Digital Commons Network^™

Coaching Life Skills Through Sport: Program Description And Evaluation, Lori Gano-Overway, Sarah Sackett, Robert J. Harmison, Dorian Hayden

Journal of Youth Development

While life skill development opportunities in sport and the coach’s essential role in facilitating the process have received much support, coaches often report they lack the tools and confidence necessary to integrate life skill development strategies into practice. Additionally, while life skill development focused coach education programming exists, few have been formally documented and systematically evaluated for effectiveness. The present study aimed to describe an accessible (online, free, asynchronous) and evidence- informed course while assessing the program’s fidelity and utility using the utilization-focused evaluation model (Patton & Campbell-Patton, 2021). The developed Coaching Life Skills Through Sport (CLSTS) course covers empirically …

Conference Realignment And Coaching Perspectives: Examining Social Support From Coaches To Athletes In The Acc, Big 12, And Big Ten, Brannon H. Timms

All Theses

The purpose of this study is to understand, from a coach's point of view, their perspective on conference realignment and how, if at all, it has changed their relationship with their athletes as it pertains to social support. Findings indicate that coaches expressed awareness of social support needs for their student athletes; notable gaps remain in emotional, esteem, and informational support. Based on the participants' responses, tangible support emerged as the only form of social support provided by these coaches. Coaches also expressed a desire for further legislation regarding NIL to maintain competitive fairness among NCAA athletics. The results underscore …

The Influence Of High School Art Courses On Graphic Communications Students, Mackenzie Crawford

All Theses

This study examines the influence of high school art courses on students’ pursuing a degree in graphic communications (GC) at Clemson University. The purpose is to explore how prior high school art courses impact students’ major choice, preparedness, and academic success within GC. While creativity is central to the field, limited research addresses how early exposure to art integration shapes students’ readiness for college-level technical and design programs.

Grounded in theories of experiential learning and career development, this study builds upon the research by Moss, Benus, and Tucker (2018), who found that school-based arts programs enhance executive function and academic …

Factors Influencing Employees’ Ai Adoption Intentions In Occupational Settings, Emma G. Wituk

All Theses

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a burgeoning technology whose development has many implications for organizations and employees. Using a modified version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) framework, this study tested performance expectancy (PE; the belief that AI will enhance personal job performance) and prior AI experience (EXP) as predictors of behavioral intention (BI) to use an AI coaching tool, Nadia. We expected both PE and EXP to be positively related to adoption intentions. Additionally, social influence (SI; respondent’s belief that other individuals think they should adopt AI) and facilitating conditions (FC; appropriate infrastructure and adequate …

Barriers To Mindfulness Training Among Athletes: A Transtheoretical Approach, Annabelle L. Thomas

All Theses

Mindfulness, originating from ancient Eastern traditions, involves developing intentional, nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment (Kabat-Zinn, 2012). In recent years, mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have gained recognition in Western contexts for improving both well-being and athletic performance (Hut et al., 2021). Despite growing evidence for the benefits, many athletes still do not engage in mindfulness training. Common barriers include limited time (Gao et al., 2024), stigma (De Petrillo et al., 2009), lack of structure (Bühlmayer et al., 2017; Weber et al., 2023), and doubts about effectiveness (Augustus & Zizzi, 2022). This study examined these barriers among NCAA Division I and club …

Enhancing Facial Expressiveness For Games Through Procedural Animation, Abhijit Varanasi

All Theses

Facial animation is one of the most important parts of bringing characters to life in video games and virtual experiences. This thesis explores a new approach to creating more expressive facial animations using procedural techniques and blended facial performance for more flexibility. The project uses FACS (Facial Action Coding System), which breaks down facial expressions into small, measurable muscle movements. By building a facial rig based on these muscle units, the character’s face can be animated in a way that reflects real human emotion. The animation in this work is not just pre-recorded, though it can respond in real-time to …

Investigating Workplace Management Conditions Influence On Interpreter Motivation And Interpretive Program Performance, Jessica M. Henry

All Theses

Organizations, including non-profit and government agencies such as the National Park Service and nature centers, that provide informal education (also known as interpretation) seek ways to achieve their mission and enhance their organizational performance (Anderson et al., 2022; Weiler & Ham, 2010). For informal education organizations that provide interpretation to visitors, one measure of organizational performance is the achievement of an organization’s desired visitor outcomes. Theory suggests that positive organizational performance is associated with positive workplace management conditions and high employee motivation. Thus, this study explored the relationships between interpreters’ perceptions of workplace management conditions, motivation, and performance on interpretive …

Earnings, Ethics, And Fast Fashion: How Does Income Affect Consumers’ Decisions?, Ava M. Minton

