Ph.D., Antioch University, 2019, Leadership and Change

This research explores an individual's self-perception of their own ability, motivation, and propensity to trust others for the purpose of validating a new construct: developmental readiness to trust others in the workplace. This construct expands research on developmental readiness to change and to lead by building a scale to measure an individual's motivation and ability to trust others in the workplace. A previously validated scale developed by Frazier, Johnson, and Fainshmidt 2013 measuring propensity to trust was included the scale building process. All items measuring motivation to trust were newly developed for this study, items measuring trust ability were adapted and based on previous trust research by Mayer and Davis 1999. This was a mixed-methods study (qual) QUAN with 6 individual interviews and 417 surveys collected via an online survey using an item response scale of 1 to 7. Respondents were solicited through professional networks and Mechanical Turk. Construct validation resulted in a two-factor model measuring ability and motivation to trust, with propensity to trust as a subcategory under the motivation factor. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted and evidence supported the construct's convergent and discriminant validity and reliability. This research contributes to the existing research on trust by examining an individual's capability to trust others and their motivation. Motivation included both propensity and outcome orientation to trust others prior to entering a relationship. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu and is accompanied by an Excel file of survey data.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2024, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Information Technology

The transition to a fully remote or hybrid work model, expedited by the COVID-19 pandemic, marks a significant shift in the traditional organizational work model, ushering in new vulnerabilities and reshaping the cyber threat landscape. This shift has necessitated organizations worldwide to rethink their Cybersecurity strategies. Notably, Zero Trust Security model emerging as a more secure alternative to the traditional perimeter-based security approach due to its array of benefits. Despite the promising benefits of Zero Trust Security Model, its adoption is often met with hesitation, partly due to the lack of a unified implementation framework and comprehensive data-driven research on the cost-benefits of adopting the model. To address these gaps, the first part of this research focuses on identifying core components required to implement Zero Trust security effectively and to advance its global adoption through a comprehensive novel implementation framework. The second part of this research presents a novel secure and cost-effective approach that integrates open-source technology with cloud-based agent and non-agent tools to centrally monitor, detect, respond to, and prevent diverse attacks capable of breaching the security of an enterprise network. In our third study, we validated the effectiveness of our framework proposed in this research through a simulation deployed on a virtual environment to test the effectiveness of Zero Trust security in preventing and minimizing the risk of data breaches. The findings and contributions of this research are poised to significantly advance Cybersecurity by providing a practical and data-driven approach for implementing Zero Trust security in small, medium and large-scale organizations. Insights from this study are intended to benefit researchers working in the Zero Trust Security domain, as well as industry practitioners looking to transition to the Zero Trust security paradigm.

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), University of Findlay, 2020, Education

Trust is a cornerstone to effective school leadership (Balkar, 2015; Cimer, 2017; Kucuksuleymanoglu & Terzioglu, 2017; Tschannen-Moran & Gareis, 2015; Yasir et al., 2016). Previous literature on trust between teachers and administrators focused on teachers trust in administrators. This study examined the effect of teachers' perceptions of being trusted by their administrator(s) and the leadership behaviors of the administrator(s) which led to these feelings on the overall trust between teachers and administrators. This was found through a qualitative study consisting of semi-structured interviews of ten teachers who had experience with multiple administrators. This research found teachers who felt trusted had higher overall levels of trust with their administrators than those who did not and what administrator behaviors led to these feelings. Administrators need to choose words and actions showing trust in teachers to build a stronger trust relationship.

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2020, Human Factors and Industrial/Organizational Psychology MS

Social interactions are complex and constantly changing decision making environments. Prior research (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995) has found that people use their trust in others as a criterion for decision making during social interactions. Trust is not only relevant for human-human interaction, but has also been found to be important for human-machine interaction as well, which is becoming a growing feature in many work domains (De Visser et al., 2016). Prior research on trust has attempted to identify the behavioral characteristics an individual (trustor) uses to assess the trustworthiness of another (trustee) to determine the trustor's level of trust. Experimental findings have been used to develop into various models of trust (Mayer et al., 1995; Juvina, Collins, Larue, Kennedy & de Mello, 2019) to explain how a trustor comes to trust a trustee. An aspect of trust that has not been investigated is how or if trust changes when a trustor attempts to interact with a trustee, but cannot interact with the trustee. Under such situations Juvina et al.'s (2019) trust model makes the novel prediction that trust will decrease. To assess the prediction of Juvina et al. (2019) model, a new experimental design (the multi-arm trust game) was developed to evaluate how trust is affected under conditions where an individual variably interacts with multiple trustees. Additionally, the identity the trustee (human and machine) was manipulated to examine differences between human-human and human-machine trust. Before data were collected, the model made ex-ante predictions of the participants' behavior. The accuracy of these predictions was then evaluated after the data were collected. The results from our experiment found that our model was able to predict general characteristics of the data confirming the necessity of the model's discounting mechanism, while also highlighting model limitations that are areas for future research.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Wright State University, 2017, Engineering PhD

