Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of Perceived Audiences On Discrimination Learning In Pigeons ( Columbia Livia ), Peyton M. Mueller, Matthew Murphy

Honors Theses

The social facilitation effect is a phenomenon frequently discussed in the subfield of social psychology. Some studies have examined the social facilitation or inhibition effects in nonhuman animals, though few have examined the effect of perceived audiences on their cognitive functioning. In order to study this effect, three different video stimuli were presented to one subject while solving a memorization discrimination task. It was hypothesized that the pigeon would learn a task at different rates based on the type of perceived audience presented. No significant results were found due to the fact that the subject was unable to learn the …

Analyzing Two-Year College Student Success Using Structural Equation Modeling, Jessica Taylor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

The goal of this study is to more fully understand the scope of community college student success using the principles of mindset, engagement, and college readiness. Using structural equation modeling ensures this study is able to measure the combined effects these concepts have on student success, group differences, and the combined model of student success. Findings suggest student success can be significantly impacted by self-belief and mindset behaviors that can outweigh the initial effect of academically under-prepared students. Groups included in this study are non-traditional students, minority populations, first generation students, and Pell eligible students.

Equality In Education: Solutions Aimed At Closing The Achievement Gap In Mississippi Public Schools, Mallie E. Imbler

Honors Theses

This thesis attempts to examine solutions aimed at closing the achievement gap in Mississippi public schools. The research questions that are addressed in this thesis include: a) Why is the achievement gap part of policy debates in Mississippi and how have individ-ual school districts and policymakers responded to the gap? b) How is the gap measured and what are the trends since 2001 when the No Child Left Behind Act was adopted? c) How are achievement gap debates reflected in the current policy? d) Have any of the past national education policies been effective in decreasing the achievement gap? The …

A Comparative Analysis Of Undergraduate Integrated Marketing Communications Degrees In The United States, Anne Watkins Tyson

Honors Theses

No longer are traditional marketing communications methods effectively reaching consumers. The approach of integrated marketing communications intentionally combines all aspects of the marketing communications mix into one consistent message. Research reveals that integrated marketing communications is becoming a more and more popular field of study for students and academics. Because of this, universities are forced to evaluate how their integrated marketing communications programs are taught in order to stay relevant. The purpose of this study is to conduct an analysis of undergraduate integrated marketing communications degrees in the United States. This thesis work defines integrated marketing communications, and also describes …

How Will I Afford It? Financial Aid And Its Impact On Higher Education: Evidence From The State Of Mississippi, Daria Herasymova

Honors Theses

The cost of higher education, in real terms, doubled in the last twenty years, increasing faster than medical costs, the consumer price index and housing. In 1987, U.S. Secretary of Education, William J. Bennett, in the New York Times article, raised the concern that financial aid has unintended consequences of enabling higher education institution to increase tuition. In this paper, through collection of data and literature review, I examine the drivers behind the rising cost of higher education and test whether the postsecondary institutions in the state of Mississippi exhibit behavior, consistent with the Bennett Hypothesis. Using fixed-effects regression model, …

A Study Investigating Behavior Economics And Parent Engagement To Impact The Transition To Kindergarten, Sarah Hough, Laura Carafiello

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

The United States is in the bottom quartile of formally enrolled preschoolers in the developed countries. Not every student receives an equitable preschool experience and as a result, kindergarten classrooms contain a wide range of learners. One way to offset the transition time would be to transform enrollment procedures. How schools utilize the data contained on kindergarten enrollment registrations in the spring could help level the playing field for at risk students. Handing a parent a list of ways to get ready for kindergarten is not enough. One method is through the use of behavior economics and technology. This research …

Supporting Pre-Service Teachers With Skills From Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Almut K. Zieher

