Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Psychotherapy Utilization And Presenting Concerns Among International Asian And Asian American Students In A University Counseling Center., Hannah Stokes, Derek Griner, Timothy B. Smith, Mark Beecher, G. E. Kawika Allen, Jon Cox, Klint Hobbs, Natalie Ann Kirtley

Faculty Publications

Limited psychological research has disaggregated the experiences of Asian American (AA) from international Asian (IA) college students seeking psychotherapy. When combined, important differences between these groups are overlooked. We examined archival data collected from AA, IA, and European American (EA) students at a large, Western, university counseling center. Results indicated no significant differences between groups related to maximum number of psychotherapy sessions attended or likelihood of treatment discontinuance. However, we found significant differences between these groups on a number of items related to presenting concerns and to severity of presenting distress, with IA students presenting with the most distress, followed …

Recruiting And Retaining School Psychologists: The Role Of District Level Administrative Supervisors, Ellie L. Young, Rachel Butler, Timothy B. Smith, Sterling Hilton, Alivia Smith

Faculty Publications

A shortage of school psychologists has been evident since the profession was initially recognized as a distinct field, and there is insufficient research on what current administrative supervisors are doing to address this problem. This qualitative study examined the perceptions of district level administrative supervisors regarding recruitment and retention of school psychologists. Participants reported the following: (a) school psychology graduate programs not producing enough school psychologists, (b) challenges of finding school psychologists to hire, (c) competing with neighboring school districts, and (d) trying to recruit and retain in a worker’s market that favors the school psychologist. These administrative supervisors also …

To Examine The Effects Of Exercise & Instructional Based Interventions On Executive Functioning, Motor Learning & Emotional Intelligence Abilities Among Older Adults, Lavanya Rajesh Kumar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Motor skills are a vital part of our life, and there might be situations where we will be required to either learn a new skill or relearn a known one. We examined the effectiveness of two different interventions - eccentric exercise and motivation-based instructions on enhancing the ability of older adults to learn a novel motor skill. Exercise intervention studies have shown that as little as 12 weeks of exercise can lead to improvements in both physical fitness and cognitive function in older adults, particularly executive control. But it is still unclear whether those improvements translate to improvements in other …

Expatriate Middle Eastern Muslim Mothers’ Stories About Sex Education In U.S. Schools: Communication Privacy Challenges And Narrative Typologies, Nada Alfeir

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study examines the stories of expatriate Middle Eastern Muslim (EMEM) mothers in the U.S. about how they talked with their children about the sexual education classes offered in U.S. public schools. Three concepts from the Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM; Petronio, 2002) were adapted to an interpretive narrative perspective drawn on Frank's (2013) typology of narrative types. A total of 15 EMEM mothers who had lived for more than one year in the U.S. were recruited in the study. Qualitative data were collected through written stories and interviews, and supplemented by the author's observations. All written stories and interviews …

A Transdisciplinary Analysis Of Just Transition Pathways To 100% Renewable Electricity, Adewale Aremu Adesanya

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The transition to using clean, affordable, and reliable electrical energy is critical for enhancing human opportunities and capabilities. In the United States, many states and localities are engaging in this transition despite the lack of ambitious federal policy support. This research builds on the theoretical framework of the multilevel perspective (MLP) of sociotechnical transitions as well as the concept of energy justice to investigate potential pathways to 100 percent renewable energy (RE) for electricity provision in the U.S. This research seeks to answer the question: what are the technical, policy, and perceptual pathways, barriers, and opportunities for just transition to …

Impacts Of Forest Tax Programs On Property Tax Rates In Michigan's Upper Peninsula And Northern Wisconsin, Elsa Schwartz

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Forest tax programs offer reduced property taxes to private forest owners as incentive to sustainably manage their forests and to encourage the provision of ecosystem services. They also protect forests from conversion to other land uses and ensure the viable supply of timber for forest products industries. Despite the benefits that these programs provide, they can negatively impact local municipalities by reducing the property tax base, which can then cause local governments to increase tax rates for non-preferential properties in order to maintain revenue needed to run their services. This shifts the tax burden from participating properties to nonparticipating properties. …

Evaluating Household Food, Energy, And Water Environmentally Oriented Anti-Consumption In The Us: Toward A Comprehensive Theory Synthesis, Jacob Slattery

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Introduction – Everyday household activities using food, energy, and water (FEW) resources consumed in the US have perpetually contributed a large amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, amplifying the effects of climate change globally. These actions are embedded and routinized effectively at the individual level, resulting in habits inert to changes in household FEW behaviors more friendly to socio-environmental impacts. Public and voluntary policies could help shift perceptions of FEW household conservation, but a gap in environmental political and psychological research reveals a deficit in evidence examining the antecedents of the moral or personal norm concept.

