Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring The Strengths Of Long Term Marriages Among Malaysian Chinese Couples / Teoh Gaik Kin, Gaik Kin Teoh

Student Works (2010-2019)

With the emerging themes of Asian epistemologies and Asian forms of Psychology, the cultural discrepancy between the Western worlds and the Asians is marked. Western hegemony in the knowledge base of marriage has much to contribute, and yet Eastern perspectives are needed to bridge the gaps of human diversity. Thus, this study intended to understand the marital strengths of long term married couples among the Malaysian Chinese from an emic perspective. The research methodology utilized in this research was the qualitative approach. Five couples, with years of marriage ranging from 40 to 60 years, participated in this research through purposive …

Corpus Analysis Of The Preposition Of In Ice Nigeria / Saleh Bagudu Rimi, Saleh Bagudu Rimi

Student Works (2010-2019)

No abstract provided.

An Interactional Analysis Of Adult Cognitive Assessment, William Hasek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Psychological tests often include a standardized protocol, which gives specific instructions to clinicians on how the tests are to be administered. This protocol is intended to minimize variation across test administrations, allowing the test to yield reliable and valid measurements. Clinicians are advised to adhere to the test protocol as closely as possible, though departures from protocol are often necessary, as many assessments require clinicians to clarify instructions, modulate client anxiety, and intervene to maintain the client's motivation. Protocols provide little guidance on how clinicians are to make these departures. The clinical literature on assessment contains some advice on when …

Improving Higher Education Attainment Among African American Women, Renee Knox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

African American women enroll and persist in post-secondary education at higher rates than African American males yet there is little research on the factors that contribute their disproportionate college persistence in comparison with their White female counterparts. While this study reviewed critical theories that detail the educational challenges for African American female students, the study also interviewed women who experienced success in higher education attainment. This combined review illustrates strategies that break patterns that impede African American women's efforts and based on the findings suggest approaches to improve higher education attainment.

Housing-Related Migration In The Marcellus Shale Region Of Pennsylvania, Annette M. Mackay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since 2008, hydraulic fracturing of natural gas, or "fracking," has brought economic and environmental changes to localities in the Marcellus Shale region in Pennsylvania. In some rural counties, the sudden influx of activity associated with gas extraction created boomtowns, whereas urban areas saw an economic revival after years of stagnation that followed the collapse of the steel industry. To what degree does in-migration from the natural gas industry account for changes observed in daily living in these areas? Dimensions of social disruption have implications for population mobility, however the nature of mobility, community, and place attachment provide explanations why people …

Experiences Of Playing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games: A Phenomenological Exploration, Jacob Rusczek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents an interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experience of being engaged in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). These games have become increasingly popular over the past decade and have earned the reputation of being highly engrossing or even addicting. In this study, five long-term players were interviewed in person. For a portion of the interviews, the researcher observed the participants playing their games. The interviews were transcribed and subsequently analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis, which yielded individual and shared themes. Individual themes are first presented, which provides a rich sense of each participant's particular way of …

Rethinking Ethics Assessment In Health Technology Assessment: A Nonlinear Approach, Aimee Zellers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary question this dissertation aims to answer is how ethics can be meaningfully integrated into health technology assessment (HTA). The contribution of this dissertation is two-fold. The first is to provide an honest and critical evaluation of current HTA practices, including those that involve ethics assessments and that do not. This evaluation will identify gaps and deficiencies in current HTA practices. The second contribution of this dissertation is to propose an approach for meaningful ethics assessment. The nonlinear approach contains five methodologically sound phases aimed to support both ethics assessment and scientific progress. The approach will be applied to …

Advice Giving In Online Eating Disorder Forums : What Clinical Social Workers Need To Know, Elizabeth C. Reali

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This qualitative, exploratory, descriptive study expanded the limited existing research on online eating disorder forums by examining the thematic content of advice giving on three different types of online eating disorder forums: 1) professional-operated, pro-recovery forums; 2) peer-operated, pro-recovery forums; and 3) peer-operated, pro-eating disorder forums. Additionally, the study sought to elucidate the comparative relationships amongst different forums between advice content, aims, and accuracy and key forum characteristics, such as forums' missions and methods of moderation. Two publicly available websites for each forum type were studied. From these, a total of 60 advice messages consisting of 91 advice units were …

Clinicians' Experiences Of Personal Wealth : Impacts Within Clinical Practice, Sarah Schwartz Sax

