Digital Commons Network^™

"I Plead The Fifth": New York's Integrated Domestic Violence Courts And The Defendant's Fifth Amendment Dilemma, Rhona Mae Amorado

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Transformative Meanings Of Viewing Or Not Viewing The Body After Sudden Death, Jane Mowll, Elizabeth Lobb, M Wearing

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

This study investigates the experience of viewing or not viewing the body for 64 relatives bereaved after a sudden and unexpected death1. Thematic analyses of in-depth interviews reveal the importance of viewing and the challenges in providing choice. Some participants experienced difficulties including regret and intrusive images. These are discussed alongside the transformative meanings of seeing or not seeing the body for bereaved relatives.

Responding To Writing Fluency: An Activity Theory Analysis Of Teacher Preparation And Practices, Daliborka Crnkovic Padon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This case study examines eight first-year writing teachers’ practices, philosophies, and preparation with a specific focus on responding to students’ writing fluency. The data is illustrated through the theoretical framework of Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987, 2005), showing various contradictions between the expectations of the Composition Studies field and the actual responding practices. To understand these contradictions, I also examine the position statements issued by the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), as well as the bestselling writing teacher preparation books and first-year writing …

A High Performance Work Practice Scale: Validity And Invariance Across Five Cultures, Gabriela Flores

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this study, a comprehensive high performance work practice (HPWP) model is developed from an existing taxonomy of HPWPs. Using data collected in organizations across seventeen countries, the model is evaluated for equivalence across five cultures and two economic groups. Findings support the generalizability of the seven factor model across these contexts. Finally, the model is evaluated within a larger network of theoretically related antecedents and outcomes. Specifically, the behavioral perspective of HR and the resource based view are used to develop hypotheses relating the use of HPWPs to strategy and organizational resources.

Does Knowledge Of Concussion Symptoms Influence An Athlete's Self-Report Of A History Of Concussion Across Gender And Age?, Kara Ashlan Greco

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: The incidence of sport-related concussion is debatable. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report an extrapolated incidence of 1.6 to 3.2 million recreational/sports-related traumatic brain injuries a year, the suspicion is that the incidence is much higher (CDC, 2014). An important consideration in determining the incidence involves whether an athleteâ??s knowledge of what a concussion is influences their self-report of prior concussions.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to replicate and extend Pfirman (2015) in determining whether providing information about concussion will increase the self-report of a history of concussion. Furthermore, this study investigates whether there …

Defining Moral Attitudes : An Examination Of The Structure And Consequences Of Moral Attitudes, Ciara Katelyn Kidder

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The goals of this Dissertation were to contribute to the literature on the structure of moral attitudes and explore the consequences of moral attitudes on person perception. The goal of study 1 was to replicate and extend previous research examining the automatic nature of moral objectivity and moral universalism. In Study 1, there was no support for the relationship between morality and objectivity and morality and universality. Instead, the study demonstrated that sequential priming may be an ineffective methodology for measuring these relationships. The goal of study 2 was to examine the relationship between the similarity of participant attitude to …

Collegiate Football Attendance In El Paso, Texas, Wesley Austin Miller

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examines potential determinants of attendance at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) Miners football games. Time series methodology is utilized to analyze UTEP attendance from 1967 to 2014. 22 explanatory variables are included in the final specification; 16 of which are statistically significant at the 10-percent level. Estimation results indicate that over 70 percent of the variation in UTEP football attendance is explained within the model. Elasticities of demand are estimated and indicate that demand for UTEP football games is inelastic with respect to all of the continuous regressors. Dynamic ex ante forecasts are generated for …

Becoming Resilient: A Positive Deviance Inquiry Into The Resilience Of Mexican Immigrant Women, Maria Del Carmen Sajquim De Torres

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The United States has approximately 12 million Mexican-born immigrants, almost half of which are female (Gonzalez-Barrera & Lopez, 2013). Research has determined that Mexican immigrants have the best level of mental health when compared to other ethnic groups in the U.S. (Alegria et al., 2008; Horevitz & Organista, 2012). Adverse living conditions resulting from immigration and time spent in the U.S. are believed to cause the loss of this advantage. The potential strengths or assets contributing to advantageous levels of mental health in Mexican-born immigrants have not been fully identified in research.

This exploratory and descriptive inquiry used an …

Collegiality Among Full-Time Professors In A Mexican University: Perceptions And Challenges, Carlos Alberto Castañon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Currently, institutions of higher education in Mexico have some changes in their educational and institutional policies on training and updating of the professorate. In this context, reforms of higher education, academics have had to adapt to new forms of academic work in both ways individually and collectively. Today it is possible to identify the diversity of functions that have Mexican academics to achieve a quality education. However, today, collegial work among professors has not been solved efficiently in universities of Mexico. The current study addresses the collegiality among full-time professors in a higher education institution in Northern Mexico. The purpose …

Direct Potable Reuse In El Paso, Texas: Pioneering Water Resource Sustainability In A Large Urban Utility, Paul Brian Guerrero

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

El Paso Water is progressing on possible plans for large-scale advanced water purification, a form of direct potable reuse. Public knowledge, attitudes, and commitments are important to success in this technology. New information on attitudes in El Paso, Texas, regarding direct potable reuse implementation is measured and examined.

