Matching Items (8)
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- All Subjects: Social Research
- Creators: Budruk, Megha
Description
This research addresses the ability for neighborhoods to assess resiliency as it applies to their respective local areas. Two demographically and economically contrasting neighborhoods in Glendale, Arizona were studied to understand what residents' value and how those values link to key principles of resiliency. Through this exploratory research, a community-focused process was created to use these values in order to link them to key principles of resiliency and potential measureable indicators. A literature review was conducted to first assess definitions and key principles of resiliency. Second, it explored cases of neighborhoods or communities that faced a pressure or disaster and responded resiliently based on these general principles. Each case study demonstrated that resiliency at the neighborhood level was important to its ability to survive its respective pressure and emerge stronger. The Heart of Glendale and Thunderbird Palms were the two neighborhoods chosen to test the ability to operationalize neighborhood resiliency in the form of indicators. First, an in-depth interview was conducted with a neighborhood expert to understand each area's strengths and weaknesses and get a context for the neighborhood and how it has developed. Second, a visioning session was conducted with each neighborhood consisting of seven participants to discuss its values and how they relate to key principles of resiliency. The values were analyzed and used to shape locally relevant indicators. The results of this study found that the process of identifying participants' values and linking them to key principles of resiliency is a viable methodology for measuring neighborhood resiliency. It also found that indicators and values differed between the Heart of Glendale, a more economically vulnerable yet ethnically diverse area, than Thunderbird Palms, a more racially homogenous, middle income neighborhood. The Heart of Glendale valued the development of social capital more than Thunderbird Palms which placed a higher value on the condition of the built environment as a vehicle for stimulating vibrancy and resiliency in the neighborhood. However, both neighborhoods highly valued public education and providing opportunities for children to be future leaders in their local communities.
ContributorsAcevedo, Shannon (Author) / Pijawka, K. David (Thesis advisor) / Phillips, Rhonda (Committee member) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Increasingly, wildfires are threatening communities, forcing evacuations, damaging property, and causing loss of life. This is in part due to a century of wildfire policy and an influx of people moving to the wildland urban interface (WUI). National programs have identified and promoted effective wildfire mitigation actions to reduce wildfire risk; yet, many homeowners do not perform these actions. Based on previous literature and using the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study proposes an integrated wildfire mitigation behavioral model to assess and identify the factors that influence homeowners’ wildfire mitigation behaviors. Specifically, the study tests the validity of the theory of planned behavior as a foundational model in exploring wildfire mitigation behaviors, develops and empirically tests a wildfire mitigation behavioral model, and explores the role of homeowner associations (HOA) on wildfire mitigation behaviors. Structural equation modeling was used on data collected from homeowners with property in the WUI in Prescott, Arizona. Results suggest TPB provides an acceptable model in describing homeowner wildfire mitigation behavior. For HOA residents, attitudes toward wildfire mitigation behaviors play an important role in predicting intentions to perform these behaviors. Additionally, perceived constraints directly influenced actual mitigation actions. For non-HOA residents, subjective norms influenced intentions to mitigate. Implications for research and local wildfire mitigation programs and policy are discussed.
ContributorsSteffey, Eric Clifford (Author) / Budruk, Megha (Thesis advisor) / Vogt, Christine (Committee member) / Virden, Randy (Committee member) / Larson, Kelli (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Crowding and satisfaction remain widely studied concepts among those seeking to understand quality visitor experiences. One area of interest in this study is how the order of crowding and satisfaction items on a survey affects their measurement levels. An additional area of interest is the influence of personality traits on experience-use-history, crowding, and satisfaction. This study used two versions of a survey: A) crowding measured prior to satisfaction and B) satisfaction measured prior to crowding, to explore the influence of item order on crowding and satisfaction levels. Additionally, the study explored the influence of personality traits (extraversion and neuroticism) and experience use history (EUH) on crowding and satisfaction. EUH was included as a variable of interest given previous empirical evidence of its influence on crowding and satisfaction. Data were obtained from an onsite self-administered questionnaire distributed to day use visitors at a 16,000 acre desert landscape municipal park in Arizona. A total of 619 completed questionnaires (equally distributed between the two survey versions) were obtained. The resulting response rate was 80%. One-way ANOVA's indicated significant differences in crowding and satisfaction levels with both crowding and satisfaction levels being higher for survey version B. Path analysis was used to test the influence of personality traits and EUH on crowding and satisfaction. Two models, one for each version of the survey were developed using AMOS 5. The first model was tested using data in which crowding was measured prior to satisfaction. The second model relied on data in which satisfaction was measured prior to crowding. Results indicated that personality traits influenced crowding and satisfaction. Specifically, in the first model, significant relationships were observed between neuroticism and crowding, neuroticism and EUH, EUH and crowding, and between crowding and satisfaction. In the second model, significant relationships were observed between extraversion and crowding, extraversion and satisfaction, and between EUH and satisfaction. Findings suggest crowding and satisfaction item order have a potential to influence their measurement. Additionally, results indicate that personality traits potentially influence visitor experience evaluation. Implications of these findings are discussed.
