Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Ua3/9/7 Navitas Separation, Wku President's Office - Ransdell

WKU Administration Documents

Email from WKU president Gary Ransdell to faculty & staff regarding international students.

Larsh, Abraham (Sc 2965), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2965. Letter, 3 August 1828, from Abraham Larsh, Bowling Green, Kentucky, to his cousin John Gardner, York County, Pennsylvania. He discusses the emboldening of opposition in Tennessee to Andrew Jackson, President John Quincy Adams’s rival, despite a recent assault by Jackson supporters. He also discusses the likelihood of Jackson’s alliance with former Vice President Aaron Burr in a plot to separate western states from the Union. While pleased with local crop yields and an expressed supporter of internal improvements, Larsh looks “with anxiety” to the completion of the railroad at the Ohio River, …

How Scary Are The Mental Health Risks Of Vegetarianism?, Harold Herzog

'Animals and Us' Blog Posts

How strong is the link between vegetarianism and mental illness?

Housing Research Realities And Perceptions: A Mixed Model Study Of Quantitative Data For Sioux County, Iowa And Orange City, Iowa With Qualitative Data Collected In Orange City, Iowa, Jenna Beeson, Amber Beyer, Corryn Dahlquist, Clarissa Ipema, Dakotah Jordan, Andrew Powell, Kelcie Scarlett, Hannah Twedt, Anthony Wubben

Student Projects

A mixed methods study on housing affordability, availability, and quality of rental properties and single-family home properties gathered data for Sioux County, Iowa and Orange City, Iowa. With quantitative data about Sioux County and more focused qualitative research in Orange City. Quantitative research was conducted through examining and compiling existing data. Qualitative survey research included a clustered sample and stratified random sample of homes in Orange City. The qualitative research had four major themes and three minor themes. The major themes are: Unknown Needs and Bias: Hispanic Community, (Un)Affordability, Lacking Rentals, and Lacking of Housing Awareness among Homeowners. The three …

Grain Sorting In The Morphological Active Layer Of A Braided River Physical Model., Pauline Leduc, Peter Ashmore, James T. Gardner

Geography & Environment Publications

A physical scale model of a gravel-bed braided river was used to measure vertical grain size sorting in the morphological active layer aggregated over the width of the river. This vertical sorting is important for analyzing braided river sedimentology, for numerical modeling of braided river morphodynamics, and for measuring and predicting bedload transport rate. We define the morphological active layer as the bed material between the maximum and minimum bed elevations at a point over extended time periods sufficient for braiding processes to rework the river bed. The vertical extent of the active layer was measured using 40 hourly high-resolution …

Case Study Of The Eastern State Hospital As Evidence Of English Influence On American Ideas About Mental Illness, Grace Devries

James W. Jackson Award for Excellence in Library Research in the Social Sciences

Grace DeVries, Class of 2016 at the University of Richmond, received the James W. Jackson Award for Excellence in the Social Sciences. Her research paper is entitled, Case Study of the Eastern State Hospital as Evidence of English Influence on American Ideas about Mental Illness.

Library Connection, V3n1, Fall 2015, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

Library Connection

Contents:

-- Latino American Grant
-- Youth Librarian News
-- UNI Joins Open Textbook Network
-- Digitizing the UNI Museum

Inter-Organizational Network Effects On The Implementation Of Public Health Services, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

Background: The Affordable Care Act created new incentives for hospitals, insurers, public health agencies, and others to contribute to disease prevention and health promotion activities, potentially changing inter-organizational relationships and expanding implementation of strategies that improve population health. This study uses data from the 1998-2014 National Longitudinal Survey of Public Health Systems to examine: (1) the extent and nature of change in inter-organizational contributions to public health activities; (2) whether network changes attenuate or exacerbate disparities in public health implementation across communities; and (3) how network changes affect preventable mortality and resource use.

Methods: We follow a longitudinal cohort of …

A Comparison Of Walk-In Counselling And The Wait List Model For Delivering Counselling Services, Carol A. Stalker, Manuel Riemer, Cheryl-Anne Cait, Susan Horton, Jocelyn Booton, Leslie Josling, Joanna Bedggood, Margaret Zaczek

Lyle S. Hallman Social Work Faculty Publications

Background: Walk-in counselling has been used to reduce wait times but there are few controlled studies to compare outcomes between walk-in and the traditional model of service delivery.