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This exploratory/descriptive quantitative/qualitative study surveyed clinicians with wealth about their experiences working with clients who do not have wealth. While there is much research that examines the implications of race-privileged clinicians (i.e., white clinicians) when they work with clients who are race-oppressed (i.e., clients of color) there is very little research on parallel class-based dynamics when the clinician is of a more privileged socioeconomic class than the client. Thus, this research was an initial attempt to fill that gap in the literature. Fifty-four mental health clinicians with wealth voluntarily identified themselves to the researcher via a confidential online tool. Screened …

The Work Of André Green : An Introduction, Louis Scuderi

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

André Green was a French psychoanalyst whose work represents a unique contribution to the fields of theoretical, clinical, and applied psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic social work. Little has been written about him in English, however. In this study, Green's overarching theoretical project is reviewed, in addition to some of his major concepts and their clinical implications. Green's relationship to French psychoanalysis is outlined, as well as his relationship to his major influences: Winnicott, Bion, Lacan, and most importantly, Freud. Green's conceptions of the drives, narcissism, and the work of the negative are discussed in detail, and his work is situated in …

Ego Development And Anxiety During Emerging Adulthood, Alexander M. Rascovar

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Emerging adulthood is a time period wrought with many life changes (Arnett, 2000); therefore, periods of anxiety that are distressing and may potentially disrupt or challenge ego growth can be expected. This study addressed the question: What is the relationship between anxiety and ego maturity in emerging adulthood? Wayment, Bauer, and Sylaska (2014) asserted that the ego in higher levels of development is less defended. This means that the defensive personality organization in the "quiet ego" is integrated in higher-level defensive adaptation, but it remains unclear how Sullivan's (1953) concepts of anxiety might interact with varying levels of ego development. …

It Takes A Village : Exploring African American Women's Experiences With Collective Identity, Racism, And Well-Being, Lyana M. Murrel

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This qualitative study sought to explore African American women's understandings about collective identity in their lives and, specifically, in their encounters with racism that impacted their well-being. African American women hold rich traditions of healing that encompass their communities and are influenced by their early bonds of sisterhood. In the United States of America, these traditions of connectedness between Black folks have supported Black women, communities, and families against the pressures of racist domination. Ten self-identified African American women between the ages of 34 and 69 shared rich narratives about how they experienced a collective sense of self, racism, and …

Treating Non-Offending Caregivers With A History Of Childhood Sexual Abuse And Their Sexually Victimized Children : A Case Study Using Object Relations Theory And Trauma Theory, Maytal Schmidt

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Childhood sexual abuse is a horrific crime and prevalent social problem within our society that requires multiple levels of intervention. Sexual victimization and sexual offending of children is not a new phenomenon. Although literature is available on childhood sexual abuse, much less is known about non-offending caregivers of sexually abuse children who have their own history of childhood sexual abuse. A consistent finding across research on childhood sexual abuse and non-offending caregivers is the importance of the child-caregiver relationship in facilitating recovery for both the child and caregiver. This theoretical study examined the phenomenological experiences of non-offending caregivers whose children …

The Role Of The Rural Family In Opiate Addiction, Elizabeth A. Slowinski

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Both popular media and academics have noted that rural communities are beset with an opiate epidemic. However, research related to opiate abuse tends to focus on those living in urban settings. The present study compared the responses of urban and rural clinicians who work with opiate/opioid-dependent clients, as it was hypothesized that addiction is uniquely influenced by population density. Specifically, this research focused on the role an opiate-dependent client's family plays in their opiate use and whether this role differs based on location. Bowen's Family Systems Theory was used to frame the study, as it was hypothesized that family norms …

The Implementation And Acceptance Of Yoga Techniques For Children With Complex Trauma Among Practicing Clinicians, Danielle S. Martineau

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This mixed-method study was undertaken to determine acceptance and utilization rates of yoga techniques in treatment with children ages 5-17, with complex trauma among practicing-clinicians. Secondly, it was to explore beliefs of effectiveness and barriers of implementation of yoga in a therapeutic milieu. An online survey was sent through mass emails of local agencies, online social media sites through groups associated with trauma and mental health to determine practicing therapists' interests, utilization, beliefs of effectiveness, and barriers of implementation of yoga techniques in therapeutic practice with children with complex trauma. To qualify to participate in this study, one had to …

Archaeological And Historical Research To Establish The Jasper County, Missouri Civil War Museum And Park, Christopher Dennis Dukes

