Digital Commons Network^™

Best Practices And Strategies Used By Church Leaders To Mitigate And Prevent Burnout Among Church Volunteers, Katie Donihoo

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore successful strategies implemented by church leaders to mitigate and prevent church volunteer burnout. Volunteer training in the church must be set up for success relationally to create long-term sustainability. Burnout among volunteers and church leadership is common but effective training can help to prevent and mitigate burnout. The insights gleaned from the literature for preventing burnout can be incorporated into volunteer training programs within the church in order to provide long-term sustainability for volunteers. Armed with the findings of this study regarding insights gleaned from successful burnout mitigation and prevention programs used …

Cyber-Harassment In Higher Education: A Study Of Institutional Policies And Procedures, Victoria Ann Schaefer-Ramirez

Theses and Dissertations

Cyberbullying is a growing phenomenon, causing concern among students, parents, and professionals in the educational community. Although no federal law specifically addresses cyber-harassment in higher education, institutions have a legal obligation to address all claims of harassment, regardless of the location or platform in which the harassing behavior occurs. Recent court cases are setting precedents for obligatory institutional response and potential penalties for lack thereof; conversely, institutions are left to their own devices to employ and develop policy statements and sanctions that prohibit or discourage cyber-harassment behaviors. As the legal and political environment regarding bullying and cyberbullying behaviors continues to …

Leadership Best Practices For Female Executives In The Information Technology Industry, Danielle Jenkins

Theses and Dissertations

Commitment to gender diversity in the workplace is based on the social responsibility of business leaders. Many industries have achieved gender diversity, while others industries still struggle. Specifically, the IT industry has struggled to create a culture of inclusion for women. This study explored the experiences and perceptions of female executives in the IT industry. Specifically, this study focused on identifying the challenges female executives in the IT industry faced and determining the leadership best practices and strategies and measures these female executives implemented to advance to executive-level positions. Additionally, given their experiences, this study sought to record their recommendations …

Developing A Racial Equity Stance: Moving Philanthropy Beyond Diversity Statements, Maegan Scott

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past several years the national conversation about race, inequality, and power in the United States has grown in both urgency and intensity. In parallel to these social trends, more businesses, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropies are becoming better informed about the role of race and ethnicity in social and economic and disparities. The purpose of this study was to conduct action research to develop a racial equity stance at the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation in Washington, DC. This study also examined the role of cultural competence in supporting the development of a racial equity stance. The impetus …

Toward Better Discharge Decision-Making For Violent Offenders In Forensic Mental Health Settings: A Critical Analysis Of The Literature, Sara Laniado

Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the United States are institutions abundant with violent offenders who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGI). The decision to release these insanity acquittees into the community is a vital one, both for the patient and the larger community. While these decisions should be informed by evaluations that combine clinicians’ opinions with validated tools of assessment, no standard of care regarding such evaluations exists. Forensic specialists are thus often left to base discharge decisions on clinical judgment alone. This dissertation assumed a critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature relevant to conditional release decisions of …

Nontraditional Online Student Perceptions Of Student Access Conditions, Carrie Ann Prendergast

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines nontraditional online students’ perceptions of Tinto’s four student success conditions: expectations, support, assessment, and engagement. Expectations include those of the student, the faculty and the institution. Support includes academic, social, and financial support. Providing early and meaningful assessment and feedback to students is crucial during their educational career. The fourth success condition in Tinto’s model includes the involvement or engagement of students with their peers (and faculty) in both an academic and social contexts. Nontraditional student perceptions of each of these institutional conditions of success was uncovered through demographic survey, interviews, syllabi and website artifacts. This qualitative …

An Evaluation Of A Service Learning Program For At-Risk Charter High School Students, Jessica Hutcheson

Theses and Dissertations

This mixed-methods case study examined the impact of a mandatory service-learning intervention college preparatory elective class on at-risk students in a Southern California charter high school. At-risk was defined as, disadvantaged high school students from low income families and possessing poor health, cognitive problems and/or behavior issues that might hinder educational attainment. The embedded design analyzed two years of archival data from four student cohorts (n = 133), all of whom had the same instructor, who was trained to lead the class. The study included a quantitative survey taken by the students at the program’s beginning and end, demographic information, …

Efficacy Of Collaborative Consulting Training Module, Brenda Stone

Theses and Dissertations

Code for America Fellowships pair technologists with local city governments to develop digital tools that support how governments provide service to their communities. The lack of project sustainability following these Fellowships has been a source of dissatisfaction for both Fellows and clients. Code for America supports each Fellow with technical training, but provides no training on consulting techniques that help clients sustain the changes or new technology being introduced. The purpose of this action research study was to determine the efficacy of a collaborative consultation module for the Fellows at Code for America. To gather data, surveys, interviews and analysis …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Relationship Among Social Institutions And Juvenile Arrests In Virginia, Linh Thi T. Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

