Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Nursing Faculty Emotional Exhaustion And Its Relationship To Student Incivility, Shantelle Wade

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine if nursing faculty experience emotional exhaustion (EE). Further, this study aimed to explore the relationship between nursing student incivility and faculty EE and to determine if there were differences in levels of faculty EE based on educational level, academic rank, and years of teaching experience. Background: Nursing education is stressful for both students and faculty. When faced with stress and demands, students can become uncivil. This student incivility can add additional strain to faculty’s already strenuous work and personal lives and can contribute to them becoming emotionally exhausted. Due to EE, …

Newcomer Adjustment And Affective Commitment: A Two-Wave Moderated Mediation Model, Shay Norris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As job and career changes continue to increase in the post-pandemic work environment, new employees are not staying in their roles long enough to identify with their organization, causing high turnover in the first few months of employment. To address these problems, there is increasing evidence that providing resources and support during the socialization process will increase employee commitment, retention, and organizational performance. I propose that an integrated theoretical framework combining Socialization Resources Theory (SRT) and Job Demands-Resources Theory (JD-R) is best suited to explain the relationship between newcomer adjustment and affective commitment. A moderated-mediation model is developed and tested …

Factors Associated With Increased Breastfeeding At Initiation And Continuation At Two Months In American Indian Women, Addison Reimer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: The purpose of this report was to determine the prevalence of breastfeeding at initiation and two months continuation in American Indian South Dakota mothers who gave birth between 2017-2019 and determine the factors associated with breastfeeding and various health behaviors and beliefs. This study serves to fill the current gaps in research focusing on breastfeeding in American Indian women in South Dakota. Methods: Data from the South Dakota Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (SD PRAMS), a state-based surveillance system, was used to investigate the relationship between breastfeeding and maternal behaviors, attitudes, and experiences. Logistic regression was used to determine …

Inclusive Music Teacher Preparation In The Presbyterian College Of Education At Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana, Samuel Agbenyo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For the past three decades, Inclusive Education (IE) has emerged as a crucial educational agenda all over the world. In this study, IE is the practice of including students with disabilities in the general (music) education classroom, where they are educated together with their typically developing peers. Although IE efforts began in Ghana in 1957, some pitfalls have characterized the implementation process over the years, especially regarding music teacher preparation to implement the policies. Studies have reported a state of frustration among stakeholders, notably the elementary school teachers, who feel inadequately prepared to teach within IE settings. In this case …

Repetition And Retracing In Aphasia Across Discourse Types, Emily Anna Culbertson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: Fluency is an important criterion to classify subtypes of aphasia. Previous studies have discussed the factors of fluency using various speech-language aspects. However, limited research investigated how much lexical hesitations (i.e., repetitions and retraces) are produced in people with aphasia. Lexical hesitations are important indicators of word finding difficulty and self-error detection skills which may be mediated by cognitive-linguistic demands across different discourse tasks. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the lexical hesitations production in people with fluent and non-fluent aphasia compared to neurologically intact adults in various discourse tasks.Method: Three groups of people with fluent …

Resilience Capacity Of School Meal Programs In Southeastern U.S. School Districts During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Findings From Mississippi, Louisiana, And West Virginia, Kritika Gupta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mississippi (MS), Louisiana (LA), and West Virginia (WV) have some of the nation’s highest rates of poverty and health disparities, reflected in high rates of food insecurity. Many of the school districts in these states have greater than 40% of students qualifying for free meals and, under community eligibility, can provide meals free to all children. School meals play an important role in addressing food insecurity in the U.S. and those were severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ability of social systems (schools) to continue operations during adverse circumstances (pandemic) to ensure the sustained outcome of interest (food security) …

Covid-19 And Headache-Related Disability, Lauren Thaxter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Migraine is a common nervous system disorder that is a leading cause of disability worldwide, and approximately half of individuals with migraine report their migraine attacks cause substantial impairment in activities. A bidirectional relationship exists between migraine and psychological symptoms, and comorbid psychological symptoms compound migraine-related disability. Due to COVID-19 pandemic response procedures, many university students experienced institutional closures and corresponding increases in depression, stress, and anxiety, with the most prominent worries being about one's own health and the health of loved ones. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between COVID-19 status (pre-COVID vs. during COVID) and headache-related …

The Role Of Technology: Graduate Students' Experiences In An Ed.D. Program, Veronica C. Crawford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study contributes to our understanding of online learning in a graduate program – the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) – designed to prepare practitioners to impact their local contexts, practices, and communities. Online learning is one of the fastest-growing trends in the instructional use of technology (Means, Toyama, Murphy, & Baki, 2013; Nguyen, 2015). However, the literature is scant on how graduate students learn in technology-rich environments. This study aimed to explore how graduate students perceive the online learning environment in an Ed.D. program at a public, not-for-profit research institution in the United States. Unequivocally, online education is ubiquitous. However, …

