Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Body Image, Self-Esteem And Eating Disturbance Among Chinese Women: Testing The Tripartite Influence Model, Weiwei Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study is to confirm the reasons behind young Chinese women’s eating disturbances and self-esteem. The researcher uses the Tripartite Influence model to illustrate the relationship between internalization and pressures in the form of peer, family, and media pressure. It further reveals the relationship between internalization and self-esteem and eating disorders. Besides conforming with the mode of young Chinese females, it aims at finding out the reasons behind each relevant relationship. One point of the study is the different impact of media pressure on young Chinese females; the influence of media tends to be much lower in …

Factors Explaining Changes In Household Vehicle Miles Of Travel, Richard Driscoll

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Vehicle miles of travel (VMT) is a key indicator of travel demand in the United States. Since 1995 total VMT and VMT per capita has fluctuated, with notable declines in the late 2000s and accelerated increases in the last 7 years. Since 1995, the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) has tracked the household share of total VMT to shed light on the demographic and behavioral data behind personal vehicle travel. The household share of VMT, while still a majority, has declined every NHTS year since at least 1995. Meanwhile, household VMT has stagnated around 2.25 trillion miles since the 2001 …

Comparison Of Acquisition And Generalization Of Tacts Across Three Stimulus Modes: A Replication Across Skill Levels, Haley Nelson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with disabilities often have a limited tact repertoire. This study compared the acquisition and generalization of tacts taught using different stimulus modes within discrete trial training (DTT) with children who have a limited tacting repertoire. The three stimulus modes that were compared were videos, pictures, and 3D objects. This research replicated Gómez’s (2015) methodology with a participant pool with lower tacting skills. In addition, this study assessed for generalization of the acquired tacts to a novel exemplar. In this study, tact training required fewer sessions when the picture and 3D object were used as stimulus modes. These results were …

Sleep Disorders In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pilot Study Of An Assessment Of Pediatric Providers' Practices And Perceptions, Kristin Lynn Edwards

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have increased rates for sleep problems compared with typically developing children. Although physicians practicing in pediatric primary care settings have the potential to detect and address sleep problems at an early age, research investigating the sleep management practices of pediatricians in primary care is scant and does not particularly address children with ASD. This study investigated the frequency of sleep screening measures utilized by pediatric providers during well-child examinations, the most frequently recommended treatments, the barriers and facilitators to screening for sleep problems, and the perceived confidence of pediatricians with regard to screening for …

Access To Safe Water Supply: Management Of Catchment For The Protection Of Source Water In Ghana, Michael K. Eduful

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates provisions made within institutional and regulatory frameworks of water resources management to enhance multi-stakeholder relationships and the challenges of maintaining those relationships, and implications of water resources management for rural communities in the Densu River basin, Ghana. The primary objectives of this study were four fold, these are to: i) review the existing regulatory framework and how it promotes or hinders multi-stakeholder relationships within the catchment area; ii) examine multi-stakeholder relationships to identify challenges in promoting effective collaboration in water resources management; iii) explore the impacts of catchment management on the livelihoods of rural communities; and iv) …

Emotion Recognition Using Deep Convolutional Neural Network With Large Scale Physiological Data, Astha Sharma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Classification of emotions plays a very important role in affective computing and has real-world applications in fields as diverse as entertainment, medical, defense, retail, and education. These applications include video games, virtual reality, pain recognition, lie detection, classification of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), analysis of stress levels, and determining attention levels. This vast range of applications motivated us to study automatic emotion recognition which can be done by using facial expression, speech, and physiological data.

A person’s physiological signals such are heart rate, and blood pressure are deeply linked with their emotional states and can be used to identify a …

Newsroom Narratives And Newsroom Solutions: Local Print Media In The Digital Age, John Pendygraft

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks solutions to vexing problems facing media institutions today by exploring media narratives n the context of established anthropological theory. It is based in one local newsroom, the Tampa Bay Times, where I have worked for 22 years. The ethnography is a personal journey that draws on those decades of newsroom experience, social science theory, participant observation, interviews with journalists, and personal reflections. It examines dangerous historic periods of social dehumanization to put the political nature of today’s local print media crisis in context, and concludes that the greatest modern challenges to legacy journalism’s broken business model …

A Longitudinal Exploration Of Drive For Leanness: Potential Uniqueness, Sex Neutrality, Adaptive Nature, And Sociocultural Fit, Brittany Lang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Historically disordered eating research has been gendered with models focusing on women’s pursuit of a thin ideal, as well as men’s attempts to obtain a muscular ideal. The motivations to achieve these ideals are called the drive for thinness (DT) and drive for muscularity (DM). More recently, a cultural shift has been noted in that ideal bodies are converging across sexes to a lean ideal, with the associated motivation being labeled the drive for leanness (DL). As DL is a nascent construct, little is known about its relationships with DT and DM, or if it predicts or is predicted by …

