Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Improving Interactions During Medical Interpretation: Educational Module For Medical Students, Alyssa Reinschmidt, Denyelle Kenyon, Hilda Sanchez-Herrera

Scholarship Pathways Program

As the population of individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) continues to grow in South Dakota and across the United States, healthcare systems face increasing challenges in providing equitable care. This study evaluates the implementation of an educational module designed to prepare first-year medical students at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine (SSOM) to work effectively with medical interpreters and patients with LEP. The module included a didactic session, role-play, open discussion, and pre- and post-surveys assessing students’ knowledge, attitudes, preparedness, and perceptions of the educational environment. Results from 68 participants demonstrated statistically significant improvements across all …

Disaster Vulnerability Hotspots In The Portland Metro-Region: Converging Indices For Equitable Resilience, Idowu Ajibade, Matthew Walter, Jason Sauer, Aswatha Raghunathasami, James M. Done, Paul Loikith, Chris Lower, Heejun Chang, Arun Pallathadka, Mae E. Sowards, Ming Ge

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

As climate-related extreme events intensify across the globe, governments, practitioners, and communities have focused on reducing vulnerability and building resilience. However, debates persist about the validity, differences, and similarities between social vulnerability and resilience indices. This study combines the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) (26 indicators) and the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) (52 indicators) to assess the Portland Metro region using ACS (2016–2020) and 2020 Census data. Through hotspot analysis, Pearson’s correlation, and linear regression, we identify key drivers as well as areas of convergence and divergence between the two indices. Results show a strong overlap between SoVI and …

Music From Your Childhood And Emotional Regulation, Sarrah C. Wilkes

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Prior research has shown that music can evoke numerous psychological and physiological outcomes in individuals (Croom, A. M., 2015). Research has been done on the power of nostalgic music and happiness; however, there is little research on whether listening to music from childhood can increase happiness levels. The purpose of this study is to examine how music, specifically from your childhood, influences emotional regulation and well-being in college-aged students. This is a within-subjects study in which participants are exposed to a song from their childhood, and their levels of happiness, nostalgia, confidence, and coping mechanisms are assessed pre- and post-exposure …

The Influence Of Narrative Point Of View In Fanfiction On Character Identification And Parasocial Romantic Attraction, Rachel Delaurenti, Alex Cocoros, Lourdes Duque, Sean Oriotis, Jonathan Jauregui

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This study examines how narrative point of view influences character identification and parasocial romantic feelings in fan fiction. In order to conduct this research, an experiment was conducted in which participants read fan fiction about their chosen media figure (celebrity or fictional character) written in one of three perspectives: first-person self-insert, third-person self-insert, or third-person original character. Participants then responded to a series of questions regarding identification and physical and emotional parasocial romantic attraction. Following statistical analysis of the survey data, the study yielded results that indicate that there are stronger levels of identification and physical parasocial romantic attraction when …

Leadership And Team Communication Course For Medical Students As Future Healthcare Leaders, Claire Foerster

Scholarship Pathways Program

As healthcare increasingly adopts a team-based model to address complex patient needs, the role of physicians as effective team leaders becomes critical. Despite this, formal leadership training is not a standard component of medical school curricula. This study presents the development and evaluation of a pilot leadership and communication course designed for medical students at the University of South Dakota. The course combined didactic instruction with simulation-based learning to teach essential skills such as active listening, giving and receiving feedback, and effective communication. A pre-course survey assessed students’ confidence and needs, informing the course design. Post-course assessments, including quizzes and …

Disability Lectures, Panel Discussion Improve Medical Student Attitudes, Knowledge In Sd, Keely Walker, Eric Kurtz