This study investigated the extent to which the well-known precursors of interpersonal trust (ability, benevolence, integrity, or ABI) could be exploited, redefined, or added to when considering and developing models of trust between humans and technology. The ABI model explains only about half of the variation in interpersonal trust (Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007), so two additional precursors to trust from the interpersonal and automation trust domains – transparency and humanness – were identified and studied. The experimental task involved users interacting with an automated aid (image processing and recommender system) through a simulated unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) interface to identify suspected insurgents in a typical Middle-Eastern urban environment. Aid reliability dropped during the middle-third of the task, due in part to environmental disturbances affecting the aid's image processing performance. Aid transparency was manipulated by exposing users to analytic processing states and aid humanness was manipulated through a human voice with high affect messages versus a machine voice with low affect messages. Results indicated transparency produced inconsistent effects on trust (assessed through subjective ratings) and reliance behavior (defined as participants changing their initial response in favor of the aid's recommendation). This may have occurred because participants interpreted transparency in a broader context which included intent (Lyons and Havig, 2014), rather than in the narrower, operationalized context of algorithm understanding. Humanness, which may have signaled intent, generally improved trust and reliance. Participants may also have had preconceived notions of transparency which differed from the experimental manipulation. This research also examined whether participants applied perceptions of ABI to the interaction with the technology. Perceived ability and perceived benevolence / integrity were found to be explanatory links in the re (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2014, Computer Science

World Wide Web has grown rapidly in the last two decades with user generated content and interactions. Trust plays an important role in providing personalized content recommendations and in improving our confidence in various online interactions. We review trust propagation models in the context of social networks, semantic web, and recommender systems. With an objective to make trust propagation models more flexible, we propose several extensions to the trust propagation models that can be implemented as configurable parameters in the system. We implement Local Partial Order Trust (LPOT) model that considers trust as well as distrust ratings and perform evaluation on Epinions.com dataset to demonstrate the improvement in recommendations obtained by incorporating trust models. We also evaluate in terms of performance of trust propagation models and motivate the need for scalable solution. In addition to variety, real world applications need to deal with volume and velocity of data. Hence, scalability and performance are extremely important. We review techniques for large-scale graph processing, and propose distributed trust aware recommender architectures that can be selected based on application needs. We develop distributed local partial order trust model compatible with Pregel (a system for large-scale graph processing), and implement it using Apache Giraph on a Hadoop cluster. This model computes trust inference ratings for all users accessible within configured depth from all other users in the network in parallel. We provide experimental results illustrating the scalability of this model with number of nodes in the cluster as well as the network size. This enables applications operating on large-scale to integrate with trust propagation models.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Business Administration

This dissertation examines how promises and apologies (forms of “cheap talk” that are costless for the speaker and unverifiable by the receiver) relate to short-term trust recovery after trust has been violated. Drawing upon Weiner's (1986) causal attribution theory and the literature on social accounts, it is argued that these forms of cheap talk are negatively related to the victim's attributions of stability regarding the cause of the violation. Lower stability attributions are posited to produce higher hope emotions and lower fear emotions, and result in higher trust expectancy, as the victim is likely to conclude that future violations are unlikely to recur due to unstable causes. In turn, emotional reactions and trust expectancy are predicted to jointly affect short-term trust recovery. This study examines one possible boundary condition in testing whether the effects of cheap talk on stability attributions are moderated by offense severity. Finally, this study also considered the impact of message content versus gesture on short-term trust recovery in order to discern whether it is the words that are used or the polite gesture of speaking them that is related to stability attributions. The results indicated that promises and apologies were not related to stability attributions, nor did these forms of cheap talk interact with offense severity on stability attributions. However, this study did find that the type of message interacted with offense severity such that content-free messages (i.e., garbled messages that contained neither a promise nor an apology) were associated with higher stability attributions relative to content messages (promises, apologies, promise-plus-apologies) when offense severity was high. This study also found support for Weiner's (1986) attribution theory in the context of short-term trust recovery by highlighting the instrumental role of stability attributions and specific emotional reactions as key variables in the short-term trust r (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2023, College of Communication and Information

