Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 35
Description
The Paradise Valley Family Resource Center (PVFRC) is a not for profit, community based organization funded by First Things First and a part of the Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) in Phoenix, Arizona. The mission of this organization is to connect and strengthen families with children from birth to five years old in the Phoenix valley. The PVFRC longed to be more cognizant of what the needs of the community they serve are, and how they, as an organization, can administer programs of value to the community. Hence, the PVFRC entered a partnership with the Community Action Research Experiences (CARE) program at Arizona State University to develop a research proposal to improve their effectiveness and efficiency at achieving their mission. The purpose of this research project was to identify and evaluate the needs of the families with children ages birth to five within the community, to improve upon existing programs and services or to implement new programs, and to discover more effective modes of awareness and advertisement to the community about the programs and services the PVFRC provides. The main research questions of the experiment included asking participants about what programs and services they need, wish, or want to exist at the PVFRC, what barriers or gaps they see or experience regarding attending the PVFRC, how did participants learn about the PVFRC, and what are the best ways to contact families in their community. The methods of the research included conducting focus group interviews with families who utilize the programs and services at the PVFRC and with early childhood professionals in the Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD), which included social workers and preschool teachers. A total of 25 participants were interviewed (10 families, 6 social workers, and 9 preschool teachers) and responses from the interviews were coded by the researcher. The results of the research was that the PVFRC is meeting many needs and current families are satisfied, participants desire some changes to current programs and services, and the best modes of advertisement and awareness were "word of mouth" and the internet. It was recommended that in order to better achieve their mission, it is advised that the PVFRC make appropriate changes to programs and services as suggested by the participants, connect with mom's or parents groups in the community, collaborate with preschool teachers on the front line, and increase their online presence through the use of social media and their website.
ContributorsHoran, Mary Jensen (Author) / Foster, Stacie (Thesis director) / Brougham, Jennifer (Committee member) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / School for the Science of Health Care Delivery (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Volunteer motivation and satisfaction were assessed at Project CURE, a nonprofit that collects, sorts, tests, and ships donated medical supplies and equipment to healthcare facilities in developing countries. This research was the result of a yearlong partnership between the Community Action Research Experiences (CARE) program and Project CURE. Volunteers at Project CURE were surveyed (N=147) after completing a volunteer session to assess their motivation for volunteering, satisfaction with their experience, and any recommendations they had for improving the volunteer program. Five categories of motivating factors were assessed and it was found that the Values and Understanding categories were the strongest motivating factors. Overall, volunteers rated their experience highly, but the results indicated a number of small changes that Project CURE could make to better meet volunteers' needs, and better communicate the impact of volunteers' work, which could pave the way to increases in the numbers of volunteer hours Project CURE receives and increased quality of volunteer work.
ContributorsStepanek, Rachel (Author) / Reesing, Amy (Thesis director) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The purpose of this study was to create an evaluation plan for the Preventing Abusive Conduct (PAC/Peace) program, within the community-based organization Chrysalis. PAC/Peace is a program that provides treatment for domestic abuse offenders through psycho-educational counseling groups. This study analyzed evaluation methods used by similar programs to determine which methods were successful, as well as what criteria were used to evaluate these programs. A literature review was conducted on similar studies to find which measures should be used to determine whether a treatment program met the desired goals for its participants. The literature review, along with interviews with Chrysalis staff were used as resources to create a cost-effective evaluation plan for Chrysalis to measure the effectiveness of their offender treatment program. The results indicated a two part evaluation plan would be the most beneficial for Chrysalis at this time. The first part consists of official reports of recidivism collected at one year, and three years post-graduation from the program. The second is utilization of The Revised Conflict Tactics Scale as an offender self-reporting measure, administered at program intake and exit, as well as one year post-graduation. When implemented, the results of this evaluation will give Chrysalis insight to which aspects of the treatment are working, and which aspects might be improved upon. The results acquired from the evaluation may also help PAC/Peace to become an evidence-based program.
ContributorsScouras, Natasha Elexa (Author) / Low, Sabina (Thesis director) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The Community Action Research Experiences (CARE) Program collaborated with a local non-profit organization called Arizona Facts of Life to design a program evaluation for their Youth Leadership Development Training Program, FACTS Curriculum. The purpose of this study was to identify targeted program outcomes, design an assessment to address these outcomes, and recommend possible evaluation designs. Arizona Facts of Life will implement the assessment using one of the recommended evaluation designs, and use the results to measure their Youth Leadership Development Training Program's outcomes and demonstrate efficacy.
ContributorsVan Vianen, Olivia Leigh (Author) / Updegraff, Kimberly (Thesis director) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Research on human grasp typically involves the grasp of objects designed for the study of fingertip forces. Instrumented objects for such studies have often been designed for the simulation of functional tasks, such as feeding oneself, or for rigidity such that the objects do not deform when grasped. The goal of this thesis was to design a collapsible, instrumented object to study grasp of breakable objects. Such an object would enable experiments on human grip responses to unexpected finger-object events as well as anticipatory mechanisms once object fragility has been observed. The collapsible object was designed to be modular to allow for properties such as friction and breaking force to be altered. The instrumented object could be used to study both human and artificial grasp.