All Theses

This thesis examines if annual earnings influence consumers’ likelihood of avoiding clothing brands associated with labor exploitation. To examine this question, the study draws on four major U.S. datasets that together capture two decades of consumer attitudes and self-reported behaviors. The results show that income has a strong and statistically significant effect: household income increases the odds of avoiding exploitative brands by roughly 27 percentage points. Education, ideology, and gender also exhibit meaningful positive associations with ethical consumption, while age slightly reduces the likelihood of boycott participation. Overall, the analysis provides evidence that ethical consumption behaves like a normal good …

Dwelling / Knowing / Loving: Imaging The Immanent Present, Joel Pasquarelli

All Theses

This thesis serves as an attempt to articulate, understand, and testify to my experiences within the immanent present. Defined as moments where the world impresses itself upon my awareness with such a force that it eclipses all else, the experience of immanence is necessarily undeniable and ephemeral. These moments are accompanied by a combined sense of exultation in the world’s existence and poignant longing for something beyond. I feel as though I am embedded within something great and meaningful, as the material world acts upon me, yet I remain ever unsatiated by this experience as the world inevitably returns once …

Accelerating Relationship Discovery In Chronic Lower Back Pain Through Knowledge Graph And Ontology Enhanced Large Language Models, Damon Lin

Master's Theses

Chronic lower back pain (cLBP) is a widespread public health burden linked to anxiety, depression, and opioid addiction. Interventions aimed at treating cLBP have shown minimal improvements in pain outcomes, leading researchers to reexamine our understanding of cLBP through constructing a causal model. However, constructing causal models through Randomized Controlled Trials are often unfeasible, and relying on domain expertise requires extensive and time-consuming research, posing a serious bottleneck for designing effective treatments. To accelerate this process, we apply Knowledge Graphs, Ontologies, and Large Language Models (LLMs) to aid researchers in determining possible causal relationships. First, we demonstrate how LLMs can …

Burnout And Compassion Fatigue Within Dispatch, Emily A. Mcfarren

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Continual exposure to trauma coupled with a general lack of

administrative support contributes to greater occupational risk for burnout and

compassion fatigue among first responders, causing many to leave the

profession. As the first line of communication for emergencies, dispatchers,

specifically emergency call takers are no exception. Yet, few studies have

investigated the prevalence and impact of burnout and compassion fatigue on

dispatchers in comparison to other first responders such as police, fire, or

emergency medical services (EMS). This study aimed to extend this line of

inquiry by surveying a stratified random sample of dispatchers working in

California dispatch centers …

The Impact Of Eyewear On Early And Mid-Latency Erp Components Of Face Processing, Alewa T. Anaya

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Facial recognition plays an important role in human survival and social communication. It relies on fast and efficient visual processing in the brain, as reflected by the P100 and N170 event-related potential (ERP) components. These ERPs are early and mid-latency stamps of facial recognition that reflect visual detection and structural processing of faces. Previous studies have shown that the N170 is sensitive to disruptions in facial configuration, such as inversion or partial face obscuration caused by masks. The present study, however, examines a common yet overlooked visual addition that may influence the N170: eyewear. Specifically, this study investigates how regular …

Bridging Assessment And Implementation A Toolkit For Improving Quality In Preschool Settings, Virginia M. Roundy

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

High-quality early childhood education (ECE) is foundational to children’s development and long-term success, yet ensuring consistent quality across diverse programs remains a persistent challenge. This project examines how assessment data, particularly from the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), 2nd Edition, can be transformed from static evaluations into dynamic tools for professional growth. While CLASS observations provide reliable measures of teacher–child interactions, their greatest potential emerges when these data are translated into actionable guidance that informs daily practice.

To bridge the gap between assessment and implementation, this paper presents a comprehensive Assessment Toolkit composed of three integrated components: assessor-written summary reports, …

Untangling Familicide: A Comparison Of Three Definitions, Lesley M. Vega

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Familicide is generally defined as the killing of multiple family members by a relative. However, there is no single, universally accepted definition of familicide, and different studies use varying definitions with different inclusion criteria. Sometimes, very restrictive definitions are used that exclude many similar cases (e.g., father kills spouse and children). Conversely, broader definitions sometimes overlap with other phenomena, such as mass murder. Only a few studies have examined this phenomenon, primarily from an exploratory standpoint.

