Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Trauma Informed Interviewing: Interviewing With Empathy And Protecting Oral History Narrators, Kelley Flannery Rowan

Works of the FIU Libraries

This presentation discusses best privacy practice in the context of creating oral histories with narrators dealing with trauma. This was a panel discussion and this presentation represents content from this speaker only.

How Prolonged Social Media Use Affects Generation Z And Their New Media Literacy Skills, Ester Meyer Nunes

Global Strategic Communications Student Work

With the creation of the internet and new media platforms emerging at the beginning of the 21^st century, it has never been easier to stay connected; the world is within hand’s reach. Gen Z spends much of their day online, watching videos, chatting with friends, and creating video, text and photo content. This research explores the effects of prolonged exposure to social media, whether positive or negative.

Opening A Communication Channel With The Etd Librarian, Kelley Flannery Rowan

Works of the FIU Libraries

This presentation will share the results of a new initiative developed by the ETD Librarian at Florida International University (FIU) to develop a personal connection between students and the ETD Librarian. The goal is threefold; to provide a personal contact and open communication channel within the library to whom students can address publishing best practices and concerns with, to better inform and engage students in the metadata process of submitting theses and dissertations, and to spur the growth of knowledge and usage of ORCID. A previous initiative that added an ORCID and a license option to the metadata fields had …

Virtual Dss: Network Visualization With Palladio, Molly Castro

Digital Scholar Studio Resources

Palladio is a tool developed by Stanford University's Humanities + Design Research Lab for visualizing historical data and analyzing geographic and network relationships across time. This workshop was offered Friday, September 2nd, 11am-12pm in the Virtual Digital Scholar Studio and gives a basic introduction to network graphing and demonstrates how to create and manipulate visualizations with Palladio. Part of the 2022-2023 Virtual Digital Scholar Studio webinar Series, this webinar was presented by Molly Castro.

“I Think I Discovered A Military Base In The Middle Of The Ocean”—Null Island, The Most Real Of Fictional Places, Levente Juhasz, Peter Mooney

GIS Center

This paper explores Null Island, a fictional place located at 0° latitude and 0° longitude in the WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984) geographic coordinate system. Null Island is erroneously associated with large amounts of geographic data in a wide variety of location-based services, place databases, social media and web-based maps. Whereas it was originally considered a joke within the geospatial community, this article will demonstrate implications of its existence, both technological and social in nature, promoting Null Island as a fundamental issue of geographic information that requires more widespread awareness. The article summarizes error sources that lead to data being …

Null Island - A Node Of Contention In Openstreetmap, Peter Mooney, Levente Juhasz

GIS Center

No abstract provided.

Exploring Psychopathy Predictors In Males And Females, Teresa M. Encalada

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Psychopathy is a clinical term used to describe a personality disorder. This personality disorder presents as callousness, lack of empathy, feelings of grandiosity, impulsivity, narcissism, and a lack of guilt or remorse (Cleckley, 1951). It is noteworthy that by some estimates, those meeting the criteria of psychopathy commit 20 – 40% of violent crimes (Drislane et al., 2019) and makeup between 15% and 25% of the prison population (Kiehl & Hoffman, 2011). As such, psychopathy is one of the most significant criminal justice constructs of the present day because of the heightened and persistent levels of aggression, criminality, and financial …

Collaboration For Public Services: Explaining Outputs And Outcomes, Jennifer Hilton Montero

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses a current gap in collaborative governance literature pertaining to the performance of collaborative regimes. Specifically, it conceptualizes collaborative performance as consisting of outputs and outcomes and offers a novel way to measure them consistently across policy domains. The study tests the contextual, situational, and institutional design factors that lead to enhanced outputs and outcomes of collaborative forums. The dissertation consists of three essays, and the findings of one form the base for the others. Essay 1 systematically reviews the literature (n=274) and compares the approaches to studying collaboration in public administration to those in political science and …

Revamp Your Customer Service: Using Data To Improve Customer Service Practices, Christopher M. Jimenez, Diana Reyes

Works of the FIU Libraries

The FIU Librarians will reveal the statistics from a pilot program to formalize their Incident Management and Problem Management processes using the LibAnswers ticketing system on Springshare's LibGuides CMS. The ticketing system allowed the librarians to track the effectiveness of their troubleshooting steps, measure turnaround time for resolution, and manage their transition to new products and services. The pilot program enhanced interdepartmental communication, improved customer service outcomes, increased transparency, and identified trends and potential problems before they became widespread issues.