Objective – The …

The Perceptions, Practices, And Policies That Govern Food, Energy, And Water Consumption In The U.S. Suburban Home: “More Than My Fair Share”, William Lytle

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation addresses household consumption by advancing understandings of complex material, social, and regulatory structures that have a bearing on the future of sustainable and resilient practices at the residential scale in the United States. Interviews with 44 households in the U.S. were conducted to learn about perceptions of food, energy, and water consumption. Chapters two, three, and four utilize grounded theory and theories of practice. This inquiry yielded insights into social dynamics of household consumption, how human and more-than-human actors influence each other’s consumption, and how infrastructure and social class are interrelated. Chapter five is a policy maker’s guidebook, …

‘Owing To The Backwardness Of The Season’: Assessing The Exploratory Mining Process On Isle Royale Redacted Version, Andrew Anklam

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Isle Royale, located in Lake Superior, was one center of the nation’s first copper rush. High quality copper veins drew mid-19th century miners looking to stake a claim. By the mid-1850s these initial attempts at lode mining failed as the remote location and logistical hurdles made extracting copper from Isle Royale a costly business. Despite the short-lived nature of these exploratory mines, they played a vital role in defining the nature and profitability of copper lodes in the Lake Superior Basin and serve as an example for how mineral rushes on the western frontier of North America play out. The …

Predictors Of Academic Performance: The Roles Of Self-Compassion, Coping, Mental Toughness, Grit, And Self-Reported Stressors On Physics Final Exam Performance, Darnishia L. Morris

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The intersection of stress, persistence and success in college-aged students is progressively gaining attention in research. Analyzing how students succeed and what factors contribute to their success, failure, and ultimately the completion of their degree, is vitally important for educators and administrators in higher education to understand. Historically utilized factors such as grade point average (GPA), standardized test scores (college admissions and Advance Placement (AP) exams), and previous academic achievement (pre-requisite courses) are not the only predictors of academic performance. This study aimed to quantify contributions and inter-relationships of student perceptions, coping style, stress, mental toughness (MT), and other potential …

Augmented Reality As A Tool For Industrial Heritage Education And Interpretations, Garand A. Spikberg

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Combining Augmented Reality with spatially and temporally robust Historical Spatial Data Infrastructures may have the potential to provide users with interpretive and educational opportunities they otherwise would not have. Adapting research oriented historical GIS projects such as the Copper Country Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure to usage as interpretive material through the utilization of “off the shelf” augmented reality applications such as AuGeo has the potential to expand the utility and reach of that research data outside of the lab, while providing new interpretive opportunities by allowing users to see that data in its original spatial context and giving them the …

Investigating The Impact Of Online Human Collaboration In Explanation Of Ai Systems, Tauseef Ibne Mamun

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

An important subdomain in research on Human-Artificial Intelligence interaction is Explainable AI (XAI). XAI aims to improve human understanding and trust in machine intelligence and automation by providing users with visualizations and other information explaining the AI’s decisions, actions, or plans and thereby to establish justified trust and reliance. XAI systems have primarily used algorithmic approaches designed to generate explanations automatically that help understanding underlying information about decisions and establish justified trust and reliance, but an alternate that may augment these systems is to take advantage of the fact that user understanding of AI systems often develops through self-explanation (Mueller …

When Darkness Descends: A Narrative Analysis Of Maternal Resilience Following Hurricane Maria, Sara Potter

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Within the last 40 years, academic research on disasters has focused on resilience as applied to individual adaptive capacities, rebuilding resources, and policy-driven solutions. While there has been an increased awareness of the many gendered dimensions of post-disaster recovery, women’s and mother’s agency in such situations is still largely ignored. Thus, this dissertation adopts a maternal focus, arguing that mothers are not merely vulnerable subjects but critical agents of post-disaster recovery for families, communities, and social systems more generally.