Scholarship Pathways Program

Despite growing recognition of persons with disabilities (PWDs) as an underserved population, healthcare disparities persist, often exacerbated by provider misconceptions and lack of training. This study evaluated the impact of a two-part educational module consisting of a didactic session and a panel discussion with individuals with disabilities focused on healthcare students’ knowledge and comfort in caring for patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). Conducted at the University of South Dakota, the sessions included pre- and post-surveys assessing attitudes, confidence, and perceived competencies. Results from 35 participants, primarily medical students, showed statistically significant improvements in 11 of 13 measured domains, …

Associations Of Muscular And Cardiovascular Fitness Variables With Cardiovascular Disease In Older Adult Athlete Populations, Lauren T. Zick

Honors Thesis

This data analysis examined associations between cardiovascular and muscular fitness indicators and the presence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in older adult athletes. Using cross-sectional data from 1,110 participants aged 50 and older who completed the Sustained Athlete Fitness Exam (SAFE) at state-level Senior Games events, we evaluated both objective performance metrics and self-reported exercise behaviors. Cardiovascular measures included systolic blood pressure (SBP), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and body mass index (BMI). Muscular fitness was assessed through grip strength, maximum walking speed, and chair stand time. CVD status was defined as the presence of two or more self-reported cardiovascular …

A Clinical Review Of Suicide Risks In Dermatology, Rahib K. Islam, Victoria T. Tong, Shari R. Lipner

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Patients with visible skin diseases, including acne, psoriasis, and atopic dermatitis, face heightened risks of psychological distress, depression, and suicidal ideation, often exacerbated by social stigma and reduced quality of life. This review explores the intersection between dermatology and suicide, highlighting the psychosocial impact of visible skin conditions and the controversies surrounding treatment-related risks, including isotretinoin and biologic exposure. Current evidence suggests that while isotretinoin has been historically linked to mood changes, robust studies do not support a direct association with suicide. Incorporating mental health screenings into dermatological practice is essential for early identification and management of at-risk patients. By …

Use Of Mindfulness To Promote The Spiritual And Religious Competencies Of Master’S Level Counseling Students., Luisa Nayhouse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a two-and-a-half hour training session for master's students in counselor education. The training focused on using mindfulness to enhance spiritual and religious counseling competencies. Utilizing a pre-and post-test design, the quantitative study employed mindfulness to train master's students with the aim of building and fostering spiritual and religious competencies in counseling. Historically, there has been a lack of research on the benefits of such specific mindfulness training related to this subject matter.

The study targeted master's level counselor students, with potential applicability to related fields such as psychology and social work. This …

Beyond Victory And Settlement: Rethinking War Termination Through Post-Conflict Conditions, Emery C. Thigpen

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how different war termination types—decisive military victory, negotiated settlement, and ceasefire—shape long-term political stability through the mechanisms of enforcement, political inclusion, and economic recovery. While much of the existing literature focuses on civil wars, this study applies those insights to interstate conflicts, arguing that stability depends not on how wars end, but on whether post-war structures support compliance, legitimacy, and economic resilience. The central claim is that post-war peace is more likely to endure when enforcement mechanisms deter spoilers, inclusive political frameworks prevent renewed grievances, and economic recovery restores state capacity and legitimacy. Using a most similar …

Associations Between Tiktok Use And Undergraduate Nursing Professional Identity, Parker M. Watts

Honors Theses

Background. The global surge in social media usage prompts extensive research into its links with nursing professional identity. College-aged individuals who are in nursing school or are going to be in nursing school in the future must navigate their professional identity as they face heightened susceptibility to subjective opinions about the career of a nurse due to their frequent engagement with social media platforms. Among these platforms is that of TikTok, a platform of which has rapidly gained traction, especially among younger demographics. TikTok remains relatively underexplored in terms of its impact on nursing professional identity. This study seeks to …

Relations Between Effortful Control, Parental Movement Attitudes, And Problem Behaviors In 3-Year-Olds, Kiera Breisch