Three Essays On Understanding Social And Economic Responses To Crisis And Disaster Events, Shahnawaz Mohammad Rafi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation comprises three chapters that analyze the social and economic responses to crises and disasters. In the first chapter, I have investigated whether media affects the US official foreign aid channel or crisis related aid. I have examined natural disaster citations in four mainstream US newspapers to analyze whether they influence the Official Development Assistance (ODA) or the short-term crisis related aid need of a recipient following a natural disaster. I created three new media variables to measure the strength of media effect on US ODA, humanitarian aid, and food aid. The empirical analyses indicate that media citation only …

State Of Inequity: Three Essays On Disparities In Justice Provision, William T. Jackson

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Inequities in public service provision refer to disparate outputs and outcomes among social groups. This dissertation addresses inequalities in justice provision in American society and has three objectives. The first objective is to test whether the race and ethnicity of top elected law-enforcement officials mitigate disparities in juvenile justice provision among social groups. The second objective is to examine whether the gender of top elected law-enforcement officials affects the severity of justice outcomes at the street level. The third objective is to analyze institutional responses on social media platforms to police misconduct and social unrest after the death of George …

Preparing To Break Barriers: A Mixed Methods Exploration Of The Knowledge, Attitudes, And Perceptions Of Hiv, Prep, And Hiv Risk Behaviors Among Women Of Color In Miami, Florida, Amanda C. Ichite

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. HIV epidemic is characterized by regional, racial, and ethnic disparities. HIV rates are disproportionately higher in the South and Black and Hispanic populations are most impacted. Moreover, the intersectional identity of being a Black or Hispanic woman living in the South has been associated with profound disparities in HIV impact. Prior to the advent of the biomedical HIV prevention tool pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in 2012, women were limited in their options for female-controlled HIV prevention strategies. Despite the proven efficacy of PrEP, utilization in women is significantly lower than other at-risk groups. In the present study, secondary analysis …

The Invisible Propaganda: A Case Study Of The Trump Administration’S And The Media’S Messaging On Sanctuary Cities, Valeriia Popova

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How does systemic propaganda work in contemporary American democracy? The literature suggests that propaganda in its negative meaning is limited to authoritarian regimes. In democracies, it is the corporate and partisan newsrooms that acts as propaganda mouthpieces. This dissertation challenges this status quo and shifts the focus to the interaction between contemporary democratic governments and the media. This dissertation develops a model of democratic propaganda that accounts for the two- step propaganda process in contemporary democracies: the government (responsible for the original message) and the media (responsible for the final message). The project proposes an innovative eight-fold spectrum of media …

Assessing The Impact Of Intergovernmental Grant Policies In Education - The Case Of Florida, Nga (Angie) Le

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent decades, grant funding from federal and state governments has played an increasing role in school finance. However, prior research shows that education grants are not always effective, and the resources distributed to school districts are often not efficient. Increased federal and state funding does not always improve schools’ effectiveness but instead may trigger greater bureaucracy and a mass-production vision in local education administration.

This research aims to provide a theoretical foundation for and empirical evidence on the impact of intergovernmental aid in education and inform future policy reforms. This study investigates the effects of federal and state grant …

Lift Every Voice: A Narrative Study Of The Lived Experiences Of Black Female Educators In Public Schools, Rachelle A. Surrancy

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Black female educators (BFE’s) are becoming an anomaly in public school education. This decline, which can be traced back to the period of desegregation, has persisted, as Black female educators comprise only 5% of the current teacher workforce; and this at a time when their presence is needed and critically important to the successful educational experiences and outcomes of all students, but particularly Black students. While much of the research focused on Black female educators has centered around factors contributing to their decisions to leave the field, this dissertation, through the critical lenses of Critical Race Theory (CRT), and Black …

"I Got To Be Healthy For Me Beyond Covid": The Influence Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Hypertension Prevention Among Black College Students: A Mixed Methods Study, Talegria Brown

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Black college students are at an increased risk of developing hypertension resulting from their race, ethnicity, family history, and added stressors of college life. Hypertension is a risk factor for COVID-19 disease severity hence the need to investigate its impact on hypertension risk factors. The purpose of this mixed-methods explanatory study was to understand the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on hypertension awareness among Black college students.

