Scholars have pointed to numerous struggles retiring college athletes face as they transition out of sport (e.g., anxiety, isolation, body image issues; Kiefer et al., 2021; Lavallee et al., 1997; McKnight et al., 2009; Papathomas & Lavallee, 2010; Papathomas et al., 2018; Semaia, n.d.; Smith & Hardin, 2018, 2020; Stokowski et al., 2019). Though research has explored individual transition experiences, what is missing is an investigation into existing programming offered by NCAA athletic departments and its effectiveness on athletes’ biopsychosocial (i.e., social, mental, and physical) well-being. This mixed-methods study examines programming available from institutions across NCAA divisions, its effectiveness, and areas of need. Research findings provide insight into the impact that current programming can have on athlete biopsychosocial well-being, specifically areas of nutrition, physical activity, and alumni participation. However, more consideration needs to be given to distributing these types of programmings across all three divisions. / Tourism and Sport

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Thesis advisor: Jacqueline V. Lerner / Considerable scholarly attention has been dedicated toward the role of peers in adolescents’ romantic lives (Brown, 1999; Collins, 2003; Connolly & McIsaac, 2009, Korobov & Thorne, 2006). However, when it comes to the developmental significance of adults in promoting the healthy romantic functioning of adolescents, there has been comparably little research. For college students in particular, navigating romantic experiences can be a stressful and complex endeavor (Hurst et al., 2013) - one that may be aided by supportive relationships with adults who can listen, ask questions, and offer a distinct perspective. Indeed, recent literature has indicated that late adolescents (18-25 years of age) want more guidance from the adults in their lives about romantic relationships (Weissbourd et al., 2017). The present study introduces the concept and term love mentoring - opportunities to think, learn, and/or talk about romantic experiences with someone who is older or more experienced in this domain. Through the theoretical framework of Relational Cultural Theory, the study investigates the presence, nature, quality, and influence of love mentoring relationships in the lives of college women enrolled in a university-based mentoring program. Through reflexive thematic analysis of survey data and 12 in-depth follow-up interviews, the study’s results are distilled into six integrative findings: love mentoring is prevalent in families and universities, love mentors (LMs) are trustworthy, love mentoring supports self-worth, conversations around sex complicate love mentoring relationships, LMs are distinct from friends, and LMs promote healthy romantic development through conversation and modeling. These foundational findings on the phenomenon of love mentoring provide an important contribution to existing bodies of literature on college students’ romantic relationships and mentoring. Implications for research and practice are discussed in the context of study limitations. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Automated scoring of essays has been a research topic for some time in computational linguistics studies. Only recently have the particular challenges of automatic holistic scoring of ESL essays with their high grammatical, spelling and other error rates been a topic of research. This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of using statistical measures of linguistic maturity to predict holistic scores for ESL essays using several techniques. Selected linguistic attributes include parts of speech, part-of-speech patterns, vocabulary density, and sentence and essay lengths. Using customized algorithms based on multivariable regression analysis as well as memory-based machine learning, holistic scores were predicted on test essays within ±1.0 of the scoring level of human judges' scores successfully an average of 90% of the time. This level of prediction is an improvement over a 66% prediction level attained in a previous study using customized algorithms.

In a world where conflicts and supranational entities have emerged, nationalism has become an important topic for scholars in different fields. While much debate exists on what this term actually means and encompass, little attention has been paid to the rhetoric of nationalist leaders. Through scholarly and popular literature nationalism has often been confused with patriotism and populism. This work intends to look at what nationalism is, based on patterns drawn from observations in the rhetoric of nationalist leaders (sometimes opposing them to populist rhetoric) and at the same time it intends to expose Charles de Gaulle's nationalism in his speeches during the years of World War II.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a school-based training that attempted to improve the reliability of holistic scores teachers assigned to the writings of elementary school students. Seventeen teachers at one suburban elementary school located in the Southeastern United States participated in three training sessions that allowed for scoring practice and group discussions. The trainers, or presenters, were "faculty-experts." A comparison of scores the participants assigned to students' writings before and after the training was conducted. The analyses included t-tests that compared the participants' mean scores to the scores assigned by raters from the state, a within-group analysis of reliability as measured by Cronbach's Alpha, and percentage agreement analyses. The results suggested that the in-house training activities promoted higher inter-rater reliability of scores assigned to students' writings by the teachers in this study. This study also compared teachers identified as being highly confident writers with teachers who reported low levels of self-confidence related to writing. Prior to the training, the highly confident teachers' scores tended to be lower than the state scores and the scores assigned by their less confident peers. During group discussions, however, the "high-confidence" group was just as likely to change their scores to a higher level as to a lower level, and by the end of the training, both groups demonstrated more consistent score patterns.

