Digital Commons Network^™

An Autoethnography Of My Experience Navigating The United States Educational System As An Immigrant: Intercultural Communication Challenges And Cultural Asynchronization, Anuti Ngangana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to share experiences as an immigrant student and answer the following question: What does my personal life history reveal about the importance of intercultural communication in the U.S. educational system? Immigrants leave their countries of origin and migrate to the United States for various reasons. Many are traumatized when they enter the country due to civil unrest in their native countries. Immigrants arrive with their children, who join a school system that is generally unprepared to meet their needs. In order to document immigrant experiences, the researcher utilized an autoethnographic approach using counter-storytelling from …

Changing The Face Of Power: Understanding Black Female Clinical Supervisors Through The Superwoman Schema, Shanelle V. Clay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

According to the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics (2014), the counseling profession’s core values include honoring diversity and embracing a multicultural approach to both direct services and supervision. Despite the acknowledgement of multiculturalism in clinical supervision, there is minimal research on the impact of supervisors’ intersectionality on supervision dynamics. This qualitative research study will examine the experience of Black female clinical supervisors and the impact the Superwoman Schema has on their role in supervision. This phenomenological research is grounded in the Superwoman Schema Conceptual Framework and Black Feminist Thought. A total of five superordinate themes and 14 subordinate themes …

Doctoral Supervisors Perceived Counseling Self-Efficacy After Being Trained On Using Supervision For Vicarious Grief Through The Discrimination Model, Sara Keegan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the intended study was to investigate whether training doctoral students on how to handle vicarious grief experiences through the Discrimination Model would impact doctoral supervisors’ counseling self-efficacy when providing supervision on vicarious grief. This was determined by collecting and comparing pre- and post-test scores from 48 doctoral students, from CACREP-accredited Counseling Education and Supervision programs, on a researcher-revised version of the Counselor Self-Efficacy Scale that specifically addresses supervision for vicarious grief (CSES-SVG). Participants were recruited by using convenience sampling through invitation from the researcher via counseling-related listservs (e.g., CESNET, Duquesne’s Canvas/e-mail), or via program directors or site …

Computational Models Of Vocal Fold Lesions: Analysis Of Fluid-Structure Interaction, Manoela Rocha Neves

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The biomechanical and aerodynamic behaviors of the vocal folds (VFs) during phonation are heavily influenced by their structural composition and pathological changes. These conditions can induce localized stiffening that disrupts vibratory symmetry and alters airflow resistance. Previous research has lacked the integration of VF lesions in computational simulations using anatomically accurate models, limiting the understanding of their effects in phonation and potential contribution to voice disorders. Addressing this gap, this thesis develops a fluid-structure interaction (FSI) model of a realistic two-layered VF structure with lesions, comparing airflow patterns, structural deformations, and vibration profiles in both healthy and diseased cases.

The …

A Raced Theology Of The Human Person: An Expanded Theological Anthropology, Cary W. Dabney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on race as a critical, yet largely unaddressed, topic in Catholic theological anthropology. In Catholic colleges and universities that are recognized as members of the Cardinal Newman Society, theological concerns about race are deemed irrelevant for theological education in the faith and are altogether absent from the theology of the human person. As a result, this collection of institutions treats race as a specialty within pastoral theology, one that is significant to groups, but not a part of the fundamental theology of the human person. This ‘un-raced’ theological anthropology results in the institution’s inability to respond effectively …

Communicative Harmonics: A Synchronization Of Minds, Manners, And Emotions As A Phenomenological Approach To Resonant Leadership, Victor J. Grigsby

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

At the heart of human relationality and resonant leadership is an interpersonal vibration that creates group coherence. The fusion of minds, manners, and emotions is a synchronization of individual vibrations and frequencies that unite the human spirit. Communicative harmonics presupposes the necessity for dialogue as the interconnection of contrasting perspectives. The auditory framework of speaking and listening parallels that of leading and following and is used to explore dialogic leadership as a major element in leadership communication. This dissertation is modeled after the work of Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic pentad and incorporates a musical pentad of tone, rest, frequency, rhythm, and …

