Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Relevant Work Experience On Third Level Accounting Students' View Of Learning, Terese Deehan

Theses

The benefits of work experience in accounting education have been examined extensively in the academic literature. Extant literature cites skills development, putting knowledge into action, improved academic results, increased focus on study and career path and enhanced employability as the main benefits to students. Other than research on the impact on academic results, there is a dearth of research on the impact of work experience on students’ view of learning. In research conducted in Ireland, Byrne and Flood (2004) concluded that the majority of third-level accounting students only have a surface-level view of learning and that this will not be …

Delirium Epidemiology, Systems And Nursing Practice In Palliative Care Inpatient Settings: A Descriptive Mixed Methods Project (The Depac Project), Annmarie Hosie

Theses

Background: Delirium is a distressing and serious acute neurocognitive disorder frequently experienced by hospitalised patients yet under-recognised by nurses.

Aim: To identify the actions required to improve the capabilities of specialist inpatient palliative care nurses to recognise and assess delirium.

Design: A two-phase sequential transformative mixed methods project, involving five studies and underpinned by a knowledge translation conceptual framework – collectively termed the DePAC project.

Methods: A mixed methods design was used to examine delirium in palliative care inpatient settings from epidemiological, systems and nursing practice perspectives. Participants were nurses, physicians, allied health professionals, managers and patients of Australian palliative …

The Affect Of Employee Engagement Among Support Staff In Cork University Maternity Hospital, Marion Josephine Cottrell

Theses

In recent years the academic research relating to employee engagement has flourished. Despite the increase in engagement literature, there is a gap concerning employee engagement regarding support staff categories. This dissertation focuses of the minority grouping, support staff

The research methodology for this study is a quantitative method. In addition, questionnaires were administrated to ninety support staff working in Cork University Maternity Hospital, with seventy contributing to the data for this study. Analysis of questionnaires resulted in the identification of a number of findings.

One significant finding of this research study was the discovery of an extra dimension affecting employee …

An Exploratory Study Of Customer Services Focusing On Customer Engagement - An Irish Perspective, William Ryan

Theses

This research study is an exploratory examination of customer services, which traces its developments to the modern day, evaluates its impact on corporate strategy, and analyses its effect on organisations performance. This study also investigates customer engagement to ascertain if technological changes has impacted on it, causing it to evolve, and the effect if any, these changes have had on customer services. The research explores the loyalty status of a customer, the availability of best practice models to aid organisation employing these concepts, and to evaluate if components are transferrable from large organisations to small to medium enterprises.

A qualitative …

Adding Value For An Organisation Through Employee Engagement: A Case Study Of A Temporary Workforce, Hannah O'Shea

Theses

Over the last 10 years, the requirement for temporary workers has shown significant increases. Casual and part-time workers, on the live register, have increased during this period from 20,752 to 71,744. In March 2013 the numbers rose to 89,798, an all-time high in Ireland (Central Statistics Office, 2014). Consequently, it is becoming increasingly important to observe how organisations undertake engagement with temporary employees. This research study focusses on the employee engagement levels of a temporary agency workforce, working in an e-commerce organisation, on behalf of a third party agency. Questionnaires were completed by 55 temporary agency workers and three direct …

Generation Y Perceptions Of The Traditional Career Model, Aoife Kelliher

Theses

Generation Y will be expected to play the most significant role in the work place as their careers develop and older generations retire. Much of the research carried out on their work related values and career progression to date has relied on the viewpoints of Generation Y as undergraduates, prior to gaining substantial experience in the work place. This study responds to Ng and Gossett’s (2013) call for further research into the values, attitudes and expectations of young people as they will emerge as leaders of tomorrow. The purpose of the study is to examine if the traditional career model …

Evaluating Web-Based Pelvic Floor Muscle Education For Pregnant Women, Judith Wilson

Theses

Background: Guidelines recommend that when pregnant women attend antenatal education they gain adequate knowledge about pregnancy-related topics, including the function of pelvic floor muscles and how to undertake a pelvic floor muscle exercise programme. Evidence is limited about how this information can be optimally delivered to pregnant women such that they gain knowledge, confidence and motivation to engage in a pelvic floor muscle exercise programme during the antenatal period. The primary objectives of the research were to evaluate the effect of delivering a web-based pelvic floor muscle education intervention in addition to usual antenatal care on primiparae women’s awareness; knowledge; …

