Digital Commons Network^™

Diaphragm Training And Evaluation As A Therapeutic Tool By Athletic Trainers In Orthopedic Rehabilition, Marisa Rashel Foltz

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Athletic trainers (AT) incorporate diaphragm training techniques into treatment protocols; however, further understanding of the techniques’ purpose and application is needed. An investigation of clinical reasoning for use of diaphragm training and evaluation as therapeutic tools in rehabilitation was conducted. Research questions sought to identify AT perspectives and rationale for incorporating these techniques, explore how ATs gain knowledge, and identify evaluation and educational methods utilized in rehabilitation. A qualitative investigation employing a phenomenological approach was used to address the research questions. Procedures included convenience sampling, one-on-one semi structured interviews, transcription, and coding that led to overall theme development. Thirteen ATs …

Do Family Relationships Affect Team Performance?, Erick P. Briggs

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Nepotism refers to the practice of giving preferential treatment to family members and is prohibited in some work organizations. Common anti-nepotism policies are often based on the unsubstantiated assumption that family relationships negatively affect performance. This study challenges this assumption with the hypothesis that family relationships improve team performance. The theoretical basis for this hypothesis is grounded in the literature examining team processes. Research suggests that coordination is an important team process, and that family members coordinate more effectively than non-family members. Thus, it is reasonable to suspect that familial relationships in teams will lead to better – rather than …

The Impact Of Writing Intensive Courses On Writing Apprehension And Academic Motivation, Jacqueline Suzanne Byrket

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Current research in writing apprehension lacks evaluation of psychology course effectiveness in reducing this trepidation. The present study focused on three psychology courses and utilized Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2002) and student instructor rapport to assess changes in writing apprehension. Participants (N = 78) from three upperclass level courses completed the Basic Psychological Needs Scale (BPNS), Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test-Revised (WAT-R), and Student Instructor Rapport Scale (SIRS-9) at the beginning and end of the semester. Even though pre-/post-test differences were non-significant for all three courses, the Experimental Psychology class exhibited the greatest decrease …

Exploring Test Anxiety In Bsn Nursing Students, Annette Marie Keller

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Test anxiety is a phenomenon that was identified through research in the domains of education and psychology during the 1950s – 1960s. As test anxiety and its effects have been identified and addressed in nursing programs, the same treatment modalities have been applied without evidence that nursing students experience test anxiety in the same manner as other students. The purpose of this study was to describe test anxiety as experienced by BSN nursing students using the sequential explanatory mixed methods design in an effort to gain insight into the anxiety experience of nursing students. A sample of 73 junior and …

Practicing Positive Coping Strategies For Managing Math Anxiety In A Secondary Mathematics Classroom, Courtney Kathleen Smith-Nelson

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The purpose of this action research study was to explore student and teacher perceptions on the usefulness of teaching students to practice positive coping strategies for managing math anxiety in a high school International Baccalaureate mathematics classroom. This study used a reflective action research methodology in which students' math anxiety levels were assessed using Alexander and Martray's Abbreviated Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (1989). Students were then surveyed on their use of coping strategies for managing math anxiety, presented with a variety of positive coping strategies, and asked to rate each strategy on its perceived worth and the likelihood that they …

Complexity In Modern War: Examining Hybrid War And Future U.S. Security Challenges, Joseph Dvorak

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Hybrid warfare is a recently formed concept that focuses on the complexity of modern conflicts and those in the future. After the Russian Federation annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, US and Western analysts started using the term hybrid warfare to describe Moscow's strategy. Analysts and policymakers are starting to consider the approach and direction in Ukraine to be a new and unique type of warfare. This study discusses the usefulness of the term hybrid warfare and examines two case studies that reflect the characteristics of hybrid war, the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, to determine if hybrid warfare is …

The Role Of Empathy In Hindsight Bias, Malindi Jeri Gowen

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Hindsight bias has been operationally defined as "…the tendency for people with outcome knowledge (hindsight) to believe falsely that they would have predicted the reported outcome of an event" (Hawkins and Hastie, 1990, pg. 311). The role of empathy in hindsight bias has not received systematic attention. Previous research has shown that giving participants prevention information increased hindsight bias (Kubany, 2005). Thus, the current study hypothesized that hindsight participants placed in empathic situations should show greater probability judgments for the outcome than hindsight participants in no empathic conditions, and both should be greater than participants in foresight conditions. Participants were …

Elaborative Retrieval: Do Semantic Mediators Improve Memory?, Melissa Lehman, Jeffrey D. Karpicke

