Digital Commons Network^™

Connecting Self-Efficacy And Views About Nature Of Science In Undergraduate Research Experiences, Gina Quan, Andrew Elby

Faculty Publications

Undergraduate research can support students’ more central participation in physics. We analyze markers of two coupled shifts in participation: changes in students’ views about the nature of science coupled to shifts in self-efficacy toward physics research. Students in the study worked with faculty and graduate student mentors on research projects while also participating in a seminar where they learned about research and reflected on their experiences. In classroom discussions and in clinical interviews, students described gaining more nuanced views about the nature of science, specifically related to who can participate in research and what participation in research looks like. This …

Divorce Stress, Stepfamily Stress, And Depression Among Emerging Adult Stepchildren, Kevin Shafer, Todd M. Jensen, Erin K. Holmes

Faculty Publications

Several decades of research have shown that parental divorce can be a stressful experience for children and may lead to depression and other negative outcomes. Similarly, research has highlighted the stressors often induced by stepfamily formation and their effects on children. Although singular family transitions can exert influence, few studies explore how the combined stress from two family transitions may interact to influence long-term outcomes. Our study addresses this gap by using national data from 1142 respondents who experienced parental divorce and a subsequent transition to stepfamily life. Congruent with prior research, we find that retrospective reports of divorce and …

Substance Use And Psychosocial Status Among People Living With Hiv/Aids Who Encountered Hiv Stigma In China: Stratified Analyses By Socio-Economic Status, Chen Zhang, Xiaoming Li Ph.D., Yu Liu, Shan Qiao Ph.D., Yuejiao Zhou, Zhiyong Shen, Yi Chen

Faculty Publications

This study examined whether the impact of HIV stigma on psychosocial status and substance use among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) differed by their socio-economic status (SES) in a Chinese setting. A total of 2,987 PLWHA were recruited from 12 sites with the highest number of cumulative HIV incidence in Guangxi, China. Participants were asked to provide information regarding their psychosocial status (e.g., depression, anxiety), history of substance use (e.g., tobacco, alcohol and drug) and SES (e.g., education, monthly income, residence type, and job category). By employing stratified multivariate regression analyses, we assessed stratum-specific impacts of HIV stigma on PLWHA’s …

Substance Use And Psychosocial Status Among People Living With Hiv/Aids Who Encountered Hiv Stigma In China: Stratified Analyses By Socio-Economic Status, Chen Zhang, Xiaoming Li, Yu Liu, Shan Qiao, Yuejiao Zhou, Zhiyong Shen, Yi Chen

Faculty Publications

This study examined whether the impact of HIV stigma on psychosocial status and substance use among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) differed by their socio-economic status (SES) in a Chinese setting. A total of 2,987 PLWHA were recruited from 12 sites with the highest number of cumulative HIV incidence in Guangxi, China. Participants were asked to provide information regarding their psychosocial status (e.g., depression, anxiety), history of substance use (e.g., tobacco, alcohol and drug) and SES (e.g., education, monthly income, residence type, and job category). By employing stratified multivariate regression analyses, we assessed stratum-specific impacts of HIV stigma on PLWHA’s …

Research Support Services For Religious Studies, Trevan Hatch, Ryan Lee, Gerrit Van Dyk

Faculty Publications

This project was part of a larger suite of similar studies being concurrently conducted at fifteen religious studies libraries in US higher education institutions in conjunction with Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit research and consulting service that helps academic, cultural, and publishing communities. The information gathered in this study will not only be used to improve the research support services at Brigham Young University but also towards writing a larger report from the aggregated results written and publically disseminated by Ithaka S+R.

Magazine Influence On Body Dissatisfaction: Fashion Vs. Health?, Paulina Swiatkowski

Faculty Publications

Fashion magazines have been shown to have a negative relationship with body dissatisfaction and psychological health, while the effects of health magazines on body dissatisfaction and psychological health have mainly been studied with men. However, because of gender differences, health magazine consumption effects on men cannot be applied equally to women. Therefore, the present study uses sociocultural theory to study health magazine and possible similarities to fashion magazine effects on women’s body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. Sociocultural attitude toward appearance is then explored as a mediator and potential moderator in the established relationship between magazine consumption and psychological health, …

Community Research Fellows Training Hattiesburg, Ms Evaluation Report, Candace Forbes Bright

Faculty Publications

The Community Research Fellows Training (CRFT) Hattiesburg program took place between January 12^th, 2016 and May 17, 2016. This is the third Mississippi cohort of CRFT and the first Mississippi cohort outside of Jackson, Mississippi. This report reflects the implementation and evaluation of a community based participatory training (CBPR) program for community members in Hattiesburg. The report provides data on the assessment of the program’s effectiveness in promoting the role of underserved populations in research by enhancing the capacity for CBPR. In assessing the social network development of the cohort, we seek to understand effectiveness in bridging many …

