Digital Commons Network^™

Developing A Curriculum For An Online Group Piano In The Philippines: An Ideological, Historical, And Practical Approach, Lady Abigail Imperio

Theses and Dissertations

Online distance learning, a modern educational practice, has permeated music pedagogy in the past several decades. It involves synthesizing interdisciplinary studies in philosophy, music, technology, and sociology. In this study, the integrated approach aims to develop a unique curriculum for an online group piano in the Philippine setting. This goal involves coalescing ideological, historical, and practical perspectives to develop a coherent, learner-centered approach.

The ideological approach surveys educational philosophies, music learning theories, cooperative learning theories, online learning theories, and socio-cultural perspectives relevant to forming a unique framework. The nature of online distance music learning itself presents complex challenges of international …

Wellness Interventions For College Students With Intellectual Or Developmental Disability: A Multi-Manuscript Dissertation, Madeline Bree Saunders

Theses and Dissertations

This multi-manuscript dissertation comprises two interconnected articles that collectively explore the experiences of college students with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) engaging in wellness interventions within inclusive postsecondary education (IPSE) settings in the southeastern region of the United States. Wellness interventions within both manuscripts adhere to procedures outlined by the Wellness Counseling Intervention (WCI; Barrio Minton et al., n.d.) and group adaptation (WCI-G; Ohrt & Castle, n.d.). Manuscript 1 (Chapter 3) involves a mixed-method approach to understand the experiences six student participants, group members, engaging in the WCI-G across a total of 10-weeks. Manuscript 2 (Chapter 4) adheres to consensual …

Perspectives On Transition To Adult Healthcare For Adults With Williams Syndrome And Their Caregivers, Andrea Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Transitioning to adult care services is a crucial time for young adults with a genetic condition. Many of these conditions are diagnosed early in childhood, with follow-up care fragmented and dependent on the specific needs of the individual. Williams syndrome (WS) is a complex genetic condition characterized by multisystemic features. The variation in the clinical presentation of adults with WS can influence the individual’s ability to transition from pediatric care because of its medical complications, variable and poorly characterized psychiatric needs, and intellectual disability that causes difficulty communicating health-related needs to providers. This study focused on understanding the needs of …

Mental Trauma, Colonial Mimicry, And Internalized Racism In Tsitsi Dangarembga's The Book Of Not, Lily Kay Lynn Cook

Theses and Dissertations

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s second novel in her Nervous Conditions trilogy, The Book of Not (2006) emphasizes the disabling nature of colonial domination and terror through pain and violence inflicted on the body and the mind. Through the use of Frantz Fanon’s colonial and post-colonial theory and Homi Bhabha’s concept of colonial mimicry the critical nature of Tambudzai—the main protagonist—position in the novel becomes apparent. Just as the title suggests, the novel becomes a book of negation and unbecoming as Tambudzai tries to find her place as a woman in Southern Rhodesia while attending a European colonial institution while war rages just …

Student Experiences With Self-Determination And Agency: Centering Disabled Voices Through Photovoice, Rebecca Boineau Smith Hill

Theses and Dissertations

Young adults with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) are less likely than young adults without disability to be employed, enrolled in postsecondary education, or live independently after high school (Lauer & Houtenville, 2017; Newman, et al., 2011). Self-determination, or the freedom to act as the primary causal agent in one’s life (Palmer & Wehmeyer, 1998), is a well-documented component of enhanced quality of life (Shogren et al., 2017) and a predictor of postschool success (Mazzotti et al., 2021; Test et al. 2009) for students with disabilities. People with IDD are less self-determined than their nondisabled peers, and often less self-determined …

Unpacking The Relationship Between Legitimacy, Procedural Justice, Identity, And Desistance, Qassim Bolaji

Theses and Dissertations

Knowing why people stop offending over time and the criminal justice agencies' role in this process is essential for designing effective crime control interventions. Legal authorities have the core function of ensuring that social norms and laws are obeyed. However, the coercive and punitive tactics that police, judicial, and penal authorities typically resort to have been shown to have only limited impact on controlling and preventing crime while having the unintended consequence of worsening the public's perception of their institutional legitimacy. Specific to policing, the use of coercive policing tactics and their perceived ineffectiveness has, in recent decades, led to …

