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College Was A Slap In The Face: Examining The Transition Of Kentucky Appalachian Students Studying Stem At An Urban Institution., Heidi Neal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological qualitative study examines the lived experience of fourteen rural Appalachian Kentucky (AKY) students studying STEM at an urban university. This study seeks to investigate the unique experiences of AKY students transitioning to STEM majors in college and examines the common factors between their transitional experience into college while addressing compounding factors of a rigorous STEM major and a new cultural setting at an urban institution. This study utilizes Schlossberg’s transitional theory as the framework for analysis. Four key themes emerged from this data: a need for a strong support system, academic preparation, university focus on support and interventions, …

Language Ability And Concurrent Predictors Of Pragmatic Communication In Children With Williams Syndrome Or 7q11.23 Duplication Syndrome., Amanda G. Harmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present project examined the language abilities of children with two reciprocal neurogenetic disorders: Williams syndrome (WS), which is caused by a hemideletion of 26 - 28 genes on chromosome 7q11.23, and 7q11.23 duplication syndrome (Dup7), which results from an extra copy of the same 26 - 28 genes. Appraising the language of children with WS and Dup7 helps in understanding the communication difficulties they encounter. There were three research goals. The first was to determine the overall level of language and communication ability as measured by the Children’s Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2; Bishop, 2006) for each syndrome, relative to chronological …

The Green House Nursing Home Model: The Gh Elements And Their Impact On Quality Of Care In Nursing Homes., Deborah Kaminka Niyongabo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nursing homes (NHs) have been described as hospital-like facilities where residents are more likely to experience isolation or abuse. The Green House (GH) model is a type of culture change which focuses on deinstitutionalizing traditional NHs to provide better quality of care and quality of life to NH residents. The two main objectives of this study are: to describe the GH model and its elements and to identify which GH elements impact the quality of care. This study also seeks to identify organizational theories used in the GH analysis. The next objective is to analyze the impact of the GH …

Mitigating Black Claustrophobia: Space, Trauma, And Healing Modalities In The Postcolonial Narrative., Saleema Mustafa Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the space or spaces of blackness and the black body in the United States. This nation was shaped by the institution of slavery, and its greatest legacy is the trauma that still resonates in social structures and spaces complicating the lived experiences of many. The various responses to these traumas are documented in literary form by authors who serve as cultural witnesses. The narratives featured in this research project, collectively and individually, offer a voice to the traumatic plight of individuals in the U.S. who struggle to contemplate and rectify the traumas of this nation’s past. This …

The Ball Is In Your Court: A Phenomenological Study Examining College Athletes With Learning Disabilities And/Or Adhd On College Campuses., Stephanie Thea O'Donnell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Approximately only 1% of scholarly top-tier higher education published research focuses on the experiences of students with disabilities since the passing of the ADA in 1990 (Pena, 2014). Even fewer studies have explored the learning-disabled collegiate athlete experience. The purpose of this emerging phenomenological study is to understand the lived experiences of college athletes with learning disabilities and/or ADHD at NCAA Division 1 FBS institutions, giving voice to the untold stories, and commonalities amongst this population. This study provides findings grounded in student perspective by examining their experiences related to disability disclosure, self-advocacy, and academic support within the college environment. …

Social Media And Fear: Social Media As A Catalyst For Political Fear In The United States., Shane R. White

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract: Using the American National Election Study data from the 2012 and 2016 surveys I explore how social media usage shapes fear. This is likely caused by the nature of social media leading to oversharing of sensationalized articles likely to elicit an emotional and fearful response. My findings suggest first that social media usage has a statistically significant effect on whether they would say they are afraid of a candidate (2012) and how afraid they say they are of the candidates (2016). Second, social media has little effect on economic fear, and may actually make people more hopeful about the …

Analyzing Human Resource Competency Development Through The Lens Of Adult Learning Theory: A Qualitative Case Study On Change Management Competency In A Global U.S.-Based Firm., Angela K. Jorgensen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

HR as a profession has sought to be more strategic in order to address the increasing complexities of the business world, but many find that, in general, it is not happening in practice. Academic research has sought to define a set of competencies to guide the work and development of HR professionals; specifically, managing organizational change is one of the recommended core competencies. The extant literature suggests that there is a gap in the formal learning higher education offerings for HR professionals to be able to develop the set of knowledge, skills, and abilities required to be proficient in organizational …