Honors Theses

Research has explored the link between effortful control and problem behaviors, as well as the effects of movement on problem behaviors in children. However, less work has been conducted with preschoolers considering how parental attitudes towards movement may relate to children’s temperament and problem behaviors in the forms of conduct problems, hyperactivity, and emotional problems. In the present study I investigated the relationships between effortful control (attention focusing, attention shifting, and inhibitory control), parental movement attitudes, and problem behaviors in 3-year-olds. Results showed increased reports of inhibitory control related to less reports of conduct problems. Further, higher inhibitory control and …

Afghanistan: An Analysis Of U.S. Foreign Policy’S Effect On Afghan Terrorism Rates, Katelyn E. Tinsley Foust

Honors Theses

While the term ‘terrorism’ was first coined and widely used in the late 1700s regarding the French Reign of Terror, its popularity has grown dramatically around the globe in the last few decades. Advancements in things like technology and news reporting have made these attacks more popular and have given terrorists an easier outlet to be recognized around the world. One such area we hear about often is the Middle East and the Levant. Countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Israel, and more, are routinely discussed in our news cycles here in the United States, especially since the terrorist attacks on …

Case Studies In Modern Accountancy: Exploring Financial Ethics, Corporate Influence, And Regional Development Through An Interdisciplinary Lens, Caroline Klocke

Honors Theses

This thesis compiles five case studies researched and completed during the 2023-2024 academic year, each exploring a different topic pertaining to the accounting profession today. With the guidance of Dr. Victoria Dickinson, professor at the University of Mississippi, these case studies were completed throughout the Accountancy 420 class to fulfill the research requirements of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College and the Patterson School of Accountancy. The first case emphasizes reliable international financial reporting, while exploring the exposure of fraudulent Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges that costed American investors billions of dollars. The second explores U.S. military spending …

Associations Between Screen Time, Executive Functioning, And Book Use In Preschool-Age Children From Rural Mississippi, Anabel W. Mccraney

Honors Theses

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between screen time, executive function (EF), and book use in a sample of preschool-age children from rural Mississippi. To measure this relationship children were asked to complete three different EF tasks measuring impulse control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. To measure the child’s frequency of screen and book use, a parent-report survey was used. The results indicated that there might be a relationship between EF, screen, and books within certain variables. There was a relationship found between screen time and fewer books reported in the household. Between EF and …

Cooking For A Cause: Food Insecurity In Lafayette County, Ms, Anna K. Richie

Honors Theses

Many people in Lafayette County, MS, experience ongoing difficulties with consistent access to healthy food options. According to the Mississippi Health & Hunger Atlas, “food insecurity rates in Mississippi are consistently and statistically higher than national averages—having been ranked as #1 or #2 for highest food insecurity rate every year for the past 15 years” (Haggard, Cafer & Green, 2017). This capstone project examines how a Little Free Pantry (LFP) initiative can contribute to local food security efforts and evaluates cooking demonstration outcomes using ingredients found in LFPs. The approach combines quantitative and qualitative methods by tracking pantry inventory data …

Economic Development In Cartersville, Ms: A Case Study Of A Non-Profit Organization's Community Development Projects, Mckenzie B. Perkins

Honors Theses

The Mississippi Delta Region has long faced significant economic, educational, and health challenges and a steady population decline since the 1940s. In response, community development projects have emerged as powerful tools to promote health, well-being, and social mobility. This thesis investigates the impact of community development initiatives in Cartersville, MS, focusing on the dental clinic, educational programs, and the economic development center established by a non-profit organization. Through the lens of community development theories, the research explores how community leadership, particularly partnerships between EverHope Ministries and Cartersville leaders, is pivotal in addressing health disparities in historically marginalized populations. By engaging …

The Impact Of Technological Advancements On The Likelihood Of Conflict, Miriam King

Honors Theses

There are a multitude of variables that result in the occurrence of militarized conflicts. This paper seeks to analyze the impact of one specific variable: the adaptation of a technological advancement. To isolate this relationship my study controlled for a country’s form of government, gross domestic product, and number of military personnel by year. A regression of ordinary least squares was used to investigate the correlation between conflict initiation and military technologies. A country-year data set was constructed using data from the Correlates of War Militarized Interstate Dispute Data and data from Hariri and Wingender. Three case studies were analyzed …

Unfinished Conversations: The Kind That Never Truly End, Essraa Nawar

Library Articles and Research

"There’s a kind of conversation that never truly ends.