Beauty As A Transcendental In The Thought Of Joseph Ratzinger, John Jang

Theses

This thesis aims to explore the method and content of Joseph Ratzinger’s aesthetics from a philosophical perspective. Ratzinger takes up Plato’s description of man’s encounter with beauty as a wounding by the power of eros, and argues that the involvement of emotion in this experience does not render it irrational, but rather, stresses that the feeling of beauty is in accordance with logos, since the domain of logos reaches far beyond abstract processes of reasoning. Moreover, Ratzinger rejects the notion that beauty is simply a cover over what is fundamentally ugly. According to Ratzinger, beauty is the foundation …

Measuring Hiv Stigma Among Healthcare Providers, Michael John Sullivan

Theses

People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH) experience stigma that creates barriers have the net effect of limiting access to care and decreased quality of life. This study seeks to identify, quantify, and measure mechanisms that produce the negative outcomes of provider-based stigma in regards to PLWH. The study employs the Health Care Provider HIV/AIDS Stigma Scale (HPASS), a new instrument based on a tripartite model of measuring prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination as developed by Wagner et al. in 2014. The study shows stereotyping is prevalent in the sample as a whole while prejudice was statistically significant in both correlations and comparisons …

Response Latency And Confidence As Postdictors Of Witness Accuracy, Kylie N. Key

Theses

This study examined response latency and confidence as possible postdictors of witness accuracy in both lineups and showups (one person identification procedure). Witnesses (N = 994) watched a mock crime video and then made an identification decision from a fair lineup, biased lineup, or showup. Response latency, or time between presentation of the identification procedure and identification decision, and confidence in the identification decision were recorded and analyzed. Using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed that the lineups had better discriminability than the showup. As expected, accurate witnesses also made faster identification decisions and were more confident than inaccurate witnesses. …

A Strategy To Improve Nutrition And Increase Physical Activity In Primary School Children., Lisa Delaney

Theses

Introduction: Paediatric obesity has become a global epidemic with many countries developing strategies to help tackle its prevalence. School based physical activity (PA) and nutrition interventions have proven to play a promising role in tackling childhood obesity.

Background: Project Spraoi is an Irish primary school based intervention. The intervention was delivered to an intervention school to help enhance PA and nutritional behaviour amongst pupils. The intervention school was assigned an 'Energizer'; a trained PA and nutrition change agent who worked with the school to achieve the objectives. For evaluation purposes a control school was recruited.

Methodology: Pupils from the intervention …

Battling With Monsters : Integrated Gamification In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Lee Hibbard

Theses

The study of games features in digital media and game design classrooms, but no research exists on a combination of gamification and bringing games as texts into the first-year composition classroom. Using the method of `integrated gamification', I created an innovative multimodal classroom that includes the study of videogame texts alongside literature, film, and television texts, and uses the mechanics of those videogame texts to create a deeper immersion in the course content. In my thesis research, I will demonstrate the impact integrated gamification has on students in the first year composition classroom as recorded from a semester-long case study …

The Center Of His Existence : Domestic Architecture & Class Identity In Nineteenth Century Lincoln County, Tennessee, Jillian Rael

Theses

"The Center of His Existence: Domestic Architecture & Class Identity in Nineteenth-Century Lincoln County, Tennessee" presents the Whitaker family of Lincoln County, Tennessee as an example of a middle class forming in the rural South during the Antebellum period. In showing the family's interests in economic diversity in the fields of agriculture and industry, religious involvement, and Northern-style progress, this thesis makes the case for a wider class-identity taking shape in provincial areas of the South. Moreover, it shows that the originating culture of the Whitaker family impacted their migration patterns and shaped the culture of their final location of …

Effects Of Expressive Suppression On Emotion Recognition And Cardiovascular And Subjective Reactivity, Cassandra Baldwin

Theses

Expressive suppression is a late-occurring emotion regulation strategy in which individuals suppress the expression of their emotional behavior. Suppression was hypothesized to negatively impact the recognition of facial expressions compared to a control condition and to increase sympathetic activity. Women completed a series of emotion recognition tasks under a neutral condition, with a music emotion induction, and with a music induction while suppressing their emotional expression, concluding each block by completing subjective ratings. Pulse amplitude reactivity, reaction time, and accuracy rate were other dependent variables. Suppression while listening to music resulted in the greatest reactivity. Furthermore, listening to music without …