This research examines emergency health communication with college students during the early phase of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic to provide better insights for emergency planning and to ensure success in early-stage communication efforts. Trust and confidence in various spokespersons are tested, along with students' levels of cooperation with nationwide and college-level directives. To fill a gap in the current emergency preparedness literature, this research also focuses on the communication needs and cultural perspectives of international students on American college campuses. Based on the Trust, Confidence and Cooperation (TCC) Model and its ability to predict cooperation with health directives, this study tested and further defined the aspects of trust and confidence in contributing to public cooperation during a health emergency - in this case, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. The study also evaluated whether the TCC Model could be applied to foreign residents, such as international students, during such an emergency. While better understanding the path to cooperation for international students, the lessons learned can be applied to both college and immigrant populations nationwide. Problematic operationalizations within the TCC Model are clarified and tested in hopes of better defining the variables involved in the model, and new variables, such as cultural competence, are tested for fit.

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2023, Political Science

This thesis addresses the decline in social capital outlined in Robert D. Putnam's scholarship, through the contemporary context of the Covid-19 pandemic. This thesis indicates that, broadly, the pandemic weakened United States citizens' sense of community towards one another. This is displayed through the many recorded acts of citizens acting out of self-interest and openly disregarding community safety. Chapter Three of this thesis outlines the ways in which elected officials and public health officials faced threats to their safety in response to their Covid-19 guidelines, discusses the scapegoating and hatred towards Asian Americans that has increased during the pandemic, and examines the impacts of libertarian individualism on citizens' responses to Covid-19. Chapter Four details case examples of organizations (CAP Tulsa, Roca, Inc., LatinoLEAD, My Brother's Keeper Alliance, the UNC American Indian Center, and Project CARE) working together to strengthen social capital to generate a sense of social responsibility in the current moment. Chapter Five offers a first-hand look at community-based events in rural southeastern Ohio through the use of autoethnography.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2023, Sociology

Over the past few decades, scholars and policymakers have paid a lot of attention to the fear of crime. Researchers have looked at crime and the fear of crime through Shaw and McKay's (1942) social disorganization theory. This theory argues that neighborhoods that are more urbanized are more likely to have a higher crime rate and, as a result, a higher fear of crime. While there has been much research done on the fear of crime through the framework of social disorganization theory, most of these studies have been conducted in Western developed countries, such as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom (Ade 2007; Cordner 2008; Reid and Roberts 1998; Ruhs, Greve, and Kappes 2017). Not much is known when it comes to developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This suggests that a cross-cultural understanding of the fear of crime is necessary to enhance our global understanding of the fear of crime. As a result, this dissertation tests the social disorganization theory in Ghana, Africa, by examining the spatial variation of fear of crime in the neighborhood in three categorized regions (major urbanized, semi-urbanized, and less urbanized regions). Also, it examines the relationship between fear of crime, trust among neighbors, and trust in the police. Finally, it investigates how aspects of social disorganization theory, the presence of social disorder, collective efficacy, and victimization experience influence the fear of crime in Ghana, using a cross-cultural, nationally representative sample of data from the World Values Survey (2012). The findings suggest that fear of crime is a significant concern for residents in Ghana. Using ordered logistic regression, results from this study indicate that residents in major urban regions and less urban regions reported higher levels of fear of crime than those in semi-urban regions. This result partially supports the social disorganization hypothesis in terms of why individuals fear crime more in urban areas (Shaw a (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Organization Development & Change (D.O.D.C.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Organization Development

The social determinants of health (SDOH) are a focus for many not-for-profit (NFP) healthcare organizations. The goal is to address the negative SDOH through different initiatives and improve the overall health of the communities that the NFP healthcare organizations serve. Many initiatives are deployed to treat the negative SDOH present in communities. The present research looked at relations between trust, trustworthiness, distrust in healthcare, awareness of the SDOH initiatives, and trust propensity. A quantitative study was performed with participants who evaluated different SDOH initiatives, perceptions of trustworthiness of healthcare organizations, trust propensity, and generalized distrust in healthcare systems. Findings indicate trust having a positive relation with awareness and a negative relation with trustworthiness, as well as perceptions of trustworthiness having a negative relation to distrust and a positive relation with trust propensity. There is also an indirect positive relation of awareness of the SDOH initiatives on trustworthiness through distrust in healthcare.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Environment and Natural Resources

