6,947 research outputs found

    UMSL Bulletin 2023-2024

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    The 2023-2024 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1088/thumbnail.jp

    Graduate Catalog of Studies, 2023-2024

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    Examining systemic and dispositional factors impacting historically disenfranchised schools across North Carolina

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    This mixed method sequential explanatory study provided analysis of North Carolina (NC) school leaders’ dispositions in eliminating opportunity gaps, outlined in NC’s strategic plan. The study’s quantitative phase used descriptive and correlation analysis of eight Likert subscales around four tenets of transformative leadership (Shields, 2011) and aspects of critical race theory (Bell, 1992; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2006) to understand systemic inequities and leadership attitudes. The qualitative phase comprised three analyses of education leadership dispositions and systemic factors in NC schools. The first analysis of State Board of Education meeting minutes from 2018–2023 quantified and analyzed utterances of racism and critical race, outlined the sociopolitical context of such utterances, and identified systemic patterns and state leader dispositions. The second analysis of five interviews of K–12 graduates identified persistent and systemic factors influencing NC education 3 decades after Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and within the context of Leandro v. State of NC (1997), where the NC Supreme Court recognized the state constitutional right for every student to access a “sound basic education.” The final qualitative analysis consisted of five interviews of current NC public school system leaders, for personal narratives of the state of NC schools compared to patterns from lived experiences of NC K–12 graduates. The study’s findings suggested NC school and state education leaders experience a racialized dichotomy between willingness for change (equity intentions) and execution of transformative action (practice). Although leaders at the board and school levels recognize the need for inclusivity and equity, a struggle to transcend systemic challenges, especially rooted in racial biases and power dynamics is evident. This study may identify leadership qualities needed for change in NC to address systemic inequities for improving educational access and inform policy to uphold all students’ constitutional right to a sound, basic education

    Running to Your Own Beat:An Embodied Approach to Auditory Display Design

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    Personal fitness trackers represent a multi-billion-dollar industry, predicated on devices for assisting users in achieving their health goals. However, most current products only offer activity tracking and measurement of performance metrics, which do not ultimately address the need for technique related assistive feedback in a cost-effective way. Addressing this gap in the design space for assistive run training interfaces is also crucial in combating the negative effects of Forward Head Position, a condition resulting from mobile device use, with a rapid growth of incidence in the population. As such, Auditory Displays (AD) offer an innovative set of tools for creating such a device for runners. ADs present the opportunity to design interfaces which allow natural unencumbered motion, detached from the mobile or smartwatch screen, thus making them ideal for providing real-time assistive feedback for correcting head posture during running. However, issues with AD design have centred around overall usability and user-experience, therefore, in this thesis an ecological and embodied approach to AD design is presented as a vehicle for designing an assistive auditory interface for runners, which integrates seamlessly into their everyday environments

    Personal exposures to fine particulate matter and carbon monoxide in relation to cooking activities in rural Malawi.

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    Background: Air pollution is a major environmental risk factor for cardiorespiratory disease. Exposures to household air pollution from cooking and other activities, are particularly high in Southern Africa. Following an extended period of participant observation in a village in Malawi, we aimed to assess individuals' exposures to fine particulate matter (PM ) and carbon monoxide (CO) and to investigate the different sources of exposure, including different cooking methods. Methods: Adult residents of a village in Malawi wore personal PM and CO monitors for 24-48 hours, sampling every 1 (CO) or 2 minutes (PM ). Subsequent in-person interviews recorded potential exposure details over the time periods. We present means and interquartile ranges for overall exposures and summaries stratified by time and activity (exposure). We employed multivariate regression to further explore these characteristics, and Spearman rank correlation to examine the relationship between paired PM and CO exposures. Results: Twenty participants (17 female; median age 40 years, IQR: 37-56) provided 831 hours of paired PM and CO data. Concentrations of PM during combustion activity, usually cooking, far exceeded background levels (no combustion activity): 97.9ÎŒg/m (IQR: 22.9-482.0), vs 7.6ÎŒg/m , IQR: 2.5-20.6 respectively. Background PM concentrations were higher during daytime hours (11.7ÎŒg/m [IQR: 5.2-30.0] vs 3.3ÎŒg/m at night [IQR: 0.7-8.2]). Highest exposures were influenced by cooking location but associated with charcoal use (for CO) and firewood on a three-stone fire (for PM ). Cooking-related exposures were higher in more ventilated places, such as outside the household or on a walled veranda, than during indoor cooking. Conclusions: The study demonstrates the value of combining personal PM exposure data with detailed contextual information for providing deeper insights into pollution sources and influences. The finding of similar/lower exposures during cooking in seemingly less-ventilated places should prompt a re-evaluation of proposed clean air interventions in these settings

