Digital Commons Network^™

Childhood Abuse, Religiosity, And Opioid Use: Findings From The National Epidemiologic Survey On Alcohol And Related Conditions Data, James E. Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Religiosity is adopting a belief system surrounding concepts of purpose, meaning, and value through an institution that has already defined these concepts prior to the individual member attending and that member’s degree of participation. Religiosity does have protective factors against negative health outcomes. This protective influence was evaluated in this study. Data from Wave 2 of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions were examined to learn about the relationship between protective effects of religious participation on substance abuse, and whether this association weakened for individuals who have experienced higher levels of childhood abuse. A binary logistic regression …

The Player Character's Journey: The Hero's Journey In Moldvay's Dungeons & Dragons, Robert Leopold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the archetypes, motifs, and stages of the Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey as they are found in the Moldvay revision of the rules to Basic Dungeons & Dragons, that emerge from playing the game using the seven adventure modules printed for these rules. Using narratological concepts, the definition of what makes narrative is expanded to include the narrative that emerges by playing story-based roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons. These narratives, based on the seven adventure modules, are the analyzed using Campbell's monomyth as an interpretive tool, showing that these types of narratives are up to …

Student Retention In Community College Engineering And Engineering Technology Programs, Harrison Orr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An ex-pos-facto non-experimental quantitative study was conducted to examine the academic, financial, and student background factors that influence first-to-second year retention of engineering and engineering technology students at U.S. community colleges. Analysis of the five research questions was done using a chi-square test and multiple logistic regressions. Data were obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Beginning Postsecondary Students 2012/2014 (BPS: 12/14) study. Computations were performed using PowerStats, a web-based statistical tool provided by the NCES, as well as IBM SPSS 25.

The sample population consisted of students who entered postsecondary education for the first time in the …

Differences In Socialization Factors In Relation To Prescription Drug Misuse Between Rural And Urban Juveniles, Gabriela Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Juvenile misuse of prescription drugs in the United States has continuously increased over the last few decades, especially within rural regions of the country. Despite continuous increase in rates of misuse, limited research exists on elements of socialization that may function to prevent drug use. The current study utilized the Monitoring the Future Survey data to explore prescription drug misuse between different populations of juveniles. While using Hirschi’s (1969) theory of social bonds as a theoretical framework, different elements of socialization were explored to determine whether they work to contribute or prevent prescription drug misuse among rural and urban juveniles. …

An Exploratory Study Of Duty-Related Stress Among Conservation Officers, Logan Ledford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research relating to police stress has typically focused on officers working in urban areas, neglecting their rural counterparts. This is especially true of conservation officers, who are tasked with enforcing laws in state parks and other recreational areas. To date, only a handful of studies have sought to better understand their experiences and perceptions. The current study seeks to further our understanding of conservation officer stress in three unique ways: (1) via applying McCreary and Thompson’s (2006) operational police stress scale (PSQ-Op) to the population, (2) determining whether officer characteristics (e.g., age, education, length of service) affect perceived stress, and …

The Crucible Of History:How Apology And Reconciliation Created Modern Conceptions Of The Salem Witch Trials, Heaven Umbrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, historians, authors, and amateur enthusiasts alike have been mesmerized by the Salem witch trials. Most of the literature focuses on the trials themselves and takes one of three approaches: anthropological; sociological; or conspiratorial. Recently Gretchen Adams, professor of history at Texas Tech University, approached the trials differently, focusing on memory. She narrowed on how the “specters of Salem” loomed over American cultural and public memory. Apart from Adams, little scholarly inquiry has focused on the aftermath of the trials, especially how it affected the people directly involved. This thesis will expand the historiography of the Salem witch hunt …

A Power Man’S Theology: Marvel’S Luke Cage And Black Liberation Theology, Diarron B. Morrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Netflix released Marvel’s Luke Cage in 2016 to critical acclaim. Born from a 1970s comic book, the series features Luke Cage, an African-American superhero. Cage is a big, bald, bulletproof black man. Instead of tights and a cape, Cage wears a hoodie calling the audience to remember Trayvon Martin and other victims of white racism. Theologian James Cone created Black Liberation Theology in the 1970s. As a result of Cone’s work, Black Liberation Theology addresses the issue of white racism from a theological standpoint. In this thesis I present a close reading of Marvel’s Luke Cage using Black Liberation Theology …

Communications And Methodologies In Crime Geography: Contemporary Approaches To Disseminating Criminal Incidence And Research, Mitchell Ogden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many tools exist to assist law enforcement agencies in mitigating criminal activity. For centuries, academics used statistics in the study of crime and criminals, and more recently, police departments make use of spatial statistics and geographic information systems in that pursuit. Clustering and hot spot methods of analysis are popular in this application for their relative simplicity of interpretation and ease of process. With recent advancements in geospatial technology, it is easier than ever to publicly share data through visual communication tools like web applications and dashboards. Sharing data and results of analyses boosts transparency and the public image of …