Entropy And Incarnation In The Duchamp Room: An Inquiry Into Aesthetic Time, Jesse Goodman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the posthumous installation of Marcel Duchamp, Étant donnés, as a test case for how particularly historically situated artworks may or may not change over time. It begins with an overview of Duchamp’s biography, and his own theories of art’s relationship to temporality (which influenced the piece’s construction). It then moves through contrasting accounts of aesthetic time from Adorno and Robert Smithson. Section two works with Walter Benjamin’s writing on photography and aura to produce an account of estrangement between the piece and the viewing subject induced by the historical development of the artwork’s “translation” and “replication”—through …

Hospital Organizations’ Obligation To Promote Spiritual Well-Being Among Nurses: Development Of A Normative Ethical Argument, Michael Jordan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents an innovative strategy to promote the support of nurses' spirituality within hospital organizations. By focusing on the spiritual well-being of nurses by hospital organizations, with a natural extension into nursing schools, the approach aims to enhance nurse’s ability to protect their own spirituality, provide comprehensive spiritual care to patients, and increase nurse moral resilience. By investing in nurses' spirituality and spiritual growth, hospitals can potentially increase job satisfaction among nursing staff, improve patient care outcomes, and create a more holistic healing environment for both nurses and patients. As the nursing shortage continues and the number of nurses …

Kenneth Burke's Epideictic Rhetoric Of Science, Andri Kosasih

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses Kenneth Burke’s challenges, notions, and perspectives on modern science and how we should view, utilize, and apply science to our lives. This project argues that we need more than the rhetoric of science; we need an epideictic rhetoric of science. The term epideictic is important because the encounter between science and society creates a tension between maintaining and changing beliefs. Because science involves belief and is itself a belief, every time we engage with science, it demands a verdict from us: to believe or to reject it. On the other hand, as we seek to maintain our …

Analyzing Decolonial Subjectivities In Reggaeton And Latin-Trap Music In Puerto Rico: A Critical Discourse Analyisis, Andres I. Rivera Amador

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project studies decolonial possibilities for subjectivities in the urban music genres of reggaeton and Latin-trap in Puerto Rico. Using Ian Parker’s critical discourse analysis to analyze the lyrics and videos of three key songs, it systematically examines subjects constructed in songs, objects, discourses, and their relationships to each other. In addition to studying reggaeton and Latin-trap lyrics, the project highlights the emergence of social themes that guide the critical discursive analysis. Psychological literature and decolonial theory supplement the analysis, bringing in important theoretical insights regarding the songs’ salient social themes, such as black pride and resistance, gender fluidity and …

English Language Teachers’ Use Of Technology In Libya: A Qualitative Study Using The Samr Model, Tasnem Alarbi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the increasing dominance of technology in almost every aspect of our life and the evidence-based potential of technology to support learning, it becomes important to integrate technology in language instruction. Although there is a huge body of research on the effectiveness of technology in transforming learning in the field of language learning, there is little research reflecting on current teachers’ practices of instructional technology in language learning environments. Guided by the student-centered learning theory and the SAMR framework, this qualitative study explored the current practices of English as a Foreign language (EFL) teachers as related to technology integration in …

Use Of Mindfulness To Promote The Spiritual And Religious Competencies Of Master’S Level Counseling Students., Luisa Nayhouse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a two-and-a-half hour training session for master's students in counselor education. The training focused on using mindfulness to enhance spiritual and religious counseling competencies. Utilizing a pre-and post-test design, the quantitative study employed mindfulness to train master's students with the aim of building and fostering spiritual and religious competencies in counseling. Historically, there has been a lack of research on the benefits of such specific mindfulness training related to this subject matter.

