The Use Of Video Modeling With Older Learners With Autism Spectrum Disorder To Increase Adl Skill Acquisition: A Systematic Review, Marianne Feliciano

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong condition that can significantly impact functional independence across the lifespan. Although video modeling is an evidence-based intervention shown to improve adaptive and daily living skills in children and young adults with ASD, its effectiveness for adults aged 40 years and older remains unclear. This systematic review examined the existing literature on the use of video modeling to increase daily living (ADL) skills and independence among older adults with ASD. A systematic review of PsychINFO via EBSCO was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. Of 578 records initially identified, 20 full-text articles were assessed for …

(The) Invisible Threads: Portraiture, Memory, And Relational Endurance, Behnaz Ghasempour

Masters Theses, 2020-current

(The) Invisible Threads is an MFA thesis investigating how invisible interpersonal bonds, collective traces, and communal endurance can be made perceptible through drawing, material, and immersive installation. Drawing from my lived experience as an Iranian woman who has witnessed everyday constraint, collective uprising, and migration, the project asks how the presence of others continues to inhabit the body and shape identity even in conditions of separation and distance. Large-scale self-portraits, layered with other faces on transparent fabrics, copper plates, and stitched threads, position the artist’s own body as a site where personal and collective histories converge, allowing the self to …

An Exploration Of The Experiences Influencing The Trajectory Of Black Women Mid-Level Managers Into Senior-Level Administration At Predominantly White Institutions, Christine Hampton Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored the experiences of Black women in mid-level, non-faculty management roles at public Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) in the Southeastern United States, with a focus on how these experiences influence their pathway into senior-level administrative positions. Grounded in Black Feminist Thought, the research utilized narrative inquiry to center the voices of Black women, recognizing their lived experiences as valuable and often underrepresented sources of knowledge in higher education leadership literature. Three research questions guided the study: (1) What experiences do Black women consider the most significant in their trajectory from mid-level manager to senior-level administrator at Predominantly …

Reconciliation: An Auditory Exploration Of Redemptive Suffering, Emily Eid

MFA in Visual Art

Reconciliation examines the intersection between chronic pain, Catholic theology, and contemporary sound art through the lens of radical honesty. It documents a dramatic aesthetic and spiritual pivot in my art practice, moving from grotesque, abject portrayals of agony to a hopeful representation of redemptive suffering. I share how the project evolved from an installation of anthropomorphic furniture to a sculptural work using my bed, to an audio piece presented in a semi-private “confessional booth,” all while challenging the misconceptions surrounding chronic pain and disability. Utilizing the theories of Roland Barthes, I break down the semiological and authorial aspects of the …

Vietnamese American Anti-Imperialism: South Vietnamese History And Analysis Of Publications Pre-1975, Jeannie Nguyen

Master's Theses

During the Vietnam War, citizens contested US imperialism at multiple levels. In South Vietnam, citizens published newspapers and magazines to challenge their government and expose the depth of US aggression in South Vietnamese society and culture. Inside the imperial core, Black, Chicano, and Asian American activists formed solidarities to resist the war and challenge racial inequality. At the intersection of imperialism inside and outside its borders, lies a group of South Vietnamese students and scholars who became American, migrating during the war via state-structured projects. However, in response to the heightening of war and drawing inspiration from their ‘Third World’ …

What Are You?: The Impacts Of Salient Relationships And Monoracist Experiences On Multiracial Individuals’ Well-Being, Annika E. Duquet

Doctoral Dissertations

The multiracial population is one of the fastest growing groups as interracial partnerships continue to rise (Lee, 2008). This dissertation focused on multiracial Indian and white individuals and explored the processes of developing one’s identity and social relationships through identifiable experiences. The adult participants, located throughout the United States, recalled experiences from throughout their life that they encountered with peers, family members, community members, romantic partners, and other systems of support. Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology, the research questions guiding the study were: 1) What are the ways in which salient relationships affect an Indian and white individual’s meaning-making …

