Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluation Of Effects Of Behavioral Skills Training In Promoting Three Social Skills In Young Child With Autism: A Multiple Probe Research Design Study, Jennifer Rey

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the behavioral skills training model in teaching one 4-year-old child with autism to greet others, use an appropriate tone of voice, and use anger control. Moreover, this study assessed the maintenance of newly acquired social skills relying on a multiple probe research design. It was hypothesized that with the use of behavioral skills training the acquisition of the appropriate social skills at an early age would allow the child to engage with peers and adults in the training environment and later in a variety of social situations across other settings …

Harm-Focused Policing: A Comparison Of Citizen And Patrol Deputy Perceptions On The Severity Of Social Harms, Christina Finn

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the perceptions of Volusia County citizens and patrol deputies regarding the severity of social harms attributed to incidents of criminal activity. Despite the widespread assessments of crime, the perceptions of associated harms remain unclear. Developing a social harm index may provide current insight into the opinions of harm as perceived by both the public and law enforcement agencies. Using a sequential explanatory mixed method design, patrol deputies from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office and residents of Volusia County, Florida, were invited to complete a series of surveys and follow-up interviews. This study aimed to compare participant ratings …

Western Pacific K-12 Educators’ Adoption Of Digital Game-Based Learning, Lorraine Raqueño Catienza

Theses and Dissertations

Western Pacific educational institutions are investing heavily in technology in classrooms to meet the needs of K-12 students. Measuring the effective use of digital technologies in the learning environment has become a routine part of monitoring and evaluating classroom instruction. One area of technology integration that has seen tremendous growth is digital game-based learning (DGBL). The researcher is interested in examining K-12 western Pacific teachers’ willingness to adopt DGBL through a modified Technology Acceptance Model. This study aims to examine the extent to which teachers’ perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and technology self-efficacy effects attitude toward adopting DGBL methods. …

Challenges Teachers Face When Implementing Mult-Tiered Systems Of Supports: Recommendations And Interventions, Amber Durrett Drake

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the challenges that teachers faced when it came to the implementation of interventions and recommendations in the Mult-Tiered System of Support (MTSS). Through the MTSS, educators provided concentrated teaching, detected early signs of issues related to academic, behavioral, and speech deficiencies, and recommended fact-based interventions and practices in response to students’ needs. Identifying students’ deficits early reduced the risk of large student gaps and improved overall progress. Participants were seven Pre-k through Grade 5 teachers working in a Title 1 school located in a large metropolitan city area. Participants were selected through …

Perceptions Of Secondary School Mathematics Teachers Regarding Teaching Mathematics With Conceptual Understanding, Latisa Williams

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation was designed to provide current knowledge on the mindset of secondary school mathematics teachers regarding the use of Conceptual Understanding (CU) as an approach to teaching the subject. It is well-documented that when students learn to engage in mathematical conceptual explanations in meaningful ways, they improve their learning. However, reports have shown that students in secondary schools lack effective skills in explaining and applying CU for successful problem-solving. As a result, teachers struggle with methods of instruction that can effectively improve the level of CU with their students in mathematics.

For this study, the researcher used a qualitative …

Assessing The Needs Of Elementary School Students From Low Socioeconomic Environments Displaying Poor Performance In Reading, Reynaldo Flores

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation was designed to provide current information on the low reading level of students in Grade 4 who are from families of low socioeconomic status (SES). While it was known that SES is crucial to student learning which gave rise to initiates to address the problem, low SES students in elementary school continue to struggle to read at grade level. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is used to measure performance index framework in reading along with mathematics, writing, science, and social studies to address and correct deficiencies. The data for the ESSA was drawn from the State of …

Efectividad De Una Estrategia De Gamificación En El Aprendizaje En Un Curso De Microbiología En Una Escuela Superior En Puerto Rico, Frank Gregorio Torres Vélez

Theses and Dissertations

El propósito de este estudio fue determinar la efectividad de una técnica de gamificación en la proficiencia académica de estudiantes sobre estructuras y funciones celulares de organismos procariotas en una escuela especializada en ciencias y matemáticas de Puerto Rico. Esta investigación se fundamentó en la Teoría del Aprendizaje Gamificado de Landers y Teoría de la Autodeterminación de Deci y Ryan. Una muestra de 36 estudiantes del 11mo y 12mo grado, matriculados en un curso de Microbiología, participaron de este estudio cuantitativo de muestreo no probabilístico. Los estudiantes participaron de una clase invertida, ¡una actividad gamificada mediante Kahoot!, completaron preprueba, posprueba …

A Phenomenological Study Of Online Physical Education On Former Students’ Activity Levels And Fitness Concepts Knowledge, Jerry Veshio

