Digital Commons Network^™

Human Dimensions Of Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus Horridus) Management In Connecticut, Lindsay Keener-Eck

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Factors Influencing Maternal Involvement In Early Childhood: Exploring The Roles Of Maternal Stress And Children’S Narrative Representations Of Mothers, Rahmet Akpolat

Master's Theses

For children from low-income families, parent school involvement can be a crucial protective factor that supports children’s cognitive and emotional development. The present study seeks to explore how maternal stress in early childhood is associated with mothers’ later school involvement and whether children’s internalized positive, disciplinary and negative maternal representations act as potential mediators of this relationship. Currently, little research has been done on the contextual factors influencing parent school involvement in early childhood and this study aims to fill this gap in the literature. The data included 169 children and mothers from low-income families. Mothers completed questionnaires designed to …

A Novel Model Of “Remedy And Elimination Of Tuberculosis”, Akanksha Mishra

Master's Theses

Tuberculosis (TB), is one of the top ten causes of death worldwide. TB is commonly linked to poverty and creates poverty as it is the single largest cause of death in the 15-49-year-old age group in South-East Asia (WHO, 2017). It is also linked to the HIV population, and its leading cause of death. TB is effected by socio-economic factors, cultural factors, and health policy. My goal of this dissertation is to identify systematic approaches that shall support the mission set by World Health Organization (WHO): to eliminate TB globally by the year 2050. Measures might include addressing social barriers …

Youth Sport Development Pathways And Experiences Of Ncaa Division I Women's College Soccer Players, Emily Hardell

Master's Theses

As youth sport has become increasingly professionalized, many believe that the route to elite level play is through early specialization. Early specialization is a contentious issue, and many risk factors have been associated with high levels and intensities of training in youth. Youth today participate in highly competitive sport in pursuit of elite levels of play, recognition, and financial gain. Early specialization is thought to be a requirement for advancement, yet little is known about the early experiences of team sport athletes who grew up in the US. This is the story of 15 elite female athletes who “made it” …

The Common Lot Of Nature: The Stoic Concept Of Death In The Writings Of St. Ambrose, Nathan Michael Falls Hall

Master's Theses

The Common Lot of Nature is a comparative analysis which questions the completeness of St. Ambrose’s Christian faith. The comparison focuses specifically on notions of death, and how one should deal with its presence in one’s life. This emphasis was chosen because Ambrose was a Christian bishop who was heavily influenced by Stoicism, and these two worldviews held contrasting beliefs on how death fits into the lives of human beings. The paper begins with an outline of other research regarding Stoicism or its potential connections with Christianity. The following two sections discuss how Stoics and 4th century Christians conceptualized death …

Eductional Persistence In Latino Male Students Attending University: Their Experiences And Identity Development, Michelle Swartz

Master's Theses

Because Latino male students have lower graduation rates from high school and postsecondary institutions than other demographic groups have, this qualitative research study examined the psychosocial experiences that influence the development of educational persistence. To this end, eight Latino male undergraduate students, who are also low-income and first-generation students at San José State University, participated in semi-structured interviews in which they discussed their identities and school experiences. An analysis of the eight interviews shows how these students made meaning of their education, gender identity, and ethnicity. The constant comparative method for analyzing interview transcripts revealed the following themes: (a) the …

Transfer Student Experiences At Stanford University And The University Of California, Berkeley, Rachael Madison

Master's Theses

Elite institutions have a long history of serving students from high socioeconomic status families. Transfer students who begin their college career at community colleges are typically from low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented minority status families. This population of students has historically been underrepresented at elite colleges. The purpose of this study was to examine the community college transfer student experience at two elite universities, one public and one private, and how institutional programs and structures affect the transfer student experience. The study gathered information from eight community college transfer students, four from each elite university, interviewed in one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Four …

Falling Up: Building Language Use And Cultural Awareness Through The Implementation Of Humor In The Esl Classroom, Glen Kovar

Master's Theses

This study examined the importance of explicitly teaching humor to upper-intermediate and advanced adult English language learners (ELLs), and filled in the gap that exists in studies and literature by examining the use, and implementation of humor in English as a second language/foreign language (ESL/EFL) curricula. Humor is an important human behavior, playing a crucial role in communication, social interactions, and comprehension of a second language (L2) culture. High-level ELLs often lack the linguistic and cultural awareness necessary to effectively communicate. Language courses often accentuate test-taking and language strategies, and courses that explicitly engage with and teach humor to students …

Undocumented Students’ Access To Higher Education In San Francisco, Bay Area, Sandra Miklosic