Physiological Corticosterone Attenautes Gp120-Mediated Microglial Activation And Is Associated With Reduced Anxiety-Like Behavior In Gp120-Expressing Mice, Emaya Marie Moss

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) persists as a global pandemic. Despite the benefits of combinatorial antiretroviral therapies (cART), virotoxic HIV proteins are still detectable within the central nervous system and approximately half of all cART-treated patients contend with neurological impairments. The mechanisms underlying these effects are not known, but likely involve actions of virotoxic HIV proteins including glycoprotein 120 (gp120). Glycoprotein 120 is neurotoxic, in part due to its capacity to activate microglia. Corticosterone, an endogenous anti-inflammatory, has been found to attenuate neuronal death caused by gp120-induced microglial cytokine production in vitro. But, the concentration-dependent effects of corticosterone to influence microglial …

Linguistic Expressions Of Pidgin In Nigerian Stand-Up Comedy, Jimoh Junior Braimoh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of the comics’ lexical choices and how they achieve their goals with words. The comics’ choice of words is far from being incidental, superficial, or supplementary. Performers’ choices of words show how their ideas are embodied in language. That is to say, the effect of how a comedian uses words and humor strategies is vital for understanding the contextual meaning of jokes and how they appeal to logic and reason. The objectives are to identify and categorize lexical choices and interpret their denotative, connotative, and affective meanings. Based on the Incongruity Theory (Attardo, 1994) Data …

Student Success: Do First-Time, Full Time (Ftft) Students At The University Of Mississippi Enrolled In Intermediate Math (Ds 099) Earn Higher Grades In College Algebra (Math 121) Than Those Students Who Enrolled Directly In College Algebra?, Martina Brewer-Mister

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Critics of developmental studies suggest that remedial courses may negatively influence a student’s program selection, persistence, and completion because remedial classes do not count toward graduation requirements (Long & Boatman, 2013). They have also found that over half of the students referred to remediation do not complete the courses (Clayton, Crosta, & Belfield, 2014; Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010). The number is even lower for minority students (Bailey, 2010).

Using pre-existing data collected from the Office of Institutional Research, Effectiveness, and Planning at the University of Mississippi, an independent sample t-test and correlation analysis were conducted to examine the outcomes …

Extra-Legal Factors In Juvenile Court Outcomes: What Is The Role Of Youth’S Race/Ethnicity And Family Structure In Disposition Decisions?, Vitoria De Francisco Lopes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to the unique nature of the juvenile justice system, its focus on rehabilitation and the population it serves, juvenile court judges serve as the sole decision maker and are given substantial power of discretion. Prior literature has indicated extra-legal factors to influence court outcomes, and scholars have argued that the use of discretion has led to a significant variability in the way youth are treated by juvenile court officials and may contribute to the issue of minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system. Yet, family structure has not been examined in depth, especially as it relates to race/ethnicity. The …

Fugitivity, Confinement, And The Afterlife Of Slavery In Contemporary African American Migration Narratives, Juyoun Jang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates a post-Civil Rights-era literary history of fugitive slave figures and their fugitive acts amid temporal and spatial confinement as constituting a tradition of contemporary African American migration narratives. The point of departure for this project is the Prologue of Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, where the unnamed Black narrator endures a forced migration to New York, but also invites readers to witness his performance of hibernation in an underground space in a building reserved for white tenants. On the one hand, the low, claustrophobic, and dark space of the narrator’s basement signifies Black migrants’ historical subjection to …

Motivation Of Individual Directors: A Consolidated Perspective, Yankun Jia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studies the motivation of individual directors on the corporate board and the impact of the motivation of individual directors. Building on previous work, I synthesize self-determination theory, identity theory, and social identity theory to build a comprehensive framework to understand the motivation of individual directors. By analyzing the satisfaction or frustration of basic psychological needs, the engagement of social roles, and the self-categorization and social identification process, this dissertation delivers a preliminary probe into the micro-foundations of the motivation of individual directors in the corporate governance literature.

