28653 research outputs found
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Representation in higher education: an examination of women+ entrepreneurship center directors' careers
No full textDespite recent progress toward gender equity in academia, women+ remain underrepresented in leadership roles within entrepreneurship education, specifically entrepreneurship center directorships. This phenomenological study, grounded in critical feminist theory, explores the lived experience of four women who currently serve as entrepreneurship center directors in higher education institutions across the United States. Using semi-structured interviews, this study sought to understand how these women navigated barriers, leveraged resources, and developed their personal leadership within a traditionally male-dominated field. Thematic analysis revealed commonalities across the participants’ career trajectories, including gender bias, limited institutional support, and the double-bind burden of advancing professionally while balancing personal responsibilities and challenges. Simultaneously, these participants revealed the importance of mentorship, conference participation, and personal resilience emerged as critical factors in their success. The findings of this study underscore the perpetual need to disrupt institutional and cultural structures and expectations that marginalize and prohibit women from advancing in entrepreneurship education leadership. This study contributes to the limited literature on gender and leadership in entrepreneurship education and offers a roadmap, or cautionary tale, for aspiring women in the field. By centering the voices of those who have broken through systemic barriers, this research highlights both the urgency for and possibility of more inclusive representation in higher education.D.Ed
The social production of the lived para: exploring urban roads vibrant with commerce, culture, and everyday life in Sri Lanka
No full textThis study explores the lived para, a term used here to describe the multifunctional para that blurs the line between what Western planning thought defines as a “road” or a “street.” In Sinhala, para simply means “road,” used for all kinds of thoroughfares across Sri Lanka. Yet only some paras become lived paras, layered with social, cultural, and economic life in addition to transportation. The thesis argues that the lived para cannot be neatly placed within Western categories of road or street because it embodies both and extends beyond them. Thus, while connecting places, it is also a place itself. Using a qualitative ethnographic approach, the study explores how everyday practices turn transport corridors into social and economic places and produce the lived para. The findings show that paras are not failed infrastructures but vibrant, organized spaces that sustain livelihoods and belongings. Recognizing them calls for planning that values lived experience, flexibility, and participation, seeing paras not as problems to fix but as places to understand and support.M.U.R.P
Case study - noise levels in a Chicago restaurant
No full textNoise complaints are the second most common issue in the restaurant industry, following service complaints (Spence, 2014). Excessive noise leads to customer dissatisfaction and reduces his or her likelihood of returning. Restaurants, which employ about 10% of the American workforce, or approximately 13 million people, (To, 2014), expose both employees and customers to noise levels exceeding 86 dB, equivalent to the sound of a hair dryer or vacuum (Greene, 2015). Excessive exposure to these heightened noise levels can result in ordering mistakes and frustration, especially for individuals with hearing impairments. Lowering these noise levels may result in more positively received restaurants. However, there is a lack of clear guidelines for interior designers on selecting materials to manage sound in restaurants. Current restaurant trends such as lofty ceilings and favoring the use of hard surfaces like wood, tile, and metal over carpeting and other softer materials, contribute to a higher decibel level in restaurants. Millennial and Gen Z customers are a target audience for modern restaurants and often favor more lively and dynamic environments. These generations are attracted to vibrant and social spaces, where music and noise are a part of the ambiance. This study focuses on the noise levels of one restaurant in Chicago. After interviewing staff and customers, suggestions are provided for improving the high restaurant noise levels that may lead to happier staff and clientele.M.A
Taking out the trash
No full textTaking out the Trash is a series of glass sculptures and a fiber arts installation created in response to the political climate of America in 2025. This artwork seeks to understand the implications of action and consequences of society. Deriving meaning from obsessive coping mechanisms, the work inquires performative gender and weaving as a message of dissent. Inspiring the work are artists Shepard Fairey, Silvia Levenson, and Pipilotti Rist. Their social and artistic commentary inspires me to make my work and pushes me to embark on diverse and meaningful conversations within the community. Based heavily on the legislation emerging from Project 2025, and the growing anxiety in response, this artwork visualizes frustration, coping, and a call to action.B.F.A.School of Ar