Faculty and Staff Publications & Presentations

The elaborative retrieval account of retrieval-based learning proposes that retrieval enhances retention because the retrieval process produces the generation of semantic mediators that link cues to target information. We tested two assumptions that form the basis of this account: that semantic mediators are more likely to be generated during retrieval than during restudy and that the generation of mediators facilitates later recall of targets. Although these assumptions are often discussed in the context of retrieval processes, we noted that there was little prior empirical evidence to support either assumption. We conducted a series of experiments to measure the generation of …

How Can A Focus On The Ethical Notions Of Dignity And Respect For Autonomy Help To Improve Healthcare For Elderly People In Islamic Countries?, Abeer Alamri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to identify how can a focus on the ethical notion of dignity and respect for autonomy help to improve health care for elderly people in Islamic countries. An ethic for aging relies on the principle that the losses of age do not detract from a person's essential autonomy. Thus, care should be provided without assuming that older people are different from those of other ages. It is possible to determine that ethical values are similar in Islamic cultures as well as, Western countries. But these values are often neglected when people face the need …

The Ethical Justification Of Extending Holistic Care To Complementary And Alternative Medicine, Kaneen Bree Allen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The doctoral project presents an argument for the inclusion of complementary and alternative medicine in the provision of holistic care. Over the course of history the practice of medicine has evolved with developments in science and technology and transitioned into away from its holistic origins to a more fragmented practice. The project includes relevant literature on shortcomings of conventional medicine that are in part a catalyst for the trends of increasing complementary and alternative medicine utilization. The doctoral project concludes that the benefits of complementary and alternative medicine's inclusion in care, and more specifically holistic care, is of value and …

The Social Obligation To Reduce Stigma In Order To Increase Utilization Of Mental Health Services, Melissa Sue Berdell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many mental health organizations have developed campaigns that concentrate on reducing the stigma towards mental health with the intentions of increasing access and utilization for people with mental illnesses that are not receiving appropriate mental health services. The mental health campaigns predominantly focus on establishing awareness and education related to the number of people with mental illnesses and diagnoses so that people will not be ashamed or embarrassed to have mental illnesses or access mental health treatments. However, societal prejudices have caused many people diagnosed with mental illnesses to lose jobs, homes, and families; therefore, in general, people are afraid …

Research Symposium Program [2016], Georgia Southern University

GS4 Student Scholars Symposium

No abstract provided.

Happily Ever After? Ambiguous Closure In Modernist Children's Literature, Marcie Panutsos Rovan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the fruitful interchanges between modernist literary technique, the culture of modernity, and children's literature. While some recent scholarship has examined works that modernist authors like Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, and Cummings produced for child readers, modernist children's literature remains a largely neglected field. Examining texts by A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner), Gertrude Stein (The World is Round), and J.M. Barrie (Peter and Wendy) through the lens of literary modernism, this project explicates how these authors adapt modernist techniques, ideologies, and preoccupations in their writing for children. Focusing on themes of alienation, disillusionment, memory, imagination, …

Adopting The Unesco Ethics Model To Critique Disease Mongering, Barbara Postol

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The question this dissertation seeks to address is if the process of disease mongering can be ethically assessed. Chapter one provides a broad scope of the ethical challenge of disease mongering, UNESCO model framework, ADHD and PMDD. Chapter two examines disease mongering and its driving forces in detail. Chapter three provides an overview of the UNESCO model framework. Chapter four ethically examines disease mongering in conjunction with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Chapter five examines disease mongering in association with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). Chapter six concludes that examined through the UNESCO model ethical framework disease mongering is occurring for …

The Neuroethical Case Against Cognitive Memory Manipulation, Peter Angelo Depergola Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An increasingly blurred understanding of the moral significance of accurate and authentic memory reconsolidation for an adequate apprehension of self, other, and community suggests a critical need to explore the inter-relationships shared between autobiographical memory, emotional rationality, and narrative identity in light of the contemporary possibilities of neurocognitive memory manipulation, particularly as it bears on ethical decision making. Grounding its thesis in four evidential effects – namely, (i) neurocognitive memory manipulation disintegrates autobiographical memory, (ii) the disintegration of autobiographical memory degenerates emotional rationality, (iii) the degeneration of emotional rationality decays narrative identity, and (iv) the decay of narrative identity disables …

Memory, Phantasia, And The Perception Of Time: A Commentary On Aristotle’S De Memoria Et Reminiscentia, Evan Strevell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation is a commentary on Aristotle’s treatment of memory and remembering in Aristotle’s De memoria that concentrates on four central issues. First, what is the proper object of memory? There is a general consensus that Aristotle restricts memory to the past, but there is disagreement over what this means. I argue that the proper object of memory is the remembering subject’s own past activity on the grounds that unless what is remembered is perceived as connected to the subject’s prior cognition, what is remembered will not be conceived as having happened before. By rejecting as memorable in a governing …