Master's Theses

This paper will explore the question: “in what ways does DACA status influence undocumented students’ ability to access higher education in San Francisco and Bay Area, California?” Even though DACA does not encompass any direct policies regarding access to education, there is a very strong correlation between having DACA status and accessing higher education for the undocumented students. In this research, I highlight the voices of undocumented students through the method of testimonio. Each participant reflects on their personal experiences with DACA while accessing postsecondary education. In this research, I explore how testimonio, as a methodology and a theoretical framework, …

Higher Education As A Development Tool: An Impact Assessment In Dzaleka Malawi, Emily Golike

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine the efficacy of accredited online diploma programs within refugee camps. When individuals are confined to camps and unable to work and travel in search of economic opportunity, does completing an accredited diploma program improve their quality of life and contribute to their human capital? Can higher education in refugee camps produce sustainable social service projects that benefit residents? There is a demonstrated value in a liberal arts education, but which aspects of this learning schema are most beneficial in the refugee camp context have yet to be explored.

The study conducted in …

Examining A Hierarchical Linear Regression Model Of Overgeneral Memory: Methodological Issues, Car-Fa-X Model Mechanisms, And Memory Encoding As Represented By Cognitive Attributional Style, Carrie Adrian Davis

Master's Theses

Overgeneral memory (OGM) is a phenomenon of reduced autobiographical memory specificity observed in major depressive disorder (MDD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Individuals demonstrating OGM tend to describe past events generally rather than specifically recalling single memory occurrences. Research shows that OGM is perpetuated by three mechanisms: capture in the memory hierarchy due to trait rumination (CaR), functional avoidance of specific memory retrieval (FA), and impaired executive control (X), which together make up the CaR-FA-X model of OGM. Research on the CaR-FA-X model has historically looked at each mechanism in isolation. The current research aimed to compare the contributions of …

Life Being An International Student In The United States: Acculturation, Culture Shock, And Identity Transformation, Lai Yan Vivyan Lam

Master's Theses

The population of international students at community colleges in the United States has increased significantly over the past decade. International students play a big role in building the cultural diversity on campus by bringing over different cultures and sharing their global perspective to the local community. However, they often face challenges adapting into American culture due to cultural differences in education system, language, lifestyle, etc. By looking into the acculturation process of international students to analyze the culture shock and cultural identity changes they experienced, this paper intends to seek ways to help this group of students to ease their …

Investigating How Anticipation Of Object States Drives Event Comprehension, Kyra Krass

Master's Theses

Previous literature has suggested that, when given change of state events in a visual world paradigm task, individuals anticipate either the object that can be acted upon or the goal. This study investigated under what circumstances an individual anticipates one over the other. We used reversible action verbs (e.g. open/close), destruction verbs (e.g., eat), and creation verbs (e.g., knit) in the past and future tense to investigate how anticipation differs across these conditions. Individuals heard sentences such as "The woman will open the umbrella" while seeing four objects on a screen: the initial state (e.g., a closed umbrella), the end …

The Timecourse Of Phonological Competition In Spoken Word Recognition: A Comparison Of Adults And Very Young Children, Elizabeth Schoen Simmons

Master's Theses

Spoken word recognition (SWR) is the mapping of speech sounds to words from many potential candidates in one’s lexicon. In adults, words that are phonetically similar, of high frequency, or semantically related compete for recognition. An ongoing debate in the literature is whether or not very young children encode spoken words with fine-grained temporal and phonetic detail. Specifically, whether they represent words wholistically or as smaller phonetic units similar to that of adults. The adult literature demonstrates that words that are phonetically similar at onset (cohorts) and offset (rhymes) compete for recognition. As it happens, rhymes have the potential to …

Eeg Characterization During Motor Tasks That Are Difficult For Movement Disorder Patients, Adam Joshua Aslam

Master's Theses

Movement disorders are a group of syndromes that often arise due to neurological abnormalities. Approximately 40 million Americans are affected by some form of movement disorder, significantly impacting patients’ quality of life and their ability to live independently. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is one treatment that has shown promising results in the past couple decades, however, the currently used open-loop system has several drawbacks. By implementing a closed-loop or adaptive DBS (aDBS) system, the need for expensive parameter reprogramming sessions would be reduced, side-effects may be relieved, and habituation could be avoided. Several biomarkers, for example signals or activity derived …

The Value Of Choice: An Exploratory Case Study On The Intrinsic Motivation Of Dance Students Within The Creative Process, Jenna M. Gonsalves

Master's Theses

This exploratory case study was designed to analyze the impact choice making has on the intrinsic motivation of middle school dance students including self determination theory’s basic needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Data were collected using multiple sources including observation rubrics and semi-structured pre- and post- group interviews. Two groups of students ages 11-14 created dances for performance. One group participated in a collaborative approach to the creative process and had the opportunity to make choices. The other group participated in a teacher-led creative process and did not have the opportunity to make choices. A thematic content analysis of …

