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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 …

Spiritual Life Review With Older Adults: Finding Meaning In Late Life Development, Alicia Margaret Stinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Spirituality has been recognized as a positive factor in the lives of older adults, especially as it influences their emotional, mental, and physical well-being. This convenience sample study included 17 older adults residing at a faith based continuing care retirement community in Florida. The sample was represented by Caucasian older adults with an average age of 84 years, highly educated, majority Protestant and mostly female. Spiritual life reviews were conducted using spiritual life maps (Hodge, 2005) and semi-structured interview questions. Erikson's epigenetic stage of ego-integrity was used along with Butler's life review process and Tornstam's gerotranscendence as a conceptual …

Descriptions Of Clinical Teaching Excellence In The First Two Years Of Medical School: The Views Of Academic And Community-Based Preceptors, Patricia Anne Stubenberg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The changing dynamics in patient care, along with the increasing role of early clinical experiences and community-based teaching models, can be a catalyst in furthering important research and training for clinical teaching excellence. Curricular challenges as well as limited scholarly work generate educational possibilities for study. Embracing a strong educational doctrine of teaching excellence in undergraduate medical education will help shape the future of health care and ultimately enhance patient care.

This grounded theory study (a) described and explained descriptions of teaching excellence among first and second year academic and community-based preceptors in the Longitudinal Clinical Experience (LCE) program at …

Two Essays On Investor Distraction, Erdem Ucar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In theory, all relevant information is incorporated in stock prices timely and completely and therefore prices respond related news quickly in efficient financial markets. In today's information age, technological advances provide investors with fast access to a vast number of information resources. One can argue that these advances can help market efficiency due to easy and quick access to relevant information. On the other hand, these technological advances not only facilitate availability of relevant information but also facilitate availability of all types of information--both relevant and irrelevant information signals. In essence, one can argue that there is (over)exposure to information …

The Role Of Nature In Physiological Recovery From Stress: A Critical Examination Of Restorative Environments Theory, Kristi Elizabeth White

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recently, health researchers have become interested in "eco-friendly" or "green" healthcare. One of the current trends in the green healthcare movement involves incorporating natural elements into health care settings to promote the health of patients and healthcare workers. Research based on Restorative Environments Theory (RET) provides insight into the rationale behind incorporating nature into the healthcare setting. RET posits that pleasant natural environments help promote stress recovery by increasing positive affect, decreasing negative affect, and reducing physiological arousal. However, the components of this theory have not been sufficiently tested using a controlled laboratory environment. The purpose of the present study …

The Effectiveness Of A Structured Functiona Behavior Assessment Procedure: Teacher Training As A Moderator, Bonnie Woods

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR) is a collaborative, standardized process that was developed as a way to address identified barriers to completing effective functional behavior assessments (FBAs) in public schools. Current research literature documents the effectiveness of the PTR process in decreasing problematic behaviors and increasing social skills and academic engaged time for students in kindergarten through 8th grade. In addition, PTR demonstrates high acceptability by school personnel implementing the process. While PTR has demonstrated success in schools, questions still exist regarding variables that impact the effectiveness of this process. Therefore, the current study investigated the moderating effect of prior teacher training in …

The Post- 9/11 Aesthetic: Repositioning The Zombie Film In The Horror Genre, Alan Edward Green, Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores a body of films produced after the events of 9/11, and while examining this specific point of departure, the author presents the argument on the vast cultural relevancy of the omnipresent zombie. These films are interrogative and complex, offering the viewing audience a rich tapestry of interwoven meanings. Furthermore, the author suggests that the zombie trope has, in fact, left the genre altogether, reinserted into a style of films he labels as "non-zombie appropriation." Chapter 1 introduces the zombie genre as both part of the larger horror genre aesthetic and as its' own legitimate subgenre. The zombie …

Preparing Teachers To Apply Research To Mathematics Teaching: Using Design-Based Research To Define And Assess The Process Of Evidence-Based Practice, Sarah Van Ingen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Persistent lack of mathematics achievement and disparity in achievement has led to the publication of research findings related to equitable teaching practices. Although the publication of such research provides insights about approaches for potentially increasing equity in mathematics education, teachers must be able to apply what has been learned from these studies to their classroom teaching practices. Despite the widespread expectation that teachers use research-supported teaching strategies to meet the needs of their diverse classrooms, the research to practice gap persists. Little research is currently available to guide mathematics teacher educators in how to prepare future teachers to apply research …

The Influence Of Campus Culture On Mental Health Help-Seeking Intentions, Jason I. Chen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mental health issues are widespread on college campuses. However, the majority of these individuals do not seek help. Prior research suggests many factors which may be related to mental health help-seeking including age, gender, and prior treatment experience. There has however been little work considering the context of the college campus on mental health help-seeking, specifically the influence of campus culture. Accounting for the context of mental health help-seeking may help to determine which social groups have the greatest influence on mental health treatment processes.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between perceived peer, student body, …

Differentiating Between Objectification And Animalization: Associations Between Women, Objects, And Animals, Kasey Lynn Morris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While it's clear that the objectification of women is a prominent feature of Western society, it is far less clear what it actually means to be objectified. Philosophers, feminist scholars and psychologist agree that objectification involves a denial of humanity, however, the nature of this dehumanization has yet to be explained. Although existing research provides evidence that objectified women are associated both with objects and animals, no research has examined the conditions under which women are likely to be dehumanized by one form or another. Here, I propose that animalization, characterized by an association with animals, occurs when a woman …

Community On The Menu: Seven-Courses To Cultivate Familial Bonds, Exchange Social Capital, And Nourish Community, David Franklin Purnell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an auto/ethnographic account, which examines food, close personal friendships, and community. The research combines autoethnography with ethnographic observations and personal/group interviews conducted within the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa, Florida. The observations are of a weekly dinner event referred to by most attendees as Family Dinner. I am one of the founders of this event; the participants of this study are neighbors (or were at some point in time) as well as past and present attendees of the weekly dinner.

The purpose of this research is to illustrate how food can be a tool to build …

Science Informational Trade Books: An Exploration Of Text-Based Practices And Interactions In A First-Grade Classroom, Virginia Anne Schreier

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although scholars have long advocated the use of informational texts in the primary grades, gaps and inconsistencies in research have produced conflicting reports on how teachers used these texts in the primary curriculum, and how primary students dealt with them during instruction and on their own (e.g., Saul & Dieckman, 2005). Thus, to add to research on informational texts in the primary grades, the purpose of this study was to examine: (a) a first-grade teacher's use of science informational trade books (SITBs) in her classroom, (b) the ways students responded to her instruction, and (c) how students interacted with these …

Continuing Attachment Bonds To The Deceased: A Study Of Bereaved Youth And Their Caregivers, Erica Hill Sirrine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although grief is a universal experience impacting the lives of many children and adolescents each year, not much study has been afforded to this population. In addition, the concept of a continuing attachment bond (CAB) or ongoing relationship to the deceased and its role as adaptive or maladaptive in the bereavement process is in its infancy of research among adult populations and is largely unstudied among bereaved youth. This mixed-methods study attempted to bridge the gap by examining the relationship between CABs among a sample of 50 bereaved youth (ages 11-17) and their bereaved adult caregivers. In addition, the study …