Aims: To compare change in psychological distress by clients receiving services from two models of service delivery, a walk-in counselling model and a traditional counselling model involving a wait list

Method: Mixed methods sequential explanatory design including quantitative comparison of groups with one pre-test and two follow ups, and qualitative analysis of interviews with a subsample. 524 participants 16 years and older were recruited from two Family Counselling Agencies; the General Health …

Collective Action Dynamics In Urban Neighborhoods: A Study Of Urban Community Gardens, Nishesh Chalise

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Lessons from various policies and programs both in the United States and international development have led to a knowledge base concluding that an engaged community is a critical component for developing a thriving community. This is based on a premise that even in the modernized world community still has a role to play along with government and the market in their own development. Community’s role is further highlighted in areas such as low-income urban neighborhoods where both the government and the market may not be able to fulfill all the needs.Research has followed by trying to understand why people engage …

An Inventory Of Sports Economics Courses In The Us, Joshua C. Hall, Brad R. Humphreys, Hyunwoong Pyun

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Sports economics is a young, growing field in the discipline of economics. An examination of course catalogs at 169 national liberal arts colleges and 254 national universities uncovered undergraduate sports economics classes offered at 17% of the liberal arts colleges and 29.5% of the universities. The characteristics of colleges and universities offering sports economics courses are analyzed. The state of the undergraduate curriculum in economics and barriers to the creation of new elective course offerings are also discussed.

Focus Group Report On The Teaching Resources Collection, Tamar Brown, Marilyn Geller, Anne-Marie Mulligan, Kate Thornhill, Jaime Wimmer

Library Reports

The Lesley University Libraries’ Assessment Workgroup conducted focus group interviews with faculty and students in order to plan for the future development of the library's Teaching Resources Collection, which includes K-8 curriculum materials and the Evelyn M. Finnegan Collection of high-quality children's literature. We spoke with a total of seven faculty members and two students, a very small sample, but our conversations did offer the library a starting point for thinking about how to improve the visibility of the collection, the space in which it is housed, and patron ability to access the materials. Focus group participants gave feedback on …

Deaths Exceed Births In Most Of Europe, But Not In The United States, Kenneth M. Johnson, Layton M. Fields, Dudley L. Poston Jr.

Carsey Publications

In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson, Layton Fields, and Dudley Poston, Jr. present important new findings about the diminishing number of births compared to deaths in Europe and the United States from their recent article in Population and Development Review. Their research focuses on the prevalence and dynamics of natural decrease in subareas of Europe and the United States in the first decade of the twenty-first century using counties (United States) or county-equivalents (Europe). The authors report that 58 percent of the 1,391 counties of Europe had more deaths than births during that period compared to just 28 percent …

Europe’S Refugee Crisis: Assessing The Factors Preventing A Coordinated Eu Response, Ali Albassam

Master's Theses

In order to escape increasing political violence in the Middle East and Africa, many refugees are fleeing by sea to seek asylum in Europe. As a result, Europe has witnessed the highest influx of refugees since World War Two. European Union member states have scrambled for a solution, seemingly unable to form a collective response. The reemergence of nationalism amid the arrival of thousands of refugees not only clouds Europe’s moral compass, but also weakens the EU and its founding principles. In an effort to contribute to the protection of refugees and the EU and its values, this thesis aims …

Academic E-Books: Publishers, Librarians, And Users, Suzanne M. Ward, Robert S. Freeman, Judith M. Nixon

Purdue University Press Books

Academic E-Books: Publishers, Librarians, and Users provides readers with a view of the changing and emerging roles of electronic books in higher education. The three main sections contain contributions by experts in the publisher/vendor arena, as well as by librarians who report on both the challenges of offering and managing e-books and on the issues surrounding patron use of e-books. The case study section offers perspectives from seven different sizes and types of libraries whose librarians describe innovative and thought-provoking projects involving e-books.

