Digital Commons Network^™

From Reactive To Predictive: A Hybrid Trust-Mediated Adoption Framework For Data-Driven Maintenance In Distributed-Authority Aviation Environments, Dustin J. Foote

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Modern aviation maintenance operates within increasingly data-intensive technological environments, yet the operational integration of predictive maintenance into routine decision-making remains inconsistent across sectors. Contemporary aircraft incorporate centralized maintenance computers and condition monitoring architectures capable of fault aggregation, exceedance capture, and trend-based data collection. Although prognostics and health management research continues to advance detection and prediction methods, implementation outcomes often depend on factors beyond analytical performance alone.

This paper examines predictive maintenance adoption in distributed-authority aviation environments and argues that constraints emerge less from sensing capability than from organizational structure, decision authority dispersion, and institutional trust dynamics. For purposes of analysis, …

The Impact Of Play-Based Learning In Early Education, Stefani Merchant

Masters Projects

The increasing emphasis on academic achievement in early childhood education has contributed to a decline in play-based learning. This decline has raised concerns about its impact on children’s overall development. This project examines play-based learning as a developmentally appropriate approach that supports cognitive, social-emotional, language, and self-regulation skills in preschool and kindergarten students. Supported by the theories of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, the project explores play as a continuum consisting of free play, guided play, and playful learning. With each form of play, there are varying levels of teacher involvement. A review of current research highlights both the benefits …

Psychological Principles In Writing Center Consulting & Ai, Ella S. Hansen

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

A third of those ages 18 to 24 have engaged with ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2025). The newest form, ChatGPT-4, is better at generating more plausible long-form essays and creative writing than ever before (Imran & Almusharraf, 2023), meaning that AI-assisted writing is prevalent at higher education institutions (Cardon et al., 2023) and in writing centers (Goulet, 2025). Limited research has investigated the impact of this on writing center consultants. This multidisciplinary study investigated how consultants feel about large language model artificial intelligence (LLM AI) and how it can impact the consulting process, through the lens of three psychological principles: empathy, social …

The Night Circus - The Traveling Edition: An Advertising Campaign And Cross-Cultural Analysis, Charlee A. Salinas

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis is an outline of my advertising plansbook that examines how culturally adapted advertising for a single book affects perceived authenticity, emotional resonance, and purchase intent across three distinct markets: the United States, Brazil, and Vietnam. This study examines three culturally distinct markets to identify which advertising elements require full localization versus those where standardization is acceptable. By comparing adapted campaigns against a standardized approach, this research provides actionable insights for publishers navigating the efficiency-effectiveness trade-off.

The research questions asked:

-       How does culturally adapted advertising for the same book affect perceived authenticity, emotional resonance, and purchase intent across …

Rewriting The Boer ‘Slim’: Alice Stopford Green’S Reports On St. Helena’S Prisoner Of War Camp And Her Impact On British Views Of Boer Prisoners, Natasja A. Swanson

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Alice Stopford Green (1847 – 1929) was a prominent Irish historian and politician, known for her role as a political activist in the Irish Home Rule movement. Her lesser-known legacy is her investigative journalism on prisoner conditions in British prisoner of war camps during the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902). Her reports on Boer conditions in the Deadwood Prisoner of War Camp on the island of St. Helena reflected maltreatment and institutional abuse by the British Government. These discoveries supported the minority English opposition that thought that England was overstepping the rules of civilized warfare. Green was primarily concerned …

The Mysteries Of Postpartum Ocd: A Systematic Review, Taryn Shaffer

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Background: The research on postpartum mental health is growing, with most focusing on physical and sexual wellness, or well-known mental health symptoms such as psychosis, depression, and stress. However, as the research grows, so does the interest in lesser-known or under-considered postpartum mental health symptoms, including Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The focus of this research can be the exacerbation of already-present OCD symptoms, or the onset of them during pregnancy and the postpartum period. The purpose of this systematic review was to analyze research on OCD in pregnant and postpartum women. Specifically, the review included an analysis of measures used to …