Wildfire is a difficult environmental hazard to manage. While uncontrolled wildfires can pose considerable risk, overly-aggressive suppression degrades fire-adapted ecosystems and increases the risk of catastrophic wildfires in the long run. The fire managers and incident management teams (IMTs) who manage fires must make decisions in rapidly evolving situations characterized by high risk. Many factors inform these decisions, and fire managers must choose how they will seek out and attend to information. Information may come from technological sources such as decision support tools, or social sources such as trustworthy supervisors and subordinates. IMT members have a suite of decision support tools available that provide information on a variety of attributes, such as values at risk, forecasted weather, and projected fire behavior. However, it is not clear how IMT members use things like weather information to inform their tactical decisions. In Chapter 1, we review the psychological dynamics of fire manager decision making and the social dynamics of wildland fire management teams that influence what information fire managers use, and how they use it. In Chapter 2, we use a choice experiment to evaluate how IMT members use forecasted precipitation, humidity, and wind when making tactical decisions. Results show IMT members actively use weather information and generally prefer to directly attack fires exhibiting moderate fire behavior and indirectly attack fires exhibiting extreme fire behavior. However, how much importance fire managers assign to weather information depends on the previous tactics being used up until that point. Based on these results, we recommend future efforts to improve reliability and confidence should target precipitation and wind models. We also recommend decision support tools, including weather forecast tools, be designed with the probable decision strategies of the end users in mind. We also evaluate how trust dynamics between team member (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Management, Case Western Reserve University, 2010, Weatherhead School of Management

Driven by recent breaches of trust by corporations, religious institutions, government entities and nonprofit organizations and their leaders, stakeholders are increasingly distrustful of the motivations and behaviors of these institutions. We asked two overarching questions in response to this degradation of trust and proliferation of distrust in firms, organizational leaders, and entire sectors of the economy: a) How do organizations repair stakeholder trust once they have broken it? and b) How do organizations navigate distrust- and/or trust-dominated institutional environments, whether or not they have been transgressors? In our conceptual paper, we developed a framework for repairing stakeholder trust by investigating the impact of perceived organizational justice on trust repair. Using the research agenda presented in the conceptual paper, we used our second paper to further examine the trust repair process from the stakeholder perspective. We employed a semi-structured interview research process and found that informational justice, evidence of change, the perceived character and values of organizational leaders and the mode of communication utilized to regain trust were most salient in trust repair. As U.S. economic woes drove deeper and more broad-reaching distrust, we looked outside of the firm to understand how to build trust and loyalty in various industry environments using two competing theoretical lenses. We found that consumer distrust in a firm is a grave threat to loyalty across industries; however, distrust-dominated environments present unique opportunities for some firms with high consumer trust to gain loyalty, while trust-dominated environments present fewer opportunities.

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2018, Human Factors and Industrial/Organizational Psychology MS

Few studies have examined how propensity to trust in automation influences trust behaviors, those which indicate users are relying on automation. Of the published studies, there are inconsistencies in how propensity to trust automation is conceptualized and thus measured. Research on attitudes and intentions has discerned that reliability and validity of measures can be increased by using more direct and specific language, which reduces ambiguity and increases the ability to predict behavior. This study examined how traditional measures of propensity to trust automation could be adapted to predict whether automation is deemed as trustworthy (perceived trustworthiness) and whether people behave in a trusting manner when interacting with automation (behavioral trust). Participants (N = 55) completed three propensity to trust in automation surveys including Propensity to Trust in Technology, an adapted version, and the Complacency-Potential Rating Scale. The Propensity to Trust in Technology scale was adapted by replacing “technology” with “automated agent” as the referent. Participants played a modified investor/dictator game, where people teamed with a NAO robot. Betting behaviors were used to measure behavioral trust. This study demonstrated that compared to generally-worded measures, more specifically-worded measures of propensity to trust automation are more reliable and better predictors of perceived trustworthiness and behavioral trust. An adapted propensity to trust technology scale was the only significant predictor of both perceived trustworthiness of the automation and the trusting behaviors of participants. By decreasing the ambiguity of the referent in the adapted propensity to trust automation scale, the reliability and predictive validity was increased.