Impact Of Travel Time To Health Facilities On Perinatal Outcomes: A Systematic Review With Narrative Synthesis And Meta-Analysis, Sanam Roder-Dewan, Marwa Ramadan, Paul Ouma, Alexander Manu, Emelda A. Okiro, Natalie Strobel, Bibian N. Robert, Emily Odipo, Peter M. Macharia, Anthony Danso-Appiah, David C. Goodman, Queen Dube, Gagan Gupta, Hema Magge, Karen Edmond

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: Evidence-based global guidance on safe travel time for small or sick newborns who require transfer to health facilities after birth is lacking. A two-hour threshold is frequently cited in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), while 30 minutes is commonly used in high-income countries (HICs). Although these thresholds are widely referenced, their empirical basis and consistency across levels of newborn care and journey types have not been systematically examined. This study synthesises the evidence linking travel time and perinatal outcomes. Methods: We conducted a systematic review with narrative synthesis and meta-analysis to assess the impact of travel time or distance …

A Qualitative Content Analysis Of Research On Principal Internship And Residency Design, Stephen Vanderford

Theses and Dissertations

Principal preparation programs continue to demonstrate variation in internship structure, mentoring quality, and alignment between field-based experiences and the complex demands of school leadership. Although national research emphasizes immersive, year-long clinical practice, internship expectations remain inconsistent across preparation programs. This capstone project synthesizes research identifying essential components of educational leadership internship and residency experiences. The purpose of this study is to examine exemplary content, instructional strategies, and mentoring practices associated with high-quality internship and residency models. Guided by the Talent Development Framework and informed by the PSEL, the study examines how internship structure, experiential learning, and mentoring processes align with …

Exploring The Effect Of Students' Exclusionary Discipline On Their Academic Achievement In A Rural High School., Danya Turner

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the extent to which exclusionary discipline practices, specifically in-school suspension and out-of-school suspension, are associated with academic achievement among high school students. More specifically, the study investigated the relationship between students’ exclusionary discipline days and performance on Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) assessments in Algebra I, Biology, English II, and U.S. History. The study was guided by the Opportunity to Learn (OTL) framework, which emphasizes the importance of access to instructional time for student academic success. Archival discipline and assessment data were collected from a rural public high school in east-central …

Bridging The Gap: Implementing A Modified Pacing Guide For Students 2-3 Grade Levels Behind In An Accelerated Program, Crystal T. Tyson

Theses and Dissertations

Accelerated secondary programs serving students performing two to three grade levels below proficiency often operate within compressed instructional timelines aligned to state accountability requirements. However, limited research examines how state-level policy structures influence district pacing practices within these settings. The purpose of this capstone study is to examine how accountability frameworks shape district pacing implementation and how pacing compression affects instructional flexibility for accelerated learners. Guided by a policy-to-practice conceptual framework linking state accountability systems, district pacing structures, and instructional impact, the study addresses three research questions focused on (a) policy influence on pacing design, (b) structural implications of pacing …

Beyond English: Auditing And Mitigating Cross-Lingual Data Contamination In Multimodal Large Language Models, Pavan Dharma Adapa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis extends data contamination auditing for multimodal large language models to multilingual settings. Using LLaVA 1.5 and a high-fidelity French parallel dataset derived from ScienceQA, the study evaluates how performance changes when identical image-question pairs are translated from English to French. The resultsshow a substantial cross-lingual performance decline and frequent flips from correct English predictions to incorrect French predictions, indicating that benchmark performance can depend heavily on memorized English-specific patterns rather than stable multimodal reasoning. To address this weakness, the thesis introduces an inference-time mitigation strategy based on perturbation ensembling and cross-lingual consistency aggregation. The proposed method reduces instance-level …

Enhancing Professional Development Opportunities For Mississippi Early Childhood Education Technology Students, Sheri H. Anders

Theses and Dissertations

This capstone project examined professional development opportunities for early childhood students enrolled in Early Childhood Education Technology (ECET) programs in Mississippi. Grounded in Situated Learning Theory and aligned with the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Professional Standards and Competencies, this study used a desk-based systematic literature review to examine how ECET students engage in professional development during preparation, how standards-aligned experiences support preparedness and professional identity development, and what barriers limit access to meaningful opportunities. Findings indicate that professional development during preparation is often informal and inconsistent; however, participation in professional communities such as conferences, coaching, …

