STUDENT: Jason Kline

ADVISOR: Dr. Renae McNair

ABSTRACT:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role virtual reality (VR) has in education. The relationship between VR and education and whether this method of learning is more beneficial than classic lecture style teaching was examined. It was hypothesized that participants who had the aid of VR for their learning lesson would be able to process and retain the information at a higher rate. Three hundred college students aged 18-22 with no prior extensive knowledge of the lesson were recruited from this research. Participants were placed into two separate groups: one group learned a history lesson through an in-person lecture while the other group learned the same lesson but with the aid of VR. Once completed, participants returned the next day and completed an exam on the material learned. It was found that participants from the VR group significantly received higher scores compared to the lecture group. This finding means that the future of education may be drastically different from what we expect and know it to currently be. Virtual reality is a helpful and useful tool to educate individuals and help them have a greater understanding of the material being taught to them.

STUDENT: Jared Griffin

ADVISOR: Dr. Renae McNair

ABSTRACT:

Key words: tribalism, anti-vaccination, conformity

Anti-vaccination views have been prominent during the covid pandemic. These views have been very strong throughout the pandemic despite evidence amassing against the anti-vaccination views. In response to this, this conceptual research was devised to explore if there was a relationship between tribalism and anti-vaccination views. Based upon a review of the literature predictions were made stating that individuals would be less likely to disagree about anti-vaccination views when in a group and that the idea of disagreeing when in a group would cause emotional distress. A sample of Black, Hispanic, and White cisgender women and men (n=100) aged 30-60 with anti-vaccination inclinations were randomly sorted into groups to discuss anti-vaccination views. After this, individuals were randomly pulled from each group to discuss the same views. Based on a review of the literature, the expected results would be for individuals to be less likely to disagree on anti-vaccination view when in a group, and individuals would feel distress about disagreeing with the group regardless of how outlandish the claims would be. The implications of this research would include elucidating why anti-vaccination views were so heavily prominent during the pandemic.

STUDENT: Samantha Zanabria

ADVISOR: Dr. Renae McNair

ABSTRACT:

Keywords: Motherhood, mood disorders, social perceptions, parenting, women

Society’s perception and expectations on what a “”good”” mother looks or acts like impact women and their mental health. Everyday more and more women feel like the world is judging them on every scale, whether it being a good mother, employee, wife etc. Women are seen to have these expectations in regard to their degree of competence in raising their children. There is a growing necessity to improve on parental coping mechanisms and providing parental support for women who struggle with depression, PPD, and other mood disorders. The feeling of failure or inadequacy can gravely negatively impact women’s mental health and their parenting. Do women’s perception of social expectations of motherhood impact them in their mother-infant relationship as well?

STUDENT: Emily Pinto

ADVISOR: Dr. Ray Petren

ABSTRACT:

Family routines can buffer the effects of environmental changes such as those caused by Covid-19, but routines are also vulnerable to disruption during times of change. The purpose of this study was to examine: (1) how family routines changed in the context of Covid-19 and (2) contextual factors associated with family routine changes. Parents of children ages 5-12 completed a survey on family routines and functioning during Covid-19 (N = 179). Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze responses to a single open-ended question (“How has Covid-19 changed your family routines?”). In response to both lack of external structure and lack of external demands during Covid-19, families adapted by establishing and adjusting routines, relaxing routines, and lacking routines unintentionally. Resilience factors (e.g., more family time, two parents at home enabled new routines, enhancing wellbeing and bonding) and risk factors (missing external structure, feeling overwhelmed) affected changes in routines. Implications for practitioners will be discussed.

Information Literacy Excellence Award Runner-Up

STUDENT: Kimberlyn Sanchez

ADVISOR: Dr. Ray Petren

ABSTRACT:

Maternal gatekeeping includes behaviors that mothers use to facilitate or restrict father involvement. The purpose of this study is to examine: (1) maternal gatekeeping strategies and (2) factors that affect gatekeeping strategies shortly following parental separation or divorce. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven mothers who were recruited from a mandatory divorce education program, following separation from the father of their children (Mdn = 7 months post-separation). Interviews focused on how parental roles changed following separation. Mothers engaged in substantial discussion of maternal gatekeeping strategies in detail during the course of the interviews, but a full exploration of the gatekeeping theme was not appropriate for the initial analysis of the data, and it was determined that secondary analysis of qualitative data would be appropriate for this study. Results from qualitative thematic analysis showed that mothers engaged in a variety of gatekeeping strategies that were facilitative (facilitating communication, enlisting confederates, evoking the father), restrictive (limiting communication, using the legal system [or not]), or passive (granting autonomy to the father-child relationship). These strategies were developed in response to factors, such as feelings of responsibility for child wellbeing, concerns about child safety, perceptions of father motivation, diminished contact with the father, family ideals related to parental involvement, and gendered expectations for fathers. These findings suggest that mothers are considering whether and how to keep fathers involved shortly following separation and these strategies are motivated by a unique set of factors as mothers made the transition to separation.

