Browsing by Subject "Survey"
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Item A multi-modal approach to understanding Asian American political participation(2023-04-20) Lawrence, Cornelia Elizabeth; Shaw, Daron R., 1966-; Philpot, Tasha; Jessee, Stephen; Wong, JanelleThis project aims to enhance our understanding of political participation within the United States by more carefully and systematically examining political participation within the Asian American community. Previously, prominent theories of political participation have been created with Anglo-Americans in mind, resulting in incomplete or unsatisfactory applications to racial and ethnic minority groups. By updating our understanding of what participation looks like and by formulating a racially aware theory, I seek to improve upon these previous explanations of the participatory habits of voters. I first expand upon the Resource model offered by Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995), both by updating the conceptualization of the dependent variable, political participation, to reflect recent technological advances, and including key variables I believe that are missing from the original. My first empirical chapter compares the original Resource model to the updated model, I name the Unified Resource Model, via an Asian American survey sample. There I find strong support for my suggested changes, before speaking with members of the Asian American community via focus groups in my second empirical chapter. Finally, in my third empirical chapter, I retest the Unified Resource Model in a hybrid quantitative-qualitative online community. Throughout this study, generational status and nativity status are significant predictors of the numbers of acts one is likely to participate in politically, and while organizational involvement behaved similarly in 2016, qualitative research suggests that this may no longer be true. All three empirical chapters support the expanded conceptualization of political participation to include social media usage.Item Behaviors associated with caring teachers : student perspectives and classroom observations(2013-08) McDaniel, Krystal Thiam; Marshall, Jill AnnThe intent of this study was to determine what students perceive as caring behaviors in teachers, whether those views match teachers’ perceptions, whether these vary depending on students’ academic track, and whether teachers are observed to exhibit the behaviors identified by their students as indicative of caring. Eighty-two majority Hispanic high school students and eight teachers completed a four-section survey about caring behavior. These teachers and students were also observed four times in the classroom. The survey contained Likert scale and open-ended questions about teachers’ caring behaviors. It also probed how the students’ own teachers interacted with them daily in the classroom and their personal open-ended opinion about how teachers show that they care or do not care about them. Two groups were studied, specifically Advanced Placement (AP) and Regular students, to find out whether academic placement caused students’ to categorize caring behaviors of teachers differently. Results of the study indicated a significant difference in AP and Regular students’ attitudes about how teachers treat them. Teachers’ perceptions were also compared to students’ perception and differences were found. Differences included how often teachers interact in one-on-one conversations about certain issues with students, such as the need to complete homework assignments. Within these conversations some issues were reported to occur more frequently by teachers than students. On other issues, like disrupting class, there was agreement, but only for specific teachers and subjects. In addition, STEM and non-STEM classes were investigated and it was discovered that these students responded differently about the frequency with which their teachers had conversations with them about specific issues. Differences included disrupting class, not completing assignments, interests and things that are important to students, and plans for college and work. Observations made by this researcher further support the idea that there is similarity in how students define caring behaviors, but what behaviors they experience, like assisting in homework or listening to personal needs, is different. Although trends observed in this study are suggestive, more research is required to support the idea that academic placement and subject make a difference in students’ experiences of caring behaviors in teachers.Item Can technology be leveraged to improve child independent mobility?