The Effectiveness Of Warnings On Personal Identity Disclosure, Payton Brown

Theses

Studies have shown 87% of people in the United States can be uniquely identified by only their zip code, gender, and date of birth. These three personal identity elements are not typically considered sensitive information by the general public. The purpose of this study was to develop a method to stop individuals from disclosing personal information that they deem unimportant by using warning messages and subliminal signals to influence their decisions. Warnings have been studied rigorously in real-world situations, but little research has been conducted on warnings in an online context. The use of a subliminal signal with a supraliminal …

Boundary Conditions Of Font Size Effects, Kyeong M. Park

Theses

Prior research has shown that people perceive items in a larger font size as being more memorable than items in a smaller font size. This perception leads to higher judgments of learning (JOLs; i.e., confidence ratings regarding the likelihood of recalling an item) for larger font size items than smaller font size items. Yet other research has shown that people recalled more when the information was presented in a smaller font than when it was presented in a larger font size. The present study examined if there are boundary conditions of font sizes affecting JOLs and actual recall performance. As …

The Effects Of Conformity And Training In A Phishing Context :Conforming To The School Of Phish, Matt Jones

Theses

Over the past decade, cybercrime has increased dramatically, and a popular way to steal someone’s information is via phishing. There are three major ways to protect from a phishing attack: automatic filters, warnings, and user training. User training makes a good safety net for the few instances when filters fail to catch a security risk and warnings go unheeded. Training is most effective when feedback is given immediately and when it is simple and engaging. Phishermen often use psychological techniques in order to gain access to sensitive information, and conformity is a well-documented phenomenon that can cause people to make …

Adult Learner Engagement With Learning Supports In A Blended Learning Environment In Irish Insurance Education, Ian Griffin

Theses

This case study reports on the results and experiences of adult learner engagement when using learning supports within a blended learning environment (BLE) in Irish insurance education. Currently, there is a lack of comprehensive research focusing on this area in the professional education sector. This research is of interest to educators who offer a blended ‘bricks and clicks’ model to adult learners within either a professional or a higher education programme. For instance, this blended learning approach model is used at an increased frequency by modern professional education with education programmes shifting from a tutor-centred to more learner-centred approach. From …

“The Relationship Between Approaches To Learning And Assessment Outcomes In Undergraduate Optometry Students”, Linda Moore

Theses

A cross-sectional quantitative study was implemented to identify and analyse student approaches to learning (SALs) in the four stages of an undergraduate optometry honours degree programme. Study results will be used to inform optometric educators of the SAL trends of this student cohort. Seventy-three undergraduate optometry students participated in the study. Individual participant SAL scores were calculated using the shortened Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) for a semester-long academic module identified for each programme stage. Only R-SPQ-2F main scale SAL scores measuring the deep approach (DA) and surface approach (SA) were included in the final analyses, due to poor internal consistency …

Sustainable Packaging Design Visually Explained Guidebook Prototype, Sara Almudhaf

Theses

As the fields of graphic and packaging design continue to evolve, it is important to keep their applications sustainable and green. Unaware graphic and packaging designers need to have an easy-to-comprehend source of information about sustainability. Developing an educational information graphics guidebook prototype has potential to serve as a unique tool for understanding the need for sustainable packaging design. The purpose of it is to eases the understanding of a complex system and enables users to discover relationships and connections among design, economy, environment, and society.

This prototype project involved designing a comprehensive sustainability symbol set where no satisfactory symbol …

Torino Is My Town, Elisabetta D’Amanda

Theses

Elena is 20 years old. Born in Italy to an Italian mother and an American father she grew up in Rochester, New York and she is currently living in New York City. Like any American kid she is a mix of different cultures, but her Italian roots are very well grounded in her soul. In the summer of 2013, she traveled with her mother to Torino, the town were her mother grew up and the place about which she has always heard many stories. This thesis film will demonstrate that Elena and her mother's trip is not just a geographical …

Comparative Analysis Of Intercultural Communication Apprehension Displayed By International Students In The Us Interacting With American Students And Other Internationals, Laura Nunez Quero

Theses

This study compares the levels of intercultural communication apprehension of two groups of international students in the United States when interacting with American students and with each other. These groups are Indian students and Dominican students. Results indicate no significant difference on the levels of anxiety that both populations experience while interacting interculturally. However, in both cases, subjects with a poorer dominance of the English language, regardless of other variables such as gender and age, experience higher levels of intercultural communication apprehension (ICA).

