Digital Commons Network^™

Clarifying The Relationship Between Emotion Regulation, Gender, And Depression, Emi Sumida

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study investigates the relation between emotion regulation problems and clinical depression. One goal of the present study was to bring increased clarity and parsimony to how emotion regulation is presently measured by consolidating three widely used instruments. In addition, of interest was an investigation of whether particular emotion regulation problems and management strategies interact with gender to predict either severity of overall depression symptoms or the presence of a formal mood disorder diagnosis. The results clearly showed that irrespective of a person's gender, particular emotion regulation indicators, both singly, and in combination, are, indeed, more strongly related to the …

Bosom Buddies: Factors Associated With Experiences Of Passionate Friendship Among Men And Women, Katherine A. Peterson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Scholars historically have separated friendships and romantic relationships into two qualitatively distinct relationship categories. Contemporary research examining passionate friendships, however, has identified qualities within platonic relationships that appear to mimic characteristics typically associated with romantic relationships. Primary critiques of the existing passionate friendship literature include exclusively examining females, including samples that predominately identified as lesbian, bisexual or questioning, and research utilizing solely qualitative designs.

The current study used a quantitative design to investigate 375 emerging adults' (18-26 years of age; 149 males, 226 females) friendship experiences. Specifically, four quasi-independent variables (i.e., biological sex, sexual orientation, gender-role orientation, and cross vs. …

Correspondence Of Job-Preference And Job-Matching Assessment With Job Performance And Satisfaction Among Youth With Developmental Disabilities, Julie Hall

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study investigated the effects of job preference and job match on job performance among four 19-to 20-year-old young adults with developmental disabilities placed in community-based job conditions. Prior studies have examined the effects of job preference on community-based job performance without the job-matching component. The researcher identified high-preference, high-match and low-preference, low-match job conditions and tasks using a video web-based assessment program. Each participant was subsequently placed in a randomized sequence of 30-min sessions on one high-preference, high-match job condition performing a preferred task and one low-preference, low-match job performing a non preferred task. Job coaches instructed and prompted …

The Essential Structure Of Compulsive Buying: A Phenomenological Inquiry, Letty Workman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

While many jokes and sales of specialty merchandise have been made that make light of consumers who frequently shop and buy (e.g., "When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping," or "I am a shopaholic"), for 18 million Americans suffering from compulsive buying, the process of shopping and buying has caused their lives to literally go out of control. The outcomes of this disease for individuals, families, and business are all negative. In a marketing era of social responsibility, if marketers either knowingly or unknowingly encourage increased consumption among compulsive buyers, potential negative outcomes stand to impact others well …

Transportation Network Resiliency: A Fuzzy Systems Approach, Nayel Urena Serulle

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Every day the dependence on transportation grows as local, regional, national, and international independence increases. Resilient transportation systems are needed to secure the highest possible level of service during disruptive events, including natural and man-made disasters. Because of limited resources, decision makers need guidance on how, when, and where to invest to improve resiliency of their networks. The research objective is to develop a method to assess and quantify resiliency, at pre-event conditions, using a fuzzy inference approach. This research expands previous work, refining key variable definitions, adjusting model interactions, and increasing transparency between metrics. This thesis presents the method …

Psychometric Properties Of Postsecondary Students' Course Evaluations, Michael J. Drysdale

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Several experts in the area of postsecondary student evaluations of courses have concluded that they are stable or reliable measures as well as being measures that provide ways of making valid inferences regarding teacher effectiveness. Often these experts have offered these conclusions without supporting evidence. Surprisingly, a thorough review of the literature revealed very few reported test-retest reliability studies of course evaluations and the results from these studies are contradictory. In the area of validity, the conclusions offered by scholars who conducted meta-analyses of mutlisection course studies are inconsistent. This leads to the following two research questions:

1. What is …

Finances In Strong African American Marriages, Bonnie Lichfield Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study focused on how African American couples in happy marriages talked about finances in their couple relationships. Qualitative methodology was used for this study, and the data came from transcribed interviews with participants. Thirty-seven couples who identified their marriages as being strong, happy, or highly satisfying, volunteered to be interviewed for this study. All individual participants (74 total) talked about finances in their marriages, and all interviews were used for the purpose of this study. Their descriptions were coded and analyzed to explore the way that they talked about money issues in their marriages. The research questions focused on …

Attitudes Toward Immediate Annuities, Devon K. Robb

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Retirement security for Americans is one of the most critical public policy and personal financial issues and will be for decades in the future. Individuals that retire today can live an additional 30 or even 40 years with less secure income as corporations shift to defined contribution plans to fund retirement. Based on the life cycle savings hypothesis, immediate annuities should be appealing to retirees because they insure against the risks of outliving retirement assets by converting funds into a lifelong stream of income. However, research has found that retirees are reluctant to annuitize their wealth. This study examined the …