Four Factors That Help Women Leave Abusive Relationships, Jason B. Whiting

Faculty Publications

Being mistreated by the person you love, especially when physical abuse is involved, is one of the most frightening and traumatic experiences a woman can face, and it is hard to know what to do when it happens. A woman who is a victim of violence faces a particularly complicated dilemma. Should she stay or go? Although this may seem to be an easy choice, as discussed in my last post, there are many issues that can make it difficult for a victim of domestic violence to leave. For instance, victimized women often love and feel committed to their partner, …

Studying Global News: Methodological Issues, August Grant, Yicheng Zhu, Jeff Wilkinson, Diane Guerrazzi

Faculty Publications

This paper reports on the processes, challenges, and results of a study of news consumers in 16 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States. This study employed a 10-minute, online survey measuring media consumption, news topic preference, news values and demographic information. The results of the primary study will be reported in later papers; the purpose of this analysis is to address the issues and challenges in conducting cross-national research, including language and idiom, sampling issues, data collection procedures, incentives, and time. The analysis begins …

Is This Relevant? Physician Perceptions, Clinical Relevance, And Religious Content In Clinical Interactions, Aaron B. Franzen

Faculty Publications

Despite wide support among physicians for practicing patient-centered care, clinical interactions are primarily driven by physicians’ perception of relevance. While some will perceive a connection between religion and patient health, this relevance will be less apparent for others. I argue that physician responses when religious/spiritual topics come up during clinical interactions will depend on their own religious/spiritual background. The more central religion is for the physician, the greater his or her perception of religion's impact on health outcomes and his or her inclusion of religion/spirituality within clinical interactions. Using a nationally representative sample of physicians in the United States and …

Compliance Police Or Business Partner? Institutional Complexity And Occupational Tensions In Human Resource Managment, Kurt Sandholtz, Tyler N. Burrows

Faculty Publications

Faced with institutional demands, organizations often create departments whose work is divorced from technical imperatives. This paper examines workers in one such department: Human Resources. Analysis of HR's recent history and evidence from an ethnographic study of HR work highlight the institutional origins of conflict between HR's established "compliance police" role and the "business partner" expectations of line managers. The paper outlines a theory of how organizational responses to institutional complexity contribute to persistent tension in HR and other heteronomous occupations.

Eight Reasons Women Stay In Abusive Relationships, Jason B. Whiting

Faculty Publications

When NFL linebacker Ray Rice knocked his fiancée Janay Palmer unconscious in an elevator in 2014, it didn't initially get much attention. He was accused of domestic violence and suspended for two games. After a few weeks he was formally charged, but he and Palmer were married the next day. However, when a security video of the event surfaced, it quickly went viral. Watching Palmer get knocked out and roughly dragged out of the elevator by Rice had a powerful effect on viewers. The waves of outrage that followed caused the NFL to scramble to increase their punishment of Ray …

Intersystem Implications Of The Developmental Origins Of Health And Disease: Advancing Health Promotion In The 21st Century, Michael D. Barnes, Thomas L. Heaton, Michael C. Goates, Justin M. Packer

Faculty Publications

The developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) theory and life course theory (LCT) are emerging fields of research that have significant implications for the public health and health promotion professions. Using a DOHaD/LCT perspective, social determinants of health (SDH) take on new critical meaning by which health promotion professionals can implement DOHaD/LCT guided interventions, including recommended policies. Through these interventions, public health could further address the sources of worldwide chronic disease epidemics and reduce such disease rates substantially if related policy, programs, and interdisciplinary and multi-sector collaboration are emphasized. Additional characteristics of the most effective interventions involve context-specific adaptation …

When To Seek Help: Six Signs A Relationship Is Going Downhill, Jason B. Whiting

Faculty Publications

Billionaire inventor Elon Musk is known for his intense drive to change the world. He has developed technology to get humans off fossil fuels and up to the stars and is the CEO of electric car company Tesla, as well as rocket launcher SpaceX. By all accounts he is brilliant, driven, and uncompromising. His successes have earned him respect and money, but he has struggled in his romantic pursuits.

