Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Himmelfarb Library Liaison Letter - January 2015, George Washington University, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

Himmelfarb Library Liaison Letters

No abstract provided.

Employment, Unemployment, And Underemployment In Africa, Stephen S. Golub, Faraz Hayat , '14

Economics Faculty Works

This chapter documents and analyzes the predominance of informal employment in Africa and shows that lack of demand for labor rather than worker characteristics is the main reason for pervasive underemployment. Integration into the global economy and exports of labor-intensive products are vital to boosting the demand for labor in Africa. Africa has some potential to become competitive in light manufacturing, but the most promising avenue for export-led growth of employment in many African countries is agriculture, including traditional cash crops such as cotton, coffee, cocoa, and groundnuts. Traditional cash crops, which are the source of livelihood for millions of …

The Electoral Influence Of Teachers’ Unions On Democratic Education Policy Priorities, Molly Ziek Brand

Honors Papers

This thesis examines how teachers unions choose to endorse political candidates in a Democratic primary. I will argue that teachers unions are powerful enough that they are able to choose between Democrats based on their education policy positions, rather than making endorsement decisions based on candidates’ positions on general labor policy. Although teachers unions act with the ultimate goal of promoting their members’ interests as employees, the distinction between acting with a primary interest in education policy instead of a primary interest in labor policy is an important one. The distinction is significant because disagreement about education policy currently represents …

Performance And Resilience: Performance, Storytelling, And Resilience Building In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Sophia Colette Becker

Honors Papers

"Performance and Resilience: Performance, Storytelling, and Resilience Building in Post-Katrina New Orleans" uses a mixed method approach to investigate the role of digital storytelling and contemporary performing arts in building community and environmental resilience. Through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and scholarship from the fields of performance studies and environmental studies, this piece focuses on post-disaster landscapes, particularly post-Katrina New Orleans, to investigate the impact of storytelling platforms and performance spaces in retaining social and cultural memory.

The Complicated Relationship Between Music And Foreign Language Learning: Nuanced Conditions Required For Cognitive Benefits Due To Music, Talia Greenberg

Honors Papers

Many people enjoy listening to music while they study, but others find music distracting. Research about the effect of music on performance during a cognitive task mirrors the equivocal nature of this subjective debate. Across 3 experiments, music, either in the background or as an active encoding device, was found to have no effect on foreign language learning. In Experiment 1, participants studied foreign language vocabulary in silence, while listening to instrumental music, or while listening to music with lyrics. There was no effect of music on recall at immediate (p = .52) or delayed testing (p = .80). Participants …

The Effects Of Foreign Language Acquisition On Wages For Us College Graduates, Christopher Nguyen

Honors Papers

This paper seeks to determine whether fluency in a foreign language has a significant impact on future earnings. The sample in question is made up of US college graduates who attained their bachelor’s degrees during the 2007-2008 school year. While previous literature suggests that there is a positive impact of 2-3% higher wages on top of a bachelor’s degree for those who are fluent in a foreign language, I am unable to find this general premium for fluency in a foreign language. I look at interactions of foreign language and their relative difficulty and, once again, do not find a …

Partnerships And Mandates: Power Relations Between Donor And Recipient Organizations Promoting Gender Equality In Nicaragua, Alyssa Katherine Phelps

Honors Papers

This research examines the funding practices of international non-governmental organizations supporting grassroots women's groups in Nicaragua. Specifically, it explores the disconnect between the theoretical ideals and organizational practices of foreign donor agencies and the "on the ground" perspectives of grassroots women's organizations regarding the best use of international development resources in promoting women's rights and empowerment in Nicaragua. This thesis investigates why this discrepancy exists and what can be done to reconcile the divide. The suggestions put forth in this work are rooted in the ideas of people in the field, specifically interviews with leaders from both international and local …

The Impact Of The State Children's Health Insurance Program On Educational Outcomes In The United States: A Two-Fold Analysis, Olivia Simuoli

Honors Papers

This paper examines the impact of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) on the educational outcomes of American children as measured by fourth and eighth-grade math and reading standardized test scores from the time of the program’s inception up to the year 2013. More specifically, I focus on the effects of the increases in eligibility for children’s public health insurance coverage brought about by SCHIP on average test scores across the nation at both the state level for all 51 states and the county level for Florida’s 67 counties. On the state level, I am ultimately unable to find …

Effect Of Water Levels And Beach Availability On Waterfront Homes, Benjamin Towson Whitener