Environmental And Developmental Indicators In Early Childhood: Relations To Second-Grade Reading Comprehension, Gina A. Cook

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Reading success has been linked to high school completion, future job success, and future generations of children who can read. Unfortunately, children who are unable to read on grade level by the end of first grade are at a great disadvantage and unlikely to catch up later. Without the ability to read and comprehend text, all aspects of schooling become progressively more difficult and the challenge of poor reading ability can be so difficult to overcome that many poor readers will not complete high school. For these reasons, it is important to identify early experiences in a child's family environment …

Ordinary Spirits In An Extraordinary Town: Finding Identity In Personal Images And Resurrected Memories In Lily Dale, New York, Mary Catherine Gaydos Gabriel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Every summer, Lily Dale, New York, a community founded on spiritualist beliefs and steeped in an eccentric explosive past, hosts thousands of visitors seeking to communicate with dead friends and relatives, while the residents lead ordinary lives in the midst of the supernatural hype permeating their town. Their stories are considered by most to be secondary to the illustrious trappings of the community in which they occurred. My research employs oral histories prompted by personal photographs to showcase the residents' everyday experiences amidst the town's infamy, illuminating the undervalued individual experience of those living in communities of such extraordinary repute. …

Integrating Digital Technologies In The German Language Classroom: A Critical Study Of The Technology-Integration Experiences Of Three Secondary German Teachers, Stephen Van Orden

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

German language teachers are gaining increased access to smart classrooms and digital technologies that offer teachers and students greater access to authentic cultural and language materials and enable more student target language communication. Teaching with technology changes the teaching and learning environment in many ways. Little is known about how integrating technology into the daily German-language-teaching curriculum changes the implicit power structures embedded in all classroom interactions. Because of the central, decision-making role of the teacher, this study uses a critical theory of technology lens to examine the daily technology integration experiences of three secondary German language teachers. This study …

Facilitator Assessment Following A Stepfamily Education Course, Heather Sparks

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to evaluate effectiveness of the facilitators of a stepfamily education course, based upon facilitator self-report as well as participant report. Agencies in northern Utah that provide services to low-income minority families were used to recruit a sample of 152 facilitators and 1,134 participants of which 519 of the participants were male and 613 of the participants were females. Additionally, 21 of the facilitators were male and 131 of the facilitators were female. Requirements for participants included having been previously married with no children or having children from a previous relationship that formed a current …

Statistical Analysis Of The Usu Lidar Data Set With Reference To Mesospheric Solar Response And Cooling Rate Calculation, With Analysis Of Statistical Issues Affecting The Regression Coefficients, Troy Alden Wynn

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Though the least squares technique has many advantages, its possible limitations as applied in the atmospheric sciences have not yet been fully explored in the literature. The assumption that the atmosphere responds either in phase or out of phase to the solar input is ubiquitous. However, our analysis found this assumption to be incorrect. If not properly addressed, the possible consequences are bias in the linear trend coefficient and attenuation of the solar response coefficient.

Using USU Rayleigh lidar temperature data, we found a significant phase offset to the solar input in the temperatures that varies ±5 years depending on …

Further Validation Of The Body-Mind-Spirit Wellness Behavior And Characteristic Inventory For College Students, Nicole Mareno, Kathy Shadle James

Faculty Articles

Health promotion is a vital component of college health programs. College health professionals are challenged to find cost-effective, comprehensive measures to assess wellness and risk behaviors. Hettler’s 1979 Six Dimension of Wellness Model guided this inquiry. Physical, emotional, intellectual, occupational, social, and spiritual wellness dimensions were measured by the Body-Mind-Spirit Wellness Behavior and Characteristic Inventory (BMS-WBCI). This study aimed to further validate the BMS-WBCI by reporting reliability as internal consistency of the scale when used to measure wellness in a sample of college students. A descriptive cross-sectional design was utilized. A convenience sample of 106 college students from a small, …

Pengukuran Servant Leadership Sebagai Alternatif Kepemimpinan Di Institusi Pendidikan Tinggi Pada Masa Perubahan Organisasi, Seger Handoyo

Makara Human Behavior Studies in Asia

Leadership is a critical factor for organizational effectiveness and also has great influence to almost all human life. Higher education has a distinctive characteristics, so it needs a particular leadership. Recently, higher education in Indonesia is actively making organizational change, so higher education’s leaders continually make efforts to accomplish successful and significant change. The purposes of research are to examine how important is virtues of servant leadership and to examine multidimensionality of servant leadership. Result shows that servant leadership is an alternative of leadership to accomplish successful organizational change in higher education. Result also finds that servant leadership is a …

