The purpose was to evaluate the psychometric properties of an 8-item questionnaire instrument to support member checks in positivistic qualitative research. A sample of 1603 junior-level university nursing students (98.2% participation rate) a completed the questionnaire instrument which assessed how closely a written description of the lived experience of in-hospital training applied to their personal experience. The instrument had excellent psychometric properties, including high measurement reliability (α=0.94), strong concurrent validity (72.2%-77.4%), discriminant validity (p < 0.000001), a parametric score distribution with little kurtosis and no skew, and an average score (G score) was centered at midpoint of the scale (midpoint of 4 on a scale from 1 to 7). The experience match was at the level of “matches experience to high degree,” showing the transferability (generalizability) of the findings to the present sample. The instrument can be used to assess the credibility and transferability of findings from qualitative research, assist in finding negative cases, determine the degree of saturation and success of bracketing, and complement the constant comparative method. The instrument is recommended for general use in positivistic qualitative or naturalistic inquiry studies for any type of sample and any type of lived experience. This approach would magnify and empower the reach of the products of qualitative research.

People pursuing LGBTQ+ rights in the United States have faced triumphs and setbacks over time but now face equality-restricting legislation in several regions. Previous researchers have studied LGBTQ+ college students and LGBTQ+ identity as a master status, but less on how queer identity competes for salience with other identities. This study uses qualitative and quantitative secondary data on student responses to a university-wide climate survey (n=1699) conducted in the Fall semester of 2022. I analyze LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ student experiences and satisfaction with their school. The quantitative results of this research find that LGBTQ+ students have a markedly different campus experience, while the qualitative results find that student identity takes precedence over gender and sexual identity when assessing East Tennessee State University (ETSU). Data analysis includes personal narratives from LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ students on their college experiences with belongingness, academics, and campus political landscape.

This dissertation examines the practices and social constructions of volunteering in Southern Africa. Grounded in structural and cultural theory, I focus on volunteering as the product, rather than the raw material, of political processes. My approach stresses the volunteers’ perspectives, yet centers on critiques of dominance. In doing so, I destabilize the view of volunteering as inherently pro-social behavior, or as intrinsically characteristic of deepening democratic systems. Combining evidence from Afrobarometer surveys and twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa and Zambia I show how meanings and practices, not just resources and capital, shape the socially constructed nature of volunteering given specific historic, economic and political conjunctures. The findings reveal that contemporary practices of volunteering in Southern Africa are a consequence of poverty, paternalistic exchange relationships, and state-civil society partnerships undergirded by foreign development aid. The dissertation is structured around four empirical points. The first concerns who volunteers. I identify characteristics of Africans who are most likely to actively belong to voluntary groups, and pinpoint the role of foreign development aid and poverty in shaping the volunteer landscape. The second highlights the positive connection between civic culture and active voluntary group membership in Africa, but I argue that this association does not inherently translate into greater democratic gains for a country. The third emphasizes “why” people volunteer. I document the exchange nature of volunteering, revealing its practical function for maintaining social cohesion and augmenting social capital, while simultaneously entrenching social hierarchies and paternalistic inequalities. The fourth point offers a theory linking three orientations to volunteering with activities in three different types of civil society. These view can be “allegiant,” “opportunistic,” or “challenging” and steer people toward volunteer activities that match their inclinations to enhance, confront, or preserve given social systems. Throughout this dissertation I illustrate how volunteerism aids residents of complex, diverse societies to define new social relations, craft compatible identities, and make meaning of social change. I present an effort in doing a sociology of volunteerism from Africa, rather simply in Africa, which increases the generalizability of existing theories of volunteerism to post-colonial, developing country contexts.

This study measures levels of religiosity and secularity among students at the Claremont Colleges, including students’ (ir)religious affiliations, beliefs, and practices. The religious landscape in the U.S. is shifting in multiple ways, and young adults feature prominently in these changes. Using data from an online survey of students, the present study addresses the following research questions: What is the (ir)religious makeup of the student body at the Claremont Colleges? Do the observed patterns mirror those of the general U.S. population? The results of this study show that the sample population at the Claremont Colleges is much less religious than the U.S. as a whole in terms of affiliation, beliefs, and practices. The findings highlight the shifting religious landscape in the U.S., particularly in the younger population, and the importance of understanding these shifts in order to best serve the needs of students.

