Digital Commons Network^™

A Discourse Analysis Of The Science Of Reading Through The Lens Of A Social Media Twitter Hashtag, April Darlene Evans

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative virtual ethnographic study was conducted to explore the discourse around the science of reading topic through the lens of a social media Twitter hashtag known as #scienceofreading. Participants for this study consisted of any person that had an account on Twitter and entered into the discourse of the topic of the science of reading using the #scienceofreading contained within their tweet or attached to their tweet. Participants were observed in the public social media platform of Twitter. Three research questions were used to explain the phenomenon: 1) What are the roles of the participants involved in the discourse …

Penetrating Dissonance, Miguel A. Payano Jr

Theses and Dissertations

This paper attempts to provide insight into the cultural and linguistic influences that form and inform my artistic practice. Inspired by my tri-cultural life journey, my research focuses on the effects of socialization and linguistics on the thought processes at the center of my creative pursuits.

A Study Of Fremont Snake Valley Black-On-Gray Ceramics From Sites In Northern Utah And The Parowan Valley, Stephanie K.Y. Abo

Theses and Dissertations

Archaeologists widely argue that Fremont potters from the Parowan Valley, in southwestern Utah, manufactured Snake Valley pottery. For my thesis, I examined Snake Valley Black-on-gray rim sherds using neutron activation analysis, oxidation analysis, metric data, and statistical methods. I compared my results on Snake Valley Black-on-gray sherds from three archaeological sites within the Parowan Valley (Paragonah, Parowan, and Evans Mound) to my results on Snake Valley Black-on-gray sherds recovered from three archaeological sites over 250 kilometers to the north (South Temple, Block 49, and Wolf Village). I argue that the Snake Valley Black-on-gray ceramics from the northern sites are tradewares …

Teacher Recruitment: Highs School Students' And Parents' Perceptions Of The Teaching Profession, Steven Scot Christensen

Theses and Dissertations

Concern over teacher shortages has become a perplexing and persistent problem in schools. Teachers are constantly leaving the profession and new entrants into the teaching profession have decreased in recent years, creating a need for recruiting qualified individuals to become teachers and to retain those who are already in classrooms. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that best predict whether high school students are considering teaching as a career and factors that predict whether students' parents would encourage their children to become teachers. A review of the literature revealed potentially influential factors on teacher recruitment and a …

Examining Psychotherapeutic Treatment Approach Preference In A Hispanic Population, Andrea Mayra Vieira Debarros

Theses and Dissertations

Minority groups are at a disadvantage when seeking psychological treatment. Interventions are often less effective for minority populations when treatment outcomes are compared to Anglo populations. Studies indicate that the stigma associated with mental health disorders and seeking psychological intervention within these minority subgroups may be at fault for this disparity. In this study, we explored this idea by examining what methods of intervention Hispanic-identified individuals are more likely to seek out. Participants were given the option to enlist in a biofeedback approach to intervention as well as a supportive talk psychotherapy. Participants were drawn from the community population in …

Attitudes Of Criminal Justice Students' Towards Women: Hegemonic Masculinity In The Workplace, Lauren Escovedo

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the following study is to examine positive, benevolent, and hostile attitudes towards women in the workplace held by criminal justice students enrolled at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. As well, to examine whether or not criminal justice students enrolled at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley believe that criminal justice personnel create a gender-neutral classroom environment. The application Qualtrics XM was used to comprise a 35 question survey that, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, was administered online to students for a two week period during the Fall 2020 semester. Criminal justice students …

Examining The Indoctrination Of Mexican American Criminal Justice Students, Noe Leal Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Mexican American Criminal Justice students (MACJS) sometimes select a career in Department of Homeland Security, which has a history of systemic racism and oppression. The purpose of this thesis is to examine MACJS conformity to U.S. ideological hegemony and examine the differences in their understanding of human rights/ethics. A questionnaire was administered to MACJS (n = 156) wishing to pursue a career in DHS. The survey instrument used is based on the concepts of Social Identification: Mexican versus U.S. American; Support for Nationalist Racist Policies, Internal Colonialism, Followership by engaging in policies/orders by the government; and Human Rights: Knowledge of …

Disparity And Applicant Faking Behaviors: How Comparison With The Ideal Applicant Affects Faking?, Yadi Yang

Theses and Dissertations

Applicant faking behavior (AFB) on personality measures remains a major concern in selection context. This study introduces a new construct of “disparity” which captures the difference between individuals’ self-evaluation personality score and the perceived ideal applicants’ personality score. Based on the Perceptual Control Theory (PTC), applicant will generate intention to fake in order to close the perceptional gap between an ideal applicant and themselves to increase their chances of getting hired. The study distinguishes intention to fake and actual faking behaviors as two separate constructs. Specifically, the study empirically examined the effect of disparity on applicant faking behaviors through intention …

