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.
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- Creators: Glenberg, Arthur
- Creators: O'Flaherty, Katherine
Description
This thesis project examines the likely factors that cause students to drop out of Barrett, the Honors College. Honors literature regarding retention and attrition suggests four areas encompassing individual student attributes and honors program characteristics which may impact a student's decision to stay or leave an Honors College. The primary question in focus is, "Why do students leave the Honors College?" followed by the tertiary questions of, "what can be done to mitigate this occurrence?" and, "how does this affect the quality of an honors education?" Assessing attrition can be broken down into biographical, cognitive-behavioral, socio-environmental, and institutional-instrumental components. Students who graduated with honors and those who did not graduate with honors were assessed on these four components through survey methods and qualitative interviews to investigate specific reasons why students leave the honors program. The results indicated a wide array of reasons impacting student attrition, the most significant being negative perceptions towards (1) honors courses and contracts, (2) difficulty completing a thesis project, and (3) finding little to no value in "graduating with honors." Each of these reasons reflect the institutional-instrumental component of student attrition, making it the most salient group of reasons why students leave the Honors College. The socio-environmental component also influences student attrition through peer influence and academic advisor support, though this was found to be within the context of institutional-instrumental means. This project offers solutions to ameliorate each of the four components of attrition by offering standardized honors contracts and more mandatory honors classes, mandatory thesis preparatory courses instead of workshops, and emphasizing the benefit Barrett gives to students as a whole. These solutions aim at increasing graduation rates for future honors students at Barrett as well as improving the overall quality of an honors education.
ContributorsSanchez, Gilbert Xavier (Author) / Parker, John (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Anti-gay bias is a prevalent aspect of traditional male gender norms that has negatively impacted the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, both in terms of mental and physical health. This study examined how anti-gay bias varies as a function of gender, education level, and field of study. We hypothesized that men will have more bias than women, that seniors in college will be less biased than freshmen in college, and that male students in sub disciplines of engineering that have relatively more women (e.g., biomedical engineering), will be less biased than those in more homogeneous, male-dominated fields (e.g., mechanical engineering). Past research has identified the implications of gender and education level in anti-gay bias; the current study looked to further such research and to investigate possible implications of the impact of settings that have a gender imbalance. A total of 303 undergraduate students from Arizona State University completed an online survey that measured attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals and communities. Neither education level nor academic field of study were found to have influenced degree of bias. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.
ContributorsHarrington, Charlotte Jean (Author) / Saenz, Delia (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Undergraduate on-campus residential education is a topic of significant inquiry within the field of higher education, and specifically student affairs. It has become commonplace for institutions of higher education in the United States to leverage the intersections between academics and residence life in order to promote student success by offering on-campus housing options that strategically place students in residential communities that provide additional connection to the students' academic experience, often by major, college, department, or other focus areas. Such models vary by institution, but are often referred to as living-learning communities or residential colleges, depending upon their structure and goals. For example, Barrett, the Honors College on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University implements a residential college model within its student housing; honors students live and study together, with the addition of three "special communities" designed for students majoring in Engineering, Business, or the Arts. This honors thesis case study describes and investigates the impact the visual and performing arts Barrett residential community has upon its residents in their first-year college experience. Through the lens of student development theory, this research focuses upon examining this specific residential community in detail in order to gain an understanding of its effect upon residents' academic and personal well being.
ContributorsBieschke, Sara Danielle (Author) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Thesis director) / Rendell, Dawn (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description"Writing the Races" is a documentary exploring how two writers talk about race in their comedy television shows. http://www.writingtheraces.com/
ContributorsTyau, Nicole Jenice (Author) / Rodriguez, Rick (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
There are two common cognitive distortions present in risky decision-making behavior. The gambler's fallacy is the notion that a random game of chance is potentially biased by previous outcomes, and the near-miss effect is the overestimation of the probability of winning immediately after barely missing a win. This study replicated a portion of the methods of Clark et al. (2014) in an attempt to support the presence of these two fallacies in online simulated risky decision-making tasks. One hundred individuals were recruited and asked to perform one of two classic gambling tasks, either predict the outcome of a dichromatic roulette wheel or spin a simplified, two-reel slot machine. An analysis of color predictions as a function of run length revealed a classic gambler's fallacy effect in the roulette wheel task. A heightened motivation to continue playing after a win, but not a near or full miss, was seen in the slot machine task. How pleased an individual was with the results of the previous round directly affected his or her interest in continuing to play in both experiments. These findings indicate that the gambler's fallacy is present in online decision-making simulations involving risk, but that the near-miss effect is not.
ContributorsCatinchi, Alexis Leigh (Author) / McClure, Samuel (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Gatewood, Kira (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Every year, millions of people find themselves displaced from their homes because of fear or threats of violence. Some of these people will become refugees, who will then be resettled in the United States. In order to help with the resettlement process, refugees are given cultural orientations through their resettlement organizations. The Phoenix Police Department teaches one of these cultural orientations for local resettlement agencies in order to dispel some of the fears refugees have about law enforcement and build a stronger relationship with the refugee community. Past research on this topic has been limited within the United States, but communities are still trying to figure out how to interact with refugees despite not knowing how to do it. There are various possible complications inherent in the integration process and many potential methods of trust building available to the refugee community and public services like law enforcement. This project seeks to understand the refugee resettlement process through field observation of the cultural orientation taught by the Phoenix Police Department and interviews with detectives familiar with the process in Phoenix. Cultural and language differences as well as lack of education and research on the topic of refugee resettlement are all key points in comprehending what the police, refugees, and resettlement organizations are doing during the integration process. Once these issues are addressed to alleviate gaps in knowledge about refugees, it may be possible to adjust the process to be easier for stakeholders involved in refugee resettlement.