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to provide an understanding of the perspectives of former online physical education high school students and how participation in the course affected their ability to be active post-high school and their knowledge of fitness concepts. A phenomenological design was used to guide the study’s investigation. Participants in the study were interviewed about their experiences in online physical education while in high school and how that experience currently influences their physical activity levels. Additionally, respondents described the positives and negatives of their experience in the course, specifically as it relates to the course materials, assessments, instructor …

Exploring Mental Health Stigma Among Law Enforcement Officers, Nicholas David Chestnut

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation investigates the prevalence and impact of mental health stigma among law enforcement officers (LEOs) in the United States. Despite growing awareness of the importance of mental health in the law enforcement community, stigma surrounding mental illness remains a significant barrier to help-seeking behaviors among officers. The study employed a research design that examined attitudes, perceptions, and experiences related to mental health stigma among LEOs.

Through online self-assessment surveys administered via a secure portal, participants provided insights into their attitudes toward mental illness, perceptions of stigma, and willingness to seek help for mental health concerns.

Data analysis revealed …

Redistributing Justice, Benjamin Levin, Kate Levine

Scholarship@WashULaw

This article surfaces an obstacle to decarceration hiding in plain sight: progressives’ continued support for the carceral system. Despite increasingly prevalent critiques of criminal law from progressives, there hardly is a consensus on the left in opposition to the carceral state. Many left-leaning academics and activists who may critique the criminal system writ large remain enthusiastic about criminal law in certain areas—often areas where defendants are imagined as powerful and victims as particularly vulnerable. In this article, we offer a novel theory for what animates the seemingly conflicted attitude among progressives toward criminal punishment—the hope that the criminal system can …

Recidivism Outcomes For Young People Who Have Committed A Sexual Offence And Received Treatment: A Systematic Narrative Review Of Studies Conducted In Australia And New Zealand, James L. Finney, Natalie Gately, Suzanne Rock

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Young people who have committed a sexual offence present unique and serious challenges to the criminal justice systems of Australia and New Zealand. To understand the current state of existing literature, we systematically collated and critically appraised studies using narrative synthesis, examining the recidivism outcomes of young people who have committed a sexual offence and received treatment. Eight studies were identified utilising a sample of 1528 young people. Recidivism was higher among participants who did not complete treatment, compared to those who completed treatment, but highest in those who commenced but subsequently “dropped out”. Our findings highlight a need for …

A Fully Automated Global Post-Hoc Method Based On Abstract Argumentation For Explainable Artificial Intelligence And Its Application On Fully Connected Dense Deep Neural Networks, Giulia Vilone

Dissertations

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) has rapidly grown in the past decade due to the prevalence of machine learning, especially deep learning, in fields like healthcare and finance. While these models excel in accuracy, their complexity hampers transparency and interpretability. Ensuring understandable explanations for AI predictions fosters trust, prevents errors, complies with regulations, and enhances model refinement. The research project outlined in this thesis unfolds in phases. It commences with a comprehensive review of existing XAI studies, contributing to the field’s knowledge by proposing a taxonomy that organises theories and notions related to explainability, the evaluation approaches for XAI methods, and …

Admissions Viewbook, 2024-2025, Illinois State University, Office Of Admissions

Admissions Viewbook

Recruitment booklet created by Illinois State University's Office of Admissions

The Effects Of Confession Evidence And Defendant Race On Juror Perceptions, Victoria E. Dodge

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Confession evidence continues to be one of the most persuasive, incriminating forms of evidence presented during a criminal trial (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004; Leo, 2009). Research suggests that jurors may also be influenced by extra-legal factors, such as personal characteristics of the defendant (e.g., the defendant’s race; D.J. Devine & Caughlin, 2014; Pickel et al., 2013; Sommers & Ellsworth, 2000). Research investigating the effect of race on juror perceptions has yielded mixed results. Some research has found that White jurors discriminate against defendants belonging to a racial minority while other research identifies a phenomenon referred to as the watchdog hypothesis …

The Lived Experience Of African American Women Leaders In Georgia Law Enforcement: Advances, Barriers, And Impact On Performance, Juantisa X. Hughes

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Law enforcement is a male-dominated field that has been slow to accept and promote African American women to positions of authority. As of 2016, there were only 3.1% Lieutenants and Sergeants, along with 1.6% Captains or higher that were African American women in the United States (Gomez, 2016). More recently, there has not been much change, as women are reportedly only 12% of the sworn officers and 3% of law enforcement leadership in the United States (Tumulty, 2023). Of that number, only 1% of African American women hold the position of Lieutenant or higher (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and …

