Digital Commons Network^™

Community Organizations, Immigrants, And Air Pollution Risks In Utah, Nowrin Fatema, Kirsten Vinyeta, Erin Hofmann

Publications

Over the past 25 years, Utah’s Wasatch Front, a metropolitan region along the Western flanks of the Wasatch Mountain Range that includes Salt Lake City, has emerged as a new international immigrant gateway (1). While in Utah, immigrants may find economic opportunity and safety relative to their home countries, they may also experience notable life-altering disparities, including disproportionate exposure to the region’s worsening air pollution. As some of the first and few institutions interacting with newly arrived immigrants and refugees, non-governmental community organizations are well positioned to serve as information hubs regarding regional air pollution risk. Yet our research, in …

Enhancing Nurse Competence And Self-Efficacy In Delivery Of Medication Education At Discharge: A Quality Improvement Project Using The Teach-Back Method., Quinesia James

Doctor of Nursing Practice Papers

Medication nonadherence in pediatric psychiatric care contributes to worsening symptoms, delayed developmental progress, and increased hospitalizations. Adherence rates remain as low as 30–60%, accounting for up to $300 billion in avoidable healthcare costs annually. Low health literacy and inconsistent education strategies further complicate adherence. This quality improvement project took place on the child and adolescent psychiatric units at the project site, a large teaching hospital in a metropolitan area in the south-central United States, which serves patients aged 5–17 with complex mental health needs. The initiative aimed to improve nurses’ competence, self-efficacy, and time efficiency in delivering medication discharge education …

An Application Of Vocal Pedagogy For Thai Singers, Phitchaya Klimov

Dissertations

Vocal pedagogy incorporates diverse techniques and methodologies that aim to maintain longevity of the voice and to improve vocal performance, range, and tone. While vocal pedagogy has been extensively studied in Western music traditions, its application in the context of Thai singers remains unfamiliar. This dissertation will investigate the application of vocal pedagogy for Thai singers, with a focus on understanding the unique challenges faced by them. It will outline pedagogical approaches to address these challenges and will therefore lead to more authentic performances. “Complete mastery of the voice as an instrument is an idea toward which every singer must …

“We Are Not Robots”: Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Focus Group Talk About Problems Of Practice Around Literacy Instruction, Jacquelynn S. Popp, Carin Appleget, Tori Golden Hughes, Crystal Dail Rose, Christine Leighton, Kierstin M. Giunco, Poonam Arya, Xiufang Chen

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of elementary preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) problems of practice around literacy instruction and to explore how the PSTs framed/talked about such problems. The study comprised qualitative analysis of data collected from focus group interviews with 21 PSTs from five teacher education institutions across the United States. Analysis of the PSTs’ talk about problems of practice in the focus groups yielded three themes about the nature of their problems and how they defined and discussed strategies or solutions to problems. PSTs expressed concerns about (1) meeting the needs of students below expected …

Bootmaking Before Bootstrapping: Patterns Of Grit And Slack In Multicultural Nonfiction Picture Books, Kristine Mensonides Gritter, Wing Shuen (Alice) Lau, Yaru (Sarah) Zhou, Jiang Pu, Munyi Shea

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This investigation reports the findings of a critical multicultural content analysis of recent-award winning Orbis Pictus (non-fiction) picture books. The analysis examines patterns of grit and slack strategies across race and gender for historical characters of color as they overcame boundaries and accomplished long-term goals. Findings suggest that the concept of “grit” is not merely a universal construct of an outstanding individual who lifts themself up by their own bootstraps but that systems are important in allowing an individual to succeed to overcome boundaries. The bootstrap myth can be contested by critical readers, even young readers of picture books, as …

“I Didn’T Understand How Powerful This Could Be”: The Synergy Of Arts-Enhanced Literacy Instruction And Multicultural Literature In A Rural Classroom, Shuling Yang, Natalia A. Ward

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Guided by culturally sustaining pedagogy, this study examined how an elementary language arts teacher engaged with a yearlong project that focused on enhancing literacy instruction through the synergetic power of using multicultural children’s literature combined with arts. The case study conducted in a context with strict policy guidelines on literacy instruction demonstrated the teacher’s growing understanding of how to integrate multicultural children’s literature and arts in her instruction and powerful shifts in her view of students’ potential for empathy and engagement with complex social issues. The discussions of the books and creative artwork made by her students reshaped the teacher’s …

Assessment Of Social Media Use And Strategies For Combating Misinformation Among Extension Educators In Arkansas, Enoch Teye Kwao Ametepey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study assessed the use of social media by Extension educators in Arkansas and examines strategies for identifying and combating misinformation within agricultural extension services. Guided by the Uses and Gratifications Theory, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), and the Third-Person Effect Theory for objectives one, two, and three, this research employed quantitative and qualitative approaches, specifically, two quantitative cross-sectional surveys and a qualitative focus group study developed into a three article dissertation. The first article assessed the extent to which Extension educators utilize social media for professional activities, revealing that social media is predominantly used …