Read about perspectives on e-books from organizations as diverse as a commercial publisher and an association press. …

Reducing The Risk Of Suicide On An Inpatient Acute Behavioral Health Unit, Thomas I. Coleman Mr

Master's Projects and Capstones

Evidence suggest for those who have successfully committed suicide in the form of asphyxiation inside locked facilities are more than likely due to patient bathroom doors. The current unit consists of 30 inpatient medical-psychiatric beds serving the adult and geriatric populations. The goal is to ensure patient safety by removing patient bathroom doors and replacing them with breakaway shower curtains for those exhibiting direct signs and symptoms of suicidal ideations with a plan. The specific aim is to improve patient outcomes by decreasing the number of deaths or attempted suicides. With great results, this type of project has been implemented …

Postmodernism And Budhism: A Postmodern Woman In A Modernizing Land, Ruthanne Joy Wenger Hughes

Senior Theses

Religion and postmodernism are two paradigms that guide my experience of life. Although it is not necessarily intuitive, these two paradigms do intersect and inform each other, shaping the way I engage with the world. With this understanding, I spent the Spring 2015 semester in the Kingdom of Bhutan and examined my time through a postmodern lens, writing a travel blog at www.bhutanbricolage.weebly.com that mediates my experiences there and my thoughts about Buddhism and postmodernism.

The Bullies On The Block: What's Killing Secondhand Bookstores?, Kristen Stedman

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

Reading is idolized in our society. Being a book-lover is a trait that many, including myself, share. Yet, all over the world, independent bookstores are dying due to the rise of Amazon, the pressure of gentrification, and the prevalence of supermarket bookstores. Independent bookstores are of immense cultural significance to us as close-knit, welcoming communities of concentrated creativity, emphasizing the need to be concerned over their diminishing numbers. The factors causing their plight are researched through scholarly sources and then further explored through variety of interviews- with the shop owner, with people who choose to frequent independent bookstores, and with …

Using Landsat Tm Imagery To Monitor Vegetation Change Following Flow Restoration To The Lower Owens River, California, Lesley Crandell Bross

Dissertations and Theses

Rehabilitating river corridors to restore valuable riparian habitat consumes significant resources from both governments and private companies. Given these considerable expenditures, it is important to monitor the progress of such projects. This study evaluated the utility of using Landsat Thematic Mapper remotely-sensed data from 2002 and 2009 to monitor vegetation change induced by instream flow restoration to the Lower Owens River in central California. This study compared the results of an unsupervised classification with an NDVI threshold classification to appraise the resources required and effectiveness of each analysis method. The results were inspected by creating standard remote sensing accuracy error …

The Impact Of Sports Dropout On Adolescent Functioning, Brittany Skiles Cook

Theses and Dissertations

Sports is the most commonly participated in extracurricular activity during adolescence. Aligned with the Positive Youth Development theoretical framework, previous research has shown that sports participation offers youth a context rich in resources found to promote positive adjustment into adulthood. However, around one third of the youth participating in sports drop out each year, and little research has examined the impact of sports dropout on indicators of youth adjustment. This study examines the relation between sports dropout and academic achievement, self-esteem, depression, perceived school climate, perceived support from adults in school, and alcohol use. The moderating effect of sports engagement …

Certified Population Estimates 2015, Portland State University. Population Research Center

Oregon Population Estimates and Reports

Certified Population Estimates for Oregon and Its Counties. This item also contains estimates for Incorporated Cities/Towns.

Humans Integrate Monetary And Liquid Incentives To Motivate Cognitive Task Performance, Debbie Yee

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

It is unequivocal that a wide variety of incentives can motivate behavior. However, few studies have explicitly examined whether and how different incentives are integrated in terms of their motivational influence. The current study examines the combined effects of monetary and liquid incentives on cognitive processing, and whether appetitive and aversive incentives have distinct influences. We introduce a novel task paradigm, in which participants perform cued task-switching for monetary rewards that vary parametrically across trials, with liquid incentives serving as post-trial performance feedback. Critically, the symbolic meaning of the liquid was held constant (indicating successful reward attainment), while liquid valence …

The Role Of Trauma And Mental Health Problems In The Perpetration Of Intimate Partner Violence In Post-Genocide Rwanda, Sarah Myers Tlapek