Kierkegaard's Self As Synthetic Tension, James Edward Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Soren Kierkegaard was a nineteenth Danish thinker working within the Christian tradition. While he did not think of himself as a philosopher, much of his work as a writer in philosophical in nature and is important to the inquiry on the philosophy of the mind. Particularly within his work, The Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard presents an idea of the human self as a dialectic, understood to be a tension that must be maintained in the synthesis. This idea of the self a synthetic tension can be seen in Kierkegaard’s larger body of work, particularly within the programmatic scheme of the …

Guests Attitude And Purchase Intention Towards Hotel Vacation Rentals, Daegeun Kim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated hotel guests’ attitude towards hotel vacation rentals and their purchase intention by applying consumption value theory (CVT) and in the perspective of brand extension. More specifically, this study was divided in to 2 parts in which the first study attempted to investigate how potential hotel vacation rentals guests’ consumption values would affect their purchase intention (PUR) and whether brand loyalty plays a moderating role between the relationships. The second study examined the role of consumer brand identity (CBI) as a success factor of brand extension and which factors have an influence on potential hotel rental guests’ attitude …

First-Year Students' Perceptions Of Innate Intelligence, Ability, And Interest Across Four Stem Domains: A Comparative Structural Equation Model, Savannah Lea Kelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Higher education institutions play a pivotal role in preparing students to acquire the skills necessary to enter the STEM workforce and serve as critical partners in the STEM educational-occupational pipeline. It is imperative that postsecondary institutions encourage equal opportunities for admittance into STEM domains. However, research has consistently demonstrated that gender and racial disparities continue to exist in STEM fields at the postsecondary level, particularly when viewed through the lens of disaggregated disciplinary data. One way to address inequitable attainment across STEM is to evaluate whether students prematurely preclude themselves from STEM participation due to a misalignment between students’ self-perceptions …

Meaning In Life And Psychological Distress: Examining Veterans And Psychological Adaptation To Civilian Life, Victoria Mccutcheon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Veterans’ transition from the military to civilian life can be conceptualized as a cultural transition (i.e., acculturation). This transition means leaving the familiarity and consistency of military life and attempting to integrate one’s values, skills, expectations, and identity as a service member into the dominant civilian culture. The present study seeks to examine the psychological adaptation component of acculturation (i.e., the individual’s feelings and perceptions of being in the new culture) in a veteran sample, as it relates to meaning in life. The existing body of veteran literature has demonstrated that meaning and purpose (a distinct component of meaning) are …

The Effects Of Advocate Disclosure On Perceptions Of A Female Child Who Stutters, Peyton Mcknight

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research indicates that people who stutter are frequently attributed with negative stereotypes by listeners as a result of their speech. Previous research has examined the use of self-disclosure in offering the stuttering community a means of acknowledging and sharing the presence of their stuttering with a conversation partner. Subsequently, stuttering self-disclosure has been shown to reduce negative listener perceptions. Select advocate disclosures have also been found to yield beneficial results for a male child who stutters, but the effects of advocate disclosure on perceptions of a female who stutters has remained unexplored. This study expands upon previous research and examines …

Investigating The Effects Of Absurd Humor And Mortality Salience On Moral Identity, Belongingness, Belief In A Just World, And Meaning In Life, Joshua Semko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Humans have a sense of meaning, and people actively create and maintain meaning in their lives. One way humans make meaning is through fluid compensation, which is the automatic process of compensating for a threat to one’s global meaning system by temporarily strengthening other, non-related beliefs. This phenomenon has been thoroughly investigated in response to mortality salience (i.e., reminders of one’s death), but not absurd humor. This is important because little is known about the role of humor in meaning making. More research is needed to determine whether humor is a unique meaning-making process. Further, no studies have investigated …

The Effect Of Pitch Height On Instrument Gender Ratings, Raven Gordon Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of pitch height on instrument gender ratings. This study’s participants (N=64) consisted of music major (n=32) and non-music major (n=32) students who are enrolled at the University of Mississippi. Using a 5-point semantic rating scale, participants rated the perceived masculinity and femininity of six musical instruments (flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, tuba) as they are played at the approximate midpoint of their ranges and as they played in ranges that countered their established instrument-sex-stereotype. Specifically, female instruments (flute, clarinet) played in their low ranges while male instruments (trombone, tuba) played …

Repetition Repeated: Reconstructing A Lacanian Subjectivity Through Kierkegaardian Repetition, Thomas R. Ryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

When Descartes declared “Cogito ergo sum,” he triggered a fundamental shift in the trajectory and scope of the philosophical discourse. Hegel called this the beginning of modern philosophy, but the Cartesian cogito elevated human reason, ushered the Enlightenment, and led to scientific and political revolutions. But as Slavoj Zizek has pointed out, almost from the moment Descartes posited the mind-body problem, there was an anxiety about what it meant to be “one who thinks.”1 This anxiety presents itself as a continuous questioning of the ontology of the subject, and ultimately, whether there is a subject at all. By the time …

Acceptability And Feasibility Of Healthcare Communication Considerations For Altering Perceptions Towards Influenza Vaccine: A Qualitative Study, Saumil Jadhav

