This qualitative narrative research study explores the reasons that undergraduate transfer students make college and career planning decisions. The insights of community college students who expressed interest in completing a bachelor's degree but did not enroll at a university were compared with the perspectives of university students enrolled in a bachelor's degree program who had successfully transferred from a community college. The student input was analyzed to determine if there were di...
Annette M Fetterolf.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Piper, David M. Committee members: Kelli Jo Kerry-Moran; Kelli Paquette.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

The purpose of this study was to explore the link between personality and stress in rural officers, an understudied population. Previous research has identified policing as a stressful profession, connected to poor outcomes, both occupationally and personally. A link between personality and the perception of stress has also been established. The scant previous research on rural policing suggests that they experience different stressors than their urban and suburban counterparts, with differen...
Daniel Lloyd.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Reardon, Margaret Committee members: William Farrell; Anthony Perillo.
Psy.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This phenomenological study explores college students' perceptions of formal and informal support systems, as well as to explore the impact of informal counseling on the persistence of African-American college students attending PWIs. A qualitative approach was utilized to investigate this phenomenon. 22 African-American college students attending two Predominantly-White Institutions participated in individual and focus group interviews. The results showed that stigma, perceived need, cult...
Cornelia Sewell-Allen.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Johnson, Shirley Committee members: Roger Briscoe; Kelli Paquette.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This study examined and evaluated exit signs and related flashing way-finding technology (Linear Strobe™ L-100). The research determined exit sign performance and an observer's preference in two phases. The photometric phase measured and recorded luminance and luminance contrast levels for exit signs (red LED, green LED, blue LED, photoluminescent or PLM, and flashing way-finding at a distance of 100 feet using a photometer across four combined conditions of ambient lighting and obscurity (#1...
Joseph Whitlock.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Zreiqat, Majed Committee members: Christopher Janicak; Helmut Paschold.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This dissertation identifies and illustrates the potential to extend and enrich slam poetry scholarship. Loosely defined, poetry slam is a competition in which a group of poets perform their original compositions in front of a live audience at a designated venue. While extant scholarship has insightfully treated some aspects of slam poetry, the limited scope of this body of work frames the genre in a falsely narrow manner. I argue that expanding the scope of slam poetry analysis can provide a...
Cara Losier Chanoine.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Sherwood, Kenneth Committee members: Christopher Kuipers; Mike Sell.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

Police and public relations are at the forefront of most new stories and can be seen circulating multiple social media platforms; some to include individuals who have mental illnesses. To better understand the interaction between police officers and individuals with mental health diagnoses, this dissertation focuses on closing the gap in literature surrounding police responses to mental health calls for service, with an emphasis on training and relationships with mental health agencies. Throu...
Kayla G Jachimowski.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Cooper, Jonathon A. Committee members: Erika Frenzel; John Lewis; Jennifer Roberts.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This theoretical study explores the posthuman turn in composition and rhetoric in order to consider its relevance to community-engaged pedagogy in the composition classroom. Through a theoretical discussion regarding both posthuman and critical regionalist theory, this research project looks to develop a new type of posthuman inquiry entitled Posthuman Critical Regionalists Inquiry (PCRI). PCRI hopes to enhance students' rhetorical awareness while allowing them to engage with their community,...
Brent Lucia.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Porter, Curtis Committee members: Mary Stewart; Matthew Vetter.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

In January of 2016 all U.S. military branches, under orders from the Pentagon, lifted their ban on women in combat, meaning that women could apply for any military job, including combat positions that had previously been male-only jobs. According to PBS NewsHour, "Carter said that the military would be opening all 'remaining occupations and positions to women. there will be no exceptions [sic]'" (Tobia). The controversy surrounding this issue started well before 2016 though. In 1993, when wom...
Thomas M Lyon.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Pagnucci, Gian S. Committee members: Christopher Kuipers; Lilia Savova.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

While school districts in the United States are mandated by law to develop and adhere to state-wide anti-bullying laws and policies as a framework to reduce bullying of students, there is limited empirical research that identifies effective anti-bullying interventions for students with special needs. This qualitative study examined effective anti-bullying interventions for students with special needs through the lens of the Center for Disease Control's Socio-Ecological Model of Violence Preve...
Eric C Knorr.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Machado, Crystal Committee members: Shirley Johnson; Daniel Wissinger.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

Since the Historicist trend of Shakespeare Studies started in the mid-20th century, there has been a consistent debate over how medieval/religious/centripetal or modern/secular/centrifugal Shakespeare is in a set of eight plays he composed concerning the 15th-century history of England, called the "histories" by the compilers of Shakespeare's First Folio (1623). To be precise, there has been a dialectical debate going on for over half a century. On the one hand, there are prominent literary c...
Reza Parchizadeh.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Orchard, Christopher Committee members: David Downing; Thomas Slater.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This case study evaluates the organizational relationship between a dominant culture and a microculture, specifically: how a microculture might reflect, refract, or diffuse the dominant culture; as a counterfactual, the dominant culture might respond in like manner to the microculture. This can be a one-time exchange; it can also be matrixed and evolutionary or parallel and dismissive. How this cultural dialectic impacts the shared population is of particular interest. The relationship bet...
Donald B Kaminski.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Vaccaro, Christian A. Committee members: Alex Heckert; J. Mabry.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