Honors Papers

Previous hedonic pricing models have studied in depth the aesthetic value of views, as well as the recreational value of proximity to waterfronts. This study examines the same proximity and aesthetic effects in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and builds in the effect of changing water levels and beach availability on those implicit values. Results indicate that aesthetic effects of living adjacent to the waterfront, as well as proximity, are insignificant. Water levels are negatively correlated with home prices, but this effect is not magnified or dimmed for waterfront homes. Beach availability has an ambiguous effect on home prices; statistical significance was found …

Bullying Of Disabled And Non-Disabled High School Students: A Comparison Using The Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey, Sarah Guckenburg

Contemporary Issues in Juvenile Justice

No abstract provided.

Juveniles Who Commit Sexual Offenses, Jennifer R. Arthur

Contemporary Issues in Juvenile Justice

No abstract provided.

Doing Interview-Based Qualitative Research: A Learner's Guide, E. Magnusson, Jeanne Marecek

Psychology Faculty Works

For many students, the experience of learning about and using qualitative methods can be bewildering. This book is an accessible step-by-step guide to conducting interview-based qualitative research projects. The authors discuss the 'hows' and 'whys' of qualitative research, showing readers the practices as well as the principles behind them. The book first describes how to formulate research questions suited to qualitative inquiry. It then discusses in detail how to select and invite research participants into a study and how to design and carry out good interviews. It next presents several ways to analyze interviews and provides readers with many worked …

Playland: Technology, Self, And Cultural Transformation, Kenneth J. Gergen

Psychology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

What Have I Just Done? Anchoring, Self-Knowledge And Judgments Of Recent Behavior, Nathan Norem Cheek , '15, Sarah J. Coe-Odess , '15, Barry Schwartz

Psychology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Trends In Library Technology And Marketing Of Information, Kishor Chandra Satpathy

Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Reference Services To Incarcerated People, Part Ii: Sources And Learning Outcomes, Debbie Rabina, Emily Drabinski

Brooklyn Library Faculty Publications

During the 2013/14 academic year, students taking a required general reference course in a library and information science program answered reference questions from incarcerated individuals. The assignment was designed as a service-learning project. Here we examine how well the assignment met the course and program-level learning objectives that students are expected to attain. We described the data collection and analysis, present our findings and make recommendation in ways to increase student learning outcome and ALA professional competencies from a services learning projects. Specifically we discuss the need to increase education in e-government sources since our findings indicated they are most …

Reference Services To Incarcerated People, Part I: Themes Emerging From Answering Reference Questions From Prisons And Jails, Emily Drabinski, Debbie Rabina

Brooklyn Library Faculty Publications

Incarcerated people face significant information poverty, both because of limited access to information resources and because incarceration itself produces information needs that cannot be easily met. Through a content analysis of reference questions directed to the New York Public Library’s Correctional Services Program, this study articulates the particular information needs of these users. Information needs cluster around self-help and re-entry information, along with general reference queries that typically go unanswered due to the lack of access to the Internet and robust general libraries in correctional facilities. Understanding these needs offers insight for librarians and libraries seeking to better serve incarcerated …

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor, 3rd Quarter, 2015, Armstrong State University Center For Regional Analysis

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor

The Coastal Empire Economic Indicators are designed to provide continuously updating quarterly snapshots of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area economy. The coincident index measures the current economic heartbeat of the region. The leading index provides a short term forecast of the region’s economic activity in six to nine months.

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor, 4th Quarter, 2015, Armstrong State University Center For Regional Analysis

Coastal Empire Economic Monitor

The Coastal Empire Economic Indicators are designed to provide continuously updating quarterly snapshots of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area economy. The coincident index measures the current economic heartbeat of the region. The leading index provides a short term forecast of the region’s economic activity in six to nine months.

I Accidentally This Thesis Because East: The Influence Of The Internet On Spoken Language In Eastspeak, Emma S. Manning

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the variety of English spoken in East Dorm at Harvey Mudd College. It describes aspects of the syntax and phonology of Eastspeak, focusing in particular on how Eastspeak has been influenced by the language of the internet. This includes tendencies toward brevity and language play, as well as the use of specific constructions used on the internet, and playful pronunciations that are influenced by creative misspellings used online. Specific Eastspeak phenomena discussed include conversion, deletion, and unusual determiner and quantifier use.