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

Mindfulness trainings, which tend to include daily home meditation practice, have been found to improve in- and pre-service teachers well-being, but findings indicate that participants struggle to complete the recommended home meditation practice. A mindfulness training based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills may be a more feasible training format for teachers because the home practice is informal and easily integrated into daily life. DBT skills are also discrete and easy-to-understand and directly relate to the intrapersonal and interpersonal challenges teachers face. Although DBT skills-based trainings have been used with non-clinical populations, to date no study has been identified exploring …

Affecting Social Change For Transgender And Gender-Expansive Children: Exploring Advocates' Perspectives, Cortny Stark

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

This interpretive case study explored the experience of advocates as they pursue social change for transgender and gender-expansive children (ages 4-12). The aim of the study is to improve current understanding of the process of advocacy for this population, as well as the context in which advocacy efforts occur. Data consisted of hour long interviews, advocacy artifacts as recommended by participants, and the researcher’s field journal. Participants included 12 advocates from a variety of backgrounds and geographic locations within the United States, to include educators, community advocates, and helping professionals. Implications of this study may include increased understanding of the …

Explaining Variation And Change Among Late Pleistocene And Early Holocene Microblade-Based Societies In Northeastern Asia, Meng Zhang

Anthropology ETDs

This project aims to provide a culture-ecological explanation of variation and change among microblade-based societies in Northeastern Asia during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene between c. 30,000 - 6,000 years ago. Assuming that paleoenvironmental changes stimulated cultural changes due to available food resources and that local environment conditioned cultural variation, the development of microblade-based societies can be divided into four phases (c.30-22 kya, 22-15 kya, 15-10 kya, 10-c.1 kya uncal. BP) in four regions (north continental, south continental, north insular, and south insular).

The study’s macroecological approach based on Constructing Frames of Reference (Binford 2001) is applied to elucidate …

A Narrative Inquiry With Three Formerly Abrasive Leaders: Stories Of Disruption, Awakening, And Equipping, Lori J. Tucker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Psychological aggression in the workplace is known to be destructive. Most commonly, knowledge of this workplace dynamic is through the literature of workplace bullying or abusive supervision and from the perspective of the accuser. Very little is known of the perspective of the accused. Moreover, unknown in the literature is the valued perspective of the leader who (a) acknowledged his or her behavior was inappropriate and (b) significantly improved his or her interpersonal behavior and management strategies. The purpose of this study was to inquire into the experience and meaning making of three formerly abrasive leaders who were positively influenced …

A Meta-Analytic Review Of Cognitive Functioning In Negative And Positive Symptoms Of Schizophrenia, Tiffany Forsythe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to conduct two meta-analytic reviews examining cognitive functioning and schizophrenia. The first review examined the literature comparing the cognitive functioning of schizophrenic patients to healthy controls. A second review examined the cognitive functioning within schizophrenic patients, examining the differences between individuals with primarily positive symptomatology and those with primarily negative symptomatology. The first meta-analysis included 19 studies which assessed 861 schizophrenic patients and 858 healthy volunteers overall. The second meta-analysis included 10 studies comparing the cognitive functioning of 1,263 schizophrenics across positive and negative symptoms. Results of the first review indicated that healthy controls …

Brand Strength Evaluation Of Goodwill-West Texas, Cailyn Byrd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this evaluation is to identify the ways in which Goodwill-West Texas could improve their marketing efforts in order to increase service delivery and community support. Goodwill’s career center is underperforming in comparison to other Goodwill career centers in similar communities. Two surveys were used to assess the beliefs and attitudes towards Goodwill held by members of the community who are often in contact with Goodwill-West Texas’s target market. Participants were more likely to know about Goodwill’s retail sales rather than their social service efforts. This could be contributing to Goodwill-West Texas’s service delivery, but more research is …

Assessing Social Integration Of African Refugee Students Resettled In Abilene Texas: A Comparative Analysis, Hayven Tudman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to assess perceived social and cultural integration among African refugee students participating in the IRC’s youth programs and those students who do not. The study looks at refugee students from a local high school in a small rural town. The sample population (n=20) were from four different Sub-Saharan African countries: Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. The data were collected using an online survey that consisted of two scales, one for measuring social support and one for measuring acculturation. An Independent Samples t-test analysis was run to compare the IRC participants …

