Digital Commons Network^™

“Just Joking”: Women’S Cardiovascular Responses To Sexist Humor, Samantha Shepard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The ambiguity inherent to humorous communication may make women minimize experiences of sexist jokes, which may have downstream emotional and motivational consequences. The present thesis study tested whether the manner in which sexism is communicated, as a statement or joke, would reflect the motivational intensity model in cardiovascular responses during a performance-based task. Additionally, the present studies tested whether blatant and humorous sexism differentially affects emotional responses, evaluations of a male speaker, reporting of sexist misconduct, and ingroup identification. Using an online chat paradigm, participants were randomly assigned to receive one of three messages: a sexist joke, blatantly sexist statement, …

Preference For Social Stimuli: A Comparison Of Stimulus Modes Used In Preference Assessments, Shannon Wilson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social stimuli are some of the most commonly used reinforcers in clinical programming(Graff & Karsten, 2012) and previous research shows that preference for social stimuli can be identified using variations of a paired stimulus preference assessment (PSPA; Fisher et al., 1992). Previous studies evaluating preference for social stimuli have employed video stimuli (Wolfe et al., 2018), pictures of the actual social stimuli (Kelly et al., 2014), and pictures of arbitrary shapes (Morris & Vollmer, 2019). To date, no study has evaluated the correspondence in preference for social stimuli across these three stimulus modes. Therefore, the purposes of this study were …

Evaluating Behavioral Skills Training To Increase The Use Of Verbal Feedback With Personal Trainers, Towanda Beck

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated behavioral skills training (BST) to improve feedback skills of personal trainers. We used a multiple baseline across participants design to evaluate the effects of BST for teaching personal trainers to provide positive and corrective feedback to their clients during various exercises within a private gym setting. In addition, we conducted observer absent observations in baseline and intervention to see if increases in the behavior occurred when the researcher was not present. Results indicated that BST was successful for both participants. Future studies should evaluate BST as a training method for personal trainers and assess its effectiveness across …

An Evaluation Of Video Modeling And Video Modeling With Video Feedback To Enhance The Performance Of Competitive Soccer Goalkeepers, Alexandra Martina Capalbo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Several studies have evaluated the effects of consequent and antecedent procedures on athletic performance, including video modeling plus video feedback (VM+VF) as a treatment package. Although the effects of the VF consequent component have been well researched, relatively scant literature exists assessing the effectiveness of the VM component as an antecedent strategy. Additionally, these interventions have not been studied to improve goalkeeping skills of soccer players. Therefore, this study used a multiple baseline across behaviors to compare the effects of VM to the VM+VF to train goalkeeper skills to soccer players. Task analyses were established for three goal keeping skills …

Evaluating The Use Of Behavioral Skills Training To Teach Substitute Caregivers To Identify Hazards, Carlos Abarca

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The leading cause of death for children across the world is unintentional injuries (UNICEF 2001). Hazards such as accessible pools, poisons, and small ingestible items are the leading causes of unintentional injuries. Behavioral interventions such as Project 12-Ways/Safe Care have been used to teach parents how to be proactive in structuring a home free of accessible hazards by teaching the parents to identify and remove hazards in their home. Though the Project 12-Ways/Safe Care model has over 30 years of literature supporting its efficacy, the model has not been tested with substitute caregivers who often play a critical role in …

Comparison Of The Effectiveness Of Disinfectant-Impregnated Wipes Versus Detergent Wipes For Surface Decontamination, Jacob Amadin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over time, there is an increased need to adopt more advanced and effective ways of disinfection. The emergence of the coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic reminded the world on the importance of disinfection. Disinfection has been a routine in the healthcare setting. However, with the current pandemic problem, it is more prominently and persistently done in the domestic setting and other business settings beyond healthcare. As such, the use of most disinfectants and detergent wipes to achieve a near sanitized environment has become a common practice around the globe. This research presents the efficacy of disinfectant impregnated versus detergents wipes through comparison. …

White Too Long: Christianity Or Nationalism?, Rachel E. Osborne

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tension, racism, and violence being enacted in the name of Christianity have brought new attention to the work of many scholars of religion who have documented and analyzed the relationship between white Christianity and racism in the U.S. In his 2020 book White Too Long, Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) director and religious studies scholar Robert P. Jones states unequivocally that “[i]n survey after survey, white Christians stand out in their negative attitudes about racial, ethnic, and religious minorities (especially Muslims), the unequal treatment of African Americans by police and the criminal justice system, their anxieties about the changing face …

Promoting Hpv Vaccination With Vaccine-Hesitant Parents Using Social Media: A Formative Research Mixed-Method Study, Silvia Sommariva