To analyze mothers’ resilience, I looked to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico as an illustrative case and field …

The Coaches’ Eye: Exploring Coach Decision-Making During Talent Identification, Alexandra Hannah Roberts

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

For decades, researchers and practitioners interested in talent identification have discussed the coaches’ eye: the elusive ability that allows some coaches to ‘see’ qualities in an athlete that point to their talent or future potential. While there is significant anecdotal evidence of coaches who possess this ability, there is little empirical research supporting the validity or reliability of the coaches’ eye. Guided by ecological dynamics, this thesis employs mixed methodologies to explore the decision-making that underpins how high-level coaches identify talent in Olympic combat sports. These four studies captured the processes of thirty- four coaches during the talent identification process, …

The Characteristics And Effectiveness Of Treatment For Young Sex Offenders In Australia And New Zealand: A Systematic Review, James Finney

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Sexual offending by young people presents a serious and devastating issue effecting victims, families, and wider society. This has led investigative efforts to understand the efficacy of treatment programs to cease or at minimum reduce sexual recidivism. Evaluations examining treatment efficacy have predominately been conducted in the United States and Canada, with limited research focused exclusively on young sex offenders in Australia and New Zealand. To address the paucity of information, a systematic review of young sex offender treatment research in Australia and New Zealand was conducted. The systematic review employed a comprehensive search strategy and rigorous vetting procedure, which …

Siblings Of People With Intellectual Disability: Relationships And Decision-Making Across The Life Span, Wendy Simpson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

A growing amount of research focuses on siblings of children with disabilities. However, limited evidence exists to provide a solid understanding and depth of knowledge of the issues that affect adult sibling relationships when one has intellectual disability. Since sibling relationships are the longest lasting family relationship, they are becoming more important because people with disability are outliving their parents or main caregivers. The increased longevity of people with disability has a societal and economic impact that has been recognised in the context of the recently introduced National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Australia. By exploring the experiences of siblings …

Towards An Evidence-Informed Differentiated Learning Consolidation Process To Support Classroom Instruction, Nicola Carr-White

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Despite many years of teaching experience, the differentiation and consolidation of classroom learning presented challenges for the researcher. In response, a Differentiated Learning Consolidation Process (DLCP) was developed through informal classroom-based action research over several years. Using low cost and accessible resources, it developed into a manageable supplementary intervention to support individual student needs and the retention of classroom instruction. Increasing interest from colleagues led the researcher to provide professional development on the instructional design and implementation of the DLCP. Through this experience, it became apparent that the DLCP theoretical assumptions were largely unknown. The current study was pursued to …

The Youth Work Career: Exploring Long-Term Careers Of Professional Youth Workers In Western Australia, John Sutcliffe

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this research was to explore the meaning and experiences of the long-term careers of youth workers. This study selected a Western Australian sample group of 10 degreequalified youth workers who had graduated between 1990 and 1999 and had experienced careers in youth work spanning 20 years. The existing literature pertaining to long-term youth work careers was sparse in certain aspects, which established the primary need for the research focus. The related literature was found to represent a negative image of youth work as a career. Youth work was considered lacking in professional identity and was most commonly …

Identity: A Crisis Of Confidence? Or Is It Resemblance? An Exploration Of The Different Approaches By Which Eyewitness Evidence Can Be Obtained From Lineups, Dominic T. Jordan

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Research has shown that eyewitness identification decisions are fallible and often mistaken. Although considerable attention has been afforded to identification decision accuracy and its improvement, mistaken identification decisions continue to contribute to costly errors at the evidentiary stage of the criminal justice system process (i.e., wrongful convictions). Several prominent researchers have suggested, by way of explanation, that the existing framework for obtaining eyewitness evidence from lineups, namely, identification, is inadequate. Indeed, the assumption that witnesses when presented with a lineup, can make reliable identification decisions (i.e., can reliably determine that a lineup member is the same unfamiliar person seen previously …

Exploring The Experiences Of Australian Science Researchers; Library, Google And Beyond, Ewa Maria Niewiadomska

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Universities and research institutions in Australia are under pressure to produce high-quality research outputs. To generate the desired level of research, continuous provision of information is required. As a result of developments of digital technologies, the information behaviour of academics, both as consumers and creators of new information and knowledge, has evolved and changed over the decades.