ContributorsHolloway, Andrew (Author) / Budruk, Megha (Thesis advisor) / Lee, Woojin (Committee member) / Foti, Pamela (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The primary question driving this research regards how individuals in mixed-citizenship couples employ different strategies and/or tactics to access and maintain valid immigration status during processes of Adjustment of Status through marriage in the United States. A dominant narrative prevails in the US that immigration through marriage to a citizen confers immediate or an easy pathway to citizenship. For roughly two-hundred thousand immigrant spouses that currently navigate adjustment annually, however, this narrative falls short of and obscures the reality of adjustment processes. There is a lack of focused academic study to help contribute to more accurate public understandings of what these realities are. To combat this false narrative and help fill a gap in research, this work examines how such dominant ideology stems from historic legal inequality and hegemonic discourse, reified through Enlightenment-centric thinking and becoming tangled with state power through Foucault’s conception of the body politic. The day-to-day actions, interactions, and transactions within the body politic and adjustment processes are then put into conversation with De Certeau’s strategies and tactics, providing a means for accentuating how individuals, society, and the state enact specific practices to support or resist Foucauldian technologies of oppression and control. As an exploratory case-study, this work engages four individual partners from two mixed citizenship marriages in a series of three semi-structured, in-depth phenomenological interviews each. Reporting is centered on participant’s histories and adjustment narratives, told through their own voices. Evidence supports that easy pathway public narratives are inaccurate, that adjustment processes assert state power on citizen petitioners and migrant spouses alike, but in different ways, and that they in turn enact complicated and intertwined strategies and tactics to achieve adjustment and resist the oppressive power of the state that is carried through adjustment processes.
ContributorsFurnish, Daniel Robert (Author) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Thesis advisor) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Committee member) / Broberg, Gregory (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Program leadership’s decision to include an evaluator during the program planning and design phase is the critical first step necessary for evaluators to provide the
programmatic benefits associated with the evaluation profession. Several recent
developments have promoted evaluator inclusion in program planning and design
activities, including federal legislation that mandates evaluator inclusion and advocacy
efforts from evaluation academics. However, the evaluation literature presents a
collective frustration within the evaluation field due to ongoing exclusion from program
planning and design activities. Utilizing the defensive attribution hypothesis, this
quantitative study gathered responses from 260 American Evaluation Association
members and 61 Project Management Institute members to determine an evaluator
exclusion rate, develop a taxonomy of exclusion factors, and explore the extent to which
program leaders and program evaluators demonstrate defensive attributions when rating
these factors’ influence on evaluator exclusion in program planning and design activities.
Results indicated an approximately 70% evaluator exclusion rate in respondents’ most
recent program experiences. Furthermore, the defensive attribution hypothesis was not
supported in the study, as program evaluators more strongly attributed their lack of
inclusion to deficiencies outside of the evaluation practice, but program leaders also more
strongly attributed evaluator exclusion to deficiencies outside of the evaluation practice.
Program evaluators most strongly attributed their exclusion to program leaders’
insufficient training and knowledge on the role of evaluation during the program planning
and design phase. Program leaders most strongly attributed evaluator exclusion to their
own staffing decisions, indicating a preference to not include evaluators in program
planning and design activities due to achieving previous program success without them,
assigning evaluation activities to non-evaluation staff, and a funding process that allows
the practice to occur. As the first study to explore evaluator exclusion in the program
planning and design phase, it sets a foundation for future research studies to corroborate
and build upon its findings, identify policies that encourage evaluator inclusion, and
continue efforts to establish mutually beneficial relationships in the program planning
and design phase.
