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The Development Of The Self-Efficacy During Exposure – Child (See-C) Measure: A Pilot Study, Mary Kathryn M. Cancilliere

Open Access Dissertations

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) with exposure is an effective treatment for anxiety disorders but involves acute discomfort, rendering treatment engagement a challenge. Willingness to engage in exposure is of interest, because a child has to willingly approach a feared stimulus. This preliminary study investigated child engagement during exposures in CBT for anxiety disorders, with the development, validation, and field testing of a measure of self-efficacy over three time points. The measure, Self-Efficacy During Exposure-Child (SEE-C), is a 9-item, self-report measure of self-efficacy during exposure for youth 8-17 years old. A sample of eight reviewers at least 2-years post licensure (M = …

Exploring The Lived Experience Of Being Pregnant While A College Student, Kristina M. Perrelli

Open Access Dissertations

Almost five million college students in the United States have child dependents (U.S. Department of Education, 2015), but little is known about the experience of pregnancy in college. This qualitative study addressed this gap in scholarship. A feminist intersectional theoretical framework and a feminist interpretive phenomenology methodology were used to explore the experiences of ten women from three institutions of higher education who were currently pregnant or recently pregnant. Most participants identified as low-income or working-class women of color. The phenomenological goal of this study was to learn about each woman’s lived experience of pregnancy in college toward identifying commonalities …

Detection Of Cognitive Change: Examination Of Approaches For Improving The Accuracy Of Impact, Charles Edward Gaudet Iii

Open Access Dissertations

Concussion is an increasingly recognized public health concern. Proper assessment and management of concussion are critical factors in mitigating adverse effects associated with this injury. Neuropsychological assessment has demonstrated utility in identifying cognitive symptoms related to concussion and monitoring their resolution. Early methods involved administering paper and pencil tests to appraise cognitive domains thought to be most affected by concussion. As interest in concussion and methods of assessment evolved, baseline testing became an integral component of assessment in sport-related concussion (SRC). Baseline testing consists of administering a healthy, or non-injured, individual a battery of cognitive tests that subsequently serve as …

Effect Of Exercise On Cognitive Function In Persons With Dementia: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Southey F. Saul

Open Access Dissertations

As the population ages, the number of people suffering from dementia will rise significantly. Current estimates of total societal cost of dementia exceed $8 billion dollars (US). Epidemiological studies have shown that increased lifetime engagement in exercise reduces cognitive decline and the incidence of dementia in normal older adults. While existing research suggests that lifelong exercise may be preferable, the adoption of exercise at any age and stage of dementia-onset to delay or reverse cognitive decline is worthwhile given the prevalence of sedentary lifestyle, and the increasing proportion of older adults and dementia incidence. Recently, trials have started to explore …

School Leader Development: Perceptions Of Skill Development On The Job, Nicole Rose Lyons

Open Access Dissertations

This study explores the ways school leaders develop their leadership skills on the job as they navigate through the increasingly complex demands on them (Drago-Severson, 2009). This study sought to understand how school leaders of varying years of experience perceive their skill development once on the job. Participants in this study are members of an Association of School Principals in New England. Each participant was interviewed, identified their perceived skill development using the Five-Stage Model of Adult Skill Acquisition (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1992) and supplied an artifact that supported their level of skill development. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed. …

Examining Motivational Interviewing Addressing Adolescent Substance Use During Psychiatric Hospitalization, Danielle Hill

Open Access Dissertations

Adolescent suicide is a serious public health issue, given that it is the second most common cause of death among individuals aged 10 to 24 years in the United States. Substance use is among the major risk factors for continued adolescent suicidal behavior and having a substance use disorder (SUD), has been identified as a risk factor for adolescents being readmitted to acute psychiatric care. However, adolescents often do not receive treatment that adequately addresses substance use in the same setting. The primary purpose of this study was to examine whether or not adding a Brief Motivational Interviewing intervention (BMI …

Decreasing The Susceptibility Of Effort Measures To Coaching: The Tomm As An Exemplar, Shannon Kovach