Exploring Factors Of Initimate Partner Violence Among Men Of Mexican Origin, Bibiana Marie Mancera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects many females, particularly women of color, in the United States. Victims of IPV experience both short and long term physical and mental consequences (World Health Organization, 2014), which negatively impact the healthcare and judicial system (Lloyd & Taluc, 1999). Few qualitative studies have been conducted among men of Mexican origin (MMO), exploring unique risk factors that contribute to the higher incidence of IPV perpetration among this population. The purpose of this study was to explore IPV perpetration risk factors among MMO. The research question that guided this study were: 1) what are the issues confronting …

Examination Of The Rewarding Effects Of Nicotine And The Negative Effects Of Withdrawal In A Rodent Model Of Diabetes, Joseph Allan Pipkin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Introduction: The present study utilized a rodent model of diabetes to examine the rewarding effects of nicotine as well as negative affective states and physical signs of withdrawal from this drug. Methods: Separate groups of rats received systemic administration of vehicle or streptozotocin (STZ), which destroys the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas and elevates plasma glucose levels. Place conditioning procedures were utilized to compare the rewarding effects of various doses of nicotine (conditioned place preference; CPP) and the aversive effects of nicotine withdrawal (conditioned place aversion; CPA) in vehicle- and STZ-treated rats. CPA and physical signs of withdrawal were …

The Clinical Significance Of Single Features Of Borderline Personality Disorder: Anger, Affective Instability, Impulsivity, And Chronic Emptiness In Psychiatric Outpatients, William D. Ellison, Lia Rosenstein, Iwona Chelminski, Kristy Dalrymple, Mark Zimmerman

Psychology Faculty Research

Although dimensional models of borderline personality disorder (BPD) are consistent with findings showing that minimal levels of pathology are associated with substantial increases in psychosocial impairment, it is still unclear whether different individual BPD criteria are each clinically significant on their own. The current study uses semistructured interview data from 1,870 adults presenting for outpatient psychiatric treatment to investigate whether the BPD criteria of impulsivity, affective instability, emptiness, and anger are each related to psychosocial morbidity when met in the absence of the other eight criteria. Analyses showed that each of these criteria was associated with dysfunction in comparison with …

Our Critics Might Have Valid Concerns: Reducing Our Propensity To Conflate, Carolyn Becker

Psychology Faculty Research

As noted by Austin elsewhere in this issue, the field of eating disorders (ED) prevention has made remarkable scientific strides in the past two decades (see Austin, 2016). Over this same period, the field also has seen improved political standing within the greater ED community. For instance, prevention researchers present more regularly at key ED conferences, increasingly via invitation “up on the big stage” in plenaries and keynote addresses. Prevention researchers and advocates also appear to have grown in number and hold more positions in a variety of ranks throughout key ED organizations. Finally, a number of prominent ED researchers …

Early Verb Learning: How Do Children Learn How To Compare Events?, Jane B. Childers, Rebecca Parrish, Christina V. Olson, Clare Burch, Gavin Fung, Kevin Mcintyre

Psychology Faculty Research

An important problem verb learners must solve is how to extend verbs. Children could use cross-situational information to guide their extensions, however comparing events is difficult. Two studies test whether children benefit from initially seeing a pair of similar events (‘progressive alignment’) while learning new verbs, and whether this influence changes with age. In Study 1, 2 ½- and 3 ½-year-old children participated in an interactive task. Children who saw a pair of similar events and then varied events were able to extend verbs at test, differing from a control group; children who saw two pairs of varied events did …

Application Of The Green House Model To The U.S. Geriatric Veteran Population, Lydia Alicia Cristobal

Yale School of Nursing Digital Theses

U.S. Veterans have sacrificed to serve the nation and deserve excellence in care. The Green House concept is a culture change model, with a goal to change not only the physical setting for residents, but to also create an environment to improve holistic outcomes. There are only three states in the Veterans Affairs (VA) Administration that have adopted the Green House model for the geriatric Veteran population: Illinois, Alabama, and Wisconsin. This paper presents a synthesis of recent studies on Green House model implementation. This synthesis was then compared with the experience of three state VA Medical Centers’ adoption of …

A Nurse-Practitioner-Led Collaborative Care Model Of Shared Medical Visits For Adult Patients With Diabetes Using The Centering® Group Healthcare Model, Monte Wagner

Yale School of Nursing Digital Theses

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe a novel Shared Medical Visit (SMV) intervention to address the health needs and challenges of an adult population with type-2 diabetes (T2D) in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) setting, the fidelity to the intervention, as well as to determine the feasibility and acceptability of this intervention.