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Vaccine hesitancy, the refusal or delay in complying with set immunization schedules, has been proclaimed one of the “ten threats to global health” by the World Health Organization in 2019. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of vaccine promotion and management of vaccine hesitancy. While anti-vaccine arguments have not surprisingly evolved much over the past decades, the speed at which those ideas spread has. Web-based technologies, such as social network sites (SNSs), provide a fertile ground for vaccine-related misinformation to spread. Therefore, SNSs are a primary channel to scale efforts to address vaccine hesitancy, using customized approaches. …

Using A Peer-Mediated Bullying Safety Skills Intervention For Children With Disabilities, Jennifer Leigh Trapani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As bullying continues to be a growing problem in schools, research is needed to further evaluate the effectiveness of current bullying prevention and intervention programs for children with disabilities. The peer-mediated intervention (PMI) is an evidence-based practice that has been successful in teaching social skills to children with disabilities. PMI literature can be extended by exploring and evaluating its effectiveness in teaching bullying safety skills to children with disabilities. The current study examined the use of PMI to teach children with disabilities bullying safety skills with four students (2 peers and 2 learners) in grades kindergarten and third grade. Typically …

Young Adolescents’ Opportunity To Develop Concept Images Of Polygons In Middle School Mathematics Textbooks, Megan N. Cannon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Young adolescents build notions of figures through experiences. When young adolescentsbegin middle school mathematics, they already have prior assumptions and conceptualizations about shapes (Herbst, Fujita, Halverscheid, & Weiss, 2017). Over years of experiences, interactions, and exposures with a particular concept, these students develop concept images consisting of all the visual information, pictures, mental images, or properties associated with the particular mathematical concept (Vinner, 1983). Seminal works in the field of mathematics education research found that without an opportunity to engage with varied representations, young adolescent students may not develop robust concept images (Aspinwall, Shaw & Presmeg, 1997; Hasegawa, 1997; Mesa, …

Does Time-Weighted Averaging For Wbgt And Metabolic Rate Work For Work-Recovery Cycles?, John W. Flach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Heat stress affects thousands of works annually by causing heat-related illnesses. Wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is a widely accepted metric to assess the environmental contributions to heat stress. WBGT-based occupational exposure limits (OELs) include the ACGIH TLVs and the NIOSH RELs. The OEL threshold is adjusted downward with increasing metabolic rate. Further, there is an OEL for acclimatized and non-acclimatized workers. An often-recommended intervention found within a heat stress management program is work-recovery cycles to manage exposure. To prescribe work-recovery cycles, the common practice is to use time-weighted averaging (TWA) for the WBGT and the metabolic rate. The purpose …

Assessing Prompting And Prompt-Fading Strategies In Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Ashley L. Frankenfield

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by restricted interests, repetitive behaviors, and deficits in social and communication skills. In order to help a person with ASD improve their communication skills, behavior analysts should place emphasis on teaching intraverbal skills. Each person has a unique learner history, meaning that different prompts and prompt-fading techniques will result in the most accurate and efficient mastery of intraverbal skills for different people. Assessments were used to identify each participant’s most efficient combination of prompt and prompt-fading procedures in order to maximize one’s potential for learning new skills. Participants’ most efficient prompt/prompt-fading combinations resulted in …

Cultivating Courage: Medical Dramas And Portrayals Of Patient Self-Advocacy, Alyssa H. Harrell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the influence of medical dramas on perceptions of patient self- advocacy. With a purposeful sample of college students, the study explored perceptions of information seeking preferences of a medical drama patient. With a quasi-experimental design using an online questionnaire containing both qualitative and quantitative measures, the study was able to compare four unique variables to perceptions of the information seeking preferences of a medical drama patient. The study analyzed the influence that (1) medical drama exposure, (2) patient advocacy rating, (3) perceived realism of medical dramas, and (4) previous experience healthcare each had on college students’ perceptions …

Exploring The Use Of Neural Transformers For Psycholinguistics, Antonio Laverghetta Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Deep learning has the potential to help solve numerous problems in cognitive science andeducation, by providing us a way to model the cognitive profiles of individual people. If this were possible, it would allow us to design targeted tests and suggest specific remediation based on each individual’s needs. On the flip side, employing techniques from psychology can give us insight into the underlying skillsets neural networks have acquired during training, addressing the interpretability concern. This thesis explores these ideas in the context of transformer language models, which have achieved state-of-the-art results on virtually every natural language processing (NLP) task. First, …

Case Studies In Applied Behavior Analysis: Brain Breaks For Elementary Students And Using The Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (Ptr) Model To Increase On-Task Behavior In A Classroom Setting, Peyton L. Stipes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Disruptive behavior in the classroom can harmfully impact students learning and hinder academic growth (Austin & Agar, 2005; Hartman & Gresham, 2016). The term disruptive behavior encompasses many different behaviors, but when used in the classroom it focuses on off-task behavior, noncompliance, talking out in class, aggression, leaving designated areas, and stereotypy (Celebreti et al., 1997; Folino et al., 2014 & Kern et al., 1982). Both antecedent and consequence-based interventions have been conducted in school settings in attempts to decrease disruptive behaviors and increase appropriate on-task academic behavior. Physical activity and antecedent manipulations have demonstrated empirical evidence that both interventions …