Restorying The Reader: Adolescent Narratives Of Identity, Context, And Motivation, Jennifer R. Gardner

Dissertations

This present study examined how adolescents narrate their reading experiences and what those narratives reveal about reading identity, motivation, and engagement. This study responds to a persistent problem in literacy education: adolescent reading is often framed through disengagement or reduced to isolated constructs, while students’ lived reading experiences across school, home, digital, linguistic, and social contexts remain underexamined. Guided by Self-Determination Theory, Intersectionality, and Reader Response Theory, this study centers on adolescent voices and treats these participants’ stories as the primary avenue of understanding how they experience and interpret their reading lives and selves. Data were collected through narrative interviews, …

Science For All: Utilizing Native And Everyday Language To Increase Academic Performance And Student Engagement For High School English Language Learners, Lashanda K. Whitworth

Dissertations

In public high schools across the U.S. high stakes assessments are seen as a lever to facilitate high-quality education and to gauge student learning. English Language Learners are mainstreamed into content classes and despite having low English proficiency scores are expected to perform as well as English first students and are required to take district and state mandated biology assessments. At the research site, ELLs comprise 25% of students and consistently score below the other subgroups in biology. This quasi-experimental study tested whether using disaggregate instructional strategies—incorporating ELLs’ native and everyday language—increases learning gains, academic growth, and engagement in a …

Qualitative Phenomenography: Sustaining Motivations Of Black Women Principals In Pk-5 Title I Schools, Kahliah C. Rachel

Dissertations

Black women principals remain underrepresented in educational leadership, yet they are disproportionately assigned to PK-5 Title I schools, where complex academic, social, and political demands converge. Limited research examines what sustains these leaders over time, particularly in roles marked by intersecting oppressions of race and gender. Grounded in Black feminist thought and intersectionality, this qualitative phenomenographic study explored the sustaining motivations of six Black women who currently served or had served as principals in a PK-5 Title I school in Georgia. The purpose of this study was to describe the different ways these principals understood and experienced the internal and …

Exploring Teachers’ Lived Experiences: The Impact Of Wellness On Student Engagement And Behavior In Third-Grade Classrooms, Tiffany L. Jackson

Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study explored teachers' lived experiences implementing student wellness initiatives in the classroom and examined their views on how these initiatives affected student engagement and behavior. In this study, participants had the opportunity to express their views on implementing wellness practices in the classroom and on how these initiatives impacted student engagement and behavior. The research was guided by theoretical frameworks related to wellness, emotional and social intelligence, and relational perspectives. Semi-structured one-on-one interviews were the primary data source, and interview notes will serve as secondary data. This study addressed three research questions: (1) What are teachers' lived …

Perceptions And Beliefs Of A High School Geometry Professional Learning Community During Initial Implementation Of Standards-Based Grading, Marcellyn E. Baker

Dissertations

Traditional grading systems in secondary schools often conflate behavior with achievement, obscure evidence of understanding, and constrain teachers’ ability to enact learning-centered beliefs. This qualitative case study examined how five experienced secondary mathematics teachers in a public high school geometry department experienced and interpreted a grassroots transition to standards-based grading (SBG) within collaborative professional learning communities (PLCs). Guided by a pragmatic and constructivist worldview, data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus groups, field observations, and questionnaires and analyzed using iterative open and axial coding with cross-group pattern analysis. Findings indicated that SBG did not fundamentally alter teachers’ beliefs about learning; …

First-Year Seminar’S Influence On Thriving In First-Year Students, Chelsea Miller

Dissertations

First-year students struggle with attrition. Prevention of attrition has various interventions on such first-year seminars. Typically, these interventions use academic outcomes to measure effectiveness. Prior research supports that students enrolled in first-year seminar benefit academically from the intervention. However, these outcomes do not fully capture all the possible benefits of this intervention. This leaves room for research on other possible outcomes. Thriving as a construct incorporates both academic and social elements. Thriving is a possible outcome that could capture the benefits of first-year seminars. This study examined how much of the variance in thriving was explained by participation in first-year …

Nomophobia In Early Adolescence: An Exploration Of Prevalence, Academic Performance, And School Policy In United States Middle School Students, Christopher Otero

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine nomophobia among middle school students, investigating its relationships with grade level, smartphone OS, school smartphone policy, and academic performance. Grounded in Social Cognitive Theory, the research utilized a sample of 85 U.S. middle school students to address three research questions:

Q1 What relationships exists between middle school students’ grade levels, smartphone operating systems, school smartphone policy, GPA, and nomophobia levels?