Mitigating Ai Bias With Prompt Augmentation, Verónica C. Gonzales

Faculty Scholarship

Large-language-model (“LLM”) outputs are inevitably shaped by assumptions, biases, and attitudes rooted in racism and other systemic inequities embedded in the civil-law tradition. This Equity-in-Justice CLE focuses on helping civil legal service providers recognize and work to eliminate biases in generative AI outputs through equity-centered prompt augmentation and engineering. These small, cost-free interventions re-orient LLMs assistance toward fairness, cultural competency, and client-centered outcomes. Participants leave with an action plan for embedding anti-bias safeguards in everyday research, drafting, and client communication tasks.

Issue 469: August 2025, The Local Voice

The Local Voice

No abstract provided.

Pathways To Ensure Inclusion Of Coastal Indigenous Communities In The Loss And Damage Fund, Laura De Azevedo Viana

COP30

No abstract provided.

I See Sick People: Beliefs About Sensory Detection Of Infectious Disease Are Largely Consistent Across Cultures, Joshua M. Ackerman, Theodore Samore, Daniel M. T. Fessler, Norman P. Li, Et Al

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Identifying cues to contagious disease is critical for effectively tracking and defending against interpersonal infection threats. People hold lay beliefs about the types of sensory information most relevant for identifying whether others are sick with transmissible illnesses. Are these beliefs universal, or do they vary along cultural and ecological dimensions? Participants in 58 countries (N = 19,217) judged how effective, and how likely they were to use, cues involving each of the five major sensory modalities in an imagined social interaction during a flu outbreak. Belief patterns were strongly consistent across countries (sight > audition > touch > smell > taste), suggesting a largely …

Challenging The Gaze: A Feminist Interpretation Of The S.M.S. Mail Art Collection, Karissa A. Krievins

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In the late 1960s, many people called for radical, immediate change to America’s political, societal, and cultural structures. The artistic practices of the time reflected the social and political realities of the moment and played a crucial role in advocating for change. The title of the 1968 S.M.S. (Shit Must Stop) subscription art portfolios was a bold and urgent call for action, challenging artists and audiences alike to confront the pressing injustices of the era and inspire a collective awakening to the necessity of transformative change across the United States. Despite a fifty-six-year gap, today we are …

"That’S Not A Meal, Bestie”: Humor, Identity, & Feminized Consumption In “Girl Dinner”., Claire Tudor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the viral “Girl Dinner” trend as a case study in how gendered consumption, digital identity, and feminist humor intersect in digital spaces. Using “Girl Dinner” as a rhetorical artifact, this thesis explores how women use gendered trends to navigate visibility, labor, and autonomy in online spaces. Through thematic analysis of TikTok content, media coverage, and branded adaptations, the research traces the evolution of the trend from a lighthearted joke to a site of cultural negotiation. This study reveals that while “Girl Dinner” may appear empowering and relatable on the surface, it often reinforces traditional gender expectations under …

Mental Health Service Utilization Among Arab/Middle Eastern In The Us: Structural Disparities, Digital Access, And Stigma-Related Barriers., Fatima M. Aldarweesh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Arab Middle Eastern (AME) United States (US) college-attending students are more susceptible to disproportionate mental health problems and underutilization of mental healthcare services due to cultural, structural, and psychosocial barriers. The study examines mental health service utilization and mental health outcomes among AME, particularly focusing on the impact of structural, cultural, and psychosocial determinants grounded in Andersen and Aday’s Health Services research model and Corrigan’s stigma framework. The three interconnected aims use secondary nationally representative data from the Healthy Minds Study (HMS) 2019-2024. The study was analyzed using logistic regression and generalized structural equation modeling across three aims to identify …

Incarcerated Women: Gendered Rhetoric From The Outside And Reality Inside Prison Walls., Taylor Riley Geiser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how formerly incarcerated women navigate and resist gendered media portrayals through digital platforms, focusing on the “mad” and “bad” woman tropes that shape public perceptions. Drawing on feminist rhetorical theory—particularly Royster and Kirsch’s methodological practices and Ratcliffe’s concept of rhetorical listening—this study combines Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of mainstream headlines with Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) of TikTok content. CDA of media coverage surrounding Lori Vallow Daybell, Casey Anthony, and Andrea Yates reveals how language, imagery, and cultural logics sustain harmful binaries that portray women who commit crimes either as depraved or as excused by madness, obscuring the …

Pain Acceptance In Chronic Postoperative Pain: Concept Analysis, Sajini M Thekkel, Constance M Johnson, Meagan Whisenant, Deniz Dishman

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: Chronic postoperative pain (CPOP) is a potential outcome of otherwise successful surgery that can persist for months, with its prevalence varied by surgical type, genetic predispositions, and psychosocial factors. Pain acceptance offers better outcomes to these patient populations by fostering a willingness to experience pain without resistance. This analysis examines how pain acceptance contributes to psychological well-being, helps reduce opioid misuse, and enhances quality of life, even in the presence of CPOP.