Leaps Of Faith: Trainees' Experiences Of Not Knowing In Psychotherapy, Rachel Francine Gottlieb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study presents a qualitative analysis of four clinical psychology PhD students’ experiences of not knowing how to proceed in sessions with clients, and how they handled those experiences. A narrative analysis of each participant interview was employed, in which tone, rhetorical function, and identity work were closely examined. Participants took up the concept and the experience of not knowing in very different ways from each other and from the assumptions of the researcher, although sitting back and waiting in response to not knowing was a theme in common. Anxiety, uncertainty, and tension in various identity positions abounded within participant …

The Ethical Analysis Of The Connection Between Hope And Fertility Preservation, Leah Jeunette

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fertility preservation has many different indications and covers a wide variety of demographics. One major motivation for the use of fertility preservation is hope. When discussing fertility preservation, healthcare professionals present several options, but choosing which type of fertility preservation to pursue is a difficult decision. This dissertation will argue not only that hope is one of the basic drivers for making a decision regarding fertility preservation, but also the current methods for fertility preservation create a reliance on hope. Hope can determine if a patient chooses the safest option or seeks out more radical experimentation or whether to delay …

My Social Toolbox: Building A Foundation For Increased Social Participation Among Children With Disabilities, Brooke Willis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Social participation is an important occupation for children that occupational therapists address. The benefits of participation include emotional well-being, life satisfaction, building friendships, psychological benefits and positive effects on overall health and development (Law, Petrenchik, King, & Hurley, 2007). Compared to their typically developing peers, children with disabilities are at an increased risk for decreased participation (Law et al., 2007). An expedited scoping review of the literature revealed key supports and critical barriers that impact the frequency and quality of social participation for children with disabilities. Children with disabilities and their families experiencing these barriers with resultant decreased levels of …

Making Sense Of Sensory Processing: A Pilot Program For Parents And Teachers Educating The Use Of Sensory Intervention In Pediatric Occupational Therapy, Kelsey Kinnare

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Problem: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) it is estimated that 1 in 68 children have an identified Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). It was found that greater than three quarters of children with ASD also have significant symptoms of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD Foundation, n.d.). One commonly used intervention approach for this population stems from the Sensory Integration frame of reference. Ayres “developed the sensory integration theory to explain the relationship between deficits in interpreting sensation from the body and environment and difficulties with academic or motor learning” (Bundy …

Pep Talks: Partnerships For Educational Planning Talks, Audra Sitterly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The PEP TALKS: Partnership for Education Planning Talks was an addition to the programs already offered at Butler County Children’s Center (BCCC). The goals of this program were to increase ease with transition for families from Early Intervention to Preschool Special Education services, to increase the advocacy material parent educators provide to parents of children birth to three transitioning out of early head start programs, and to increase parent understanding, satisfaction, and participation with the IEP process. In order to accomplish these goals, educational materials were developed and presented to parents in individual and group settings, and current parent educators …

Self Care Among Filipino Immigrants In The United States Who Have Hypertension, Emerson E. Ea

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hypertension (HTN) is a leading risk factor in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke—two major causes of mortality and morbidity in the United States (US)—across all racial and ethnic groups, including Filipino immigrants. The results of early and recent studies that explored HTN among Filipinos in the US have consistently revealed a prevalence rate that is highest among Asian Americans. There is also evidence in the literature that indicates this population’s sub-optimal control and management of HTN when compared with other Asian American subgroups. Despite this reported alarming information about HTN for this population, there is a noticeable …

Perception And Language: Using The Rorschach With People With Aphasia, V. Terri Collin Dilmore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the use of the Rorschach with eight individuals diagnosed with mild to moderate fluent or non-fluent types of aphasia to consider the extent to which the Rorschach captured aspects of language impairment not otherwise probed by traditional neurolinguistic measures. A ninth participant, with Wernicke’s aphasia, produced non-scorable responses and was therefore left out of all analyses. Of primary interest was whether the Rorschach, historically understood as a projective psychological instrument, would allow individuals living with language impairment to recognize, retrieve and coherently express words that reflected their thoughts. At the same time, this study sought to explore …

Social Dimensions Of Alzheimer’S Disease Among Caregivers In Oaxaca, Mexico, Jonathan Yahalom

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation provides an analysis of the social construction of Alzheimer’s disease within Teotitlán del Valle, a rural Zapotec-speaking community in Oaxaca, Mexico. It explores how Alzheimer’s disease is locally understood, how this understanding reconfigures traditional meanings of old age, and how broader social issues are negotiated through this reconfiguration. Through 10 months of fieldwork this dissertation draws on ethnographic observations and interviews with 22 family caregivers across 9 households. This study is noteworthy for being the first known investigation in Teotitlán whose primary data was collected in the Zapotec language. Further, this dissertation integrates methods across psychology, gerontology, and …