Patients’ Experience Of Care Following Perinatal Case Conference, Mary Elise Nolen

Theses and Dissertations

The Perinatal Case Conference (PCC) at Prisma Health-Midlands Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM) is a biweekly multidisciplinary meeting to discuss pregnancies with prenatally identified congenital anomalies. Patients are primarily cared for by MFM and may have appointments with various subspecialists during their pregnancy. The goals of the PCC are multidisciplinary collaboration in planning for the management of each pregnancy and familiarizing each practitioner with the pending cases, so if or when intervention is needed, the clinicians are familiar with the case.

Researchers performed a chart review and surveyed patients whose pregnancies were discussed in the PCC to learn the patient’s perspective of …

Perception Of Alzheimer’S Actionability Among End Users Of Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Tests, Emily Mason

Theses and Dissertations

The APOE ε4 allele is the best-known genetic risk factor for developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Although new evidence is emerging, the extent to which lifestyle improvements can reduce Alzheimer’s risk needs further investigation. Research suggests that individuals with a higher genetic risk may be more likely to engage in risk-reducing health behavior changes following results disclosure. This study aimed to better understand these findings by assessing the health behavior and perceptions of Alzheimer’s actionability among consumers of DTC genetic tests. Our study revealed that individuals with 2 copies of the APOE ε4 allele were less likely to make lifestyle modifications …

Reading Ecogothic Memory In Contemporary Southern Swamp Novels, Megan Caroline Brockhard Knight

Theses and Dissertations

The ecogothic is a lens through which to engage memory, southern constructivism and identity, environmental intervention, and the literature of the American Southeast. This project establishes a framework of literary criticism that defines the ecogothic, interprets memory as truth imagined, and identifies the position of memory in the environment as a construction with which it is necessary to grapple to understand identity. This framework, compiled of existing and original scholarship, is then applied to three contemporary swamp narratives written by three different southern women writers. The swamp setting creates a unique microcosm of gothic liminality, neither fully land nor water, …

Cancer Screening For Patients With Intellectual Disability: Exploring Parent And Caregiver Perspectives, Jennifer Ryan

Theses and Dissertations

Intellectual disability (ID) is defined as a combination of deficits in cognitive and adaptive function, both of which must be present early in life. Adults with ID frequently have unique healthcare needs; however, they also require care that is routine for all adults. This includes cancer screening. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether or not adults with ID are undergoing cancer screening, understand the barriers they have faced in obtaining screening, and collect recommendations from parents and caregivers on ways to improve access to and facilitate screening for this population. We surveyed parents and caregivers of adults …

Histories Of Stress: A Life Course Approach To Population Health In Late Medieval And Early Modern Berlin, Emily Brennan

Theses and Dissertations

Given our current climate crisis and urban population increases, researchers are increasingly interested in the health outcomes at the intersection of climate change and urbanization. Since climate change and urbanization affects human health in a variety of ways, more work is needed in diverse cultural contexts to understand temporal and geographic variations of such phenomena more fully. Using skeletal individuals from 13^th – 18^th century Berlin (n = 387), this project analyses demographic and health trends from the founding of the city in the late medieval period (c. 1200 – 1500) to the early modern period, when the …

Associations Between Infant Vagal Regulation, Early Social Communication, And Socidemographic Risk, Tessa Djiko

Theses and Dissertations

Respiratory sinus arrythmia (RSA), a measure of parasympathetic nervous system activation, has been linked to socioemotional and language development (Porges, 2007; Thayer & Lane, 2000). Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show lower RSA (Patriquin et al., 2011) while both children with ASD and children from lower SES backgrounds show differences in early social-communication development (Jones-Mason et al., 2018). However, little is known about interactions between sociodemographic risk and physiological regulation within the context of ASD and social-communication development. The present study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between RSA (as indexed by RSA suppression and resting-state RSA), …