Methods

The study method was a quasi-experimental post-test design and the intervention consisted of eight monthly two-hour shared medical visits (defined as inter-professional medical visits), which used the American Association of Diabetic Educators AADE7 diabetes education topics for content and the Centering® Healthcare Model …

A Phenomenological Investigation Of Leader Development And Mindfulness Meditation, Denise A. Frizzell, Stephanie Hoon, David K. Banner

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

Regardless of the gap between the demands of the global work environment and the maturity of leaders, minimal research exists on the trend of the practice of mindfulness meditation and the developmental experiences of leaders. Consequently, scholars have little understanding of how an increasing number of leaders experience mindfulness meditation. The purpose of this study was to understand the perceived impact mindfulness meditation had on leader development for 20 manager-leaders who had a regular (at least 3 days a week) mindfulness meditation practice. The primary recruitment strategy included outreach to potential participants affiliated with professionally oriented mindfulness groups on LinkedIn. …

Emotional Reactivity Monitoring Using Electrodermal Activity Analysis In Individuals With Suicidal Behaviors, Amir Mohammad Amiri, Mohammadreza Abtahi, Anna Rabasco, Michael Armey, Kunal Mankodiya

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

Suicide, considered as one of the leading causes of death, has not been given enough attention in order to reduce it's rate. The problem addressed in this paper is the analysis of the relation between an extra stimulus and physiological data's responses. In order to record the physiological data set from multiple subjects over many weeks, we used an acoustic startle during a Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT) test that spontaneously leads subjects to real emotional reactivity, without any deliberate laboratory setting. Crucially, we show that, by inducing anxiety during the test, changes appear in Electrodermal activity, Electrocardiogram, Heart …

Bigear: Inferring The Ambient And Emotional Correlates From Smartphone-Based Acoustic Big Data, Harishchandra Dubey, Matthias R. Mehl, Kunal Mankodiya

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper presents a novel BigEAR big data framework that employs psychological audio processing chain (PAPC) to process smartphone-based acoustic big data collected when the user performs social conversations in naturalistic scenarios. The overarching goal of BigEAR is to identify moods of the wearer from various activities such as laughing, singing, crying, arguing, and sighing. These annotations are based on ground truth relevant for psychologists who intend to monitor/infer the social context of individuals coping with breast cancer. We pursued a case study on couples coping with breast cancer to know how the conversations affect emotional and social well being. …

Exploring The Transition Experience For The First Time Local Conference Presidents In The North American Division Of Seventh-Day Adventists: Narratives From Conference Presidents' Career Transitions, David E. Weigley

Dissertations

The position of the president of a conference in the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists (a senior leadership role) has currently no policy stipulating leadership training prerequisites. Leaders transitioning into the president’s position typically are selected from a pool of successful pastors, departmental directors, and executive secretaries by a constituency meeting of delegates from local churches and conference institutions.

This qualitative study probed the transition of 12 first-time local conference presidents. The information was gathered by recording in-depth interviews. Eight themes surfaced from the exploration. Leaders experienced the transition as overwhelming, challenging their spirituality, involving new constellations of relationships, …

The Lived Experience Of Conversion In The Broader Context Of Experience Of Faith Formation: A Phenomenological Study Of Third- And Greater-Generation Seventh-Day Adventist Young Adults, Edyta Jankiewicz

Dissertations

Problem

While the New Testament Scriptures describe the characteristics of first-generation conversion, they do not describe how the children of believers come to Christian faith. Moreover, while there has been considerable empirical research on conversion, very little of it addresses conversion in the lives of those nurtured in faith. As a result, many second- and greater-generation Christians may feel that the term “conversion” does not describe their spiritual experiences. The purpose of this study was to describe the lived experience of conversion in the lives of those nurtured in faith from childhood.

Method

This study adopted a phenomenological approach to …

Musical Listening Interest, Socio-Demographic And Socio-Psychological Factors As Predictors Of Test Anxiety Among Students Of A Christian University In Jamaica, Wayne E. N. Ireland-Cleghorne

Dissertations

Problem

There is an enormous deficit in the literature on the factors associated with test anxiety generally, and test anxiety and music listening interest in particular, in the Caribbean region. This deficit is made even more distinct by the numerous studies that exist on test anxiety elsewhere and the effect it has on students’ behavior and performance in the classroom.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between musical listening interest and test anxiety, while controlling for variables that are deemed plausible predictors of test anxiety. Predictor variables utilized include sociodemographic factors such as gender, age, …

The Relationship Of Supervision Variables To Counseling Self-Efficacy And Outcome Expectations Among Practicing Psychologists, Gunther L. Schwartz

Dissertations

Purpose of the Study

The primary purpose of this study was to examine whether Psychologists who receive supervision have greater Counseling Self-efficacy and greater Counseling Outcome Expectancy than Psychologists who do not receive supervision. The secondary purpose was to assess the demographic and personal variables that are associated with Counseling Self-efficacy and Counseling Outcome Expectancy, as well as the supervisor factors associated with Counseling Self-efficacy and Counseling Outcome Expectancy.