While attitudes are difficult to assess, a qualitative research study can produce results to give insight into how a student feels a writing center has improved his or her confidence and attitude towards writing. This study reviews the minimal discussion of students‟ attitudes towards writing in past and current writing center research and builds upon the conversation by following three students‟ journeys in the writing center and discussing whether their experiences with the tutors has improved their attitudes about writing.

Traffic congestion can cause late deliveries, decreased profits from vehicle fuel idling in traffic, and delayed distribution in tight delivery windows. The focus of this study was on developing strategies that business leaders could use to increase on-time deliveries. The conceptual frameworks for this case study were systems theory, traffic equilibrium theory, bathtub theory, and kinematic wave theory. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 6 delivery service leaders from 3 delivery businesses in Southcentral Alaska. In addition, secondary data were collected from government information. Interview responses were coded to identify trends including delivery time, business activity, and amount of roadway congestion. Two major themes emerged from the interviews: time of day affecting when traffic congestion occurred, and limited alternate transportation routes causing congestion in Southcentral Alaska. The findings indicated that the best strategy to help reduce traffic congestion involved instituting toll optimization and high occupant vehicles lanes. The implications for effecting social change include how business leaders can help reduce traffic congestion using toll optimization, and how high occupant vehicle lanes could encourage Southcentral Alaskans to carpool.

Low-income Caucasian married parents described lifespan processes and conditions that contributed to their individual assessments that their marriage was healthy. Spouses participated in an interview together, followed later by an individual interview with each. Interview scripts referenced the study‘s primary research questions which sought their reflections on (a) external conditions that they considered to be important to their development, and (b) personal thoughts, emotions and behaviors they deemed relevant to the success of their marriage. A third research question called for integration of participants‘ reflections into a cogent grounded theory regarding successful low-income marriages. Analysis incorporated grounded theory methods, and those procedures were assisted by computer software such as NVIVO 7.0 ® and Microsoft Excel ®. This work revealed a developmental systems theoretical framework that posits that individuals‘ developmental factors gave rise to certain personal actual qualities, and also had affect upon the qualities individuals desired and perceived in their partner. Qualities desired and perceived in their partner may have greater or lesser priority to a spouse depending upon the range of acceptable variance that the spouse assigns to any given quality. While several high-priority qualities emerged from the words of the twenty spouses who participated, four high-priority qualities emerged as fundamental to the success of the marriage: (a) being loving, (b) being committed, (c) being appreciative, and (d) being child-centered. Four abstract sets of developmental factors, assigned the term synergists, strongly promoted these qualities among study participants: (a) a sensitizing experience, (b) a partner-as-rescuer mindset (PARM) preceded by a person‘s adverse history, (c) influences from one or more parents, and (d) religious influences. These findings provide a foundation of information critical to those researchers and practitioners interested in the quest toward an increase in successful marriages among households whose income falls within 200% of the published guideline for poverty as determined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Beyond New Media: Discourse and Critique in a Polymediated Age examines a host of differing positions on media in order to explore how those positions can inform one another and build a basis for future engagements with media theory, research, and practice. Herbig, Herrmann, and Tyma have brought together a number of media scholars with differing paradigmatic backgrounds to debate the relative applicability of existing theories and in doing so develop a new approach: polymediation. Each contributor’s disciplinary background is diverse, spanning interpersonal communication, media studies, organizational communication, instructional design, rhetoric, mass communication, gender studies, popular culture studies, informatics, and persuasion. Although each of these scholars brings with them a unique perspective on media’s role in people’s lives, what binds them together is the belief that meaningful discourse about media must be an ongoing conversation that is open to critique and revision in a rapidly changing mediated culture. By studying media in a polymediated way, Beyond New Media addresses more completely our complex relationship to media(tion) in our everyday lives. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1132/thumbnail.jpg

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