Specialist in Education (Ed.S.), University of Dayton, 2019, School Psychology

Positive psychology researchers study gratitude journaling frequently as an intervention that aims to increase feelings of gratitude and overall subjective well-being (SWB). One question arising from previous research is what possible variables increase the effectiveness of gratitude journaling amongst middle school students. The present study explored the effect of prompted daily gratitude journaling compared to daily free write gratitude journaling on seventh grade students' levels of gratitude and SWB. The study involved 22 participants, half of whom wrote in a blank gratitude journal daily and the other half of whom responded to a gratitude prompt of, “I am grateful to ______ because ______.” The researcher measured outcomes using pre- and post-test data from questionnaires designed to measure one's positive and negative affect, overall life satisfaction, and inclination to express gratitude. Based on pre-, post-, and follow up test data, students in the prompt condition did not experience higher levels of gratitude, positive affect, or subjective well-being, nor lower levels of negative affect, when compared to students in the free response condition. Implications for future practice include pairing a teaching component with the journaling to increase effectiveness and including a more specific prompt to elicit gratitude towards others.

Committee: Sawyer Hunley Dr. (Advisor); Susan Davies Dr. (Committee Member); Meredith Montgomery Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Counseling Education; Education; Psychology; School Counseling

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2024, English: Composition and Rhetoric

This thesis explores the meaning and manifestation of mind-body-spirit connection in teaching and learning within the composition classroom. I advocate for a more inclusive and polyvocal pedagogy, arguing that the prevalent disconnect among mind, body, and spirit reinforces mind-centric, colonizing, and imbalanced teaching. Findings from interviews with composition instructors and autoethnographic data are used to understand how teachers define and implement holistic connection in their teaching practices, focusing especially on understandings of spirituality, power and freedom, and storytelling. Additionally, I detail a personal journaling heuristic including means for multimodal remediation that encourages students and teachers to exercise reflective agency regarding their holistic wellbeing within a compositional context. I conclude by suggesting that an instructor's understanding of the mind-body-spirit connection and holistic wellbeing can lead to healing, balanced relationships with students and self, making way for reflective and compassionate practices that enhance teaching and learning.

Committee: John Tassoni (Committee Chair); Tim Lockridge (Committee Member); Heidi McKee (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Pedagogy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

How might teacher educators build a reflective and supportive community of practice with pre-service teachers? How might a visual (intermedia) journaling practice support critical and reflective thinking? How might an arts-based intermedia approach to analysis inform teacher educator pedagogical methods? These questions evolved and emerged throughout my research process during this dissertation study. As an artist/researcher/teacher I used an arts-based research paradigm to guide an emergent research practice focused on understanding the potential of arts-based reflective practice in an art teacher education program. The study was conducted with two groups of undergraduate student participants enrolled in pre-service teacher education coursework. Parallaxic praxis, emerging from a/r/tography, was a guiding research methodology and pedagogical approach used to maintain a creative, living inquiry throughout the study. This methodology supported opportunities and potential for the researcher and participants to generate arts-based study data and engage in performative processes documenting their experience with creative reflective practices. The learnings from the first participant group informed decisions and activity design for participant group two. Participants actively engaged in self-directed and co-designed intermedia reflective activities throughout the cycles of the study. Along the way, poetic inquiry surfaced as a central method for analysis and to generate research renderings, primarily in the form of found poems. The research renderings were conceptualized into a research exhibition designed to be experienced through multiple modalities including an exhibition in an art gallery and a virtual online exhibition. This dissertation illustrates where the research process led me as the researcher, and my students, as participants. Through the renderings in the research exhibition, the process of analyzing data using poetic inquiry highlights benefits and cha (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: jt Richardson (Advisor); Shari Savage (Committee Member); Richard Finlay Fletcher (Committee Member); Norah Zuniga-Shaw (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Education; Fine Arts; Teacher Education; Teaching

