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: Hekler, Eric
Description
Tools that accurately assess physical activity and sedentary behaviors have broad implications relative to understanding the association of adverse health outcomes and these behaviors. Given the ease of distribution and inexpensive nature of self-report tools, they are the most widely used means to assess human behavior in large-scale populations. The purpose of this study was to validate the ACT24 online self-report recall for measures of sedentary and active behavior against criterion measure. Participants of a larger study were asked to complete the ACT24 recall on a random day in three different weeks during which they were wearing the criterion device. A total of 16 recalls were completed that were used to assess ACT24 measures of sedentary, active, and MVPA behavior. Four different comparisons afforded this analysis: criterion sitting time to ACT24 sedentary time, criterion standing time to ACT24 active behavior, criterion stepping time to ACT24 active behavior, and criterion stepping of 3.0+METs to ACT24 MVPA. Results for the comparisons made between ACT24 sedentary time versus criterion sitting time and ACT24 active time to criterion active time showed little systematic differences at the group level, but the limits of agreement were relatively wide. The comparisons made between ACT24 active time to criterion stepping time and ACT24 MVPA to criterion stepping time at 3.0+ METs both showed a positive systematic difference. Increased incidence of physical activity was correlated with more difference between the measures, likely due to an underestimation of criterion active time measurement. These results are important in the preliminary validity analysis of ACT24 measures of active and sedentary time. Future directions include implementing validation protocols in larger and more diverse samples.
ContributorsBrinkman, Joseph Connor (Author) / Buman, Matthew P. (Thesis director) / Hekler, Eric (Committee member) / Matthews, Charles E. (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
With the population size growing rapidly at Arizona State University, students are more likely to get sick and miss school when living on campus. The purpose of this project was to design a mobile web application called, SeeSick, that would visualize the spread of illness on the ASU Tempe campus. This application would provide students with information that could help prevent the spread of illness and allow them to take actionable steps for staying healthy. To accomplish the design and testing of this application, research was conducted on how technology is currently used by students when they are sick, how to design an effective user interface for ASU students, how to physically visualize the spread of the flu on an app, and if an application like this would be useful. The visualizations are created from a user input form and from Twitter data scraping and are displayed on a heat map of the Tempe campus. 126 students were surveyed before the development of the application and once the application was functional, 87 students were interviewed for user testing. Through trial-and-error design and testing, the application was analyzed to determine if it would be used and change behavior. The design of SeeSick successfully provided users with a way to visualize the spread of symptoms on campus and presented them personalized feedback about their symptoms. 62% of students interviewed found the application to be useful and 84% of participants found it easy to use. However, 57% of students said their behavior would not change while using SeeSick. Of the students who tested the application, SeeSick was found to be useful, easy to use, but would not cause behavior change. The current version supports the goal to create a mobile application that tracks the spread of the flu on campus, however it was not tested enough to determine if it would change behavior. With further development and larger testing groups, SeeSick could be improved to not only track the spread of illness on a hyper-local level, but also create actionable steps to prevent the spread of illness.
ContributorsChartier, McKinsey Lynne (Author) / Hekler, Eric (Thesis director) / Maciejewski, Ross (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
BACKGROUND: Biotechnology can improve vitamin deficiencies, farming practices and yields, yet it is surrounded by controversy. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to better understand opinions Americans have about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), across multiple perspectives including scientists, farmers, and perceptions shared via social media. METHODS: A Google Scholar search for the term "genetically modified" (GM) produced 1,420,000 results in 0.05 seconds from the year 1988 to present, a portion of this literature was used for this study. In addition a quasi-experimental study on social media (i.e. a blog and Twitter) was performed to inspire reactions of social media users who followed the accounts @Biofortified and @BiotechFood. The study lasted for approximately three months. The analytics website, Topsy was also used to track the number of conversations that included terms like "GMO". Furthermore a plant biologist, sustainability scientist, and local farmers were interviewed to gain insights on their perceptions of GM products. RESULTS: Results generally suggest that there was no stance shared by social media users, local farmers, and researchers. It was clear however that conversation about GMOs happens daily on social media. These conversations however lack the evidence that can be learned through literature and conversations with local farmers. DISCUSSION: A plausible possible reason for the confusion and mixed opinions is that regardless of the resources (like scientific literature and agriculture workers available on GMOs), individuals appear to use moral reasoning \u2014 as defined by Jonathan Haidt \u2014 to defend their stance on GMOs, not necessarily any empirical evidence.
ContributorsHubbard, Shayla Briann (Author) / Hekler, Eric (Thesis director) / Wharton, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Community Resources and Development (Contributor) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
As the prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States rises, opportunities for children to be physically active become more vital. One opportunity for physical activity involves children walking to and from school. However, children that live in areas with a pedestrian-unfriendly built environment and a low degree of walkability are less likely to be physically active and more likely to be overweight. The purpose of this study was to study walking routes from schools in low-income neighborhoods in Southwestern United States to a local community center. Walking routes from the three study schools (South Mountain High School, Percy Julian Middle School, and Rose Linda Elementary School) were determined by distance, popularity, and the presence of a major thoroughfare. Segments and intersections, which formed the routes, were randomly selected from each school's buffer region. The walking routes as a whole, along with the segments and intersections, were audited and scored using built environment assessments tools: MAPS, PEQI and Walkability Checklist. These scores were utilized to develop interactive mapping tools to visualize the quality of the routes, segments and intersections and identify areas for improvement. Results showed that the routes from Percy Julian to the Kroc Center were, overall, rated higher than routes from the other two schools. The highest scoring route, from the seven routes studied, was route 2 from Percy Julian to the Kroc Center along Broadway Road. South Mountain High School was overall the worst starting point for walking to the Kroc Center as those three walking routes were graded as the least walkable. Possible areas for improvement include installing traffic calming features along major thoroughfares and reducing the perceived risk to pedestrian safety by beautifying the community by planting greenery. Future directions include studying the built environment in South Phoenix communities that surround the Kroc Center.
ContributorsZeien, Justin Lee (Author) / Buman, Matthew (Thesis director) / Hekler, Eric (Committee member) / Fellows, Brian (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor)
Created2015-05