Inclusive Theory Of Change Development For A Social Enterprise, Megan A. Bolton

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This research aimed to study what occurs when a theory of change (ToC) is co-created in a social enterprise serving individuals facing barriers to employment. The study included the following three objectives: identifying the barriers and facilitators experienced by those implementing the ToC, gathering the perspectives of program end users on the ToC, and exploring how the ToC would facilitate impact measurement. A central feature of this AR study was the engagement of returning citizens in the discussion and development of the ToC, which added to the process and outcomes of this research in important ways. The lived experience of …

Experiences Of Counselors Working With Adolescents, Allison Bradford Chow

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This qualitative study aimed to examine the lived experience of clinical mental health counselors working with adolescents. Participants included pre-licensed (associate) or licensed counselors who predominately work with and have a strong preference for working with adolescent clients. Data was collected through individual interviews and analyzed with a descriptive-interpretative approach. Ten domains were identified as part of data analysis: (a) Understanding Adolescent Culture and Building a Therapeutic Alliance, (b) The Intersection of Counselor and Adolescent Emotions, (c) Transference and Countertransference, (d) Clinical Challenges and Barriers, (e) The Multifaceted Role of Parents, (f) Nuances of Confidentiality, (g) Adolescent Development and Strengths, …

Black And African American Young Adult Male Experiences: Implications For Building Resilience And Survival Skills Within Educational Settings And Public Spaces, Akimma Wright-D'Abreau

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The aim of this study is to better understand, from the perspective of Critical Race Theory, the experiences of adolescent males who are Black and living in the United States and to examine how they build resilience and survival skills. Participants were between the ages of 18 and 26 and asked to recall adolescent experiences as part of a semi-structured interview with a Black Storytelling approach. There were six participants and data were analyzed using thematic analysis. According to the results, there were seven themes: (1) Policing In the United States of America Comes in Many Forms, (2) Recognizing Racism …

Homeplace: An Afterschool Club For Adolescent Black Girls At A Predominantly White Middle School, Jana L. Johnson-Davis

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Adolescent Black girls often experience marginalization in schools due to zero-tolerance policies, oppressive classroom curricula, and teachers who lack cultural competency. The literature on adolescent Black girls in school revealed that there are spaces within schools that can serve as homeplaces for Black girls. This study explored how adolescent Black girls experienced homeplace in an afterschool club at a predominantly White middle school in Decatur, Georgia. This research also expands bell hooks’s (2001) theory of homeplace from the home environment to school buildings. Narrative inquiry was the methodology used for the study, and interview data was analyzed through thematic analysis. …

A Critical Incident Analysis Of Humanizing Interactions Between Correctional Officers And People Who Are Incarcerated, Aimee Califano

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The correctional officer (CO) has one of the most critical roles in the correctional setting and is one of the least studied topics amongst criminal justice professionals (Butler et al., 2018). In the United States, a CO’s primary responsibility is to ensure the safety and well-being of an incarcerated individual and the staff that work in the prison setting (Cheek, 1984). Paradoxically, in the United States, the CO works in an organizational system based on deprivation and punishment toward incarcerated people. The United States Prison system’s current structure does not support rehabilitation efforts of incarcerated people and ultimately impacts any …

A Systematic Review Of K-12 Cybersecurity Education Around The World, Ahmed Ibrahim, Marnie Mckee, Leslie F. Sikos, Nicola F. Johnson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper presents a systematic review of K-12 cybersecurity education literature from around the world. 24 academic papers dated from 2013-2023 were eligible for inclusion in the literature established within the research protocol. An additional 19 gray literature sources comprised the total. A range of recurring common topics deemed as aspects of cybersecurity behavior or practice were identified. A variety of cybersecurity competencies and skills are needed for K-12 students to apply their knowledge. As may be expected to be the case with interdisciplinary fields, studies are inherently unclear in the use of their terminology, and this is compounded in …

Corporate Racial Responsibility, Gina-Gail S. Fletcher, H. Timothy Lovelace Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The 2020 mass protests in response to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor had a significant impact on American corporations. Several large public companies pledged an estimated $50 billion to advancing racial equity and committed to various initiatives to internally improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. While many applauded corporations’ willingness to engage with racial issues, some considered it further evidence of corporate capitulation to extreme progressivism at shareholders’ expense. Others, while thinking corporate engagement was long overdue, critiqued corporate commitment as insincere.