The United States has unusually high rates of violence among developed nations, including the victimization of and perpetration by youth. Using Institutional Anomie Theory (IAT) as the theoretical framework, this study analyzes the relationships between social institutions and crime and the interactive relationships among the institutions in a sample of Virginia localities. Multivariate analyses are conducted to produce additive and multiplicative models, and simple slope analyses are conducted to clarify interaction/moderation effects. Findings yield mixed support for IAT. Localities with higher levels of monthly welfare per recipient (a measure of polity) have lower juvenile violent crime arrest rates, and welfare …

Recognizing Her Characteristics As A Leader: An Examination Of The Self-Assessment Of Women Leaders As Shaped By Social Identity Theory And The Concept Of Double Consciousness, John C. Gregory

Theses and Dissertations

Women leaders are grossly underrepresented in police and Army organizations and relevant research suggests that women face the most significant challenges in reaching leadership positions in male dominant organizations. Although there have been recent policy changes to increase opportunities for women in police and Army organizations, women are still barely represented in senior command and primary staff positions in police and Army organizations. When women are underrepresented, particularly at the most senior ranks, there are implications regarding cultural, structural, and attitudinal challenges that simply should not still exist in these organizations. Using qualitative methods, this study examined the experiences of …

Assessing The Implementation Of Campus Safety Policies In Virginia Community Colleges: An Analysis Of The Forces At Play In Higher Education Institutional-Level Policymaking, Steven T. Keener

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which community colleges have implemented major post-Virginia Tech campus safety recommendations. In addition to gaining a comprehensive overview of the safety policies and practices in place, this study assessed if campus safety policy implementation levels at the community colleges correlated with institutional characteristics, and the internal and external forces that helped drive the implementation of these policies. Focusing specifically upon the Virginia Community College System, data on the policies and practices in place at each of the 23 Virginia community colleges were collected from institutional websites and through follow-up …

Socially Assigned Race, Reactions To Perceived Racial Discrimination And Type Ii Diabetes Mellitus, Jourdyn A. Lawrence

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Numerous studies have utilized race to document health inequities. As race is considered a social classification of persons based upon physical traits, studies have begun to consider socially assigned race defined as the race/ethnicity perceived by others. Socially assigned race may serve as the basis for differential or unfair treatment of persons ascribed to historically oppressed groups. Socially assigned race may also provide additional insight into racial health disparities, particularly among Latino populations who are commonly defined by their ethnicity. This study assesses the relationship between self-identified and socially assigned race/ethnicity and tests the moderating effects of emotional and …

Broke But Not Without Hope: Exploring Exits From Housing First And Returns To Homelessness, Jennie Ann Cole

Theses and Dissertations

“…he succeeded in giving the impression of being broke but not without hope.”

Nels Anderson, The Hobo, 1923

Introduction: This research offers a thick and rich, multidimensional and situational look, into a Housing First program in Charlotte, North Carolina. This dissertation focuses on individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness who exit Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) programs that employ a Housing First (HF) model and return to homelessness. The ultimate goal of my research was to address the gap in knowledge service providers have in housing retention for the chronically homeless and to break the cycle of misunderstanding around why people …

Governing Terrorism Through Preemption: A Comparative Analysis Of Radicalization In Three Western Liberal Democracies, Derek M.D. Silva

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, issues related to terrorism and counterterrorism are increasingly being understood through the construct of ‘radicalization.’ At its most basic level, radicalization is most often conceptualized as a transition from “normal,” conventional political, religious or otherwise ideological beliefs towards extremist views and ultimately violence. The process is now adopted by governmental officials and politicians, police authorities, journalists, and even scientists to justify various forms of governmental intervention, such as policing, social and public policy, education, and surveillance. Notably missing from the scholarly literature is a distinctly sociological understanding of the implications of the proliferation of radicalization discourse in …

Framing Marijuana: A Study Of How Us Newspapers Frame Marijuana Legalization Stories And Framing Effects Of Marijuana Stories, Hwalbin Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The current study was initially designed to look at how the issue of marijuana legalization was presented in U.S. newspapers and how news frames could influence the audiences’ attitudes or behavioral intentions. To investigate these questions, two different types of research methods were employed: content analysis and experiment. Using framing theory as a theoretical framework, this study found that marijuana legalization has been largely described as a legislation issue or a law enforcement issue, and medical benefit and medical risk were most frequently mentioned attributes to support and oppose marijuana legalization. Findings indicated that news frame could influence the public’s …