Institutional Predictors Of Overall Retention And Graduation Rates For Black Male Students At Public Two-Year Colleges In The Southeastern United States, Jonathan Larry Armstrong

Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative, cross-sectional, non-experimental study examined institutional characteristics associated with retention and graduation outcomes at public two-year colleges in the Southeastern United States. Using data from the Fall 2023 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the study analyzed institutional student–faculty ratio, core expenditures per full-time equivalent (FTE) student, and academic support expenditures per FTE as predictors of institutional full-time fall-to-fall retention rates for all students and 150% graduation rates for Black male students. Descriptive statistics indicated substantial variation across institutions in spending and student outcomes. Simple linear regression analyses revealed no statistically significant relationships between student–faculty ratio or core expenditures …

The South Got Somethin' To Say!: Black Student Affairs Professionals Sustaining Equity Work Amid Dei Dismantling, Jaborius D. Ball

Theses and Dissertations

Scholarship within the academy extensively interrogates the realities of Black faculty but neglects the lived experiences of Black Student Affairs Professionals (BSAPs). This omission renders BSAPs labor and experiences institutionally invisible while reinforcing the narrative of equity work being a racial obligation pushed on Black professionals rather than institutional responsibility. Although representing 15% of the higher education workforce, this gross percentage is disproportionately concentrated in lower-paying, non-exempt staff positions (e.g., service, office/clerical) rather than in decision-making authority (CUPA-HR, 2025). Despite structural marginalization and inconsistencies, institutions rely on Black professionals to bear the brunt of racialized equity labor work classified as …

An Evaluation Of Mississippi’S Policy For Identifying And Exiting Targeted Support And Improvement (Tsi) And Additional Targeted Support And Improvement (Atsi) Schools, Christopher A. Burrow

Theses and Dissertations

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify schools for improvement based on overall performance and the performance of student subgroups. While substantial research has examined CSI schools, limited attention has been given to state policies governing the identification and exit of TSI and ATSI schools. This project evaluates Mississippi’s policy for identifying and exiting TSI and ATSI schools to determine whether the system appropriately identifies underperforming subgroups, promotes sustained improvement, and aligns with ESSA's equity-focused intent. Guided by the policy analysis triangle framework, the study employed a desk-based secondary data analysis of Mississippi’s publicly available state and …

British Subjects "Of Ye Jewish Religion": The Negotiated Identities Of The Levy-Franks Family, Laura Miriam Drake

Theses and Dissertations

Through a series of determined choices over sixty-five years, the Levy-Franks family blended their religious identity as Jews with their claimed British socio-political identity to achieve economic success in eighteenth-century colonial New York. Through colonial records, newspapers, legal petitions, portraits and, most significantly, the letters of Abigaill Levy Franks, this dissertation examines the family’s actions taken to create a blended identity, despite the potential threat that their participation in the broader British Atlantic world posed to their religious selves. During a time in British history when religious identities were at the forefront of political debate, the Levy-Franks family created a …

Evaluation And Mitigation Of Bias And Toxicity In Open-Source Large Language Models Using Crows-Pairs And Bold, Sai Harika Gade

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis evaluates bias and harmful language generation in five open-source language models and tests practical mitigation methods that do not require retraining. Two masked models are assessed with a sentence-pair benchmark for stereotype preference, and three generative models are assessed with a prompt-based benchmark for harmful continuations across demographic domains. The study uses a unified experimental workflow to compare model behavior, summarize differences across bias categories, and measure changes after intervention. Results show that the masked models favor stereotypical content above a random baseline, while the generative models usually produce low average toxicity but still show uneven risk across …

Exclusionary Disciplinary Composition Outcomes: Schools With High African American Enrollments And Schools With Low African American Enrollments, Darrell A. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Racial disparities in exclusionary disciplinary outcomes remain consistently documented across United States public schools, with African American (AA) students disproportionately represented in in-school suspension (ISS) and out-of-school suspension (OSS) outcomes. The purpose of this quantitative comparative study was to examine whether statistically significant differences existed between (a) the percentage of students receiving ISS who were AA and (b) the percentage of students receiving OSS who were AA in selected Mississippi public high schools with high AA enrollment (≥70%) and low AA enrollment (≤30%) during the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 academic years. The study utilized archival, publicly available, school-level discipline and enrollment …

