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The Relationship Of Perceived Intellectual And Social Attainment To Academic Success Of First-Generation, First-Year College Students Participating In A First Generation Access Program, Dyonne Michelle Bergeron

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to advance understanding of perceived intellectual and social attainment gains of first-generation, first-year college students participating in First Generation Access Programs at the University of South Florida (USF), a large, public research university in Florida. Understanding the self-reported intellectual and personal/social gains of these students in higher education can lead to higher retention rates, creative strategies that promote academic success, affective cognitive and personal development activities and services that meet the needs of this rapidly growing at-risk student population with their persistence and transition to college.

Researchers have sought to examine variables that may …

Race/Ethnicity, Subjective And Objective Sleep Quality, Physical And Psychological Symptoms In Breast Cancer Survivors, Pinky H. Budhrani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer is a major health problem and comprises the largest population of cancer survivors in the United States, estimated at 2.9 million women, accounting for 22% of all cancer survivors (National Cancer Institute, 2013). The advances in breast cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment has increased the importance of survivorship needs. A major concern among breast cancer survivors (BCS) is sleep disturbances. This study used an innovative approach to examine ethnic and racial disparities in sleep disturbances present in BCS. In addition, this study also explored sleep disturbances across different races/ethnicities. This study was a secondary data analysis of baseline …

Spectatorial Shock And Carnal Consumption: (Re)Envisaging Historical Trauma In New French Extremity, Christopher Butler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

New French Extremity films are violent, transgressive, and break many social taboos in their narratives. However, this genre's directors are intelligent and construct these films with clues to France's past and how it still has implications in the present. This thesis was written to point out how New French Extremity films offer spectators the potential to reincorporate traumatic moments in French history by juxtaposing them against present day social, political, and economic ideologies. The purpose for this course of study was to investigate historical encounters that are present in New French Extremity filmmaking, something that has yet to be addressed …

School Mental Health: Views Of Services Integration And Attitudes Toward Evidence-Based, Donna L. Burton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Purpose of the study. Through secondary data analysis of results from the School Mental Health Services Integration Survey (SMHSIS), this study describes indicators of school mental health integration preparedness, including role identification, willingness to engage in tasks associated with mental health services integration and implementation facilitators. The study also investigated the utility of a modified version of the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS) for use with school staff.

Study rationale. With as many as 20% of children meeting criteria for mental disorders that cause impairment, the gaps in mental health services delivery to this special needs population are evident …

Quality Of Life In Female Breast Cancer Survivor In Panama, Mayela Castro

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common female cancer worldwide and it is also the principal cause of death from cancer among women globally. Breast cancer has the highest prevalence among Panamanian women and its incidence is also growing every year. Women living with and beyond breast cancer have special needs that have to be considered by society and the health care systems. After diagnosis, the quality of life (QOL) of women is highly affected, due to the emergence of physical, psychological and social effects which lead to changes in attitudes and expectations towards life.

Purpose: To evaluate the …

Universal Tumor Screening For Lynch Syndrome: Identification Of System-Level Implementation Factors Influencing Patient Reach, Deborah Le Cragun

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lynch syndrome (LS) is the most prevalent cause of hereditary colorectal cancer (CRC) and confers high risks for several other types of cancer. Universal tumor screening (UTS) of all newly diagnosed patients with CRC can improve LS identification and decrease associated morbidity and mortality among patients and family members. However, for UTS to be effective, patients who screen positive must pursue genetic counseling and confirmatory germline testing (i.e., high patient reach). The purposes of this study were to characterize UTS programs, identify barriers and facilitators to implementation, document whether there have been negative outcomes, and determine institutional and implementation conditions …

African Americans And Hospice: A Culture-Centered Exploration Of Disparities In End-Of-Life Care, Patrick Dillon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the United States' population ages and grows more diverse, scholars and practitioners have grown increasingly concerned about persistent disparities in the cost and quality of end-of-life health care, particularly with regard to African Americans. Although a variety of factors may influence these disparities, most scholars agree that the underutilization of hospice care by this population is an important contributor. Drawing from the culture-centered approach to health communication and narrative theory, the present study explores African American patients and caregivers' experiences with hospice care and takes an initial step toward addressing disparities in end-of-life care. I begin this study, first, …

Supporting Speech-Language Pathologist Evidence-Based Practice Use: A Mixed-Methods Study In Skilled Nursing Facilities Within The Promoting Action On Research Implementation In Health Services Framework, Natalie Franko Douglas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the management of dementia is a significant public health concern, efforts to increase access to effective treatments to a greater number of residents with dementia in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) are warranted. The treatment addressed in this study, non-electronic external memory aids, is an evidence-based practice that has been found to increase positive communicative interactions and decrease negative behavioral problems of residents with dementia in SNFs.