Enslaved Women: Reproductive Choices And Medicine, Adedoyin Adekunle

Theses and Dissertations

Enslavement in the American South persisted as a form of subjugation that endured into the nineteenth century. The origins of slavery stemmed from enslavers’ aspirations for dominance. This compelled displacement involved the removal of Africans from their native lands and their subsequent transport as chattels to America. Slavery gave rise to paternalism, an attempt to justify exploitation to resolve the fundamental contradiction inherent in slavery. Paternalism gave rise to the false idea of ultimate submission, which historians have agreed that most enslavers never attained because of slave resistance. However, the study of slave resistance had been primarily focused on enslaved …

The Impact Of Mathematical Justifications On Conceptual Understanding, Jessica Raley

Theses and Dissertations

Mathematical justifications offer an approach to which students deepen and extend their mathematical thinking. This process has the potential to enhance students’ conceptual understanding. Mathematical practices and process standards ask students to use critical thinking skills to justify their reasoning, but this is usually seen as proofs in high school geometry. This convergent mixed method research study aimed to increase students' use of writing mathematical justifications and investigate the influence of this practice on mathematical and conceptual understanding. Eleven eighth-grade students participated in the study conducted in the Midwest United States. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews, students’ artifacts of …

The Importance Of Sense Of Community In Recovery For Individuals Living With Serious Mental Illness, Natalia Gomez

Theses and Dissertations

People with serious mental illness face a variety of barriers to participating in community life. Some of these barriers include limits in social functioning which can then affect social relationships and life satisfaction (Sanchez et al, 2016). Devaluation based on mental health status is an important barrier to address due to its connection to stigma and relationships. The more an individual fears that they will be undervalued and discriminated against, the more they may fear interacting with others. They may hide that they are in mental health treatment or avoid social encounters that they consider as possibly rejecting. These behaviors …

The Effects Of High Fat Diet On Lipid Deposition In Skeletal Muscle, Alexander Huss

Theses and Dissertations

By the year 2030, almost 50% of adults in the United States are expected to be obese. Obesity has been shown to increase the risk of several chronic metabolic diseases, several cancers, and is associated with impaired skeletal muscle function and metabolism. Despite this, little it is known about the role of altered muscle lipid homeostasis, lipid droplet dynamics, and lipid droplet-mitochondrial interactions in contributing to muscle dysfunction in obesity. Therefore, we sought to investigate the impact of high-fat diet induced obesity on overall skeletal muscle lipid deposition, intramyocellular lipid droplet content and morphology, and lipid droplet-mitochondrial contact. Male C57/BL6 …

Sonic Data: Sonification In James Stephenson’S There Are No Words And David Kirkland Garner’S Red Hot Sun Turning Over, Nathan Lee Tucker

Theses and Dissertations

Sonification, or the transformation of data relations into sound, has inspired composers of orchestral and wind ensemble music over the past several years. Two of the resulting works included there are no words by James Stephenson and red hot sun turning over by David Kirkland Garner. Both works were analyzed, and their histories detailed in this study. Issues in American society and the American South such as gun violence, civil rights, and American Civil War monuments are revealed as inspiration for composers to map empirical processes onto sound. These musical protests against misinformation were shown to illuminate histories and correlations …

Placebos, Rhetoric, And The Power Of Expectation, Jennifer M. Reeher

Theses and Dissertations

Placebos, Rhetoric, and the Power of Expectation examines the relationship between persuasion and health to determine what interventions rhetoric could make in the interdisciplinary field of placebo studies. This exploration of the relationship between rhetoric and placebo responses relies on non-anthropocentric definitions and theories of rhetoric as well as a multifaceted archive that includes patient narratives, clinical intake forms, and peer-reviewed scientific studies of condition-specific placebo responses. The impact of this investigation spans the practical and the theoretical. First, rhetorical study highlights the importance of a patient’s perception of care in patient recovery. To this end, rhetoric offers audience-focused methods …

