations. This study aimed to explore the factors that influence the social and academic integration of Ukrainian international students into a new culture and to inform institutions of the best practices for creating supportive environments for international students.

Method

The qualitative study explored …

Religious Participation, Subjective Happiness, And Purpose In Life As Predictors Of Psychological Resilience Among College Students At A Faith-Based Institution In The United States, Elaine Powell Oliver

Dissertations

Problem

During the transition from adolescence to adulthood, also known as emerging adulthood, many college students experience psychological distress, such as anxiety, depression, stress, and loneliness (Arnett & Tanner, 2009; DeRosier et al., 2013). For some students, their psychological distress will impact how they perform academically and whether they will persist in their academic goals (Hartley, 2012; Robbins et al., 2018). Many students lack the resilience needed to survive and thrive amid the challenges of college life (Lane, 2020; McLafferty et al., 2022; Watkins et al., 2012). -- Resilience is considered an essential psychological characteristic to assist students in navigating …

Burnout And Quality Of Life As Predictors Of Compassion Fatigue In Inner-City Teachers In The United States, Helen Richelle Ceballo-Hernández

Dissertations

Problem

Teachers are under great stress which can result in burnout and the feeling of being overloaded with work. In turn, burnout can induce compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is often referred to in the literature as repeated exposure to others’ trauma endured by first responders, nurses, and other medical professionals as well as others in the helping profession such as therapists and social workers. The empathy of helping professionals incites compassion fatigue for those whom they help. Teachers, though not originally classified as part of the helping professions, are susceptible to compassion fatigue due to their empathy and the amount …

The Role Of Support And Prayer In Enhancing The Psychological Well-Being Of Cancer Patients In Canada, Emmanuel N. Mbah

Dissertations

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to investigate the role of family support, friends' support, community support, and prayer on the psychological well-being of cancer patients in Canada.

Methodology

A survey research method was used in this study. The survey was distributed through the QuestionPro audience and had 721 viewers, 674 respondents, and 400 participants (i.e., those who completed the survey). The survey completion rate was 59.35%, with an average completion time of 9 minutes. Most participants were Christians (62.0%), some were unaffiliated (29.5%), and the remaining participants were either Muslims, World Religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. …

Exploring Educator Burnout: Experiences And Perceptions Of Teachers And Principals In Canadian K-12 Seventh-Day Adventist Schools, David Anthony Elias

Dissertations

Problem

Burnout among educators is a growing concern, particularly within faith-based school systems where teachers often balance high professional expectations with spiritual commitments. In K-12 Canadian Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) schools, limited research has explored how burnout manifests, the factors contributing to it, and its impact on teacher retention. This study aimed to examine the levels and causes of burnout among SDA educators, as well as the systemic factors influencing their experiences.

Method

This study employed an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. Quantitative data were collected using the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Educators Survey (MBI-ES) to measure emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced …

Inner Life, Spiritual Leadership, And Spiritual Well-Being As Predictors Of The Organizational Performance Of Employees At A Seventh-Day Adventist University In Latin America, Patricio Ordoñez

Dissertations

Problem

While traditional leadership models, such as transactional and transformational leadership, have shown success, recent research highlights the need for leadership approaches that address the spiritual and ethical dimensions of individuals in the workplace. Leaders who fail to integrate spiritual leadership risk negatively impacting employee satisfaction, creativity, and overall organizational performance. Despite the well-established concepts of inner life and spiritual well-being, more research is needed to understand their effects on employee performance in faith-based institutions. This study sought to fill that gap by examining the relationship among inner life, spiritual leadership, and spiritual well-being as predictors of organizational performance among …

Perceived Social Support And Religious Attitudes As Correlates Of Spiritual Well-Being Among Senior Undergraduate Students At Northeast Brazil Adventist University, Hebert Davi Liessi