Eating And Body Image Disorders In The Time Of Covid19: An Anthropological Inquiry Into The Pandemic’S Effects On The Bodies, Theresa A. Stoddard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lifestyle changes are impacting the experiences of self-identifying women and females with body image disorders (BIDs) and/or eating disorders (EDs), focusing on the mental, physical, and emotional health of participants. Using surveys, person-centered semi-structured interviews, and autoethnography, I collected qualitative and quantitative data regarding the challenges, triumphs, hopes, and fears of participants regarding their EDs/BIDs during the pandemic and situated their experiences within their sociocultural context. Drawing on anthropological and psychological theory, I examine the data through the lenses of Scheper-Hughes’s and Lock’s “The Three Bodies” (the body politic, body …

The Influence Of Hate Speech On Tiktok On Chinese College Students, Tengyue Chen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the research is whether Chinese college students' attitudes to hate speech and hate speech censorship systems will be affected by the hate speech in TikTok. Meanwhile, the research could explore the third-person effect of hate speech on TikTok on Chinese college students. An online survey was designed for this research. 658 participants who are college students in China completed the online survey. The results showed that Chinese college students believed hate speech on TikTok would affect themselves, while others will affect less by hate speech. The results also stated that the attitude toward the censorship system affects …

Evaluating The Use Of Behavioral Skills Training To Teach Assertiveness Skills To College Students, Kayla Rogover

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on assertiveness skills has mostly involved the use of self-report measures. However, self-report has been noted to be highly inaccurate (Bernard et al., 1984). Only one unpublished study has explored a behavioral analytic perspective of assertiveness demonstrating behavioral skills training (BST) to be effective in teaching assertiveness skills. Thus, this study evaluated the effectiveness of BST to teach assertiveness skills to college students and whether the skills would generalize to novel therapist. Results of the study suggest BST was effective for teaching assertiveness skills to college students, the skills generalized to a novel therapist, and maintained at follow-up.

Evidences Of Historical Thinking In Dialogic Discussions, Jennifer L. Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research continues to find discussions in history classrooms to be rather short in length and simplistic in nature, despite the higher aims of historical and critical thinking. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the phenomenon of historical thinking and dialogic discussions in the secondary history classroom. Its goal was to better understand the nature of both, as well as to see if whole-class discussions might serve as a useful means in cultivating historical thinking in students. Given the need for more research in these areas, this study was designed with the hopes of adding to the literature …

Quality Of Life Of Older Adults With Complicated Grief Receiving Accelerated Resolution Therapy: A Mixed Methods Study, Tina M. Mason

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: It is estimated that 10-15% of bereaved people in the general population are experiencing prolonged, complicated grief after a loss. Persons with complicated grief experience a disruption of usual, pre-death activities, destructive thoughts and actions, and can develop or find a worsening of comorbidities and impairments. All of these, in turn, worsen the experience. Complicated grief reactions can compound the stress of the loss, disrupting the normal functioning of the central nervous, immune, cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, and gastrointestinal systems, which in turn can contribute to poor quality of life for the surviving family member. However, due to a paucity of …

The Relationship Between New Graduate Registered Nurse Knowledge, Experiences, Attitudes, And Age Bias Toward The Older Adult, Michelle Fox

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There had been a lack of research on the relationship between a new graduate Registered Nurses’ knowledge, experiences, attitudes, and age bias toward older adults. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there was a relationship between new graduate Registered Nurses’ knowledge, experiences, attitudes, and age bias toward older adults.

The researcher used correlational, non-experimental, quantitative design for this study. The instruments used in this study were the Facts on Aging Quiz, the Kogan Attitude Toward Old People scale, and a demographic questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the demographic data and correlation coefficients were used to …

The General Psychopathology Factor (P) From Adolescence To Adulthood: Disentangling The Developmental Trajectories Of P Using A Multi-Method Approach, Alexandria M. Choate

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Considerable attention is directed towards studying co-occurring psychopathology through the lens of a general factor (p-factor). However, the developmental trajectories and stability of the p-factor have yet to be fully understood. Study 1 first examined the explanatory power of dynamic mutualism theory — an alternative framework positing the p-factor to be a product of lower-level symptom interactions rather than the inherent cause of them. Predictions of dynamic mutualism were tested using three distinct statistical approaches including: longitudinal bifactor models, random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs), and network models. Next, given prior suggestions that borderline personality disorder (BPD) could be a marker …

The Differential Effects Of Navigational Aids On Adults With Intellectual Disabilities, Virginia Morash-Macneil

