Entrepreneurship is regarded as a viable way for women to enter the economy and improve their quality of life (Morris et al., 2018). However, little attention has been paid to understanding how women, and specifically women of color, utilize their ways of knowing to learn entrepreneurship. Grounded in Chicana/Latina feminism...
Community engaged scholarship has gained attention as public universities begin to answer calls to return to their roots of serving the public good. The scholars at the heart of community engagement play an important role in this mission, but their experiences in the academy are not well understood. As institutional...
Human development researchers consider adolescence a rich time for interest development and identity exploration. A relatively new movement in the Free-Choice Learning (FCL) arena, the Maker movement, offers learners interest-driven, experiential, often collaborative, and process-oriented activities ranging from game design (computer-based and otherwise) and robotics, to sewing LEDs into clothing...
The persistent underrepresentation and marginalization of women of color in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are well-documented. However, much of the existing literature takes an “either/or” approach, focusing solely on the experiences of either “women” or “minorities” in STEM, without adequately examining the unique experiences of...
Post-secondary education institutions across the United States are increasingly allocating resources to promote international education exchange programs as a pedagogical praxis to develop students into global citizens. Underlying such notions of global citizenship is the assumption that students will also develop a stronger post-national or cosmopolitan identity as a result...
We call for the promotion of faculty innovation & entrepreneurship (I&E), across disciplines, and its recognition in promotion and tenure processes– thereby enabling universities to better serve as a talent and idea engine for the Nation’s innovation economy, and evolve and respond in a time of enhanced societal needs and...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the perspectives of education professionals who manage, coordinate, and instruct in the English Literacy and Civics Education Grant
(EL/Civics) Programs in Oregon community colleges. The study compared the EL/Civics Grant Program to the conventional English as Second Language (ESL) programs offered at...
Online learning has grown exponentially within higher education in the past decade, especially at community colleges. As online course offerings expand community colleges need to assess student learning in order to ensure quality learning experiences for students and for accreditation purposes. The purpose of this study was to compare the...
Emerging adulthood is a newly-defined developmental phase that occurs during the traditional college years (18-22) (Arnett, 2015). These students at colleges and universities are showing a dramatic increase in emotional distress, with the largest increase occurring in anxiety and stress symptomology (Association of University and College Counseling Center Directors, 2017)....
The purpose of this dual-manuscript dissertation is to assess and synthesize the current body of qualitative literature on the topic of the experience of counselor trainees as participants in experiential groups. The first manuscript is presented in Chapter 2. In this study, I performed a directed content analysis on 15...
The number of deaths by suicide each year in the United States is rising. Men, women, and people of all ages die by suicide at high rates. Someone diagnosed with anorexia or bulimia is at significantly greater risk of completing or attempting suicide, making clear the importance of understanding how...
Counselors are tasked with being knowledgeable about assessing and treating a broad range of mental health issues. There has been an overall rise in mental health symptoms in individuals during the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the increased use of online internet forums as part of help-seeking behaviors. Obsessive-Compulsive...
Establishing a therapeutic alliance or a therapeutic bond has long been seen as an essential component of obtaining positive treatment outcomes in clinical practice. More recently, the idea of recognizing therapeutic alliance ruptures (disagreements about the tasks or goals of therapy or a problem in the therapeutic bond) during counseling...
Domestic violence (DV) is pervasive worldwide and has negative psychological effects that last a lifetime. Although DV is a problem that affects all societies, it is addressed through varied legal responses and with gaps in comprehension when examined through a cultural lens. The findings of these studies have the potential...
Corpus linguistics studies involving lyrics continue to grow. While previous research has pointed to a positive relationship between certain personality traits and music types, the relationship between lyrics and suicide is understudied. As such, mental health researchers and practitioners have little sense of how the language of someone who has...
On social media platforms and on blog sites, disordered behavior as a lifestyle choice is a growing trend that supports and promotes behaviors related to self-harm and anorexia. Web content advocating self-harm and anorexia can be found easily through search engines or can be concealed in the social media sphere...
