Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effects Of Involvement In Religious Practices On Recovering Substance Users., Taylor Currier

Honors Theses

This paper reviews empirical studies focused on spirituality and its effects on those in the recovery process from substance abuse. This paper will look at qualitative studies as well as quantitative research to see which form has derived the best results on how spirituality has affected substance abuse recovery. Prolonged recovery is the goal for those that struggle with substance use. Behavior change is an important in sustaining sobriety with those dealing with addiction. It is predicted that those who engage in spiritual growth within their community have a higher likelihood of prolonged recovery than those that do not believe …

Reading A Literary Passage: Anticipation, Emotion, And Comprehension, Jacob Hurwitz

Honors Theses

Trigger warnings (TWs) are statements that provide students a caution that upcoming educational content may be emotionally disturbing. The idea is that TWs allow students to psychologically prepare themselves. However, recent studies suggest TWs may function as threat cues, rather than preparatory cues, eliciting anticipatory anxiety and avoidance. The present study examined the difference between presenting antecedent information to students in the form of a TW versus an alternative, a coping cue, introduced as a Content Notice. In a between-groups design, undergraduate students (N = 113) who received extra credit for study participation were randomized to receive a TW or …

Sustainability Trends In Higher Education: An Analysis Of The International Journal Of Sustainability In Higher Education, Jessica Poling

Honors Theses

Since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, human activities have substantially harmed the biosphere and, if continued, pose a substantial risk to life on Earth. Recognizing this, educated people have advocated widespread adoption of sustainable practices and, in particular, have increased the amount of sustainability efforts associated with higher education. The International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, established in 2000, is devoted to such practices. For my honors thesis, I examined articles published in the journal from 2010 through 2019 to determine the countries, and the institutions within those countries, that were the primary contributors to the journal. …

Collegiate Dance Club Marketing Plan, Aubrie Malhoit

Honors Theses

The objective of this thesis is to develop a marketing plan to support the creation and implementation of a new dance club at Western Michigan University (WMU). A situational analysis was conducted that established that there are currently no dance-related opportunities on campus that offers a low time commitment and multiple styles of dance for all skill levels of dancers. Based on primary research, this marketing plan outlines a strategy for the inauguration of a dance club that encompasses what current dance-related activities at WMU are lacking and incorporates the features students are looking for in a new dance club. …

Political Scandal And Party Identification, Michael Sekich

Honors Theses

How do voters react to political scandal, especially when a like-minded partisan is involved? We look to answer that question by utilizing the concept of self-monitoring. Before collecting the data, expectations were that high self-monitors would identify as an independent when exposed to the partisan political scandal. But, when presented with a non-partisan political scandal, high self-monitors would feel more comfortable identifying as their own partisanship. This study offers mixed results. We found that high self-monitors had the only meaningful differences, and low self-monitors did not display significant differences across the versions. The Republican scandal yielded the most meaningful response, …

The Rhetorical Functions Of Levantine Burial Practices During The Chalcolithic Period: Form, Function, And Symbolism As A Pedagogical Tool, Moline Mallamo

Honors Theses

This undergraduate honors thesis project explores the rhetorical implications of burial practices from the southern Levant during the Chalcolithic period. The purpose of this thesis is to expound upon research that has already been conducted in order to offer additional, and sometimes alternative, theories to what currently exists in the literature. I argue that the forms and functions of the burial techniques were used, at least partially, as “tools” to teach cultural and religious beliefs regarding life, death, and the afterlife to the individuals in the community. The inferred relationship between the materiality and symbology of these burial practices provides …

Perspectives Of Health Care Providers In The Dominican Republic Towards Pregnant Haitian Women, Diana Hernandez

Honors Theses

Due to the lack of basic health care in Haiti, many Haitian women cross the border looking for a better public health service in the Dominican Republic. However, differences in cultural and medical practices exist between both countries. Thus, for my thesis, I intend to study and explain the challenges that Dominican health care providers feel might impede their abilities to provide adequate health care to pregnant Haitian patients and how they respond to and manage those challenges that they face.