STUDENT: Randy Jarnicki

ADVISOR: Dr. Renae McNair

ABSTRACT:

Mental disorders could cause intense pressure on individuals they afflict, but one’s surroundings and way of life could drastically alter how that disorder affects that individual. This study was designed to observe a correlation between socioeconomic status and how it influences the stress afflicted by schizophrenia on adolescents. Individuals in the study will need to be adolescents ages 14-16 and diagnosed with schizophrenia. 50 individuals will be selected for this study (n = 50) with 25 coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and 25 coming from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. This study will primarily focus on Caucasian male adolescents, as gender and race may add additional stressors to an individual’s environment, but may be observed in the future. IV is the socioeconomic backgrounds of the adolescents, and the DV is the stress induced by their schizophrenia, where lower socioeconomic status is defined as adolescents belonging to a household that earns $30,000-$50,000 annually, and higher socioeconomic status is defined as adolescents belonging to a household that earns $60,000-$90,000 annually. Stress induced by the disorder is defined as how uncomfortable the adolescent reports the affects of their disorder being when accounting for the socioeconomic factors. This study is correlational with no manipulation of the variables. The data will be mostly collected using in-person interviews on a monthly basis. The results of this study, which will find a correlation between socioeconomic factors and the stress induced by schizophrenia, will give insight into the different factors which affect individuals with mental disorders, and could provide better ways into how to raise these adolescents while acknowledging and working with their disorder.

STUDENT: Diavian Brown

ADVISOR: Dr. Renae McNair

ABSTRACT:

Almost every African American household has certain habits or phrases that they subconsciously pass down through generations. Whether it’s as simple as chemically straightening their daughter’s hair to telling their sons to stop being so emotional. These different actions and phrases all have an origin as to why they are done so routinely. Within this essay, my research will focus on identifying a relation between intergenerational racism and negative psychological patterns within African-American generations. These factors will be supported by various research articles that not only identify but invoke theories on the origin of racism and the different forms are passed down. One of these articles is by Constantino, Dumangane who speaks about racism in the educational system. Both my hypothesis and research question are tested through the use of a questionnaire to measure the degree to which people believe in intergenerational racism and if there are any negative psychological aspects. The results of my findings will be determined through the participation of African-American males and females with the age range around 15 to 74 years old.

STUDENT: Marquis Baskerville

ADVISOR: Dr. Renae McNair

ABSTRACT:

Quality sleep has been understood to be highly crucial to overall health and psychological well-being that we rely on daily to function. This study’s aim is to further understand extant chronobiological research on circadian preference (chronotype), the terms “morningness” and “eveningness”, and the relationship between eveningness, sleep disturbances, and depression. Circadian preference is defined as an individual’s daily biological preference to induce or delay sleep. Morningness was defined as preferring peak activity and inducing sleep in earlier hours of the day. Eveningness was defined as preferring peak activity and inducing sleep in the later evening hours of the day. A randomized sample of 500 college students was selected for the sleep study and assessed using the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire and Beck’s Depression Inventory scale to assess circadian preference and depressive symptomatology. Sleep diaries were given to participants to record subjective sleep experiences for each night of the study for a two-week period. Objective measures were captured using an actigraph wristwatch that assessed physiological signs of sleep disturbance during sleep. Participants were asked to follow their normal daily routines and report their sleep and overall depressiveness as soon as they awaken from sleep. Participants were assessed before and after the two-week period and all recordings of chronotype, sleep, and depressive symptoms were compared. Participants were given informed consent about the study and were told that this sleep study is a hybridized “”assessment in-lab”” and “”sleep at-home”” experiment. It was hypothesized that eveningness chronotypes will experience more depressive symptomatology than morningness chronotypes.

STUDENT: Jordann Monaco

ADVISOR: Dr. Renae McNair

ABSTRACT:

Every day people are involved in accidents that may leave them with permanent brain damage. As a result these people may suffer a change in personality or mental state. The initial prediction of this study was that frontal lobe damage would ultimately result in criminal behavior in the years following the incident that resulted in this deficit. Studies have shown that frontal lobe damage can result in dramatic changes in personality and behavior resulting in antisocial behavior, aggression, and violent criminal behavior resulting in prison sentences. This type of brain damage can also cause depression and other mental health disorders that the individual did not previously suffer from. In this study interviews were conducted with a number of inmates that suffered frontal lobe damage in the years leading up to their arrest. A series of open-ended interview questions were administered to attempt to uncover a direct link between changes in behavior as a result of the inmate’s accident and the actions that lead to their arrest. The information gained from the study showed that frontal network dysfunction was predictive of violent crime. It also showed a serious mental health decline, not only due to the brain damage but also due to time spent in incarceration. The hypotheses for this study were proven accurate as well as yielding further information into the mental health changes associated with this type of brain damage. Future research on the topic may benefit from longitudinal studies beginning with individuals that have suffered from frontal lobe damage recently and following their behaviors over an extended number of years to determine possible outcomes and results.