The Layered Frames Of Performed Tabletop: Actual-Play Podcasts And The Laminations Of Media, Brendan Decicio

Theses and Dissertations

Despite their sudden growth in popularity, the role-playing actual-play podcasts have either been ignored or grouped with the genre of audio drama in prior scholarly works. Examination using frame analysis shows, however, that these podcasts are distinct in their engagement of the audience on multiple, simultaneous levels; levels which correspond with well-known media genres such as Documentary, Fiction, and Game Play. Each frame has its own layer of identities, conduct, and avenue for appealing to audiences just as these genres have their own distinct appeals. Through the combinations of these frames, familiar tropes and techniques such as Short-Form Improv and …

A Finite State Automata-Based Description Of Device States For Function Modeling Of Multi-State Technical Devices, Ahmed Mohammed Sobhan Chowdhury

Theses and Dissertations

Many modern and innovative design problems require multi-modal, reconfigurable solutions. Function modeling (FM) is a common tool used to explore solutions in early stages of mechanical engineering design. Currently, function structure representations do not abet the modeling of formally-defined reconfigurable function models as graph-based function models used in early-stage systems design usually represent only one operational mode of the system. Currently there is a need, but no rigorous formalism to model multiple possible modes in the model and logically predict the behavior of the system as it transitions between the modes. Additionally, function modeling representations will benefit from dynamically capturing …

Perspectives On Shame Among Palestinian Women, Andrea Sakleh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will examine the ways in which Palestinian women in Ramallah experience and think about shame (eib). I will approach this topic with the intention of complicating the traditional anthropological narrative regarding the honor/shame dichotomy. Within studies focused on honor and shame in the Middle East, anthropologists have examined the ways that honor and shame impact men and women (Abu-Lughod 1986; Baxter 2007; Glick et.al. 2016; Harik & Marston 1996; Kanaaneh 2002; Rasmussen 2007; Zoepf 2016), yet rarely are the two concepts, especially shame, examined independently. Overarchingly, I wish to understand what Palestinian women in Ramallah think about shame, …

Thou Shall Not Steal: Assessing Demographic And Neighborhood Predictors Of Shoplifting Through The Lens Of Social Disorganization Theory, Christina Loftin

Theses and Dissertations

The crime of shoplifting has received limited scholarly attention despite millions of shoplifting arrests that occur every year. Our understanding of shoplifting is limited because of this. This study assesses whether offenders arrested for shoplifting that reside in socially disorganized neighborhoods differ from their counterparts from less socially disorganized neighborhoods. Using arrest data from the Meridian Police Department and secondary data from the 2018 American Community Survey, analyses revealed that arrestees from neighborhoods with high levels of poverty were more likely to shoplift from dollar stores, liquor stores, and convenience stores. Demographic findings revealed few gender differences in shoplifting among …

Graduation And Retention Of Underrepresented Minorities And Male Transfer Students Who Enroll In An Academic Retention Program, Jermaine Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, the research problem was underrepresented minority (URM) male and female transfer students and male transfer students of all ethnicities who were placed on academic suspension, thus removing their chances of being retained and graduating. The purpose of this study was to see to what extent there were relationships between the dependent variables retention and graduation and the independent variables ethnicity, gender, and enrollment in a retention program. A total of 295 participants were included in the study: 119 students who chose to enroll in the retention program and 176 students who chose not to enroll. Descriptive statistics …

American Media Depiction Of Terrorism In The U.S After September 11 Attacks, Maria Thuy Trinh

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to analyze perceptions of terrorism through the analysis of two newspapers’ news coverage of terrorism after the September 11 attacks, a popular Kentucky newspaper, the Courier-Journal and the New York Times (NYT). The social construction of terrorism was reflected as a problem through moral panics or something that a society believed as wrong that needed to be eradicated. Previous research had found that newspapers have contributed to moral panics by exaggerating the scope of social problems such as school shootings. I used the theoretical framework of moral panics; Goode and Ben-Yehuda’s (2009) two criteria …

Latino Suicide: Does Religious Contextual Influence Vary Between Latino Men And Latino Women?, Sierra L. Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have examined aggregate associations between religious contexts and suicide rates among religious denominations. Most early research examined this relationship among white Christians; more current research has examined black Christians. Though this research tradition was established by Emile Durkheim long ago, religious context’s relationship with suicide rates remains understudied among U.S. Latinos. Few studies examine suicide among this group; those that do compare U.S.-born and foreign-born Latinos (see Barranco 2016; Barranco and Harris 2019). Nevertheless, these studies overlook how the religious context—suicide rate relationship differs between U.S. Latino men and women. This study fills this gap by applying two competing …

Social-Emotional Learning In High School: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation Of The Strong Teens Program, Oscar Olaya

