Digital Commons Network^™

School Policy, Health Equity, And Lgbtq+ Youth: Implications Of Mahmoud V. Taylor, Anna Folta

Online/Hybrid MPH Integrative Learning Experience (capstone projects)

School-based policy functions as a critical lever for reducing health disparities among LGBTQ+ youth, who face elevated risks of suicidality, bullying, unsafe school environments, and housing instability. An extensive body of research identifies inclusive school practices—such as affirming curricula, supportive staff, and student organizations—as key protective factors that foster belonging and improve mental health outcomes. However, recent political and legal developments threaten the implementation and consistency of these protections.

Using a structured literature review and comparative policy analysis of federal, state, and district responses, this project integrates public health evidence with legal interpretation to assess how emerging parental opt-out frameworks …

2026-06-12 Agenda Booklet, Morehead State University. Board Of Regents.

Morehead State Board of Regents Agenda Books and Meeting Minutes

Agenda booklet for the Board of Regents meeting of June 12, 2026, held in Prestonsburg, which includes the meeting minutes of the meeting held on March 27, 2026.

Identity-Conditioned Rewards For Gender Quotas In Autocracies: A Cross-National Conjoint Experiment, Zixuan Diana Wang

Quantitative Social Science Undergraduate Senior Theses

Do gender quotas in autocracies increase international public support for providing foreign aid to those regimes, and are such rewards conditioned by identity? A recent study by Bush et al. (2024) finds that quotas increase public support for foreign aid to autocracies among the U.S. public. I replicate their study beyond the U.S. to test the generalizability of their findings. I also extend their study by examining how religious and racial identities condition the reputational benefits associated with quotas, as recent studies show that identity shapes foreign aid preferences and support for democracy. I fielded a harmonized conjoint experiment in …

Interactive Social Game Design For Sustainability Learning, Kayla Mattson, Kayla Huffman, Megha Thottam, Shreeya Koritala

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Our Roots is a community-centered, web-based social game designed to improve sustainability education by turning everyday environmental actions into shared, visible progress. While many existing tools provide information about sustainability, they often focus on individual tracking and short-term motivation, which can lead to disengagement over time. This project addresses that gap by reframing sustainability as a social practice: users log real-world sustainable behaviors, earn points, and see those actions represented as growth in both personal and community digital gardens. By combining friendly competition, peer visibility, and collective outcomes, the platform encourages users to view sustainability not as an isolated task, …

Neoliberalism & The Care Economy: Exploring The Gendered Impacts Of Social Protection Systems, Rachel Carruthers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how neoliberal transformation of social protection policy influences gender dynamics within the care economy. Care is necessary for well-being, but traditionally excluded from economic thinking. This thesis completes a historical overview of how care has been incorporated or excluded by different economic paradigms and is anchored in feminist political economy that emphasizes care as a central consideration. A comparative analysis across California, Texas, and Sweden demonstrates how social protection, specifically access to paid parental leave, varies across regimes and results in inconsistent care outcomes. The findings suggest that social protections can reduce some inequalities, but inadequately address …

Data Governance Maturity, Ai Integration, And Equity In Colorado K-12 Public Schools, John R. Curtin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Colorado's 179 K-12 public school districts operate as autonomous governance units, each responsible for securing and managing student data assets that span health, financial, residential, and academic records. The accelerating integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools into administrative workflows, productivity software, and instructional platforms has fundamentally altered the risk landscape for student data, yet governance frameworks at the state, district, and school levels have not kept pace. This dissertation investigates whether Colorado's decentralized educational governance structure is institutionally capable of producing equitable, secure, and sustainable data governance outcomes in the AI era.

Drawing on Institutional Theory …

Navigating Filipino-American Identity Through Philippine Foodways, Jenelle Kirsten De Leon

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines the complexity of Filipino-American identity and investigates how Philippine foodways can function as a meaningful pathway for cultural understanding, identity formation, and intergenerational connection. Shaped by colonization, cultural hybridity, generational divides, and limited representation in Western education and media, Filipino-American identity is often difficult to define and navigate, leaving many individuals without accessible entry points to explore their culture, history, traditions, and more.

Through an analysis of existing literature, primary research, and a survey of Filipino-American youth, this study finds that Filipino cuisine operates as a powerful site of cultural and historical knowledge. The narratives embedded within …

Association Between Food Insecurity And Mental Health Of Active-Duty Service Members And Their Families, Ashley Harr

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Otherness And The Trinity: Toward A Critical Reimagining Of Christian Divinity From A Postcolonial Ethos, Taylor Muma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I address the Trinity’s potential as an emancipatory relational archetype in the philosophy of religion, while at the same time recognizing the complicity of Christian doctrine in colonial conquest. My dissertation will be a reimagining of trinitarian theology as an ecotonal paradigm of multiplicity and alterity that provides a generative means of moving beyond the enmeshment of divinity with constructs of mastery.