Case data was collected from the Gun Violence Archive, an online database that records shooting incidents in the United States, for familicidal events that …

School-Based Mental Health Services For Students With Disabilities: Exploring Benefits, Barriers, And The Role Of A Multi-Tiered System Of Supports, Veronica R. S. Meiners Perez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Schools play a significant role in the academic, behavioral, and social-emotional development of children. Students with disabilities have legal rights to all necessary support for their educational success, including mental health supports. School-based mental health and its implementation are a work in progress, facing many barriers, but the benefits speak for themselves. Research suggests that the use of a multi-tiered system of supports ensures equal and equitable interventions for all students, especially students with disabilities. This literature review analyzes 16 studies regarding school-based mental health, special education, students with disabilities, and the MTSS framework. Support students' mental health, regardless of …

Predictors Of Math Identity In U.S. High School Students, Edwin Flores

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study explored factors related to high school students’ sense of math identity. Data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 was used which is a nationally representative dataset from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES). The sample is representative of U.S. high schoolers who began ninth grade in 2009. Multiple regression analysis was performed and factors relating to students’ prior mathematics coursework and attitudes about mathematics were found to predict students’ mathematics identity.

Keywords. Mathematics, identity, high school students

Parental Involvement In Bilingual Language Learning In Early School-Aged Children, Jennifer Y. Arroyo Morales

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This project examines the critical role of parental involvement in supporting bilingual language learning (BLL) among early school-aged children in kindergarten through third grade. Bilingualism offers extensive cognitive, social, cultural, and economic benefits, yet many families face barriers that limit their ability to foster bilingual development at home. Grounded in Vygotsky’s Social Interactionist Theory and Kuhl’s research on sensitive periods of language acquisition, this project developed the Parent Handbook for Supporting Bilingual Language Learning in Early School-Aged Children. The handbook provides parents with accessible, research-based strategies that transform everyday routines into opportunities for bilingual growth. Designed to address barriers such …

2025 Fall Commencement, Tennessee State University

TSU Commencements 2025-Present – Mr. Dwayne Tucker, President

No abstract provided.

Are People More Likely To See Actions As Intentional When They Are Forced To Make Their Decisions Quickly? A Replication And Extension Of Rosset (2008), Andrew Elmore

Honors Theses

Rosset (2008) reported evidence of an intentionality bias, which is a key prediction of a model of human cognition that suggests that people learn to override intentional attributions of behavior, a dual-process model of intention attribution. A model that hypothesizes that when people are deprived of the time to develop deliberate thought processes, their default explanation for actions is intentional, and that this default attribution has to be consciously overridden. Rosset’s main method of testing this was by providing test sentences to participants and placing them into two scenarios where they had different levels of time to process the sentences. …

Overcoming Title 42 And The 2022-3 Venezuelan Migrant Expulsion Spectacle: A Border Securocracy Case Study, Terence M. Garrett, Arthur Sementelli

School of Political Science, Public Affairs, Legal and Security Studies Faculty Publications

On October 12, 2022, the Biden administration abruptly changed course and announced that Venezuelan refugees would be immediately subject to Title 42—the policy that effectively means that those migrants would be summarily forced to return, or expelled, to Mexico. For FY 2022, Customs and Border Protection apprehended and/or expelled a total of 2,766,582 enforcement actions (CBP FY 2022). The resulting media spectacle illustrates another example of border securocracy—defined as the globalized border industrial apparatus oppressing the masses from the global south. We construct a case study based on Boje's narrative approach to illustrate how guided discussions of Title 42 …

Reading Ability Underlies The Composite Effect For Arabic Words, Rayan Kouzy, Zahra Hussain

School of Psychology

The composite effect, originally demonstrated for faces, has recently been shown to suggest holistic processing of words. The effect is associated with reading fluency in Latin script, but not in nonalphabetic Chinese script, suggesting that script properties influence its relationship with reading expertise. We measured the composite effect for Arabic, a visually complex alphabetic script that offers a useful contrast against Latin and Chinese. Arabic-English bilinguals (N = 24), and English-only readers (N = 22) completed a composite effect task, in which they judged whether the left or right halves of word pairs were the same or different. The unattended …

Ai-Driven Decision-Making In Leadership: Balancing Automation And Human Judgment For Optimal Organizational Performance, Arafat Mohammed, Sulaiman Abdullahi Bambale, Umar Abdullahi

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

This study examines how artificial intelligence (AI)-driven decision-making can be effectively balanced with human judgment to enhance organizational performance and ethical leadership. The research adopts a systematic literature review covering studies from 2015 to 2025, retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and Google Scholar. Through thematic analysis, the review identifies three core dimensions: (1) the impact of AI on strategic accuracy and operational efficiency, (2) the mediating role of human judgment in fostering innovation and trust, and (3) the influence of ethical AI governance on employee well-being and accountability. The findings reveal that organizations integrating AI’s analytical precision …