Job Satisfaction For Individuals With Disabilities: Youth One Year Out., Katherine Michelle Cooper Phd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Even though there have been decades of research, practice, and legislative efforts in the field of secondary transition, it is believed that students with disabilities are still less likely to enroll in postsecondary education or training, secure competitive employment, and live independently than their nondisabled peers. One of the reasons for this might be the lack of understanding students’ perceptions of employment opportunities. Much of the early vocational legislation focused on the needs of adult workers injured during a war or in civil employment. The last iteration of the Rehabilitation Act in the 1990s described disabilities, even the most significant …

Predicting Dental Student's Performance On National Board Dental Examination (Nbde) Part I: Exploring Demographic Factors, Dental Admission Test (Dat) Factors, Pre-Program Academic Factors, And Dental Program Academic Performance., Wei-Shao Lin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dental students need to successfully challenge a national licensure examination to be able to practice dentistry. Dental educators currently have difficulty in identifying candidates who are at risk of failing this examination. This non-experimental quantitative study examined existing dental student data from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 graduating classes, using a retrospective and correlational approach to identify possible markers for at risk students. Demographic factors, dental admission test (DAT) factors, pre-program academic factors, dental program academic performance, and National Board Dental Examination (NBDE) Part I performance. A series of independent t-tests and One-Way analysis of variances (ANOVAs) were used to …

External Homophobia And Outness In Gay Men., Thomas Charles Isaak Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prior studies regarding outness among gay men have often focused on internalized homophobia as a barrier to coming out for gay men, while less emphasis has been placed on external homophobia. Drawing upon social construction theory and Connell’s hierarchy of masculinity, I utilize data from the 2010 Social Justice Sexuality Project to complete an ordinary least square regression to examine the impact of external homophobia on the level of outness among the 987 gay men in this study. In this study, I find that gay men who were exposed to external homophobia reported decreased levels of outness. Further, I find …

The Defeathered Bird: A Case Study Of The Boeing 737 Max Crisis, Ernest Eshun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On April 10, 2019, a global crisis began outside Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. A Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane owned and operated by Ethiopian Airline crashed in the desert killing all on board. The accident mimicked a six months old Lion Air flight 610 which happened in Indonesia and claimed the lives of all crew and passengers. Together, these accidents claimed the lives of 346 people and have been noted as one of the dark days in modern aviation history. Subsequently, the aviation world grounded all Boeing 737 Max aircrafts amid safety concerns. This brought severe public criticism to Boeing, …

Full Issue Winter Special Issue 12(4) 2020

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

No abstract provided.

I Told You That To Tell You This: Metagaming And Metacognition In The Hybrid Classroom, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This paper theorizes the use of play and gamified methods to foster metacognition, or strategies for learning and learning about learning, in online graduate instruction. In the process, it calls into question the determinism of “serious” games as being the only means of facilitating metacognition. Ultimately, by adopting metagame approaches—that is, approaches based on0 goals and achievements that are external to the game and/or are developed by the players themselves—metacognition can and does occur because students participate in the development of the rewards. Moreover, any metagame feature ultimately becomes a commentary so that an approach based on metagaming offers its …

The Role Of Faculty In Fostering Psychosocial Wellbeing Among University Students, Kelley Wick

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The transition to college represents a major life event, and successfully navigating this shift has implications for students’ psychosocial wellbeing. While there is ample support for the idea that social relationships can facilitate student wellbeing during the transition to college, there is limited understanding of the unique role faculty may play in supporting students. The aim of this study was to determine the relation of faculty support to student wellbeing and self-efficacy, independent of peer support and student level of stress. Additionally, the primary questions were to examine whether self-efficacy mediated the relation of faculty support to student wellbeing, and …

Relationship Between Personal Distress And Aggression Is Moderated By Nucleus Accumbens Volume, Yuan Ta Poh

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Studies into the relationship between empathy and aggression has found that the effect is weak (Vachon et al., 2014). This weak relationship is observed through aspects of empathy interacting with aspects of aggression in different ways depending on the types of empathy and aggression being measured. The present study utilized neuroimaging approach to examine the relationship among empathy, aggression and nucleus accumbens (NAc) volume. Forty nine college students underwent magnetic resonance imaging scans and completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index as well as the Reactive-Proactive Questionnaire. Using FreeSurfer, bilateral NAc volumes were obtained for statistical analysis. Hierarchal regression analyses were utilized …

The Influence Of Proximal And Distal Familial Factors On Preschool Children's Inhibitory Control And Social Emotional Skills, Amy Encinger