Q2 To what extent do middle school student’s grade level, smartphone operating system, and school smartphone policy predict nomophobia?

Q3 Is nomophobia a significant predictor of GPA in middle school students?

Findings …

Wrestling With Morality: A Study On Moral Identity And Social Behavior In Individual Sports, Julia Isabella Ybarra

Dissertations

The development of moral reasoning and social behavior in adolescents and young adults is critical to healthy functioning. Sport participation is frequently assumed to promote positive developmental outcomes; however, the moral implications of participation in combative sports such as wrestling remain debated. Wrestling differs from many team and individual sports due to its physically dominant and one-on-one competitive structure, raising questions regarding how involvement may relate to moral identity, moral disengagement, and social behavior. The purpose of this exploratory quantitative study was to examine associations among moral identity, moral disengagement, and prosocial and antisocial behavior in adolescent and young adult …

Applying The Job–Demands-Resources Model To Uncover Influences On Continuity Outcomes For Caregivers Of Individuals With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities, Nancy J. Potter

Dissertations

Home-based, shared living caregivers provide a vital safety net for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived job demands and job resources that influence continuity-related outcomes among caregivers supporting individuals with IDD within a shared living service model.

Three research questions guided this study:

Q1 How are job demands and caregiver outcomes related?

Q2 Do resources moderate the relationship between caregiver outcomes and job demands?

Q3 Does the moderating effect of resources on the relationship between job demands and caregiver outcomes differ by caregiver relationship type?

The study methodology examined …

The Paradox Of Twice-Exceptional Teacher Experience: A Narrative And Visual Inquiry, Michael Danielle Bell

Dissertations

Twice-exceptional (2e) individuals, those with high cognitive ability and concurrent disabilities, have been the primary focus in K-12 research, yet they largely disappeared from research as adults. This narrative inquiry examined the lived experiences of three 2e educators navigating the public school system. Grounded in the Neurodiversity Paradigm and the Social Model of Disability, the study utilized semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation to externalize the sensory and cognitive realities of 2e educators through an affirmative, strengths-based lens. Narrative analysis revealed a central synthesis of the paradox of 2e educator experiences that highlighted participants’ neurodivergent traits as simultaneously their greatest professional …

Exploration Of The Intent To Remain In The Nursing Profession: Reasons New Nurse Graduates Remain At The Bedside, Amy Simons

Dissertations

Newly graduated nurses (NNGs) have been essential to sustaining the nursing workforce, yet up to 35.0% have left their initial positions within 2 years of licensure, contributing to persistent workforce instability (Kovner et al., 2016; Shatto & Lutz, 2017; Yu & Kang, 2016). Although factors influencing early turnover have been widely studied (Blegen et al., 2017; Fox & Abrahamsen, 2009; Kovner et al., 2016; Shatto & Lutz, 2017; Skillman & Toms, 2022; Wei et al., 2018; Yarbrough et al., 2017), less has been known about the determinants of NNGs’ intent to remain in the nursing profession. Guided by Herzberg’s Two-Factor …

Reconsidering The Undergraduate Viola Canon: A Skill Based Framework For Repertoire Expansion, Daniella Isabel Angulo Martinez

Dissertations

This research analyses the limitations of the standard undergraduate viola repertoire and proposes a structured, skill-based framework for its expansion. Within collegiate viola programs in the United States, training frequently focuses on a limited group of orchestra-accompanied works, particularly those by Telemann, Stamitz, Bruch, and Walton. While these works have a great pedagogical value, their dominance has contributed to a restricted repertoire that can limit students’ technical development, musical style knowledge, and artistic growth.

