Digital Commons Network^™

From College To Career: Understanding First Generation And Traditional Community College Transfer Students' Major And Career Choices, Jeff Scott Shelton

Dissertations and Theses

While the connection between major choice and career goals seems logically obvious, research exploring this process is limited, particularly concerning how socio-economic class, based on parents' educational levels, influences the choice process. An important initial step in understanding this larger process is to explore how SES-based differences affect the process of choosing a major, a career goal and the way in which students link their major to a possible career.

This study utilizes a comparative interview design to explore the lived experiences regarding major and career aspirations of first generation and traditional college seniors who have transferred from a community …

Fostering Strengths In Incarcerated Youth: The Development Of A Measure Of Psychological Empowerment In Oregon Youth Authority Correctional Facilities, Lindsey Brianna Patterson

Dissertations and Theses

Research on juvenile offender treatment and intervention has called for a shift from a deficits-based to a strengths-based approach (Marshall, Ward, Mann, Moulden, Fernandez, Serran, & Marshall, 2005; Wormith, Althouse, Simpson, Reitzel, Fagan, & Morgan, 2007; Zeldin, 2004). One potential approach to treatment fosters a sense of psychological empowerment in youth. Although research has yet to explore the experience of psychological empowerment within incarcerated youth, theory on empowerment suggests that it could help youth to create both cognitive (e.g., increased self-esteem, increased confidence) and behavioral (e.g., improving quality of life, social integration) changes in their lives (Cargo, Grams, Ottoson, Ward, …

Lighting The Fire: How Peer-Mentoring Helps Adult Learners Increase Their Interest In Stem Careers: A Case Study At The Community College Level, Patricia Marie Deturk

Dissertations and Theses

In the U.S., about 7,000 high school students drop out each school day, representing a loss of talent and ability. Concurrently, there are a decreasing number of enrolled students taking science-related courses at the high school and college levels. Adults, who return to obtain their General Educational Development (GED) certification, are an untapped resource that could be steered toward STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers. In this case study, 15 GED students were shown a STEM video, and then peer mentored by 8 CLA (Clinical Laboratory Assistant) students, in a student-centered laboratory experience. Individual interviews of the GED students …

"Who Would Have Thought, With A Diagnosis Like This, I Would Be Happy?": Portraits Of Perceived Strengths And Resources In Early-Stage Dementia, Jutta Elisabeth Ataie

Dissertations and Theses

This study used photovoice methodology to explore how people with early-stage dementia use their perceived strength and resources to cope with the illness. Purposive sampling was used to recruit participants. Thirteen women and seven men age 57 to 90 (mean 73.4) with MMSE scores ranging from 20 to 28 (mean 25.6) participated in the project. Participants were provided with a disposable camera and invited to take photographs relevant to their well-being. The photographs provided the means for participants to take the lead in dialogue sessions about their coping response.

Grounded theory analysis revealed that initially, early-stage dementia precipitated a disruption …

First-Generation Latinos At Pacific Northwest University: Their Adjustment And Experience During Freshman Year, Marco Antonio Aguirre

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis details the lived experiences of ten first-generation Latino students at a large public university in the Pacific Northwest. Their experience and adjustment reveal that they relied on their friends and family, especially their parents for the male participants, for support and encouragement. The help these students received in the form of caring and social capital from faculty and staff during their freshman year ensured that they made a successful adjustment to college. Participants cite influential people and programs that motivated them to succeed and become comfortable in the college student role.

Perceived Dangerousness Of The Job And Well-Being Among Correctional Officers: The Role Of Perceived Stress And Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (Fssb), David Duane Meier

Dissertations and Theses

Occupational stress has become a world-wide epidemic exacting severe tolls on both businesses and employees alike. Of all the workplace stressors, the perceived dangerousness of one's job is ever present within the occupation of corrections. The current study examined the mediating process of perceived stress on the relationship between perceived dangerousness of the job and the negative employee well-being outcomes of work-family conflict and symptoms of psychological distress, as well as the moderating effects of family supportive supervisor behaviors on this process. As part of a larger study, survey data were collected from 1,370 state correctional officers. It was hypothesized …

Le Développement Du Moi Et Le Procédé Thérapeutique Dans Les Œuvres De Chrétien De Troyes, Clément Guillaume

Dissertations and Theses

While we can easily acknowledge that many aspects the texts written by Chrétien de Troyes have been studied and discussed through the centuries, it is always possible to apply a new reading to the author's work. Like many authors of the same time period, the author of Le Conte du graal and LeChevalier de la charrette was not only writing for the audience of his time but was also openly targeting an audience set in a different century and social context. This timeless aspect of Chrétien's work is part of what makes his texts intricate and still relevant to this …

Metaphor Use In Interpersonal Communication Of Body Perception In The Context Of Breast Cancer, Jennifer Mary Fillion