    UMSL Bulletin 2022-2023

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    The 2022-2023 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1087/thumbnail.jp

    A Critical Review Of Post-Secondary Education Writing During A 21st Century Education Revolution

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    Educational materials are effective instruments which provide information and report new discoveries uncovered by researchers in specific areas of academia. Higher education, like other education institutions, rely on instructional materials to inform its practice of educating adult learners. In post-secondary education, developmental English programs are tasked with meeting the needs of dynamic populations, thus there is a continuous need for research in this area to support its changing landscape. However, the majority of scholarly thought in this area centers on K-12 reading and writing. This paucity presents a phenomenon to the post-secondary community. This research study uses a qualitative content analysis to examine peer-reviewed journals from 2003-2017, developmental online websites, and a government issued document directed toward reforming post-secondary developmental education programs. These highly relevant sources aid educators in discovering informational support to apply best practices for student success. Developmental education serves the purpose of addressing literacy gaps for students transitioning to college-level work. The findings here illuminate the dearth of material offered to developmental educators. This study suggests the field of literacy research is fragmented and highlights an apparent blind spot in scholarly literature with regard to English writing instruction. This poses a quandary for post-secondary literacy researchers in the 21st century and establishes the necessity for the literacy research community to commit future scholarship toward equipping college educators teaching writing instruction to underprepared adult learners

    Facilitating prosociality through technology: Design to promote digital volunteerism

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    Volunteerism covers many activities involving no financial rewards for volunteers but which contribute to the common good. There is existing work in designing technology for volunteerism in HumanComputer Interaction (HCI) and related disciplines that focuses on motivation to improve performance, but it does not account for volunteer wellbeing. Here, I investigate digital volunteerism in three case studies with a focus on volunteer motivation, engagement, and wellbeing. My research involved volunteers and others in the volunteering context to generate recommendations for a volunteer-centric design for digital volunteerism. The thesis has three aims: 1. To investigate motivational aspects critical for enhancing digital volunteers’ experiences 2. To identify digital platform attributes linked to volunteer wellbeing 3. To create guidelines for effectively supporting volunteer engagement in digital volunteering platforms In the first case study I investigate the design of a chat widget for volunteers working in an organisation with a view to develop a design that improves their workflow and wellbeing. The second case study investigates the needs, motivations, and wellbeing of volunteers who help medical students improve their medical communication skills. An initial mixed-methods study was followed by an experiment comparing two design strategies to improve volunteer relatedness; an important indicator of wellbeing. The third case study looks into volunteer needs, experiences, motivations, and wellbeing with a focus on volunteer identity and meaning-making on a science-based research platform. I then analyse my findings from these case studies using the lens of care ethics to derive critical insights for design. The key contributions of this thesis are design strategies and critical insights, and a volunteer-centric design framework to enhance the motivation, wellbeing and engagement of digital volunteers

    “Oh my god, how did I spend all that money?”: Lived experiences in two commodified fandom communities