Money Matters: An Examination Of Special Education Characteristics In Efficient And Inefficient Texas School Districts, Pakethia Harris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study veers from the traditional perspective of examining school efficiency or productivity as a cost minimizing process, in which educational inputs are minimized to achieve maximum outputs (student performance). Instead, it provides a critical examination of the dominant, cost minimizing assumption associated with efficiency models and suggest schools instead behave similarly to budget maximizers as presented in Niskanen’s (1971) seminal budget maximizing framework. The study examines the relationship between total student expenditures and subsequent student outcomes, establishing the relative efficiency of Texas school districts using stochastic frontier analysis within a budget-maximizing framework. Additionally, the study investigates how special education …

The Intervention Path: The Experiences Of Mothers Seeking Help For Their Child With Atypical Behavioral Development, Renee Hoopes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pre-school aged children experience challenging behaviors at a relatively common rate. Research shows that approximately 10–25 % of preschool-aged children engage in challenging behaviors to a greater degree than would be expected for their age (Lavigne, Gibbons, Christoffel, Arend, Rosenbaum, Binns, Sawon, Sobel & Isaacs, 1996). Problem behaviors are often the result of a child not following a typical developmental trajectory. Atypical development appears when a child either lags behind or jumps ahead of typical peer progress in physical, cognitive, behavioral, and social development or in adaptive life skills. When children with challenging behaviors are left untreated, their everyday functioning …

Gender Sexualization In Digital Games: Exploring Female Character Changes In Tomb Raider, Jingjing Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is aimed at exploring a better understanding of gender-biased context in digital games. Based upon a female analysis of Tomb Raider series, this study attempts to compare the appearance and figure of female characters in video games by researching the representative game. A focus group with a group of women from different countries has been used to better understand how women feel and react to female images in the video game Tomb Raider and figure out how female protagonist Lara Croft changed in the video game. The thesis attempts to offer a better understanding of biased context in …

Predicting Weight Loss Following Bariatric Surgery: The Impact Of Stress, Depression, Social Support And Patient Gender, Erica Ahlich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The buffering effect of social support against a range of stress-related health outcomes has been well-documented in a variety of research areas; however, no previous work has examined the applicability of this model to bariatric surgery outcomes. Additionally, based on previous evidence and relevant theoretical work, the stress-buffering effect of social support may show important gender differences. The current study examined stress, depression, social support, and patient gender as predictors of curvilinear weight loss trajectories during the first year following surgery. Data were collected using retrospective chart review. The buffering effects of three types of support were explored using growth …

Star Power, Pandemics, And Politics: The Role Of Cultural Elites In Global Health Security, Holly Lynne Swayne

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Celebrities have historically served a variety of roles in society ranging from the inspirational to the cautionary, utilizing their platforms of visibility to promote themselves, their work, as well as their social and political causes. This study focuses on celebrities as activists engaging with global health issues, with particular attention to the form this engagement takes, the publicity it receives in the mass media, and the types of global health issues that receive the most celebrity attention. An interdisciplinary approach drawing from theories of power, social movement theory, agenda-setting, and cultural studies is used to achieve greater understanding of underlying …

Essays On Family-Friendly Policies, Child Planning And Children’S Early-Age Outcomes, Stefani Milovanska-Farrington

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters which examine family-friendly reforms, child planning or children’s early-age outcomes. The following are the titles of the chapters of the present dissertation:

• CHAPTER 1: Are Parents and Grandparents Substitutes or Complements? The Effect of Parental and Grandparental Supervision Time Investment on Children’s Early-Age Development.
• CHAPTER 2: The Effect of Family Welfare Support on the Likelihood of Having Another Child and Parents’ Labor Supply.
• CHAPTER 3: The Effect of Maternity Leave Expansions on Fertility Intentions: Evidence from Switzerland.