"Teaching Competitiveness In Advertising", Timothy Hendrick

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Not Just One Of The Boys: A Post-Feminist Critique Of Title Ix's Vision For Gender Equity In Sports, Dionne L. Koller

All Faculty Scholarship

Title IX as applied to athletics is a high-profile, controversial public policy effort that has opened up the world of athletics to millions of girls and women. Yet as it is both celebrated for the opportunities it has created for women, and decried as going too far at the expense of men, a reality persists that women do not pursue or remain committed to sport in numbers comparable to men. This Article seeks to explore this phenomenon by moving the discourse beyond the debate over whether women are inherently as "interested" in sport as men to examine the conception of …

Does Affective Commitment Decrease The Level Of Stress Reported In Teachers? A Comparison Of Primary And Secondary School Teachers, Rhiannon Williams

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Occupational stress has been established as a predictor of low physical and psychological well-being. Organisational commitment can act as a buffer to the adverse effects of stress. Two types of commitment (affective and continuance) were studied to determine whether they have the same buffering effect. The ASSET questionnaire was completed by 112 teachers (52 primary, 60 secondary). The two types of commitment differed in their effect on stress, with high affective commitment leading to lower levels of stress and high continuance commitment resulting in higher levels of stress. No difference was found between the reported stress levels of primary and …

“You Can’T Change What You Don’T Acknowledge”: A Content Analysis Of The Dr. Phil Show And Implications For Marriage And Family Therapists, Barbara Ann Spanjers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Marriage and family therapists work from an ecological perspective, which includes the influence of mass media. The current study, a quantitative content analysis of The Dr. Phil Show, draws from communication studies, specifically cultivation theory. A content analysis is a first step to understanding how television messages affect client expectations of psychotherapy. Coding categories adapted from the common factors of psychotherapy literature are employed to determine how well the messages of The Dr. Phil Show correspond with practices related to positive psychotherapeutic outcomes. Common factors specific to the field of marriage and family therapy are utilized. The Dr. Phil …

Attachment Theory As A Predictor Of Communicative Responses To Infidelity, Sandra Donovan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study set out to determine one’s communicative responses to infidelity as predicted by attachment style. Three hundred and ninety-two participants responded to a measure of attachment and were then randomly assigned to one of three scenarios: imagining a partner’s sexual infidelity, imagining a partner’s emotional infidelity and imagining a partner’s combined sexual and emotional infidelity. Participants then responded to a communicative response scale in reaction to the scenario. Results showed moderate support for attachment theory. Additional analysis revealed responses differed by infidelity type. Limitations and implications are discussed.

Structural Model Of Effects Of Cultural Factors On Escalation Of Commitment Through Antecedents, Agency, And Negative Framing Effects, Woo-Sik Danny Choi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to identify and measure the effects of Hofstede‟s cultural factors on escalation of commitment for hospitality managers among American and Chinese managers. Typical cultural factors include power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and collectivism, masculinity and femininity, and orientation. Escalation of commitment refers to making decisions in risky circumstances. First, the effect of cultural factors on escalation of commitment was measured through antecedents (mediator variables). Second, the first effect of antecedents on escalation of commitment was measured through agency and negative framing effects. Structural equation modeling (SEM) found significant relationships between cultural factors and mediator …

Variability Of Pacing In Marathon Distance Running, Thomas A. Haney Jr.

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purposes of this study were to describe variability of pacing during a marathon and to determine if there is a relationship between variability of pacing and marathon performance. A total of 301 race profiles that contained personal global positioning system (GPS) from the Rock „n‟ Roll Las Vegas (Race 1) and San Diego (Race 2) marathons were downloaded (http://connect.garmin.com) and analyzed. Each marathon finish time was placed into one of three finish time bins: Bin 1: 2.5 – 3.9 hrs, Bin 2: 4.0 – 4.6 hrs, Bin 3: 4.7 – 7.2. The coefficient of variation of velocity (Velcov) was …

Altering Explicit And Implicit Racial Prejudice Towards African American Males, Veronica A. Glover

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Researchers tested 281 undergraduates to determine if positive behavior messages about African American males presented during a learning task affected scores on explicit and implicit racial prejudice measures. During the learning task, we manipulated how many positive messages the participant viewed (100 vs. 150 or none) and the amount of African American males these messages applied to (1 vs. 3). Participants who viewed 150 positive messages about one African American male displayed more explicit prejudice than participants in control groups or participants learning 100 messages about one person. Results for the implicit measure indicated that participants who learned about three …

Factors Affecting Undergraduate Female Transfer Student Degree Completion Rates, Kristi A. Robey