Self-harm is a frightening phenomenon that affects adolescents and young adults all over the world. While non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) has a high prevalence rate, it is not a new behavior. One of the earliest documented cases of NSSI was in ancient Greece and it has gained popularity amongst adolescents. NSSI...
The self-help literature is full of texts on both self-compassion and postpartum depression. However, there has been minimal scientific exploration of the literature on these topics. As such, mental health researchers and practitioners have little sense of the psycholinguistic discourse contained in this literature. This study aimed to fill this...
Tabletop role-playing games (TRPG) such as Dungeons & Dragons™ are widely known and enjoyed by diverse individuals across the world. However, TRPGs and their players historically have experienced significant stigmatization due to the misconception by some that fantasy role play leads to psychological dysfunction. While a large body of research...
Play therapy is a unique skill set within psychotherapy that combines the language of play with other forms of communication to promote healing and growth in children and adolescents. This therapeutic approach involves utilizing toys, pretend play, structured and unstructured activities, and various interactions to foster a therapeutic relationship. By...
The very essence of talk therapy is rooted in the spoken word between counselor and client. A client’s painful traumatic experiences can often serve as a barrier to accessing the traditional consulting room. Despite the high prevalence of trauma and its status as a known risk factor for nearly all...
The counseling profession has historically adopted a one-size-fits-all approach toward addressing bereavement. However, there is an emerging paradigm-shift in grief therapy that has been enabled by recent research that differentiates, for example, between types of grief and styles of grieving. This research project contributes to this nuanced approach to grief...
The Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) and the eight public colleges and universities in the system, have depended on the Federal Pell Grant program for more than 40 years to assist students to attend. For some of these institutions, the amount of Pell grant dollars received is as much...
This thesis explored the experiences of four Student Affairs practitioners working within Multicultural Affairs (MA). The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how professionals within MA offices were developing and conducting assessment as well as identify barriers they faced and best practices used. Data for this study was...
Persistent reading difficulties are prevalent in U.S. schools and can lead to lower student performance across all subjects as well as distress, anxiety, and depression. In 2022, only 32% of fourth graders in the United States tested as proficient in reading. While there are many factors which affect reading progress...
Individual supervision is a widely accepted practice in the counseling profession, yet the tasks and focus of individual supervision in an agency setting remain largely uninvestigated. The tasks and focus areas inherent to agency supervision are especially important to counselors, counselor educators, agency administrators, and licensing boards, all of whom...
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has reached a level of authority and ubiquity within the mental health field. It is the guidance force in insurance reimbursement or coverage for mental health treatment, determinations of disability related to mental health and in determinations of competence to stand...
It was only when I reached a graduate-level education that I began to make meaning of my educational experiences. I found validation in my upbringing through the CSSA program, and I gave myself permission to accept myself. I have always felt I needed to
“catch up” with white students. I...
The professions of counseling, marriage and family therapy, and social work are highly controlled with regulators frequently issuing findings of professional misconduct against clinicians. Although much research has been conducted with regard to clinician professional misconduct in general, there is a scarcity of research investigating the relationship between gender and...
The purpose of this dissertation was to increase understanding of adolescent school counseling groups including a literature review of the quantitative outcome research on group work with adolescents in the schools and a qualitative exploration of the adolescent experience of cohesion in rural school counseling groups. Outcome research on group...
Kenyan women exhibit a pattern of unequal access and participation to education, particularly Science, Mathematics and Technology (SMT) subjects and careers. This is the result of documented challenges that include cultural attitudes that overburden girls with chores to the detriment of their school work, and a preference by parents to...
Branch campuses play an important part in postsecondary degree attainment by providing place-bound students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in different geographical regions access to education that is convenient. Their heterogeneousness structures, including enrollment size, communities, and populations served, are not accurately reflected in the majority of the research. Currently, there...
Although perceived-risk curriculum, that is, where the learner experiences effects of eustress (positive stress), has been used in Arts or outdoor activities, it has not been used in school classrooms. Milkman’s 1996 studies of after-school Project Self Discovery demonstrated that at-risk students lessened their adverse risky behaviors, such as substance...