The Act Keytrain Program And The Act Workkeys Test Performance: An Action Research Study, Matthew T. Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative action research study was to describe the effectiveness of the American College Testing (ACT) KeyTrain program in the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC), conducted with 50 inmate-student-participants who were enrolled in the Palmetto Unified School District’s Tyger River High School’s (TyRCI) adult education program. The identified problem of practice for this dissertation in practice (DiP) was an evaluation of the effectiveness of this program for one group of low socioeconomic status Black male inmate-student-participants. This evaluation was of vital importance to the Palmetto Unified School District (PUSD) and SCDC because ACT WorkKeys is one …

The Role Of Afrocentric Features In Mental Healthcare Utilization And Counselor Preferences In Black College Students, Randl B. Dent

Theses and Dissertations

Though mental health issues are prevalent in Black young adults, they underutilize mental healthcare services. This research examined the role of feature-based discrimination in mental healthcare (under)utilization. Study 1, a secondary analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, provided no evidence supporting a link between skin tone and mental healthcare utilization, when controlling for depression diagnosis. However, when controlling for depression symptoms, there was a trend such that Black young adults with darker, as opposed to lighter, skin tone utilized healthcare less. Study 2, an experimental study with 33 Black college students, showed 73% of the …

Art For Recovery, Lucy Dabney

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the design of a space for opioid addicts in recovery that combines an art therapy studio with a gallery space. It would provide a new type of therapy available to the area, engage and educate the Richmond community and spread awareness of the disease of opiate addiction. It will also enable addicts to express themselves in a non-verbal, creative format that allows for them to create a legacy and leave an imprint on the community.

"A Degree Is A Part Of The Puzzle, But Only A Piece.” Understanding How Employers Determine The Value Of Academic Credentials, Brenda Kaspari

Theses and Dissertations

With the skyrocketing costs of higher education and the increased scrutiny of how educational institutions prepare graduates for the workplace, this dissertation explored how the “outsiders,” or employers, view and determine the value of academic credentials. Using the premise of credentialism, this grounded theory, qualitative study addressed two major questions; first, how do employees evaluate academic credentials, and second, what factors are important to employers?

Through the interviews, it was discovered that there were gray areas when determining the value of a college credential. There were three critical findings. First, college degrees are a valuable credential, yet there are issues …

Stigma And Restoration Of Civil Rights To Felons, Kimberly Paige Pithey

Theses and Dissertations

Millions of people in the United States are banned from basic civil rights including participation in voting, jury duty, applying for government assistance, and owning a firearm because they have had a felony conviction. There is limited research on attitudes regarding the restoration of civil rights to felons. This thesis uses Goffman’s theory of stigma to examine whether public support for the restoration of rights to felons is associated with knowledge of felony convictions and whether an individual knows someone with a felony conviction. This study used an online survey of college undergraduates (N = 362) to explore two hypotheses …

Still Runnin’ The Underground: A Critical Case Study Of An Adolescent African American Male Reflecting On School, Dalisha Shante Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the vast amount of research on effectively educating African American students, there are few studies capturing the educational narratives of African American students, and specifically Black males, in their own words. Much of the literature focuses on dismal statistics and outcomes concerning African American male students. Drawing upon Woodson’s (1933) timeless critique of the miseducation of the Negro, Afrocentricity in education (Asante, 1987; King & Swartz, 2014,2016) emancipatory pedagogies, and Ladson-Billings’ (1994) theory of culturally relevant pedagogy, this study explores one adolescent African American male’s reflections on school. Using a critical case study methodology, one participant, Merrick, participated in …

The Impact Of Declining Student Persistence In Distance Learning On American College Completion Goals, Francine Adams

Theses and Dissertations

Academic institution leaders, education researchers, and policy makers have come together to restore America’s ranking among the top nations who are educating citizens to prepare for the technology jobs of the future. President Barack Obama tasked the nation to do so after alarming figures in student achievement were revealed from the 2009 PISA reports. The White House and Lumina Foundation called for a transformation, setting deadlines for 2020 and 2025, respectively, that 60% of Americans should attain degrees or credentials. This study centered on degree attainment by, assessing distance learning persistence for warning signs of impeding these goals. This study …

Índice De Actitud Hacia La Investigación Y Disposición A La Titulación Por Tesis, Martha Lorena Obermeier Pérez

Theses and Dissertations

La Licenciatura en inglés en modalidad virtual está enfocada a la profesionalización de maestros de inglés en ejercicio que no cuentan con formación metodológica en enseñanza de lenguas. Además de la titulación por tesis, la institución acepta otras modalidades como excelencia o mérito académico, estudios de posgrado o reporte de servicio social. Al finalizar los estudios, los alumnos han elegido titularse por estas otras modalidades y, aun así, los índices de titulación del programa son bajos. En este trabajo, se realiza un análisis cuantitativo para determinar el índice de actitud que tienen los alumnos de la Licenciatura en inglés en …