Sexual Desire(S) And The Desire For Intimacy: An Autoethnographic Exploration, Nikolaos D. Kiskiras

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sexual desire has traditionally been approached and investigated through reductionist lenses that have usually overlooked its complexity. In the past 150 years, it has mainly appeared articulated within medical and sexological discourses that have actively attempted to demarcate, categorize, and medicalize it. As a result, “healthy” and “pathological” forms of sexual desire have been constructed, whereas the social, cultural, political, and ideological forces that structure and shape it have been largely ignored. Furthermore, the conceptualization of distinct forms of sexual desire has given rise to the construction of equally distinct, ostensibly fixed, “healthy” as well as “pathological,” sexual identities.

This …

Student Engagement And Its Relationship To Mobile Device Ownership And The Role Of Technology In Student Learning, Robin R. Pynos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to explore student engagement and its relationship to mobile device ownership and the role of technology in learning. The primary purpose was to examine if there are overall differences in student engagement between students who use school issued mobile devices and student owned mobile devices for student learning. The study further investigated whether there are group differences in the multidimensional constructs of student engagement based upon device ownership groups. Student engagement was identified as having cognitive, social and emotional dimensions. The secondary purpose of the study was to examine if there are differences in …

Disabling Psychology: A Crip Analysis Of Deaf And Blind Psychotherapists In Practice, Kathryn Irene Wagner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the phenomenological experience of d/Deaf or blind psychotherapists who work with nondisabled clients, seeking to understand the perceived impact of disability on the therapeutic relationship. There is an abundance of research on nondisabled therapists treating disabled clients but only a handful of studies qualitatively considering the disabled therapist’s understanding of practicing in a largely ableist world. Six deaf and eight blind therapists were interviewed for this dissertation. Results were qualitatively analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results were also interpreted through a critical disability studies framework with an eye toward challenging the ableism embedded within traditional research …

Christian Millennials And Christian Symbols In Advertising: Understanding The Effects Of Christian Symbols On Advertising Effectiveness, Arthur Rainer

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

The use of religious symbols in advertising is not novel. For a significant period of time, advertisers have used religious symbols in advertising to appeal to the religions’ respective adherents. However, the research on this particular advertising strategy remains sparse. While some studies have show the effectiveness of religious symbols in advertising, there is very little research on the moderating effect of a symbol’s perceived sacredness and prominence in the ad on perceived attitude similarity, perceived expertise, perceived trustworthiness, and skepticism. Additionally, much research is needed to further understand generational differences among consumers who view advertisements containing religious symbols. This …

The Moderating Role Of Interactional Justice On The Relationship Between Justice And Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Arlene Ramkissoon

HCBE Theses and Dissertations

This research was designed to examine the moderating effect of interactional justice on the relationship between justice constructs and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) with organizational identification as a mediator of the influence of justice perceptions on OCB. This study was based heavily on social exchange, the norm of reciprocity, and psychological contracts between individuals and their supervisors. The study sample was comprised of respondents drawn from a crowd sourcing internet website (N = 250). Niehoff and Moorman’s Organizational Justice Scale was used to measure justice perceptions. Mael and Ashforth’s Organizational Identification Scale was used to measure the degree of the …

Bioactive Compounds From Aquilalia Crassna, Garcinia Gracilis And Hydnocarpus Ilicifolia With Antioxidant, Dna Protective And Α-Glucosidase Inhibitory Activities, Chonlakan Supasuteekul

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Phytochemical study of the leaves of Aquilaria crassna Pierre ex Lecomte (Thymelaeaceae) led to the isolation of three major constituents, namely, genkwanin 5-O-β-primeveroside, iriflophenone 3,5-C-β-D-diglucoside and iriflophenone 3-C-β-D-glucoside. The leaves of Garcinia gracilis Pierre (Clusiaceae) yielded 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furaldehyde, vanillic acid and apigenin-8-C-α-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1→2)-β-D-glucopyranoside. The fruits of Hydnocarpus ilicifolia King (Achariaceae) afforded five compounds, namely, chrysoeriol, schweinfurthinol, luteolin, luteolin 5,3'-dimethyl ether and D-pinitol. Their structures were determined by an analysis of spectroscopic data (NMR and HR-ESI-MS) and comparison with previously reported data. Each of these compounds was evaluated for its antioxidant activity using DPPH and superoxide anion radical scavenging assays. Iriflophenone 3-C-β-D-glucoside from …