Digital Commons Network^™

Path Analysis Of Person, Socio-Cognitive, Environmental Factors On International Counseling Students’ Researcher Development, Priyanka Jha

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Counseling and counselor education programs consider researcher development as a core component of professional development, preparing students and scholars to contribute to knowledge and evidence-based practices in the field. Despite this importance, researcher development remains understudied, especially for international graduate students in counseling and counselor education programs. Guided by the Social Cognitive Career Theory framework, this dissertation quantitively examined the impact of person, socio-cognitive, and environmental factors on researcher development for international graduate students. This study was correlational in nature and adopted a cross-sectional survey design. The sample for the current study was 85 international graduate students or recent graduate …

Gaming The System: A Study Of The Effect Of Simulation-Gaming On The Performance Of First-Year Writing College Students, Jen L. Justice

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the impact of digital simulation-gaming on the writing performance of first-year college students enrolled in Northern Illinois University’s First-Year Composition (FYC) program. Using the video game Minecraft as a development platform, the study engaged students in a semester-long simulation where they acted as employees of the NIU admissions office tasked with creating a digital campus map to attract and support students. The project aimed to investigate whether simulation-based learning could enhance students' motivation, foster real-world connections in their writing, and improve academic performance compared to traditional composition courses.

The study involved 115 students across five sections of …

"I Know You're Just Teasing Me!": Investigating 5th Grade Students' And Teachers' Understanding Of Prosocial Teasing, Ourja .

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Children engage in prosocial teasing which is an ambiguous, positive, and humorous social interaction involving the use of intentional provocation and off-record markers to form meaningful relationships and resolve conflicts (Keltner et al., 2001). While research has indicated a significant prevalence of prosocial teasing use among children, limited studies have explored the levels of prosocial teasing use among elementary school students and teachers' ratings of that use (Barnett et al., 2004; Smith et al., 2009). This study aimed at refining an existing child behavior scale to develop a subscale that accurately measured and represented prosocial teasing in elementary school children. …

Exploring School Psychologists’ Sld Decisions For Emergent Bilingual Students, Brooke Ann Butcher

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Emergent bilinguals (EBs) are one of the fastest-growing student populations in K-12 schools, yet research on their evaluation for special education, particularly for specific learning disabilities (SLD), remains limited. School psychologists play a critical role in these evaluations, yet prior studies indicate they often struggle to differentiate between language-based learning difficulties and true learning disabilities. This study examined how school psychologists weigh different evaluation components—background information, progress monitoring data, and standardized test data—when making SLD eligibility determinations for EBs compared to native English speakers. Using an experimental vignette design, 109 practicing school psychologists were randomly assigned to review a student …

Statelessness And The Social Construction Of Rohingya’S Citizenship Rights In Myanmar, Md Imamul Hossain

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The Rohingya’s statelessness is a result of their systematic exclusion from protection mechanisms and citizenship rights. The Burmese government and the majority Buddhist population have marginalized and discriminated against the Rohingya, deeply impacting identity politics among the Rohingya. Due to their lack of a national identity document in Myanmar, the Rohingya are easy targets for discrimination and violence. The fact that they are not considered full citizens has also made it hard for them to receive essential support. My thesis carefully analyzes how dominant narratives, legal instruments, and bureaucratic mechanisms systematically excluded Rohingya from citizenship rights in Myanmar as well …

Roll The Film, Play The Music, Lauren Sutton

Comm-entary

No abstract provided.

The Pussyhat And Performative Activism: What Happens When Protest Becomes Fashionable?, Layla Hanissian

Comm-entary

No abstract provided.

Validation Framework For Robust And Explainable Machine Learning Models In Autism Spectrum Disorder Triage, Ghadeer Ghazi Shayea, Mohd Hazli Mohammed Zabil, A. S. Albahri, Rula A. Hamid, O. S. Albahri, A. H. Alamoodi, Iman Mohamad Sharaf

Mesopotamian Journal of Big Data

The development of real-time triage applications for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a critical challenge due to the rising prevalence of ASD and the urgent need for efficient resource allocation in healthcare systems. Previous studies have applied machine learning (ML) to ASD triage; however, most approaches overlook robustness against adversarial attacks, provide limited benchmarking across multiple evaluation criteria, and lack explainability to support clinical adoption. Building on our earlier work, which introduced a fuzzy evaluation and benchmarking framework using the 2-Tuple Linguistic Fermatean Fuzzy Decision by Opinion Score Method (2TLFFDOSM), this study proposes a comprehensive five-stage validation and evaluation framework. …