Accelerating Defensive Cyber Operations Via Unsupervised Log Clustering And Automated Regex Template Synthesis, Charles Matthew Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Modern Security Operations Centers (SOCs) ingest millions of log entries per day, but manual parsing does not scale to the volume, heterogeneity, and rapid evolution of log formats. This dissertation investigates whether unsupervised clustering can automate the generation of candidate field-extraction templates while remaining deployable in production and feasible under realistic runtime and memory constraints. The central research question asks whether a machine-learning-assisted pipeline that proposes extraction templates for security engineer review—relative to reproducible human-authored baselines such as hand-written regular expressions—can measurably improve rule-set deployability and corpus-scale extraction quality. Improvement is quantified using four applicability metrics: Coverage Rate (CR), Exclusive …

A Pedagogically Effective Conceptual Framework For The Resilience Of Unit Test Suites To Refactoring, Daniel Paul Knight

Theses and Dissertations

Unit test suites are intended to support safe and efficient source code refactoring, yet in practice they can hinder rather than help when tests are tightly coupled to implementation details. Such non-resilient tests require frequent co-evolution, consume valuable engineering time, and may disincentivize beneficial code improvements. While concepts such as passive and active resilience, test smells, and technical debt have been studied individually, they have not been integrated into a single actionable framework, nor has their pedagogical value been systematically evaluated. This dissertation introduces a novel conceptual framework for the resilience of unit test suites to refactoring, grounded in resilience …

Body Swaps, Prophetic Dreams, And The Angel Of Destruction: Agency And Narration In Mary Shelley’S Short Stories And Revisions To Frankenstein, Meg Mcdougal

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates Mary Shelley’s later bibliography, focusing on several of her short stories published around the 1831 revisions to Frankenstein. This study investigates Shelley’s techniques to present the agency of each of her protagonists through various techniques of narration, including points of view, methods of storytelling, and usage of voice. Comparing three of Shelley’s short stories creates a throughline of agency and narration in tandem with the presence of the supernatural, and this throughline can be found exclusively in the 1831 edition of Frankenstein. Through this examination, Shelley’s later edition of her most famous work can be looked at …

Creative Media Production Curriculum Design, Development, And Implementation For Undergraduate Programs, Christopher P. Misun

Theses and Dissertations

This capstone explores the limited availability of structured, production-focused creative media education within the examined institutional context, despite increasing student interest and industry demand. The aim of this study is to design a research-based undergraduate Creative Media Production (CMP) curriculum that aligns with institutional needs, industry standards, and evidence-based teaching practices. The study utilizes a conceptual framework combining constructivist learning theory, Understanding by Design, Project-Based Learning, High-Quality Project-Based Learning, and the ADDIE instructional design model. The research questions investigate how curriculum design and teaching methods prepare students for professional creative media production education. Using a qualitative, design-based approach, data are …

Our Home Away From Home? A Transnational Intersectional Exploration Of Colorism And Group Identity Among Black Surinamese Dutch People, Ashley Melcherts

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I explore the influence of colorism on Black Surinamese Dutch group identity formation. Through a transnational intersectional lens rooted in Black feminism, I examine the role of colorism in the formation of group identity of Black Surinamese Dutch people. I also examine gendered aspects of colorism. Data for this dissertation come from virtual and face-to-face semi-structured in-depth interviews I conducted with 25 Black Surinamese diaspora members in the Netherlands, one Black Surinamese diaspora member in Spain, and one Black Surinamese diaspora member in the United States. Interviews reveal how Black Surinamese Dutch people negotiate colorism coming from …

Exploring Teacher Efficacy:Teaching Practices And Strategies To Enhance Student Success, Terilyn Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Through interviews with a diverse group of educators across grade levels and subject areas, the researcher explored teachers’ lived experiences focused on their instructional efficacy and teaching practices influencing student success. Guided by Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, the purpose of the study was to examine how teachers’ beliefs in their instructional capabilities shaped their classroom practices. The researcher analyzed participants’ narratives using a thematic analysis approach to identify recurring patterns and themes related to instructional practice, professional beliefs, and classroom experiences. Participants represented varying years of teaching experience, content areas, and school contexts, providing a comprehensive perspective on instructional efficacy across …