Planning For Sustainability In Small Municipalities: The Influence Of Interest Groups, Growth Patterns, And Institutional Characteristics, Vanessa R. Levesque, Kathleen P. Bell, Aram J. K. Calhoun

Faculty Publications

How and why small municipalities promote sustainability through planning efforts is poorly understood. We analyzed ordinances in 451 Maine municipalities and tested theories of policy adoption using regression analysis.We found that smaller communities do adopt programs that contribute to sustainability relevant to their scale and context. In line with the political market theory, we found that municipalities with strong environmental interests, higher growth, and more formal governments were more likely to adopt these policies. Consideration of context and capacity in planning for sustainability will help planners better identify and benefit from collaboration, training, and outreach opportunities.

Assessing Differences In Intimate Partner Obligations Based On Relationship Status, Gender, And Parental Status, Lawrence Ganong, Tyler B. Jamison, Ashton Chapman

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of relationship status (i.e., cohabiting or married), gender, and parental status on perceptions about intimate partner obligations. In vignettes depicting various aspects of couple relationships, we measured the effects of relationship status, gender, and parental status on partner obligations, obtaining quantitative and qualitative data. Married couples were perceived to have greater obligations to one another than cohabitors when issues involved potential relationship transitions. Women were perceived to be more obligated than men to support a partner's career change. Open-ended responses indicated that marriage is an important factor in shaping perceived …

Book Review: Madness In Civilization: A Cultural History Of Insanity From The Bible To Freud, From The Madhouse To Modern Medicine, Edward Cohen

Faculty Publications

A review of: Scull, Andrew. (2015). Madness in civilization: A cultural history of insanity from the Bible to Freud, from the madhouse to modern medicine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 448 pp. $39.50 (Hardback), ISBN 978-0-691-16615-5.

Learning How To Speak Like A “Native”: Speech And Culture In An Online Communication Training Program, Tabitha Hart

Faculty Publications

This article examines the oral communication training that took place in Eloqi, a virtual language-learning community. Eloqi (a pseudonym) was a for-profit start-up that built and operated a proprietary Web-based, voice-enabled platform connecting English-language learners in China with trainers in the United States. While it existed, Eloqi’s unique platform was used to deliver short, one-on-one lessons designed to improve students’ oral English communication skills. Using the ethnography of communication and speech codes theory, a theoretical–methodological approach, the author presents an analysis of the speech code, or code of communicative conduct, employed at Eloqi. This code of English logic, which Eloqi’s …

Defining News: A Ten-Nation Perspective, August Grant, Jeffrey Wilkinson, Diane Guerrazzi, Yicheng Zhu

Faculty Publications

Worldwide, the consumption of news and information is greater than ever before. But twenty years of Internet news and a decade of social media have permanently altered the patterns of behaviors associated with how consumers look for news and even how they perceive what ‘news’ is for them. As the media landscape changes and old approaches no longer fit, it may be time to re-assess the fundamental definition of “news.” Traditional news values have been defined and extensively studied by Western researchers, but little attention has been paid to the correspondence of these definitions of news with consumers’ behavior in …

A Nation Divided: Science, Religion, And Public Opinion In The United States, Shiri Noy, Timothy L. O'Brien

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Specialized Disaster Behavioral Health Training: Its Connection With Response, Practice, Trauma Health, And Resilience, Christiana D. Atkins, Harvey J. Burnett Jr

Faculty Publications

This study examined the relationship between having training in key disaster behavioral health (DBH) interventions and trauma health (compassion fatigue, burnout and compassion satisfaction), resilience, the number of crisis responses participated in within the last year, and the frequency of assembling to practice crisis interventions skills. Data was collected from a convenience sample of disaster behavioral health responders (N = 139) attending a training conference in Michigan. Measures included the Professional Quality of Life Scale, the 14-item Resilience Scale, and a demographic questionnaire. Point biserial correlations revealed that having training in large and small group crisis interventions and individual …

The Deception Of Depression: How A Melancholy Mood Can Sink A Marriage, Jason B. Whiting

Faculty Publications

Logan was a doctoral student studying ancient Italian poetry. His life was filled with shelves of old books and a teaching job where he was supposed to inspire lethargic freshmen. His doctoral adviser was difficult and inconsistent, and Logan was a people- pleaser who worried that his adviser and students were always upset with him. He came to see me at the request of his wife, Yuko, who was starting to panic at his change in personality. “He used to be cheerful, fun-loving, and interested in his work,” she said. “Now he is a zombie. He goes through the motions …

Agriculture On The Brink:Climate Change, Labor And Smallholder Farming In Botswana, William G. Moseley

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sustainability Science Graduate Students As Boundary Spanners, Spencer R. Meyer, Vanessa R. Levesque, Karen H. Bieluch, Michelle L. Johnson, Bridie Mcgreavy, Stacia Dreyer, Hollie Smith