Effective Design Features For The Management Of Behavioral Health Patients In General Emergency Departments Of Hospitals, Rheena Ware Luchansky

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated nursing staff members perspectives of their existing Emergency Department (ED) and their ability to care appropriately for behavioral health patients within the environment. The study involved three rural hospitals in eastern Texas that may not always have the proper resources to care effectively for this vulnerable patient population. The researcher administered a paper-based survey utilizing a Likert-scale response system to nursing staff across all facilities and received participation from 56 respondents. Survey questions were designed to investigate the current ED environment and identify design features available to assist with caring for behavioral health patients. Data gathered revealed …

Using Behavior Economic Nudges To Facilitate Client Follow-Through In Financial Coaching, Charlene Hurst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While benevolence-based programs have been a large part of meeting immediate financial needs of the poor, they lack the relational aspect needed to facilitate long-term behavior change. Recently many social service organizations have adopted financial coaching as a promising replacement for benevolence programming. The field of coaching has dealt with its own challenges. Most coaching practitioners surveyed in 2016 and 2019 acknowledged lack of client follow-through as their number one challenge. Behavior economics offered nudges as a solution. Nudges are cues placed within the physical environment to prod clients toward behavior change. A quantitative field study was conducted to evaluate …

Organizational Conditions That Promote And Impede Research Engagement: The Principal’S Perspective, Renee Treat

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The researcher explored perceptions of the research-practice gap in education, the process through which central actors make decisions related to teacher retention and development, and the organizational conditions that promote and impede research-engagement in this qualitative study. The researcher limited the study to the role of the campus principal and used purposive sampling to select participants from 3 diverse districts in the state of Texas. Because there may be discrepancies between leaders’ perceptions and behaviors, the researcher conducted interview sessions with principals and principal supervisors and conducted observation sessions in principals’ natural work environments. The study results showed that good …

Conspiracy Theories And The Quest For Truth, Rachel Runnels

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conspiracy theories are deeply embedded in American culture, especially in current American society. The popularity of conspiracy theories in general reveals that society is becoming increasingly skeptical of authoritative organizations. Because of “fake news” and the availability of information and connection on the internet, people feel as though they must question everything, even sources they previously viewed as unquestionable authorities.

My analysis looks at how online conspiracy organizations create and defend their arguments in an attempt to understand why conspiracy theories are so persuasive. I analyze the rhetoric of three online conspiracy theory organizations: the Flat Earth Society, the Mutual …

Investigating Administrators’ Resistance To Implementing Restorative Practices, Beri Deister

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this case study, the researcher investigated the barriers to school administrators’ implementation of restorative practices as a management approach to student behavior. Based on the claim that restorative practices is a promising alternative to exclusionary disciplinary placements for changing behavior, the researcher used an emergent explanatory mixed methods design to better understand administrators’ resistance to change despite overwhelming evidence that exclusionary disciplinary practices are the primary contributors to national trends in disciplinary disproportionality and institutional discrimination. The researcher identified and analyzed barriers to create recommendations for addressing administrators’ resistance through organizational change strategies using systems theory.

Visitor Characteristics, Attitudes, And Management Preferences Of The Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, Samuel J. Rhodes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex (BMWC) encompasses 3 federal wilderness areas and spans over 1.5 million acres of iconic mountains and valleys in northwestern Montana. Here visitors can find a plethora of recreation opportunity that give access to some of the most rugged country that can be found in the lower 48 states. However, managing wilderness areas comes with the challenge of both preserving the natural resources found within their borders and enabling opportunities for recreational experiences. Wilderness social scientists always have striven to determine the type of visitors coming to wilderness, and see what sorts of experiences they pursue. …

Organizational Change Within Christian Higher Education Institutions And The Reactions Of Faculty, Dena Counts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christian higher education in the United States is experiencing frequent transformational organizational change that is impacting faculty. Researchers have asserted that frequent, second-order organizational change correlates with interpersonal conflict, and conflict is associated with counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). These associations between change, conflict, and negative work behavior are important to understand as faculty actions could significantly impact change efforts. Because of the context of Christian higher education, this study was designed to determine if faculty organizational identification influenced the correlations of the variables. It specifically utilized a cross-sectional survey design to assess faculty (N = 267) perceptions of organizational change, …

Emergency Department Nursing Psychological Care (Early Crisis Intervention) For Adult Victims Of Violent Crime: A Quantitative Study, Barbara Conn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recognition of the significance of early interventions and the importance of addressing psychological trauma for the victim of violence is of utmost importance for quality of life and the victim’s future. The serious impact of psychological trauma on victims of violent crime supports further study to determine whether Emergency Department (ED) nurses assess this trauma and initiate early interventions and referral for ongoing psychological care. Nursing care, assessment and early intervention with victims of violent crime was the focus of this dissertation study.