While holistic care is fundamental to occupational therapy (OT) practice, organizational and systemic factors often push for compartmentalized and specialist practice. Because services in many practice areas are compartmentalized, occupational therapy practitioners’ (OTPs) continuing professional development (CPD) efforts typically focus on one clinical specialty, and many often do not learn skills across different clinical areas. It is imperative that OTPs continue to learn and integrate knowledge across specialty areas so as to provide comprehensive and holistic care to all individuals who seek OT services. In addition to this, there is a known knowledge-to-practice gap that limits the implementation of research into practice. Numerous research studies (Summers et al. 2015; Stewart et al. 2020; Jones et al. 2015; Thomas et al. 2020) support the need for active engagement in CPD, implementing the most recent research into practice, and maintaining a holistic and integrated approach to healthcare. However, many clinicians experience barriers to the implementation of that knowledge, such as time, cost, staffing, and organizational influence. Healthcare organizations, on the other hand, must function in a competitive healthcare industry, by optimizing client outcomes while maintaining qualified and engaged staff. Occupational Therapists Fostering Unified Expertise and Learning (OT F.U.E.L.) was designed with these barriers in mind, and addresses them by creating a cost-effective, timely, and engaging platform for knowledge exchange across the profession of occupational therapy. OT F.U.E.L. is designed as an online community of practice, focusing on intra-professional social learning and knowledge implementation for OTPs working in the various siloed specialties of OT, including pediatrics, orthopedics/hand therapy, inpatient/outpatient rehabilitation, and mental health. The objective is to reconnect with the common roots and approaches of occupational therapy, and enhance practice skills and expertise — integrating clinical knowledge and skills from various clinical specialties across the profession. Overall group size will be limited to 16 participants, with subspecialty groups of approximately four members to ensure diversity of experience. The groups will be moderated by a “knowledge broker” who can facilitate interconnections between the specialty areas. There will be three phases to the piloting of this program. In the initial pilot (Phase 1), participants will be OTPs who are also fieldwork educators (FWEs), recruited using established affiliations with an entry-level Master of Occupational Therapy program. For the pilot, FWEs will be recruited through their employer in order to get organizational buy-in for their engagement in the program, as well as encouragement from management to participate. A secondary objective for this approach is to demonstrate the value of organizational support of professional development during established work hours. Phase 2 of piloting will involve running the program through other Universities in a variety of regions within the United States. Phase 3 will be potential dissemination through the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). Ultimately, OT F.U.E.L is expected to result in several intermediate and long-term outcomes, including OTPs increased the confidence and competence with integrating skills and concepts across specialty areas in their practice. By reducing the barriers and facilitating the implementation of new knowledge, the clients will benefit, and likely demonstrate improved outcomes.

This study utilized a correlational research design to investigate the relationships that may exist between teacher empathy, attitudes, and levels of self-efficacy. In particular, the study was designed to (a) determine whether attitudes towards trauma-informed care mediated the relationship between teacher empathy and teacher self-efficacy related to classroom management and (b) uncover what teachers find most challenging in their efforts to support students experiencing trauma. An online survey, completed by 146 American teachers, included items from three established measures: the Empathy Scale for Teachers (Wang et al., 2022); the Underlying Causes of Problem Behaviors and Symptoms subscale of the Attitudes Related to Trauma- Informed Care (ARTIC-35) (Baker et al., 2016); and the Classroom Management subscale of the Teacher Sense of Self-Efficacy scale (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). Multiple regression was used to analyze the quantitative data and thematic analysis was used to uncover themes from responses to an open-ended item on the survey. The following six themes emerged from the thematic analysis of descriptions provided by teachers of the biggest challenge they face in their efforts to support students experiencing trauma: The most common response involved difficulty recognizing and responding to trauma. This study found higher levels of teacher empathy to be associated with more positiveteacher attitude towards trauma informed care, as measured by the underlying causes of problem behaviors and symptoms subscale of the ARTIC-35. Additionally, these positive attitudes (consistent with trauma-informed care) were associated with more efficacious feelings in teachers regarding their classroom management. The results indicate that attitude towards trauma-informed care serves as an indirect-only mediator to explain the impact of empathy on level of teacher self-efficacy related to classroom management. Although caution is urged when drawing causal conclusions from correlational studies, the results highlight the potential importance of cultivating teacher empathy so trauma-informed practices can flourish in creating positive, safe classroom environments that increase learning opportunities for all students while possibly reducing departures from the teaching profession.

Introduktion/Bakgrund: En procent av världens befolkning är drabbade av den kroniska autoimmuna inflammatoriska sjukdomen Reumatoid artrit (RA) som kan orsaka värk, trötthet, stela leder, svullnad och som bidrar till minskad livskvalitet. I dagsläget är den farmakologiska behandlingen en central del av patienternas liv vilket kan bromsa sjukdomsförloppet men inte bota den. Litteraturstudien undersöker hur alternativa behandlingsmetoder upplevs av patienter med RA. Syfte: Syftet var att belysa patienters upplevelser av alternativa behandlingsmetoder vid RA. Metod: Litteraturstudien genomfördes utifrån Polit och Becks (2021) nio steg. Litteratursökningarna gjordes i databaserna Cinahl och PubMed. Tio artiklar var relevanta för litteraturstudiens syfte och granskades med hjälp av granskningsmallar. Resultat: Resultatet baseras på tio vetenskapliga artiklar, sju kvalitativa och två kvantitativa, samt att en artikel hade mixad metod. I sammanställningen framkom två teman: Positiva upplevelser och Negativa upplevelser. Slutsats: Alternativa behandlingsmetoder bidrog till att majoriteten av patienterna upplevde minskad smärta, ångest och depression. De upplevde även att socialt stöd från andra patienter bidrog till positivt välmående samt ökat självförtroende.

The current workforce climate has naturally led the way for wanting more systemic thinking individuals. This increasing complexity demands that universities train engineering students to be able to handle such difficulties amidst the interconnectedness of the world. This study aims to aid in understanding what will help the future leaders of the world become more equipped to handle these global and complex systems. College engineering students were the target population of this study. It was found that neither gender, educational level, grade point average, nor having an internship or co-op helped aid students to have higher systems thinking skills. However, employment status was found to affect the systems thinking skills scores. Laying the foundation for understanding engineering students’ ability to be more or less holistic thinkers, this research aims to help evolve engineering education.