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Exposure to political violence or war is associated with intimate partner violence (IPV) in post-conflict settings (Clark et al., 2010; Gupta, Reed, Kelly, Stein, & Williams, 2012), and civilians and veterans who develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after exposure to combat or violence are more likely to perpetrate violence against an intimate partner (Taft, Watkins, Stafford, Street, & Monson, 2011). Rwandan health professionals estimate that after the 1994 genocide more than one-quarter of the country’s population now suffers from PTSD (Munyandamutsa, Nkubamugisha, Gex-Fabry, & Eytan, 2012). Although the majority of Rwandan women (56%) have experienced IPV in their lifetime (National …

Understanding The Pxs Aspect Of Within-Person Variation: A Variance Partitioning Approach, Brian Lakey

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

This article reviews a variance partitioning approach to within-person variation based on Generalizability (G) Theory and the Social Relations Model (SRM). The approach conceptualizes an important part of within-person variation as Person x Situation (PxS) interactions: differences among persons in their profiles of responses across the same situations. The approach provided the first quantitative method for capturing within-person variation and demonstrated very large PxS effects for a wide range of constructs. These include anxiety, five-factor personality traits, perceived social support, leadership, and task performance. Although PxS effects are commonly very large, conceptual and analytic obstacles have thwarted consistent progress. For …

The Centrality Of Participant Voice In Illuminating The Gender Regime In Education Research Using A Human Capabilities Analysis, Catherine Vanner

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

The human capabilities approach distinguishes between capabilities (a person’s ability to choose what she wants to do/be) and functionings (actually doing/being what she wants). When used to analyze gender equality in education, it draws attention to the nature of education and the extent to which it is equally empowering for girls and boys. This research synthesis examines the use of the human capabilities approach as an analytical framework for gender and education research. The approach’s emphasis on participant voice as a means of articulating what is valued in education highlights contradictions and similarities within a given community and attends to …

Dude Looks Like A Feminist!: Moral Concerns And Feminism Among Men, Renee F. Precopio

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Even though male participation in feminism is essential to its success, it is possible that men are reluctant to get involved in the movement because of its primary association with women (Holmgren & Hearn, 2009). This research investigated whether certain moral concerns contribute to men endorsing feminism. According to the Moral Foundations Theory there are five moral concerns: harm (i.e., the concern for someone’s physical and emotional well-being), fairness (i.e., the concern for equality and justice), ingroup (i.e., the concern for loyalty to group membership), authority (i.e., the concern for tradition and the social hierarchy), and purity (i.e., the concern …

Columbia Chronicle (12/14/2015)

Columbia Chronicle

Student newspaper from December 14, 2015 entitled The Columbia Chronicle. This issue is 40 pages and is listed as Volume 51, Issue 15. Cover story: "NFL Draft punts graduation back to The Chicago Theatre" Editor-in-Chief: Kyra Senese

Impact Of Working Alliance On Clinical Outcomes In Veterans Enrolled In Suicide-Specific Group Therapy, Brittany N. Groh

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Suicide is a global issue that has led researchers to seek interventions that will have a significant impact on mental health and wellbeing. Veterans comprise the largest number of suicides annually compared to other groups. There is a higher prevalence of mental disorders due to combat related experiences that may play a role in increased rates of suicide. Examined clinical diagnoses in this study include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, alcohol use and substance use. This study explores how group therapy and working alliance play a role in reducing suicidality in a group therapy setting. The first hypotheses is that …

The Female Perception Of Safety On A College Campus, Kimberly N. Miles

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Previous research has shown the prevalence of females on college campuses across the nation experiencing a generalized fear of being victimized or violently assaulted while on campus. This fear is generated by the knowledge of violent crimes towards women on campus, as well as the perception alone that there are assaults happening on campus. Studies have noted that this fear held by female students can significantly affect their academic progress and overall wellbeing while at school. This study chose to examine the female students of Western Kentucky University and their personal perception of safety on college campuses comparing students who …

Women’S Perceptions Of Muscular Body Image And Its Impact On Eating Disorders, Juliana Eovino

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD, 2015), the largest majority of people with an Eating Disorder (ED) are female college aged students. The current study suggests this is due to the differences in society’s portrayal of gender. Media suggests women should strive for a thinness that is unrealistic and unattainable for most women. Participants for the current study take two surveys at separate times to measure how media portrayals of the female body affects eating disorders. The surveys are made up of either a media influence stressing the importance of muscularity or a thinness …