Dance For Special Needs Students: Building Confidence And Motor Skills, Jennifer Monique Dabalsa

Master's Theses

Participating in a dance class is influential in the development of young people’s creative, imaginative, individual, and communicative skills. The use of dance within a classroom increases physical fitness, enriches motor skills, coordination, and enhances social skills. Dance also increases muscular endurance, builds balance, as well as encourages teamwork and group skills. Most, if not all individuals crave to be socially accepted on some level. Many individuals with special needs are limited in verbal communication, or they are completely non-verbal. Connecting to individuals with these types of limitations proves to be challenging in comparison with a typical abled bodied individual. …

Rethinking Civil Wars: An Overview Of Literature And The Syrian Conflict Towards A Structural Definition Of Civil War, Mphatso Kaufulu

Master's Theses

Civil War is a term often used to classify a type of conflict which arises within states. This being so, the exact criteria upon which such a classification of conflict is arrived remains unclear. Additionally, political, dispensational and ideological currents have influenced the classification of conflicts within states by different scholars, so that the determination of conflicts as being civil wars rather than some other kind of intra-state conflict can seem arbitrary. Beyond just the academic implications of this arbitrariness are policy impacts as well. This is because the term civil war carries with it certain implications about the nature …

Determining The Effectiveness Of The Cancer Phase Training Model In A Group Setting, Scott F. Eberhardt

Master's Theses

The role of exercise as a primary therapy has been well documented and has the capacity to act across multiple body systems to attenuate cancer-related toxicities. To date, the Cancer Phase Training Model is the only cancer rehabilitation intervention that includes recommended modes, intensity, frequency, and duration of exercise for cancer survivors. The one-on-one model has been shown to be the most effective method of cancer rehabilitation; however the largest perceived limitation of this model is the expense of the program and its lack of scalability. By creating a structured cancer specific group model that can produce similar results to …

The Role Of Pain Persistence In The Association Between Negative Urgency And Suicidal Behavior, Hyejin Jin

Master's Theses

Impulsivity has been identified as an important component of suicidal behavior (Mann et al., 1999) but the relationship has been shown to be indirect through painful and provocative events (PPEs; Bender, Gordon, Bresin, Joiner, 2011). Negative urgency (NU) is a subscale of impulsivity (Cyders et al., 2007) that has been associated with high engagement of PPEs such as non-suicidal self-injury because individuals high in NU are highly motivated to eliminate the aversive emotion (Anestis & Joiner, 2011). Past research found that repeated PPEs may increase the capability for suicide by changing how one responds to pain, thereby increasing their pain …

Lois Lenski, A Friend To Children: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of A Children's Book Author, Stephanie Evans Thomas

Master's Theses

In her lifetime, Lois Lenski wrote, illustrated, and otherwise contributed to more than one hundred books for children and preteens. This study focuses on Lenski’s regional books for preteens, novels that Lenski claimed were written from real life. Using interpretive narrative analysis, this study evaluates two of Lenski’s regional novels: Strawberry Girl (1945), the 1946 Newbery award-winner and second installment in the American Regional series, and High-Rise Secret (1966), the eleventh installment in the Roundabout America series, focusing specifically on Lenski’s creative process. The analysis of Lenski’s works was contextualized using literature focusing on the concepts of character representation, authority, …

What Do Work Value Differentiation And Profile Elevation Predict?, Jinhao Chi

Master's Theses

Using a sample of 251 college students, it was found that 1) when differentiation (D) of work values was calculated using three indices, high-low D, Iachan D, and variance D, only Iachan D positively related to indecision but high-low D and variance D did not, 2) none of the three indices of D related to career maturity, 3) work values profile elevation (PE) positively related to extraversion, openness, and negatively related to depressive symptoms and career indecision but was unrelated to career certainty and neuroticism and 4) work values PE moderated the relationship between Iachan D and career indecision. The …

The Legacy Of British Rule On Lgbt Rights In Jamaica And The Cayman Islands, Zachary Stewart

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between British colonial influence and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) rights in the Caribbean. Comparing the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, and Jamaica, an independent former colony of the United Kingdom, the situation for LGBT people is evaluated. While Jamaica has serious abuses and a concerning situation for the human rights of LGBT people, the Cayman Islands’ LGBT community’s position is far less concerning. Owing to its continued connection to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Cayman Islands’ LGBT rights situation is much less dire. Through British influence via …

The Prevalence Of Overweight And Obesity Among Adolescents With Chronic Health Conditions, Catherine Levy

Master's Theses

Overweight and obesity during adolescence is a primary public health concern as these conditions are associated with several chronic health conditions (cardiovascular disease, Type II Diabetes, etc.) that can affect individuals into adulthood. The purpose of this study was two-fold: 1) to examine the prevalence of overweight and obesity among adolescents with chronic health conditions; and 2) To examine the odds of physical activity and sedentary behaviors in adolescents with chronic health conditions, viewing whether the presence of chronic health conditions impact PA and sedentary behaviors.