ContributorsGallagher, Matthew (Author) / Lecy, Jesse (Thesis advisor) / Knopf, Richard C. (Committee member) / Budruk, Megha (Committee member) / Schuster, Roseanne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Wildlife has been critically affected by human-induced change and in some areas, species extinction may be as high as 35%. Despite the overwhelming evidence of species extinction, habitat loss, and global climate change, current public support for conservation programs is low. One potential way to promote pro-conservation behavior is through transformative experiences as outlined in Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory (TLT). TLT works to explain the process through which people create new worldviews that can influence both attitudes and behaviors. This mixed methods dissertation seeks to understand transformative experiences and their short-term consequences in the context of wildlife viewing opportunities. Three studies were conducted to: 1) explore the key components of wildlife experiences that prompt transformation; 2) compare transformative experiences and visitor outcomes across captive and natural wildlife viewing opportunities; and 3) understand the short-term impacts of a natural gorilla-based wildlife viewing opportunity. The first study used semi-structured photo elicitation interviews. These interviews uncovered three major themes that provide evidence of critical components for fostering transformation during wildlife encounters. These themes were used to create two novel scales assessing transformative wildlife experiences. The second study used onsite visitor surveys to compare TLT and visitor outcomes at the North Carolina Zoo and at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund’s Conservation Gallery in Rwanda. Structural equation modeling showed that onsite transformation occurred at both sites and directly influenced conservation caring, which mediated the relationship between onsite transformation and species- and biodiversity-oriented behavioral intentions. The final study included a follow-up questionnaire for visitors from the gorilla trekking experience 4-months after their trek. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed three distinct levels of short-term response to the trek. Qualitative results from the follow-up questionnaire were also considered in the context of the three groups. Overall, this dissertation adds to the growing body of literature examining the transformative nature of wildlife experiences and contributes two novel scales that can be used in future studies. In addition, it adds to the limited onsite research examining terrestrial, African wildlife experiences. The theoretical and managerial implications for the findings from all three studies are discussed at length.
ContributorsSampson, Marena Elizabeth (Author) / Budruk, Megha (Thesis advisor) / Andereck, Kathleen (Committee member) / Larsen, Dale (Committee member) / Farrell, Tracy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
The purpose of this study is threefold: highlight the present health, self-sufficiency and integration needs and assets of asylum seekers in Phoenix, Arizona during the asylum seeking process phase (while an asylum claim is awaiting a decision); understand the City of Phoenix’s response to asylum seekers; and contextualize and compare the city’s present response to increased arrivals of asylum seekers against municipal responses in other contexts and academic discussions of the “local turn.”. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with asylum seekers and community leaders, this study finds that asylum seekers’ physiological healthcare needs are sometimes met through emergency department admissions and referrals to sliding scale services by caseworkers in the International Rescue Committee’s Asylum-Seeking Families program in Phoenix. Mental and behavioral health service needs are less likely to be met, especially for women who want to speak with a medical professional about their traumatic experiences in Central America, trip through Mexico, detention in the United States (U.S.) and their often-marginalized lives in the U.S. This dissertation concomitantly explores how other municipalities in the U.S. and internationally have responded to increased immigration of asylum seekers and refugees to urban centers, and how certain approaches could be adopted in the City of Phoenix to better serve asylum seekers.
ContributorsSchlinkert, David (Author) / Velez-Ibanez, Carlos (Thesis advisor) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Thesis advisor) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Balancing conservation goals and needs of local residents is always challenging. While some believe protected areas are a safe paradise for wildlife, others suggest that it is shortsighted to ignore the social and economic challenges faced by people who live adjacent to protected areas when addressing conservation objectives. This dissertation explores the link between biodiversity conservation and environmental education programs (EEPs) administered to residents of buffer zones adjacent to three protected areas in the Terai Arc Landscape, Nepal. Using surveys and interviews, this study examined 1) the influence of EEPs on attitudes of local people toward biodiversity conservation; 2) the influence of EEPs on conservation behavior; 3) the responses toward biodiversity conservation of local people residing in buffer zones who have received different levels of EEPs; and 4) the effect of EEPs on wildlife populations within adjacent protected areas. Local people who had participated in EEPs and attended school were more likely to express a positive attitude toward conservation goals than participants who had not participated in EEPs or had the opportunity to attend school. Participation in EEPs and level of education favored expressed behavior toward conservation goals, such as making contributions for conservation or supporting anti-poaching patrols. However, EEP participants and non-participants were equally likely to engage in activities that were at odds with positive conservation behavior, such as collecting fuel wood or killing wildlife to protect their farm or feed their families. A direct comparison of EEPs given by schools versus non-government organizations showed that EEPs were largely ineffective in promoting positive conservation attitudes and behaviors. Despite heavy poaching of charismatic species such as the greater one-horned rhinoceros or tiger over past decades, Nepal recently celebrated ‘zero poaching years’ in 2011 and 2013, largely due to increased anti-poaching enforcement. The relationship between EEPs and the decline in poaching is unclear, although local officials all claimed that EEPs played an important role. These results indicate that current administration of EEPs in Terai buffer zone communities is inadequate, while also providing evidence that properly administrated EEPs may become a valuable investment for these protected areas to achieve long-term success.
ContributorsShrestha, Samridhi (Author) / Smith, Andrew T. (Thesis advisor) / Minteer, Ben (Committee member) / Pearson, David (Committee member) / Nyaupane, Gyan (Committee member) / Budruk, Megha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015