Faculty Publications

Graduate training in sustainability science (SS) focuses on interdisciplinary research, stakeholder-researcher partnerships, and creating solutions from knowledge. But becoming a sustainability scientist also requires specialized training that addresses the complex boundaries implicit in sustainability science approaches to solving social-ecological system challenges. Using boundary spanning as a framework, we use a case study of the Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI) at the University of Maine to explicate key elements for graduate education training in SS. We used a mixed-methods approach, including a quantitative survey and autoethnographic reflection, to analyze our experiences as SSI doctoral students. Through this research, we identified four essential …

Pubertal Maturation Compression And Behavioral Impulsivity Among Boys At Increased Risk For Substance Use, Charles W. Mathias, Nora E. Charles, Yuanyuan Lang, Ashley Acheson, Sarah L. Lake, Stacy R. Ryan, Rene L. Olvera, Donald M. Dougherty

Faculty Publications

Objectives: While early onset of puberty among girls has been related to substance use involvement and other adverse outcomes, less research has examined pubertal development and outcomes in boys. Further, research on puberty has not been conducted in the context of other risk factors for substance use involvement such as impulsivity. To address these gaps, this study characterized boys' pubertal development from preadolescence to mid adolescence and related it to substance use risk and behavioral impulsivity.

Methods: A sample of 153 boys completed the Pubertal Development Scale to assess perception of their pubertal development relative to same-age peers …

Revisiting Financial Issues And Marriage, Jeffrey P. Dew

Faculty Publications

This chapter examines research pertaining to the association between financial issues and marriage. The majority of the research reviewed was published after 2008. These studies show that financial issues relate to marriage formation, marital quality, and marital stability (i.e., divorce). Specifically, financial stability is associated with a greater likelihood of marriage. Further, behaviors that financial practitioners would label “sound financial management” are positively associated with marital quality and stability. For example, longitudinal studies found that consumer debt was positively associated with divorce whereas financial assets were negatively associated with divorce. Studies have also found that financial arguments create worse relationship …

Turning Contention Into Collaboration: Engaging Power, Trust, And Learning In Collaborative Networks, Vanessa R. Levesque, Aram J. K. Calhoun, Kathleen P. Bell, Teresa R. Johnson

Faculty Publications

Given the complexity and multiplicity of goals in natural resource governance, it is not surprising that policy debates are often characterized by contention and competition. Yet at times adversaries join together to collaborate to find creative solutions not easily achieved in polarizing forums. We employed qualitative interviews and a quantitative network analysis to investigate a collaborative network that formed to develop a resolution to a challenging natural resource management problem, the conservation of vernal pools. We found that power had become distributed among members, trust had formed across core interests, and social learning had resulted in shared understanding and joint …

Your Face: The Window To Your Love Life, Jason B. Whiting

Faculty Publications

I was sitting in church one day as a newly-married man and noticed a nice-looking woman on the piano bench up front. She was staring my direction and caught my eye. She had an intense look that startled me. She gave a coy smile. I was surprised and alert – but I didn’t recognize her and was getting uncomfortable. I glanced at my wife beside me, who didn’t notice what was going down. I looked back at the woman and she laughed, and then winked. I felt extremely awkward and started to sweat. I glanced around again to see if …

Comparing Library Wayfinding Among Novices And Experts, Holt Zaugg, Curtis Child, Dalton Bennett, Jace Brown, Melissa Alcaraz, Alexander Allred, Nathaniel Andrus, Drew Babcock, Maria Barriga, Madison Brown, Lindsey Bulloch, Todd Corbett, Michelle Curtin, Victoria Giossi, Samantha Hawkins, Sergio Hernandez, Kayia Jacobs, Jette Jones, David Kessler, Samuel Lee, Sara Mackay, Amy Marshall, Dallin Maxfield, Cory Mcfarland, Brennen Miller, Maia Roberson, Kristy Rogers, Devin Stoker, Manase Tonga, Abby Twitchell, Tinesha Zandamela

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate similar and different wayfinding strategies used by novice and expert patrons at an academic library.

Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a usability study approach. In total, 12 people, places, or things were identified as important for students to be able to locate within an academic library. Students from one of three groups (high school, freshmen, and seniors) were randomly assigned a scenario requiring them to find the indicated person, place, or thing. Student researchers video recorded participants and took field notes during the wayfinding activity and conducted an interview about …

The Fight About Nothing: Three Ways Couples Can Get Out Of Useless Battles, Jason B. Whiting

Faculty Publications

Tyler left the office early feeling nauseated. He hit the bed, and a couple hours later his wife Bethany walked in, surprised to find him there. “What are you doing?” she blurted. Tyler grimaced. “I’m sick. Is that ok?”