Digital Commons Network^™

Legitimacy And Autonomy: Values Of The Speaking State, Frank I. Michelman

Brooklyn Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Symposium, Marilyn R. Walter, Elizabeth Fajans

Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Sociological And Cognitive Dimensions Of Policy-Based Persuasion, Michael R. Smith

Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Good Fight: The Egocentric Bias, The Aversion To Cognitive Dissonance, And American Criminal Law, Daniel S. Medwed

Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

A Lawyer's Hidden Persuader: Genre Bias And How It Shapes Legal Texts By Constraining Writer's Choices And Influencing Readers' Perceptions, Bret Rappaport

Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Dare To Care: The Complicated Case Of Working Fathers Alleging Sex And Parental Discrimination, Ifat Matzner-Heruti

Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Prevalence, Reasons, And Effects Of Hazing On Female Student Athletes, Danielle Steffa

Masters Theses

The present study was designed to understand the prevalence, reasons, and effects of hazing on female student athletes at a midsized, Midwest institution. Hazing is defined as any activity expected of someone joining a group that humiliates, degrades, or risks emotions and/or physical harm, regardless of that person's willingness to participate (Gersehel, Katz-Sidlow, Small, & Zandieh (2003). By using a modified survey done by Hoover (1999) and Allan and Madden (2008), the frequency, reasons why female athletes believe hazing happens, and any effects felt by these athletes was measured. Results showed there are many types of hazing behaviors that are …

Understanding Workplace Meetings: A Qualitative Taxonomy Of Meeting Purposes, Joseph A. Allen, Tammy Beck, Cliff Scott, Steven G. Rogelberg

Psychology Faculty Publications

Purpose - Meetings are a workplace activity that deserves increased attention from researchers and practitioners. Previous researchers attempted to develop typologies of meeting purpose with limited success. Through a comparison of classification methodologies, we consider a taxonomy as the appropriate classification scheme for meeting purpose. The goal of our study is to propose a taxonomy of meeting purpose. We then utilize the developed taxonomy to investigate the frequency with which a representative sample of working adults engaged in meetings of these varying purposes. Our proposed taxonomy provides relevant classifications for future research on meetings and serves as a useful tool …

Implementations Of Technology Enhanced Personalized Learning: Exploration Of Success Criteria, Concerns, And Characteristics, Rodney P. Gallagher

Theses and Dissertations

Many school districts across the United States are spending large amounts of financial and employee resources on the implementation of technology enhanced personalized learning (TEPL) tools. There is little empirical understanding of the success, concerns, and characteristics of TEPL implementations and the learning environments they enable. This exploratory study used a qualitative descriptive methodology to survey and interview TEPL administrators in an effort to understand their perspectives on TEPL characteristics, definitions of success, concerns, and a general description of how TEPL tools are implemented in their learning environments. Along with confirming six characteristics previously identified (dual role of the teacher, …

How Online Communication And Social Media Networking Are Used In Alcohol Use Treatment, Susan Finley

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding cultural shifts towards the increasing trend of seeking treatment offered through online communication and utilization of social networking sites has changed the way mental health professionals approach alcohol use treatment. This study illuminates the ways in which mental health professionals are currently exploring methods of counseling through online communication and social networking sites to improve their practice and reach more clients, thus helping increasing numbers of people while earning a greater profit. Through the research, numerous benefits and drawbacks of social networking and online communication used in mental health treatment are identified, particularly when working in alcohol use treatment. …

Developing A Model For Understanding Mindfulness As A Potential Intervention For Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Steven I. Rudoy

Theses and Dissertations

The paucity of effective alternative or augmentative treatments available for OCD coupled with the emerging potential of mindfulness-based treatments indicate that exploring the potential utility of such interventions for the OCD population is a useful area of inquiry. In addition, although more general examinations of the mechanisms by which mindfulness contributes to positive change have been conducted, those mechanisms of action have never been theoretically linked with the mechanisms of action believed to underlie the mental processes in OCD. The current study will include a critical analysis of the existing literature covering the cognitive and biological bases for understanding the …

Student Therapists' Use Of Self-Disclosure With Clients Who Have Experienced Trauma, Krista Kircanski

Theses and Dissertations

Therapist self-disclosure is a controversial topic in that it has been historically and widely debated in past research and literature across theoretical orientations. Much of the existing self-disclosure research focuses on the effects that therapist self-disclosure has on the therapeutic relationship, using varied methodology in its definition and measurement of how, when, and in what context therapist self-disclosure is utilized. There are also very few studies that investigate frequency rates of therapist self-disclosure; of those that do exist, results are mixed. Additionally, there is little to no research on how self-disclosure is used by student therapists, in actual psychotherapy sessions, …

A Phenomenological Study: Personal Criteria For Emancipated Foster Youth Entering College, Christina Acoff

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined 4 emancipated foster youth who are attending college in California. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the personal criteria of 2 male and 2 female emancipated foster youths entering college and determine what factors they perceived helped them to attend college. The researcher recruited a total of 4 participants, 1 male from El Camino College Compton Center, 1 female from El Camino College, and 1 male 1 one female from CSU Dominguez Hills. The research question for this study was, What motivates emancipated foster youths to attend college? The phenomenon of being a …

