Digital Commons Network^™

A Critical Analysis Of The Graduate Socialization Of Racially Minoritized School Psychology Students, Tatiana J. Broughton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

By centering the voices of racially/ethnically minoritized school psychology graduate students I sought to understand how racially minoritized individuals experience their socialization process into the field, to critique and expose oppressive structures in place in their graduate programs, and to utilize garnered information to provide implications to address and dismantle oppressive structure within school psychology programs. Additionally, I sought to provide insight for school psychology training programs by identifying antiracist practices that minoritized graduate students view as supports in their training programs. Participants were eight racial/ethnic minoritized graduate students who participated in one to two virtual interviews discussing their experiences …

Healthcare Decision Makers' Perspectives On Barriers And Facilitators To Hiring Genetic Counselors In Huntington Disease (Hd) Clinic Settings, Bailey Hummel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Huntington disease (HD) is a hereditary, neurodegenerative autosomal dominant disorder for which there are currently no effective options to prevent the onset of symptoms. Although meeting with a genetic counselor (GC) is recommended as part of national guidelines for predictive HD genetic testing and a GC is required for Centers of Excellence, not all HD centers have hired a GC. To explore drivers for, valued outcomes of, and barriers to the creation of GC positions in clinics that treat patients with HD, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 individuals involved with HD clinics and/or hiring decisions at 8 clinics across …

Consumer Purchase Intent In Opinion Leader Live Streaming, Jihong Huo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 prompted the live-streaming industry to become popular, and live streaming by opinion leaders became a new way of shopping. In live-streaming by opinion leaders, the time from understanding the product to completing the purchase behavior is short; opinion leaders, in turn, use live-streaming to boost sales and personal exposure. Despite the popularity of opinion leaders' live consumption, there are still relatively few studies on it. Therefore, this paper will study what factors promote consumers' purchase intention during the live streaming of opinion leaders.Using the Stimulus-Organism-Response Model (SOR) as a theoretical framework, this paper uses a quantitative research approach …

Piloting A Spanish-Language Web-Based Tool For Hereditary Cancer Genetic Testing, Gretter Manso

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cancer genetic services (including genetic counseling and testing) help identify patients and families at increased risk of developing cancer so that steps can be taken to reduce risks or find cancers early. Receipt of genetic services in the Hispanic/Latinx population is low due, in part, to a shortage of Spanish-speaking genetic counselors. To address this concern, a 12-minute online tool designed to inform individuals about cancer genetic services was translated into Spanish. The objectives of this pilot study were to determine if the educational tool improves knowledge and informed decision making and to assess usability and appropriateness of the tool …

Remote Medical Diagnosis Via Infrared Thermography And Augmented Reality, Frederick M. Selkey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fast, accurate, and non-invasive diagnostic techniques are required by the medical industry to increase the success of medical treatments and enhance the quality of patient care. Medical IRT has been demonstrated reasonably effective at diagnosing and monitoring several physiological conditions. Diversities in the human body, physical and psychological condition, measurement equipment, and environment all influence the sensitive readings obtained by passive IR measurement devices. New standards for medical IRT and fever screening have been demonstrated effective, but there is limited adherence to the guidelines [36]. Absolute temperature readings require regular calibration checks and can easily be thrown off by noise. …

Ecohydrology, Cultural Perceptions, And Recovery Of Freshwater Wetlands In A Heavily Managed Urban Aquifer, Jessica Ashley Balerna

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Freshwater wetlands provide essential ecosystem services that influence, and are influenced by, human perceptions and behaviors. I explore these feedbacks in the Tampa Bay region, which hosts numerous freshwater wetlands subjected to population increases, economic growth, and shifting management policies. These wetlands are embedded in urban and residential areas, where people can observe and respond to changes in wetland condition over time. I utilized long-term (1991–2018), high sample size (n=152) datasets to assess how wetland inundation responds to the interactive effects of climate variation and shifts in water conservation policies primarily related to cutbacks in groundwater extraction. As wetland ecosystem …

Evaluation Of A Story-Telling Approach To Educate Minority Populations About Inherited Cancer, Celestyn B. Angot

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Utilization of hereditary cancer genetic counseling and testing services is substantially lower among minority populations compared to white populations due, in part, to lower levels of awareness and knowledge. To help improve awareness, we designed a 7-minute video that uses storytelling to translate knowledge of genetic testing and hereditary cancer to individuals who have a personal history or family history of cancer. Consented participants were asked baseline questions about hereditary cancer and genetic testing, reviewed the video, and provided feedback on its content, understandability, and visual appeal during semi-structured interviews. Data were coded and analyzed to identify themes and determine …