A Study Of Pattern Of Cybercrime Abuse Of Individual Internet Users In Umuahia North Lga, Abia State Of South-Eastern Nigeria, Ogochukwu Favour Nzeakor, Rita Ngozi Okafor, Chibuike Ndubuisi Nwoke

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Although a number of studies exist on cybercrime and its abuses, little is known about the pattern of cybercrime abuses individual Internet users experience in Nigeria, especially the south eastern region. Using data collected via various methods, this study examines the pattern of cybercrime abuses of individual Internet users in Umuahia, Abia State, of South Eastern Nigeria. The result of the analysis of 1,067 samples drawn from 223,134 Internet users in Umuahia North LGA of Abia Sate showed that: while most users are victims of stolen ICT-gadgets (19%), fraud related offences (17%), and hacking (15%); they rarely fall victims of …

Beyond The Script: How Theatre Shapes Motivation In Second Language Acquisition, Amaya B. Gattis

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

Motivation is considered a significant factor in second language acquisition, potentially affecting language learners' language acquisition ability (Dörnyei, 1998). This study explored the impact of participating in a theatre experience on language learners’ motivation to learn English during a classroom experience. The main objective of this research was to assess the influence of performing in a short play on adult multilingual learners’ motivation to learn English. A mixed-methodology research design was employed to measure reported motivation levels and observe language development using a pre- and post-treatment questionnaire, field observation, and a semi-structured post-treatment interview model for data collection. The results …

Increasing Access Through Graduate Teaching Assistant Training: A Udl-Informed, Video-Based Professional Development Approach For Inclusive Chemistry Instruction, Kathleen Lugo Charriez

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

STEM courses pose concealed barriers to learning for students with disabilities, a demographic that constitutes a significant portion of postsecondary science and engineering undergraduate student populations. While extensive research has examined access and inclusiveness in K–12 education and, to a more limited extent, in higher education, there remains a critical gap in understanding how to proactively design undergraduate chemistry curricula that are both accessible and inclusive for a diverse range of learners. In particular, limited attention has been given to supporting Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) in adopting inclusive instructional practices in higher education chemistry courses.

In large academic institutions, GTAs …

Exploring Fake News Detection: Unpacking Polarization, Ambiguity, And Associated Neural Mechanisms, Shayna R. Soares

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

A pertinent next step in investigating fake news, is exploring the inherent ambiguity of news headlines through the lens of uncertain decision-making theories. Few studies have done so while investigating the established neural correlates associated with uncertainty in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). A set of three studies was conducted examining the underlying neural mechanisms associated with ambiguity of news headlines, individuals’ polarization, and their decision behavior. Study 1 validated news headlines in terms of ambiguity (1-7 scale). Experiment 1 investigated choice behavior in an uncertain decision task with ambiguous news headlines, while recording activation in the prefrontal cortex using fNIRS. …

Shattering The Glass Ceiling: Comparative Narratives Of Women Leaders In Public Relations In Ghana And The United States Of America, Adriana Kukuwaa Adu

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This study explores the lived experiences of women in public relations (PR) leadership roles in both Ghana and the United States, focusing on the cultural, institutional, and societal barriers that shape their professional journeys. Employing a qualitative research design, the study involved ten women in senior PR positions, five from each country, through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis identified six key themes: institutional barriers and gendered expectations; double standards in leadership communication; the influence of stereotypes; mentorship and support; intra-gender competition; and leadership agency and optimism. Guided by Social Role Theory, Glass Ceiling Theory, Feminist Standpoint Theory, and Transformational Leadership …

Embodied Affliction: Somalis’ Perception Of Trauma, Ahmed M. Hassan

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Somali immigrants and refugees have a high rate of trauma, mainly because of their traumatic experiences during the Somali civil war and subsequent migration. Nevertheless, they do not readily access available psychological services in the countries to which they migrate. Research of the past two decades has revealed that different cultures conceptualize and communicate mental distress differently from one another. Those differences affect how Western mental health providers approach the treatment of clients who immigrate from an unfamiliar culture to Western countries, where the biomedical model of mental health dominates the health care system. Improved cultural awareness and communication between …

Implementing Information Literacy Practices In Curriculum, Ongelle Schroeder

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This literature review explores the value of integrating information literacy instruction into existing curricula, with a focus on collaboration between faculty and librarians. As students face an overwhelming volume of information, equipping them with the skills to navigate, evaluate, and use sources effectively is increasingly essential—especially in course that require source-based writing, research, and critical analysis. The review highlights key approaches and resources to support educators in embedding information literacy into instruction. While this literature review was written for the contexts of ENG 101 and COMM 100/102, its themes are applicable to a wide range of teaching contexts.