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Children in the United States experience higher rates of poverty than any other age group, including elderly adults and the poverty rate of young children (0-5 years) is considerably higher than that of older children (Proctor et al., 2016). There is an extensive body of research examining familial socioeconomic status (SES) and the influence on the skills and behaviors of young children; however, common key indicators of family SES may not fully depict the ways in which children living in poverty/low-income homes are influenced by economic disadvantage. The focus of the current study is to explore the ways in which …

The 2019 P-Mig Student Survey Report And Capturing The Undergraduate Perspective Of Physiology Programming, Jennifer Rogers, Jenny L. Mcfarland, Claudia I. Stanescu, Patrick L. Crosswhite, Anne R. Crecelius

Health and Sport Science Faculty Publications

The aim of the 2019 Student Survey was to inform the Physiology Majors Interest Group (PMIG) of characteristics of undergraduates enrolled in physiology courses or degree programs from across the United States, to be used as one input source for development of program-level guidelines. 1389 participants from seven universities completed the 2019 P-MIG Student Survey. 37% reported enrollment in a physiology/human physiology major; allied health related programs were the second most common (24%). 61% of respondents reported attending a community college, the majority of whom enrolled in one or more courses at a community college while in high school (44%). …

The Role Of Culture In The Transfer Of Training, Corinne Brion

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Organizations interested in raising their performance and results spend large sums of money on training their employees, but unless the resultant learning is transferred to the work situation, that investment will not yield a return. This study's initial premise is that national cultures may play a part in the transfer process. The study’s purpose is to identify national cultural factors which may influence training and learning transfer. Leadership trainings among school leaders in Ghana and Burkina Faso, West Africa were observed and recorded using Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov’s (2010) Six Cultural Dimensions model as a framework of analysis. Some cultural …

Empathy And Community In The Age Of Refugees: Petzold’S Radical Translation Of Seghers’ Transit, Margarete Landwehr

Languages & Cultures Faculty Publications

Petzold’s film constitutes a radical translation of Seghers’ novel by transforming her tale of political refugees in Vichy France into an existential allegory depicting the fluidity of identities and relationships in a globalized world. The transitory existence of Petzold’s war refugee serves as an extreme example of the instability of modern life, which allows spectators to identify and empathize with migrants’ unpredictable journeys. Moreover, the director conveys the universality of his protagonist’s story by portraying him as an Everyman bereft of distinctive personality traits, by intermingling the past (Seghers’ plot) with the present (contemporary settings), and by situating his experiences …

Examining The Overlooked Complexities Of School Lunch: An Investigation Into The Juncture Of Food, Schooling, And The Developing Adolescent, Eleanor Kane

Doctoral Dissertations

School lunch is a universal experience for students everywhere and yet remains largely understudied by educational researchers. This dissertation explores school lunch through the lens of adolescent identity theory, with the purpose of investigating the unarticulated and overlooked complexities inherent in the lunch block, from issues of the developing sense of self, to social and cultural meanings surrounding food, and consequences for social reproduction. I used a combination of ethnographic observations and narrative interviews at a rural New England high school, focusing on participants’ daily habits, food practices, and choices during the lunch block. Through this, I established the normative …

White Discipline, Black Rebellion: A History Of American Race Riots From Emancipation To The War On Drugs, Jordan C. Burke

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a comparative analysis of American race riots, within and across historical eras, from Emancipation (1863) to the War on Drugs (1972). I argue that changes in the status of African-American citizenship produced different forms of race rioting. Examining riot events across eras reveals how ethical principles at the core of democracy are undermined in specific socio-historical contexts—especially equality of participation in collective self-governance. Congressional testimony, state-sponsored riot investigations, and archival data indicate that riots have been used historically to structure racial inequality in both political institutions and economic relations. While race riots have proven instrumental in maintaining …

Characterizing Student Engagement In A Post-Secondary Developmental Mathematics Class And Exploring The Reflexivity Between Social And Sociomathematical Norms, David Fifty

Doctoral Dissertations

Traditionally, post-secondary developmental mathematics courses aspire to equip students with mathematical content knowledge needed to succeed in calculus and subsequent STEM courses. The literature shows that this goal alone is insufficient, as the emphasis on content acquisition often comes at the expense of developing higher-order skills such as argumentation, reasoning, and flexibility in mathematics problem solving (Chiaravalloti, 2009; Partanen & Kaasila, 2014; Star et al., 2015). Redesigning curricula with these additional objectives in mind requires providing students with opportunities to engage with mathematics in ways that may contrast with their past experiences or expectations. It requires changing patterns of classroom …

Paid Family Leave & The Media: A Narrative Policy Framework, Nichole Angelic Horn

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

This study seeks to understand how paid family leave laws influence traditional gender roles and stereotypes. The mother homemaker/father breadwinner narrative, a prominent concept within feminist circles, assumes particular gendered roles that include women’s responsibility for unpaid labor within the home. The implications of these gendered roles leave women in an economically disadvantaged position. Given the media’s influence in policy making and function to echo current social values, this study utilizes the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to investigate how the media frames these policies, and whether that framing helps to dismantle traditional gender narratives. This study finds that as these …

College Of Natural Sciences 2020 Year-End Publication, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

This is the inaugural issue of the College of Natural Sciences' year-end publication.