Although use of memory aids is recommended, there are significant barriers such as lack of time and resources that inhibit the use of effective treatments in typical clinical settings. To address such barriers …

Relationship Between Dysphoric Moods, Risk-Taking Behaviors, And Toxoplasma Gondii Antibody Titers In Female Veterans, Allyson Radford Duffy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The number of female veterans is increasing daily. Previous research conducted on veterans has focused primarily on males or with small samples of females. Depression and suicidality are becoming increasingly evident in returning veterans. Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular parasite that is common in the Middle East and has been reported to cause changes in personality and behavior.

The purpose of the current study was to examine relationships between T. gondii antibody titer and socioeconomic variables, dysphoric moods, and risk-taking behaviors in a sample of 70 female veterans. Blood samples were collected and analyzed for T. gondii antibody titer and …

Emotional Invalidation: An Investigation Into Its Definition, Measurement, And Effects, Meredith Brown Elzy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emotional invalidation is a construct closely related to childhood maltreatment, which has been linked theoretically and empirically to the development of psychopathology. This study sought to advance the empirical investigation into emotional invalidation through three primary objectives: 1) to critically review the way emotional invalidation is currently defined and measured in the existing literature, 2) to offer a novel approach at conceptualizing and measuring emotional invalidation as a two part construct comprised of emotionally invalidating behaviors and perceived emotional invalidation, and 3) to experimentally test the effects of invalidating behaviors on a person's perception of emotional invalidation and their level …

Exploring The Motives, Perceptions And Constructed Identities Of The Facilitators For One Regional Council Of A Positive Youth Development Program: Girls On The Run, Ashley Ann Gallentine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the coaches' perceptions, motives and constructed identities by participating in a regional physical activity-based positive youth development program. There is growing evidence that suggests the success of positive youth development (PYD) programs depend on the environment that is created by caring adult mentors. These coaches are the delivery vehicles for these programs and play an essential role in the development of participating youth. As a result, the characteristics these coaches possess are critical to the success of the PYD implementation. Based on the application of anthropological methods and theory, this study seeks …

Unbearable Weight, Unbearable Witness: The (Im)Possibility Of Witnessing Eating Disorders In Cyberspace, Kristen Nicole Gay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the recent erasure of digital pro-anorexia ("pro-ana") narratives by websites such as Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram represents an attempt to silence female self-starvers and reify the authority of medical associations to speak for female bodies. I draw parallels between these attempts and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's theory of epistemic violence, since the experiences of women are effectively discredited, through metaphors that render the thin body dangerous, to shore up professional medical authority. As an attempt to privilege the experiences of the self-starvers, I analyze one Tumblr blog with eating disorder content to listen to the letters users …

Value-Added And Observational Measures Used In The Teacher Evaluation Process: A Validation Study, Claudia Güerere

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Scores from value-added models (VAMs), as used for educational accountability, represent the educational effect teachers have on their students. The use of these scores in teacher evaluations for high-stakes decision making is new for the State of Florida. Validity evidence that supports or questions the use of these scores is critically needed. This research, using data from 2385 teachers from 104 schools in one school district in Florida, examined the validity of the value-added scores by correlating these scores with scores from an observational rubric used in the teacher evaluation process. The VAM scores also were examined in relation to …

Multiple Calibrations In Integrative Data Analysis: A Simulation Study And Application To Multidimensional Family Therapy, Kristin Wynn Hall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A recent advancement in statistical methodology, Integrative Data Analyses (IDA Curran & Hussong, 2009) has led researchers to employ a calibration technique as to not violate an independence assumption. This technique uses a randomly selected, simplified correlational structured subset, or calibration, of a whole data set in a preliminary stage of analysis. However, a single calibration estimator suffers from instability, low precision and loss of power. To overcome this limitation, a multiple calibration (MC; Greenbaum et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2013) approach has been developed to produce better estimators, while still removing a level of dependency in the data …

Parent Distress In Life With A Child With Type 1 Diabetes, Lauren Nicole Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Objective:

The purpose of this study was to highlight parent distress in diabetes, identify factors associated with distress and to show how public health and clinical professionals can assist parents in coping with their child's diabetes and living positively as a family unit.

