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For healthcare agencies and other professionals to most efficiently provide aid following large scale community tragedies, agencies and professionals must understand the determinants that lead individuals to require and seek various forms of help. This study examined Andersen's Behavioral Model of Healthcare Use and its utility in predicting service use in a population of students at Virginia Tech following the shootings on April 16, 2007. Data were gathered from surveys given to students at Virginia Tech three months following the shootings and at a one year follow-up. Logistic regression was used to determine variables that predicted service use. Female gender, prior exposure to traumatic events, higher pre-event functioning, higher social support, higher levels of posttraumatic stress and higher psychological distress were found to be predictive of higher probability of service use. Exploratory hypotheses related to the prediction of outcomes as well as service use as a mediator between predictors and outcomes were also examined. Implications for the use of Andersen's model in predicting service use and equitable and efficient distribution of services are discussed. / Ph. D.

When students perceive their surroundings as being safe and comfortable, they can concentrate on higher order tasks such as learning (Bowen et al., 1998); a perception of safety is a "basic requirement" for academic success (Hernandez, Floden, and Bosworth, 2010). The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify building features that affect the safety perceptions of high school students and teachers, from one school district in rural Virginia. The study employed aspects of the methodology used by Biag (2014) in the study 'Perceived School Safety: Visual Narratives from the Middle Grades'. Comparisons were drawn between the areas and characteristics that influence the safety perceptions of students and teachers. This study was conducted in one high school (N=14) in rural Virginia. All findings and suggestions were shared with the school and district participating in order to assist with future improvements in their safety practices. Results show windows, lighting and accessibility to be among the most common items influencing perceptions of safety. Items such as cameras and proximity to administration were discussed the least for their influence. / Ed. D. / When students feel as though their surroundings are safe and comfortable, they can concentrate on learning (Bowen et al., 1998); a sense of safety is a “basic requirement” for academic success (Hernandez, Floden, & Bosworth, 2010). The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify building features that affect the safety perceptions of high school students and teachers, from one school district in rural Virginia. The study was inspired by Biag’s (2014) study ‘Perceived School Safety: Visual Narratives from the Middle Grades’. The current study sought the opinions of students and teachers from one high school (N=14) in Rural Virginia. Comparisons were drawn between the areas and characteristics that shape the safety perceptions of students and teachers. All findings and suggestions were shared with the school and district participating in order to assist with future improvements in their safety practices. Results show windows, lighting and accessibility to be among the most common items influencing perceptions of safety. Items such as cameras and proximity to administration were discussed the least.

The negative impacts of mass shootings on mental health have been documented within the general trauma literature. Substantial research has also shown the Asian population to be a minority group especially vulnerable to negative psychological outcomes following trauma and stress. Acculturation has been studied extensively as a predictor of psychological outcomes in several minority groups. Furthermore, parental overprotection has also been found to have a negative impact on mental health. The relationship between acculturation and parental overprotection and psychological outcomes following mass shootings in the Asian population, however, has not been studied adequately. The purpose of this study was to examine exposure, acculturation, and parental overprotection as predictors of negative mental health outcomes, and as moderators of the relationship between exposure to trauma and negative outcomes. Results indicate that overprotection predicted higher levels of both posttraumatic stress and anxiety-mood symptoms. Exposure predicted posttraumatic stress but not anxiety-mood symptoms. Acculturation was not found to significantly predict either outcome. Overprotection was found to moderate the relationship between exposure and anxiety-mood symptoms. Implications of these findings are discussed. / Master of Science

published_or_final_version / Criminology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

This work of creative nonfiction is a hybrid of memoir, essay, cultural critique, and, to a lesser extent, literary journalism. The central autobiographical thread is my brother's shocking and violent murder at the hands of law enforcement, its handling by the media and subsequent trip through the American criminal justice system, and the spiraling effect of such trauma on family and friends. However, the text goes beyond a personal account of loss to illuminate the intersection between the personal and the universal: the way that the individual political subject embodies our cultural and systemic atmosphere of grief, alienation, confusion, powerlessness, violence, and corruption. This examination also necessarily raises questions about the social and personal consequences of individual and systemic decisions, as well as the role of rhetoric in attempts to justify such decisions and discourage activism. / Department of English

Mass shootings, whether on a smaller scale or a large scale, take place frequently (LaFraniere, Cohen, & Oppel, 2015). Yet the media only covers a small fraction of crime events, and those selected often gather large amounts of attention. This is problematic because by only focusing on the only most extreme and newsworthy cases, the media distorts the general public's understanding of crime in the United States, and a person's actual likelihood of victimization (Schildkraut & Elsass, 2016). The purpose of the proposed study is to investigate in a nationally represented sample how individuals’ causal attributions for a school shooting with an Asian shooter, as well as whether media influence moderate their attitudes toward the shooter. Participants will be subjected to one of two media conditions, editorial type news or straight news, regarding a shooting and then will answer casual attribution questions and perceptions of the shooter. Participants who judge in-group members as the shooter are predicted to more likely to attribute the crime to external than individuals who judge out-group members. Also, it is predicted that individuals who judge out-group members as a shooter will not be more likely to attribute the crime to internal factors than individuals who judge in-group members. Lastly, it is predicted that editorial type news will influence individuals to attribute the shooting more to both external and internal factors than straight news would. This study may add important information on how media should be portrayed, and further explore attributions that are made against shooters. Implications for future research are also discussed.

The shootings and killings across the country of unarmed African American males by police officers, has become a topic of discussion. Previous research indicates that African American males, in comparison to other groups, are more likely to have adverse encounters with law enforcement officials. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of African American males in Prince Georges' County regarding encounters with the Prince Georges' County Police Department and how the relationship can improve. Max Weber's social action theory was used to examine perception and purposive sampling aided in gathering this information from a group of 10 African American male participants. Interviews were transcribed and then coded and analyzed using a modified Van Kaam procedure. Findings suggest most participants believe Prince Georges County police are doing a good job. The participants also noted specific strategies, including better utilization of seminars, meetings, and other collaborative efforts may improve police-community interactions and relations. The implications for positive social change include recommendations to law enforcement executives in the Prince Georges' County Police Department to utilize the insight gained through this study to better understand how they are perceived by the African American males in the county and strengthen outreach and collaboration efforts. Following these recommendations may improve the nature of police-community relations thereby advancing public safety within the county and with the African American community in particular.

Even though public mass shootings are relatively rare, they represent an atypical form of violence that is both sudden and yields an unprecedented amount of carnage; for these reasons, an inordinate amount of scholarship has been produced in order to isolate both the causes and effects of these rampages. As there is no clear cut and universal cause, over the past forty years numerous factors have been offered to account for these types of shootings, including bullying, peer relations, family problems, cultural conflict, demographic change, mental illness, gun culture, copycatting, and the media. While there appears to be an element of truth in each of these perspectives, all of these isolated factors focus upon only one or two surface-level influences, thus ignoring the possibility that multiple and distinct causes are interacting with one another. The aim of this study is to construct a meaningful model of motivation that is common to each situation, is to build upon psycho-social theories of crime, and to highlight which combination of specific background factors and processes is necessary to produce these vicious massacres. To answer the underlying research question, "Why do certain individuals elect this specific line of action?" this thesis will first provide a review of the relevant literature, will then emphasize three key social and psychological predisposers that combine together to negatively influence the individuals involved, and will subsequently highlight five separate and unique case studies in order to examine the proposed model.

Thesis (M.A.) in Communication--University of Maine, 2004. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves134-146).