How Disgust Affects Romantic Attraction: How Our Moods Affect Our Judgments Of Attractiveness, Nicholas Phelan

Theses

Facial attractiveness is an important part of our initial judgments of people and in our ability to determine their compatibility as a mating partner. Just as mating is evolutionarily important, the emotion disgust is one of the most evolutionarily beneficial emotions as it helps keep us away from poisonous and possibly infectious substances or foods. We instinctively avoid people with facial scars and other facial deformities because these are seen as a sign of illness or generally poor well-being. Facial attraction is one component of how we choose a mate. The current experiment examined whether or not being disgusted created …

Typography For Non-Designers, Caitlyn Redden

Theses

Understanding typography is an essential part of visual communication. Typography communicates the message of the design. I plan to create a piece that will inform the non-designer about the basic rules of typography in a quick and engaging motion graphics animation.

With the expansion of the digital world, design has become accessible to anyone with an internet connection through software applications and tutorials. Even with these tools, there is a significant lack of design knowledge available. I will guide the audience through concepts that are most often used inappropriately. The concepts include: alignment, grid structure, hierarchy and typeface choice.

I'M Listening With Dabdoop: A Phonological Stimulation App For Arabic Preschoolers, Manal Alyaba

Theses

Recognizing the sounds around us is the first step humans take to develop reading skills. Children who are at risk of dyslexia have a weakness in differentiating between sounds that make up our language. Testing for phonological awareness, a crucial part of reading development, can aid in detecting dyslexia. English speaking children have the luxury of being able to access varied programs designed to promote phonological awareness, knowledge of which, in turn, can assist as an early intervention instrument for dyslexia. In Saudi Arabia there are no programs that exist to detect dyslexia in children at an early age. The …

Analysis Of The Correlation Between Media Consumption Behavior And Cultural Adaptation Of International Students In The United States, Solange M. Mercedes Checo

Theses

International students are a continuously growing population in the United States (Institute of International Education, 2013). Upon arriving in a new country, cultural differences often influence students' preferred media. This paper explores the association between cultural adaptation and media selection among international students in the United States. Uses and gratifications theory is used as a theoretical foundation. A survey was administered to collect data about motives for consuming news, entertainment and sports media content, and level of cultural adaptation among students from different cultural backgrounds. The results suggest the correlation is more relevant for sports, showing that when international students …

Assembling 3d Objects With Artificial Spatial Intelligence, Eugene Koon

Theses

The focus of this thesis is to provide an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can develop spatial intelligence. A MATLAB application of a genetic algorithm AI system has been implemented. The AI system will incorporate three dimensional (3D) objects that can learn to maneuver in 3D space so that they may be assembled with each other. As an example, two rectangles with holes and a nut will maneuver itself onto a screw. The performance of the AI system will then be recorded as video results.

A Study Of Learning In Youth Elite Footballers In Ireland, Andrew Myler

Theses

Elite youth soccer players in Ireland reach a significant point in their development when recruited to the national elite Under 19 (U19) League. At this point players have a two year period in which they aim to become proficient enough to earn a professional contract with their club of choice. They encounter a steep learning curve during this period in their sporting education with increased competition and additional physical and mental demands. This case study examines the type of learning that takes place within an U19 elite team, the learning theory driving the coaching practice and its influences on player …

Nowhere: A Kinetic Typography Motion Graphic About The Pursuit Of Happiness, I-Cheng Lee

Theses

nowhere is a motion graphic project that expresses my personal journey of pursuing happiness. To be happy or not happy, people have the choices of their own lives and thoughts. This project shows that positive thinking could lead to better lives through my example.

A short poetic script on how I realized happiness in my life will be expressed in this project through visuals and composition. Every stylized sentence has a particular connection with the inspiring visuals and transitions. The intent of the piece is to install the viewer with the power of positive thinking by reading the poem with …

Unmentionable: Socio-Structural Discrimination Of Incontinence; Engendering Dignity By Design, Brendan Charles Gordon

Theses

Although present in medical and historical texts for millennia, urinary incontinence remains a somewhat taboo topic, with both affected individuals and remedies for the condition--such as adult diapers--subject to ridicule, embarrassment, status loss, discrimination, and even exile. Reinforcing this discriminatory behavior, the adult diaper--a spur from the baby diaper invention--tracks a parallel path to incontinence. With diapers and adult incontinence rooted in a misunderstood cross-pollination with infant incontinence, individuals must struggle against known stereotypes and stigmas liable to label them as incompetent, impotent, or unclean. The stigma of incontinence is thus aligned with the diaper, reinforcing social ignorance and discriminating …