Theses and Dissertations

Strong Teens is a curriculum designed to help students develop the social-emotional skills needed to manage challenges and become successful socially and academically (Carrizales- Engelmann et al., 2016). Strong Teens has shown promise among adolescents, but this was the first study to evaluate the newly updated version of the intervention in a high school setting. The curriculum was implemented by a special education teacher with students at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. A mixed method design was used to evaluate outcomes with 16 ninth grade students. Overall findings suggest that Strong Teens was effective at improving students' social emotional knowledge …

Regulating Demographics Through Regulating Marriage: Israel's Millet-Based Approach To Personal Status Law And Its Ramifications On The Social Hierarchy, Briana Nirenberg

Theses and Dissertations

Identity, though deeply personal, has often been exploited by the ruling class in order to gain power over their subjects. The preservation of social cleavages—be they national, ethnic, racial, religious, et cetera—is thus a matter of public policy. To ensure the propagation of a certain identity, the state must rely on its current citizens to reproduce the social structures that give their identities value. In order to maintain boundaries between the factions, groups must remain “pure” lest these structures be challenged. While prohibitions on whom an individual can marry exist across systems, they take on different, more subtle forms in …

Social Media Rumination: The Impact Of Materialistic Value Orientation, Keeley Hynes

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research demonstrates that ruminating on social media content is associated with greater mental distress (Yang, Holden, Carter, & Webb, 2018). However, it is unclear what factors are associated with rumination. Using Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a theoretical framework, this study examined how materialistic value orientation (MVO) predicted social media rumination in a sample of racially and socioeconomically diverse high school students at two waves of time. Those who are more materialistic value the means by which to gain possessions, and extrinsic life-goals associated with MVO are aimed at garnering external reinforcers such as money and social status (Richins & …

Privacy And The Digital Divide: Investigating Strategies For Digital Safety By People Of Color, Denavious Hoover

Theses and Dissertations

People of color are becoming increasingly concerned with digital privacy. They are concerned about the obfuscated data collection and sharing practices of major social media plat- forms and the strong entitlement of other users in the online space to their content. This study examines how people of color conceptualize and behave to produce safety in the online space, or, in other words, digital privacy. This study challenges notions that people are not purposeful about privacy in the online space and highlights the voices of people of color, whom are not of- ten included in theorizing or decision making about the …

Autoethnography Of Laughter: Transforming Identity By Teaching Composition And Linguistics Through Humor, Olya Cochran

Theses and Dissertations

The following dissertation is a story composed of humorous and humor-related experiences, lived by me as an immigrant student and instructor. I reflect on how those experiences influenced the transformation and performance of my teaching identity and shaped my humor-based pedagogy for Composition and Introductory Linguistics courses. The work is considering the effects of humor on my linguistic and cultural competences as well as my teaching practice. Along with that, the work provides an overview of scholarship on humor in education and the ways practicing academics utilize humor in their teaching and teaching identities. To reflect on how and why …

The Nature Of Primary Source Instruction In Social Science Methods Courses, Judith Loraine Bee

Theses and Dissertations

137 Pages

Teachers are the key to shifting the way learning happens in the classroom. However, teachers are not always skilled in inquiry, critical thinking, and historical impact. Teaching with primary sources provides a context from which to educate preservice teachers in these essential skills. This dissertation focuses on the nature of primary source instruction in preparing preservice teachers to teach social sciences at the K-8 level. This qualitative study explores education methods professors’ practices for educating preservice teachers to use primary sources in their classroom instruction. Social Science methods professors in Illinois were observed, interviewed and an analysis of …

Dance And Know You Are A Part: The Instrumentality Of Performative Politics And Dance In The Configuration Of Local Social Memory And Afro-Brazilian Identity And Agency In Pelotas, Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil, Triston R. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The arts have been a refuge from perpetual repression and omission, and, a platform for social activism for Afro-descendants in the Americas. In Brazil this is very much the case. With performance serving as a social barometer or a looking glass, dance becomes a source of cultural knowledge, acts as preservative, and negotiates individual mobility within a given context. The Afro-Brazilian dance company, Cia de Dança Daniel Amaro in Pelotas, Brazil grants its members a means of activism and agency to challenge entrenched national narratives and reinterpret local social memory.