Price, Perceived Value And Customer Satisfaction: A Text-Based Econometric Analysis Of Yelp! Reviews, Eleanor A. Dwyer

Scripps Senior Theses

We examine the antecedents of customer satisfaction in the restaurant sector, paying particular attention to perceived value and price level. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation, we extract latent topics from the text of Yelp! reviews, then analyze the relationship between these topics and satisfaction, measured as the difference between review rating and user average review rating.

Linnear Standard Prices, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (2014, January 17). Linear standard prices [Handwritten research notes with mathematical derivations on standard disaggregation, eigenvalues, and input-output matrices]. Unpublished manuscript. New School for Social Research.
• Shaikh, A. (2015, May 30). Price-value and Wicksell effect [Handwritten research notes with mathematical derivations on normalizations, sufficient conditions for small Wicksell effect, and limits]. Unpublished manuscript. New School for Social Research.
• Shaikh, A. (2014, January 10). Parallel between v/R → 1 and matrix size N → ∞ in effect on A [Handwritten research notes with mathematical derivations referencing Frazer, Duncan, and Collar's work on elementary matrices]. Unpublished manuscript. …

Addressing Food Security: Saba Banana And Rootcrops As Alternative Food Staples To Rice In Quezon Province, Philippines, Isabelita M. Pabuayon, Blanquita R. Pantoja, Anselma C. Manila, Mac Lorenz C. Santos

Journal of Public Affairs and Development

The Philippines considers rice self-sufficiency as vital to food security; hence, possible alternative food staples are being identified in case of persistent shortfalls in domestic rice production. This paper explores the potential of Saba (cardava) banana, sweet potato, potato, yam, and cassava as alternative staples for the local communities in the Quezon province, Philippines, which grow all these crops. Socioeconomic surveys of 375 farmers, 82 traders, and 625 consumers were conducted in 2013 but covered crop year 2012. Results showed that Saba banana, sweet potato, and cassava had the highest demand among the five crops based on per capita consumption. …

Gvsu Press Releases, 2015, Grand Valley State University

University Press Releases, 1961-Present

A compilation of press releases for the year 2015 submitted by University Communications (formerly News & Information Services) to news agencies concerning the people, places, and events related to Grand Valley State University.

Student Achievement, Spending, And Accountability In Charter Schools, Virtual Schools, And Traditional Schools, Kimberly Osbeck

Honors Projects

This paper explores the student achievement, spending, and accountability in charter schools and virtual schools across the nation, as well as Michigan-specific information. The articles vary in their approaches to assessing student achievement, but most utilized state assessments to compare charter and virtual schools to traditional schools and state reports to measure spending. A review of the current literature found that charter schools, on average, perform at a similar level to their traditional school counterparts. Virtual schools, specifically K-12 Inc., are performing significantly below traditional schools. In terms of spending, the current literature found that charter schools and virtual schools …

The Need For Additional Food Assistance Programs For School Children In Mid Michigan, Gabriel Dominguez

Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Influences On Technology Use In High School Anatomy And Physiology Instruction, Frazier Firovich

Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Hippotherapy On Coordination Of Speech In A Person With Traumatic Brain Injury, Anna Thrall, Matthew Moser

Honors Projects

Hippotherapy occurs when physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speechlanguage pathologists use the movement of a horse as a treatment strategy. Previous research has documented improvements in gross motor function such as walking, reaching, standing, balance, and trunk control following treatment that incorporates hippotherapy. However, no study to date has investigated the effect of hippotherapy on fine motor control functions such as speech. The purpose of the study was to complete a pilot investigation of the effects of hippotherapy on speech motor control in one person with traumatic brain injury. The treatment records of a 24 yearold woman with TBI who …

Baseline Concussion Testing: The Effects Of Learning Disabilities And Sleep, Amy Jedele

Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Building A Peer-Learning Service For Students In An Academic Library, Mary O'Kelly, Julie Garrison, Brian Merry, Jennifer Torreano

Scholarly Papers and Articles

Academic libraries are well lauded for offering supportive spaces for students’ self-directed study, and significant resources are dedicated to librarian instruction in the classroom. What many academic libraries lack, however, is a middle ground, a routine way for students to help one another using best practices in peer-to-peer learning theory. A new, nonauthoritative, supplemental service by students and for students began at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI, in fall 2012 with a cohort of “peer research consultants.” Students learn information literacy skills with a well-trained peer, untethered from the hierarchy inherent in formal instruction environments. This paper describes …