The post-structuralist and postcolonial methodologies in this project emerge from the work of such scholars as Homi Bhabha, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas and Gloria Anzaldúa. They foreground critical ideations of otherness and multiplicity in ways …

The Permanent Emergency: The Anti-Fascist And Anti-Colonial Intersections Of James Joyce’S Ulysses And Roberto Bolaño’S 2666, Lily V. Mcmanamy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is going to explore the (Irish) Anti-Colonial and (Spanish) Anti-Fascist parallels between James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 (2004). Using the major epic novels of two exiled authors, I hope to explore the intersections of poetic fiction and political resistance. I read these texts as bookends spanning the pre- and post-war periods, highlighting the continuities of colonialism, totalitarianism, and fascism, and the way these authors develop a post/modernist narrative that nods towards these themes. I plan to draw on Alberto Toscano’s LateFascism (2023) as a means of situating these authors’ novels with our own political moment …

Evaluation And Distillation Of Source Code Generation Tasks By Large Language Models, Danny Brahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Large Language Models (LLMs) are predominantly assessed based on their common sense reasoning, language comprehension, and logical reasoning abilities. While models trained in specialized domains like mathematics or coding have demonstrated remarkable advancements in logical reasoning, there remains a significant gap in evaluating their code generation capabilities. Existing benchmark datasets fall short in pinpointing specific strengths and weaknesses, impeding targeted enhancements in models’ reasoning abilities to synthesize code.

To bridge this gap, this thesis introduces two novel contributions: CodeEval and CodeQual. CodeEval is an innovative, pedagogical benchmarking method that mirrors the evaluation processes encountered in academic programming courses. It comprises …

The Organizational Experience Of Next Gen Learning Through Portrait Of A Graduate, Kathleen J. Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative single-case study investigates the organizational journey of navigating the complexities of systemic transformation. In 2021, Silver Peak School District (SPSD; a pseudonym), a rural educational organization in the western United States, implemented a graduate competency framework known as Portrait of a Graduate. This study analyzed the experiences of teachers, instructional coaches, and principals with the explicit Portrait policies, practices, and resource flows of five learning structures—graduate competencies (in SPSD, this is analogous to Portrait), deeper learning, agency, performance assessment, and teaching culture—in a district in the messy middle of Portrait adoption. By focusing on a district situated in …

She Believed She Could, So She Did: A Lifecycle Approach To Understanding Leadership And Self-Efficacy Development In Women Astronauts, Savanah Faith Sellars Bray

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how women leaders develop and sustain self-efficacy, and develop as leaders, throughout their lives. Although decades of research document the barriers women face navigating leadership journeys, including the challenges described in the Women’s Leadership Labyrinth of prejudice, discrimination, and childcare issues, existing literature offers limited insight into how women actively build belief in their capacity to lead and accomplish their goals. Further, research consistently shows that women report lower leadership self-efficacy than men, even with comparable experience, yet the developmental processes that shape this gap, beginning in childhood, remain underexplored. Guided by self-efficacy research and its four …

Testing Potential Correlations Between Childhood Lead Exposure And Authoritarianism In Adulthood, Kragen Anderson

University Honors Theses

A significant body of research links lead exposure during childhood to negative effects ranging from increased impulsivity to societal level effects such as an increased likelihood of committing violent crime in adulthood. Due to exposure vectors such as lead water pipes, lead solder, lead based paints, and leaded gasoline there was significant lead exposure during childhood for large portions of the American population. This paper tested and found a statistically significant association between average population level lead exposure in childhood and likelihood of voting for candidate Trump later in life.

Healthcare Access Challenges Among Asian Americans, Phyo Theingi

University Honors Theses

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial ethnic group in the U.S. According to the 2023 U.S. Census Bureau population estimate, Asian Americans account for 25.2 million (or 7.4%) of the nation's population. Asian Americans are not a monolith and represent a diversity of rich histories, cultures, languages and ethnicities. According to research conducted by the Pew Research Center, most Asian Americans face discrimination of some kind, including being treated as a foreigner in the U.S and being stereotyped as a model minority. They also experience health care access barriers. Research found that Asian Americans face barriers related to language …

Don't Self-Opt Out Of Career Opportunities: Proceed With Confidence, Valerie Mendoza

Faculty Publications

While reflecting on your career in the past, have you ever stepped back from an opportunity that you wanted because you doubted yourself? In the workplace, confidence often gets mistaken for competence, and that means talented employees can be overlooked simply because they hesitate. The truth is that confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s a skill you can build. This session will get you started on building that skill.