A cross-sectional, online survey was conducted to study the effect of knowledge, attitudes, and practices on hypertension risk factors among Black college students (Aim 1). The mean hypertension knowledge score was 7.54 (SD …

An Interpretive Analysis: Black Men, Masculinities, And The Field Of Tropic Play, Mario D. Lewis

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While much has been written about the participation of Black Men in higher education, such scholarship has often been predicated on empirically derived insights that have privileged phenomenological experiences as a primary point of departure for analysis. While this literature has done much to illuminate how higher education scholars and practitioners understand what Black men pursuing higher education experience, I use this study as an opportunity to think differently about this demographic and those experiences.

With the aim of not only providing nuanced understanding of Black men in college, but also a general methodological shift in how they are studied …

Decision-Making Culture And Change: Toward Democratic Equity And Inclusion, Dale Francis

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of challenges to the development of democratic equity and inclusion in administration. It examines Woodrow Wilson’s and the 1968 Minnowbrook Conference participants’ thoughts about public administration in environments of political constraint and crisis. The study consists of four essays. Essay 1 is an overview of Wilson’s concerns for the development of administration and thoughts on a prescribed role for the study. Essay 2 presents an overview of the Minnowbrook Conference concerns, including the traditional political rationality. Essay 3 surveys contemporary equity and inclusion literature and assesses the linkages to the ideas of Wilson and the …

Three Essays On Trade Policy In A Multi-Country World, Enrique Valdes

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation involves analyzing welfare in developing countries due to a variety of trade policies. Because all three chapters focus on developing countries and their interactions with more developed countries, we need a model that accounts for differences in income between countries, easily extending to more than two countries. For our analysis, we draw on the Ricardian model developed by Matsuyama (2000).

The first chapter investigates the effects tariff wars have on developing countries. We study the effect of a tariff war between two richer countries on a non-participant low-income developing country. Surprisingly, we find that the low-income country can …

Effect Of Using The Snackability Smartphone Application To Improve The Quality Of Snack Intake, General Diet Quality, And Weight Among College Students, Lukkamol Prapkree

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

College is a challenging period to make healthy food and snack choices and this could lead to poor diet quality and weight gain in the future. The Snackability application (app) was developed using the Social Cognitive Theory for behavior change to help students choose healthy snacks based on the USDA guidelines. The objective of this study was to determine whether the app improved snack, diet quality, and body weight in overweight and obese college students within a two-arm, 12-week randomized controlled trial (RCT). A total of 139 participants completed all baseline measures and were randomized into the control or app …

Essays On Monetary Policy And International Macroeconomics, Elisa Vilorio Medina

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An understanding how external shocks affect macroeconomic variables is important

for policy implications and sound recommendations. My dissertation analyzes the

impact of exogenous shocks on inflation, exchange rate, and monetary policy in

advanced economies and emerging market economies.

The second chapter explores the extent to which the exogenous shock of the

shale oil revolution explains the missing-puzzle inflation—sluggish price inflation

in the U.S and below the Federal Reserve’s two percent inflation target following

the expansion after the Great Recession. Using a novel identification framework,

I disentangle the shocks by imposing a combination of dynamic sign restrictions,

block exogeneity, and short-run …

Gender And Prosecutorial Decision Making: An Examination Of Representative Bureaucracy Theory, Maria Arndt

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prosecutors are powerful actors in the American criminal justice system, yet relatively little is known about their decision making compared to other legal agents. They decide to bring charges against defendants and are granted substantial influence over plea negotiations, thus affecting the trajectory of case outcomes. While an emerging body of scholarship examines what factors influence prosecutorial discretion, there are few studies that examine how their identities influence case outcomes. Once a traditionally, white, male-dominated field, prosecution is becoming more diverse. Research suggests representation affects organizational output. This theory, known as representative bureaucracy, suggests that more diverse organizations have more …

Three Essays On Healthcare Economics, Esteban Chinchilla

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation follows a three-essay format. The first chapter examines the impact of a home visiting program on medical expenses and healthcare services utilization implemented by a healthcare maintenance organization. The evaluation uses administrative claims data to estimate the six-month average expenditures following program enrollment. The estimation is carried out by applying a difference-in-differences method to compare spend for patients enrolled in the program to a control group. Estimation using matching methods to address any potential confounding bias is also applied to support estimates and confirms findings. The estimation finds that the program increases average medical expenditures by as much …

Essays On The Economic Effects Of Income Inequality, Adir Dos Santos Mancebo Junior

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Income inequality has been rising throughout the world. In the United States, for example, the income share of the population at the top 10% of the income distribution rose 34% from 1980 to 2019 according to data from the World Inequality Database. This dissertation studies how increasing levels of income inequality might affect the economy.