(2018-05-04) Maxfield, Colin Gregory; Julien, Christine, D. Sc.Spend enough time in a suburban community and you might notice the lack of children moving around freely as was once common. Child independent mobility (CIM) refers to that freedom of children to be away from constant direct adult supervision as they move about their own community. CIM has a positive impact on a child's physical, social, and emotional development and there seems to have been a considerable decline in its prevalence in communities today. We believe that technology can be developed to help increase CIM through both hardware and software solutions. This paper presents a survey that was done of parents about their thoughts and experience with their children and the amount of independence they have. The survey focuses on how their children get to school and their thoughts on how technology could be used to help increase independence.Item Empathy in Healthcare: A Case Study on the Importance of Empathy in Athletic Training Students(2020-05) Kernaghan, McKennaFor my Plan II Senior Thesis, I plan to research and analyze the role empathy plays in healthcare. I am interested in how a healthcare providers use of empathy as a tool for connecting and communication in their relationships with patients will impact overall health and a doctor’s relationship with the community through close reading and analysis. I plan to focus this research through a case study of the University of Texas’s athletic trainers, athletic training students, and their patients, i.e. the athletes. By analyzing athletic trainer’s self-rated empathy levels in interactions with their patients and students evaluated empathy levels from their preceptors, I will analyze the athletic training student’s beliefs on clinical empathy, how self-rated versus evaluated empathy relate, how empathetic interactions fair across years of experience, and how this all affects the athletes care. I hope to gain insight into the importance of empathy in the unique athletic trainer and patient relationship. Overall, I will dissect how providers use empathy when interacting with patients and how that influences a patient’s experience and path to health.Item An empirical study on software quality : developer perception of quality, metrics, and visualizations(2013-05) Wilson, Gary Lynn; Kim, MiryungSoftware tends to decline in quality over time, causing development and maintenance costs to rise. However, by measuring, tracking, and controlling quality during the lifetime of a software product, its technical debt can be held in check, reducing total cost of ownership. The measurement of quality faces challenges due to disagreement in the meaning of software quality, the inability to directly measure quality factors, and the lack of measurement practice in the software industry. This report addresses these challenges through both a literature survey, a metrics derivation process, and a survey of professional software developers. Definitions of software quality from the literature are presented and evaluated with responses from software professionals. A goal, question, metric process is used to derive quality-targeted metrics tracing back to a set of seven code-quality subgoals, while a survey to software professionals shows that despite agreement that metrics and metric visualizations would be useful for improving software quality, the techniques are underutilized in practice.Item Engineering identity and research identity : relationship between engineering graduate students’ identities and their career trajectory(2019-04-10) Choe, Hyung Sok; Borrego, Maura; Riegle-Crumb, Cathrine; Markey, Mia K; Seepersad, Carolyn CThe purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to the understanding of engineering graduate students’ engineering identity and research identity and of how these identities influence their career intentions. This quantitative research study involves the development of a survey instrument to examine the engineering identity and research identity of students. A total of 320 master’s and doctoral students from one large public research university within three disciplines completed the survey. This dissertation is composed of three studies. The focus of the first study is to understand whether engineering identity measurement frameworks studied for undergraduate students also apply to graduate students, how the frameworks correlate with intention to complete the degree, and what predicts the engineering identity of engineering master's and doctoral students. Factor analyses identified four factors that relate to graduate engineering identity: engineering interest, engineering recognition, engineering competence, and interpersonal skills competence. In the multiple regression models, student characteristics and the four factors predict 60% of the variance in engineering identity. All four factors were significant and positive predictors of graduate students’ engineering identities. The second study focus is to investigate differences between the engineering identity development of US and non-US graduate students by utilizing t-tests interaction factors in a linear regression model. A main finding is that most of the engineering graduate identity constructs investigated were significantly different between US and non-US students, including research interest/recognition, engineering recognition, math/science competence, engineering competence, and interpersonal skills competence. This second study also presents three significant interactions between engineering graduate identity constructs and citizenship status. In the third study, the purpose is to understand engineering graduate students’ intentions in industry, academia, and government careers as it relates to their graduate engineering identities by utilizing multiple linear regression, a cluster analysis, and multinomial logistic regression. Overall, higher research interest/recognition and math/science competence were related to a greater likelihood of pursuing academia or government, while higher engineering interest and recognition were related to a greater likelihood of pursuing industry. Cluster analysis yielded three career path profiles: prefer industry, prefer academia, and open to all career options. Few students were considering academic careers exclusivelyItem Essays on monetary economics and central banking(2011-08) Ikizler, Devrim; Stinchcombe, Maxwell; Corbae, Dean; Wiseman, Thomas E.; Kuruscu, Burhanettin; Almazan, AndresIn the first chapter, I analyze the US banking industry in order to explain two facts. First, larger banks have lower but less volatile returns on loans compared to smaller banks over the years. Second, larger borrowers have better financial records, i.e. verifiable "hard" information, and they are more likely to match with larger banks, as documented by Berger et al.(2005). I show that these two facts can be explained using a segmented loan markets model with loan contracts between banks and borrowers. Moreover, I show that the difference between the banks returns is not due to diversification advantage of larger banks. Instead, it is because of the fact that larger banks can operate in both large and small loan markets, whereas small banks can only operate in small loans market. Therefore large banks are able to match with larger and less risky borrowers more frequently, which are less likely to default. Moreover, I take the model to infinite horizon allowing bank size to be endogenous to answer multiple policy questions about the future of small business finance and consolidation. I use the data set from the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income provided by FDIC for 1984-2010 to motivate our research question and to estimate the model. My second chapter revisits the welfare cost of anticipated inflation in an incomplete markets environment where agents can substitute time for money by increasing their shopping frequency. Shopping activity provides an insurance channel to individuals against changes in the return on nominal balances through inflation as documented by Aguiar and Hurst (2007) and McKenzie and Schargrodsky (2011). In my model economy, a higher level of inflation affects people through two channels. First, it distorts the portfolio decision between real and nominal balances, second it redistributes wealth from those who hold more money to those who hold less. People, on average, respond to a higher level of inflation by increasing their price search activity, as they relative return on nominal balances goes down. I find that a 5 percent increase in inflation causes the welfare level go down by 2 percent if people are allowed to substitute time for money, and by 10 percent if we take this channel away from the model. Finally, in the third chapter, I compare the indirect measure of inflation expectations derived by Ireland (1996b) to the direct measures obtained from expectations surveys in multiple countries. Our results show that the inflation bounds calculated for US and UK data are more volatile than survey results, and are too narrow to contain them due to low standard errors in consumption growth series stemming from high persistence. For Chilean and Turkish cases, however, computed bound for inflation expectations seems to fit the survey results better. Out of three different surveys on inflation expectations in Turkey compared with the bounds computed using Turkish data, expectations obtained by the Consumer Tendency Survey fall within these bounds throughout the whole sample period. The success in the Turkish and Chilean cases can be attributed to the fact that volatility in the consumption series, whereas the failure in US and UK cases are most probably stemming from the fact that the current theoretical model is missing a risk-premium component.Item Evaluating brand perceptions, attitudes and usage of Airbnb with the uses and gratifications framework(2020-06-22) Northfelt, Peter; Sciarrino, JoAnnAirbnb and many technology platforms disrupt markets with superior customer functionality and reduced friction. However, as these technology platforms evolve from disruption to mainstream providers, it is imperative for them to also move from being perceived as a “facilitator” brand to a “gratifier” brand in order to retain and grow brand advocates and loyal consumers. This study applies the well-known uses and gratifications theoretical framework, coupled with qualitative research, to explore and understand consumer perceptions of Airbnb within the facilitation/gratification spectrum. This study revealed that consumers in the Gen-Z and college target market perceive Airbnb as a facilitator brand, but have clear aspirations for the brand as a gratifier. Airbnb may build on this study to evaluate and evolve marketing communications to demonstrate tangible gratifications of the brand more meaningfully to consumersItem Examining hookah use among U.S. college students(2014-08) Chen, Yen Tzu; Loukas, Alexandra; Pasch, KerynHookah smoking has become a popular form of tobacco use among college students. However, there is limited research exploring the risk factors associated with hookah use among this population. This study examined two risk factors, harm perceptions and beliefs about government evaluation of hookah, associated with current use of hookah among 18-24 year old college students, and looked at differences between current hookah users and non-users on cigarette smoking status, various demographic characteristics, and the two risk factors (harm perceptions and beliefs). Participants were 5,028 university students aged 18-24 (M age = 20.5 years; 59.6% female) from seven public universities within a larger university system. Students completed an online survey, which assessed their knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors related to hookah use. In this sample, 10.8% of participants reported current or past 30-day hookah use. There were differences between current hookah users and non-users on cigarette smoking status, gender, race/ethnicity, harm perceptions, as well as beliefs about government evaluation of hookah. Cigarette smokers, males, non-Hispanic White students, students reporting lower harm perceptions regarding hookah use, and those who believed the government evaluates hookah for safety were significantly more likely than their peers to be current hookah users. Results from a logistic regression analysis indicated that after controlling for cigarette smoking status, gender, and race/ethnicity, harm perceptions of hookah use, but not beliefs about government safety evaluation of hookah, was associated with an increased likelihood of current hookah use. Cigarette smoking was the strongest correlate of current hookah use; current cigarette smokers were seven times more likely than non-smokers to have used hookah in the past 30 days. Findings point to the necessity of educating college students, particularly cigarette smokers, about the dangers of hookah use. Additionally, tobacco prevention and cessation programs should be implemented in order to reduce initiation and continued use, and it is important to educate college student smokers about the dangers of dual use of this product with cigarettes.Item Faculty perceptions of online learning in engineering education(2015-05) Kinney, Lance Stephen; Liu, Min, Ed. D.; Hughes, Joan E; Marshall, Jill; Veletsianos, George; Thornton, MitchResearch indicates there is a gap in the implementation of online courses and programs in engineering education compared to other academic disciplines (Allen & Seaman, 2008, 2011, 2013). Using a mixed methods approach, this study collected both quantitative survey and qualitative interview data to identify which factors engineering faculty members perceived influence the implementation of online engineering courses. The survey items, based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Model (UTAUT) (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003), included important factors specific to engineering education as indicated the literature. The interview instrument was developed based on the significant results of the survey portion of the study. The initial survey was sent to every engineering faculty member at all 31 institutions and 125 ABET accredited engineering programs in the state of Texas, with a final response population of n=266. The findings identified three major factors that influenced the implementation of online engineering courses: online teaching experience, course development issues, and implementation of technical aspects particular to engineering in an online format. The results are discussed within the context of the literature and recommendations to address the identified factors and barriers to implementation of online engineering are provided.Item Investigating students’ learning strategies : usage, motives, and perceptions of effectiveness(2017-08) Alarcón, Cynthia; Schallert, Diane L.For many students, the first year of college presents a series of challenges because there is a gap between their high school experiences and college expectations. Students’ first college exam often serves as a critical turning point in their education: they realize that they must improve the way they study in order to meet the demands of college learning. Thus, the objectives of the present research were to understand how students learn outside the classroom, the reasoning driving their decision to use specific learning strategies, and the source of their preferred strategies. I conducted a large-scale survey that was administered to 5,810 students from 99 high schools in Texas. In an open-ended question, students selected a former class they had taken and described the way they studied and prepared for that class. Students’ strategy use was analyzed overall and also as a function of their demographic profile, parental education, and reasoning. Results from this survey suggest that students generally adopt similar strategies, regardless of their diverse backgrounds and parents’ level of education. The most commonly used strategies were rereading, help-seeking, and retrieval practice, whereas spacing, outlining, and summarizing were the least reported learning strategies. This research suggests that most students do not understand the conditions for learning that improve long-term retention of knowledge. Therefore, instructors should focus on promoting the use of effective learning techniques among all students.Item Law and Ethics: Controversial Advertisements Related to Body Image(2018-12-03) Joo, Minji; Alvarez, Mayling; Granic, Petra; Hammond, Tiffany; Abell, MartyOur creative project focuses on the body image controversies that exist in public relations and advertising. We looked into different controversial advertisements and gave the public the opportunity to voice their opinion to supplement our research into the meso level culture and normalities.Item May the best manipulator win : 2004 and 2010 Ukrainian presidential elections revisited(2014-05) Smith, Tony Lee; Moser, Robert G.Ukraine is currently in the throes of revolution. Will this popular uprising move Ukraine closer to the West and a democratic government or strengthen the country's ties to Putin and Russia? Viktor Yanukovich's second round victory in the 2004 presidential election was nullified by Ukraine's high court due to rampant electoral manipulation. Viktor Yushchenko, supported by hundreds of thousands of protesters in the 2004 Orange Revolution, became president and ushered in, what many hoped would be, a more democratic government. Infighting and competition among the Orange coalition soon rendered the Yushchenko government ineffective. Ukraine's progression towards democracy slowed and ties to Russia began to flourish once again when Yanukovich became Yushchenko's prime minister. In 2010, Yanukovich was elected president in another second round election against Yulia Tymoshenko that observers and academics deemed free and fair. Unfortunately, a new evaluation of both the 2004 and 2010 elections presents a much less encouraging view of Ukrainian politics. As shown in this paper, electoral manipulation was present in both the 2004 and 2010 elections. Additionally, both parties participated in manipulatory behavior in both elections. This finding challenges much of the academic literature to date on Ukrainian politics. In support of this finding of corruption by multiple candidates, a unique list experiment was administered to raion (county) level administrators in Ukraine. These administrators were asked about their views regarding electoral manipulation. The results of this experiment suggest that these administrators are still very influenced by and, arguably, willing to engage in electoral manipulation. The experiment shows that, at least at the raion level, Ukrainian governance has not become more democratic. Overall, the prognosis for democratization efforts in Ukraine is not good.Item Quality reporting, bonus payments and welfare in Medicare Advantage(2021-05-11) Charbi, Alexandra Nikolaos; Town, Robert J.; Ackerberg, Daniel; Miravete, Eugenio J; Cabral, Marika; Aizawa, NaokiWhen consumers are imperfectly informed about the quality of a product, market forces do not incentivize firms to provide the socially optimal level of quality. Imperfect information is a recognized and frequent market failure in the context of public health and has led to initiatives aimed at increasing consumers' access to information and at incentivizing firms to provide higher quality services. This study analyzes the welfare effects of quality disclosure and quality subsidies on the Medicare Advantage (MA) market. MA is a subsidized program that provides health insurance to the elderly and disabled population in the U.S. as an alternative to Traditional Medicare. The study begins by introducing the institutional background of the market that provides a unique setup to analyze. On the demand side, consumers receive information on the quality of health insurance plans through a Star Rating System (SRS). On the supply side, higher-rated insurers receive a quality-linked subsidy through a Quality Bonus Program (QBP). The second chapter provides evidence that consumers do not respond to the information they receive. The question then arises, ``Why is this happening?'' Is is because consumers are not aware of the SRS? Is it because consumers do not value the information they receive through the SRS? Or, is it because consumers do not care about the dimension of quality the SRS is informing them on? At the same time, star ratings increase over time. Simple density distribution graphs suggest that this increase is motivated by the financial incentives that QBP provides insurers with. Those two observations raise the question of what the relative impacts of the two policies together are on welfare. The third chapter describes a survey I designed and conducted to answer the first set of questions regarding the demand side of the market-Do consumer know about the SRS? Do consumers value the information they receive? Do consumers about the dimension of quality the star ratings are informing them on?-Surveying Medicare-eligible individuals, I find that 80% of the population is unaware of the SRS. In the survey, I also conduct a conjoint analysis to elicit preferences for star ratings. I find that respondents who reported they were aware of the SRS place a monthly value of $25 on an extra star rating; slightly more than the ones who reported they were unaware. The fourth chapter presents a structural equilibrium model of supply and demand that separately identifies and quantifies the relative impacts of each policy on welfare. The model also incorporates the survey results by flexibly allowing for different consumer types: those who are unaware and those who do not care about the SRS. I combine the survey stated preference with revealed preference choice data and estimate a Bayesian learning discrete choice model. On the supply side, insurers endogenously choose price and quality. My analysis shows that although both the SRS and the QBP lead to higher quality, welfare improvement is very small compared to the incurred costs. In particular, 75% of the expenditures spent on the QBP is not rationalized by any welfare improvement. The final chapter concludes and states potential paths for future research.Item Sleep-wake characteristics of children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) : a survey study(2012-12) Chiang, Chia-Jung; Schaller, James L., active 2013; Carter, Patricia A; Lopez, Martitia A; O'Reilly, Mark F; Rieth, Herbert JA higher prevalence of sleep problems and a few specific sleep-wake characteristics have been preliminarily found to be associated with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). However, there is limited research that has examined multiple variables associated with sleep-wake characteristics and problems of children with PDD. This dissertation study assessed and examined the sleep-wake characteristics, sleep problems, and daytime problem behaviors of children with PDD aged three to fifteen years, and their caregivers’ sleep as well as contextual variables using data from the primary caregivers’ reports and recordings. This study confirmed several findings in the literature related to sleep-wake characteristics and sleep problems in children with both PDD and sleep problems. Although the relationship between sleep and daytime problem behaviors of the children was not found to be statistically correlated, the descriptive data indicated that some conditions such as illness or anxiety of the children negatively impacted their sleep and behaviors. In addition, the children participants with PDD and sleep problems tended to watch TV or to use computer/play video games before bedtime, in comparison to those with PDD but without sleep problems in this study. Moreover, a significant correlation between sleep of the caregivers and of their children was found in the group of children with PDD and sleep problems, but not in the other group of children with PDD but without sleep problems. Lastly, the results of this study showed that the children with diagnoses of PDD were 3.84 times more likely to have sleep problems than those with diagnoses of Asperger’s Disorder (AD) or PDD not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). These findings are discussed in light of the similarities and differences between the current study and previous literature, and with respect to the implications for practice and research in the field of PDD and sleep.Item Special education teachers’ perceptions of substance abuse issues and related classroom pedagogy : a national survey(2010-12) Ndande, Mary Wanjiku; Vaughn, Sharon, 1952-; Velasquez, Mary; Bryant, Diane; Rieth, Herb; Svinicki, MarillaThis study employed a survey design. 5,000 special education teachers were sampled across the nation to determine their perceptions of knowledge of substance abuse, and instructional and behavioral management skills to address students with disabilities who are abusing substances. The following research questions were addressed: (a) What are special education teachers’ perceptions of substance abuse intake among their students; (b) What are special education teachers’ perceptions of their knowledge of different substance abuse areas; (c) What are special education teachers’ perceptions of their classroom knowledge in addressing instructional and behavioral management issues of special education students abusing substances; (d) Are there differences in the teachers’ perceptions of their substance abuse knowledge and related classroom pedagogy skills across: (i) school levels kindergarten/elementary, middle, high school), (ii) school locations (rural, urban, suburban), and (iii) teacher disability assignment (as determined by their students’ primary disability). Descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) repeated measures, and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the data. The results revealed that although special educators perceive their students abuse substances, they think it is only by a small percentage of students. Significant differences were noted in the teachers’ perception of knowledge in the six substance abuse areas assessed. Significant differences of the teachers’ perceptions of knowledge were also noted across school locations and teacher disability assignments. Future studies should focus on conducting more extensive research in this limited area of study.Item Survey analysis for evacuee preferences on real-time traffic monitoring systems in Texas(2023-04-20) Jiang, Kangni; Boyles, Stephen David, 1982-Relocating large populations from at-risk locations to safe areas using existing road networks in a timely manner is a challenge faced by many transportation agencies in regions exposed to hurricanes. Residents may react disparately to evacuation orders based on their past experiences and the information that they receive. Real-time traffic monitoring devices may assist with evacuations by alerting operators to traffic congestion or roadway incidents such as disabled vehicles, which may block evacuation routes and impact the safety and efficiency of the evacuation event. Evacuees may rely on real-time traffic information to make evacuation decisions and select their routes and destinations. To better understand their perceptions and usage of traffic monitoring devices during past hurricane evacuations, an online survey was distributed via email and social media, targeting Texas residents who were exposed to previous hurricane events in the state. Survey questions were designed to learn about the demographics of evacuees, common issues encountered during past Texas hurricane evacuations, the usage of traffic monitoring devices, and suggestions for traffic monitoring system improvements. A total of 1,398 valid responses were received, and the results indicate that certain demographic groups may be more likely to evacuate compared to other groups. The results also suggest that improved traffic data quality and accessibility may increase the likelihood for residents to evacuate and improve evacuation efficiency.Item A survey on using side information in recommendation systems(2012-05) Gunasekar, Suriya; Ghosh, Joydeep; Sanghavi, SujayThis report presents a survey of the state-of-the-art methods for building recommendation systems. The report mainly concentrates on systems that use the available side information in addition to a fraction of known affinity values such as ratings. Such data is referred to as Dyadic Data with Covariates (DyadC). The sources of side information being considered includes user/item entity attributes, temporal information and social network attributes. Further, two new models for recommendation systems that make use of the available side information within the collaborative filtering (CF) framework, are proposed. Review Quality Aware Collaborative Filtering, uses external side information, especially review text to evaluate the quality of available ratings. These quality scores are then incorporated into probabilistic matrix factorization (PMF) to develop a weighted PMF model for recommendation. The second model, Mixed Membership Bayesian Affinity Estimation (MMBAE), is based on the paradigm of Simultaneous Decomposition and Prediction (SDaP). This model simultaneously learns mixed membership cluster assignments for users and items along with a predictive model for rating prediction within each co-cluster. Experimental evaluation on benchmark datasets are provided for these two models.Item Surveying the communication needs of adolescents and young adults with autism : implications for transition planning(2013-05) Wolf, Brittney; Davis, Barbara L. (Barbara Lockett)Research has shown that the majority of young adults with autism achieve poor-fair outcomes. It is known that communication deficits in individuals with autism may persist throughout the lifespan. However, there is a paucity of information in the literature pertaining to the communication needs of adolescents and young adults with autism. To meet the complex needs of these individuals, transition plans and programs must be improved. One way in which transition programs can be improved is by incorporating evidence based assessment and intervention methods designed for this population that target communication skills. Caregivers (n=68) of adolescents and young adults with autism anonymously completed a survey pertaining to outcomes, goals, and communication skills. Outcomes for the young adults were mostly poor and communication skill performance was variable. Results revealed that overall, caregivers perceived some communication skills to be more important than others. Caregivers rated the importance of communication skills differently depending on the social goals of the individual with autism. Results achieved significance for the relationship between developmental language level and the perceived importance of certain communication skills. Findings demonstrate that specific communication skills should be assessed and targeted during transitional planning for individuals with autism.Item The impact of makerspaces on self-efficacy and belonging(2023-09-10) Andrews, Madison Elise; Borrego, Maura; Crawford, RichardIn recent years, makerspaces have become increasingly common features of undergraduate engineering programs. These spaces give students and instructors access to rapid prototyping technology and facilitate the incorporation of a wide variety of design projects into the engineering curriculum. Here, I explore how the use of a university makerspace in course projects impacts students’ attitudes towards design, engineering and technology. In partnership with a makerspace at a large, public institution in the southwest, I surveyed undergraduate students in 8 unique courses. Each course incorporated a makerspace-based project, but courses varied by student year, department, subject matter, and project complexity. Each student completed a survey at the beginning and end of the semester, before and after completing a course project in the makerspace. Responses were matched by student IDs and linked to university records, resulting in an analytical sample size of n=213 students who completed both surveys. Eighteen paired t-tests were used to analyze whether and how these factors changed within individual students over the course of one semester, nine on a sample of students who did visit the makerspace and nine on a control group who did not. Analyses revealed that students who visited the makerspace as a part of a course assignment showed significant gains in measures of innovation orientation, design self-efficacy, innovation self-efficacy, technology self-efficacy, belonging to the makerspace and belonging to the engineering community. The control group, who did not visit, showed significant gains in only technology self-efficacy. Subsequently, repeated measures analyses of variance on the sample of students who visited the makerspace revealed significant main effects of student classification, gender, and race, as well as interactional effects of both student classification and race with time.