The study targeted master's level counselor students, with potential applicability to related fields such as psychology and social work. This …

A Study Of Social And Emotional Learning Provision To Kindergarten Students In A Rural School Through The Lens Of Whole Child Development, Shirley Spiegel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this Improvement Science Project was to take appraisal of a rural school district’s current approach for developing the whole child in kindergarten. Three prominent context-based child development theories serve as the framework for this study in determining if there is evidence in practice for support of whole child development, or if those practices or components of the current practices do not demonstrate clear evidence for whole child development, according to the theoretical framework. Conducted through the lens of these whole child development theories, this study centered on the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) provision to kindergarten students …

The Ethical Imperative Of The Renewal Of Virtue Within The Moral Community Of Catholic Healthcare, Amanda Altobell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Catholic healthcare is one of the largest nonprofit organizations and providers in the United States, offering medical care to many diverse communities. The fundamental mission of Catholic healthcare is to bring about Christ’s healing ministry and live out the fundamental principle of caring for the vulnerable in pursuit of the common good. However, there have been many missteps, not only due to a more polarized and secular community but also to scandals and conflict due to previous hierarchical and rules-based anthropology that often misses the person's lived experience. Therefore, this dissertation will argue that for Catholic healthcare to survive the …

On The Deconstruction Of Nothingness In Digital Communication, Matthew S. Lindia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project argues that digital technologies call for a new problematic of communication, centered around the conditions of (im)possibility for creating perfect digital profiles of users as generated from user data. Beginning with Edmund Husserl’s analysis of essentially occasional expressions, this dissertation posits that user data occurs on three levels: (1) the level of expression, where a user wants-to-say something through their inputs, (2) the level of facticity, where biometric data are involuntarily produced by the user, and (3) the level of nothingness, where the user’s inaction, such as not-answering, is taken as data. Moving beyond what Husserl’s framework can …

A Theory-Based Intervention To Mitigate Weight Bias Among Nurses: A Pilot Study, Gregory S. Marler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: As obesity rates continue to rise, a growing number of individuals living with obesity will seek medical care, increasing their exposure to weight-biased healthcare providers. This bias presents a significant risk, as it can lead to compromised care, diminished trust in medical professionals, and ultimately poorer health outcomes. Nurses, as frontline caregivers, must recognize the harmful impact of weight bias and take proactive steps to mitigate its effects. Addressing this bias is essential to ensuring equitable, high-quality care and improving patient outcomes.

Aim: The study explored the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of an intervention for acute care …

Thresholds, Dagon Blank

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Thresholds focuses on liminal spaces, moments of change, and those who cross these boundaries. For instance, transitions from the old to the new, unconscious to conscious, the known to the unknown, or where man meets nature. Sometimes, I think of them as a threshold where both sides are trying to cross simultaneously, but the door is only big enough for one to fit. The scenes in these paintings focus on the figure set in the contemporary world, referencing symbols of classical paintings, mythology, and philosophy.

The scenes are dynamic and driven by the expressiveness of the human figure and the …

Swine Solutions: Enhancing Ffa Supervised Agricultural Experience Projects, Hannah M. Daily, Dr. John Michael Mehaffey, Dr. Candis Scallan, Dr. Amy Mehaffey, Dr. Joe Mask

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) is a portion of the three-circle model of agriculture education, providing experiential learning opportunities for students. The immersion SAE encourages students to build upon foundational learning components in a real-world application. A popular area of the immersion SAE includes ownership of market swine being raised for exhibition. This study serves as a pilot mentorship program for agricultural science educators and students, creating an educational resource encouraging record-keeping techniques and skill development, leading to eventual independence from the student’s standpoint. The model for the Swine Solutions Program includes utilization of the provided handbook, completion of daily observation …

Tackling Social Stigma: An Ethical Obligation In Healthcare Intervention To Involuntary Childlessness, Persis Naumann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The stigma associated with involuntary childlessness has negatively affected health and well-being for several decades. This situation is particularly exacerbated for women within the Tamil socio-cultural context, resulting in feelings of shame, neglect, denial, isolation, and constituting a significant barrier to long-term access to healthcare services. Although advancements have been made in the provision of biomedical care, the psychosocial support remains inadequately addressed. Moreover, there are currently no healthcare interventions that specifically target the stigma associated with this issue, which hinders open communication with healthcare providers, delays necessary treatments, and adversely impacts overall health outcomes. The central thesis of this …