Teaching Science For Social Justice: Curriculum, Pedagogy, And Critical Science Agency In Independent School Classrooms, Selene Y. Willis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on social justice continues to be conducted in urban, diverse schools, while independent schools are traditionally overlooked and absent from research in many disciplines, including science education. This embedded case study uses a critical pedagogical lens to examine this gap in the research literature by examining and describing what it looks like to teach science for social justice within a suburban independent school in the southeastern United States.Research on social justice continues to be conducted in urban, diverse schools. In contrast, independent schools are traditionally overlooked and absent from research in many disciplines, including science education. This embedded case …

Deconstructing And Decolonizing Identities Of “Gender” And “Sex” When Viewed As Anti-Black: Black Narratives Outside Of The Binary, Didier Salgado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

How is “Reality” experienced in the Black body? Is “Reality” an objective article which is outside of the realm of personal experience? Assigned sex is often assumed an objective biological phenomenon that exists everywhere and in all communities. Gender is often thought about as a socially constructed form of identity which is expressed in various ways. In this thesis, I critically examine the terror of “reality” on the Black body, looking at the ways that Black people who’ve experienced discomfort with gender and sex categories experience the “world” around them. Diving deeply into their own experiences and the meanings they …

Hiv Stalks Bodies Like Mine: An Autoethnography Of Self-Disclosure, Stigmatized Identity, And (In)Visibility In Queer Lived Experience, Steven Ryder

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines self-disclosure of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) status within the context of communication between long-standing friends. For the purposes of my study, I define this type of friendship as those who have known me for at least two years and with whom I communicate regularly. These are friends who tend to know a variety of personal details about me, ranging from superficial to private and trivial to essential. I use autoethnography to ground the study in my lived experience. By doing so, I present intimate accounts of my communication with others across my lifespan to function as background …

Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Optimization Techniques For Energy And Socioeconomic Systems, Salman Sadiq Shuvo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Optimization, which refers to making the best or most out of a system, is critical for an organization's strategic planning. Optimization theories and techniques aim to find the optimal solution that maximizes/minimizes the values of an objective function within a set of constraints. Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is a popular Machine Learning technique for optimization and resource allocation tasks. Unlike the supervised ML that trains on labeled data, DRL techniques require a simulated environment to capture the stochasticity of real-world complex systems. This uncertainty in future transitions makes the planning authorities doubt real-world implementation success. Furthermore, the DRL methods have …

The Effects Of Divided Attention In Free Recall: Affecting Trace Accumulation By Dividing Attention, Anne Olsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

How environmental information stores in memory directly affects our ability to retrieve the information. This thesis investigates the effects that dividing attention during study has on the storage of contextual information. Through several experiments, participants were asked to study and later recall word lists using a mixed-pure design with strengtheners varying as either repetition or study time. Experiment 1 investigates the effects of divided attention on the formation of inter-item associations and Experiments 2-6 manipulate strengthening item and context information in a memory trace when cognitive load is strained at various levels. Experimental results indicated that dividing attention during study …

Of Mētis And Cuttlefish: Employing Collective Mētis As A Theoretical Framework For Marginalized Communities, Justiss Wilder Burry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This LGBTQ+ rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM) community-based research explores the ways community members and queer community participants communicate about potential intimate partner selection in Central Florida. The dissertation introduces the theoretical framework of “collective mētis” as a way to analyze and discuss community communication against Florida’s required HIV disclosure laws that attempt to medicalize this and control this community’s intimate partner selection. Research questions include: 1) How do people in counterpublic enclaves (Chávez, 2011) communicate their potential intimate partner desires to others in the community including the types of disclosures they express and negotiate, and how? 2) How …

Comparing Video Feedback To Video Modeling Plus Video Feedback For Improving Soccer Skills, Samantha K. Martinez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study compared the effects of video feedback (VF) as a stand-alone intervention and the effects of a video modeling plus video feedback (VMVF) as a package intervention for improving soccer players’ static ball control skills. This study used a multiple baseline across participants with an embedded alternating treatments design to compare VF and VMVF. This study involved two 10 year-old female soccer players and one 9 year old male soccer player. The same three target behaviors were assessed across participants. The first author implemented the VF and VMVF training procedures. The results showed that VF and VMVF produced similar …

The Invisible Victims Of Commercial Sexual Exploitation: Boys And Their Barriers To Access To Services, Amanda L. Connella

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While there has been a large body of research conducted on girl (under the age of 18) victims of commercial sexual exploitation, boy (under the age of 18) victims do not seem to receive the same attention. From the few studies that have been conducted, boys and young male victims of commercial sexual exploitation have been shown to have gender specific barriers that prevent them from getting help, yet not many papers explore this unique problem. Using survey data from key providers that work in programs that serve commercially sexually exploited boys, the present study fills this hole in the …