Assessing The Accuracy Of Emotion Classification Of Whisper V3: Comparing Performance On Speech Emotion Datasets For Both English And Arabic, Oumaima Khalfi

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation post-2024

This thesis investigates the application of Whisper V3 which is a state-of-the-art, multilingual automatic speech recognition model to Arabic Speech Emotion Recognition (SER). Building on the foundational work of Muhammad Firdho, who adapted Whisper architectures for emotion classification tasks, this study extends his approach to the context of Arabic, a language characterized by rich dialectal diversity, complex morphology, and unique prosodic features.Although Whisper V3 was primarily designed for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), its latent representations appear to capture paralinguistic cues that can be leveraged for emotion classification. Muhammad Firdho laid the basis for this study by showing the ability of …

An Exploration Of Resilience In Native American Older Adults, Georgie Victoria Ferguson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Native American older adults remain underrepresented in psychological research. The unique cohort of participants in this study (born 1924 - 1957) possesses experience and knowledge that can greatly enhance the knowledge base and contribute to the overall understanding of culturally embedded resilience. Participants contributed to the identification of Spirituality and Humor as positive, culturally embedded coping factors through a set of qualitative interviews, and the present study further investigates those specifically identified coping processes using quantitative measures. This research explores how these constructs (measured by the Spiritual Well-Being and Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scales) might counteract (main effect) or buffer …

There's Still Time To, Lily Kip

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There's Still Time To is a body of work composed of 51 photo-derived oil paintings. Each piece illustrates a relational situation which resists straightforward interpretation and generates infinite narrative possibilities. My source images come from my adolescent engagements with smartphone photography and social media, but the painted results are not focused on "photography" as a subject. Instead, I paint the photo to re-tread old memories and old relationships. The ambiguity of each figurative situation reflects the lived experience of relating to others and also serves as an invitation to the viewer who must base any assumptions about the painting on …

Graduate School : Thesis Manual

Academic Affairs – Policy Library

No abstract provided.

White Coats And Scrubs: Bridging The Gaps In Accommodation, Tristan Stauffacher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Effective communication between nurses and physicians is critical for patient safety, yet these interactions often occur within hierarchical structures that can hinder open dialogue and collaboration. This study explores nurse-physician communication through the lens of Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), specifically focusing on how nurses accommodate their communication using the framework’s strategies. Drawing on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with registered nurses, this study identifies key themes including convergence, organizational silence, and maintenance as strategies that nurses engage in. The findings of this study reveal that accommodation choices are not solely motivated by intrinsic goals but can be motivated by external …

The Ai Ensoulment Hypothesis, Brian Cutter

Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers

No abstract provided.

Semantic Think-On-Graph (Semtog) : Enhancing Graphrag Through Semantic Community Detection, Sugam Mishra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Graph-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation (GraphRAG) enhances large language models (LLMs) by grounding their reasoning in structured knowledge graphs, making them more reliable for multi-hop reasoning and factual QA. A central mechanism in Think-on-Graph systems such as ToG[14] and FastToG[7] is community detection, which groups locally related nodes into compact subgraphs so that LLMs can reason over focused, information-rich neighborhoods instead of traversing the entire graph. However, these methods rely purely on structural connectivity, often scattering semantically related entities across different communities and weakening the evidence provided to the LLM. We propose Semantic Think-on-Graph (SemToG), a semantic-aware extension of FastToG[7] that integrates …

Studying Associations Among Mental Health And Psycap In Persons With Stuttering, Jasmine Lydia Selvaraj, James R. Spears, Priscilla Rose Prasath, Gayathri Purushothaman