Chapter 1 uses evidence from Scotland to examine the effect of grandparents’ childcare provision relative to the …

A Culture Of Resistance: An Ethnography Of Tampa Bay’S Racial Justice Activist Community, Emily Janna Weisenberger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Racial justice activists in Tampa Bay comprise a community and culture structured as a movement of social transformation. Data from eleven interviews and more than 100 hours of participant observation show that activists consist of a diverse array of Tampa Bay residents of varying ages, genders, sexualities, racial/ethnic identities and livelihoods. This community is best described by their beliefs and practices of ideology steeped in intersectionality and anti-capitalism, and are motivated by or empathetic to racial injustices directly experienced by them or those around them. The intention of this paper is to describe activists as they are rather than as …

Assessing The Impacts Of Ghana’S Oil And Gas Industry On Ecosystem Services And Smallholder Livelihoods, Michael Acheampong

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ghana discovered oil and gas within its shores in commercial quantities in the year, 2007. This discovery was hailed as a potential turn around for the country’s economic destiny. While this optimism may have been well-founded, there has been a relative lack of appreciation of the potential adverse implications of the industry on traditional smallholder livelihoods, and the critical ecosystems that form their basis. In many countries, discovery of natural resources results in negative environmental and social outcomes, due to the loss of local livelihoods and environmental degradation. Deterioration of local livelihoods occurs through several biophysical pathways, both simple and …

Teaching Mands To Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Evaluation Of The Essential For Living Communication Modality Assessment, Daniella Orozco

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

McGreevy, Fry, and Cornwall (2014) developed an assessment within the Essential for Living (EFL) manual for clinicians to identify which communication modality should be used for each individual. This assessment identifies an AAC based on the learner’s skills, level of problem behavior, similarities between AAC and vocal community, and size of the verbal community. However, to date, no research has evaluated if this assessment identifies the communication modality that will result in faster acquisition of mands in individuals with ASD. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare acquisition of mands across a modality identified by the EFL communication …

Deaf Lesbian Identity, Noël E. Cherasaro

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Deaf lesbians are a population that is underrepresented in the academic literature. Through the use of narrative inquiry, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with a woman who self-identified as Deaf and lesbian. She shared her experiences growing up as a woman who is Deaf and later in her life, realized she is lesbian. The researcher juxtaposed her experiences as a hearing, lesbian woman and an ally to the Deaf community to better illuminate the Deaf lesbian experiences. The research delved into how these dual minority identities have affected the Deaf lesbian participant as she makes her way in the world …

The Role Of Race/Ethnicity And Risk Assessment On Juvenile Case Outcomes, Tayler N. Shreve

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Guided by traditional and micro-level theories, the present study seeks to identify the relationship between race/ethnicity and risk factors in the Florida juvenile justice system. Central to this explanation is the understanding that racial biases and stereotypes have been shown to influence the decision-making of probation officers. The objectives are to examine the extent that race and risk factors influence court outcomes, in addition to the extent to which individual level risk factors influence court outcomes. The results provide insight into the relationship between the influence of racial biases and stereotypes of probation officers and juvenile risk assessment scoring.

What’S The Function? Assessing Correspondence Between Functional Analysis Procedures, Sindy Sanchez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1997, Congress established the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1997), which required that schools conduct functional behavior assessments when a student engages in problem behavior that may lead to suspension or expulsion (Ervin et al., 2001; Yell & Katsiyanis, 2010). As a result, research has expanded to include ways to adapt the functional assessment process in school settings. The purpose of this study was to compare the correspondence between functional analysis procedures for students in a private school and validate the assessment outcomes with interventions conducted in the classroom settings. The results indicate that both assessments corresponded in …

Investigating Transformation: An Exploratory Study Of Perceptions And Lived Experiences Of Graduate Teaching Assistants, Christina M. Partin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are becoming increasingly responsible for undergraduate instruction in the landscape of higher education. These experiences may serve as a pipeline for career readiness and success in faculty positions. Yet, the experiences of graduate teaching assistants are largely unexplored. This study describes the perceptons and experiences of a selected sample of GTAs, including their perceptions of available support, and the role of that support in navigating potential disorienting dilemmas.

Existing literature suggests that disorienting dilemmas lead to transformative experiences through an internal process of critical self-reflection, but neglects the possibility of differential outcomes to disorienting dilemmas. Further, …

Connected Autonomous Vehicles: Capacity Analysis, Trajectory Optimization, And Speed Harmonization, Amir Ghiasi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emerging connected and autonomous vehicle technologies (CAV) provide an opportunity to improve highway capacity and reduce adverse impacts of stop-and-go traffic. To realize the potential benefits of CAV technologies, this study provides insightful methodological and managerial tools in microscopic and macroscopic traffic scales. In the macroscopic scale, this dissertation proposes an analytical method to formulate highway capacity for a mixed traffic environment where a portion of vehicles are CAVs and the remaining are human-driven vehicles (HVs). The proposed analytical mixed traffic highway capacity model is based on a Markov chain representation of spatial distribution of heterogeneous and stochastic headways. This …