Killers That Once Were Humans: Reading The Role Of Modern Law Via Instrumental Rationality, Momen Abdelbari Hassan

Theses and Dissertations

For Max Weber, the process of modernization is the process of rationalization in which it includes every realm in our modern life, such as the economy, science, organization, education, and law. However, this kind of rationalization has created coercive and inhumane conditions because rationalization has converted to being instrumental (value-free) without regard to any transcendental or moral values. The inhumane paradigm has become the only fate of our world. The vision needs rational domination to be achieved through formal rational law. Modern law, along with bureaucratization, has paved the road to rational political domination. This kind of domination captures human …

A Comparative Analysis Of Human And Machine Translation Quality, Catherine Marshall

Theses and Dissertations

A common question raised by both translators and Machine Translation developers is Will Machine Translation (MT) ever attain the level of Human Translation (HT) quality? Researchers have argued that MT will likely never replace HT completely because MT systems cannot anticipate all the specifications for possible translation projects (Melby & Hague, 2019) and because MT systems lack cultural understanding (Latief et al., 2020). Researchers have also argued that the use of machines should be focused on augmenting humans, rather than trying to imitate them (Brynjolfsson, 2022). The purpose of this study is to determine how the quality of MT differs …

Academic Self-Efficacy, Achievement Motivation, And Academic Success Of International Graduate Students, Rawan Alzukari

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined academic self-efficacy, achievement motivation, and academic success among international graduate students at a large university in the southeastern United States. Specifically, the research focused on three dimensions of academic self-efficacy (i.e., English language self-efficacy, coursework self-efficacy, and social self-efficacy) and three dimensions of achievement motivation (i.e., intrinsic value, expectancy, and attainment utility) to determine their impact on academic success measured by academic satisfaction and academic achievement. Data were collected from 101 international graduate students who completed Questionnaire of English Self-Efficacy (QESE; Wang, 2004); the College Self-Efficacy Inventory (CSEI; Solberg et al., 1993); the Expectancy-Value Motivation Questionnaire (EVMQ; …

How Belief In God Impacts Marital Conflict And Resolution For Women Of Faith, Elizabeth Kay Madsen

Theses and Dissertations

Frequent conflict is a significant relationship risk factor for divorce, but it has also been shown that religion strengthens marriages, specifically in ways that give direction and motivation for couples in resolving marital conflict or other marital hardships. Thus, a study of how successful religious couples resolve conflict is pertinent in helping us better understand how to strengthen marriages and families. Our qualitative study of 113 highly religious women of diverse faiths and races found that women's perceived relationship or connection with God reportedly impacted conflict resolution and coping with marital hardship. Results suggest greater reconciliation and unity with the …

Sexual Attitudes And Knowledge Of Southern United States College Students On Risky Sexual Behavior: Moderation By Conservative Religiosity, Sex, And Sexual Double Standards, Andreana Durham

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relation of sexual attitudes and knowledge on risky sexual behavior (RSB), while including sex, sexual double standards (SDS), and conservative religiosity as moderators. Findings suggested that sexual knowledge, sexual attitudes, and conservative religiosity associated negatively with RSB for female participants. SDS positively associated with RSB for male participants. The interaction of sexual knowledge and SDS on RSB was significant in male participants and indicated that higher sexual knowledge is associated with higher RSB when SDS is higher. The interaction of sexual knowledge and conservative religiosity on RSB was significant in …

Examination Of The Impact Of Discriminatory Legislation On Gender Minority Stress And Suicide Desire And Intent In Gender Minority Adults, Ashley R. Pate

Theses and Dissertations

Suicidal ideation and suicide attempt rates are far higher among gender minority individuals than in the general population. In the wake of an unprecedented number of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being proposed and passed in 2023 in the United States, this study sought to examine the impact of this legislation on gender minority stress and suicidal desire and intent among gender minority adults. Results indicated that anxiety about the legislation was associated with the desire to die, perceived burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness, and the likelihood of attempting suicide in the future. The perceived impact of the legislation was associated with intent to die …