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background

Influenza (influenza) is a contagious disease, causing thousands of deaths every year. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends routine annual influenza vaccination for all people over 6 months of age who do not have contraindications, yet the vaccination coverage for 2018-19 season was 49.2%, around 20% less than the goal set by Healthy People 2030 of 70% coverage. The national foundation of infectious diseases survey showed that 51% of respondents do not think the flu vaccine works, 34% are concerned with the side effects from the vaccine, and 22% are concerned about getting flu from the vaccine. …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Mindfulness-Based Group Interventions On Reducing Externalizing Behaviors In Adolescent Populations, Erica Montgomery

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the extent of the impact that mindfulness-based interventions, such as mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques, have on externalizing behaviors in adolescents. Specifically, the intended population receiving the intervention will be minority adolescents, ages 9-15, in rural Mississippi who have received disciplinary action from the school or community based on acting out and aggression. The Ohio Youth Rating Scale will be used to collect information from three primary sources: parents, teachers, and participants. Data will be collected at multiple points in the intervention. Based on previous research with similar age groups, outcomes should be favorable for reducing unwanted behaviors.

Do Policies Matter? An Exploratory, Qualitative Study Of The Lived Experiences On Campus Of Transgender And Non-Binary Education Employees, Sarah Clay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The student population of American colleges and universities is becoming increasingly diverse. Though the racial and ethnic makeup of a campus population has been given the most attention in diversity and inclusion efforts, there has been a growing focus on LGBTQ issues in recent decades. As a result, institutions of higher learning have been working to develop responsive policies and programs that aim to promote LGBTQ inclusion amongst faculty, staff, and students.

However, the current socio-political climate in the United States is becoming intensely antagonistic toward gender non-conforming people. With gender identity being such a socially and politically divisive issue, …

Down The Stream: The Evolution Of Queer Stream-Of-Consciousness Novels Through The Works Of Virginia Woolf And Ali Smith, Turner Nat Byrd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis attempts to understand the evolution of the stream-of-consciousness genre as it applies to, is written by, or centers queer people. Through generous Marxist-feminist readings of the works of Virginia Woolf and Ali Smith—used in this project as exemplars of the genre—it attempts to understand the differences within both the formal and philosophical/political outlook of the two authors. Specifically looking at Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse and Smith’s Hotel World, The Accidental, and Girl Meets Boy, this project posits that Smith, intentionally or not, has effectively re-written the basic narratives and re-visited the same themes as Woolf, …

Online Learning Readiness Among International Students, Brandon Mcleod

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States holds a commanding 22% of the market share of international students, more than double that of the second leading country (United Kingdom). The number of international students studying at U.S. institutions has had a steady incline for decades and these students now make up approximately 5% of all higher education students in the U.S. Even still, there have been previous examinations of international students’ perceptions of online learning readiness. As online and blended learning elements are an integral part of nearly every degree program, and, indeed, nearly every course, it is imperative that we gain a better …

Bridging The Gap Between Journalism 273 And Graduation, And Beyond, Mackenzie Slate Ross

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While Journalism 273: Creative Visual Thinking is a requirement for all undergraduate students majoring in Integrated Marketing Communications and some students majoring in Journalism, there are students who end up graduating from the University of Mississippi with a desire for more knowledge of graphic design. Feedback from current students in the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi as well as alumni of the program was gathered in two surveys to understand better how Journalism 273 benefits them and pinpoints opportunities for improvement. One hundred nineteen students who took Journalism 273 and were enrolled in the …

Effects Of Stuttering Severity Disclosures On Listener Perceptions Of A Female Adolescent Who Stutters, Mikayla Ryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to measure whether factual self-disclosure statements with differing levels of overt stuttering severity have effect on listener perceptions regarding an adolescent female who stutters (AFWS). Method: A total of 759 adults participated in this study. Participants were gathered through a nationwide campaign to various universities via email. There were four overt severity experimental conditions (control, fluent, mild and moderate-severe); participant assignments were balanced such that each experimental condition had comparable population demographics. Each condition contained a video stimulus of an adolescent female providing a factual disclosure statement identifying herself as a person who …

The Ability Of Mississippi School Personnel To Recognize And Act On Internalizing Disorders In Students, Madison Varner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Childhood internalizing disorders traditionally do not garner much attention in academic settings; however, previous research has found that 1 in 4 public school students in Mississippi experiences some form of an internalizing disorder. These disorders strongly affect both behavior (e.g. bullying, school attendance, and social performance) and academic performance (e.g. literacy, mathematical learning). Under several existing pieces of legislature, public schools should already be providing treatment for these disorders; however, few schools have any provisions for the numerous students silently struggling. The primary objective of this study was to investigate teachers’ understanding of internalizing disorders and their frequency in school …