The Impact Organizational Factors Have On Role Ambiguity Amongst School Social Workers, Melissa Kichura

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore what organizational factors increase or decrease role ambiguity amongst school social workers. This study attempted to provide practical information for schools on the influence of specific organizational factors on role ambiguity so that they can provide a supportive work environment for school social workers and students. A cross-sectional survey design was used to provide a snapshot of the current organizational factors impacting the ambiguity of school social work roles from a sample of 73 members of the School Social Work Association of America. Some findings were not congruent with the literature. The …

The Interpretation Of Opac Service In The Library Of Universitas Airlangga, Dyah Puspitasari Srirahayu, Esti Putri Anugrah

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The application of OPAC service in the library has been going on for a long time. This service has given many advantages to users as a quick and accurate tool for information retrieval. Even so, not all people use OPAC service; in fact, previous researches reveal that the application of OPAC service is decreasing. Therefore, this study aims to find out what is the interpretation of OPAC by the users of the library of Universitas Airlangga, thus gaining a deeper analysis on the matter. The method used for this study is qualitative method, with purposive sampling as the technique to …

Returns On Library Investment: A Study Of The Leading Engineering And Technology Institutes In India, Shivendra Singh, Ramesh Pandita Mr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study is based on the secondary data compiled by the Ministry of Human Resource & Development, Govt., of India for the period 2012-13, 2013-14 & 2014-15 and was released as the ranking list of Institutes of Engineering and Technology in India for the year 2016. The study aims to assess the Returns on Investment (ROI) of the twenty leading libraries of the Institutes of Engineering and Technology in India in the form of institutional research output. An attempted has also been made to rank the each individual library on the basis of seven different parameters chosen for the study …

Mentoring For Professional Development Of Academic Librarians In Nigerian University Libraries, Janet Ubogu

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Librarianship as a profession engages in mentoring in order to sharpen and sustain professional practice and be abreast with new development on the job. The study is on mentoring for professional development of librarians in Nigerian university libraries. This present study is a survey of 250 professional librarians from Nigerian university libraries. Questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The percentages of the responses were tabulated. The findings showed that mentoring programmes through which librarians are mostly mentored are sponsorship to conferences, seminars and workshops and individual mentoring. Mentoring is beneficial to academic librarians in that it equips …

Review Of Archival Futures, Eira M. Tansey

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Archival Futures is the most recent addition to the body of literature on archival futurism. Consisting of nine essays written by mostly academic lecturers or professors from the UK, Australia, Canada and the United States, this volume considers the impact of technology on the future of archives. Major technical concerns for the future include big data, blockchain, artificial intelligence, format challenges, and storage issues. Ultimately, the volume falls short of contextualizing archives within troubling future global trends, particularly those of labor casualization and climate change.

Improving Nurse Anesthetist Intraoperative Handoff Process By Developing And Implementing An Evidence-Based, Facility-Specific Cognitive Aid, Jason Silva, Myron Arnaud

Journal of Nursing & Interprofessional Leadership in Quality & Safety

Miscommunication or non-transfer of pertinent patient information during intraoperative handoffs between anesthesia providers creates patient safety risks. An evidence-based facility-specific cognitive aid was developed and introduced to nurse anesthetists in an anesthesiology department of a large academic hospital with the aim of improving the intraoperative patient handoff process. The program used a handoff cognitive aid that addressed five pertinent patient information points. A secondary measure was evaluation of provider satisfaction. Twenty-four nurse anesthetists utilized the handoff cognitive aid during handoffs in the course of a 4-week pilot program. Eighty-eight nurse anesthetist handoffs were observed (23 with and 65 without the …

Volume 56, Number 1, Spring 2019 Speaker And Gavel

Speaker & Gavel

Complete digitized issue (volume 56, issue 1, Spring 2019) of Speaker & Gavel.