Method

The Counselor Self-Estimate Inventory (COSE), Counseling Outcome Expectancies Scale (COES) and the Supervision Descriptive Questionnaire (SDQ) were administered to 341 Michigan psychologists who either received supervision (n = 254) or …

Faculty And Staff Perceptions Of Stress, Efficacy, Personality, And Health Practices During Implementation Of Comprehensive Educational Change At One Secondary School, Virginia Mae Lonser

Dissertations

Problem

Private faith-based schools have experienced a severe drop in enrollment over the past few years contributing to perceptions of job insecurity. Especially in the realm of residential secondary education has this observation been true. This descriptive case study investigated perceptions of stress of secondary-school faculty and staff involved with a school-based systemic change implementation in an attempt to turn around the attenuation in enrollment.

Method

This research study followed a bounded mixed-methods case design using data collected as participant observations of the 24 residential secondary-school faculty and staff and tests were performed to show relationships between variables. Tools were …

Identity Styles, Mediated By Commitment And Syncretism, As Predictors Of Undergraduate Students' Attitudes Toward Selected Discipleship Practice At Vally View University In Ghana In 2015: Implications For Religious Education, Juvenal Balisasa

Dissertations

Problem

The study of student life on campus has attracted numerous social science enquiries especially in the areas of spirituality, religiosity, and meaning making in life. Of particular interest has been the attempt to restore value-based education in Christian institutions of higher learning, taking cognizance of the need for cultural contextualization and the influence of postmodern ideology. This present study sought to examine the possible predictive role of identity styles, mediated by commitment and syncretism, in the attitudes towards discipleship practices among undergraduate students of Valley View University in Ghana, West Africa in 2015.

Method

The study employed the principles …

Self-Efficacy, Locus Of Control, Perceived Stress And Student Satisfaction As Correlates Of Dissertation Completion, Gabriela A. Dumitrescu

Dissertations

Purpose of the Study

Doctoral students face a multitude of challenges in the process of completing their degree, and barriers to the success of doctoral program completion can occur at many different levels. Many factors contribute to dissertation completion or non-completion. Studying the influence of these factors on the task of dissertation completion may result in enhancing dissertation progress and program completion. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of self-efficacy, locus of control, perceived stress and student satisfaction on dissertation completion among doctoral students in educational psychology at selected university in the United States.

Method

Survey …

The Bonds That Break: Sibling Abuse Perpetration Behaviors As Correlates Of Peer Bullying Perpetration Behaviors: A Structural Equation Model, Curt Bachman

Dissertations

Problem

The literature suggests that the perpetration of sibling violence and peer bullying behaviors present multifaceted concerns for both families and society. Furthermore, there are differences in how the perpetration of peer bullying and sibling violence behaviors have been emphasized in the United States. However, research examining how these experiences may be related is limited.

Method

A survey was used to collect data on lifetime reports of sibling abuse and peer bullying perpetration behaviors from a sample of 252 adults. A total of six variables were measured using an altered version of the Conflict Tactics Scale.

Results

Using partial least …

"Only Steers And Queers Come From Texas": The Texas Sodomy Statutes And The Making Of An Other, 1860-1973, Jecoa Ross

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis explores the history of sodomy as it has been conceptualized through the creation and enforcement of the Texas sodomy statutes between 1860 and 1973. In analyzing state court cases, legislative records, and newspaper accounts, I argue that the evolution of the concept of sodomy from its inception as a broad criminal category in the 1860 Texas sodomy statute to its more-narrow conceptualization by Texas legislators as a behavioral characteristic of homosexual status in the 1973 homosexual conduct statute was a political and historically contingent process. This process was political firstly in that it allowed for the construction of …

Cross-Language Conceptual Activation And Development Through Text Passages, Karly Meillyn Schleicher

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The present study begins to bridge the gap between bilingual education practices and cognitive frameworks of bilingual conceptual access. A reading comprehension task was used to investigate how bilingual undergraduate students activate and develop academic information across their two languages when reading expository text. Using scientific texts, participants (N = 128) read two distinct passages pertaining to prior knowledge, as well as new, related conceptual information. At test, the participants were asked to complete true-false questions and elaborate on the reasons for their responses. A counterbalanced, mixed factorial design was used to infer how language dominance influences encoding and retrieval …