A Comparison Of Traditional Methods Of Osteological Cutmark Analysis Versus The Implementation Of New-Age Technology In The Field Of Anthropology, Kayla Genord

Honors Theses

Bone cutmark analysis is a practice that has been performed by forensic researchers and medical examiners around the world. The traditional method of gathering information for this type of analysis is to draw a detailed picture or take a photo of the bone which can be analyzed for pattern, coloration and orientation of each individual lesion and then the mark itself is measured with non-digital Vernier (hand) calipers or a ruler. In recent years, forensic anthropologists have been using DSLR cameras and digital calipers to record these findings as well as detailed field notes to determine the condition and tool …

Crude Oil Spill Response In The Great Lakes Region: Before And After The 2010 Kalamazoo River Enbridge Oil Spill, Marshall Kim

Honors Theses

Pipeline infrastructure is a particularly sensitive and unique energy transport mode. Pipelines carry gas, biofuels and liquid petroleum throughout the United States (U.S. Department of Transportation, 2019). These pipelines stretch beneath sensitive ecological areas, lakes, rivers and streams, and our homes and businesses. According to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) (2018), between all of the states in the Great Lakes region (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York) there is a cumulative 801,718 miles of pipeline. This includes interstate and intrastate, natural gas and petroleum pipelines. 9,556.9 miles of this is the interstate …

Examining The Prevalence Of Loneliness And Social Support Of Undergraduates In Western Michigan University's Sociology Department, Michael Kemme

Honors Theses

Humans, by nature, are social beings. This is evident by any number of examples, ranging from the psychological effects of solitary confinement in prisons, to the plethora of social media platforms available today. Humans, clearly, have a desire, if not a need, to be surrounded by and interact with others. Because of this, loneliness, especially its relationship to social support, has been a strong topic of research in academia.

This present study sought to complete a descriptive, cross-sectional analysis that addressed five demographic characteristics (gender, race, relationship status, RSO [Registered Student Organization] or Fraternity/Sorority Membership, and on-campus v/s off-campus living …

A Comparison Study Of Naming, Kassidi Krzykwa

Honors Theses

Bidirectional naming is the ability to acquire a listener response or tact for a stimulus and then emit the other operant without further training. Incidental naming refers to the ability to emit the listener response and tact for the item without direct reinforcement after just being exposed to the name of the item. The development of naming could allow a child to learn more readily from the natural environment. However, it is unclear if bidirectional naming and incidental naming are two separate skills, or if one is potentially a prerequisite for the other. For this project, procedures outlined by Greer …

Stimulus Fading On Teaching Receptive Identification, Dennis Pomorski

Honors Theses

Many of the skills needed to live happily and independently are not in the repertoires of children diagnosed with autism, and they do not learn these skills through exposure to others (MacDuff, 2001). One of the skills children diagnosed with ASD struggle to develop is receptive identification. There is often a risk of prompt dependence or failure to transfer stimulus control to the desired stimuli when using LTM prompting methods. Children with autism spectrum disorder may require a different approach in developing a receptive language repertoire. The purpose of this study was to teach a child diagnosed with ASD receptive …

Social Work Students' Attitudes Towards Using Yoga, Alexis Freed

Honors Theses

Current social work students are in the position of becoming future professionals who will be providing treatment and referrals to clients. It is crucial that social workers are aware of effective treatments and utilize evidence-based practices. The present study aimed to assess opinions and knowledge of social work students towards using yoga in general and as a therapeutic intervention, which is known as trauma sensitive yoga (TSY). An anonymous survey was created in order to determine this. Participants in this study were male and female students at Western Michigan University within the College of Health and Human Services who were …

Teaching Echoics To A Student With Autism: Video Model Vs Live Model, Dana Waddell

Honors Theses

Learning a language is not always an easy task for all children. Typically, language is a skill that comes naturally very young in a child’s life, but for children with autism, the path to learning language is very different. The first stages of learning language involve many skills, one of which are called “echoic skills,” because the child directly echoes a sound a person elicits. This is fundamental to learning language, especially in children with autism. The field of behavior analysis has conducted great amounts of research on this topic and has found that using technology in therapy sessions can …

Establishing Auditory Discrimination And Echoic Stimulus Control With An Auditory Matching Procedure, Matthew Von Holst

Honors Theses

An echoic is a verbal operant which is controlled by a verbal discriminative stimulus and is characterized by the repetition of the verbal behavior of another speaker with point-to-point correspondence between the sound of the stimulus and the response (Skinner, 1957). These echoic responses are very important for children with developmental disorders because their language development is very unpredictable and may not appear at all, potentially causing difficulties in school and problems with social development (Reed, 2005). Teaching language acquisition skills can help offset these problems because it reinforces future echoic responses and helps develop advanced verbal operants such as …

Using A Progressive Time Delay To Increase Mands In A Child With Autism, Brielle Babcock