Design: The concept analysis approach follows Walker and Avant's framework (2019).

Methods: A literature search across PubMed, Web of Science, and CINAHL yielded 276 articles, of which …

Distal Impact Of Learning Trajectories On Motivational Factors In Second Language Acquisition Of Adult English Learners, Feng Zhang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Learning a foreign language is a long-term process sustained by learners’ motivation, self-efficacy, and self-regulation. While prior research has established that past performance influences these motivational factors, overlooking the impact of past performance on current motivational constructs. This dissertation explores how past learning performance impact current motivational factors. Using a person-centered approach, three subgroups were identified as latent learning profiles within the sample population based on their performance features: the high-performing early peak profile, the stable profile, and the rising profile. Regression models were conducted to evaluate the extent to which latent learning profiles predicted motivational variables. The results showed …

Empirical Evaluation Of Bayes Error Rate Bounds In Binary Classification, Riley May

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Classification tasks are fundamental in statistical machine learning. In classification tasks, a general goal is to build or select a model that can correctly classify data with as few errors as possible. However, for a particular dataset, the minimal number of errors achievable is seldom zero since overlap in the data makes errors unavoidable. As a result, it is often difficult for machine learning practitioners and data scientists to know whether classification errors can be reduced through further refinement. A potential solution to this lies in the Bayes error rate (BER). The BER is the lowest error rate achievable for …

"No One Leaves For Free": A Media Analysis Of The Lived Experiences And Cumulative Impacts Of The Flint Water Crisis., Jordan Leigh Gatewood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In April 2014, the city of Flint, Michigan changed their municipal water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The effects of this change have been felt far and wide as news broke across the nation that this water was contaminated with lead and residents of Flint were getting sick. This research analyzes 170 news articles from three local and three national news outlets over a 10-year span, 2014 to 2024, to determine how community voice is presented in news media to portray the lived experiences and cumulative impacts of the Flint Water Crisis. Applying a Critical Environmental Justice …

My Achilles Years., Ash William Bittner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a historically and rhetorically grounded creative project exploring the traumas of war. This project is divided into three broad chapters, each using a different (and relevant) approach to cover the content contained within that chapter. The first chapter relies on that historical grounding, exploring the history of PTSD as it is currently understood, before exploring ancient Greek poetry and theater and both the historical and military contexts for each, before finally discussing modern warfare and the “Forever War” of the American War on Terror that lasted for nineteen years. With the historical grounding set, it moves into …

Is There Something Schools Can Learn From Black Churches?, Samantha Marie Smith

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate and gain meaning of the experiences of families with school aged children and why they trust and value Black churches versus the school education system and if there is anything that schools can learn from roles that Black churches play in families’ lives. The research was guided by the following questions: (1) How do Black churches build relationships with families, consistently and effectively engage children, and teach children? (2) How do schools build relationships with families, consistently and effectively engage children, and teach children? (3) Is there anything that schools can …

Rethinking Health Systems Responsiveness In Low–And Middle-Income Countries, Meesha Iqbal

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Health systems responsiveness (HSR) refers to a health system’s ability to meet legitimate non-health expectations of the population. Traditionally, HSR has been conceptualized across eight domains: respect for dignity, autonomy, confidentiality, prompt attention to health needs, availability of basic amenities, choice of provider, access to social support networks, and clarity of communication. However, as the expectations of populations in high-income countries (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs) differ significantly due to diverse social and cultural contexts, the conceptualization of HSR also varies. We conducted a systematic review of literature to adapt and contextualize the HSR framework for L&MICs based …

Strategies For Early Learners, Second Edition, D.R. Meece

Open Textbooks

Welcome to learning about how to effectively plan curriculum for young children. This textbook will address: Developing curriculum through the planning cycle Theories that inform what we know about how children learn and the best ways for teachers to support learning The three components of developmentally appropriate practice Importance and value of play and intentional teaching Different models of curriculum Process of lesson planning (documenting planned experiences for children) Physical, temporal, and social environments that set the stage for children’s learning Appropriate guidance techniques to support children’s behaviors as the self-regulation abilities mature. Planning for preschool-aged children in specific domains …

