In this dissertation, I qualitatively examined the meaning of mothering a child with autism in two countries: the United States and South Korea. The overarching research question focused on how sociocultural ideas about mothering and disability, particularly autism spectrum disorders, shape women’s understanding of themselves and their children with disabilities....
This study sought to understand the unique challenges that housing insecurity programs faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. An anonymous Qualtrics survey, containing closed- and open-ended questions, was sent to housing insecurity programs in Benton County, Oregon. Questions focused on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected services and how programs adjusted to...
Women have long been responsible for the unpaid and under-recognized work of maintaining homes and family relationships (Walker, 1999). In this dissertation, I use feminist theories to address the connections between women's unpaid family work and their family relationships. I explore family ties between (a) aging mothers and their care...
Counselor self and relational awareness (SRA) is an important aspect of counselor training and development. Counselor education programs engage students in a variety of practices targeted towards enhancing SRA. Although supervision is regularly used to promote SRA, there is no existing research that focuses on how supervisors experience using supervision...
This exploratory study posited that being in an insecure marriage would increase marital conflict and perceived relational aggression when the couple is experiencing economic constraints. The cross-sectional design assessed two groups of marriages: secure and insecure. A structural equation model using multiple group comparison tested the effect of each type...
4-H Adventures is an informal educational program designed for children in grades K-3. The 4-H Adventures program encourages children to have fun, develop friendships, and learn about their world. The program also aims to strengthen ties among children, families, and their larger communities.
In support of these goals, we are pleased to offer you two series of newsletters titled Family Fun and Family Connections. Both sets complement the six learning areas in the Off to Adventure curriculum.
Each Family Fun newsletter provides an overview of a learning area, suggests enjoyable family activities, and...
4-H Adventures is an informal educational program designed for children in grades K–3. The program supports young children’s natural curiosity, enthusiasm for learning, and high energy levels by giving them an opportunity for active learning. The 4-H Adventures program encourages children to have fun, develop friendships, and learn about their...
By 2050 the world population is expected to reach 9 billion. Fears of the impact of such a large population on earth’s environmental systems and finite resources have lead efforts by governmental and non-governmental agencies to assist developing nations in reducing fertility rates to slow population growth by direct medical...
Mental health professionals are dedicated to improving outcomes in therapy. Research over the past 50 years has shown psychotherapy to be effective in both improving the functioning of and diminishing the overall distress experienced by clients. Several factors have been constant predictors of outcome in therapy, including length of treatment,...
Despite policies implemented by the NCAA with the intention of increasing student-athlete academic success and persistence to graduation, student-athlete graduation rates still remain low, with only 65% of student-athletes receiving their college degree. Certain non- cognitive variables, including the availability of a strong support person, have been shown predict persistence...
Suicide rates in adolescents are at an all-time high in the United States and currently the 2nd leading cause of death in adolescents ages 10-19 (CDC, 2017). School counselors have an ethical obligation to protect students from unforeseeable harm and are often on the front lines of intervening when a...
Latinos have the lowest high school completion rates in the United States (United States Census, 2010). School counselors are well positioned to lead the efforts to increase these rates. Indeed, such leadership is mandated by both the ethical and program standards of the American School Counselor Association. However, little is...
This study was conducted to explore differences in diversity and abundance of small
mammal populations in natural and restored wet prairies in Oregon's Willamette Valley.
Mammals were live-trapped in eight Willamette Valley wet prairies (four natural remnants and
four restorations) during the summer of 2000; population abundance estimates for each...
The objective of many simulations is to study the
steady-state behavior of a nonterminating system. The
initial conditions of the system are often atypical because
of the complexity of the system. Simulators often start
the simulation with the system empty and idle, and
truncate, or delete, some quantity of the...
The goal of this study was to optimize a through-boring pattern that will provide adequate preservative penetration while minimizing the reduction in overall pole bending strength. Hole spacing was developed using longitudinal and transverse chemical penetration data from previous studies. Finite element analysis was used as a preliminary assessment tool...