Students' perceptions of the relationship between sex education and their understanding of sexual identity
No full textDespite evidence suggesting a connection between school-based sex education and sexual identity, few studies have explicitly examined this relationship. This study aims addresses this gap by exploring how students perceive the relationship between sex education experiences and their understanding of sexual identity. Participants were 135 first-year undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 22 (M = 18.76). They completed a survey assessing the content covered in their school0based sex education programs and the perceived relevance of seven topics drawn from the National Sexuality Education Standards (NSES) to their understanding of sexual identity. The survey also included an open-ended question. Quantitative results indicated that although many NSES topics were covered, they were not extensively addressed. Participants who identified as heterosexual rated their sex education programs higher in content coverage than did sexual and gender minority (SGM) participants. All seven NSES topics were somewhat related to participants’ sexual identities; however, those assigned female at birth rated them as more relevant than those assigned male at birth. Regression analysis revealed that total content coverage scores significantly predicted total topic relevance scores. Qualitative findings highlighted missing or insufficiently covered topics within students’ sex education experiences and underscored the potential consequences of these omissions for sexual identity development. Overall, these findings suggest that there is room for improvement when it comes to the content covered in school-based sex education. Many topics related to students sexual identities are either missing or not discussed with sufficient detail. Sexual and gender minority identities were frequently reported as missing from school-based sex education. Additionally, many students demonstrated a limited understanding of sexual identity. To meet the needs of today’s youth and affirm their identities, school-based sex education must move beyond surface-level heteronormative content. Future research should build on these findings using a larger, more diverse sample to better understand how school-based sex education may relate to young people’s sexual identity development.Ph.D
Objection: Perspective-taking in the court: How juror's instructions affect empathy, culpability, and verdict decisions
No full textPerspective-taking is the study of how individuals imagine another person feels in a given
situation. Prior research has shown that taking the perspective of another person increases
feelings of empathy for that person, greater feelings of altruism, and a desire to reduce their
suffering. The current research examines how three different instructions to jurors, perspectivetaking,
objective-focus, or no manipulation control affect judgments of empathy, culpability for a
crime, and guilty or not guilty verdicts. A pilot study using a college student sample and a main
study using an online sample from Prolific.com aimed to answer whether perspective-taking
increased empathy, and decreased ratings of culpability and guilty verdicts for the crime. It was
hypothesized that objective-focus instructions would decrease empathy and increase ratings of
culpability and guilty verdicts. Finally, it was hypothesized that participants in the no
manipulation control condition’s ratings would fall in the middle of those in the perspectivetaking
and objective-focus conditions. In line with the literature, the main study revealed that
empathy was greater in the perspective-taking condition than in the objective-focus condition,
but not greater than in the control condition. The data also revealed no direct effects of
instruction type on culpability or verdict. Similar to a previous study, empathy and culpability
mediated the relationship between condition type and verdict, meaning that individuals who were
asked to take the defendant’s perspective reported more empathy, which led to lower ratings of
culpability for the crime. This, in turn, led to a higher probability of a not-guilty verdict. Overall,
these results demonstrate that the wording of instructions affect juror cognition and change how
individuals interpret different circumstances.Ph. D
Querencia
No full textAfter a long day at work, people are often excited to retreat to the place where
they can relax and function on autopilot: home. Unfortunately, for people with
physical disabilities, living in homes that are not designed for their specific
needs often causes extra stress and hard work. This thesis explores the
design of homes for people with visual impairments, wheelchair users, and
hearing impairments. By designing a housing prototype for each of these