Based on the pedagogical standards of the American String Teachers Association (ASTA), this research identifies five core performance domains - technique, rhythm, intonation, tone projection, and …

A Phenomenological Examination Of Value Recognition And Development In Mental Health Counselors-In-Training, Luke Erskine Steinman

Dissertations

The importance of values in therapy is well recognized and documented in the field of mental health counseling, despite this, the implementation of value-based instruction into formal training is often unclear and inconsistent. As such, the purpose of this study was to investigate how CITs recognized their personal and professional values; the impact those values have on their work and personal lives; how their values developed throughout the course of their training; and what factors influenced that development. This was done with the hopes of better understanding how these areas shape their professional practice. Research questions examined how CITs recognize …

Social Correlates Of Trauma And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: The Importance Of Context, Lukoye Atwoli, Linnet Ongeri

Internal Medicine, East Africa

Understanding trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) requires a contextual perspective that considers historical legacies, social environments, and cultural realities. This paper draws on empirical evidence from Kenya and Uganda to demonstrate the limitations of applying trauma frameworks developed in high-income countries to African contexts. Findings from the Orphaned and Separated Children’s Assessment Related to Their Health and Well-Being (OSCAR) study challenge assumptions about care environments. The study reveals higher PTSD rates among orphans in family-based settings compared to institutional care, and highlights the protective roles of religion and social support. The Neuropsychiatric Genetics of African Populations-Psychosis (NeuroGAP-Psychosis) study provides …

Exploring The Evolution Of Preservice Elementary Teachers' Mathematics Identity And Possible Selves: A Multi-Case Study Approach, Christa R. Mawn

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This study explores the nature of preservice elementary teachers’ mathematics identity and possible selves and identifies shifts in their mathematics identity or possible selves over the course of a place value unit during the semester during a course on mathematics content for elementary teachers. Drawing on narrative identity and possible selves theory, this qualitative multi-case study examined the mathematics identity and possible selves of preservice elementary teachers enrolled in a mathematics content course. Course assignments were used as data sources and included written narratives, future-oriented reflections, drawings, and course artifacts. Individual cases were analyzed, and were followed by a cross-cases …

Mental Health Representation And Audience Interpretation In Contemporary Streaming Media, Caitlyn Freeman

Communications and Digital Media Theses

This study looks at streaming television as a place where ideas about mental health are shaped and communicated. These shows communicate mental health through storytelling, rather than simply reflected. Instead of viewing series as realistic depictions of psychological struggle, this analysis focuses on different elements to understand how audiences understand mental illness. This study focuses on patterns in how mental health is presented to audiences, including whether it is shown as an emotional conflict, ongoing experience, or a moment of crisis within the story. Using a qualitative analysis, the research analyzes selected episodes from each series through a codebook with …

Nonprofit Youth Sports Governance Structures As Contexts For Positive Youth Development: How Usa Swimming's Local Swimming Committee Boards Provide The "Big Three" Of Positive Youth Development Settings, Emily B. Swett

All Dissertations

This study examines positive youth development (PYD) within youth sports governance, specifically USA Swimming's Local Swimming Committee (LSC) boards of directors, a context largely overlooked in PYD research, which typically focuses on on-field experiences.

Using the "Big Three" PYD framework (positive youth-adult relationships, life skill-building opportunities, and youth leadership and contribution), the study employed an explanatory mixed methods design. A quantitative survey was distributed to LSC athlete and non-athlete board members, followed by semi-structured interviews.