Open Access Dissertations

Malingering has been the focus of numerous studies in forensic psychology and neuropsychology over the last several decades; however, accurate identification of malingerers continues to be a primary concern in these fields, particularly in civil cases that come with costly consequences for erroneous identification. Many measures have been developed over the years to identify individuals attempting to malinger on neuropsychological testing; unfortunately, given the vast amount of information available on the Internet that compromises the security of these tests, they may be particularly vulnerable to attempts to coach, or inform, a potential malingerer on how to avoid being detected by …

Changing Consumer Experiences And Behaviors & The Role Of The Marketer Within Mobile Environments, Jennifer Bonoff

Open Access Dissertations

Global proliferation of mobile technology and widespread ownership of mobile phones has ushered in a new era of behavior and patterns of consumption when using mobile phones. As a result, the way that we look at mobile consumption and its relation to the marketplace needs to be re-evaluated. As usage behaviors are being transformed, my research offers a better understanding of the consumption behaviors associated with using mobile devices in mobile environments. Through analysis of interview and mobile diary data, using liminality as a sensitizing theoretical framework, themes emerged that can help form a better understanding of how people consume …

The Effects Of Computer Assisted Instruction On Early Literacy Skills Of Young Children Who Are Hispanic/Latino, Joseph J. Armendarez

Open Access Dissertations

Many student academic challenges are due to difficulties developing reading skills; therefore prevention efforts are relevant for school psychologist and educators. One promising avenue for addressing reading acquisition problems, via effective reading instruction, is Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI). There is, however, still a need for more research addressing costs and benefits for populations such as Hispanic/Latino and/or English Language Learners (H/L-ELL). The primary aim of this research was to determine the extent to which the CAI reading intervention, Headsprout Early Reading (HER), produces meaningful improvements in reading acquisition and performance among students who are low performing readers and identified as …

Resilience, Coping Strategies, And Internalizing Disorders Among Childhood Maltreatment Victims, Bryana E. Killion

Open Access Dissertations

The relationship between childhood maltreatment and internalizing disorders, such as anxiety and depression, is well-substantiated; however, fewer studies have investigated the pathways leading to this association. Additionally, although rates of internalizing disorders are higher among maltreated individuals than in the general population, less is known about why some maltreated individuals appear resilient, continuing to thrive and display relatively normative development despite these traumatic experiences. Accordingly, research has begun to investigate the interplay between coping and resilience in relation to long-term outcomes following childhood maltreatment. While resilience may influence how a stressor is appraised, coping strategies refer to the cognitive and …

A Wearable, Configurable Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy System For Wireless Neuroimaging, Manob Jyoti Saikia

Open Access Dissertations

Decoding the human's brain functional architecture is the most profound and far-reaching scientific challenges of our time. Currently existing noninvasive brain imaging technologies are constrained by costly, bulky and fixed hardware that preclude imaging of the functioning brain in a wide range of temporal and naturalistic environments.

This doctoral dissertation focused on designing and developing of a new generation portable, wearable, configurable, and wireless functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging system that allows us to monitor and study brain function in a naturalistic environment. The developed optical system maps changes in chromophore concentration, oxy hemoglobin (HbO₂) and deoxyhemoglobin (Hb) …

Product Evaluations As A Factor Of Unknown Attribute Positioning, Brand Trust, Need For Cognition And Message Diagnosticity, Ahmet Hattat

Open Access Dissertations

This research investigates how consumer evaluations are shaped towards products that highlight either presence or absence of attributes that are unknown to consumers. Participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk online panel and randomly assigned to a variety of experimental conditions in four studies. Results of Study 1 show that, under the low brand trust condition, consumers have more positive evaluations of products with absence positioning than presence positioning. Study 1 results also show that under the high brand trust condition, the disjunctive gap between the absence versus presence positioning closes. In Study 2, these results are extended by utilizing …

The Home And Child-Care: Are Preschoolaged Children Getting Mixed Food-Related Messages?, Noereem Zenaida Mena