Contents:

[Page] 4 COVID-19 Response
[Page] 6 Student Success
[Page] 8 Faculty Excellence
[Page] 10 Awards and Recognition

Churches Can Increase Membership Among Millennials And Generation Z By Using Social Media, Deja Erin Mcghaw

Theses

This project examines how churches can increase membership among Millennials and Generation Z on social media. The final deliverable is a 45-minute webinar offering tips for churches to create effective and relevant content online. This webinar will be housed on a website created called Social Media for Churches. It features many videos and resources to help churches with social media such as trends, recommendations, practical tips, and free tools for content creation. Doc

Exploring The Visual Arts With Rog: A Four-Part Series, Roger Heuberger

Theses

This project report addresses the research which led to the choice of content, formatting of curriculum, delivery system, and video conference management. The combined art appreciation and art history classes are innovative as they are built around high-interest key art events or movements instead of linear chronologies or systematic reviews of art elements. The research for this Thesis II project extended beyond art historical materials. The literature review and analysis additionally explored educational theories which could be adapted for use with the target audiences of 65+ aged seniors and lifelong learners. The original project submitted in mid-2019 was for in-class …

Review Of "Dangerously Divided: How Race And Class Shape Winning And Losing In American Politics" By Z. L. Hajnal, Daniel Laurison

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Participation In Visual And Performing Arts Courses And High School Graduation Rates In New Jersey Public High Schools, Richard L. Celebre

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Emerging issues, including limited financial resources, funding from public sources, and the increasing demand for academic excellence and achievement, are forcing high schools to reassess how current resources are allocated within their institutions. Public schools continue to look to become more efficient and strategic in the allocation of their available resources for promoting academically focused and successful students. The value of programs that are not directly connected to the standardized testing system currently in place, such as arts education, are often overlooked when school districts make their financial decisions. This is problematic because the benefits afforded to students through the …

Characterization Of Age-Associated Copd Progression In The Copd Gene Cohort, Lauryn A. Winter

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive and debilitating lung disease affecting primarily older adults. Incidence, morbidity and mortality from COPD are increasing worldwide. The purpose of this study was to determine the associations between age at baseline and markers of disease progression in COPD patients using data generated by the Genetic Epidemiology of COPD (COPD Gene) study. Participants with COPD were stratified by age (younger: age <65 years, elderly: age ≥ 65 years) and disease characteristics (lung function, exercise tolerance, exacerbation history, and comorbidity burden) at baseline and five-year follow up were compared between groups. Associations between age group and changes in these measures were also assessed. Disease characteristics differed significantly between elderly and younger COPD patients at both study visits. Elderly COPD patients had worse lung function and more comorbidities than younger COPD patients, while younger COPD patients reported more dyspnea and more frequent and severe exacerbations than elderly COPD patients. Following covariate adjustment, elderly participants were less likely than younger participants to develop new frequent exacerbations over the study period (relative risk ratio (95% confidence interval): 0.42 (0.20, 0.87)). There were no other significant associations between age group and markers of disease progression. These results suggest that although elderly COPD patients exhibit evidence of more severe lung function impairment than younger COPD patients, the rate of disease progression is similar between elderly and younger patients. However, further exploration is needed to understand the possible contribution of survivorship bias to this finding. Nevertheless, this study supports the importance of early detection and early intervention to slow disease progression and maximize both life expectancy and quality of life for COPD patients.

Asthma-Copd Overlap Syndrome And Disease Progression In The Copdgene Cohort Study, Caitlyn Winter

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a debilitating and degenerative lung disease characterized by progressive airway obstruction and alveolar destruction. When asthma and COPD co-occur and interact, with asthma having been diagnosed first, the resulting respiratory disease is called Asthma-COPD Overlap Syndrome (ACOS). Current research suggests that persons with ACOS may have more severe respiratory disease and lifestyle limitations than those with either disease alone. The purpose of the current study was to determine if and how disease progression differs in patients with ACOS versus COPD only, using data collected during the COPDGene cohort study. Demographic characteristics and disease outcome …