A quantitative study, with a non-experimental, descriptive design employed retrospective chart reviews to determine whether ED nurses …

Cultural Aspects Of End Of Life Advance Care Planning For African Americans: An Ethnonursing Study, John Collins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Advance directive completion rates among the general population are low. Studies report even lower completion rates among African Americans are impacted by demographic variables, cultural distinctives related to patient autonomy, mistrust of the healthcare system, low health literacy, strong spiritual beliefs, desire for aggressive interventions, importance of family-communal decision making, and presence of comorbidities. End of Life (EOL) advance care planning (ACP) promotes patient and family centered care. The purpose of this study was to identify culturally based meanings, expressions, and traditions of EOL ACP and decision making among African Americans, to better understand and provide culturally congruent nursing …

Unruly Matter: Masculine Consumption In English Restoration Literature, Shawn Watkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Unruly Matter: Masculine Consumption in English Restoration Literature

Over the past several decades, material culture scholars working within the “Long 18^th Century” have identified how the figure of the woman consumer became an ideological nodal point that registered new enthusiasm for emerging economic dynamics (mercantilism, nascent capitalism, etc.) while also expressing masculine anxieties about consumerism and the role of consumable goods in English society. Although many scholars have noted that men functioned symbolically and ideologically as English society’s primary consumers of material goods in the later 17^th century, there is no scholarly work that aims to describe the …

Staging Intersectionality: Power And Performance In American Cultural Texts, 1855-2019, Alexandra Reznik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores a diverse array of cultural texts, from literary representations to live performances, from the antebellum period to the contemporary moment,that highlight African-American women singer-celebrities navigating entertainment industries in the United States. Focusing on significant figures from the nineteenth century to the present including Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (the first prominently known Black woman singer in the antebellum period), Pauline Hopkins (the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novelist and soprano), Sissieretta Jones (a twentieth-century soprano singer), and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (a contemporary singer-celebrity, songwriter, and producer), this study re-imagines the archive of Black singer-celebrities by centering Black women’s performances and …

Reclaiming Embodiment: An Existential-Phenomenological Exploration Of Women’S Tattoos, Ashley Gill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a phenomenological research study about the lived experiences of women who elected to get tattoos in the last five years. Due to historical and present discourses on female embodiment and persistent stigmas and pathologies often associated with tattoos, I sought to generate meaningful knowledge about the lived experiences of women who have voluntarily chosen this form of body modification. I conducted phenomenological research interviews with nine participants about personal meanings, decision making processes, and lived experiences of embodiment (capturing existential themes of lived body, spatiality, relationality, and time) before and after tattooing. I applied thematic interpretation of …

Impartiality, Social Network Effects And Collective Memory: Three Essays On Trust In Police., Matthew Robert Fischer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an historical and empirical examination of police organizational efforts at influencing public perceptions of trust in police. It begins with an historical overview of police organizational reform, focusing on the various strategies employed by police reformers have attempted to influence public perceptions of police trustworthiness and legitimacy. It uses Rothstein’s impartiality as Quality of Government thesis and the theory of collective memory to argue for an understanding of the importance of the normative context in which police tactics and strategies are deployed for garnering trust in police and how the presence of social network effects for trust …

Mapping Rural Literacy Sponsorship Networks : Literacy Infrastructures And Perceptions In Abbyville., Amy Mccleese Nichols

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, the academy has become aware that rural students are choosing to attend institutions of higher education less often than their urban counterparts. Rationalizing why this particular population remains underserved by institutions of higher learning is a new conversation for higher education. And yet, in literacy studies, the perceived urban/rural divide in terms of national politics sometimes seeps into conversations about the perceived “literacy” or culture of rural peoples. This polarization, unaccompanied by detailed portraits of rural community literacy sponsorship, means that rural areas do not benefit from the consistent attention paid to their urban counterparts in New Literacy Studies. …

Queering Black Greek-Lettered Fraternities, Masculinity And Manhood : A Queer Of Color Critique Of Institutionality In Higher Education., Antron Demel Mahoney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing heavily on Roderick Ferguson’s (2012) theory of institutionality, this dissertation constructs a counter-historical genealogy of racialized gender in higher education and U.S. society through the formation of black Greek-lettered fraternities. Ferguson argues that with the insurgence of minority resistance globally and domestically during the mid-twentieth century, hegemonic power took a new form. Instead of rejecting minority difference, power’s new network attempted to work through and with minority difference in an effort to absorb and restrict these radical formations within state, capital and academy frameworks—producing narrow or one-dimensional minority subjectivities. Established at the turn of the twentieth century, black Greek-lettered …