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In May, 1863 a group of Confederate guerillas led by Major Thomas Livingston attacked Union troops at William Rader’s farm in western Jasper County Missouri. The guerillas killed eighteen Union troops, who were unarmed at the time, and mutilated their bodies. Most of them were from the first African American regiment of the civil war. The following day Union troops retaliated by burning the town of Sherwood, Missouri and multiple homesteads in the area. These events caused an increase in the brutality of the civil war in Southwest Missouri. To commemorate these conflicts and provide a “living history” site for …

Archaeological And Historical Investigations Of The Robert Newsom Farmstead (23cy497), Callaway County, Missouri, James Adam Halpern

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Scholarly research on slavery in the U.S. has focused on large commercial plantations in the Old South. Yet a majority of slaveholders and nearly half of the enslaved lived in smaller slaveholding houses and family farms (Burke 2010:4). This study helps redress the dearth of research on small slaveholdings through study of the Robert Newsom Farmstead, or "Celia" Site (23CY497), located in Callaway County, Missouri. The research goal is to model the antebellum spatial organization of the landholding, thereby increasing our understanding of slavery at the Newsom site and on non-plantation slaveholdings generally. This was accomplished through collection and analysis …

Sisters Before The Fall, Heather Lanae Captain

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis comprises the first fourteen chapters of a fiction entitled "Sisters Before the Fall", which brings to the forefront extreme, yet, real abuses faced by women in the Middle East and the northeastern countries of Africa. Those abuses are the result of social, political, and cultural influences, and include general repression of women and girls, female genital mutilation, marriage of prepubescent girls, and the slave trade. A female American volunteer and a female Hispanic doctor meet these women in a humanitarian compound in western Sudan. As they work together to overcome challenges brought on by war, they realize they …

"Commercial Peacemaking"-The New Role Of The International Commercial Arbitration Legal Order, Tamar Meshel

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

International commercial arbitration (ICA) has risen to prominence over the past several decades as the most efficient and effective mechanism for resolving cross-border disputes between commercial entities, and has long been considered by the international business community as "the normal means of settling disputes arising from international transactions." ICA offers disputing parties an accessible, neutral, and private mechanism that is distinct from any specific national legal system; a "kind of social jurisdiction, opposed to State jurisdiction." It has thus been considered by some to constitute a specialized international regime, a form of "transnational" or "global" governance, or an autonomous legal …

Judges As Gatekeepers To Mediation: The Russian Case, Kathryn Hendley

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

In this Article, I investigate the role of judges in mediation in Russia. Using a mixed-methods approach that draws on my fieldwork in Russian courts as well as a 2013 survey of Russian judges, I explore their attitudes towards mediation and their willingness to recommend it to litigants. I use the survey data to inquire into the factors that tend to predict both their attitudes and behavior vis-avis mediation. The analysis reveals a remarkable division between judges' attitudes and their behavior. The surveyed judges are generally enthusiastic about the introduction of mediation, but this enthusiasm is not always reflected in …

Barnacles, Aristocracy And Truth Denial: Three Not So Beautiful Aspects Of Contemporary Mediation, James R. Coben

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Like any fairy tale, the Sleeping Beauty story has many variations. Most are far more complicated and sinister than the Disneyesque version that the public is familiar with. The same is true with mediation. On the surface, it is a beautiful story-self-determination, mediator neutrality, and party empowerment. In practice, especially in litigated cases, something else quite dark is actually transpiring: parties are literally locked away from one another. Mediators routinely testify and often actively "assist parties" to see the world as the mediators and the parties' lawyers do. Settlement is a prime directive and driving force. Institutionalization through statute and …

The Legitimacy Crisis And The Future Of Courts, Orna Rabinovich-Einy

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

There is an overall legitimacy crisis in courts. The sources of this crisis have, to a large extent, been misconstrued. While there has been significant writing depicting the diminished quality, effectiveness, and fairness of courts, these phenomena have, for the most part, been viewed as distinct problems that warrant discrete solutions. This article shows that these problems are all manifestations of an overall legitimacy crisis that stems from the blurring of the originally stark distinctions between courts and alternatives. Traditionally, formal and informal dispute resolution processes had their own sources of legitimacy, each grounded in their respective distinctive (often opposing) …

Fitting The Forum To The Pernicious Fuss: A Dispute System Design To Address Implicit Bias And 'Isms In The Workplace, Elayne E. Greenberg

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This paper proposes a dispute system design to address workplace discrimination caused by implicit biases so that employees and employers involved in such disputes can secure a more responsive justice than existing legal processes are able to provide. Workplace discrimination caused by implicit bias continues to contaminate our work environment despite our focused legal efforts to combat such overt "isms" as sexism, racism, ageism, and ableism. Although overt expressions of bias have significantly decreased in recent years, expressions of implicit bias, the primary cause of workplace discrimination, persist.