You sit for hours — laughing, reflecting, sharing dreams, even drifting into silliness — and somehow, it still feels like the beginning. You might talk over coffee, during a quiet walk, or on the phone late at night, long after the world has gone quiet.

And when the call ends or the gathering breaks, you don’t feel closure — you feel expansion. "

A Novel Way Of Conceptualizing And Measuring Situation Selection, Jiyoung Kwak

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Situation selection is a form of emotion regulation where people approach or avoid certain things, places, or objects to proactively regulate their emotions. Though it is the only strategy that occurs before encountering emotion-eliciting events, situation selection remains understudied. The present research proposes a new measure of Day Recollection Situation Selection (DRSS) in which participants are prompted to recall the day's events before reporting their approach and avoidance behaviors. Across two studies, we aimed to: (1) develop the DRSS measure, (2) compare it to existing measures of situation selection and well-being, (3) examine within- and between-person variability, and (4) compare …

Small Steps For A Big Change: A Longitudinal Project To Enhance Well-Being Of Internal Medicine Residents, Vandana Nagpal, Benjamin Tanenbaum, Christine Runyan

Journal of Wellness

Introduction: Residency training is demanding and often leads to burnout. In 2017, Internal Medicine (IM) residents at our institution reported a poor collective residency experience. In response, we launched a longitudinal wellness program in 2018, featuring multi-pronged interventions to improve residents' well-being. The program, still active today, has undergone iterative modifications with ongoing input from residents.

Approach: The resident-led Wellness Committee was established in 2018, and the following no to low-cost initiatives were implemented sequentially: quarterly group sessions with an institutional health psychologist, bi-annual self-checks, peer buddy support for incoming first-year residents, weekly 5-minute reflection sessions, and volunteer dog visits. …

Linking Geographic Distribution And Niche Through Estimation Of Niche Density, Tad Dallas, Cleber Ten Caten

Faculty Publications

1. The availability of suitable niche space constrains where species can occur geographically. This tie between niche space and geographic space is crucial when estimating species geographic distributions in a changing climate. However, specific combinations of climatic conditions may be overrepresented in geographic space, highlighting the potential disconnect between climatic niche area and geographic range size.
2. We develop a niche density estimator that accounts for the geographic availability of climatic niche space, relate this to traditional estimates of niche area and explore how these niche estimates are related to species geographic range size.
3. To do this, we use data on over …

Bridging The Justice Gap: Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic At North Mississippi Rural Legal Services, Emma-Kathryn Bond

Honors Theses

Over the course of two years, I spent more than 130 hours completing on-the- ground volunteer work with the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC), a clinic within North Mississippi Rural Legal Services that provides free legal assistance to individuals navigating disputes with the IRS. While the Sixth Amendment guarantees legal representation in criminal cases, no such guarantee exists for civil matters such as tax disputes, housing instability, or loss of public benefits. Clinics like LITC fill a crucial gap by offering support in areas that are often overlooked, such as tax law, where clients risk audits, wage garnishments, and court proceedings …

Challenges Us Study Abroad Students Face When Acculturating To A Foreign Food Environment, Sydney C. Davis

Honors Theses

Studying abroad presents a unique opportunity for college students to immerse themselves in new cultures, including experiencing different food environments and dietary customs. However, adapting to a foreign food culture can pose various challenges that impact students’ overall health, eating behaviors, and study abroad experiences. The purpose of this study to develop a survey instrument designed to investigate the extent to which U.S. study abroad students embrace, accept, and face challenges with different aspects of Italian food culture, using the Social Ecological Model (SEM) as a guiding framework. Initial survey items were developed with information obtained from focus group discussions …