Survey data from 27 athletes and 157 non-athletes revealed strong levels of all "Big Three" components across both groups. Statistical analyses found no significant differences …

Towards Dementia-Inclusive Digital Text-Based Health Information: A Multi-Method Investigation Of Cognitive And Affective Accessibility, Margi Engineer

All Dissertations

This dissertation examines the accessibility, readability, emotional tone, and trustworthiness of digital, text‑based dementia information and investigates how older adults with and without dementia cognitively and affectively engage with such content. It further explores the potential of generative AI to improve dementia information delivery through the development of a domain‑specific retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) large language model (LLM) chatbot designed to deliver accessible, stigma‑free information. The dissertation comprises four studies using complementary quantitative and qualitative methods. Study I conducts a large‑scale content analysis of 300 medical articles, 35 websites, and 50 blogs, applying readability metrics, LIWC‑based linguistic and sentiment analysis, and …

Versatile Exoskeleton Control Paradigms For Agile Human Locomotion: Task-Agnostic And Stability-Augmented Assistance, Miao Yu

All Dissertations

Lower-limb exoskeletons have shown great potential for assisting human locomotion, but designing controllers that provide assistance across diverse locomotor tasks and under external perturbations remains a major challenge. Many existing controllers for steady-state walking rely on pre-defined reference trajectories, which constrain voluntary human motion and limit adaptability across tasks. Moreover, they usually assume stable walking, while their performance under unstable conditions remains largely unexplored. In addition, existing gait stability augmentation controllers are often reactive rather than proactive to unstable conditions. In this dissertation, we propose control frameworks that preserve voluntary human motion while addressing two major challenges: providing task-agnostic assistance …

Progressive Digital Health Engagement And Genetic Testing Intention: Evidence From The Genetic And Rare Disease Evaluation (Garde) Health System Trial And The Health Information National Trends Survey (Hints7), Emma Coen

All Dissertations

Background Digital health technologies including patient portals, internet based health information seeking, and electronic communication platforms are central mechanisms for genomic risk communication and recruitment into genetic testing. Engagement with these tools occurs progressively rather than uniformly, and structural inequities may contribute to staged disengagement along digital health pathways. Identifying where disengagement occurs and whether it differs by demographic and contextual characteristics is critical for advancing equitable genomic implementation.

Objectives This dissertation evaluates progressive digital engagement and genetic testing intention across two complementary data sources. Aim 1 examines sequential engagement within a health system genomic outreach trial. Aim 2 evaluates …

2026 Nsu Graduate Commencement Program, Nova Southeastern University

NSU Commencement Programs

May 5, 2026

• Shepard Broad College of Law

May 8, 2026

• Barry and Judy Silverman College of Pharmacy
• College of Dental Medicine
• College of Optometry

May 8, 2026

• College of Computing, AI, and Cybersecurity
• College of Psychology
• H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship

May 13, 2026

• Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

• Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center

May 13, 2026

• Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine and Dr. Pallavi Patel School of Health Sciences

May 14, 2026

• Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of …

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2026 Nsu Undergraduate Commencement Program, Nova Southeastern University

NSU Commencement Programs

May 4, 2026

• Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

• College of Psychology

• H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship

• College of Computing, Al, and Cybersecurity

• Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center

• Shepard Broad College of Law

May 5, 2026

• Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine and Dr. Pallavi Patel School of Rehabilitative Sciences

• Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine and Dr. Pallavi Patel School of Health Sciences

• Ron and Kathy Assaf College of Nursing

Adoption And The Illusion Of Choice After Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health, Solangel Maldonado

Cardozo Law Review

Thalia, a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two, has struggled with a substance use disorder for several years. Her children, ages five and seven, are in foster care. Thalia was homeless when she learned that she was fourteen weeks pregnant. She wanted to have an abortion, but her state banned abortions after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The closest abortion care provider in a neighboring state was 400 miles away, and a medical (non-surgical) abortion was no longer an option.

Unable to access abortion care, Thalia was forced to carry the pregnancy to term. Her …

The Reliance On Children In Atomic Bomb Literature, Chenyeng Vang

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper explores the conventions of children’s literature, or what children embody in literature, and how it functions within atomic bomb literature in three ways: filling the gap of the unreliability of language, pushing past binaries through its queerness, and universalizing messages of peace to focus on a broad vision of a better future. Analysis involves atomic bomb literature written within the first five decades of the bombings, from 1945 to 1995. This research additionally seeks to answer the question: why children’s stories? This paper concludes that the dependence on children within atomic bomb literature hinges upon constructions of children …