Counseling Faculty Publications and Presentations

This cross-sectional, psychometric validation and comparative analysis study investigates the associations between mental health and Psychological Capital (PsyCap) in persons with stuttering (PWS; n = 60) and fluent speakers (FS; n = 60), while validating the Tamil translations of the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) and Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ). Exploratory Factor Analyses, Cronbach’s alphas, and item-total correlations were used to evaluate the scales with a sample size of 120 participants. The conducted factor analyses demonstrated that the translated MHC-SF aligns structurally with prior studies, as compared to the PCQ, which diverged in factor loadings. The study also applied Independent …

The "Casserole" Constitution: The South African Constitution And International Law, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

After Courts: Democratizing Statutory Law, Ryan D. Doerfler, Samuel Moyn

Michigan Law Review

In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton argued for locating interpretive authority over law separately from those institutions tasked with formulating it. Hamilton’s vision, never accurate as a description of American practice, has not been credible for a long time. To the extent enormous power is still allocated to judges, our legal institutions have been out of step with our legal theory, which has long regarded them as political actors and policymakers. More practically, every term it is clearer and clearer that the role of the Supreme Court in statutory cases (including checking administrative rulemaking and other processes) is, if anything, …

Family Roots And Research Journal Unm Emeritus Professor José A. Rivera, José A. Rivera Ph.D

Faculty Publications

This article is an abbreviated life narrative of UNM Emeritus Professor of Community and Regional Planning, José A. Rivera. It begins with highlights of his family ancestry and continues with an account of his educational experiences K-12 and into a decade of university life as a student while earning a bachelor’s, two master’s and a doctorate. He taught at UNM for 35 years while also conducting research in his areas of interest, mostly in community irrigation studies, mutual aid societies, and rural development. The main body in the article focuses on positions he held at UNM and on publications that …

Systematic Reexamination Of Early Verb Dominance: Verbal And Nonverbal Characteristics Of Caregiver Input And Their Contribution To Long-Term Language Outcomes, Minju Kim, Jeonghee Mun, Gayoung Kim, Solyeon Jeon, Youngon Choi

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Early language input to infants varies in lexical composition across languages and contexts. For instance, American-English input emphasizes nouns more than verbs, while Mandarin Chinese and Korean inputs provide more verbs than nouns, the difference of which is considered an influential factor in the child’s early vocabulary acquisition. Furthermore, a possibility was raised that nonverbal input accompanying child-directed language provides additional support for verb meanings in verb-dominant caregiver input. However, these early verb dominance and support patterns have been derived from a handful of studies that examined very small samples. Thus, we aimed to systematically reexamine the verb dominance pattern …

The Legal Intersectionality Of English Language Learners And Special Education Students: Ensuring Students Receive Mandated Services, Brett A. Geier

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

Students in the United States are afforded many rights and protections to ensure they receive an appropriate education. Supplemental programs that support academic achievement and social growth are common to eviscerate obstacles and equalize educational opportunities. Students who are disabled and students who qualify as English Language Learners are two categories that are entitled to receive state and federal financial and programmatic support. Despite being discrete programs, they have the potential to intersect so that students can qualify for both programs. For many reasons, though, these potentially dually qualifying students are often misidentified, leaving them underserved. There is a plethora …

Mitochondrial Dna Diversity In West Mexico, Emma Zoiss

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The long-standing movement of people, exchange of goods, and transmission of cultural traits are imprinted not only in the archaeological record but also within the genomes of individuals, making ancient DNA a powerful tool for uncovering past interactions and population dynamics. Despite attempts at systematic research, we are still missing critical information about pre-Columbian Mesoamerican populations in the Aztatlán region. This research will focus on those individuals recovered from archaeological sites located both in the highlands of the Lake Chapala Basin, as well as the coast of the Aztatlán core region. The integration of genetics into our understanding of the …

Pathways And Places: Mobility And Lithic Use At 48ye238 In The Late Archaic And Late Prehistoric Yellowstone, Jacob Q. Wilmoth

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Through the lens of Central Place Foraging Theory, an analysis of lithic remains from 48YE238, a medium to high-density archaeological site in the Hayden Valley of Yellowstone National Park, has provided insight into both material value and decision-making among Late Archaic and Late Prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Hayden Valley. First, an examination of lithic materials and the stages of bifacial reduction, in relation to sourced lithic materials, offers insight into changing ideas of material value between these two periods. This is especially evident when considering the cultural and societal changes that influenced regional residence during the Late Prehistoric period, compared …