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing At The Local Level : A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Practices In Louisville, Kentucky., Steven P. Sizemore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research project is an immersion into the beliefs, ideas, meanings, values, and feelings of actors engaged in shaping local housing policies. The dissertation examines how discourse constitutes and shapes the knowledge of policy actors engaged in fair housing policies and practices in Louisville, Kentucky. I argue that policy discourse is the site where social problems become framed, bounded, and transformed into action. Therefore, if the objective of the Fair Housing Act’s mandate for HUD and its recipients is to operate programs in a manner that “affirmatively furthers fair housing” (AFFH), it is essential to understand the discursive acts …

Robustness Of Semi-Parametric Survival Model: Simulation Studies And Application To Clinical Data, Isaac Nwi-Mozu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An efficient way of analyzing survival clinical data such as cancer data is a great concern to health experts. In this study, we investigate and propose an efficient way of handling survival clinical data. Simulation studies were conducted to compare performances of various forms of survival model techniques using an R package ``survsim". Models performance was conducted with varying sample sizes as small ($n5000$). For small and mild samples, the performance of the semi-parametric outperform or approximate the performance of the parametric model. However, for large samples, the parametric model outperforms the semi-parametric model. We compared the effectiveness and reliability …

"We've Been Here All Along" : The Standpoint And Collective Resilience Of Transgender U.S. Service Members., Jacob R. Eleazer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The 2010 repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy ended the ban on open lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) military service (Alford & Lee, 2016). However, prior to 2015 transgender military personnel were still considered medically and psychologically unfit for service (Kerrigan, 2012; Yerke & Mitchell, 2013). From 2015 through 2017, the Department of Defense (DoD) researched the implications of policy change, developed new policies and trainings, and implemented open service for transgender persons (Belkin, 2016; Carter, 2015). The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of transgender military service members prior to this transition in …

Resilience Among Survivors Of Adverse Childhood Experiences In Appalachia, Bridget Jeter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The empirical investigation of adverse childhood events (ACEs) and their relationship with health and well-being outcomes in later life is increasing. Less is known about factors that may promote resilience for those who have survived such challenges, such as how resilience may be facilitated for those with ACEs residing in a marginalized region such as South Central Appalachia. Multidimensional spirituality, social support, stigma related to ACEs, and Appalachian acculturation may serve as both valid cultural factors and potential indicators of resilience. Cross-sectional, simultaneous multiple regression analysis was performed on data collected from 272 adult patients of a South Central Appalachian …

Exploring The Role Of Social Capital In The Implementation Of Fruit And Vegetable Incentive Programs: A Case Study Of The Appalachian Farmacy Program, Kiriinya Mwirigi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The study was conducted to explore the role of social capital in the implementation of Fruit and Vegetable Incentive Programs (FVIP) through a case study of the Appalachian Farmacy (AF) program and to fill a gap in literature on social capital utility in the implementation and evaluation of FVIPs. The study was guided by a conceptual model adopted from Berkman et al. (2000) to identify the mechanisms through which social networks can impact health. A qualitative content analysis was conducted retrospectively on secondary data from the evaluation of AF program to identify social capital attributes. In addition, the study conducted …

Community College Grow Your Own Leadership: A Phenomenological Study Of Employee Perceptions Of Individual And Organizational Leadership Development, John Delozier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Community colleges often face challenges with leadership as a result of retirements and turnover. In reaction to these challenges some community colleges have developed Grow Your Own (GYO) leadership development programs. Although the topic of leadership and leadership development has been researched extensively, more research is necessary concerning GYO programs and their perceived impact on participants and their colleges. This study was designed to determine the perceived development of GYO participants as well as the perception of a GYO’s impact on the organization. Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) in Greensboro, North Carolina has had a GYO program for 30 years. …

Reputation Versus Reality: An Oral History Of Vidor, Texas, Amanda Michel Saylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Vidor, Texas is a town learning to manage its past with the Ku Klux Klan and the subsequent legacy of racial intolerance it now carries into the twenty-first century. By utilizing oral history, interviews with the residents (current and former) clarify how Vidorians see their past and form a collective memory. This memory study oral history project chronicles the historical narrative of Vidor and Vidorians based on oral histories of the interviewee’s point of view. It then highlights my mastery of relevant public history and oral history literature while reviewing the best practices of oral history as both a methodology …