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this study was to explore what factors affect the degree completion rates of undergraduate female transfer students, ages 19 and older, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Five sub-research questions explored the areas of (a) common factors among the issues faced by the participants; (b) monetary issues’ affect on degree completion; (c) the affect of family responsibilities on persistence; (d) age as a possible factor in degree completion rates; and (e) the number of hours worked and the affect it has on degree completion rates. The study explored the reasons undergraduate female transfer students had for transferring …

Faculty Creativity In Distance Learning: A Phenomenological Study To Understand How The Online Learning Environment Impacts Faculty Creativity, Annaleah Demetra Morrow

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

What is the experience of expressing creativity for creative faculty teaching in the online environment? The literature regarding online learning covers topics relating to faculty and student satisfaction with distance learning, and faculty frustrations with the increased time required of online classes versus on-ground classes. Although the impact to creativity could be inferred in some cases, there is a void in studies focused specifically on understanding the experience of creative faculty expressing their creativity in the online environment. This study is intended to gain a deeper understanding of how teaching in the online environment affects the expression of faculty creativity …

Using A Quality Based Analytic Hierarchy Process To Do Decision-Making Analysis In Transportation, Dejing Kong

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The automated identification technology, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), provides the potential to reduce costs in the transportation operations. Local Department of Transportation (DOT) offices have to carefully consider technologies such as RFID when considering their use for operation such as Right of Way (ROW) property control. ROW operations require strategic planning in that inventory and access rights can be contestable in a myriad of situations. This research investigates the comprehensive impacts of using RFID systems for ROW inventory tracking. We utilize the House of Quality as a means to integrating strategic shareholders needs and their impact on the measurement of …

The Effects Of Action, Normality, And Decision Carefulness On Anticipated Regret: Evidence For A Broad Mediating Role Of Decision Justifiability., Jochen Reb, Terry Connolly

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Two distinct theoretical views explain the effects of action/inaction and social normality on anticipated regret. Norm theory (Kahneman & Miller, 1986) emphasises the role of decision mutability, the ease with which one can imagine having made a different choice. Decision justification theory (Connolly & Zeelenberg, 2002) highlights the role of decision justifiability, the perception that the choice was made on a defensible basis, supported by convincing arguments or using a thoughtful, comprehensive decision process. The present paper tests several contrasting predictions from the two theoretical approaches in a series of four studies. Study 1 replicated earlier findings showing greater anticipated …

Systematics And Molecular Phylogeny Of Two African Stem Borer Genera, Sciomesa Tams & Bowden And Carelis Bowden (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), P. Moyal, B. Le Ru, D. Conlong, D. Cugala, B. Defabachew, T. Matama-Kauma, B. Pallangyo, J. Van Den Berg

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Currently, the systematics of the African noctuid stem borers of the subtribe Sesamiina, which include major pests of cereals, is confused. In addition, their ecology is poorly known, as are the factors influencing their evolution. In this paper, we address these shortcomings for two genera of the Sesamiina, Sciomesa Tams & Bowden and Carelis Bowden. Mixed Bayesian phylogenetic analysis, which included their host plants and two mitochondrial genes, showed the genus Sciomesa to be polyphyletic. Two new genera were created, Pirateolea and Feraxinia. The genus Carelis proved to be paraphyletic and was subdivided into two sub-genera. The genera Sciomesa, Carelis …

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Service Quality, Transaction-Specific Satisfaction, And Overall Satisfaction In Predicting Golfers' Revisit Intentions, Joon Choel Lee

All Dissertations

ABSTRACT
Every year, approximately 37 million people play golf and use golf course facilities with friends or family, and each group's perception of satisfaction differs. It is important and worthwhile to examine the variables that influence golfers' perceptions of service quality and satisfaction. Understanding which variables best predict behavioral intentions to revisit certain facilities is an important issue in the tourism industry, but few studies have investigated the relationships between service quality, transaction-specific satisfaction, and overall satisfaction in predicting revisit intention.
The purpose of this study is to compare and investigate conceptual frameworks that represent the relationship between golfers' perceived …

Predictors And Outcomes Of Occupational Commitment Profiles Among Nurses, Lindsay Sears

All Dissertations

Occupational turnover is a costly problem afflicting much of the nursing industry, and occupational commitment is a strong predictor of withdrawal from one's profession. Traditional organizational research examines most commitment-behavior relationships from a variable-centered perspective, focusing on the relationships between constructs. The present study adopts a configural, or person-centered approach aimed at identifying and describing clusters of individuals who share a similar set of occupational commitment mindsets. The present study extends current literature by a) investigating the existence of several occupational commitment profiles and describing their characteristics; b) examining situational and demographic predictors of profile membership; and c) testing differences …