Chris Vein: What Forensics Did For Me, Chris Vein

Speaker & Gavel

ALUMNI CORNER: The forensic community is filled with alumni who will tout the benefits they received through their participation in intercollegiate speech and debate activities. As directors of forensics programs face battles for budgets and sometimes for their program’s very existence, having a collection of published testimonies about the positive influence of forensics can be a tremendous help. To that end, Speaker & Gavel is setting aside space in each issue for our alumni to talk about how forensics has helped them in their professional life. These are our alumni’s stories.

Tyson Carter: What Forensics Did For Me, Tyson Carter

Speaker & Gavel

No abstract provided.

Imitatio, Civic Education, And The Digital Temper, Jessy Ohl

Speaker & Gavel

This essay advocates for the reinvigoration of imitatio pedagogy to reestablish disciplinary commitment to civic education in perilous democratic times. I argue that imitatio offers a needed response to several contemporary democratic challenges. After mapping out three theoretical relations of imitatio, I describe one approach for inculcating democratic citizenship via imitatio designed for undergraduate education. Finally, I conclude by reflecting on the specific affordances of imitatio education in the digital age and call on educators of rhetoric and communication to once again perceive democratic well-being as a disciplinary responsibility.

Fighting The Formula: Adherence To Unspoken Rules Limit The Value Of Individual Events, Eric Mishne

Speaker & Gavel

Forensics is one of the most valuable activities in which college students can be involved. However, the strict adherence to formula and unspoken rules diminishes the educational benefits. This article explores an extensive body of literature highlighting the concerns of formulaic practices in collegiate forensics. The author asserts that authenticity, genuine learning, transferability of skills, innovation, and high quality speaking are the biggest victims of stringent adherence to the forensic formula. Specific recommendations for competitors, judges, coaches, and organizing bodies are given, suggesting that there are alternatives which can mitigate growing concerns.

A Letter From The Novice National Forensic Association, Matt Delzer

Speaker & Gavel

A letter of welcome from the Executive Director of the Novice National Forensic Association.

A Letter From The Speaker & Gavel Editor - Big Change, Little Change, Todd T. Holm

Speaker & Gavel

A letter from Speaker & Gavel editor Todd Holm about the future of Speaker & Gavel.

A Letter From The Dsr-Tka President, Mary Moore, Mike Edmonds

Speaker & Gavel

A letter from the President of DSR-TKA announcing the dissolution of Delta Sigma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha (DSR-TKA).

Front Matter

Speaker & Gavel

Front matter and table of contents for volume 56, issue 1 of Speaker & Gavel.

The Curious History Of Jeppsons Malört: From The Repeal Of Prohibition To Cult-Status In Chicago, Illinois, Andrew Pothier

The Exposition

This research project explores the curious ascension of Jeppson Malört, a brand of bäsk brännvin - Swedish style wormwood liquor - produced by the Carl Jeppson Company of Chicago, Illinois. This research considers Jeppsons From its earliest production and marketing, by Carl Jeppson, a Swedish immigrant to the United States during Prohibition as a legal medicinal beverage during prohibition, and later to its present-day cult-beverage status in Chicago. It is, however, Malörts relative regional-centric acclaim that raises the essential question of this research. First, how is it that Malört became a cultural staple - a Chicagoans right-of-passage beverage, so to …

The United States Print Media And Its War On Psychedelic Research In The 1960s, Jessica M. Bracco

The Exposition

The social climate of the 1960s denied the possible usefulness of psychedelics as drugs that could be considered therapeutic. The government attacked the research of psychedelics by demanding a stricter proof of efficacy, with the 1962 Kefauver Harris Amendments to FDA regulations, in order to conduct research on these drugs. Also, the government moved to classify these drugs as "Dangerous Drugs" making it a felony to manufacture, sell, possess, or consume these class of drugs. Furthermore, propaganda was spread to the American people, via the print media, claiming the proclivity of the drug for recreational use and the dangers this …