Teachers' Perceptions Of High-Quality Instructional Materials In Tennessee Urban Elementary Schools, Christa D. Stewart

Ed.D. Dissertations

Urban schools faced challenges that included limited resources, diverse student populations, and varying levels of student preparedness. I designed this study to better understand the perceptions of urban elementary teachers regarding their perceptions related to the implementation of high-quality instructional materials. For this study, I used a qualitative, interpretive method and collected data through questionnaires and interviews from urban elementary teachers in Tennessee. 24 participants provided data for this research. Due to a gap in existing research related to high-quality instructional materials implementation and support, especially at the foundational elementary level, the purpose of this qualitative, interpretive study was to …

Layered Redactions: An Arts Based Research And Self Study Handbook For Art Teachers Navigating Professional Learning Communities, Audrea M. Danenhauer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This self-study contributes to the field of art education by examining the tensions and possibilities within Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) through an arts-based lens. Framed as both a love letter and a palimpsestic work, this thesis reimagines professional development as a layered, living practice, rooted in collective care and criticality. Using collage as both method and metaphor, the study interweaves Freire’s dialogic praxis, bell hooks’ radical tenderness, and the marginalia of a weathered PLC handbook—redacted, annotated, and reassembled with lived experience. Through deliberate redaction and reassembly, the research intentionally disrupts the normative invisibility of whiteness in educational structures, making visible …

Taming The Wild Tongue Of Frida Kahlo: An Analysis Of Translation As Adaptation In Personal Narratives, Alyse K. Deatherage

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis discusses topics of adaptation and translation theory by looking at the way Frida Kahlo’s diary has been transformed through both adaptation and translations of it in the texts The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait and The Diary of Frida Kahlo: A New Perspective. Scholars have paid much attention to the connections between Kahlo’s diary and her portraits, focusing on artistic critique and the painter’s diary as a drafting space for what eventually became her famous self-portraits. Researchers have also documented Frida Kahlo’s artistic and cultural influences in Mexico and abroad. However, none have addressed the …

Predicting Music Origin With Deep Learning, Fruzsina Ladanyi

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This project explores the usage of a late fusion deep learning architecture to predict the geographic origin of music. Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) and the language of the music sample are used as features. MFCCs were extracted from audio files to capture sound features. The language was identified using OpenAI’s Whisper model to provide additional context. A late fusion neural network architecture combining Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) layers for sequential MFCC input and dense layers for non-sequential language features were employed to support both classification and regression tasks. The classification model achieved an accuracy of 33.03% across 56 countries or …

Internalized Heterosexism Through Intersectionality: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Devon Alexandra Monica Bortfeld

Dissertations

While the impact of LGBQ+ individuals experiencing overt, interpersonal discrimination (i.e., heterosexism) is well-documented, the propensity for stigmatization, invisibilization, and violence to be internalized by LGBQ+ has only recently been examined as a factor contributing to poorer health outcomes. Internalized heterosexism (IH) was defined as the consumption and internalization of negative societal attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs towards homosexuality by LGBQ+ individuals and was linked to multiple forms of psychological distress. However, the methodological and clinical gaps in the research contributed to a clinical utility that was lacking for multiply marginalized LGBQ+ individuals. The purpose of this study aimed to understand …

A Formative Evaluation Of A Combined Reading And Emotional-Behavioral Intervention, Katlyn Fowler Frey

Dissertations

The current study is a formative evaluation of an intervention that combined reading instruction with exposure therapy strategies, with the goal of teaching avoidant readers how to engage with learning through their own volition. The purpose of the current study was to assess the potential efficacy of a reading intervention with an emotional-behavioral adaptation on reading and emotional-behavioral outcomes. Specifically, the researcher sought to determine whether the adapted intervention could improve readers’ reading achievement, reading self-efficacy, and reading-related emotions at a faster rate than treatment as usual. Additionally, teachers of the participating readers were surveyed for social validity purposes. The …

Cultural Considerations And Efficacy Of Mindfulness-Based Practices For Hispanic/Latinx Immigrant Youth In Schools: A Systematized Review, Lisandra Artiles Suarez

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have gained attention as promising tools for improving student well-being, yet their effectiveness and cultural relevance for Hispanic/Latinx immigrant youth remain underexamined. This Systematized Review evaluates the current literature on school-based MBIs targeting this population, with a focus on their cultural considerations, efficacy, and participant acceptability. Using PRISMA guidelines, studies were identified across research databases and Google Scholar. Inclusion criteria required that interventions involve mindfulness practices, take place in school settings, and include Hispanic/Latinx immigrant youth. Findings from the limited number of eligible studies suggest that mindfulness-based interventions may reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and trauma while …