In the first chapter, I show that changes in the level of income inequality may affect consumption volatility through changes in household aggregate marginal propensity to consume (MPC). I propose a simple theoretical framework to explain this dynamic and evaluate it empirically, combining data from …

The Politics Of The Self: Psychedelic Assemblages, Psilocybin, And Subjectivity In The Anthropocene, Joshua Falcon

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how psychedelic substances become drawn into particular sociohistorical and political arrangements, and how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms’ are used as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, assemblage theory, and critical posthumanism, I argue that psychedelics are drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which conceptualizes the nature of psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of the world and the self. In developing the concept of psychedelic assemblages, this research provides a window onto the politics of the self in the Anthropocene. …

Proactive Librarians, An Annoying Chat Widget, & A Global Pandemic: Analysis Of How An Existing Pop-Up Chat Widget Delivered Point Of Need Reference Services During A Global Pandemic At A Major Academic Institution, Christopher M. Jimenez

Works of the FIU Libraries

In 2019, the librarians at Florida International University in Miami, Fl. implemented a pop-up chat widget using Springshare’s LibChat software to help drive more traffic toward virtual reference services. This led to an instant increase in traffic through our chat platform. Affectionately called the Annoying Chat Widget, the ACW also had the unintended success of increasing the percentage of quality research queries, improving the use of librarian time and effort. This established service proved vital when transitioning to fully remote services in March 2020, when librarians were forced to provide all services via virtual modalities. The poster presents a statistical …

Improving Witnesses' Predictive Confidence Judgments By Enhancing Test Domain Familiarity, Laura J. Shambaugh

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent research on witnesses’ pre-identification confidence (“predictive confidence”) suggests that these judgments are moderately related to identification accuracy when witnesses experience encoding variability and appropriate statistical techniques are used. However, other research shows that under ecologically valid conditions involving a single identification, the relationship between predictive confidence and accuracy deteriorates. One potential explanation for this lack of a meaningful confidence-accuracy relationship is that witnesses are unfamiliar with the lineup task leading them to underestimate its difficulty. Identification difficulty is partly determined by the similarity of lineup fillers to the suspect, which witnesses cannot anticipate when they make a predictive confidence …

The Interplay Between Parental Executive Functioning, Parental Stress, And Parenting Skills Across A Parenting Intervention, Taylor Landis

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Behavioral parent training (BPT) interventions are the gold standard treatment for preschoolers with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and have been shown to improve parenting, and therefore children’s behavior. However, treatment outcomes are dependent upon various child and parent factors. Less research has examined predictors of treatment response in preschoolers, including parental factors, which is important given the known benefits of early intervention.

This dissertation is comprised of three manuscripts focused on parent and child executive functioning (EF), and intervention outcomes for children with ADHD and their parents. Study I examined the extent to which individual differences in EF and emotion regulation …

Neuromodulation To Enhance Attention Training In Socially Anxious Adolescents, Daniella Vaclavik

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety and its disorders are prevalent and impairing in adolescents, often following a chronic course, and are associated with heightened prospective risk of depressive disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors. Traditional interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) have yielded response rates that highlight the critical need to examine treatment outcome moderators in underrepresented populations (i.e., Latino youth), as well as identify and evaluate innovative and alternative interventions that are brief, efficacious, and grounded in neuroscience. In a series of three manuscripts, this dissertation project presents findings on moderators of CBT outcomes in Latino youth (Chapter II) and explores …

A Look At Contributing Factors That Affect Female Underrepresentation In Management, In The United States, Nushine W. Hosseini

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines contributing factors that affect female underrepresentation in management, in the United States (U.S.), within the U.S. workforce. The primary variables of interest are intrinsic motivation, work life balance and organizational climate support, which have typically not been reviewed in depth, in prior research.

Using a framework of varied theoretical approaches, this research studies the relationship between the above-mentioned constructs and gender effect, as related to interest in career advancement opportunities and female leadership underrepresentation within organizations.

The results of this study further validate existing research and highlights the importance of establishing programs, geared towards shifting mindsets and …