This phenomenological inquiry explored dimensions of reflection for older adults in a developmental oriented adventure education experience. Data were gathered from emergent interviews with four individuals while participating in a multi-day, self-contained experiential education program conducted in a rugged environment, and led by a Navajo leader. Two principle research questions...
This qualitative study explores the "coming out" experience of gay males raised in conservative Christian environments. Seven men with varying ethnic and racial backgrounds, between the ages of 20 and 40 years old, participated. Each was raised in a conservative, Christian environment during his formative years and each was now...
Queer students in American public schools may face significant challenges including unsupportive or hostile peers or staff members (Eisenberg et al., 2017). The culture of rural Southern schools may be particularly challenging for these students as they are less likely to have an active support group and more likely to...
The purpose of this dissertation was to contribute to deeper understanding of how client’s experience their spirituality and religion during the therapy process. The first manuscript is located in chapter 2 and titled A Qualitative Metasynthesis of Client Experience of Addressing Spirituality and Religion in Counseling. This metasynthesis pools together...
The purpose of the dissertation was to gain an understanding of counselor professional identity and identity development, as well as an understanding of the experiences of doctoral students as they develop their professional identity within a nontraditional (hybrid) counselor education (CE) program. This was accomplished through systematic literature review of...
The purpose of this dissertation was to contribute to deeper understanding of how men experience support seeking. The first manuscript is located in chapter 2 and titled A Qualitative Metasynthesis of Male Client Experiences of Counseling. This metasynthesis integrates sixteen pieces of qualitative research which contain first-person accounts of male...
Two decades of literature from national college student climate reports measuring student attitudes toward people who are lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender (LGBT) indicate, “anti-GLBT intolerance and harassment has been prevalent” (Rankin, 2003). This study seeks to explore the determinants of such attitudes and explore the life contexts of students’...
The purpose of this study is to explore experiences of professional growth for mid-career community college faculty. The research question that guided the study is: How do community college faculty members experience professional growth at mid- career? The research design included an interpretive social science methodology and phenomenological method. Nine...
The purpose of this study was to explore how campus climate at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) influences degree completion for Black women. As the number of HSIs has increased in the past decade, there exists a need to understand how Black women fare in such an institutional context. Though there is...
Co-teaching and collaboration are an increasingly popular service model for English as a second language (ESL). In this model, the language specialist, sometimes called the ESL teacher, works together with a content teacher, each using their respective expertise to meet the needs of students who are identified as English learners...
This dissertation reviews the literature on the specialty area of dolphin assisted therapy (DAT), a subfield of animal assisted therapy (AAT). To date the literature on the effectiveness of DAT has been mixed although a majority of it is positive. The study was conducted with 40 parents whose children were...
University supervisors are critical to improvement in K-12 teaching and learning due to their roles in designing field experiences, managing relationships, mentoring, and supervising teacher candidates. The encouragement, support, and feedback shared by university supervisors in respect to the teaching performance of teacher candidates is especially powerful, and is a...
There is a wealth of research on issues surrounding teacher burnout and school reform. The literature on burnout, however, does not provide information on system-based burnout prevention models. Comprehensive reform, although intended to improve schools as a whole, does not look at reform models developed as sources of teacher support....
The purpose of this dissertation was to contribute to the current understanding about identity development in young adults who experience psychosis and schizophrenia. The article in Chapter 2 Using Authentic Identity Theories to Address the Stigmatization of Young People Who Experience Psychosis and Schizophrenia examined the literature on identity development...
Baccalaureate attainment represents an important goal among educators and policymakers. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education has stated that affordability and transfer are critical to increasing baccalaureate attainment, and that community colleges have a critical role in this transfer process. On the other hand, some researchers disagree...
The focus of this autoethnography was an in-depth analysis of the recorded experiences of a middle school math teacher's transitional development from classroom teacher, to teacher leader. The following research questions guided this study: (1) In what ways did the researcher’s view of self as a teacher leader change during...
The purpose of this manuscript style dissertation was to increase understanding of the experiences of counselor's with compassion fatigue as they participated in a yoga intervention. Compassion fatigue is a condition that creates both physical and psychological impairment as a result of working in the helping role. Yoga is an...