The Mujahedeen E-Khalq Of Iran (Mek): Agents Of Democratic Revolution Or Cultic Oppression?, Molly Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the People’s Mujahideen of Iran (MEK), an Iranian oppositional group that has engaged in a decades-long effort to depose the Iranian government. The goal of this thesis has three parts. First, it examines if the MEK should be classified as a new religious movement/cult. It also addresses the implications of such status given the MEK’s claims that it functions as a democratic entity and that it can be trusted to govern Iran in democratic fashion. Secondly, it examines if Iranian disinformation has influenced the MEK’s reputation. Thirdly, it analyses how the MEK has been able to …

Exploratory Learning Before Instruction: Comparing Individual Exploration, Collaborative Exploration, And Preparation For Future Collaboration., Raina Isaacs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Instructors often prioritize traditional instruction in the classroom, despite evidence supporting the use of active learning methods. Exploratory learning, presenting novel problems to students before presenting information about the procedure and underlying concepts, can improve students’ conceptual understanding of instructional material. In exploratory learning, collaborative learning is often an important component of the instructional design. However, few researchers have directly compared collaborative and individual exploration to determine if there are benefits of adding collaboration to exploration. By disentangling exploratory and collaborative learning, we can learn how and why collaborative exploration fails or succeeds. One idea is that adding individual preparation …

Tracing Clovis Landscapes: Chert Sourcing At The Copelin Valley Site In Kentucky., Shaylee Scott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study conducts a raw material sourcing analysis of Clovis lithic artifacts from Copelin Valley, Hart County, Kentucky, a key Clovis occupation site. Over a decade of documenting private collections and recent archaeological investigations confirm the site's significance within the Paleoindian landscape. Using reflectance spectroscopy, a non-destructive technique, this research assesses chert source probabilities for over 100 Clovis points and tools. By integrating spectral data with geological sourcing frameworks, this study examines raw material procurement strategies and their implications for Clovis mobility and settlement. The findings reveal patterns in material selection, shedding light on occupation intensity, technological organization, and landscape …

Advancing Research On Retinitis Pigmentosa: An Investigation Of Natural History, Visual System Plasticity, And Mutation-Independent Treatment., Cecilia A. Attaway

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is an inherited retinal disease characterized by rod and then cone photoreceptor degeneration. ~25% of cases are caused by a genetic mutation that results in autosomal dominant RP (adRP). There has been a lack of exploration of the progression of degeneration in adRP models. In Chapter Two, I examined visual acuity (VA) changes, retinal structure, and function from early to late-stage disease in a murine P23H Rho ‘knock-in’ mouse model (Rho^P23H/+), the most common form of adRP in North America. To establish a natural history, I evaluated behavioral VA, using the visual water task, …

Exploring The Impact Of Social Interactions And Representation On The Development Of Engineering Students' Sense Of Belonging In A Summer Program., Liliana Martinez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that engineering students from underrepresented minority (URM) populations experience significant retention gaps compared to their majority peers (Dickerson et al., 2014). One factor that can significantly promote academic success, retention, persistence, and psychological adjustment is a sense of belonging (Hausmann et al., 2007; Hoffman et al., 2002). There is evidence showing that Summer Bridge Programs (SBPs) can foster students’ sense of belonging (Strayhorn, 2019); however, little is known about the mechanisms through which an SBP impacts URM engineering students’ sense of belonging. This study addresses this knowledge gap by investigating the impact of the Brown Forman …