Dissertations and Theses

Female breast cancer patients are often confused, frustrated, and devastated by changes occurring in their bodies and the treatment process. Many women express frustration and concern with the inability to know what the next phases of their life will bring. Previous research also states that many women struggle to communicate with others about treatment as well as side effects. This research examined how woman are use metaphors to describe their experience with breast cancer, specifically throughout the treatment period related to body image struggles. I qualitatively conducted interviews with women who were either currently in treatment or just finishing. My …

Natural Area Stewardship Volunteers: Motivations, Attitudes, Behaviors, Corinne Handelman

Dissertations and Theses

To better understand the value of those who engage in environmental stewardship of natural areas, we studied volunteer steward's motivation to participate, their sustainable behaviors and attitudes toward stewardship-related constructs. Specifically, we designed and conducted a survey of volunteers who work as stewards in urban natural areas in Portland, Oregon. We hypothesize that as volunteer frequency increases: participants will be more motivated to participate for environmental reasons, volunteers will be more likely to feel a strong connection to the stewardship site, participants will be more likely to engage in public pro-environmental behaviors, and their level of environmental literacy will increase. …

Postwar Reconstruction In Liberia: The Participation And Recognition Of Women In Politics In Liberia, Roland Tuwea Clarke

Dissertations and Theses

Despite the remarkable contributions made by women to secure peace in Liberia, women's representation in politics is still low. The first female African President has been elected, as well as a few women to strategic government positions, but the vast majority of women remain invisible. The reliance on these few women in government is inadequate to produce the significant changes that will be required to bring equality for all women.

This study examines the recognition of women's relative participation and recognition in postwar reconstruction in Liberia. Differences between traditional and non-traditional women's participation in Liberia were found.

This study includes …

Truth And Memory In Two Works By Marguerite Duras, Rachel Deborah Hunter

Dissertations and Theses

Published in 1985, Marguerite Duras' La Douleur is a collection of six autobiographical and semi-autobiographical short stories written during and just after the German Occupation. Echoing the French national sentiment of the 1970s and 1980s, these stories examine Duras' own capacity for good and evil, for forgetting, repressing, and remembering. The first of these narratives, the eponymous "La douleur," is the only story in the collection to take the form of a diary, and it is this narrative, along with a posthumously published earlier draft of the same text, that will be the focus of this thesis. In both versions, …

Learning To Adapt: Online Social Science Instruction In Higher Education, Patrick Steven Smith

Dissertations and Theses

Online learning is a rapidly growing phenomenon in post-secondary education. Institutions of higher learning have embraced online learning for its perceived merits, but without the consideration of how instructors deal with this different learning medium. Little is known of the extent to which different disciplines are suited to the online medium; this is pertinent to disciplines that rely on spontaneous in-person discussion. Furthermore, as colleges continue to invest heavily in online learning, instructors who only possess face-to-face teaching experience may begin teaching online. This poses a pedagogical challenge for instructors who are unfamiliar with the medium. This qualitative, in-depth interview …

The Historical, Political, Social, And Individual Factors That Have Influenced The Development Of Aging And Disability Resource Centers And Options Counseling, Sheryl Dejoy Elliott

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis reports on the perspectives and experiences of policymakers, advocates, agency supervisors, and experts in the field of gerontology, about the development of Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRC) programs and Options Counseling (OC). By examining the foundations upon which ADRCs and OC are built, this study sought to inform future research about the effectiveness of existing practice, increase understanding of best practices, and clarify whether these emerging services are accomplishing original goals.

ADRCs and OC intend to address long-term care issues and healthcare needs by providing a single entry point to the social service system. ADRCs offer information, …

An Investigation Into Teacher Support Of Science Explanation In High School Science Inquiry Units, Rebecca Sue Hoffenberg

Dissertations and Theses

The Framework for K-12 Science Education, the foundation for the Next Generation Science Standards, identifies scientific explanation as one of the eight practices "essential for learning science." In order to design professional development to help teachers implement these new standards, we need to assess students' current skill level in explanation construction, characterize current teacher practice surrounding it, and identify best practices for supporting students in explanation construction. This multiple-case study investigated teacher practice in eight high school science inquiry units in the Portland metro area and the scientific explanations the students produced in their work samples.