Analyses included 28,778 adolescents aged 10-17 from the 2011-12 National Survey of Children’s Heath. …

The Effects Of Real-Time Visual Performance Feedback Using A Tier Approach For Increasing Behavior Specific Praise On Teachers, Elizabeth Lown

Master's Theses

A number of studies have found behavior specific praise to be effective in increasing academically engaged behaviors and decreasing disruptive behaviors of students. The proposed study evaluated the effects of real-time visual performance feedback as a strategy for promoting teacher use of behavior-specific praise. An ABCBC design was utilized to determine the efficacy of real-time visual performance feedback in comparison to delayed visual performance feedback. The primary dependent variable measured was teacher use of behavior-specific praise. Additionally, student outcomes were assessed to determine the relationship between teacher use of behavior-specific praise and student behavior. The results from the study provide …

"And A Sad Ditty Of This Story Born": Regeneration Through Decay In John Keats's Isabella, Erica Van Schaik

Master's Theses

John Keats’s Isabella; or the Pot of Basil (1818) has been read, like many of Keats’s of works, as an allegory for the death that surrounded the poet and his life’s tragic circumstances. Isabella has also been studied in regard to its gothic horror elements. Such previous readings identify a theme of mortality and decay within the poem, but I argue these themes serve a larger purpose, one related to the possibilities created by regeneration. Isabella, a young woman whose lover, Lorenzo, is murdered by her own brothers, removes Lorenzo’s head from his corpse and places it in a potted …

Influences Of Anthropogenic Noise On Flight Initiation Distance, Foraging Behavior, And Feeder Community Structure Of Wild Birds, Alissa R. Petrelli

Master's Theses

Throughout the world, birds represent the primary type of wildlife that people experience on a daily basis. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that alterations to the acoustic environment can negatively affect birds as well as humans in a variety of ways, and altered acoustics from noise pollution has the potential to influence human interactions with wild birds. In this thesis, I investigated how anthropogenic noise impacts daily behavior as well as community structure of wild birds. In the first component of this thesis, I assessed the distance at which a bird initiates flight or escape behavior (i.e., flight …

The Influence Of Talker Expectations And Acoustic Variability On Speech Perception In Asd, Anders Hogstrom

Master's Theses

Speech perception is dependent upon the ability to map the sensory features of a speech signal onto the perceptual features which make up language (i.e., phonemes). A great deal of research over the past six decades has focused on how variability across talkers influences speech processing. Listeners are required to normalize the acoustic variability across talkers by continuously updating the mapping from the acoustic signal to phonetic representations. As such, processing speech from multiple talkers is cognitively more demanding than listening to a single talker. This processing cost appears to reflect, in part, the influence of listeners’ expectations that speech …

Factors Associated With Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (Prep) Adherence Self-Efficacy Among High-Risk Drug Users In Treatment, Chanchala Tiwari

Master's Theses

Background: Recent studies on Pre-exposure prophylaxis treatment (PrEP) has received significant recognition as a promising preventive strategy among high-risk individuals. Although a significant amount of research has been conducted on willingness of PrEP use, and NCI as predictors of HIV risk behavior, no study to date, has explored the impact of various motivation factors along with the use of internet & technology devices and psychological aspects on PrEP adherence self-efficacy. So, the objectives of thesis analyses were to examine whether various motivation factors, psychological factors, and communication technology predicts PrEP adherence self-efficacy. Method: The study was conducted among 400 HIV-negative …

Exploring The Relationship Of Urban Form And Mental Health In The 500 Largest Cities Of The United States, Daniel Sam Harrison

Master's Theses

Sustainable development efforts frequently focus on understanding and promoting the factors that influence health and wellbeing. Urban environments have received attention in recent years as spaces which can increase psychological distress. Despite hypothesized reports of urban environments being less conducive to good mental health then natural environments, few studies have investigated the effects of urban form characteristics (size, density, nuisances, transportation, and housing characteristics) and mental health measures at the city level. Using 2014 data from the 500 largest cities in the United States, this thesis evaluates the relationship between urban form and aggregate self-report scores of poor mental health. …