ContributorsTorrez, Troy (Author) / Santos, Veronica (Thesis director) / Santello, Marco (Committee member) / Artemiadis, Panagiotis (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2012-05
Description
There is a serious need for early childhood intervention practices for children who are living at or below the poverty line. Since 1965 Head Start has provided a federally funded, free preschool program for children in this population. The City of Phoenix Head Start program consists of nine delegate agencies, seven of which reside in school districts. These agencies are currently not conducting local longitudinal evaluations of their preschool graduates. The purpose of this study was to recommend initial steps the City of Phoenix grantee and the delegate agencies can take to begin a longitudinal evaluation process of their Head Start programs. Seven City of Phoenix Head Start agency directors were interviewed. These interviews provided information about the attitudes of the directors when considering longitudinal evaluations and how Head Start already evaluates their programs through internal assessments. The researcher also took notes on the Third Grade Follow-Up to the Head Start Executive Summary in order to make recommendations to the City of Phoenix Head Start programs about the best practices for longitudinal student evaluations.
ContributorsArmfield, Jessica Ann (Author) / Duggan, Mary Anne (Thesis director) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The generation of walking motion is one of the most vital functions of the human body because it allows us to be mobile in our environment. Unfortunately, numerous individuals suffer from gait impairment as a result of debilitating conditions like stroke, resulting in a serious loss of mobility. Our understanding of human gait is limited by the amount of research we conduct in relation to human walking mechanisms and their characteristics. In order to better understand these characteristics and the systems involved in the generation of human gait, it is necessary to increase the depth and range of research pertaining to walking motion. Specifically, there has been a lack of investigation into a particular area of human gait research that could potentially yield interesting conclusions about gait rehabilitation, which is the effect of surface stiffness on human gait. In order to investigate this idea, a number of studies have been conducted using experimental devices that focus on changing surface stiffness; however, these systems lack certain functionality that would be useful in an experimental scenario. To solve this problem and to investigate the effect of surface stiffness further, a system has been developed called the Variable Stiffness Treadmill system (VST). This treadmill system is a unique investigative tool that allows for the active control of surface stiffness. What is novel about this system is its ability to change the stiffness of the surface quickly, accurately, during the gait cycle, and throughout a large range of possible stiffness values. This type of functionality in an experimental system has never been implemented and constitutes a tremendous opportunity for valuable gait research in regard to the influence of surface stiffness. In this work, the design, development, and implementation of the Variable Stiffness Treadmill system is presented and discussed along with preliminary experimentation. The results from characterization testing demonstrate highly accurate stiffness control and excellent response characteristics for specific configurations. Initial indications from human experimental trials in relation to quantifiable effects from surface stiffness variation using the Variable Stiffness Treadmill system are encouraging.
ContributorsBarkan, Andrew Robert (Author) / Artemiadis, Panagiotis (Thesis director) / Santello, Marco (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Most daily living tasks consist of pairing a series of sequential movements, e.g., reaching to a cup, grabbing the cup, lifting and returning the cup to your mouth. The process by which we control and mediate the smooth progression of these tasks is not well understood. One method which we can use to further evaluate these motions is known as Startle Evoked Movements (SEM). SEM is an established technique to probe the motor learning and planning processes by detecting muscle activation of the sternocleidomastoid muscles of the neck prior to 120ms after a startling stimulus is presented. If activation of these muscles was detected following a stimulus in the 120ms window, the movement is classified as Startle+ whereas if no sternocleidomastoid activation is detected after a stimulus in the allotted time the movement is considered Startle-. For a movement to be considered SEM, the activation of movements for Startle+ trials must be faster than the activation of Startle- trials. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect that expertise has on sequential movements as well as determining if startle can distinguish when the consolidation of actions, known as chunking, has occurred. We hypothesized that SEM could distinguish words that were solidified or chunked. Specifically, SEM would be present when expert typists were asked to type a common word but not during uncommon letter combinations. The results from this study indicated that the only word that was susceptible to SEM, where Startle+ trials were initiated faster than Startle-, was an uncommon task "HET" while the common words "AND" and "THE" were not. Additionally, the evaluation of the differences between each keystroke for common and uncommon words showed that Startle was unable to distinguish differences in motor chunking between Startle+ and Startle- trials. Explanations into why these results were observed could be related to hand dominance in expert typists. No proper research has been conducted to evaluate the susceptibility of the non-dominant hand's fingers to SEM, and the results of future studies into this as well as the results from this study can impact our understanding of sequential movements.
ContributorsMieth, Justin Richard (Author) / Honeycutt, Claire (Thesis director) / Santello, Marco (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Conducted in collaboration with the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, this project was a pilot survey of representatives at sexual violence organizations in Arizona and a best practices review of sexual violence organizations. It was carried out with the purpose of enhancing ACESDV's knowledge about sexual violence organizations so that the coalition will be able to offer informed and individualized support to these organizations in Arizona as it begins to pursue its new mission of addressing sexual violence.
ContributorsHarrach, Meagan L. (Author) / Bodman, Denise (Thesis director) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The purpose of this study was to provide a foundation for a plan for evaluations of the impact of the Learning Center on elementary school children with respect to academic achievement and school-related behaviors. Exploratory pre- and posttest data were collected and analyzed and recommendations were provided for a broader evaluation plan to be used in the future. The experience from the exploratory evaluation, limitations and the recommendations in this study can be used by Chicanos Por La Causa to strengthen the Learning Center and thereby optimize the benefit to the children served within the San Marina residential community.
ContributorsLodhi, Osman Sultan (Author) / Roosa, Mark (Thesis director) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / Perez, Norma (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05