Most academic writings about dance or performance in Brazil, focus …

Games And Play Of Dream Of The Red Chamber, Jiayao Wang

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation examines the games derived from Cao Xueqin’s novel Dream of The Red Chamber during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (1880s-1920s) through its various literary and textual representations. In brief, the games create a sense of otherworldliness for players to imagine their mode of being in a space that is set apart from the daily grinds of the historical transition. Dramatic and literary sources have been a constant motif or theme for traditional games in China. However, it was after the publication of Dream of Red Chamber that the characters, the themes and motifs of the novel …

Morals ‘Trump’ Party: Make America Cooperate Again, Jered Abernathy

Theses and Dissertations

Conflict between Democrats and Republicans is a central component of the contemporary American political system. Negative feelings and discrimination based on political orientation are at an all-time high, leading otherwise similar Americans to deeply distrust one another. Social identity theory provides a framework for not only understanding how this distrust between partisans persists, but how it may be negated. This study builds on recent work on moral judgments and trust games to create situations to increase trust across party lines. Using an online-experimental design, this study investigates the effects of two types of moral judgments on trust building: 1) moral …

The Health Care Commons: A Philosophical Approach, Roel Feys

Theses and Dissertations

This project is the first large-scale and systematic effort to bridge the fields of commons research and biomedical ethics, with the aim of furthering key debates in both areas of inquiry. The aims and contributions of the project are twofold.

First, I argue that commons research is valuable to bioethics, because it provides a language to talk about health care institutions. I critically discuss commons research’s main conceptual tools in the context of health care: the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, the design principles of successful commons, parallel experimentation, and polycentric governance regimes. This conceptual apparatus can help to …

Fostering Resilience In Correctional Officers, Jon Thomas Arthur Gist

Theses and Dissertations

A significant portion of the literature regarding corrections emphasizes the negative factors and outcomes related to the job. The career of a correctional officer includes a stressful, demanding, and unpredictable work environment. Correctional institutions are struggling to keep a correctional staff that can adapt to internal and external forces. Several studies have shown that correctional officers frequently encounter severe inmate misconduct, resulting in high levels of stress, low job satisfaction, and intentions of leaving the job. However, research begs the question of what makes a correctional officer resilient and functional at work?

No prior study has applied a mixed-methods study …

Addressing Unconscious Bias, Power, And Privilege To Increase Cultural Competence Skills In Healthcare Faculty: Intersecting Critical Race Theory And The Pyramid Model For Intercultural Competence, Christina B. Gunther

Theses and Dissertations

Inequity in healthcare has long been understood to be caused by individual and structural racism in the health system. Little progress has been made in diminishing the disparities that exist between Black and African American minoritized populations and the White majority. Cultural competence training in healthcare has focused on surface level differences in ethnicities, including language and religious practices, while ignoring difficult to address topics such as race and racism. This action research study, using a convergent mixed-methods design, attempted to address the gap in knowledge of race and racial structures in healthcare for the faculty in the college of …

Identifying Seasonal And Daily Variations In Arg-Containing Bioaerosols Generated During The Wastewater Treatment Process, Mirza Isanovic

Theses and Dissertations

Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem with the current global death count topping 700,000. In the United States alone there are 2.8 million antibiotic resistant bacterial (ARB) infections each year and approximately 35,000 deaths. If current trends continue the global ARB death count will reach 10 million surpassing current chronic disease deaths. Wastewater treatment plants play a vital role in protecting both the environment as well as local communities. The WWTP process allows for the removal of chemicals and contaminants from water that eventually makes its way back into the environment as well as into drinking water plants. Despite the …

The Literacies Of Adolescents With International Experiences, Caitlin Hanzlick Rasmussen

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reports the findings of a study on how international experiences impact adolescents. Data were gathered from interviews with and writing samples from seven participants with varying international experiences. A critical perspective and existing research in New Literacy Studies (NLS), on study abroad programs, and on transnationalism framed the study and predicted much of what was found about the literacies of adolescents with international experiences. However, five new findings emerged as significant about adolescents’ utilitarian, oral, geolingual, critical, and cosmopolitan literacies uniquely impacted by travel. From these findings, new insights emerged about the importance of embracing multiple forms of …

Effect Of Lifestyle, Medical School Culture And Income On Medical Students' Decision To Pursue A Primary Care Career In Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Abdullah Alhussain

Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to examine the relationship of medical school students who select primary care as their career specialty. Based on extensive literature review, we focused on the three main factors that influence students to consider career specialty: lifestyle, income, and medical school culture. With a paper questionnaire of a cross-sectional study survey at ten medical schools, we were able to collect 1,006 participants from fourth and fifth year students. The clear majority of students considered lifestyle characteristics to be a significant influence in their career decision (PP<.05). Also, we found there was a significant relationship between students’ specialty choices and income variables. The result showed us that medical school culture played a notable role in terms of forming the students’ decisions in different ways. First, specialty characteristics were strongly correlated with career consideration. Second, having advising and mentoring within the medical school enhanced the probability of choosing primary care specialty. Finally, the effect of the primary care course was significant and closely related to the choice of the primary care specialty. In conclusion, the study demonstrated the impact of lifestyle, income, and medical school culture on student career selection. These results are in parallel with previous studies conducted in many countries around the world.