Are Firearms Causing An Increase In Gun Crimes? A Granger Causality Test Of Dallas' Street Gun Arsenal, Dustin Dean Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

From 1980 to 1992, Dallas, Texas saw an increase in both gun violence and the number of firearms. Nine firearm measures that define Dallas, Texas’ street gun arsenal along with two gun violence measures are used to test whether firearms are causing an increase in gun violence or gun violence is causing an increase in firearms. By estimating vector autoregressions and employing Granger causality tests on one firearm measure and one gun violence measure, the result is that the rising number of homicides committed with a gun are causing an increase in the total number of firearms. There is little …

Chinese International Students In A Northwest University: Investigating Cultural Academic Learning And Teaching Preferences, Michael L. Bevis

Theses and Dissertations

As Chinese international students on American university campuses continue to rise, the importance of these institutions to accommodate the students in adapting to a different academic culture has become more critical. On a public, coeducational research university located in the Pacific Northwest, a concurrent triangulated mixed method research design was implemented to investigate cultural factors with preferred learning and teaching styles of Chinese international students along with what corroborative descriptions these students provide as effective learning experiences in American college classrooms.

The study brought attention to Chinese international students’ differing cultural values from the previous literature understanding, it supported previous …

Evaluating The Attitudes Of Preservice Teachers Toward Multicultural Competence, Angela D. Marshall

Theses and Dissertations

Changes in the ethnicity of the student population across the nation necessitated a change in teacher education curricula. This explanatory, sequential, mixed-method study examined how a group of preservice teachers viewed the importance of multicultural competence before and after student teaching. Specifically, an evaluation of preservice teachers’ attitudes about their own multicultural preparedness was made prior to and after being given full responsibility for an ethnically diverse classroom.

The study employed quantitative and qualitative measures to assess preservice teachers’ levels of multicultural competence as well as their awareness of self-perceptions of multicultural competence that contribute to attitudes toward teaching an …

A Replication Study: 20 Years Later Correctional Officers: How Do They Perceive Sexual Offenders?, Kimberlie Massnick

Theses and Dissertations

Correctional officers represent a large, influential group working within the criminal justice system; as such they have long attracted the interest of social scientists. These professionals, their attitudes towards inmates and the impact of these attitudes, have received scrutiny, especially since Zimbardo’s (1973) study of a mock prison, commonly referred to as the Stanford Prison Experiment. When compared to other professionals within the criminal justice system, correctional officers are often the least empathic, the most punitive, and the least supportive of rehabilitation. These potential attitudes this is unfortunate since correctional officers are ideally placed to improve the social atmosphere of …

Integración De Curriculum Webs En Cursos De Introducción A La Informática De Una Universidad Pública De La República Dominicana, Raysa Licelot Vásquez Reynoso

Theses and Dissertations

El propósito de esta investigación fue aportar evidencias de los beneficios de los curriculum webs, definidos como herramientas de aprendizaje basadas en la Web para apoyar procesos educativos. La problemática en que se centró este estudio fue la deserción estudiantil registrada durante el período 2011-2013 en la asignatura Introducción al Procesamiento de Datos, ofrecida por la universidad contexto de esta investigación.

La experiencia del aprendizaje mediado fue relevante para esta disertación, dado que los curriculum webs sirven como herramientas mediadoras para fomentar el aprendizaje significativo. Este estudio fue del tipo descriptivo, con un diseño mixto, no experimental, transversal y de …

The Black Male's Perception Of Academic Success In The Black Belt Region, Lisa M. Morenzoni

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this applied dissertation was to explore the perceptions of academic success of Black males in the Black Belt in an effort for educators and community members to better understand and meet the needs of young Black men. In this study, the researcher conducted one 60-minute interview followed by one confirming interview with nine former students (Appendix D) who graduated from the local area high school. Interview questions (Appendix B) were developed by the researcher based on the research questions in the study. These use of these questions assisted in understanding the perceptions of academic success of these …

Testing The Ability Of Two Series Of Models To Predict High School Graduation Status, David T. Marshall

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to create and test two series of predictive models aimed at projecting high school graduation status. Secondary data were obtained in partnership with an urban school district. All of the predictor variables included in the models tested in this study were academic and nonacademic variables that were found to be significant predictors of high school graduation in previous empirical work. In the first series of models tested, individual academic and nonacademic variables were tested together along with school-level variables. Eighth and ninth grade variables were tested separately to avoid multicollinearity issues. The second series …