A Participatory Action Research Using Photovoice To Explore Well-Being In Young Adults With Autism, Gary Yu Hin Lam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Young adults with autism transitioning from school to adulthood are commonly described as exhibiting poor outcomes. Although there has been research efforts measuring quality of life and life satisfaction in individuals with autism, these conceptualizations of well-being are still predominantly deficit-focused and based on normalizing ideals of the dominant culture. Only by incorporating individuals with autism’s perspectives and involving their meaningful participation in research can we better understand and promote well-being among individuals with autism. The present study aims to explore young adults with autism’s ideas about well-being. I conducted a Photovoice project using a participatory action research approach with …

Opening Wounds And Possibilities: A Critical Examination Of Violence And Monstrosity In Horror Tv, Amanda K. Leblanc

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines contemporary horror TV, dissecting the ways it works both to subvert and uphold contemporary social standards about race, gender, class, and ability. This work attends to the moments in horror TV where graphic displays of violence and monstrous characters open up possibilities for innovative and progressive representation of historically marginalized people, as well as those instances that foreclose such potential. Horror TV shows blur the definitions of monster and human, suggesting that humans can be monstrous and that monsters can have humanity. Horror TV is a platform through which we see the coming together of a traditional …

The Uses Of Community In Modern American Rhetoric, Cody Ryan Hawley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the functions of the term “community” in American social and political rhetoric. I contend that community serves as a god-term, or expression of value and order, which rhetors use to motivate actions, endorse values, include/exclude persons, and compensate for modern losses. Informed by the philosophy of Kenneth Burke, I explore the general features of “rhetorics of community,” including community’s ambiguity and status as an automatic good, the relationship between community and modernity, the myth of communal loss, and the uses of community as a site of political unity and contest. I analyze the writings of John Humphrey …

Everything Is Fine: Self-Portrait Of A Caregiver With Chronic Depression And Other Preexisting Conditions, Erin L. Scheffels

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation documents the joys and terrors of caring for my father throughout my twenties and early thirties. The story is autoethnographic and demonstrates the value of narrative research in fostering understandings of self, other, and the world around us. I call this reflexive practice of writing narrative education because as I engaged in it, I learned what it means to care, and how mental health and illness factor into the ways in which care is expressed and provided in my own relationships and beyond. In addition, throughout the story I was a member of the academic community, which makes …

“I Want Ketchup On My Rice”: The Role Of Child Agency On Arab Migrant Families Food And Foodways, Faisal Kh. Alkhuzaim

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory research study examines changes in food and foodways (food habits) among Arab migrant families in a small community in Tampa, Florida. It also explores how those families’ children may play a role in the process of change. Within this community, I conducted my research study at a private school, where I recruited families with children between the ages of eight and seventeen. In applying the ecological model of food and nutrition and the developmental niche theoretical framework, this research draws on qualitative methods, including structured interviews with parents; focus group discussion with parents; a food survey; and children’s …

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: A Tool For Veteran Reassimilation, Gino L. Collura

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation evaluates veteran participation in the martial art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) as a tool of reassimilation for veterans suffering from anxiety, stress and/or combat PTSD associated with military deployment. From the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation New Dawn, challenges associated with U.S. Veteran assimilation and reintegration have been increasing. Coping with long term displacement, trauma, loss, and making sense of identity shifts between being an active duty service member and civilian can often present challenges when navigating back into civilian life.

By utilizing a neuroanthropological lens, ethnographic inquiry, surveys, semi-structured interviews, and …

Resisting Essentialism In Cultural Research: A Participatory Action Research Study Of Parent Involvement In Education Among Spanish-Speaking Students And Families, Michael J. Frank

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study aimed to investigate a locally-driven action research project to improve connections between Spanish-speaking Latinx parents and the high school that their children attend. Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), the study sought to create a collaborative research agenda that would empower the participants to study their own culture and practices at the school, and how the two combined to create a home-school partnership. Six parents and two members of the school’s bilingual staff comprised the PAR team, with a total of nine members including the principal investigator. The project began with the creation of a public sphere in …

Lives On The (Story)Line: Group Facilitation With Men In Recovery At The Salvation Army, Lisa Pia Zonni Spinazola

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I seek to examine the effects of purposeful journaling and guided storytelling on past traumas, perception of current lives, and the development of new coping skills among men at The Salvation Army’s residential adult rehabilitation center (ARC). All residents of the ARC must attend Christian-based devotional services, go to Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) meetings, follow the A.A. 12-step program, and sign up for several weekly counseling and educational groups, one of which is the “Guided Journaling and Storytelling” group I lead. The men who attended this group are (1) addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, (2) face homelessness, (3) …