Research has established that poor outcomes are the future for those without a
high school diploma--yet students continue to drop out and become members of
that population. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the
experiences and perceptions of individuals who did not complete high school
within the...
Despite the increase in information on the causes of foodborne disease, outbreaks continue to be a major preventable public health problem. Current food service establishment inspection programs, however, are not designed to assess the potential of risk for foodborne disease and do not focus prevention efforts where food service problems...
Developmental changes in the enzymes acetylcholinesterase
(EC 3.1.1.7) and pseudocholinesterase (EC 3.1.1.8) were
examined in ovo and in vitro in the neural retina of the
developing chick. In addition, investigations of cellular
interactions and hormones as possible control mechanisms of
enzyme synthesis were made.
The specific activity of acetylcholinesterase, a...
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...
Youth today experience high degrees of loss and change, resulting in grief (Goldman, 2001). Little evidence exists of school counselors' academic preparation in grief counseling. The purpose of this research study was to determine how CACREP school counseling programs prepare school counselors in the areas of grief and loss, including...
This is an investigative, descriptive study that explored fishing regulation conflicts between commercial fishermen and fishery resource management agencies. The purpose of the study was to develop a rich picture of the conflict phenomenon and apply sociological theory in order to illuminate the underlying structures and functions which contribute to...
This research examined public perceptions of risk, behavioral intentions in the event of the M9 Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake and tsunami on the Oregon Coast, and factors that may influence both attitudes and intentions. A household survey was conducted to understand public opinion in Seaside, Oregon, which is located...
International immersion experiences do not, in themselves, provide students with the opportunity to develop cultural competence. However, using an anthropological lens to educate students allows them to learn how to negotiate cultural differences by removing their own cultural filters and seeing events through the eyes of those who are culturally...
On January 11, 2011, the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) instituted a catch
share program for the West Coast groundfish trawl fishery. The program was intended to
create a more sustainable fishery and increase economic efficiency through the use of
individual fishing quotas and fishing cooperatives. While there are extensive...
This study is an ethnographic investigation of residential turnover, organizational memory, and the persistence of Lost Valley, an Oregon ecovillage founded in 1989. Literature on organizational turnover, memory, and persistence is reviewed and integrated with scholarship on intentional communities and ecovillages, generating a theoretical framework for data collection and analysis....
Although the human health and social benefits from outdoor recreation are numerous, there is mounting evidence that outdoor recreation can negatively impact wildlife. Shorebirds are known to be especially sensitive to recreation-related disturbance because they nest and forage directly on beaches that are often used for recreation. Many studies have...
Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) have been created to encourage companies to engage in behaviors that mitigate environmental impacts (e.g., recycling, emissions reduction). Many ski areas participate in the Sustainable Slopes Program, an initiative that promotes VEPs in the ski area industry. Past research has addressed the performance of VEPs in...
In an era of human-induced climate change, there is increasing interest in encouraging people to reduce their carbon dioxide (carbon) emissions by adopting low-carbon behaviors, or behaviors that reduce a person’s use of fossil fuels. I designed the Campus Carbon Challenge as a research and outreach project to gain a...
Interest groups have participated in the American political system since the signing of the U.S. Constitution. Environmental interest groups, a subsection of the American interest group society, have been especially active in national policies since the proliferation of environmental laws and environmental advocacy in the 1960s and 1970s. When environmental...
The current thesis presents contingent valuation research incorporating social psychological measures that investigates recreationists' willingness to pay recreation access fees at McDonald-Dunn Forest, Oregon. Context is provided through an extensive literature review of recreation fee management, issues and concerns related to recreation fees, recreationists' attitudes toward fees, relevant social psychological...
