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Health literacy is the skill needed to acquire, read, understand, and use health related information to make informed healthcare decisions. It is also the skill needed to follow and maintain a treatment plan. Having a high or adequate health literacy level is important because possessing poor health literacy skill can have a negative impact on one's overall health. This research is important because there are few studies available on the health literacy levels of undergraduate college students. The majority of health literacy studies focus on at risk or underserved populations with low education. Previous studies have shown that education is not a strong indicator of good health literacy skill. The aim of this study is to evaluate the health literacy rate of students at the University of Central Florida (UCF), and to analyze the health information seeking behavior. Students were given the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA) to assess the levels of health literacy among undergraduate students. The Health Seeking Information Behaviors (HSIB) survey was also given to analyze common information seeking behaviors among college students. Additional questions were included to collect demographic information to compare differences in health literacy levels among different subgroups of students. The survey questionnaires were built into "Qualtrics, an online survey system, and shared with undergraduate students at UCF for participation. Survey results were downloaded into SPSS software version 25. Data analysis included one-way ANOVA to assess possible associations between student demographics and level of health literacy skill and health information seeking behavior among participants. Survey results showed that students at UCF had very high health literacy skills among all demographics. The study results suggest the need for development of a survey tool measuring health literacy skills of an educated population be designed and validated to assess the health literacy skills of an educated population.

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No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Although it has long been assumed that pictures depicting the human suffering of war evoke empathy and compassion, which leads to social action, there is little empirical evidence of that claim. This study aimed to fill the gap in visual communication theory about the effects of war photojournalism on media consumers' emotional and behavioral responses. This mixed methods design included a between-subjects experimental design tested whether photos (from conflicts in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo) with a human-cost-of-war visual frame had significantly different effects on participants' levels of empathy, compassion, personal distress, other-oriented distress, and information seeking than pictures with a militarism visual frame. A second study used series of focus group discussions, to investigate how media consumers make meaning out of images of conflict. The findings expand our understanding about the way audiences react to conflict photos, and they have implications for how photo editors might present audiences with images of war that will engage audiences. / Media & Communication

Whether or not Americans feel they have sufficient information or knowledge to make mutual fund investing decisions, more and more investors are forced to make these choices if they wish to invest for future goals like retirement. The problem for policymakers is deciding how to provide information on mutual funds that is both useful and used by potential investors. The purpose of this study was to test the relationship between an investor's personality and the effort exhibited by a potential investor in seeking information about a mutual fund investment, as well as the type of information the potential investor considers important. For this research, "personality" was the independent variable that was hypothesized to influence the dependent variable, investor "information-seeking effort" before an investment decision is made. Personality is composed of the four dichotomous Myers-Briggs' functions, including 1) Extraversion versus Introversion, 2) Sensing versus Intuition, 3) Thinking versus Feeling, and 4) Judging versus Perceiving. A survey was created to identify the mutual fund information considered important by potential investors, and their stated likelihood of seeking out said information before making a purchase decision. The Myers-Briggs' preference indicator and the information-seeking effort survey were administered to 101 college and university students. Eighty-one students met the selected criteria. Upon analysis, results indicated statistically significant differences in the basic-level information-seeking effort of participants based on the potential investor's attitude toward dealing with the outside world (judging vs. perceiving preference) with judgers labeling basic-level information as more important than did perceivers. In addition, results indicated that judger's initial satisfaction with their mutual fund choice was significantly higher, statistically. Lastly, based on a comparison of qualitative information items vs. quantitative information items provided, quantitative information was labeled as significantly more important (statistically) than qualitative information. Based on the findings, recommendations for educators, regulators, and policy-makers are provided, and include simplification of the terminology used in point-of-sale mutual fund information and increased financial literacy education for consumers. / Ph. D.

Components from the historic method, information seeking, and the history of IDT were used in conjunction with systems thinking to create a framework to determine the status of documented artifacts related to the history of IDT. The study used the following steps: (a) conduct a literature review in order to explore possible components for the framework; (b) analyze the results of the literature review to provide a rationale for selection criteria of these components; (c) design the framework that will be used to search for documented artifacts; (d) develop the framework and operationalize the components; (e) evaluate the framework with operationalized components; (f) where necessary, revise the framework based upon tests of the framework; (g) report the results (h) design a way to share the framework and the status of documented artifacts. Sixty-nine documented artifacts were searched for using the framework and sixty were located. / Ph. D.

Construction is one of the largest industry sectors in terms of size and output in the United Kingdom (UK). The sector contributes about 10% directly to the UK's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and drives historical GDP growth. However, Construction projects and Organisations continue to underperform at significant levels which is underpinned by actors' Information Behaviours (IBs).