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

The research undertaken was a qualitative grounded action research case study. The researcher had the opportunity to work as part of a team seeking to alleviate energy-burdened neighborhoods within a southeastern State. The team was formed from members of the city, county, the federal government, and local not-for-profit organizations. The research questions were twofold. First, what were the project team members' initial individual approaches to achieving the project's goals of clean energy, addressing energy burdens, and community resiliency? Second, how do the team members reach a consensus over time toward achieving the project's goals? As part of the consensus building, how much of a sense of community is developed amongst the members of the team? The theoretical framework that this research was performed under was a sense of community comprised of four elements: membership, influence, reinforcement, and shared emotional connection (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). A literature review was conducted to identify initial themes that were further developed through focus groups and interviews. Two focus groups were held that involved a total of three unique members of the team per focus group who were asked the same semi-structured questions. As a follow-up to the focus groups, four participants were asked to participate in one-on-one interviews to develop further data revealed by the focus groups. The resulting data was then coded, and themes were generated from the analysis. The three themes identified through the analysis involved the Bringing Energy Efficiency Home team members' knowledge (or lack thereof), perceptions, and their bonding and sense of community. Where knowledge leads to perception and the development of a sense of community within the team the recommended course of action identified by this research is the development and implementation of a public-facing website. The development and implementation of the website will lead to readily accessible i (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Clare Liddon (Committee Chair); Sabrina Neeley (Committee Member); Sean McDermott (Committee Member) Subjects: Alternative Energy; Behavioral Sciences; Behaviorial Sciences; Conservation; Environmental Justice; Sustainability

Doctor of Ministry , Ashland University, 2023, Doctor of Ministry Program

The purpose of this project was to impact the Christian formation in a select group of women in a virtual community through an eight-week study using "Forming: Change by Grace Curriculum, 10th Anniversary Edition" written by David Takle. The design of the project included the administration of pre-test and post-test questionnaires. The project results showed positive growth in all five categories of measured goals. The participants showed the highest improvement in their practice of two-way journaling on the subject of processing their disappointments.

Committee: Thomas Gilmore Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Pastoral Counseling; Personal Relationships; Spirituality

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2022, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Butler's choice of using the diary of a young Black girl and of making that Black girl a leader is directly paralleled in real history via diaries, such as The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells. Butler's use of the journaling technique via a Black woman ties the future to the past as the diaries of these influential Black women are read by later generations giving a glimpse of what dreams, hopes, and goals the women had for the Black Community. She further gives cautionary tales of “if-this-continues to-go-on” as a warning for the community to be on its guard, but also to look out for the young women who will become the leaders of tomorrow. Using a journal, Butler ties together Afrofuturism, the history of Black women and the Black Community, and the power of private words in public spaces. In this thesis, I will demonstrate that Butler's novels create a full cycle of how Black women's personal writings are influential by allowing a glimpse of the past, present, and future in the Earthseed series. I will further argue that it is through such Afrofuturist writings that the Black community can envision space that includes them, as both citizens and as leaders. Scholars of Afrofuturism have not discussed the importance of Lauren Olamina's journals to the authentic Black experience of the future. Scholars of journaling have focused on the individual healing process and not on the uplift of the Black community. By doing so, Butler's novels have fallen into the cracks and have been left unnoticed in the novels' revelatory meanings.

Committee: Julie Burrell (Committee Chair); Rachel Carnell (Advisor); Jeff Karem (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; Black History; Black Studies; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

As a neurodiverse artist working in dialogue with Kurt Cobain's and Lee Lozano's journals, my dissertation uses critical disability studies to imagine neurologically queer or “neuroqueer” bodies as rhetorical sites of knowledge production, coping and responding to negative social discourses and creating new narratives. Unintended for public consumption, journaling is a private activity, and a unique window on artistic process through encounters with the everyday, narrative reflection, story, poetry, sketches, grocery lists and rants that seep and leak into thoughtful reflections about the world and one's relationship to it. Occurring outside of neurotypical expectations of sociality, journaling creates space to dismantle oppressive social requirements, assisting those who engage differently to feel agential in their learning and being in the world. Neurological differences such as AD(H)D impact all aspects of lived experience. Those living with neurological “queerness” are often diminished as rhetors, through misunderstood social performances, undesirable behaviors, and applied narratives reenforced by negative medical model messaging. Journaling and artmaking reinstate rhetorical power through positioning the neuroqueer as an active subject. Strange impulses and repetitive obsessions, hypersensitivities, and non-normative social performances contain rich information which informs methodological approaches to research. More concerned with what can be learned through AD(H)D bodies as they engage in the process of artmaking, the focus of this research is not to define AD(H)D as an outcome, but instead as a rich method of investigation. Engaging in critical conversations surrounding the disruption of normal, the relationship between environment and disAbility, neurological queerness, and neuroqueer communication, this research aims to reshape perceptions of neuroqueer students, expanding access for all students in art classrooms. As we consider art spaces to increa (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: JT Eisenhauer Richardson (Advisor); Jack Richardson (Committee Member); Richard Fletcher (Committee Member); Shari Savage (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Education

