Electronic Thesis or Dissertation

For decades, educational leadership researchers have focused on school leadership behaviors, competencies, and skills that impact student outcomes measured by the students’ performance on standardized tests. This practice has narrowed the focus for how the field approaches teaching and learning and the evaluation models that measure school, teacher, leader, and student academic performance. To examine leadership and teaching and learning that support the development of the whole child and not just their performance on exams, this quantitative study set out to examine: Is there a relationship between a school leadership teams’ prioritization of SEL, their instructional management practice, and the teachers’ use of SEL pedagogy in the classroom?
To examine the research question, a set of five sub-research questions were developed to organize and guide this work. Interest to participate in this study was gained by aligning the research to the district’s strategic plan. The sample included 107 teacher participants drawn from five participant public elementary schools in a large diverse urban school district. Data applied in the analysis were collected through the application of three instruments. Two of the instruments were developed and pilot tested as part of this research.
The results of this research indicate that despite the ample evidence that shows instructional management having a positive impact on student learning, its effect on the pedagogies examined that support the development of social and emotional competence was limited. The greatest contribution of this study was the development of a valid and reliable tool to evaluate ten social and emotional learning teacher/pedagogical practices.

Coastal development shifts natural hydrology through water redirection, increased impervious surfaces, and increased connectivity to the coastal ocean through inlets. In Southeast Florida, watershed alterations can cause flash-freshening in nearshore coastal habitats, threatening coral reef ecosystems. This study assessed the hyposalinity tolerance threshold of two prominent scleractinian corals in Southeast Florida. In a series of experiments, we determined that Montastraea cavernosa corals have an LC50 of 19 PSU but can survive for at least 21 days at an intermediately stressful salinity of 25 PSU. Porites astreoides corals demonstrated an LC50 of 19 PSU, but experienced mortality when exposed to 25 PSU for 17–18 days. Prior to mortality, corals displayed decreased polyp activity, altered coloration, and decreased tissue integrity. These data suggest that lower-volume, longer-duration releases of freshwater from reservoirs may preserve coral health in Southeast Florida.

College students with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) are afforded many educational opportunities through Inclusive Post-Secondary Education (IPSE) programs, including employment training. Competitive employment can contribute a rich independent life, thus more employment training opportunities can be beneficial. Low employment rates for adults with ID have motivated these efforts to develop proper employment training. In the past, on-the-job (OTJ) training with a job coach was one of the only supports for adults with ID in the workplace. Now, there are a variety of evidence-based strategies that can be used in the workplace or in other community settings, such as Covert Audio Coaching (CAC), to teach adults with ID the skills they need to maintain a job.
This study used a multiple probe design to examine the effects of CAC on teaching workplace communication skills to college students with ID in a real-world setting. In this study, students interned in an office setting and spoke to a co-worker at their work setting while the interventionist used a two-way radio system to provide coaching statements to the student during their conversations. All students in this study increased their on-topic communication exchanges, and these results demonstrate that CAC is an effective intervention for this population.

Sea level rise threatens loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nests laid close to the high tide line (HTL) with inundation from washover. Boca Raton, Florida is a relatively steep, dynamic beach with changes in beach morphology even during nonactive hurricane seasons. One potential solution to conserve sea turtle nests is to relocate nests laid at or below the HTL closer to the dune. In this study, I examined reproductive success for in situ vs relocated nests. Relocation did not decrease reproductive success, while nests left near the HTL were at risk of washout. During a dry season, nests that experienced one to three days of washover had significantly higher reproductive success than nests that experienced no washover. Relocation can be a useful method to preserve nests against sea level rise, but nonrelocated nests near the HTL may sometimes benefit from washover to cool the nests during hot and dry years.

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the lived experience of families who donated their neonate’s organs at the end of life. The experiences of five mothers and one father were elicited from those who experienced this phenomenon. Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology served as the methodology as well as the guiding philosophy for this research study. Watson’s theory of Unitary Caring Science and the Caritas Processed provided the caring lens through which the research was completed. Deikelmann’s seven stage process for analysis was employed and through which four relative themes emerged: Enhancing the Fullness of the Baby, Celebrating the Ongoing Presencing of the Baby Within the Family, Ameliorating Grief through the Hope of Donation, and Being Embraced Within a Healing Environment. The four relational themes are represented with an aesthetic interpretation of the experience.