“Souls Cannot Rest In Contested Places”: An Ethnographic Case Study And Archeological Environmental Assessment Of The North Shore Cemeteries., Henrietta K. Ransdell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an ethnographic case study and archeological-environmental assessment of the North Shore Cemeteries to derive condition commentary and care recommendations for the landscape, cultural resources, descendant community, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Framed by theories of space-place culture, dispossession, and public lands co-management, this multi-methods, interdisciplinary thesis combines historical context, environmental conditions, archeological documentation, participant observations, and ethnographic interviewing of NPS and community affiliates to derive applied strategies for cemetery repair, operational efficacy, and this specific, public lands “co-management” relationship. With data from 12 interviews, eight participant observations, and six condition assessment surveys, it’s argued that perceptions …

Multimodal Emotion Recognition For Human-Robot Interaction Across Neuro-Diverse Populations., Ruchik Mishra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the integration of multimodal data streams and artificial intelligence pipelines to understand human affect in neurotypical and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This dissertation captures human affect in the context of human-robot interaction. For this, multiple studies have been presented with both children with ASD and neurotypical adults. This dissertation makes four contributions: 1) The first study introduces autonomy during perspective-taking teaching sessions by making verbal content generation through large language models (LLMs). This system is the first of its kind for teaching perspective-taking in a semi-autonomous manner under the supervision of domain experts. Furthermore, this …

The Dynamic Role Of Hyaluronan In Acute Cardiac Wound Healing., Danielle T. Little

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During acute myocardial infarction (MI), the composition of the extracellular matrix (ECM) undergoes significant changes. While collagen accumulation is one of the most well-documented ECM alterations, hyaluronan (HA) is equally abundant. However, the cellular sources, enzymatic regulation, and functional significance of HA accumulation remain largely unexplored. Here, we hypothesized that activated cardiac fibroblasts produce HA via hyaluronan synthase 2 (HAS2), facilitating scar formation and stability. Our findings demonstrate that HA accumulates post-MI and persists for at least four weeks. Through HA sizing techniques, we determined the molecular weight of this persistent HA. Additionally, RNA sequencing analysis of failing human hearts …

For You, By Who? Undergraduate Students Enacting Critical Digital Literacy With The Tiktok "For You Page" Algorithm., Rachel Morgan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project explores undergraduate students’ digital literacy practices and algorithmic beliefs and awareness on algorithmically driven social media platforms like the TikTok For You Page (FYP). TikTok is a very successful social media platform with over 135 million users in the U.S. alone, nearly half of the U.S. population (Statista, 2025a). Central to TikTok’s popularity and success is its unique technological infrastructure, specifically the underlying algorithm of the FYP that shapes user experience. With a mixed-methods approach, I utilize survey data and text-based interviews (Prior, 2004) to examine participants’ experiences on the TikTok FYP. Drawing on a technofeminist methodology (Wacjman, …

Women And Gender Non-Conforming Introductory Stem Students Navigating Gender, Faculty Expectations, And College Support Systems., Trisha A. Douin-Manning

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women and gender non-conforming students remain underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors within higher education, and gender disparities persist in advancement to high-paying STEM careers (Maloy et al., 2021; NSF, 2015; Riegle-Crumb et al., 2018). This three-article style dissertation uses qualitative interviews with 29 women and gender non-conforming introductory STEM students and 11 STEM faculty to investigate how these students navigate through their introductory STEM courses. Women and gender non-conforming students in this study faced academic, familial, and gendered pressures to succeed in introductory STEM courses. Many of the students in this study described feelings of oppression …

Achieving Racial Equity In An Urban School District: Historical Conditions, Critical Policy Analysis, And Community Perspective., Whitney Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the development and impact of the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) Racial Equity Policy through a historical analysis and the perspectives of African American community leaders. The study explores how systemic inequities, rooted in a legacy of racial discrimination, continue to shape the educational experiences of Black students within JCPS. Drawing on archival research and interviews with key community figures, it evaluates the policy’s intended role in dismantling structural barriers and the community’s cautious optimism regarding its effectiveness. Findings highlight persistent disparities in educational access and outcomes, emphasizing the enduring influence of deep-rooted biases and limitations of …