Honors Theses

Mands are a building block for all communication and are therefore important to teach to individuals who do not consistently use mands. Skinner defined a mand as a “verbal operant in which the response is reinforced by a characteristic consequence and is under the control of relevant conditions of deprivation or aversive stimulation” (Hall & Sundberg 1987). By providing individuals with a way to express their desires and needs, individuals display less problem behaviors. A functional form of communication is imperative to typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorders alike. The goal of the current study was to …

Increasing The Echoic Repertoire Of A Child With Autism Using An Imitation And Echoic Sequence, Rose Bridges

Honors Theses

A prerequisite to many things in life is the ability to communicate. Although this may mean many different things, such as verbal language, sign language, written language, and even icons, there must be some form of communication that may be utilized to get needs across. Many young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are non-verbal, however there are also many children with ASD who have the ability to say words but are still not independently speaking. Reinforcing approximations to word sounds has been previously used as an effective way of increasing the child’s verbal repertoire (Shane, 2017). The present study …

Matching-To-Sample Using A Tablet, Karina Salazar-Ponce

Honors Theses

Kids with autism tend to have a difficult time with one-to-one correspondence matching. Matching-to-sample is the process of pairing an identical stimulus to its corresponding stimulus, for example, matching a physical object to its corresponding picture. This is an important skill because it is the first step in teaching individuals with developmental delays visual discrimination skills and generalization of matching. The use of technology is beneficial because it helps with attending in instructional learning. Technology is also becoming more advanced and is being used more in classrooms. The purpose of this study was to teach matching-to-sample using a tablet. There …

Creating A Distribution Model Of Invasive Rusty Crayfish (Faxonius Rusticus) In Michigan Streams Using Publically Accessible Data, Robert C. Homan

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to create a predictive model of habitat suitability for the invasive rusty crayfish (Faxonius rusticus) throughout the state of Michigan. F. rusticus often outcompete and extirpate native crayfish species, so understanding their habitats of success is instrumental in monitoring vulnerable ecosystems. Michigan State University and the Michigan DNR conducted extensive field surveys across 461 streams sites from 2014-2016. This project compares this field data set to data from publicly available national datasets with the purpose of revealing the ecosystems most vulnerable to the introduction of F. rusticus. The pattern of F. rusticus …

Testing A New Photovoice Model: A Meta-Analysis On Participatory Action Research Methodologies In Geographical Research, Nolan Bergstrom

Masters Theses

Photovoice was developed in the early 1990s for use in public health studies evolving from participatory action research (PAR) and photographic methods. It attempts to mitigate the power dynamics between researcher and researched by allowing participants to be the primary knowledge producers. The Photovoice methodology has left open methodological avenues to implement Photovoice as a research tool in many fields. This research aimed to modify the Photovoice methodology to include mobile technology, social media to create a new model of Photovoice.

This research was conducted in K.I. Sawyer, MI, a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan over a …

Agritourism Development In Southwest Michigan: Motivations Of Agritourists And Operators, Esther Akoto Amoako

Masters Theses

National agricultural statistics show that the number of agritourism farms and the proportion of agritourism related revenues in the United States has steadily increased during the last ten years, especially among small family farms. The recent growth in agritourism is both demand - and supply-driven. However, there are limited studies that explore agritourism motivations from both the visitors' and operators’ perspectives. This study examines what the agritourists' and operators’ motivations are and the challenges facing the industry to provide information for those currently involved and those wanting to include agritourism in their operations. Online and in-person surveys and unstructured interviews …

Social And Demographic Drivers Impacting Family Planning And Family Size In Buraydah City, Saudi Arabia, Sami Abdulkarim Alwulayi

Masters Theses

The goal of this research is to identify factors impacting changes in family size for medium-size cities in Saudi Arabia. Since the initial comprehensive development plans were adopted in the 1970s, Saudi society has changed rapidly in many different ways, and demographic change is one of the most noticeable. This mixed methods research is based on an online survey conducted in the summer of 2019 of 560 married couples and their families living within the 29 neighborhoods of Buraydah City, Saudi Arabia. Specifically, this research examines socioeconomic and demographic conditions related to family planning, as well as collecting perspectives on …

“College Is Mandatory In Our Family”: A Study Of Homeschooler Anticipatory Memorable Messages About College, Gina S. Reynolds

Masters Theses

Homeschooling in the United States provides many children with a unique educational background that may present different perspectives when considering college attendance. This thesis examines the memorable messages homeschool students received regarding college, where these messages came from, and the perceived impact they have on the student. Memorable messages are easily recalled words that participants receive from others, which they believe has an impact on their attitudes and decisions (Cranmer & Myers, 2017). This study also looks at the messages homeschool students received from the media and the effect these have on their college choices. A qualitative study gathered reports …