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    This research explores the role of commodification in participation in celebrity-centric fandom communities, applying a leisure studies framework to understand the constraints fans face in their quest to participate and the negotiations they engage in to overcome these constraints. In fan studies scholarship, there is a propensity to focus on the ways fans oppose commodified industry structures; however, this ignores the many fans who happily participate within them. Using the fandoms for the pop star Taylor Swift and the television series Supernatural as case studies, this project uses a mixed-methodological approach to speak directly to fans via surveys and semistructured interviews to develop an understanding of fans’ lived experiences based on their own words. By focusing on celebrity-centric fandom communities rather than on the more frequently studied textual fandoms, this thesis turns to the role of the celebrity in fans’ ongoing desire to participate in commodified spaces. I argue that fans are motivated to continue spending money to participate within their chosen fandom when this form of participation is tied to the opportunity for engagement with the celebrity. While many fans seek community from their fandom participation, this research finds that for others, social ties are a secondary outcome of their overall desire for celebrity attention, which becomes a hobby in which they build a “leisure career” (Stebbins 2014). When fans successfully gain attention from their celebrity object of fandom, they gain status within their community, creating intra-fandom hierarchies based largely on financial resources and on freedom from structural constraints related to education, employment, and caring. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the broad neglect of celebrity fandom practices means we have overlooked the experiences of many fans, necessitating a much broader future scope for the field

    A qualitative study exploring whether emotion work conducted by health visitors has an influence on their assessment and identification of children in need of care and protection?

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    There is an increased understanding that experiencing adversity in childhood can have a significantly negative impact on the long-term developmental wellbeing of children and young people, as well as their families and communities. Political and societal ambition is that such adverse experiences and their consequences are eradicated through preventative and early intervention measures taken by health, education, and social care practitioners on the identification of a child(ren) who requires support. Professionals working with children have become increasingly proficient in this type of work however no professional is infallible. As a result, many children and young people living with adverse circumstances can go unnoticed. For some this includes experiencing harm which often only comes to light when they have been significantly or fatally injured. Every child living in the United Kingdom is aligned with the universal health visiting service following birth to school entry. Health visitors play an essential role in “searching for health needs” through the “surveillance and assessment of the population’s health and wellbeing” (Nursing & Midwifery Council [NMC] 2004, page 11) . Such universal contact based on these core principles mean that health visitors are ideally positioned to identify children living in challenging situations but, like others, they can find this difficult on occasions. The purpose of this study is to explore whether health visitors view the emotion work they carry out as part of their role has an influence on their ability to assess, identify, and respond to children in need of care and protection. STUDY – METHOD: The study has been progressed qualitatively, using a reflexive ethnographic approach to interviews as the main data collection and analytic method with short periods of office-based observation. 16 health visitors who managed caseloads of between 100-450 pre-school children were observed and interviewed to understand their experiences, values, and beliefs. Gee’s (2014) toolkit was used to critically analyse the discourse shared during the interviews. FINDINGS: The emergent findings demonstrate that health visitors can be conceptualised as ‘applied clinical anthropologists’ in the way they develop relationships with families to gain access to their home environments. The approach taken is to gather information to the depth required for a social, bioecological assessment (Bronfenbrenner 2005) of a child in the context of their family and community system. Health visitors are welcomed by most families and are often successful in assessing and responding to child need. However, at times, the level of engagement necessary can be overwhelming for both the health visitor and parent/carer. This influences the level of child centred assessment obtained. The study has demonstrated that the influences on the work of the health visitor can be interpreted through a complex interplay of theoretical concepts. Firstly, Bourdieu’s “theory of practice” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992, page 4) provides the basis on which to understand why challenges and barriers arise during the relational work of the health visitor with the child and family. Secondly, Gross’ (2014) Emotion Regulation Framework and Hochschild’s (1983) theory of Emotional Labour, are utilised to consider how health visitors and families respond emotionally to these challenges. The study then goes on to demonstrate what impact these responses can have on the assessment of children. RECOMMENDATIONS: Implications for practice are that health visitors require increased rates of supervision. This should include an observational element. Educational programmes for health visitors, require a focus on promoting professional wellbeing with learning sessions on unconscious bias. Research and learning developments are suggested to influence assessment and decision-making practice. Research with other professional groups and children & families is recommended to build on the findings of this study in order to influence future safeguarding policy and practice to protect children
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