Open Access Dissertations

Statement of the Problem: In the United States, nearly 14% of preschool-aged children (ages 2 to 5) are obese. Additionally, disparities persist, with the highest prevalence of obesity among Hispanic preschool-aged children (17% vs. 11% non-Hispanic Black and 3.5% non- Hispanic White preschool-aged children). Establishing healthy eating habits in early childhood is critical and providing children with similar opportunities to practice healthy eating habits independently at home and in child care is thought to reinforce the development of healthy eating habits early in life. However, there is limited information regarding how parents and childcare providers communicate about child-nutrition, including …

Sleep Duration, Postprandial Metabolic Function, And The Role Of Insulin Resistance In Nondiabetic Individuals, Karin A. Garcia

Open Access Dissertations

The influence of sleep duration on metabolic pathogenic pathways associated with Type 2 diabetes mellitus are not well understood but may be operational long before the development of clinical diabetes or even prediabetes is detected. This study was designed to examine in preclinical nondiabetic adults whether the association of insulin sensitivity and postprandial metabolic function is moderated by sleep duration. The sample was comprised of 143 individuals (65% men), aged 18–55 years, who had no diabetes or other diagnosed conditions. Metabolic function outcomes were assessed in response to an OGTT, and two 14-h serial mixed carbohydrate-meal tests administered, over 3 …

Can Digital News Shape Civic Participation? Discussion, Deliberation, And The Civic Potential Of A New Form Of News Delivery, Joy Kathleen Leopold

Open Access Dissertations

This study examines the features of an emerging and increasingly popular form of news delivery to assess its potential to influence civic participation. The innovative digital media environment has changed the way that news is produced and consumed, and digital news is consumed primarily through handheld communication devices such as smartphones and tablets. Research has demonstrated that news is an important element in driving civic participation due in part to the ways in which users consume and share news and in part to certain characteristics and features that promote learning, recall, influential discussions, and deliberation among news consumers. This research …

Neuroimaging Of Cognitive Flexibility: Task Validity And Clinical Applications, Dina R. Dajani

Open Access Dissertations

A key challenge for cognitive neuroscience is the development and validation of tasks that capture real-world cognitive phenomena and render them suitable for investigation within an MRI environment. Cognitive flexibility is necessary for a range of adaptive behaviors and is associated with optimal life outcomes, but as a psychological construct it has been difficult to operationalize and validate. Crucially, psychometrically validated tasks must be developed prior to their application to clinical populations to investigate the neural substrates of cognitive inflexibility. Here, we address these limitations by adapting a well-validated laboratory measure of cognitive flexibility to the scanner environment (Study I) …

Preschool Teachers' Science Knowledge: Validating The Preschool Teachers' Applied Science Knowledge Survey, Alexandra Danielle Alexander

Open Access Dissertations

Children are natural scientists, primed to investigate and evaluate their world. However, in the U.S., there are science achievement gaps already by kindergarten that persist through eighth grade. These achievement gaps coupled with stagnant and poor performance on science assessments have led to a current national focus on early science education. A likely contributor to these problems is the limited support that early science educators receive. Young children’s desire to understand their world is supported, nourished, and transformed into rigorous learning by adults. Supporting the adults in classrooms (i.e., early education practitioners) should, therefore, increase children’s learning. The present study …

The Social Context Of Women's Sustained Participation In Activism, Susan Paterson

Open Access Dissertations

Recently, the resurgence of interest in feminist activism has been discussed by media and news outlets. It is still relatively unknown what contextual factors affect sustained participation, as well as how women from different backgrounds sustain activism in the face of compounding oppressions. This grounded theory explores the contexts of sustained participation through two research questions: (1) what are the contextual factors that influence women's sustained participation in activism?, and (2) how is the dynamic between identity and context reflected in sustained participation in activism? Nine women activists in Miami-Dade County were interviewed about their experiences in feminist movements, specifically …

Salient Factors Among Hispanic Parents For Vaccinating Children Against Hpv, Madeline Fernandez