Counter Stories In Counterpublics: Exploring Documentary As A Form Of Activist Media To Counter Reinforced Stereotypes About The Criminalization Of Black Men, Tirrea S. Billings

Masters Theses

A story told can change the world. Storytelling has been around since the inception of human communication and has been used as a tool to educate, preserve cultural values, and make meaning of our existence. More recently, storytelling has been used in activist and social change movements. One approach to social justice storytelling is through filmmaking: creating films as a tool to disrupt, interrupt, amplify, organize, shift power and create lasting, transformative change in communities. Specifically, social justice-oriented documentary film and media can be used as a vehicle for those who are in counterpublic spaces to argue against mainstream discourses …

Examination Of The Impact Of Contingent Praise And Monetary Rewards On Intrinsic Motivation And Creative Performance, Merrilyn Akpapuna

Masters Theses

Despite many decades of debate, the question of whether or not extrinsic motivation is detrimental to intrinsic motivation and creativity continues to spark discussion among professionals (Cameron & Pierce, 1994). This is an important issue for business owners who do not want to stifle creativity and intrinsic motivation in an effort to increase productivity. Even though many authors have labelled extrinsic motivation as archaic and harmful (Deci, 1971; Kohn, 1993; Pink, 2009), the available empirical evidence does not match such levels of condemnation. The purpose of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of several interventions (performance-contingent money, performance-contingent …

The Voices Of Single-Headed Household African American Mothers Concerning The High School Completion Of Their Daughters, Lametria A. Johnson_Eaddy

Dissertations

African American female students in urban schools are not graduating from high school at the same rate as females of other ethnic groups (Bucknor, 2015; Martin & Halperin, 2006; Stillwell & Sable, 2013). This study sought to investigate the voices and lived experiences of single-headed households of African American mothers whose daughters graduated from high school within the traditional four-year schedule. Through the voices and lived-experiences of these African American mothers, this study sought to capture the impact certain internal and external support systems from within both the home and school environments had on their daughters’ persistence in graduating from …

Understanding The Resiliency Of The Kalamazoo Mall, Emily Szymanski

Masters Theses

The Kalamazoo Mall is the first pedestrian mall in the United States. Since then the Mall has gone through many changes. The Mall was first created to be a completely pedestrian-friendly space closed off to cars and to help revitalize the downtown after suburban mall competition. However, the Mall did not keep people downtown as expected, resulting in the reintroduction of automobile traffic in two of the four blocks of the Mall. In spite of these changes Although there have been several changes, the Mall still exists today while many pedestrian Malls have closed. This thesis seeks to understand the …

Spatial Patterns In Socio-Economic Factors And Rapid Repeat Pregnancies In Kalamazoo County, Mi, Dennis Donkor

Masters Theses

Rapid repeat pregnancy (RRP) refers to a pregnancy that occurs less than 24 months after a live birth. In the United States, several studies have focused on factors that influence women to rapidly repeat pregnancies at the national and state level. As a result, this study explores spatial patterns in RRP in Kalamazoo County at the block group local level using birth records of moms in the county from 2008 to 2014. The study further investigates individual and neighborhood factors influencing RRP. Results from the hotspot (Getis Ord G*) revealed that block groups in eastside Kalamazoo township are significant hotspots …

A Functional Analysis Of Losses In A Risky Choice Procedure, David W. Sottile

Dissertations

Loss chasing is a maladaptive pattern of risky behavior in which the frequency of risky behavior temporarily increases after a loss. The conditions under which loss chasing occurs are not well understood. Conditioned reinforcement appears to play a role in loss chasing, but the consideration of antecedent variables is necessary for a complete account. The purpose of this study was to test the role of (1) a stimulus that indicated the number of trials left in the session (i.e., a trial counter), and (2) the effect of the ordinal value of a trial in a risky choice task on loss …

Medical Cannabis And Recreational Marijuana: Patient Perceptions, Stigma, And Gender During A Time Of Emerging Legalization, Matt Reid

Dissertations

Marijuana’s status as an illegal drug has been redefined over the previous three decades. Despite Michigan and 32 other states having comprehensive medical cannabis programs, both academics and laypeople commonly present the medicalization of marijuana as an intermediary phase or proxy for fully legalized recreational use. While some evidence exists to support this position, this framework marginalizes the struggles and experiences of patients who have found relief through their therapeutic use of cannabis. As such, the goal of this study is to re-center the voices of cannabis patients in academic conversations of cannabis as medicine.

My study is unique in …