Views Of Student Engagement Among Students And Faculty In Online Courses, Amy Elizabeth Berger

Theses and Dissertations

As part of an effort to learn more about the technologies currently available to students, three executives in the online division of a private, not-for-profit four-year university requested a survey of students and faculty to learn more about the technologies to which they currently have access. Additionally, each of three executives wanted to better understand student and faculty views of student engagement in the division's online courses. To that end, research-based questions about student engagement levels were added to a survey about access to technology. This mixed-method non-experimental study collected data from students and faculty about which definition of student …

Emotional Intelligence And Racial Identity's Impact On Academic Achievement In American Multiracial High School Students, Mary Ann Freeman

Theses and Dissertations

Minorities reached 50.4% of the American population, representing a majority for the first time, and those self-reporting as multiracial grew by a larger percentage than those reporting a single race (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). Millennials born after 1980 are the most racially diverse generation (Pew Research Center, 2014). This study investigated how racial identity and emotional intelligence might impact academic achievement among U.S. Millennial multiracial adolescents of African descent. Research suggests a student's racial identification has a significant impact on academic performance (Herman, 2009) and minority youth struggle academically (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2014). The theoretical framework included the construct …

Best Practices And Attributes Of Bicultural Leaders, Shefali Khandhar Mody

Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to uncover the attributes of successful bicultural leaders. Findings suggested that any one of four acculturation strategies chosen by bicultural leaders depended on the intensity of the dominant spouse's alliance to their Country of Origin, their identity self-construal and opportunities to create supportive in-groups that made the bicultural individual the center of in-group connectivity. Integrated biculturals exhibit a tendency to create networks, where over time they become "central connectors" affording them unique positions of influence, knowledge transfer and power. This study posits that Network Centrality is a Bicultural Competence, recognized by its users as a pivotal antecedent …

Neuroscientists In Court, Owen D. Jones, Anthony D. Wagner, David L. Faigman, Marcus E. Raichle

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Neuroscientific evidence is increasingly being offered in court cases. Consequently, the legal system needs neuroscientists to act as expert witnesses who can explain the limitations and interpretations of neuroscientific findings so that judges and jurors can make informed and appropriate inferences. The growing role of neuroscientists in court means that neuroscientists should be aware of important differences between the scientific and legal fields, and, especially, how scientific facts can be easily misunderstood by non-scientists,including judges and jurors.

This article describes similarities, as well as key differences, of legal and scientific cultures. And it explains six key principles about neuroscience that …

Group To Individual Inference In Scientific Expert Testimony, Christopher Slobogin, David Faigman, John Monahan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A fundamental divide exists between what scientists do as scientists and what courts often ask them to do as expert witnesses. Whereas scientists almost invariably inquire into phenomena at the group level, trial courts typically need to resolve cases at the individual level. In short, scientists generalize while courts particularize. A basic challenge for trial courts that rely on scientific experts, therefore, concerns determining whether and how scientific knowledge derived from studying groups can be helpful in the individual cases before them (what this Article refers to as "G2i'). To aid in dealing with this challenge, this Article proposes a …

Generational Dream: First Generation American Citizens And Their Relationship To The American Dream, Anna A. Mintz

Honors Theses

The term the "American Dream" was coined in 1939 by James Truslow Adams and has undoubtedly become an integral part of the American ethos. This narrative has brought thousands of immigrants to American shores with the promises of prosperity and success for centuries. Yet in 2014, it must be questioned whether this dream still holds significance for the young people of this country. By studying first-generation American citizens, whose parents did not grow up here, it can be ascertained how relevant this narrative still is and the sort of power that it retains. The following research describes my interactions with …

Teachers' Utilization Of Field Trips: A Comparative Study, Joshua Kenna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Field trips are visits to an out-of-school setting designed for educational and academic purposes whereby as a result students gain firsthand knowledge and experiences. Historically, it was the potential for student learning that motivated teachers to utilize field trips. However, there is reasonable suspicion among scholars today that teachers are utilizing field trips less since the start of the new millennia; the common reasons being cited among others include a slumping economy, an increase in accountability due to high-stakes testing, and rising fuel costs. Unfortunately, there is no empirical evidence that can confirm or deny this suspicion. Therefore, the purpose …

The Effect Of Free Primary Education Programs On Marriage For Kenyan Women., Joanna Eisele

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the effect of education on the chances and age of marriage during the transition from adolescence into young adulthood among Kenyan women age 15-22. Women who receive more education are more likely to delay marriage. The literature suggests that occupation and age at sexual debut are also significantly associated with age of marriage. This study considers how these and other factors may possibly affect the life course of women in Kenya over a period of time and increases our understanding of marriage predictors. Data comes from the 2003 and 2008 Kenya Demographic and Health Surveys. Binary logistic …