The Impact Of Digital Storytelling In Nonprofit Marketing: Increasing Donor Engagement, Haley Cote

Honors Theses

Digital storytelling has emerged as a powerful tool in nonprofit marketing, reshaping how organizations engage donors, communicate their mission, and drive action. This thesis explores the impact of digital storytelling in nonprofit marketing, analyzing how nonprofit organizations leverage various digital platforms – websites, email marketing, social media—and frame their messages to enhance donor engagement. Using framing theory as a foundation, the research examines how the way nonprofit messages are structured influences donor perception and behavior. Through a literature review, case study analysis of Charity: Water, and survey data, thstudy evaluates key storytelling techniques such as positioning the donor as the …

Redefining Roles In Displacement: The Asylum Journey Of Sudanese Women In Faisal, Cairo, Majeda Abdin Mahasneh

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how Sudanese refugee women, who arrived in Faisal, Cairo, after April 2023 experience gender-based violence (GBV). The research investigates the types of GBV these women encountered during their journey from Sudan to Cairo, how their gender roles changed in the asylum context, and their vision for the future regarding safety and support. A qualitative approach was employed, using in-depth interviews with four Sudanese refugee women, complemented by field notes and observations made during visits to the Faisal neighborhood. The analysis focused on the personal stories shared by the women, highlighting the various forms of violence they experienced, …

"Significant Bodily Intrusions": Investigations Into Law Enforcement Phlebotomy, Anne Kathleen Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

This three-paper dissertation explores law enforcement phlebotomy, the ability of law enforcement officers to draw blood. Phlebotomy is both a ubiquitous, invasive diagnostic tool as well as a social site with complex relational dynamics at play between phlebotomist and patient. Through law enforcement phlebotomy, the blood draw is co-opted from the medical field into the policing field, and the normative framework through which it is used changes: whereas medical edicts instruct providers to work with patients through an ethics of care--respecting consent and refusal--policing is not similarly bound, instead operating through a prioritization of security and efficiency. In the articles …

Evaluating The Factors That Lead To A Lack Of Gender Diversity Among Senior Level Executives In The Federal Bureau Of Investigation, Joyce A. Wallace

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite progress in workplace equality, women face barriers to advancement in the FBI. This underrepresentation raises concerns about organizational performance and decision-making. The purpose of the study was to explore the obstacles to promoting women to senior leadership positions within the FBI by focusing on gender roles, social expectations, and organizational culture. The qualitative phenomenological approach used interviews with female law enforcement officers in conjunction with feminist theory. The study findings identified biases in selection processes, discriminatory hiring practices, non-inclusive workplace culture, and limited professional development opportunities as barriers to promotion. Cognitive and cultural biases that hindered progress were stereotypes …

Empirical Study On The Correlation Between Social Media Usage And Self Esteem, Parbatti Boodhoo

Publications and Research

Social media is a major part of everyday life for most young adults, and its effects on mental health, especially self-esteem, have become a growing area of research. Some studies have found that using platforms like Instagram or TikTok can negatively impact how people see themselves, especially when they compare their lives to others online (Magner, 2018). Others have shown that the way people use social media matters, passively scrolling may lower self-esteem, while interacting positively with others could have the opposite effect (Shashwat & Singh, 2024). On the other hand, social media can also help people feel more connected …

Client-Centered Food Distribution: An Analysis Of Patron Preferences At The Oxford Food Pantry, Ella Mann

Honors Theses

Food insecurity has long penetrated the rural South. This limits access to nutritious foods like fresh produce and contributes to chronic health conditions that may arise. Food pantries serve as a vital resource in addressing these disparities by providing free food to families in need. Many of these pantries incorporate strategies to increase consumption of nutrient dense options such as fruits as vegetables. These strategies can vary but the client choice model has proven to align with the self determination theory and promote greater autonomy in food selection. This study aimed to assess the food preferences of patrons at the …