ContributorsBaumgartner, Rachel Paige (Author) / Telep, Cody (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Perceptions of the self differ between cultures, generally between those cultures in the West and East. Some of the ways that these individuals from these cultures may differ are in their self-construal, their collectivist and individualist tendencies, and how they perceive control in their lives. The current study proposes that some of these differences are influenced by different concepts individuals hold regarding the "soul", or inner self. These concepts may be promoted by the different religious beliefs prominent in different regions. The Soul Perception Index, being developed through this study, measures belief in multiple souls, a universal soul, a single soul, or no soul. It was predicted that a belief in a single soul will correlate with an individual view of the self (individualism, independent self-construal, internal locus of control), and a universal or multi-soul belief will correlate with an interdependent view of the self (collectivism, interdependent self-construal, and external locus of control). We found that these variables did not significantly differ in their relationships with soul belief. However, Indian Hindu participants and Chinese participants seemed to score highly on all self-view variables and all soul perception types indicating that individuals from these cultures may be more predisposed to hold opposing beliefs simultaneously while US Christians are not.
ContributorsNaidu, Esha Svetha (Author) / Cohen, Adam (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Johnson, Kathryn (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
This creative project is a collection of profiles focused on Arizona nonprofits and refugees. The profiles share stories of refugees, volunteers, employees and others involved in the community serving refugees. Nonprofits are a vital resource for refugee resettlement. These organizations offer services to support refugees as they transition into new communities. Some services include: housing, English language learning, cultural orientation, job placement, medical treatment, education, and farming. Each of these programs support resiliency for refugees and for the communities in which they live. We Are Resilient was created first, to show the important role nonprofits have in serving refugees. Second, to connect people to a few of the stories and experiences within the Arizona refugee community. And third, to build understanding of the strength refugees bring to communities of Arizona and by extension the country. Visit weareresilientaz.com to learn more.
ContributorsGray, Elizabeth (Co-author) / Johnson, Kelcie (Co-author) / Shockley, Gordon (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / School of Community Resources and Development (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Postmodernism has been one of the dominant modes of thought in literature and philosophy since the 1960s, but its roots go back much further. This thesis is an examination of Brechtian frameworks in an assortment of popular postmodern works. Both literary texts, such as novels, films, and music, and philosophical texts are used to form a general understanding of the postmodern project, and these concepts are then placed in conversation with ideas from the works of the 20th century German playwright Bertolt Brecht. I found that despite certain differences, the central ideas of postmodernism can be seen as the extension of Brecht’s philosophy, especially his concept of the Verfremdungseffekt. First, multiplicity—in perspectives and understandings—can be seen as an attempt to achieve this Verfremdungseffekt in the reader, and second, transgression in these texts can be used to evoke the same feeling. Many of the identifying techniques of postmodernism, e.g. juxtaposition, unreliable narrator, self-reference, and so on, can be interpreted as the extension of ideas pioneered by Brecht in the 1920s and 1930s. My thesis illustrates these connections.
Keywords: Postmodernism, Bertolt Brecht, Verfremdungseffekt
Keywords: Postmodernism, Bertolt Brecht, Verfremdungseffekt
ContributorsTeipen, Jakob Corry (Author) / Gilfillan, Daniel (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Investment and interest in mental health on a global scale is increasing. This interest creates a need to gain an in depth understanding about how mental illness is conceptualized and treated in different cultures. This article aims to explore the views of maternal mental health in Kenya's sub-counties. Maternal mental health has a significant impact on child development outcomes, so the topic has cross-generational importance. Ten focus group discussions with a variety of participants were conducted to understand the health care system. The participants were from four Kenya sub-counties: Rachuonyo N., Wagwe, Okiki Amayo, Nyative and they were either members of either SCHMT (Sub-county health management team), CHEW (community health extension worker), facility/staff of the county hospital, HHCDO (Homa Hills Community Development Organization), THRIVE II staff (Catholic Relief Service's early childhood development program) or mothers and fathers with children under two years of age. The qualitative data were translated and transcribed on site and then retranslated and counterchecked. A secondary data analysis using Atlas.ti was performed to identify themes and trends in factors that contribute to maternal wellbeing. Four main categories were identified as having prevalent effects on the Kenyan mothers' mental health: cultural values, broken support system, limitations of resources, and knowledge, behavior and attitudes. The participants were broken up into administrative, clinical, social, maternal and paternal categories to determine specific influence in each of these areas. Further analysis defined participants' involvement in the categories as mediating, moderating and direct effects on maternal depression. Main contributors to depression were identified as a lack of paternal support, poor cultural values, and administrative resistance. Discussion focuses on consequences for the future.
ContributorsAugur, Haley Rose (Author) / Nelson, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Hagaman, Ashley (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12