We’ll explore practical strategies to strengthen your confidence starting today. We’ll also break down the key differences between how confident individuals act compared to those who aren’t, so you can …

Becoming The Phoenix: Black Women’S Experiences And Leadership Growth Through Humanized Black Feminist Action Learning, Jovan Keith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the workplace learning experiences of Black women professionals in corporate leadership contexts. Leadership development programs often rely on standardized models that overlook the lived realities shaping Black women’s professional experiences. In response, this study introduced Humanized Black Feminist Action Learning, a leadership development intervention that integrates Black feminist scholarship, humanizing pedagogy, and critical action learning.

Using a qualitative case study design, the research examined a cohort of midcareer Black women professionals who participated in four facilitated learning sessions structured around workplace dilemmas. During these sessions, participants engaged in reflection, dialogue, and action as they examined workplace dynamics …

Educator Perceptions Of Human-Ai Co-Creativity: A Mixed Methods Study, Wendy L. Jensen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Educators play a critical role in navigating the intersection of creativity and artificial intelligence in the work of teaching and learning. As frontline implementers of daily instruction and decision-makers around the use of technology tools, teachers determine, in practice, how creativity and artificial intelligence converge in learning environments. Because teachers play this central role, examining their perceptions is critical for fostering the effective use of AI in educational contexts in ways that preserve and advance creative teaching and learning. In this convergent mixed methods study, I investigated educators’ perceptions of human-AI co-creativity, with particular attention to how these perceptions inform …

Defying Impossibility: Critical Qualitative Reorientations To Black Lgbtqia+ Sense Of Belonging, Olivia H. Hunte

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Belonging is a human need central to survival and can be cultivated within all spheres of life. Social environments are vital for experiencing a sense of belonging. In some social environments, Black LGBTQIA+ people encounter greater impediments to their daily lives with consequences for survival, including threatening their belonging needs. Within the United States, systems of oppression create and inform conditions within social environments that can potentially thwart pathways to belonging for Black LGBTQIA+ people. Thus, fulfillment of belonging needs for Black LGBTQIA+ people is one of nuance, pain, resilience, hope, harm, trauma, resistance, and healing; scant research is available …

The Dictatorial Public Goods Game, Gabriele Camera, Gary Charness, Nir Chemeya, Ro'i Zultan

ESI Working Papers

We propose a novel game, the Dictatorial Public Goods Game, to study the interplay between collective resource generation and centralized provision of public goods. After making choices in a standard Voluntary Contribution Mechanism (VCM), one player is selected from the group to administrate the contributions: either provide the public good or expropriate the collected resources for personal gain. We find that adding this centralized mechanism reduces efficiency compared to the standard VCM. Although higher contributions increase the material incentive to expropriate, they lead to more provision. Thus, pro-social choices in the contribution and in the provision stages act as …

Explainable Multi-Agent Llm Framework For Phishing Email Detection Via Role-Specialized Evidence Decomposition, Tanya Yadav, Mohammad Masum

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Phishing email remains a persistent and operationally critical cybersecurity threat, yet existing detection approaches, including traditional machine learning and single-pass large language model systems, either lack native interpretability or provide explanations that are difficult to standardize and audit. This paper introduces an explainable multi-agent LLM framework that decomposes phishing evidence across three role-specialized agents focused on linguistic patterns, psychological manipulation, and sender identity consistency. The framework then aggregates specialist outputs through schema-governed synthesis, enabling each intermediate and final decision to be structured, comparable, and auditable. The central contribution is the treatment of role-specialized evidence decomposition and explanation structure as first-class …

Does Customer Expectation Affect Customer Experience? - Evidence From Nigerian Hospitality Industry, Adeyemi Abdulwasiu Adebayo, Abdulazeez Alhaji Salau

ASEAN Marketing Journal

Abstract

Manuscript type: Research Article

Research Aims: Examined the impact of consumer expectations on customer experience in selected hotels and hospitality businesses in Offa and Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria

Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a quantitative research approach; the study utilized a survey method to gather primary data through questionnaires. The sample size was determined using the Godden (2004) model, resulting in a total of 246 participants, 150 questionnaires were finally retrieved and inputted for data analysis after the shorting out of wrongly filled and deduction of unretrieved copies of the questionnaires. The study also used multistage sampling …

The Influence Of Perceived Value On Impulse Buying In Omnichannel Beauty Retail In Indonesia, Bella Amanda Jati, Tengku Ezni Balqiah