This discussion takes place in three parts. Part One describes implicit bias, …

An Exploration Of Differences In Group Perceptions Of Diversity And Faculty-Student Engagement Between African American And White American, First-Time Students Enrolled In Community College, Michelle Talbert-Horsey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite progress in access to colleges and student support services, African American students maintain a low community college completion rate, relative to their enrollment. Using critical race theory as a theoretical framework, this quantitative study utilized the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) instrument to explore group differences between African American and White American, first-time students enrolled in Vernell-Paul Jacob Community College (a pseudonym). The study examined students' perceptions as it relates to how the college prepares them to understand and engage with people of diverse backgrounds and their engagement with faculty. Overall, African American, first-time students reported higher …

Role Of Greenhouse Gas Inventories In Climate Change Mitigation At Institutions Of Higher Education, Sadaf Tehmina

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite hundreds of Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) pledging action against climate change, there is little research on how to effectively enable these initiatives. This study utilizes a survey to analyze the role of greenhouse gas inventories (GHGI) in climate change mitigation within IHE. Among 62 responses, 46 indicated GHGI was helpful in decisions regarding emission reduction measures; 54 reported having a climate action plan (CAP) or sustainability policy (SP); 49 used GHGI in forming the CAP/SP. 95% of the respondents signed the ACUPCC pledge. When GHGI was used the IHE was more likely to have higher emission reductions (above …

A Discipleship Project For New Members At The St. John's Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Wayne Rupert Knowles

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

During the first decade of the 21st century, a review of the ministry structure of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in St. Johns, Antigua, was done. It revealed that there was a need for a systematic plan to nurture new members into leaders. Although there were new converts classes held and materials were available for study, there were few organized plans within the church that would assist new members to become spiritually mature and equipped for ministry. This lack of structure has resulted in very few people being prepared to serve in the ministries of the church. Something needed to …

Brazilian Adventist Women And Their Needs: Toward Theological-Missiological Education With An Initial Curriculum Proposal, Hanny Brcic Guzman

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Brazilian Adventist women have had limited access to theological-missiological education, partly because of a hierarchical, male-centered biblical interpretation of gender relations as applied to female teaching and learning experiences within the community of faith. Although the church intends to involve women in a kind of ministry that assumes a hierarchical paradigm, this remediative action is limited to motivation, outreach, and Christian piety.

Method

This theological-missiological non-formal curricular intervention provides access to theological education as well as role models for women in the church. It attempts to transform this restrictive scenario by the interpretation of the perspective and values of …

A Family Enrichment Workshop To Enhance Communication Skills Among African-American Families At The Berean Seventh-Day Adventist Church In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Robert L. Davis Sr.

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Research has established that healthy communication skills contribute to marital and family satisfaction among African-Americans. African-American families, in particular, are in need of communication skills and enhancement resources that address their specific ethnic and cultural dynamics. The Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church is a predominately African-American church located in the Belfair community of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Currently the Seventh-day Adventist Church does not provide any researched family enrichment resources that address the specific dynamics of African-American Seventh-day Adventist families, which makes it necessary for research, resources, and programs to be developed that assist Seventh-day Adventist African-American families with healthy communication …

Successful Alternative Education: Still Reproducing Inequalities? The Case Of The Community School Program In Egypt, Lucy El-Sherif, Sarfaroz Niyozov

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

Community schools are an alternative form of education that center on partnerships between the community and/or the state, aid organizations, and non-governmental organizations. The Community School Program (CSP) in Egypt sparked a social movement in education in that country, with disparate actors all coalescing around the CSP as an alternative, empowering model of education. This study examined the relationship between the CSP and the dynamics that formed, shaped and co-opted it through in-depth interviews and observations. Our analysis examined the program’s processes and legacies on its former students. The study found that critical factors in the program’s success were its …

Kitchen Gas Stove Table Top Height From Ergonomic Perspective For Elderly In Malaysia / Ruhaizin Sulaiman, Ruhaizin Sulaiman

Student Works (2010-2019)

Malaysia is expected to become an aged society by year 2020, hence there is a need to prolong the independency of its senior citizens by improving their residential environment. This thesis aimed to increase elderly independency and their quality of life by ergonomic means to let them live independently as long as possible. The main research question is; what is the role of ergonomics in enhancing comfort perception for improving residential built environment for the Malaysian elderly population? Besides this main research question, there are four sub-research questions in this study namely; what is the present state of living among …