Drawing on historical evidence surrounding the passage of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of …

The Brady Database, Brandon L. Garrett, Adam M. Gershowitz, Jennifer Teitcher

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brady v. Maryland turns sixty this year. The Brady doctrine, which requires the government to disclose favorable and material evidence to the defendant, is one of the most frequently litigated criminal procedure issues. Yet, despite decades of Brady cases in federal and state courts, we still know relatively little about how Brady claims are litigated, adjudicated, and what such claims can tell us about the criminal justice system writ large. Scholars are in the dark about how often Brady violations occur, whether it is primarily the fault of prosecutors or the police, whether violations …

Trauma As Cultural Capital: A Critical Feminist Theory Of Trauma Discourse, Lucy Britt, Wilson H. Hammett

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay theorizes a problem for feminism posed by a particular form of trauma discourse. Feminists have played an important role in developing cultural and clinical conceptions of trauma, but one result of the destigmatization of trauma has been that trauma discourse is sometimes used as a form of cultural capital to reinforce existing hierarchies. In a novel application of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of distinction, we show how, when instrumentalized as cultural capital, trauma discourse can be used to reinforce patriarchy and other systems of oppression. We trace a critical feminist history of the struggle to understand and treat trauma. …

Neglected Discovery, Jenia I. Turner, Ronald F. Wright, Michael Braun

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In recent decades, many states have expanded discovery in criminal cases. These reforms were designed to make the criminal process fairer and more efficient. The success of these changes, however, depends on whether defense attorneys actually use the new discovery opportunities to represent their clients more effectively. Records from digital evidence platforms reveal that defense attorneys sometimes fail to carry out their professional duty to review discovery. Analyzing a novel dataset we obtained from digital evidence platforms used in Texas, we found that defense attorneys never accessed any available electronic discovery in a substantial number of felony cases between 2018 …

From Criminalizing China To Criminalizing The Chinese, Leo Yu

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Many scholars have studied the racialization of Asian Americans and found that perpetual foreignness stands at the core of their ascriptive identity. This identity was formed in the 19th century and is also closely related to the dominant society’s racial understanding of ‘the Chinese’—which refers, for the purposes of this article, to people of actual or perceived Chinese descent in the United States. This article investigates this racialization process, with a contemporary lens: What does perpetual foreignness mean to the Chinese in the 21st century?

This Article argues that, for the Chinese, their foreignness in today’s United States means more …

The "New" Drug War, Jennifer D. Oliva, Taleed El-Sabawi

Articles by Maurer Faculty

American policymakers have long waged a costly, punitive, racist, and ineffective drug war that casts certain drug use as immoral and those who engage in it as deviant criminals. The War on Drugs has been defined by a myopic focus on controlling the supply of drugs that are labeled as dangerous and addictive. The decisions as to which drugs fall within these categories have neither been made by health agencies nor based on scientific evidence. Instead, law enforcement agencies have been at the helm of the drug war advocating for and enforcing prohibition.

The drug war has been a failure …

Through Smoke And Mirrors: Excluding Malingering Expert Testimony Under The Daubert Standard, Chunlin Leonhard, Christoph Leonhard

Georgia Law Review

Because of science’s claim to objectivity, scientific testimony is persuasive and often outcome-determinative. Our adversarial system incentivizes litigants to proffer scientific evidence to support their positions. The task falls on trial judges as gatekeepers to distinguish valid scientific evidence from junk science. Drawing this line is difficult because scientific evidence covers a broad spectrum. The United States Supreme Court has set forth the standard of admissibility of scientific evidence in Daubert and its progeny (the Daubert Standard). Trial judges are supposed to admit scientific evidence only if reliable and relevant under the Daubert Standard. But three decades after Daubert, …

Beccaria, The Executioner, And The French Revolution, Willa Carlyle Reising

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis explores ideas and practices in the French penal system during the Revolutionary era, especially during the Reign of Terror, considering the experiences of Revolutionary leaders and the executioner of Paris during the Revolution. It argues that while in some ways Revolutionary leaders used Enlightenment penal laws to justify their actions during the Reign of Terror, in other ways the Reign of Terror was a departure from Enlightenment penal reform laws. The main Enlightenment penal reformer which this thesis uses is Cesare Beccaria because he was influential in France and during the French Revolution in helping to create early …

The Sociology Of Bail Reform: Crime, Social Interaction, And Offender Experiences In Rurality., Scott Kevin Turner

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The study sought to explore the impact of the New York State “Bail Reform Act of 2019,” in rurality. It examined some of the legislative goals of the law, the claim that it caused crime, and offender experiences in rurality. Secondary data was used to map the rural crime landscape and primary data was collected from offenders during face to face interviews. The study was framed using deterrence and opportunity approaches and situated within the broader field environments; legislative, courtroom, and community. The research failed to find support for the claim that bail reform caused crime. Instead, it revealed that …