Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Communicating Information On Nature-Related Topics: Preferred Information Channels And Trust In Sources, Emily J. Wilkins, Holly M. Miller, Elizabeth Tilak, Rudy M. Schuster

Environment and Society Student Research

How information is communicated influences the public’s environmental perceptions and behaviors. Information channels and sources both play an important role in the dissemination of information. Trust in a source is often used as a proxy for whether a particular piece of information is credible. To determine preferences for information channels and trust in various sources for information on nature-related topics, a mail-out survey was sent to randomly selected U.S. addresses (n = 1,030). Diverse groups of people may have differing communication preferences. Therefore, we explored differences in channel preferences and trust by demographics using regression models. Overall, the most preferred …

Appraisal Of Faculty Personal Papers In American Public University Archives: The Public Records Retention Schedule Versus Cultural And Historical Selection Criteria And The Role Of The Archives In The University, Ruth E. Bryan

Library Presentations

In the United States, university archives are part of the university organizational structure. The archives can be formed strictly of permanent university records or can also include the personal papers of individuals related to the university, most often faculty, but also administrators and students/alumni. In addition, by law, the records produced by American public universities--including many of the personal papers acquired by public university archives--are also public records, which must be appraised using their specific state-mandated records retention schedule.

The main goal of the schedule is to manage the current and non-current records of the organization in order to mitigate …

Small-Scale Forestry And Carbon Offset Markets: An Empirical Study Of Vermont Current Use Forest Landowner Willingness To Accept Carbon Credit Programs, Alisa E. White, David A. Lutz, Richard B. Howarth, José R. Soto

Dartmouth Scholarship

This study investigates the preferences of small forest landowners regarding forest carbon credit programs while documenting characteristics of potentially successful frameworks. We designed hypothetical carbon credit programs with aggregated carbon offset projects and requirements of existing voluntary and compliance protocols in mind. We administered a mail survey to 992 forest landowners in Vermont’s Current Use Program utilizing best-worst choice, a novel preference elicitation technique, to elicit their preferences about these programs. We found that small forest landowners see revenue as the most important factor in a carbon credit program and the duration of the program as the least important factor. …

Upton, Pamela J. (Fa 1193), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1193. Student paper titled “Black and White Attitudes on a College Campus and Their Possible Relations to Folklore” in which Pamela Upton analyzes data from a survey to examine how feelings regarding race are expressed through folkloric beliefs and practices. Upton provides a copy of each type of questionnaire that was given to students and offers insight into the predominant and prevailing attitudes on WKU’s campus during the early 1970s.

Do Americans’ Opinions About Federal Transportation Tax Options Depend On Survey Mode? A Comparison Of Results From Telephone And Online Surveys, Hilary Nixon, Asha Weinstein Agrawal

Mineta Transportation Institute

This research project compared the results from a public opinion survey about transportation taxes that was administered using two different survey modes, a national, random-digit-dial (RDD) telephone survey and an online survey with respondents recruited from a panel. There is considerable interest among survey researchers in using online survey panels as a replacement for RDD surveys. RDD surveys are becoming much more expensive to conduct, and researchers also worry that the quality of the results may be dropping because of rising refusal rates for phone surveys. However, a key question for researchers is to understand how a study’s results may …

A Survey Of Viva Callesj Participants: San Jose, California, 2017, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Hilary Nixon, Cameron Simons

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report presents the findings from a self-complete paper survey of participants at the Viva CalleSJ open streets event held on Sunday, September 17, 2017. The survey was designed to provide information that would help the City of San José assess the success of the event, guide planning for future Viva CalleSJ events, and inform potential funders and community partners about the benefits of Viva CalleSJ. A total of 860 adults at the event completed the one-page paper survey. Survey findings provide detail about how people traveled to the event, their reasons for attending, what they did at the event, …

Approaches To Communicating Flooding Information In Hampton Roads: Results From Surveys Of Local Government Staff, Ashley M. Gordon, Michelle Covi

Presentations, Lectures, Posters, Reports

The objectives of this report are to identify current communication strategies regarding coastal flooding and present opportunities for improvement and collaboration within the Hampton Roads region. The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission partnered with Old Dominion University to design two surveys of local government staff, the first regarding flooding outreach and the second regarding flooding notification methods. This report summarizes the results of each survey and synthesizes challenges described by respondents. Opportunities and resources, including local initiatives and guides developed by federal agencies and emergency notification providers, are highlighted to assist local government staff in addressing challenges related to flooding …

Hampton Roads Residents’ Preferences For Dune And Beach Management, Seth Parker, Donta Council, Makayla Brown

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

The management of dunes and beaches in Hampton Roads is critical to the region’s tourism industry and to provide protection from storms and flooding. During the summer of 2017, we surveyed over 675 residents of Hampton Roads to gauge their preferences for the management of dunes and beaches. An overwhelming majority felt that all taxpayers should have a say in maintenance practices along with government regulations to assist with the protection of beaches and dunes. Residents leaned towards localized input from citizens as preferred methods of management and understood the importance their tax dollars play in funding those methods. While …

Exploring Officer Views Of Community Policing In Counterterrorism, Erin M. Kearns

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Recently there has been increased emphasis on actionable intelligence in counterterrorism. Building from the process-based model of regulation, police chiefs and scholars generally agree that community policing has promise in this regard. Yet, it is not clear the extent to which police officers concur. Since officers are in a position to implement community policing practices, it is important to understand variants in officer-level support. Using data collected from 741 officers in three departments, this project explores officer-level views of community policing’s utility to address terrorism and more common crimes. Overall, officers view community policing as appropriate to address both common …

Distance Models As A Tool For Modelling Detection Probability And Density Of Native Bumblebees, Darin J. Mcneil, Clint R. V. Otto, Erin L. Moser, Katherine R. Urban‐Mead, David E. King, Amanda D. Rodewald, Jeffery L. Larkin

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Effective monitoring of native bee populations requires accurate estimates of population size and relative abundance among habitats. Current bee survey methods, such as netting or pan trapping, may be adequate for a variety of study objectives but are limited by a failure to account for imperfect detection. Biases due to imperfect detection could result in inaccurate abundance estimates or erroneous insights about the response of bees to different environments. To gauge the potential biases of currently employed survey methods, we compared abundance estimates of bumblebees (Bombus spp.) derived from hierarchical distance sampling models (HDS) to bumblebee counts collected from fixed‐area …