three disabilities, this thesis demonstrates that the experience of home living
can be improved through prioritizing user-specific agendas of comfort, safety,
and belonging. These three design prototypes can be modified without losing
the accommodating goals to fit various site conditions and housing densities,
making them applicable for diverse lifestyles and locations. These design
solutions demonstrate how a refocusing of design priorities can improve the
experiential quality of home for people with visual impairments, wheelchair
users, and hearing impairments.Thesis (B. Arch.)College of Architecture and Plannin
Betwixt: architecture in film: a thesis report
No full textArchitecture is not just static forms, it exists across various mediums, including
film. This thesis explores the betwixt condition of the real and hyperreal,
demonstrating the value of narrative in the architectural space. Like in real
perspectives, film constructs layered realities that blur the boundaries between
physical and simulated existence, creating spaces that challenge perception
and interpretation. The work asserts that architecture in film is not merely a
backdrop but an active agent in storytelling, shaping the viewer’s experience
and deepening the illusion of cinematic worlds. Architecture is positioned as
both a subject and a method for engaging with the betwixt condition, redefining
its role in narrative construction.Thesis (B. Arch.)College of Architecture and Plannin
Integrating self-talk within the MAP model in experienced soccer players: an exploratory study
No full textIn soccer, 70-80 % of the penalty kicks taken are scored. Because the expectation for penalty kicks is to score, the kicker can experience high stress and overthink their movements as they run to the ball, leading to suboptimal performances (Ellis & Ward, 2022). On the other hand, if the kicker pays optimal attention, they are more likely to handle anxiety, distractions, and experience optimal performance (Whitman, 2016). A performance-enhancing model that has helped understand this relationship between attention and performance is the Multi-Action-Plan (MAP) model (Bortoli et al., 2012). The MAP model differentiates four performance types, separating optimal vs suboptimal performance, and low vs high attention control (Bortoli et al., 2012), but the relationship between self-talk and those performance types has not been investigated. To address this gap, 16 experienced soccer players attended two different days, taking 30 penalty kicks against a goalkeeper on each visit. On day 1, participants identified their core component of the action. On day 2, participants reported their self-talk aloud before each penalty kick. Results show that instructional self-talk appeared the most across performance types of the MAP model, which was followed by task-irrelevant, motivational, negative, and other, task-relevant self-talks. Combinations of self-talks were considered, and instructional-motivational self-talk was the most reported combination. This study is the first to report MAP model performance percentages across participants and to link instructional self-talk with the action’s core component. Future research should explore whether this combination produces greater performance gains when using the MAP model.M. S
Culture of risk & presenteeism in college athletics: student athletes' willingness to compete hurt
No full textA culture of risk is present in sports (Nixon, 2004; Young, 2004b), sometimes
demonstrated through sports presenteeism (athletes competing despite health problems).
Research on sport presenteeism is limited to elite athletes (Mayer & Thiel, 2018; Mayer et al.,
2020), and little is known about willingness to compete hurt (WCH) in college athletics. This
study (1) examined college athletes’ WCH across various health situations, (2) identified
predictors of WCH, and (3) explored WCH and presenteeism frequency differences across
NCAA Division I, II, III, and NAIA athletes. 180 athletes from 19 sports completed an online
questionnaire. Results indicated athletes had the highest WCH when not feeling well and in
mental health situations, while demonstrating the least WCH when given orders to rest by coach
or medical staff. Female athletes, along with higher team allegiance and sportsnet factor scores
(factors involving members in athletes’ environment that influence their decision to compete
hurt) predicted higher WCH. No significant differences emerged across divisions in WCH and
presenteeism frequency. Athletes who reported presenteeism more than 5 times versus once or 2-
5 times in the last 12 months demonstrated higher WCH scores, supporting construct validity of
the WCH-19 questionnaire. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of collaborative,
athlete-centered decision-making that prioritizes long-term well-being. Education on the risks of
competing hurt and the value of rest should be targeted to female athletes and sportsnets. Future
research should explore sportsnet members' expectations of competing hurt behavior and develop
a framework to guide decision-making in college athletics.M. S