In this study, the primary research question focused on how science academics based at Australian universities experience digital information sources as part of their scholarly activities. To support these research goals, the thesis explores where science academics seek information to support their research …

Paying Attention To Water Relations: Poetic Inquiry And Pedagogical Documentation As Curious Practices, Claire O’Callaghan

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This project explores climate pedagogies with particular interest in Western Australia’s current water crisis. Human and more-than-human relations are explored with young children and educators from an early learning centre in Perth, Western Australia, with a view to reimagining education in the context of rapid environmental change. The project is grounded in feminist new materialist knowledge and is framed by an attentive focus to amplify the non-binary nature of both human and more-than-human counterparts. The research focuses on challenging colonial ways of knowing water, by decentring the child, unsettling norms, and reinstating reciprocity between human and more-than-human others (Nxumalo & …

Drumbeat© For Arthritis “ A Shared Purpose” Rather Than A “Lonely Struggle”, Jannette Warhurst

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Australia is regarded as a healthy nation, with life expectancy one of the highest in the world. Yet the latest National Health Survey tells a very different story. Almost 50% of Australians are now living with one or more chronic conditions, with arthritis and other musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions representing the most expensive chronic disease group in Australia. As the leading cause of chronic pain and second most common cause of disability and early retirement due to ill health in Australia, Arthritis is costing the economy over $7 billion a year, in addition to over $1.1 billion in extra welfare costs …

Mindfulness Practices In Secondary Schools: Exploring Teachers’ Attitudes, And The Barriers And Facilitators To Achieving Teacher Buy-In To A Whole-School Approach, Willow Jefferies

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Mindfulness practices are increasingly being introduced into schools as a whole-school approach, with teachers often responsible for implementing the exercises with their students. The aim of this research project was to explore the attitudes secondary teachers hold towards mindfulness practices and determine the barriers to and facilitators of teachers buying-in to a mindfulness initiative. A qualitative research methodology was utilised with twelve semistructured interviews conducted across three Perth metropolitan secondary schools. Interview questions were devised using both attitudinal constructs and the Revised Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF-R). In order to separately explore both teachers’ attitudes towards mindfulness practices and the barriers …

Zone Path Construction (Zac) Based Approaches For Effective Real-Time Ridesharing, Meghna Lowalekar, Pradeep Varakantham, Patrick Jaillet

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Real-time ridesharing systems such as UberPool, Lyft Line and GrabShare have become hugely popular as they reduce the costs for customers, improve per trip revenue for drivers and reduce traffic on the roads by grouping customers with similar itineraries. The key challenge in these systems is to group the “right” requests to travel together in the “right” available vehicles in real-time, so that the objective (e.g., requests served, revenue or delay) is optimized. This challenge has been addressed in existing work by: (i) generating as many relevant feasible combinations of requests (with respect to the available delay for customers) as …

Performance-Based Iadl Evaluation Of Older Adults With Cognitive Impairment Within A Smart Home: A Feasibility Study, Iris Rawtaer, Khalid Abdul Jabbar, Xiao Liu, Thit Thit Htat Ying, Anh Thuy Giang, Philip Lin Kiat Yap, Rachel Chin Yee Cheong, Hwee-Pink Tan, Pius Lee Wei Qi, Shiou Liang Wee, Tze Pin Ng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Introduction Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is characterized by subtle deficits that functional assessment via informant-report measures may not detect. Sensors can potentially detect deficits in everyday functioning in MCI. This study aims to establish feasibility and acceptability of using sensors in a smart home for performance-based assessments of two instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). Methods Thirty-five older adults (>65 years) performed two IADL tasks in a smart home laboratory equipped with sensors and a web camera. Participants' cognitive states were determined using published criteria including measures of global cognition and comprehensive neuropsychological test batteries. Selected subtasks of the …