Dissertations

Problem

Even though the study of spirituality has been a recurrent theme in academia, in Brazil there has been little emphasis on the analysis of spiritual well-being in the context of university students. Few studies have examined the correlation of spiritual well-being with perceived social support or religious attitudes among university students, and most of these have been in the fields of health care or health recovery. Some research has indicated that religious attitudes may be partially disconnected from improvements in the level of spirituality. -- This study aimed to verify whether this disconnection is real or relevant, and assumed …

Relationship Between Financial Literacy And Financial Behavior Among Seventh-Day Adventist Full-Time Pastors In The North American Division Of The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Edwin G. Romero

Dissertations

Problem

This investigation intended to examine the relationship between the financial literacy components of full-time pastors and their financial behavior components. Many pastors struggle with their finances and often retire unprepared due to having inaccurate or incomplete knowledge of relevant financial information and planning strategies.

Method

This study adopted a quantitative, descriptive, and correlational approach to investigate the financial and demographic characteristics of pastors. The questionnaire completed by participants was the financial literacy questionnaire developed by Stella et al. (2020), which helped measure general financial literacy among full-time pastors, and the Financial Management Behavior Scale (FMBS) developed by Xiao (2008) …

International Students' Perceptions Of Enrollment Support Services At Andrews University: An Analysis Of 2021-2024 Data, Erica Fernanda Zaccariotto Batista

Dissertations

Problem

Enrollment services are crucial in shaping students' early experiences by guiding them through complex administrative processes and facilitating their adjustment to the higher education environment. Research indicates that the quality of these services significantly impacts students' first impressions, engagement, and overall satisfaction with their educational journey. However, a gap exists in research specifically focused on how enrollment services affect the experiences of international students navigating higher education. This study examines international students' perceptions regarding enrollment services at Andrews University from 2021 to 2024. It aims to identify the key factors that influence international student enrollment data, evaluate their perceptions …

Educator Perspectives Of High School Long-Term English Learners, Martin Gutierrez Jr.

Dissertations

This qualitative study was twofold. The study began by exploring how educators perceive students who are Long Term English Learners (LTELs) and then moved to an autoethnographic examination of the researcher’s own secondary school experiences as an LTEL. The research reviewed teacher and administrator perceptions by focusing on three high school teachers who taught Long Term English Learners during the study period to understand the reclassification process. The researcher interviewed a district-level administrator to understand institutional policies and procedures that determine LTEL student identification and reclassification processes. The researcher presented their autoethnographic narrative to explore how holistic measures support multilingual …

Bilingual Latinx Adolescents Experiences In A Predominantly White Institution: A Mixed Method Study, Danieli Marie Mercado Ramos

Dissertations

Extent scholarship has provided insight into how Latinx adolescents actively experience exclusion. These adolescents are often the targets of microaggressions tied to their language (Gonzalez et al., 2018), ethnicity, race, and intersecting identities--such as being bilingual Latinx students--which serve as reminders that they do not belong. However, little is known about Spanish-English bilingual Latinx adolescents and how their heritage language plays a role in predominantly white spaces and institutions. This convergent parallel mixed methods study explored how Spanish-English bilingual Latinx students in the Midwest described their experiences in a predominantly white institution (PWI). A total of 42 Spanish-English bilingual Latinx …

The Impact Of Lactobacillus Supplementation On Gut Microbiome Composition And Phage Induction In Mice, Kimia Boreiri

Dissertations

The mammalian gastrointestinal (GI) tract harbors a dense and dynamic community of microbes known as the gut microbiota, which plays vital roles in digestion, immunity, and overall health. Among these, probiotic bacteria such as Lactobacillus strains have garnered attention for their ability to influence microbial community structure and host physiology. This study investigated the effects of five Lactobacillus strains, Lactobacillus casei R1A482, Lactobacillus casei O3, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, Lactobacillus gasseri ATCC 33323, and Lactobacillus paragasseri UMB1065, on the gut microbiome of Swiss Webster mice over a six-week feeding period. To reduce stress, mice were fed Lactobacillus strains using gelatin pellets …