Methods:

Parents of youth with diabetes (N = 41 qualitative, N = 332 quantitative) were engaged in focus groups, interviews, and survey research to understand their needs and stressors in life with a child with diabetes. Themes were examined in the qualitative data, and correlations and a regression model were run and analyzed from the quantitative data …

The Psychophysiology Of Novelty Processing: Do Brain Responses To Deviance Predict Recall, Recognition And Response Time?, Siri-Maria Kamp

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Events that violate expectations are biologically significant and accordingly elicit various physiological responses. We investigated the functional relationship between three of these responses: the P300, the Novelty P3 and the pupil dilation response (PDR), with a particular focus on their co-variance with reaction time and measures of subsequent memory. In a modified Novelty P3 oddball paradigm, participants semantically categorized a sequence of stimuli including (1) words of a frequent category, (2) words of an infrequent category (14% of the trials) and (3) pictures of the frequent category (14% of the trials). The Novelty P3 oddball task was followed by a …

Perceptions Of Workplace Mentoring Behaviors For Lifelong Career Development, Lynne A. Key

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study's purpose was to investigate the importance of mentoring functions and behaviors for lifelong career development as perceived by protégés. The population included individuals in middle to late adulthood (age 40 years and older) who reported they had been a protégé in at least one mentoring association perceived as beneficial to their lifelong career development; and were either employed or had been employed as a middle manager, senior manager, C-level executive, business owner, or member of a profession. The sample was obtained using a chain-sample method; 67 Ambassadors completed an online survey and each invited 10 contacts to complete …

The Role Of Acquired Capability As A Differentially-Specific Risk Factor For Disordered Eating And Problematic Alcohol Use In Female College Students: A Measure Development And Validation Study, Christa D. Labouliere

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traditional college students are members of an age bracket noted for high levels of risky behavior, and research has shown that certain risky behaviors, such as disordered eating and problematic alcohol use, are particularly common among undergraduates. It is well established that certain events in the learning history predispose vulnerable persons to engage in maladaptive risky behaviors. What is less clear is why some persons facing these events go on to develop maladaptive behavior while others do not, or why people facing similar events develop different varieties of maladaptive behaviors. Current research has focused extensively on risk factors that are …

Exercise Barriers In Cancer Survivors: A Multi-Dimensional Approach, Morgan Lee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The population of cancer survivors is rapidly expanding, and promotion of health and quality of life for these individuals is a priority. Exercise confers numerous general and cancer–specific benefits, yet many cancer survivors are insufficiently active. Research on perceived exercise barriers in cancer survivors has been limited by methodological and conceptual problems. Recent research suggests barriers may be multi–dimensional, and different types of barriers may be salient depending on whether or not a person intends to engage in a given behavior. Global (i.e., abstract) barriers may be negatively associated with intention, while practical (i.e., concrete) barriers may be positively associated …

Connecting Pixels To People: Management Agents And Social-Ecological Determinants Of Changes To Street Tree Distributions, Shawn Landry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Street trees are an important component of the urban forest that can provide direct and indirect benefits to social and ecological sustainability in cities. Temporal and spatial interactions between human and non-human management agents determine the distribution and health of street tree populations in urban areas. This dissertation seeks to enhance our understanding of the spatial patterns and processes affecting street trees by investigating the agents and social-ecological determinants of changes to street tree distributions in urban residential neighborhoods. The research was guided by three primary questions: (1) Are recent changes to the spatial distribution of street trees influenced by …

Learning From Voices Of Diverse Youth: School-Based Practices To Promote Positive Psychosocial Functioning Of Lgbtq High School Students, Troy Nicholas Loker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify school-based practices that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth endorse as ways for high schools to provide social, emotional, and academic support to LGBTQ youth. A diverse sample of LGBTQ high school students (N = 18) from one large urban school district in a southeastern state participated in individual semi-structured interviews and/or small group brainstorming sessions. Eleven individual interviews were conducted to gather detailed accounts of a) supportive behaviors and policies that youth had experienced in their schools, as well as b) supportive behaviors and policies that were suggested as …

Evaluation Of Occupational Risk Factors For Nurses And Cnas: Analysis Of Florida Workers' Compensation Claims Database, Sheila Mohammed

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Musculoskeletal injuries lead to most claims even though needlestick injuries receive the most attention. In 2010, health expenditures in the United States neared $2.6 trillion. CNAs, orderlies, and attendants had the highest rates of musculoskeletal disorders of all occupations with an incidence of 249 per 10,000 compared to 34 per 10,000 for all workers. The financial burden of back injuries in the healthcare industry is estimated to add up to $20 billion annually. Data was extracted for cause of injury, nature of injury and body part injured. Extracted data was analyzed both descriptively and by logistic and linear regression using …