Academic Advisors' Perceptions Of Implicit Bias In Interactions With Students: An Exploratory Case Study, Bobby A. Brown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Academic advisors are crucial to the success of students who attend higher education institutions (e.g., Himes, 2014; Paul & Fitzpatrick, 2015; Smith, 2005). They guide students to complete their degrees in a timely progression and serve as a contact for students to help increase a sense of belonging on college campuses. Higher education literature presented evidence that suggested academic advisors demonstrate implicit bias while interacting with students they advise (e.g., Bahr, 2008; Grau & Zotos, 2016). Implicit bias may expose academic advisors to errors in judgment and decision making while assisting students. The purpose of this qualitative case study was …

Temporal And Spatial Properties Of Orientation Summary Statistic Representations, Jacob S. Zepp

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of the current work was to determine the amount of information that contributes to the formation of summary statistical representations (SSRs), as well as the time course over which these representations are formed. While the prevailing interpretation of SSRs within literature is that the summaries are formed through a compulsory rapid integration across all information in a scene, debate exists on the necessity of this unique processing mode. To investigate the formation of SSRs, two experiments were conducted. In the first, results from an orientation averaging task were compared to results from a whole-report task, over equivalent stimulus …

Modules, Mandates, & Morals: A Self-Study Of The Creation Of An Online Secondary Holocaust Course, Alexander C. Ledford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the process of the analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of an online secondary Holocaust education course. Employing self-study methodology, it critically examines the decision-making of the researcher as they engage in the tasks of each phase of the ADDIE model of instructional. Special attention has been paid to the intersection of prevailing pedagogical and curricular recommendations from scholars in the fields of both Holocaust education and instructional design, a practice that has not received adequate scholarly attention. Drawing upon both bodies of literature, the researcher stresses the use of pedagogical practices which are put forward as …

An Examination Of Racial Disparities In Arrest Across Florida Counties, 1998-2018: A Test Of The Racial Threat And Political Representation Hypotheses, Xavier D. Burch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine variations in the racial distribution of reported arrests across counties, and whether those outcomes are related to racial demographics variables and measure of the political structure in the State of Florida. The study seeks to bring awareness to the importance of representation of minorities by conducting a test of Blalock’s minority threat theory and extending the theory through the examination of political variables across Florida counties. Arrest and population data from 67 Florida counties along with the racial composition of the Florida State House of Representatives from 1998 to 2018 are utilized …

I'Ll Make A Man Out Of You: Precarious Manhood Beliefs Among Heterosexual-Cisgender Men And Queer Men, Serena L. Wasilewski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traditional masculine gender stereotypes often suggest that men should be strong, assertive, and athletic, and these stereotypes promote men’s dominance in society and gender inequality. Endorsement of masculine stereotypes may also contribute to heterosexual men being more prejudiced against queer men. Queer men experience unique difficulties in their quest to abide by social norms defining manhood. Research using the precarious manhood theory suggests that manhood is difficult to obtain and even more challenging to maintain. Given the emerging nature of precarious manhood studies, little is known about young men’s perceptions of the precarious nature of manhood and how this may …

Commitment To Change Dimensions: The Influence Of Innovative Work Behavior And Organizational Environments, Michael Holmes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the phenomenon of commitment to organizational change using both positive and negative organizational contexts and employee behaviors that may influence an employee’s commitment to change dimensions (affective, continuance, normative). A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 407 physician assistants across a national healthcare system and analyzed using descriptive statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and multiple regression to test the relationships among constructs. Results indicate that commitment to change dimensions are related to innovative work behavior, climate for innovation, and organizational constraints. Affective commitment was positively related to innovative work …

The Influence Of Covid-19 On Tobacco Racial Health Disparities: Testing The Differential Effects Of Covid-19 On Smoking Motivation Variables Across Black And White Smokers, Patricia F. Calixte-Civil

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated persistent racial differences in access and quality of healthcare resources that result in disproportionately poor health outcomes for Black and African Americans, relative to Whites. Given COVID-19’s influence on racial health disparities broadly, examination is warranted on whether the pandemic has more specificallyinfluenced smoking motivation and, subsequently, tobacco-related health disparities. The goal of this study was to test whether COVID-19 related video content differentially primed smoking motivation (cravings, cessation self-efficacy, and motivation to quit) among Black and White smokers. I used an online research platform to host an experiment with a 2x3 between-subjects factorial design …

Intermediate Algebra Students’ Perspectives Towards Learning Mathematics, And Technology, Caree J. S. Pinder