Open Access Dissertations

The human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) among sexually active men and women in the U.S. HPV can lead to several types of cancers (e.g., cervical, penile, and anal cancers) that affect the Hispanic community disproportionately. In the U.S., Hispanic women have the highest rate of HPV incidence and the second highest death rate due to HPV-related cervical cancer, and Hispanic men are most affected by HPV-related penile cancers. In 2006, the HPV vaccine (HPVV) was released and recommended for girls and boys between the ages of nine and 26. Unfortunately, more than a decade …

Novel Methods For Reasoning With Uncertain Hard And Soft Data Using Probabilistic And Belief Theoretic Methods, Rafael Camilo Nunez Sanchez

Open Access Dissertations

Effectively combining multiple and complementary sources of information is becoming one of the most promising paths for increased accuracy and more detailed analysis in numerous applications. Neuroscience, business analytics, military intelligence, and sociology are among the areas that could significantly benefit from properly processing diverse data sources. However, traditional methods for combining multiple sources of information are based on slow or impractical methods that rely either on vast amounts of manual processing or on suboptimal representations of data. Moreover, most of the existing methods are not well suited for dealing with the increasing amount of human-generated data. We introduce an …

Psychiatric Severity And Hiv Risk In Adults With Mental Illness, Brady E. Yocom

Open Access Dissertations

Adults with mental illness are at elevated risk of contracting HIV. To identify especially vulnerable subgroups of this population and to develop effective HIV-prevention interventions, a better understanding of the linkages between psychopathology and HIV risk is needed. The current study was designed to determine if factor-analytically derived indices of psychiatric severity based on MCMI-III scale scores were linked with HIV risk behavior and putative cognitive-behavioral mediators of risk behavior, and to determine if cognitive-behavioral factors mediated the expected relationships between psychiatric severity and HIV risk behavior. The sample included 280 adult men and women with mental illness. Greater general …

The Design And Implementation Of A Comprehensive Back Injury Prevention Program And Development Of A Vo2max Non-Exercise Regression Model For Emergency Services Personnel, Tamer Hatem Elattar

Open Access Dissertations

Back injury prevention programs are cost efficient typically by reducing the num-ber of work-related injuries and lost work days in both fire fighters. Injury rates and sick leave usage can be reduced, thereby controlling overtime costs associated with filling vacant positions or utilizing other agencies for response. The measurement of fitness using exercise models is an important part of any fitness program and also the firefighters’ annual fitness evaluation. Those exercise models require cost, time and expose firefighters to risks of injury. We examined the difference in perceptions and knowledge about musculoskeletal injuries among emergency workers personnel with an emphasis …

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Trauma, And Stress: A Network Approach, Julia Yang Carbonella

Open Access Dissertations

Experience of traumatic life events (TLEs) has consistently been identified as a risk factor that can trigger and exacerbate obsessive compulsive symptoms (OCS). At the clinical level of severity, OCD and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are also highly comorbid at rates greater than in the general population. However, much remains unclear about the differential interrelations between symptoms of OCD and PTSD, as well as the influence of a traumatic history on the connectedness of hallmark features of OCD. The overarching study applied network analysis – a recently developed tool that can help shed light on symptom structure and relations – …

Alcohol-Induced Developmental Defects In Octavolateral Organs Of Zebrafish: A Sensitive Period And Mechanisms, Lilliann Yvette Zamora

Open Access Dissertations

Fetal alcohol exposure is known to cause an array of deficits (fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, FASD) that may manifest as lifelong physical, cognitive, and behavioral anomalies of human development. However, when and how alcohol specifically affects the auditory system is still largely unknown. I hypothesized that embryonic alcohol exposure at specific time periods would affect the morphology and function of the octavolateral system (the inner ear and lateral line). In addition, I also hypothesized that biological processes occurring at the time of alcohol exposure, such as the neural crest and FGF signaling, would be adversely affected. This is the first …

Influence Of Enrollment Management Strategies At Independent Colleges And Universities Of Florida, Melody Dunbar