Essays In Happiness Economics, Boris Nikolaev

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the new field of happiness economics which over the past several decades has substantially enhanced our understanding of cognitive judgment, human behavior, and the nature of happiness. Chapter 1 starts with a discussion of the subjective approach to measuring well-being and lays the foundation for the empirical work that follows in chapters 2 and 3. This approach has a strong appeal because ancient and modern cultures, and a long tradition in philosophy, view achieving happiness as the ultimate goal of human existence. It also recognizes that humans are the best judges …

The Strong Black Woman, Depression, And Emotional Eating, Michelle Renee Offutt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Eighty percent of all black women are overweight or obese which can lead to greatly increased morbidity and mortality, increasing healthcare costs and loss of healthy years of life. While multiple factors may contribute to obesity in black women, the cultural persona of the Strong Black Woman (SBW), an ideology that promotes unflagging toughness and denial of self-needs, may be the basis for behaviors that contribute to steady state obesity in this group. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the SBW persona, depression, and emotional eating.

Two predominately black churches in Florida were approached …

Quantifying The Ergonomic Impact On Healthcare Workers Using A Needle-Free Injector Device, Humberto Jose Olivero Lara

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Jet injectors are advantageous over needle injectors by eliminating sharps hazards. The Government Accountability Office estimates 29% preventable sharp injuries with an estimated direct cost of more than $500 million out of the CDC's reported incidence of 385,000 needle stick injuries per year among US hospital healthcare workers. Yet the forces required to set and trigger devices using spring mechanisms for medication delivery have not been explored. This laboratory experiment measured forces exerted by healthcare workers (HCWs) using a particular jet injector approved by FDA in 2011.

Objectives: In order to quantify the ergonomic impact on HCWs using a …

Compassionate Storytelling With Holocaust Survivors: Cultivating Dialogue At The End Of An Era, Chris J. Patti

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We live in a frantic, fractured, ever-quickening, and violent world that is at the end of the era in which we will be able to talk with survivors of the Shoah. To date, there have been approximately 100,000 recorded interviews of Holocaust survivors. The vast majority of these interviews--such as the 52,000 done for Steven Spielberg's and USC Shoah Foundation Archive--have used traditional, single-session, and "neutral" methods of oral history interviewing to "capture" and "preserve" the legalistic, historical "testimonies" of survivors. The present study responds to this situation and unique moment in time by slowing down, listening, speaking repeatedly and …

Impacts Of U.S. Foreign Policy And Intervention On Guatemala: Mid-20th Century, Patricia M. Plantamura

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

International Relations theory includes realist concepts of sovereign nation-states interacting in an anarchic world as they rationally determine their own national interests based upon ever-changing competition for power. In this interplay for power, nation-states may affect each other politically, economically, ideologically or militarily. This thesis focuses on effects of U.S. foreign policy and U.S. intervention in Guatemala in the time period surrounding the Guatemalan Revolution (1944-1954), with its "liberation" in 1954, and then into the early 1960s as the Guatemalan state began to be militarized. In this thesis I will answer the following question:

How did the United States affect …

Cultivating Local: Building A Local Food System In Western North Carolina, Allison S. Perrett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines a movement in Western North Carolina to build a local food system, one grounded in the conditions and relationships of place. In 2000, Mountain Family Farms launched the Local Food Campaign to raise public awareness about the region's farms and farming heritage, to educate consumers about the benefits of buying food grown by local farms, and, ultimately, to build markets for locally grown food to sustain the region's farms. The campaign sparked a social movement and over a decade later local farms and locally grown food are a palpable feature of life in the mountains of Western …

A Collective Case Study Of The Diagnosis Of Dissociative Disorders In Children, Jacqueline J. Reycraft

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a paucity of research on the diagnosis of dissociative disorders in children. Most children are misdiagnosed with more common mental disorders with similar symptoms. Earlier recognition of dissociative disorders can save years of pain, suffering, and cost. This qualitative collective case study examined the process of diagnosing dissociation in two children under the ages of 12 at the beginning of treatment. A concurrent focus on the training and development of the therapist/researcher is included. Archival data including progress notes, psychotherapy notes, assessments, correspondence, legal documents, school records, and medical records were analyzed using within-case and cross-case analyses to …

Beyond The Door: Disability And The Sibling Experience, Morgan Violeta Sanchez Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the experiences of adult siblings of individuals with impairments. It expands on the existing literature by exploring the complexity of the sibling experience of disability while moving beyond the concepts of burden and maladjustment that have characterized much of the previous literature. In addition, it expands upon and extends to the sibling experience an emerging view of disability by examining the ways in which themes identified in sibling narratives cross lines between the Medical and Social Models of Disability. Building on work by Mark Priestly and Tom Shakespeare, I call this emerging view the Interactional Model of …