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research states that many remedial mathematics learners possess low mathematics academic self-concept, negative attitudes, and high anxiety levels. These aspects can manifest in a lack of confidence, apprehension, reduced engagement, or academic failure (2007; Klinger, 2008; Larkin & Jorgensen, 2016; Parnis & Petocz, 2016;). However, if these learners successfully pass remedial mathematics courses like Intermediate Algebra, they are more likely to persist in mathematics and the university (Benken et al., 2015). Due to students' success in remedial mathematics, persistence in mathematics raises many questions. In many cases, these students have had unpleasant experiences, attitudes, or beliefs about mathematics but were …

Population Demography, Spatial Ecology, And Habitat Use Of The Florida Box Turtle (Terrapene Bauri) On A Barrier Island, Michael D. Mills

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Turtles are one the most threatened vertebrate groups in the world due to anthropogenic threats such as habitat loss and overexploitation. In addition to occupying a range that has been vulnerable to major habitat loss, the Florida box turtle (Terrapene bauri) is particularly at risk of overexploitation due to its popularity in the pet trade. Sanibel Island is a barrier island in southwest Florida that has experienced major habitat loss and is the site of a recent poaching event. In response to these threats, studies of both the population demography and spatial ecology were conducted on Sanibel’s Florida box turtle …

Does Time Equal Money? Temporal Discounting And Self-Control: Insight Into The Rationality Of Personal Financial Decision-Making, Joshua Epstein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Exponential and hyperbolic intertemporal choice models have been widely investigated to measure an individual’s degree of impulsivity in behavioral economics. Hyperbolic discounting research identifies subject’s disproportionately high subjective value to immediate rewards, to the extent that it is not in their best interest. Furthermore, preference reversals have shown subjective value demonstrates an inversely relationship proportional to delay.

Investigation into whether visual representations influence conservative personal finance savings behavior was demonstrated in this study by presenting a multitude of visualizations before allocation of limited monetary resources. Evaluation of the neighbor effect was tested to determine whether comparing individuals to their peers …

Make The Effort, Take The Time: A Qualitative Study Of Inclusive Managerial Interactions At A Canadian Energy Company, Gregory M. Kober

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Workplace inclusion both maximizes the benefits of a diverse workforce and simultaneously reduces its negative consequences. However, a majority of the inclusion research takes an explicit or implicit management-focused perspective. This is problematic because management has more power than employees and executives are usually exemplars of the dominant organizational culture. In order to be more holistic, inclusion research should be much more deeply informed by a subordinate-centered understanding of workplace inclusiveness. Those with less power, those who are minoritized, and those who are marginalized have critical perspectives that must be brought to bear on the construct of workplace inclusivity.

This …

Neroimaging Of Brain Activaion Using Diffuse Optical Tomography, Jingyu Huang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research has two parts. The first part focuses on the use of non-invasive imaging technique, diffuse optical tomography (DOT), to study the brain activation during the stimulation in the clinical room. It further extends the application of DOT by using it to monitor the hemodynamic response during the TMS stimulation in different parameters. Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is based on NIR light that exploits the relative transparency of biological tissue. The part two and three extends the application in the hospital for delirium patient study and arm muscle dystrophy by adding the sources and detectors to monitor the brain …

Climate Action And Indigenous Land Relations: A Case Study In Nagaland, Northeastern India, Osensang Pongen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research grew out of my interest in the implications of climate action, especially its effects in natural-resource-rich peripheral regions like my home state of Nagaland. This study will be of interest to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the ways in which global ecodevelopment programs expand and mutate at the micro-scales in Indigenous communities. This includes structural transformations to their Indigenous socio-economic and political lifeworlds, their cosmologies, and their affective relations with their ancestral lands and environment. More broadly, the study draws attention to the growing challenges confronting Indigenous peoples in the Global South who are being seduced by …

Relationship Between Individual Characteristics And Received Social Support Among People With Serious Mental Illness, Samantha Dicorte

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Past research on social support has mainly focused on perceived social support. Relatively less research has been done on received social support and how it can promote positive behavior outcomes. This study examines the importance of received social support, including background on social support, social support outcomes, and a theoretical foundation overview of the social stress model. In addition to a literature review, this study investigates the association between individual characteristics (i.e., diagnosis and substance abuse including alcohol, race/ethnicity, gender, age, and marital status) and different types of received social support (i.e., daily, mental health, and adherence support). Simple linear …

Evaluating The Effect Of Public Health Governance Structure And Public Opinion On Covid-19 Disease Control Interventions, Daniel Chacreton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background

Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the responses to the pandemic varied greatly from nation to nation. In the US, state-level variance in responses has likely contributed to the disparate COVID-19 infection-related state-level outcomes such as incidence and case fatality rates. The large variances in national and sub-national responses to COVID-19 when combined with the abundance of factors that influence disease transmission rates has created a number of important research opportunities.

Methods

In this vain, this research study aims to describe the relationship that exists between public health governance structure and public sentiment and COVID-19 control measure effectiveness …