ASEAN Marketing Journal

This research aims to examine the influence of perceived value on both cognitive and affective impulse buying in omnichannel beauty retail in Indonesia using the S-O-R (Stimulus-Organism-Response) theory. By distributing questionnaires to 279 respondents who had shopped at Sociolla or Sephora, both online and offline, the study found that channel integration positively affects consumer empowerment, while convenience does not have a significant impact. Consumer empowerment influences satisfaction, trust, and perceived value. Additionally, trust positively impacts perceived value, but satisfaction does not show a significant effect. Perceived value affects cognitive and affective impulse buying. This study provides theoretical contributions regarding the …

Consumer Spontaneous Purchases Under Pressure! Do The Roles Of Time Pressure And Stock Pressure In Flash Sales Differ Between Hedonic And Utilitarian Products?, Anthony E. Hendra, Karto Adiwijaya

ASEAN Marketing Journal

The development of the digital world has driven changes in the live streaming commerce sales method, which is a combination of e-commerce with social media live streaming features. Flash sales are one strategy that is often used in marketing a product in live streaming commerce to increase sales quickly. Time pressure and stock pressure are components of flash sales that effectively force consumers to make impulsive purchases. By causing a scarcity effect on consumers, pressure can make consumers go through a long decision-making process and make unplanned purchases. In this study, researchers used the stimulus-organism-response theory to explain the role …

A Study Of Impulsive Buying Behavior Of Skincare Consumers On The Garnier Brand In Tiktok Shop: Are Women More Impulsive Than Men?, Fandis Ekyawan, Iqbal Alizar Fadillah

ASEAN Marketing Journal

Manuscript type: Research Article.

Research Aims: This study examines the determinants of impulsive buying behavior among skincare consumers—specifically Garnier buyers on TikTok Shop—using the SOR framework, and tests whether female consumers show higher impulsivity than males through gender moderation.

Design/methodology/approach: An online survey of 361 consumers who had purchased Garnier products via TikTok Shop’s live streaming feature was conducted. Five livestream stimulus factors—social interaction, streamer’s style, gratification, gamification, and visualization—were modeled as predictors of perceived hedonic value (PHV), which subsequently influences impulsive buying behavior (IBB) and user stickiness (US). PLS-SEM was used to analyze direct, mediating, and moderating effects.

Research …

Adult Survivors Of Csas’ Use Of Self-Efficacy To Develop Healthy Interpersonal Relationships, Holly Davis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Improving Strategic Planning In Faith-Based Transitional Housing For Women And Children, Cheryl Lee Burrall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Domain-Specific Associations Between Physical Activity And Tinnitus In Nhanes 2015-2018, Mitra Britton, Peter A Hosick

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Background/Objectives: Tinnitus is a prevalent auditory condition associated with significant psychological burden and limited treatment efficacy. While physical activity confers broad health benefits, its relationship with tinnitus remains understudied. This study examined associations between domain-specific physical activity and tinnitus in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. Methods: Data from NHANES 2015-2018 were analyzed. The final analytic sample comprised 4301 adults aged 20 years and older. Tinnitus was assessed via the NHANES audiometry questionnaire. Physical activity was categorized as low, moderate, and high (MET-min/week) separately for work-related (WORK) and non-work-related (NW) domains. Survey-weighted multivariable logistic regression models, adjusted for age, …

A Narrative Study Of The “Religious Dones” And Their Religious Identity, Relationship To God, And Social Connections, Michelle Suh

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

This qualitative study aims to learn about how religious dones — those who were formerly religious but no longer identify as religious — have constructed their life narratives in light of their religious deidentification, with particular attention on the evolution of religious identity, perceived relationship with God, and social connections across the lifespan. A narrative methodology was employed to capture participants’ experiences in a story format to understand the subjective meaning-making process of their lived experiences, and six young adults between the ages of 23-29 participated in the study. Data collection consisted of a life-story portion of the interview with …

Heroes At Home: Developing And Evaluating A Comprehensive Parenting Program For Expectant Parents And Parents Of Young Children, Olivia Adams

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Parental preparedness plays a critical role in parental wellbeing, relationship functioning, and early child development; however, many parents report feeling unprepared for the emotional, relational, and developmental demands of parenthood. Although psychoeducational parenting programs have demonstrated positive effects on parental mental health and child outcomes, access to comprehensive and time-efficient interventions remains limited. This pilot program evaluation assessed the feasibility and preliminary outcomes of a brief, online psychoeducational parenting program designed to reduce parenting stress and enhance parental self-efficacy. A quasi-experimental pre–post design was used to examine changes in parenting stress and parental self-efficacy following participation in a single 120-minute …