Students’ College Choice: Factors Influencing The Decision To Attend A Particular College, Miss Thompson Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

Community colleges play a vital role in expanding access to higher education by offering affordable and flexible opportunities for diverse learners, including many who face academic and socioeconomic challenges. This qualitative phenomenological study examined the factors that influence high school seniors' decisions to attend a particular college. Guided by Hossler and Gallagher's (1987) three-stage college choice model of predisposition, search, and choice, the research explored how students gather information; the influence of family, peers, and school personnel; and the importance of college characteristics such as cost, location, and campus environment. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with ten high school …

Inclusion On The Margins: Exploring Multicultural Education In Predominantly White Areas, Suparna Bagchi

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

At a time when the Western world is facing major sociocultural and geopolitical turbulence through far-right and anti-immigration protests, it has become even more important to practise multicultural education. This is particularly pertinent in unique topographies that remain predominantly White, despite experiencing an increase in their global majority populations. This article is based on a doctoral study that explored teachers’, parents, and students’ experiences and understanding of multiculturalism in mainstream primary schools in an under-researched geographical location in southwest England. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with adult participants, students’ classroom activities, field notes, and classroom and corridor displays. This …

Liquid-Phase Chemical Melting Deposition For Anchored Nanoparticle–Nanofiber Architectures, Hiep Pham, Kiernan O'Boyle, Gracie Boyer, Jonghyun Park

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We report chemical melting deposition (CMD), a manufacturing strategy designed to overcome the low mass loading and weak interfacial bonding inherent to vapor-based synthesis. Unlike conventional vapor routes, CMD leverages a transient liquid-phase transfer (TLPT) mechanism driven by the differential thermal degradation of carrier fibers to transfer and anchor nanoparticles directly onto target fibers. This process thermodynamically drives the wetting and interfacial fusion of nanoparticles, establishing a liquid-phase contact pathway that enables markedly higher active material loading. To validate the structural resilience of this fused architecture against extreme volumetric stress, we utilized lead oxide (PbO) as a model system, which …

Cultivating Confidence And A Habitus Of Ex Corde Prayer Among The Baptized, Abigail Reynolds

Master of Art Theology Thesis

Reynolds, Abigail C. “Cultivating Confidence and a Habitus of Ex Corde Prayer Among the Baptized: Encouraging Ex Corde Prayer Among the Baptized as Part of Diaconal Soul Care.” M.A. thesis, Concordia Seminary, 2026. 77 pp.

Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions abound with encouragement to pray, describing prayer as communication between children and their heavenly Father. Yet, for many parishioners in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, praying ex corde prayers aloud with other Christians (family or friends) causes anxiety and is not a common practice. This thesis examines the Lutheran teaching that prayer is based in baptismal identity as God’s child and …

Multiple Intracranial Aneurysms: An International Consensus Statement, Stavropoula Tjoumakaris

Department of Neurosurgery Faculty Papers

Introduction: Multiple intracranial aneurysms (MIAs) pose diagnostic and therapeutic challenges, and widely used rupture-risk scores have not been validated for this subgroup. Research question: To develop expert-based recommendations for the diagnosis, rupture-risk assessment, treatment selection, and follow-up of patients with MIAs. Material and methods: A modified Delphi process was conducted. After topic generation from the literature, iterative questionnaires were administered anonymously online to invited experts. Consensus was prespecified as ≥70% agreement. Twenty-six of 35 invitees (74.3%) completed the survey. Results: Consensus identified the ruptured lesion in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) using computed tomographic angiography (CTA) and 3D rotational digital subtraction …

Miss Ogilvy Does Not Find Herself: The Repression Of Queer Expression Post World War I, Kennedie Krieger

2026 Symposium

World War l was a historical period of intense societal change, and although it brought upon a lot of devastation, there were also groups of people that experienced liberation because of the war. Radclyffe Hall’s short story “Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself” is an example of the ways in which the war offered relief for queer women who had previously been expected to exist within rigid gender roles. Through an uncommon perspective, readers are able to get a sense of the ways in which gendered societal expectations shifted during the war and the positive outcomes this brought about. Although these hopeful …