Ultrasonographic Appearance Of The Spleen Of Growing Kittens Using A High Frequency Linear Transducer, Catana M. Capps

Theses and Dissertations

A reticulonodular splenic pattern is commonly associated with neoplastic or infectious etiologies. However, this has been described as an age-related variant in both humans and dogs, likely representing lymphoid follicles. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the ultrasonographic appearance of the spleens of growing kittens mimics the canine presentation. This was a prospective, descriptive study design. Healthy kittens up to 18 months old were scanned using a high frequency linear transducer. A reticulonodular pattern was present in (89%) of spleens. After 4 months of age, there was an overall negative correlation with age and the grade of …

Three Rival Versions Of Physical Education: A Macintyrean Analysis Of The Field, Clayton Michael Whalen

Theses and Dissertations

At both the theoretical and applied levels of analysis, the field of physical education is all too often completely incoherent. There appears to be little agreement as to how school-based programs ought to be implemented or what the goals of such programs really are. No two physical educators run their programs exactly the same and, chances are, those physical educators likely have wildly different understandings of their field and its proper place within the education of our youth. Borrowing from the title of moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s (1990) book, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, I’ve chosen to describe the …

Expanding The Emotional Cascade Model Of Borderline Personality Disorder With Negative Thoughts, Thought Control Strategies, Suicide Attempts, And Non-Suicidal Self-Injury, Courtney K. Mason

Theses and Dissertations

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is an impairing mental illness and has a core component of emotional dysregulation. Evidence suggests the emotional cascade model describes how this emotional dysregulation leads to engaging in risky and life-threatening behaviors, such as non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Specifically, this model describes rumination as a cognitive component that links the emotional and behavioral dysregulation. The current study aimed to expand the model by investigating how individuals with heightened BPD traits engage in NSSI and in cognitive strategies to cope with their negative affect. Specifically, it was investigated whether behaviors like suicide attempts and cognitions differentiated between those …

Examining The Impact Of De-Escalation Training For Rural Mississippi Leos: Using Simulation To Assess Behavioral Outcomes, Deepali Manoj Dhruve

Theses and Dissertations

People with mental illness (PMI) are at a 67% greater risk of arrest and 16 times greater risk of being killed during a police incident than other civilians. Indeed, law enforcement officers (LEOs) report lacking expertise when addressing mental health calls, and existing trainings aimed at reducing violence in LEO encounters with PMI do not account for challenges specific to rural LEOs. Additionally, many trainings are severely lacking in assessing outcome changes pre- and post-training with more than half of trainings relying on survey-based knowledge subject to social desirability bias and inaccurate self-assessment. This study aimed to address limitations in …

Movement Ecology And Nest-Site Selection Of Rock Iguanas Across A Gradient Of Anthropogenic Disturbance, James Walter Wehsener

Theses and Dissertations

Analysis of animal movement has been integrated into a framework of four components: internal state, motion capacity, navigation capacity, and external factors (Nathan et al., 2008). We used this framework to enhance understanding of movement behavior in the 15 West Indian rock iguana (Cyclura) taxa and to inform conservation management. Our review found that adult female Cyclura large-scale movement is primarily driven by nesting and migrations. Nest site selection also influences hatchling dispersal, but few studies identify preferred habitats for nesting females. Anthropogenic impacts on nesting ecology are largely unexplored, especially in Cyclura carinata. We studied C. carinata nesting ecology …

An Examination Of Depressive Symptoms Of African Americans As A Part Of A Complex System, Jenna Kilgore

Theses and Dissertations

Symptoms associated with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) have become a source of distress and disability throughout the world, and MDD is among the most common disorders diagnosed annually in the United States. Despite this growing epidemic, scientists and practitioners continue to conceptualize MDD using a common-cause model, which suggests MDD is a result of a latent depression entity that gives rise to symptoms. This is particularly problematic in African American populations where some symptoms associated with depression (i.e., irritability and pain or numbness in the body) are different than those listed in the DSM. The current study examined depressive symptoms …