I Would Rather Talk About Persimmons aims to understand the roots of trauma, addiction, and lineage. A discovery of what it means to be half American, half Albanian. A discovery of loving the people in our lives no matter how imperfect, no matter how painful no matter the sacrifice. The work seeks to understand the existence of joy and pain in the ways they work together and by doing so we see that emotions of the human experience are not linear, rather chaotic.

In 1935, as the first cinematic horror sequel in Hollywood, James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein helped ignite a new spark in cinema. Woman-gendered monsters, for the first time in cinema, were alive, in the flesh, and projected to massive proportions onto thousands of screens. While this was taking place on screen, women authors of the era of American literary modernism were producing works in which characters discussed, considered, and narrated their experience with monstrosity and their experience with seeing themselves as monstrous in their own respective contexts. Zelda Fitzgerald, the infamously “mad” wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, published works in which her narrator experiences feeling “monstrous” and “sick.” Zora Neale Hurston, working in fields of anthropology, literature, and playwriting, integrated monstrous references (like the increasingly popular Haitian Zombie) to represent historical, political, racial and gendered oppressions of the time. Djuna Barnes, known for her theatrical columns in The New Yorker, in which she underwent physical pain and extreme conditions for her work, published Nightwood which is now celebrated as one of the first major works of queer literature. In it, characters consider their own monstrosity in the context of gender and sexuality.
In this study, I pair three of the era’s films featuring monstrous women (Bride of Frankenstein, White Zombie, and Dracula’s Daughter) with readings of major works by Zelda Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, and Djuna Barnes, while also considering these writers’ representation in press and publication in the 1930s United States. I use this to trace what I am identifying as the emergence of a trend of monstrous womanhood at this time, in which women characters emerged who refer to themselves as monstrous and whose existence and surroundings (social, material, and language-based) provide critique of the time’s conception of identity (gender-based, ability-based, race-based, and sexuality-based in particular). I root this discussion in the modern era in order to highlight ways that this trend of monstrous womanhood was born out of 1930s America’s particular cultural moment of intersection of mass-produced literature and film, especially as popular films and horror sequels amplified their existence for widespread audiences.

My study, presented as a short report, focuses on one of the Chlorocebus sabaeus vervet social groups residing in the coastal town of Dania Beach, Florida. Few researchers have studied these introduced primates in this particular region. Due to Chlorocebus’ flexible adaptation, they have an ability to live among humans in urban environments and in the Caribbean. Primate researchers primarily study factors that support and threaten their survival. Dr. Missy Williams, formerly of Florida Atlantic University, has conducted research on these social groups for several years, and my study adds more information to understanding the current status of the vervet population. In this study, I examine if birth seasonality correlates with annual rainfall in the South Florida region.

This thesis analyzed the effects of speaking style, either read or spontaneous speech, on vowel spaces and long-term formant distributions (LTFD), alongside other sociolinguistic effects (sex and age). The results indicated that formant frequencies were indeed modulated by speaking style, with vowel spaces showing centralization during spontaneous speech compared to read speech. LTFD showed an increase in frequency during spontaneous speech over read speech, particularly in the third long-term formant (LTF3). Sex and age were both significant factors for both vowel space and LTFD, with males and older speakers producing lower frequencies. The examination of the effect of speech style, sex and age on vowel space and LTFD allows us to better understand the factors that play a role in speech production.

Digital transformation is rapidly changing the healthcare industry, and artificial intelligence (AI) is a critical component in this evolution. This thesis investigates three selected challenges that might delay the adoption of AI in healthcare and proposes ways to address them successfully. Challenge #1 states that healthcare professionals may not feel sufficiently knowledgeable about AI. This is addressed by Contribution #1 which is a guide for self-actualization in AI for healthcare professionals. Challenge #2 explores the concept of transdisciplinary teams needing a work protocol to deliver successful results. This is addressed by Contribution #2 which is a step-by-step protocol for medical and AI researchers working on data-intensive projects. Challenge #3 states that the NIH All of Us Research Hub has a steep learning curve, and this is addressed by Contribution #3 which is a pilot project involving transdisciplinary teams using All of Us datasets.