Investigating The Similarities And Differences In Cultural Dimensions Between Primary And Secondary School Teachers In Jordan And Turkey, Based On Hofstede's Model, Balqees Almestareehi, Ercan Taşkin

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

This study aims to explore the similarities and differences in cultural dimensions between primary and secondary school teachers in Jordan and Turkey, based on Hofstede's model of cultural dimensions. The problem of the study stems from the need to understand and analyze these dimensions among teachers in both countries, to reveal the similarities and differences between them, and to explore their implications for different educational contexts. The research relied on a field survey of a sample of 100 teachers in the Jordanian and Turkish contexts, based on the recommendations of Minkov and Hofstede as preliminary data, in addition to the …

Exploring The Role Of Transformation-Oriented Behavioral Accounting In Business Sustainability: A Qualitative Research, Nadia Dakhil Enad

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

Behavioral accounting is an interdisciplinary approach that the substantially contributes to financial decision-making by providing analysis of behaviors and guides managers throughout the risks to help organizations achieve their goals. This study examines the impact of transformation-oriented behavioral accounting on business sustainability within Baghdad’s State Company for Textile and Leather. The study employed a qualitative approach and an interpretative phenomenological method. The statistical population consisted of the managers of the Baghdad Textile and Leather Company. From this population, 14 individuals with their knowledge of accounting and behaviorism were selected through purposive sampling. Sampling continued until data saturation was reached. The …

Investigating The Role Of Motivation On The Effectiveness Of Computerized Cognitive Training Among At-Risk Youth, Emely N. Lugo

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Student motivation plays a central role in academic success, influencing persistence, engagement, and performance across grade levels. Within situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT), motivation is shaped by students’ beliefs about their ability to succeed (expectancy), the importance or usefulness they assign to a task (value), the perceived effort or trade-offs involved (cost), and the situational context in which learning occurs. Although the link between motivation and academic performance is well known, there is limited research on how motivational factors, like those proposed by SEVT, influence the extent of cognitive gains from school-based cognitive interventions designed to improve abilities related to academic …

The Librarian Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale, Maoria J. Kirker, David X. Lemmons

Communications in Information Literacy

Teaching self-efficacy is a critical factor in instructional success. Little research has been conducted on how academic librarians perceive their own teaching abilities. This study introduces and validates the Librarian Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale, a tool designed to measure self-efficacy beliefs among academic librarians engaged in information literacy instruction. By adapting established self-efficacy scales to the library instruction context, this study examines key factors influencing librarian teaching self-efficacy, including instructional strategies, lesson planning, and collaboration with faculty. Collective self-efficacy, which is perceptions of colleagues’ teaching confidence, is also examined. Statistical analysis indicates a reliable and valid scale which may benefit …

The Personality Profile Of U.S. Vice President Jd Vance, Aubrey Immelman, Logan Butler

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect personality assessment of U.S. vice president JD Vance, from the conceptual perspective of personologist Theodore Millon.

Psychodiagnostically relevant data relating to Vance were collected from biographical sources and media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with DSM-III-R, DSM-IV, and DSM-5-TR.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed in accordance with interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Vance’s primary personality patterns were found …

December 2025 News Releases, University Of Montana--Missoula. Office Of University Relations

University of Montana News Releases, 1928, 1956-present

No abstract provided.

Retrospectively Examining The Probability Of Acute Skin Failure Among Hospitalized Patients With Hospital-Acquired Pressure Injuries, Tori C. Hatch, Jeanine M. Salamone, Pierna F. Vaughner, Natalie Bermudez

Nursing & Health Sciences Research Journal

Introduction: Acute skin failure (ASF) in hospitalized patients is a growing concern and a product of multisystem organ failure. Unlike hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs), ASF is not preventable despite prevention measures. The Skin Failure Clinical Indicator Scale (SFCIS) was recently developed to assess the probability of ASF. The purpose of this study was to retrospectively examine the probability of and factors associated with ASF in hospitalized individuals with HAPIs.

Methods: Data were collected from the electronic health records of in-patients with stage 3 or greater HAPIs over two years. Collection included demographics, comorbidities, COVID status, wound staging, injury location, SFCIS, …

Understanding Mental Health Crisis Response Through The Lens Of First Responders, Ella Gibson

Student Theses

Responses to mental health crises are becoming an increasingly contentious topic as cases of extreme police violence or fatality during a crisis are publicized in the media. Although first responders’ experiences with mental health crisis response have been explored in prior literature, there remains a lack of research that gathers data from multiple first responder roles and compares their experiences across groups. There is also a significant gap in research examining the perspectives of co-response teams. This study sought to gather qualitative data on the experiences of police officers, EMTs/paramedics, and co-response team members, and to explore their perceptions of …