Linking A Business Capstone Course To Employer Needs In Central Florida, Lauren Degeorge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Capstone courses are well embedded into the curriculum of undergraduate programs in Colleges of Business and are often used to assess program outcomes and curricular goals. Assessment of best practices of Capstone programs and skills within Capstone courses are examined as assurance of learning requirements under AACSB mandates. The conceptual framework of problem-based learning serves as the foundation for national Capstone course models with student-centered pedagogies that enhance learning about a subject through the experience of problem solving by using thinking strategies and domain knowledge. Rubrics assess student mastery of content, professionalism, organization, language structure and presentation skills. The main …

Modeling Risk For Sexually Transmitted Infections In Women In A Court-Ordered Substance Treatment Program, Frances Deavers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Developing a comprehensive model of Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) risk factors and their inter-relationships is vital to improving methods of risk identification and treatment delivery. The CDC posed three general categories that may serve as a framework for such a model: sexual network, individual behavior, and social/ structural risk. None of the extant risk models incorporate measures from all three categories. Additionally, none of these models, generally focused on individual behavior, use medical data on infection as their outcome variable. This is problematic because the ultimate outcome of infection is also influenced by sexual network and social/ structural variables, in …

Pro-Life Progressivism: The Effect Of Abortion Attitudes On Attitudes Towards Government Welfare Programs, Lauren Gilmore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is an extensive body of literature exploring the way in which a variety of factors affect a person's attitudes towards abortion. There is significantly less research, however, on the way in which a person's attitude towards abortion affects their attitudes towards other issues. At the same time, there is evidence to suggest that a growing number of people are using their "pro- life" stance on abortion to influence their stance on other issues that revolve around the quality and sustenance of life, and that Generation Y may be more liberal than previous generations on most, if not all, issues. …

A Thomistic Critique Of The Ethics Of Alasdair Macintyre, Marcus Otte

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Alasdair MacIntyre argues in favor of a historicist Thomism in ethics and political philosophy. In his theory, sociological categories take up much of the space traditionally occupied by metaphysics. This peculiar feature of MacIntyre's Thomism, and its merits and demerits, is already a subject that has been taken up by many critics. In this thesis, these criticisms are supplemented and unified by identifying what is perhaps the most fundamental difficulty with MacIntyre's ethics: his version of Thomism is problematic because it treats epistemology as first philosophy. This misstep compromises MacIntyre's ability to provide a defense of moral objectivity, while also …

A Senior Water Aerobics Class As A Subculture, Sarah Halbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although previous research has focused on subcultures among deviant groups, very little research has been conducted on older adults' subcultures or subcultures within exercise settings. Given the lack of research on older and non-deviant groups, the current research study was designed to reveal how a senior water aerobics exercise class is indeed a subculture and provide a rich description of this understudied and unappreciated subculture. Data collection took place at a water aerobics exercise class at a health club in Central Florida. In the first phase of data collection, ethnographic observations were utilized to identify the social processes in the …

Deadly Premonition: Does Terrorist-Leader Psychology Influence Violence Lethality?, Clayton Besaw

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to address a theoretical and empirical gap within terrorism studies, and more specially the study of terrorist-group lethality. This research updates a model of terrorist-group lethality by including terrorist-leader psychology as an individual-level variable in predicting terrorist-group lethality. Terrorist-leader statements were analyzed by using two novel coding schemes called Operational Code and Leadership Trait Analysis to create quantified measurements of leader cognitive beliefs and personality traits. The empirical portion of this study utilizes pooled cross-sectional time-series data within the framework of fixed effects and multi-level estimation models. The results find that terrorist-leader psychology, and more specifically Instrumental …

Down In The Mouth: Homelessness And Oral Health, Jessica Kleinberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The burden of dental disease in American has been termed a "silent epidemic," affecting the most vulnerable populations in society. Poor oral health has been linked with general health issues, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, as well as decreased mental health and impairments in social functioning. This burden weighs particularly heavy on the homeless, who are not only denied access to private systems of care, but are further rejected by an inadequately supported public safety net. Despite the recognition of social inequalities and the call for further scientific research, oral health care has not been extensively recognized within sociology. …

Economic Inequality And Democratic Representative Institutions Across Western Industrialized Democracies, Donald Plungis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effects of political representation on economic inequality across western industrialized democracies. I explore an explanation of increases in economic inequality as a consequence of less representative democratic institutions. Explaining economic inequality in this manner is a shift from to the Transatlantic Consensus that attributes increased economic inequality to globalization. I expect to find that more representative electoral and governments institutions will be associated with lower levels of economic inequality. The analysis takes place across twenty-three countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) over the past forty years using a cross-sectional longitudinal model. Variables …

Advertising Risk: A Comparative Content Analysis Of Contraceptive Advertisements Targeting Black And White Women, Tiffany Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research compared contraceptive advertisements in two top-circulated publications for white and African American female subscribers, Cosmopolitan and Essence. Data consisted of a sample of 172 contraceptive advertisements from the two magazines published between 1992 and 2012. Quantitative analysis focused on the model(s)' race, age, marital status, and socioeconomic status; the type of contraceptive being advertised; and the reason stated in the ad for using the product. This analysis determined a disparity in the rate of advertisement of doctor-administered contraceptives for the publications of 25.4 percent in Essence magazine and 9.5 percent in Cosmopolitan magazine. Black women were targeted with …