Underreporting of concussion symptoms in college athletics presents a challenge for sports medicine clinicians in evaluating and diagnosing such injuries. Some athletes do not report concussion symptoms because they do not recognize that they have a brain injury, however many athletes intentionally withhold symptoms to avoid removal from sport participation. The purpose of this cross-sectional survey study was to examine individual factors that influence college athletes' intentions to report...
Daniel J Baer.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Anderson, John A. Committee members: Neil Curtis; Christian Vaccaro.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how post-9/11 literature has contributed to the discourse about the geo-political, social, and cultural changes that have occurred since the 9/11 attacks. I aim to show how literature has sought to resist some of the unproductive concepts and ideologies that have surfaced after 9/11, specifically by reacting to the negative role that the media had played in the aftermath of the attacks. The aim of the dissertation is to reveal how literature disc...
Ziyad K Alkhalifah.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Orchard, Christopher Committee members: Thomas Slater; Lingyan Yang.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

Understanding the public's attitudes toward the police has been at the forefront of recent reform efforts because police organizations face growing governmental and public demands to deal with allegations of discrimination against minorities and of police misconduct. Increasing public confidence in law enforcement and enhancing relations between the police and the public has garnered the attention of criminal justice researchers and practitioners. The current study aims to extend our understa...
Selye Lee.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Lewis, John A. Committee members: W. Austin; Jon Cooper; Erika Frenzel; Jennifer Gossett.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

An integral part of the higher education system, technology is continuing to grow in importance. In the delivery of courses, e-learning is becoming more widely used given that it provides easy access to education asynchronously and across geographic borders, thereby meeting the diverse needs of students. The research for this quantitative study was conducted in the state of Pennsylvania with the purpose of determining the readiness of Saudi students studying in the e-learning context, whether...
Naif M Alsayyali.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Corbett, Frank, Jr. Committee members: David Loomis; Laurie Nicholson; Ramesh Soni; Meghan Twiest.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This quantitative research study examines teachers' professional commitment through the administration of the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) (Mowday, Steers, and Porter 1979) to teachers in Title I qualifying school districts in Pennsylvania. Teachers in five school districts, representing various demographic and geographic regions of Pennsylvania, were electronically surveyed to determine their level of commitment. This research expands upon two previous studies that concluded...
Kevin J O'Donnell Jr.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Piper, David Committee members: Kelli Paquette; Sue Rieg.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

Mobile devices and their rapid progression has been a focus in communication research in terms of their impact within various areas of our lives. Due to the mobile device's communicative power to shape our lives in terms of how we interact professionally and domestically, engagement decisions and work:life boundaries have become an everyday challenge. This dissertation sought to research engagement with these technological devices and the subsequent implications on relationships specifically ...
Sharon L Storch.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Ortiz Juarez-Paz, Anna Victoria Committee members: Zachary Stiegler; B. Wilson.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This study explores how the implementation of performance measurement affects organizations and staff members of nonprofit human service agencies. Performance measurement is defined in this study as the general activities used to collect and report information about a program's effectiveness and efficiency with the intent of using the information for monitoring, resource allocation, or improvement of the program. Qualitative research methods were used to examine the perceptions nonprofit mana...
Stacey L Tice.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Mabry, J. Beth Committee members: Dana Hysock Witham; Melissa Swauger.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

Schools with similar demographics have varying school performance; these differences exist among schools across Western Pennsylvania. Questions remain as to why some schools perform at higher levels than other schools in similar regions. Some researchers posit that leadership practices in different schools may influence student learning and school performance. The purpose of this study was to research the relationship between teachers' and principals' beliefs about the extent to which le...
Brigette D Matson.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Piper, David M. Committee members: Beatrice Fennimore; Sue Rieg.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

Through interview responses, this study examines the perceptions of seven secondary mathematics teachers concerning the programs and methods they incorporate to reach their gifted students. In addition to teacher interviews, four focus groups of teachers, who taught various grade levels, were conducted. All study participants teach or had taught gifted students. To triangulate data, artifacts utilized by interviewees were analyzed. Participant responses were compared and contrasted to iden...
Michael David Poli.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Reilly, Edel M. Committee members: Kelli Paquette; Mark Twiest.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This descriptive, qualitative case study examined how eight teachers in two school districts implemented the Daily 5 reading framework into their first and second grade classrooms. The participants' implementation was compared to the recommended implementation in the book The Daily 5: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades (Boushey & Moser, 2014). Specific adaptations from each participant demonstrated how Daily 5 can be adjusted to meet the needs of both the teacher and the...
Katharine M Sherman.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Laverick, DeAnna Committee members: Julie Ankrum; Kelli Paquette.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This study is a critical analysis of Tobias Wolff's presentation of masculinity in his short stories, memoirs, novel, and novella. I argue that Wolff's works highlight performances of masculinity that are constructed, fragile, and often traumatizing and that his work operates as a critique of hegemonic masculinity. This dissertation examines three iterations of masculinity in Wolff's texts: nascent masculinity, hypermasculinity, and man-womanliness. The young and adolescent boys who pe...
Kevin Daniel Gleason.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Yang, Lingyan Committee members: David Downing; Christopher Orchard.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

This study explores its participants' task-based linear wiki-afforded collaborative writing experiences as well as their perceptions of these experiences. Its pre-task survey establishes the preparedness for collaboration of its participants, nine Saudi female TESOL graduate students working in three groups. Further, its mock writing task draws information about the design of its task, an asynchronous collaborative essay to be written within the Wikispaces (www.wikispaces.com) wikis and about...
Ahdab Abdalelah Saaty.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Savova, Lilia P. Committee members: Bennett Rafoth; Matthew Vetter.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English

Yearly, school districts across the United States debate and vote upon a school calendar. Although most school districts elect a traditional calendar, several districts utilize a year-round calendar. A year-round calendar evenly spreads a traditional 180 school day and 12-week summer vacation, thus creating a balanced approach. Does a year-round education calendar produce student learning? The school district's teachers and administrator perceptions provided the basis of this study by e...
Francis R Sciullo.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Rieg, Sue Committee members: Beatrice Fennimore; Susan Sibert.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2018.
English