Teacher Instructional Portfolios (TIPs) …

Life Post 9/11: Experiences Of Korean Americans Ten Years Later, Jay Lee

Dissertations and Theses

This is one of the first qualitative studies to investigate experiences of Korean-American Christians living in New York City at the time of 9/11. This study sought to gain an understanding of how a group of Second Generation Korean-American Christians living in New York City at the time of the 9/11 attacks experienced that event and the event's impact on their religious beliefs. The study also investigated the communication context at the time of the ten year anniversary of the event, September 11th, 2011. The guiding research questions were: RQ1) What were their life experiences of 9/11? RQ2) Was their …

Tokuya Higashigawa's After-Dinner Mysteries: Unusual Detectives In Contemporary Japanese Mystery Fiction, Jessica Claire Kindler

Dissertations and Theses

The detective fiction (tantei shōsetsu) genre is one that came into Japan from the West around the time of the Meiji Restoration (1868), and soon became wildly popular. Again in recent years, detective fiction has experienced a popularity boom in Japan, and there has been an outpouring of new detective fiction books as well as various television and movie adaptations. It is not a revelation that the Japanese detective fiction genre, while rife with imitation and homage to Western works, took a dramatic turn somewhere along the line, away from celebrated models like Poe, Doyle, and Christie, and developed into …

Lessons In Immorality: Mishima's Masterpiece Of Humor And Social Satire, Nathaniel Peter Bond

Dissertations and Theses

From 1958 to 1959, Mishima Yukio published a series of satirical essays titled Lessons in Immorality, in the magazine Weekly Morningstar. Lessons in Immorality was made into a television series, a stage play, and a film.

Famous in the West for writing serious novels, Mishima's work as a humor writer is largely unknown. In these essays Mishima writes in a very comic style, making liberal use of hyperbole, burlesque, and travesty, in order to parody and satirize contemporary Japanese morality. Mishima uses humor to create a world in which Mishima Yukio, iconoclastic author and pop-culture figure, is an arbiter of …

Understanding Travel Modes To Non-Work Destinations: Analysis Of An Establishment Survey In Portland, Oregon, Christopher D. Muhs

Dissertations and Theses

During the past three decades, research in travel behavior has generally proceeded from broad-level, aggregate analysis of mode share--the proportions of walking, bicycling, transit, and vehicle travel occurring in traffic analysis zones, census tracts, neighborhood, or other geographical units--to fine-grained, disaggregate analysis of mode choices and other trip-making attributes at the individual level. One potential issue is whether there are differences in the types of conclusions drawn from results of analyses performed at these different levels, as these results directly inform transportation planning and policy.

This thesis aims in part to confirm whether the types of conclusions drawn from different …

The Effect Of Teacher-Identified Classroom Management, Monica Rose Root

Dissertations and Theses

The framework of this study was monitoring classroom management strategies and student behaviors in the classroom, then providing strategies and feedback to increase effective classroom management and decrease problem student behaviors.

There were 15 evidence–based practices that were researched and used in the study. Specifically teachers were asked to focus on 5 of them. These practices were: using 5 positive feedback comments to 1 negative comment; having classroom rules and expectations that were posted, taught, practiced, consistent, and positively reinforced; using an attention getting cue that had been taught, practiced and positively reinforced; having continuous active supervision including moving and …

The Use Of Music As A Pedagogical Tool In Higher Education Sociology Courses: Faculty Member Perspectives And Potential Barriers, Jerry C.L. Loveless

Dissertations and Theses

Previous research has identified student engagement as an important antecedent to student learning in higher education. Although student engagement is viewed as important for learning, a significant number of college students still report frequently feeling bored in their courses. The use of music as a pedagogical tool is believed to be beneficial for promoting student engagement and student learning in higher education sociology courses, yet it has been suggested that sociology faculty members do not commonly incorporate the technique into their courses. The purpose of this comparative interview study is to explore higher education sociology faculty members' understandings of the …

All Begins To Bloom: Stories, Daniel Drew Schlegel

Dissertations and Theses

A collection of short stories, All Begins to Bloom follows a range of young protagonists living in the greater Los Angeles area. In a time when even the most underground lifestyles are commodified, when Independent media is just another genre, when every mode of living has seemingly been exhausted, these characters struggle to forge an identity in the face of adulthood.

From a group of surfers reeling from a careless death ("The Pier") to a young artistic couple brought together by the will to overcome an eating disorder ("All Begins to Bloom"), these stories explore the hollow promises among various …

Queer! Narratives Of Gendered Sexuality: A Journey In Identity, Kym Bradley

Dissertations and Theses

My project looks at current conceptualizations of identity relating to gender and sexuality in order to understand how queer individuals enact gender as connected to their non-normative sexuality. I will use the notion of "desire" through Butler's (1990) notion of performativity as a part of iterability that reproduces an opposition between what is intended and how it is perceived. This approach creates space to problematize the status of identities that posits the conception of fluidity and dialectic as attached to notions of gendered sexualities - the understanding that sexuality interacts with gender and that these two notions are not compartmentalized. …

The Effects Of Green Smoothie Consumption On Blood Pressure And Health-Related Quality Of Life: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Emiko Maeda