Open Access Dissertations

Effective enrollment management strategies are of utmost importance to ensure the health of higher education institutions. College student demographics are evolving and are especially challenging for colleges and universities. This means that colleges and universities must stay abreast of student needs and best practices to maintain student enrollments. However, while college attendance nationally has been increasing, healthy enrollment numbers vary greatly across certain institutions. In a highly competitive marketplace, smaller, private, independent schools have been especially vulnerable. Yet research has been limited to help guide these institutions that enroll a substantial proportion of college students and are vital to the …

Effects Of Psychological And Structural-Level Factors On Sexual Risk And Sti Incidence In High-Risk Men Who Have Sex With Men, Calvin J. Fitch

Open Access Dissertations

Men who have sex with men (MSM) with histories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) are at disproportionate risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV. Psychological variables explain part of this; however, standing alone, they fail to account for all of the increased risk. This secondary data analysis investigates the relationship between psychological factors (PTSD and substance use), structural factors (government benefits, unstable housing and neighborhood crime), unprotected sex and STI incidence and also investigates possible moderation effects of race/ethnicity. MSM from Boston and Miami (N= 296) were recruited for a larger RCT testing the effect of Cognitive Processing Therapy …

Exploring Barriers, Beliefs, Knowledge, Experiences, And Emotions Related To Yoga Practice Among A Racially And Ethnically Diverse Sample, Denise Simão Marques

Open Access Dissertations

The standard approach to ameliorating mental health difficulties in the United States may not be effective for racial and ethnic minority populations, as these individuals are more likely than non-Latino/a White individuals to prematurely withdraw from mental health services (Chow, Jaffee, & Snowden, 2003; Miranda, Azocar, Organista, Dwyer, & Arean, 2003). Yoga may be a viable intervention to address the large disparity in mental health services provided to these populations, as it is effective in ameliorating mental health difficulties across racial and ethnic populations and can be practiced in the non-medical settings. However, research suggests that racial and ethnic minority …

Stem+L: Investigating Adolescents’ Participation Trajectories In A Collaborative Multimodal Composing Environment, Shiyan Jiang

Open Access Dissertations

This multiple case study investigated adolescents’ participation patterns and trajectories in an integrated STEM plus digital Literacy (STEM+L) project. The project aims to broaden adolescents’ participation in integrated STEM+L practices. In the project, fifth to eighth graders worked in small groups of three to four to create multimodal science fictions. In this study, I explored forms and degrees of students’ participation through two theoretical perspectives: disciplinary identity development and community of practice. The former provides a necessary lens for investigating forms of participation in three dimensions: attitudes and interests toward disciplinary roles, disciplinary knowledge and practices, recognized by oneself or …

Reframing The Role Of Size In Transformation: A Participatory Theory Development Study With Community Organizers And Activists, Natalie Kivell

Open Access Dissertations

This Critical Participatory Action Research (C-PAR) study built a contextually-based, grassroots-developed, and academically informed theory of transformative change in partnership with five community co-researchers. To do this, I constructed a custom methodology which I have called Participatory Theory Development (PTD). This methodology builds on tenets of C-PAR, the centering of marginal knowledge(s) proposed by Dutta (2016), and literature on the decolonization of research and hierarchies of knowledge (Tuhiwai-Smith, 2012). The aim was to test an epistemically rich theory development process by centering community knowledge(s) in the construction of transferrable theory. This study empirically examined and built on a previously developed …

(Re) Mapping The Black Atlantic: Abject Blackness And Arabness Across The Atlantic In African-American, French And Maghrebian Literature, Hicham Mazouz

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation draws on a wide range of U.S. and Francophone postcolonial theories and criticism, including that of Omi and Winant on Racial Formation, Julia Kristeva on abjection and Pascal Blanchard on the construction of the "indigène". My research aims at critically envisioning how the "racial formation" of the North African subject within the French colonial (and post/neo-colonial) realm was part of an ideological process of Arabness. This can be also conceived in a structural homology with the notion of Blackness in the U.S., and how this constructed racialization was transferred to and mediated by post-colonial Maghrebian literature. My dissertation …