This study documents the occurrence of stereotypical representations of
gender, race, and other characteristics in individuals that appear in advertisements in
the prestigious academic journal Science. It repeats and expands upon a study
conducted by Mary Barbercheck (2001) that analyzed advertisements in Science
between 1995 and 1997. In this study,...
In the United States during the last 30 years there has been a shift from extractive natural resource-based economies of the Old West to a New West defined by environmental protection. Over the past century, a growing national support for environmental protection has influenced a lengthening list of national and...
The Linn and Benton County Gleaner network has helped the low-income families of urban and rural Oregon reclaim moral, social and cultural capital that is lost in the act of being poor in America. Rather than participating solely in government safety nets, these people reject “hand-outs” in favor of exchanging...
This thesis seeks to better understand the most pressing cultural barriers to progress in the sustainability movement, and to offer suggestions for overcoming barriers. This research includes a two-year long case study of the sustainability movement at OSU, where the researcher coordinated projects encouraging behavior change. Despite increasing severity and...
Commercial fishing is a culturally and economically significant industry on the Oregon coast. The importance of this industry to human communities is often neglected in fisheries research, with economic and ecological data being favored by managers and decision makers. Recent observations in many coastal communities have indicated aging of fishermen...
I examined the relative roles of biotic and abiotic factors in structuring redband trout
Oncorhynchus mykiss distributions in the South Fork John Day. I first examined the
relationship between the biological traits of the fish assemblage and riparian-geomorphic features in context of prevailing theories of stream ecology stemming from the...
Natural resource data are typically non-linear and complex, yet modeling methods often utilize statistical analysis techniques, such as regression, that are insufficient for use on such data. This research proposes an innovative modeling method based on pattern recognition techniques borrowed from the field of machine learning. These techniques make no...
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...
Millions of U.S. households experienced hunger in 2005 and millions more experienced food insecurity. Previous research indicates that low-wage work and little social support contribute to food insecurity. Research also suggests that individuals cope by finding alternate food sources and drawing on social support. Further, researchers have found that rural...
In recent years, several interrelated forces—prolonged drought, growing populations, height-ened environmental protections, sustained agricultural use, and hydrologic alterations due to climate change—have increased pressure on water users in the Western United States, where the agricultural sector accounts for up to 90% of total water withdrawals. Technology im-provements developed since the...
A fundamental problem that emerges during the planning of a city or neighborhood is how to prioritize sustainable development criteria and where to focus efforts. Solving this problem is a complex task requiring an integrated approach, which considers environmental, economic, and social criteria, as well as stakeholder preferences. Given the...
There is a national interest in improving the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in institutions of higher education in the face of mounting difficulties. Reports by the National Academy of Sciences in 2018 and 2020 found that the dissemination and adoption of effective, timely change initiatives...
The cultural and social constructions of gender and sexuality play a major role in shaping an individual’s reproductive agency within the Yoruba society. This thesis suggests the need to apply a reproductive justice framework and transnational feminist theory as alternatives to individual-driven ‘choice’ and reproductive and sexual human rights. In...
This dissertation explores the real world problem of rural youth out-migration and finds that the central problem is one of persistent class difference in this rural Oregon town. The research that informs this dissertation was conducted in a rural community of approximately 2300 residents in Eastern Oregon, here called Talltown....
There are two distinct methods which are used to study
the volume changes which take place when a protein is placed
in a solution. The first and most common method measures the
volume changes of the solid alone and is commonly known as swelling. The second measures the total volume...
This thesis presents work done to verify the accuracy of a
heuristic method for computing availability percentiles for
cascaded independent systems. Previous work has provided a model
for a single line that will be used as the basis for a simulation
of cascaded and parallel systems of lines. The simulation...
Black vine weevil (BVW), Otiorhynchus sulcatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Fabricius), is a serious pest of cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait. Larvae feed undetected within the soil and cause damage to roots and underground vines. We correlated damage caused by feeding larvae from known BVW egg densities. Two cultivars of potted cranberry vines,...