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how undergraduate pediatric nursing students experienced the art and science of pediatric nursing through journaling. Data were obtained from eight student participants during a six-week pediatric clinical rotation. There were four main findings from this study: (a) journal entries contained aesthetic descriptions of patients and clinical experiences; (b) journal entries contained empiric descriptions of patients and clinical experiences; (c) in their discussions of “the art and science of nursing,” some students consciously separated the art and science of nursing with science elements often coming first, and some students integrated these elements; and (d) some students found journaling useful, and some journaled only when compelled to do so. The findings from this study support journaling as a way for students to explore the art and science of nursing. When writing about patient experiences, participants were able to discover, or uncover, something they did not know about themselves or their patients. Many of these discoveries were evident in their words describing their care of pediatric patients and interactions with families. Implications for nurse educators include allowing time for non-prescriptive writing, recognizing opportunities for journaling, and providing writing prompts for new and seasoned faculty.

Committee: William Kist (Committee Chair) Subjects: Nursing

MFA, Kent State University, 2018, College of the Arts / School of Art

This body of woven work results from my interest in exploring the concept of stress, a dominant aspect of living in our fast paced, technologically advanced society. It represents an attempt to focus and concentrate on meaningful content through active engagement in construction, such as hand weaving, felting and spinning; methods antithetical to the causes of contemporary stressors. I will be relying on the systematic nature of weaving as an organizational tool to express the natural urge to find balance and structure. In addition, the physical and metaphorical aspects of the textile medium will support the analogy between cloth and skin, as a form of literal and figurative protection. To acknowledge the cumulative nature of stress I will make a series of objects to reveal a sense of transformation over time. Through the use of the unique language of textiles I will be examining the effects of mental, physical and emotional stress generated by personal experience.

Committee: Janice Lessman-Moss (Advisor); Taryn McMahon (Committee Chair); Davin Ebanks (Committee Chair); Andrew Kuebeck (Committee Chair) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Fine Arts; Performing Arts; Sustainability; Textile Research

Master of Science in Nursing, Cleveland State University, 2016, School of Nursing

Critical thinking has been recognized as an essential concept in nursing curricula, as well as an important outcome for nursing students. The process of journaling has been used as an educational tool within nursing education to evaluate the critical thinking skills in nursing students. Despite its vigorous use, there is no specific format or conceptual model that is used consistently in nursing education to guide the journaling process or to evaluate if critical thinking is or has indeed occurred. This study will introduce the concept of using self-regulated learning (SRL) theory to prompt Basic BSN students in the development of critical thinking skills through the act of journaling. Self-regulated learning was used to format and apply journaling prompts to guide the Medical-Surgical II clinical rotation of Cleveland State University nursing students. The hypothesis was that students who use the self-regulated prompts will show a higher level of critical thinking skills as compared to the students who did not use the self-regulated prompts. A convenience sample of students were recruited and randomly assigned into groups. Journal reflections were scored and evaluated using the Lasater Clinical Judgement Rubric for the presence of cognitive, metacognitive and motivational critical thought processes. A t-test analysis was conducted to measure the difference between the two BSN groups for level of critical thinking. The results of this study did not show a significant difference between the two groups, but is a step in developing a more conceptually consistent method of guiding and evaluating the journaling process in order to show the presence of critical thinking.

Committee: Raouth Kostandy PhD (Committee Chair); Cheryl Delgado PhD (Committee Member); Linda Wolf PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Nursing

Master of Arts in Education, Defiance College, 2008, Education

The purpose of this project was to determine if the implementation of student choice in a secondary language arts classroom would change or improve students' attitudes toward their language arts course. There were a total of 43 participants from a rural Midwestern public school involved in the study. The data was collected using a daily journal and post assessment questionnaire. Analysis of the data indicated that a change in students' attitudes resulted from the implementation of student choice. The study included several recommendations for further study that included the use of a likert scale pre-assessment instrument.

Committee: M.C. Harper (Advisor); Jo Ann Burkhardt (Committee Member) Subjects: Language Arts

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2010, Communication

This thesis attempts to demonstrate that public storytelling and memoirs – if crafted and shared effectively – may elicit beneficial private/intrapersonal and public/interpersonal functions, and might be utilized as effective media for the formulation and dissemination of humorous health narratives. Through the study of three illness trauma narratives that utilize humor, this thesis analyzes the forms in which productive humor was employed throughout the process of narrative construction, and the information the humorous aspects of the narrative product expresses to audiences about the illness experience. More specifically, this thesis attempts to demonstrate that the integration of humor with health narratives can effectively call attention to health issues such as REM sleep behavior disorder, severe drug addiction, and cancer.

Committee: Teresa Thompson PhD (Committee Chair); James Robinson PhD (Committee Member); Louis Cusella PhD (Committee Member); Kathleen Watters PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication