Digital Commons Network^™

Multimodal Assessment Of Human Behavior With Applications In Analysis Of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sk Rahatul Jannat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Human behavior analysis is an important application area of artificial intelligence. Usingdata collected from sensors (e.g., cameras), human behavior including, but not limited to, emotions, expressions, body movement, and eye gaze are analyzed. This analysis is useful in applications in diverse fields ranging from healthcare, defense, education, and marketing. Considering this, in this dissertation, we have proposed new approaches to emotion and expression recognition, subject identification, and classification of autism spectrum disorder. More specifically, this dissertation has the following contributions: 1) A new approach for multimodal ubiquitous emotion recognition is proposed; 2) Investigation into the impact of large expression variations …

The Relationship Between First-Year Expectations And Persistence For Students Who Self-Identify As Having Not Declared A Major, Shane Combs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research aligned with protocols established by the Florida Board of Governors in 2016 to form a new funding model tied to the institution's performance. The literature review highlighted a disparity between students' expectations and the reality of college which could negatively impact persistence, and therefore funding to the institution. This quantitative study utilized the Beginning of College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE) to explore the correlation between incoming, undeclared FTIC students' expectations of co-curricular involvement, faculty interaction, and learning support services utilization and their persistence to the end of the second fall semester. The sample consisted of 1,042 respondents …

A Novel Jazz Music Curriculum For Young Children: Results Of A Pilot Study, Jazmin D. Ghent

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Jazz improvisation is known as the highest-known art form concerning improvisation due to its frequency and development of creative ideas (Feldman 1964). Research shows that the art of spontaneous creation can contribute to children’s ability to problem-solve, social and emotional well-being, and academic success into adulthood (Biasutti, 2017; Heble & Laver, 2016; Kiehn, 2003; Kuzmich, 1980; Solis, 2009). Improvisation is crucial for developmentally comprehensive music programs; however, improvisation is scarce in elementary music classrooms and curricula. For this pilot study, a group of 31 children aged 5-8 and considered at-risk participated in a study where they were randomly assigned to …

One Year Impact Of The Advancing Coping And Engagement (Ace) Program On Advanced Placement And International Baccalaureate Student Success, Amanda C. Moseley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Student success hinges on educational settings that feature a well-developed, comprehensive mental health support system (Hoover et al., 2019). Salient pieces of well-functioning mental health supports adhere to Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) principles, including evidence-based practices with incremental intensity (Stoiber & Gettinger, 2015). Adolescents pursuing accelerated curricula in high school, specifically Advanced Placement courses (AP) and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), display a need for psychosocial support related to the stressors inherent to a rigorous curriculum (Suldo & Shaunessy-Dedrick, 2013b). Suldo and colleagues’ (2018) research on AP and pre-IBDP youth identified malleable predictors of success that became intervention …

The Relationships Between L1, Writing Quality, And Complexity, Accuracy, And Fluency In L2 Writing, Tuc C. Chau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current dissertation is to map the relationships between first language (L1), writing quality, and syntactic complexity, accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluency (CALF) in second language (L2) writing. CALF are characteristics of language production that have been of significant interest in L2 writing research for the past few decades. Though they have been extensively studied as dependent variables that may vary as a function of other factors, they have been rarely studied together, much less in relation to L1 as an independent variable. Thus, this study explored the effects of L1 and writing quality, operationalized as score …

A Culturally Responsive And Sustaining Pre-School: Collaborative Approaches To Curriculum In An Underserved Florida Community, Dana R. Roberts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The early childhood education and childcare (ECE&C) sector in America “is a textbook example of a broken market” (Yellen, 2021) that operates as a “non-system” (Berlin, 2021). This manifests itself through the low-quality of its teaching cadre (Cassidy et al., 2019). This failure hits disadvantage families hardest (Chafouleas et al., 2016) - a reality that is particularly apparent in St. Petersburg, Florida’s Midtown neighborhoods where one out of every two children attending ECE programs are not meeting State school readiness standards (Florida OEL, 2020). In this study, I propose a culturally-responsive (Gay, 2018), culturally sustaining (Ladson-Billings, 2021c), and equity-based continuous …

Analysis Of Ostds Failure Potential Due To Sea-Level Rise And Other Inundation Factors: An Integrated Geo-Spatial Analysis, Alec Colarusso

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While many aspects of climate change are well-studied, the vulnerability of Onsite Sewage Treatment and Disposal Systems (OSTDS) to sea-level rise (SLR) has not been thoroughly examined despite the potentially significant environmental impacts, including nutrient and pathogen loading. Research gaps include the need to determine the suitability of models to predict groundwater inundation due to SLR and the consequent impact on OSTDS. As such, this study aims to compare Bathtub/hydrostatic and physics-based/MODFLOW/3D numerical modeling methods of simulating groundwater inundation from SLR to identify OSTDS vulnerability to failure due to a reduction in the height of the vadose zone (saturation or …

A Qualitative Study Of Facilitators And Barriers Perceived By Black Students And Their Effect On Advanced Placement Course Enrollment In High School, Austin R. Cole

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Advanced Placement (AP) classes can provide many benefits to students. The rigorous curriculum gives students an academic challenge to expand their educational abilities (The College Board, 2014). However, students of color are often underrepresented in AP participation (The College Board, 2014). Research has investigated factors among students of color that predict participation and success in AP courses, suggesting that family SES and prior academic achievement (Dixson et al., 2017; Ndura et al., 2003), and racial barriers impact students’ ability to choose to take AP courses (Jeffries & Silvernail, 2017; Walker & Pearsall, 2012). This study addressed a gap in the …

Candidate-Related Distress And Voting: Examining Political Behavior Through The Lens Of General Strain Theory, Katelyn N. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines voting as a legitimate coping strategy through the lens of general strain theory. Drawing on previous research on the correlates of voting and general strain theory, this study seeks to evaluate the influence of different beliefs and negative emotions on voting, as well as the role of voting as a way to alleviate the negative emotions brought on by presidential elections. Using an analytic sample of 664 American adults with perceived voting eligibility, two structural equation models are used to evaluate the relationship between beliefs, negative emotions, and voting. Results suggests that individual beliefs and negative emotions …

“I’M Still Suffering”: Mental Health Care Among Central African Refugee Populations In The Tampa Bay Area, C. Danee Ruszczyk

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An estimated 500 Central African refugee families have been resettled in the Tampa Bay Area since 2002 (RPC, 2022). The cycles of trauma that they have endured place them in vulnerable positions regarding their mental health. Struggling to exist within underfunded social programs that are rigid in their expectations and with the current system of reactive care vs preventative care, the refugees in Tampa are put in a difficult situation of navigating their own health and wellbeing in lieu of having the full support of the United States government and their community. I will discuss how these refugees experience and …

Socio-Emotional Effects Of Rejection: An Experience-Sampling Examination, Gabriella Silva

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rejection is a detrimental experience that directly threatens people’s fundamental need for social acceptance and connection. Rejection is particularly distressing for people with elevated social anxiety, as it is their core fear. Yet, very few studies have examined the impact of daily rejection in the context of social anxiety. The present research examined the socioemotional effects of daily feelings of rejection in the context of social anxiety across two experience-sampling studies. Study 1 was a 2-week daily diary study with community adults and Study 2 was a 4-week ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study with a clinical sample of adults with …

Improving The Subjective Well-Being Of Autistic Youth Utilizing A Positive Psychology Intervention, Nicolette Bauermeister

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study utilized a single-case multiple-baseline design to analyze the effects of a ten-week multi-component positive psychology intervention, the Well-Being Promotion Program, on the subjective well-being of Autistic youth. This thesis addressed a gap in the literature regarding the effectiveness of positive psychology interventions when administered to Autistic middle schoolers. Three Autistic middle schoolers participated in this single-case design study. Dynamic decision-making was used to stagger intervention implementation across the three participants. Life satisfaction and positive/negative affect data were collected via a Qualtrics survey that was administered twice per week. Through visual analysis and Baseline Corrected Tau calculations, it was …

Academic Procrastination Among Chinese International Undergraduate Students In The United States, Yunlu Xiang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research aimed to explore academic procrastination among Chinese internationalstudents, using NVivo 12 to analyze data gathered through interviews with six participants. The study identified both internal and external factors contributing to academic procrastination, with social networking and software being the most significant external factors and disinterest and avoidance being the most significant internal factors. The participants did not identify the COVID-19 pandemic as a significant factor in academic procrastination. The study analyzed gender differences in academic procrastination among Chinese students. The pandemic had different effects on men and women, with men downplaying the concept of time and women experiencing …

The Impacts Of Disability Policy And Its Implementation On Deaf University Students: An Applied Anthropological Approach, Tailyn Marie Osorio

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) has provided legal requirement for universities to provide accommodations for all disabled students, including deaf students. The ADA is intentionally vague to allow flexibility for how institutions implement accommodations provisions. This leads to high variability across universities. Using ethnographic data from policy analysis, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with accommodations coordinators and deaf students from a large-public university, this applied anthropological study aims to investigate the impacts of policy and policy practices on the experiences of deaf students while proposing interventions informed by the coordinators and deaf students themselves.

This study is …

The Transformative Impact Of A Semester-Long Us-Based Gelt Course On Pre-/In-Service Teachers' Cognition And Classroom Practices, Özge Güney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As English has become a global lingua franca used by a greater number of nonnative speakers than native speakers, a focus on native speaker norms in English language teaching (ELT) has become obsolete. There has been a call to incorporate different varieties of Englishes (native, nonnative, and nativized) and related cultures in both teacher education programs and the English classroom- an approach known as Global Englishes Teacher Education (GELT). This study investigates the influence of a GELT-informed teacher education course offered at a US state university on the cognition and (future) practices of pre-/in-service teachers, which aspects of the GELT …

The Effects Of A Multicomponent Informational Text Reading Intervention On Comprehension: A Multiple Baseline Study, Lesley S. Noel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present the findings from the implementation of aninformational text reading comprehension intervention. Using a single-case multiple baselines across participants’ experimental design, I examined results from three small heterogeneous groups of three to four students during the literacy block in a suburban fourth-grade classroom in a large school district in the southeastern United States. I designed a multi-component intervention with explicit instruction of informational text features to investigate the impacts on intermediate students’ oral retell and main idea statements. My research was guided by the following questions: (1) To what extent does participation in ITMI improve fourth-grade …

Reading Suffering Between The Lines: Trauma And Witnessing In Old And Middle English Literature, Anca Olguta Giorgiana Garcia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Both literary trauma theorists and medieval literature scholars generally avoid analyzing Old and Middle English literature through the lens of trauma studies. There are multiple reasons for this reluctance, and perhaps the most elementary one is the misconception that medieval society was numb to pain because they experienced it more often than people today do. Another reason is the fact that trauma in general is seen as a product of the Industrial Revolution and of the interactions between humans and machines. Its terminology and diagnostic methods have only developed in the last two centuries, so applying modern concepts on medieval …

Initial Understanding Of Public Stigma Against Childhood Cancer Survivors, Nele Loecher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As childhood cancer survival rates climb to new records, it is increasingly important to focus on improving the psychological wellbeing of survivors living years beyond their diagnosis. One potential contributor to psychological distress for childhood cancer survivors (CCSs) is stigma. The fear of stigma can lead to CCSs concealing their identity as a CCS, which in turn can strain workplace and intimate relationships, creating a strain on CCSs’ social and work life. Additionally, the internalization of negative stereotypes or rejection of falsely positive stereotypes around cancer can exacerbate psychological distress. To establish what stereotypes and stigma CCS might be contending …

A Church Of The People: Coptic Church Building And Direction In Central New Jersey, Bishoy Garis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Building off Michael Akladios’ work on early Coptic migration and the ad hoc institutionalization of the Coptic Orthodox Church in North America, this dissertation proposes that the construction and direction of Coptic churches in Middlesex County, New Jersey was laity driven, ad hoc, reactive, and dependent on local variables. Additionally, it reveals that the creation of St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in East Brunswick, New Jersey spurred migration to the Middlesex County area and transformed their small community into a domestic and international Coptic migration center. Unlike previous scholarship that places greater attention on urban Coptic communities and transnational networks, …

The Rise Of Text Analysis: Using Machine Learning To Explain The Variation In Going Concern Accuracy, Yimei Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Auditors are required to issue modified audit opinions if they have sufficient doubts about the client’s ability to continue as a going concern. These going concern opinions represent an important information resource for financial statement users to evaluate client performance, and are associated with a number of negative capital market outcomes (e.g. negative returns, increased cost of capital, etc.). Despite being used by capital market participants, going concern opinions are commonly plagued with Type I errors (false positive) and Type II errors (false negative), making them a particularly noisy measure. The purpose of this study is to determine whether machine …

Untangling The Phenomenon Of Teacher Anxiety During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Voices Of Secondary Ela Teachers, Jenise Gorman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hybrid simultaneous teaching, surgical masks, Lysol wipes, and uncertainty capture the zeitgeist of teaching during COVID-19. This study builds on teachers’ daily stressors in the classroom. Many shifts in education that never seemed possible created angst and anxiety in the classroom (Cupido, 2018; Dubey and Pandey, 2020; El Rizaq & Sarmini, 2021; Zuo et al., 2020; Garcia and Piotrowski, 2022). Teachers entered the 2020-2021 school year having to learn many firsts.The purpose of this study was to understand the interplay of work-life lived experiences of secondary English teachers with moments of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a post-intentional phenomenological …

Investigating Risk Factors Of The Development Of Compulsive Exercise And Eating Disorder Symptoms In College Students, Madeline Palermo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Compulsive exercise (e.g., high exercise frequency combined with the inability to reduce or stop exercising) is associated with a variety of maladaptive outcomes in college students, such as quality of life impairment, body dissatisfaction, and poor physical health outcomes. Recent research suggests that compulsive exercise is highly prevalent among college students and that engagement in compulsive exercise behaviors may increase over the first year of college. Given that college is an important developmental period for establishing behavioral patterns that affect long-term health, developing effective preventative interventions for compulsive exercise among early college students is paramount. Extant cross-sectional work suggests that …

Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Immigration-Related Stressors, Pregnancy, Birth, And Post-Partum Experiences Of Women Living Along The Us-Mexico Border, Isabela Solis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic coupled with immigration-related stressors had a profound effect on women who lived on the U.S.-Mexico border and their pregnancy, birth, and post-partum experiences. This project focused the experiences of 17 women living in El Paso, Texas and how border closure, economic insecurities, and family separation during the COVID-19 pandemic shaped women’s experiences. This research included interviewing maternal and child health experts to propose recommendations geared towards policy change. Finally, this project highlights the vast complexities that go into the pregnancy, birth, and post-partum period for women living on the U.S.-Mexico border, and how these experiences shape maternal …

Fragmented Hours: The Biography Of A Devotional Book Printed By Thielman Kerver, Stephanie R. Haas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the most richly illustrated and widely-owned texts of the late medieval and early modern eras, books of hours are essential to the study of art, religion, and the history of the book. Fragmented and damaged books, while perhaps less coveted, are of particular value to researchers for what they may reveal about their owners as well as the changing meanings of devotional texts and images over more than five centuries of use. This thesis explores the compelling biography of a damaged book of hours preserved in the University of Florida Library. The book has undergone such extensive alteration prior …

Transition To Higher Education In A College Assistance Migrant Program: Students’ Perception Of Purpose, Mark R. Lane-Holbert

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The 21st century world is increasingly globalized and interconnected, and migration is a reality that substantially impacts the US educational system, and often requires specialized services for migrant students to successfully transition to higher education. While higher education has many benefits, it also presents inherent risks and challenges for students from migrant families, whose academic and life experiences may be vastly different from traditional college students. Federal collegiate transition programs like the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) recognize this and aim to support students holistically throughout their transition to higher education. Such programs are in continual search of effective ways …

Teaching Behavioral Contingencies To Young Children With Asd Using Contingency Mapping, Marqueline Cenatus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit problem behavior in schools, which negatively impacts their educational outcomes. Unfortunately, teachers continue to have difficulty addressing problem behavior in the classroom. Contingency mapping is a visual representation of the contingencies for engaging in a desired and undesired behaviors, which has been found to improve student behavior in the classroom setting. The current study examined the use of the contingency mapping intervention for young children with ASD. Specifically, the study examined the extent to which the contingency mapping intervention result in a decrease of off-task behavior during natural classroom activities. Three young …

Exploring Time-Varying Extraneous Variables Effects In Single-Case Studies, Ke Cheng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effect of time-varying extraneous variables has been studied in other statistical analyses such as using Kaplan–Meier or Cox regression analysis in survival analyses. Nonetheless, the effect of modeling versus not modeling individual specific time varying extraneous variables has not been explored in multiple-baseline single case designs through Monte Carlo simulation studies. Therefore, in my dissertation, I used simulation methods to explore for a variety of conditions (varying in the number of participants, number of observations per participant, type of extraneous variable effect, size of the true intervention effect) the impact of extraneous variables on bias and standard error of …

Proud And Mischievous Designs: Elizabethan Propaganda Of The Dutch Revolt, Michael Swierczynski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the late sixteenth century, England’s political culture was engaged in a heated debate over that kingdom’s participation in the Dutch Revolt. Across the Channel, predominantly Protestant Dutch rebels had risen up in revolt against their Catholic overlord, King Philip II of Spain. The English people, linked to the Dutch by longstanding cultural, economic, and religious ties, largely sympathized with the rebels. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and, after his death, his stepson, Robert Deveraux, Earl of Essex, sponsored extensive campaigns of print propaganda to influence their fellow subjects to support an active English military intervention in the Revolt. They …

Factors To Consider For Effective Implementation Of Aac With Students With Autism: Saudi Special Education Teachers’ Perspectives, Mazen Abdurhman Almethen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study aimed to explore the perceptions of Saudi special education teachers regarding teaching minimally verbal students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and factors facilitating the use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) system in their classroom. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five Saudi special education teachers. Teachers were from three schools at the General Directorate of Education in Unaizah, Saudi Arabia. The findings were analyzed by using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that Saudi special education teachers faced many challenges when teaching students with ASD who have minimal verbal abilities which includes expression difficulties, challenging behavior, and teacher-related challenges. …

Please Don’T Label Me: An Examination Of Black-Owned Labels And How A Positive Consumer Activism Movement May Have A Negative Outcome, Khalia C. Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Covid-19 crisis that began in 2020 brought to light many societal issues as people had time to sit and reflect. One of these issues is the systemic injustices against African Americans, which were highlighted after the death of George Floyd. This event re-ignited the Black Lives Matter movement amongst U.S. citizens of all races and within corporations. While some companies pledged to donate to various Black causes, others opted to empower Black businesses economically by supporting the Buy-Black Movement. One of the ways they are accomplishing this goal is by adding a Black-owned label to products and businesses. While …