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the differential effects of a GPS based navigational app displayed on a smartwatch and a paper map on the ability of individuals with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities (ID) to independently navigate unfamiliar walking routes. A single case alternating treatment design was used to compare the effectiveness of these navigation supports on independent pedestrian navigation. Five adults ranging in age from 26 to 45 with mild to moderate ID participated in the study. Visual analysis and the comparison of means between treatments indicate an increase in performance during the app treatment phase for all participants. Overall, all …

Saudi Teachers’ Perceptions Of Rough-And-Tumble Play In Early Learning, Rana Alghamdi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explored teachers’ perceptions of rough-and- tumble (R&T) play in early childhood education in Saudi Arabia. The literature on rough-and-tumble play in Saudi Arabia is limited in scope, and more research is needed to explore teachers’ perceptions on this type of play for early learners. The pertinent literature reveals that R&T play, which includes running, jumping, fighting, wrestling, chasing, pulling, pushing, and climbing, among other rough playful activities, can positively impact learning and development across psychosocial, emotional, and cognitive domains. Teachers’ understanding of R & T play is key, and the attitudes of Saudi early childhood teachers who are …

Using Quantitative Methods To Investigate Student Attitudes Toward Chemistry: Women Of Color Deserve The Spotlight, Guizella A. Rocabado Delgadillo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The field of Chemistry Education Research (CER) has been interested in understanding the reasons why students struggle in organic chemistry courses. Reports show that students perceive the material as difficult and have trouble keeping pace with the volume of content taught within the course. Beyond these and other explanations of why students struggle in organic chemistry are affective factors, such as attitude toward chemistry, that influence students’ success and retention in this course. Studies have shown that in many instances, underrepresented groups of students report less positive attitudes than their peers. Of greater concern are the students representing multiple marginalized …

Resilience And Burnout In Second- And Third-Year Medical Students, Chad E. Whistle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Between their second- and third-years of medical school, students must pass the United States Medical Licensing (USMLE) Step 1 exam. This high-stakes exam is critical to the overall success of medical students; the score has been a determining factor for the student’s residency training and specialty choice. Because medical students are faced with the burden of studying and concept mastery of content for USMLE Step 1, concurrent to ongoing coursework in the medical school curriculum, students may develop symptoms of burnout and be ill-prepared to remain resilient. This study investigated the extent of the relationship between burnout and resilience in …

How Enduring Is Global Precedence?, Jong Lee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a set of visual processing advantages for holistic or global information over detailed or local information; these advantages are known as global precedence (Navon, 1977). Currently, there are inconsistent results about whether selective attention can reduce global precedence. Our studies look into Lamb et al. (1998)’s claim about selective attention’s inability to reduce global precedence. We reassess Lamb and colleagues’ claim by examining whether consecutively repeated tasks strengthen selective attention and reduce interference or facilitation from irrelevant information. Our studies utilized a series of trials, or runs, to present multiple consecutively repeated tasks. Before each run, participants were …

Persistence Like A Mother: Nursing The Narrative Toward Doctoral Completion In English Education—A Poetic Autoethnography, Krista S. Mallo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this poetic autoethnography, exploration of the feeling and the experience of developing persistence as an English Education doctoral student mother is expressed through analysis of artifacts gathered over a 20-year period inclusive of the years of graduate study, becoming and remaining an English teacher and professor, while paralleling the mothering years. A metaphorical parallel is established between breastfeeding and completing the doctoral degree, thus the phrase "nursing the narrative." Expression is storied through poetry in the voices of the persona of the English teacher, the mother, the doctoral student, and the intersectionality of the roles of each as the …

Negative Performance Feedback And The Self-Regulatory Benefits Of Mindfulness, Jeremiah Slutsky

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Past research on negative performance feedback (NPF) has found that self-regulation is key to buffering against negative well-being and performance outcomes. Using feedback intervention theory and mindful self-regulation theory as framework, this study investigated the regulatory effects of mindfulness following the delivery of NPF. Specifically, the relationships between NPF and changes in self-esteem, negative affect, and task performance were examined, as well as the moderating effects of mindfulness on these relationships. The sample consisted of 164 undergraduate students who participated in the virtual experiment in exchange for course credit. Results from the study found that there was no time by …

Forensic Accounting Education, Practice, And Career Path In Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Alzahrane

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The various high-profile cases of financial fraud that threatened to or led to the downfall of high ranking companies have reinforced the need to equip accounting professionals with the skills necessary to detect and investigate fraud. This study aims to evaluate forensic accountants' effectiveness in Saudi Arabia in meeting the needs of the judicial system and their clients. The study also seeks to explore forensic accounting in depth through the opinions, thoughts, concerns, conceptualizations, and experiences of Saudi judges who are routinely involved in forensic accounting cases. These cases often require expert testimony (i.e., cases involving, but not limited to, …