Dissertations and Theses

Chronic diseases are among the leading causes of death globally, and as much as 80% of these deaths are reported to be preventable with proper diet and lifestyle. Although extensive research has demonstrated that the increased consumption of fruits and vegetables offers protective health effects from many chronic illnesses, populations in both developed and developing nations consistently fall short of the recommended intake of 5 or more servings a day. This study investigated the effects of daily consumption of Green Smoothies for 4 consecutive weeks on blood pressure and health-related quality of life. Green Smoothies are a blended drink consisting …

Peak Of The Day Or The Daily Grind: Commuting And Subjective Well-Being, Oliver Blair Smith

Dissertations and Theses

To understand the impact of daily travel on personal and societal well-being, researchers are developing measurement techniques that go beyond satisfaction-based measures of travel. Metrics related Subjective Well-Being (SWB), defined as an evaluation of one's happiness or life satisfaction, are increasingly important for evaluating transportation and land-use policies. This dissertation examines commute well-being, a multi-item measure of how one feels about the commute to work, and how it is shaped. Data are from a web-based survey of workers (n=828) in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A., with three roughly equally sized groups based on mode: bike, transit and car users. Descriptive analysis shows …

Public Opinion And The Oregon Death With Dignity Act, Peggy Jo Ann Sandeen

Dissertations and Theses

Oregon voters legalized physician-assisted death in 1997 by passing the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. This law allowed terminally ill, mentally competent adult residents of the state to legally obtain a physician's prescription to hasten death under narrow sets of circumstances. The purpose of this study was twofold: to examine contemporary patterns of support for the law in Oregon and to explore how opinions have changed over time on the issue. This study examined patterns of public support among a random sample of registered Oregon voters for the state's death with dignity law, using a mixed mode (mail, online, and …

Lost In The Margins? Intersections Between Disability And Other Non-Dominant Statuses With Regard To Peer Victimization And Psychosocial Distress Among Oregon Teens, Marjorie Grace Mcgee

Dissertations and Theses

Youth with disabilities experience greater levels of victimization than non-disabled youth. However, little is known about the associations between peer victimization and disability status alone and in combination with sex and race/ethnicity, or with sex and sexual orientation. Further, little is known about the extent to which exposure to peer victimization mediates the relationship between disability status and psychosocial distress. Thus, one purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which disability status, as a marker of social difference, alone and in combination with other social identities, is associated with differential levels of exposure to peer victimization. A …

An Investigation Of Fast And Frugal Heuristics For New Product Project Selection, Fatima Mohammed Albar

Dissertations and Theses

In the early stages of new product development, project selection is dominantly based on managerial intuition, rather than on analytic approaches. As much as 90% of all product ideas are rejected before they are formally assessed. However, to date, little is known about the product screening heuristics and screening criteria managers use: it has been suggested that their decision process resembles the "fast and frugal" heuristics identified in recent psychological research, but no empirical research exists. A major part of the product innovation pipeline is thus poorly understood.

This research contributes to closing this gap. It uses cognitive task analysis …

Designing Innovative Alternatives To Traditional High Schools: What Leaders Need To Know, Chester Roy Edwards

Dissertations and Theses

The need for new and innovative alternatives to traditional high schools has never been greater. Never designed to graduate all students on time, traditional high schools and their high dropout rates have remained unchanged for the last 30 years. Improving secondary schooling for all young people is a worthwhile social and educational objective. Many school leaders want to create alternative high schools but may lack the knowledge of what to do, nor may they have a comprehensive design process to follow.

The research question explored in this dissertation is: What do leaders in education need to know to design innovative …

The Role Of Psycho-Sociocultural Factors In Suicide Risk Among Mong/Hmong Youth, Tangjudy Vang

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined psychological, social, and cultural factors that can affect suicide risk among Mong/Hmong youth between the ages of 18 and 25. Emerging evidence suggests that Mong/Hmong youth are at an increased risk for suicide (Huang, Lee, & Arganza, 2004; Jesilow & Xiong, 2007). Additionally, initial findings and theories have suggested potential associations between Mong/Hmong youth suicide risk and intergenerational family conflict, ethnic identity, acculturation, depression, and spirituality. The seriousness of suicide risk among Mong/Hmong youth in this country has been overlooked for decades; therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine these associations with the hope that …

Teachers' Negative Comments Toward Youth In Foster Care With Disabilities: How Do They Relate To Youths' Problem Behaviors, School Attitudes, And School Performance?, Sunghwan Noh

Dissertations and Theses

A large proportion of youth in foster care receive special education services, and poor educational outcomes are one of the most important difficulties facing these youth. One potential risk affecting the low educational achievements of youth in foster care and special education could be teachers' negative and stigmatizing comments toward them. Teachers' negative and stigmatizing comments could have negative effects on youths' behaviors, school attitudes and school performance. Yet, research on the nature and the impact of teachers' negative and stigmatizing comments remains limited.

Based on labeling and attribution theories, this study investigated the nature and impact of teachers' negative …