PHD, Kent State University, 2017, College of Nursing

A PATH ANALYSIS OF TRUST IN NURSES, SOCIAL SUPPORT, PATIENT SELF-ADVOCACY, PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS, AND PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC HEART FAILURE (199 pp.) Director of Dissertation: Ratchneewan Ross, Ph.D., RN, FAAN Patients with heart failure participate in care by self-advocating, or speaking up, to their health care providers. By gaining and using health information, assertively communicating, and making decisions, patients are self-advocating. A cross-sectional, path analysis design was used to test two structural models. A convenience sample of 80 HF clinic patients were surveyed using the Adapted Patient Self-Advocacy Scale, Health Care Relational Trust in Clinic Nurses Scale, Medical Outcome Study Social Support Scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Symptom Status Questionnaire for Heart Failure. An analysis was conducted to test the direct and indirect effects of trust in nurses, social support, and self-advocacy, on psychological distress and physical symptoms. Two structural models were created; neither model fit the data as hypothesized. A respecified model focusing on the components of self-advocacy was tested, trimmed, and found to fit the data (chi square 9.452, df 6, p .105; RMSEA .085; CFI .877, IFI .892, NFI .752). Trust in nurses directly affected patient self-advocacy knowledge (beta .25, R2 .06, p .05). Social support directly affected patient assertiveness (beta .26, R2 .07, p .05). And social support directly affected depressive symptoms (beta-.40, R2 .16, p .001). Nursing plays a role in patient self-advocacy. Educating and encouraging patients to use acquired knowledge in decision making supports patient participation and self-advocacy. Nursing's encouragement of the supportive role of friends and family members can have a positive influence on patient assertiveness and depressive symptoms.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2016, Arts and Sciences: Psychology

Trust is an attitude that influences the intention `to be vulnerable to another party when that party cannot be controlled or monitored' (Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995, p.712) and is important for work teams. Like all attitudes, the affective component of trust consists of an immediate evaluation and a response that is more deliberate and effortful. Capturing both aspects of the affective component may allow researchers to gain a more complete understanding of how trust develops. Implicit attitudes are an automatic affective response and may reflect the immediate evaluation component of trust. Explicit attitudes may reflect the more effortful and deliberate affective process that contributes to trust. In this study, 108 participants worked with two virtual teammates in two sessions. In session one, participants worked with a “fair” teammate and an “unfair” teammate on a financial decision-making task. The fair teammate shared the team earnings evenly with the participant, whereas the unfair teammate exploited the participant by taking most of the team earnings. In session two teammate behavior changed; either the fair teammate in the first session became unfair or the unfair teammate became fair. Participants completed measures of Emotion Management Ability, Fluid Intelligence, personality and Implicit and Explicit Affective Attitude Change. Participants also recorded the Economic Offer they would entrust to each teammate, Self-Report Trust and a perceived trustworthiness measure. The researcher explored whether teammate generosity affected trust and implicit attitude toward the teammates and whether change in trust in the unfair teammate would be associated with affective attitude change. Analyses revealed Explicit Affective Attitude Change significantly predicted both Self-Report Trust and Economic Offer, after controlling for cognitive predictors of trust. Implicit attitude predicted only Self-Report Trust and this prediction was moderated by Emotion (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Wright State University, 2016, Computer Science and Engineering PhD

Software defined networking (SDN), a new networking paradigm that separates the network data plane from the control plane, has been considered as a flexible, layered, modular, and efficient approach to managing and controlling networks ranging from wired, infrastructure-based wireless (e.g., cellular wireless networks, WiFi, wireless mesh net- works), to infrastructure-less wireless networks (e.g. mobile ad-hoc networks, vehicular ad-hoc networks) as well as to offering new types of services and to evolving the Internet architecture. Most work has focused on the SDN application in traditional and wired and/or infrastructure based networks. Wireless networks have become increasingly more heterogeneous. Secure and collab- orative operation of mobile wireless ad-hoc networks poses significant challenges due to the decentralized nature of mobile ad hoc wireless networks, mobility of nodes, and re- source constraints. Recent developments in software defined networking shed new light on how to control and manage an ad hoc wireless network. Given the wide deployment and availability of heterogeneous wireless technologies, the control and management of ad hoc wireless networks with the new software defined networking paradigm is offered more flexibility and opportunities to deal with trust and security issues and to enable new features and services. This dissertation focuses on the SDN MANET architecture design issues for provid- ing secure collaborative operation. Specifically, (I) We have proposed four design options for software defined secure collaborative ad hoc wireless network architecture. The de- sign options are organized into (a) centralized SDN controller architecture with controller replication and (b) distributed SDN controller architecture. While these proposed architec- ture options exhibit different characteristics, many common challenges are shared amongst these options. Challenges include fault-tolerance, scalability, efficiency, and security. The unstr (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2015, Economics

By examining the way in which a financial crisis affects religious participation and affiliation via a financial crisis's effect on relative trust, where relative trust is defined as trust in organized religion relative to trust in secular institutions, relative trust is being identified as one possible mechanism through which a financial crisis causes changes in religiosity. Using U.S. data from the most recent financial crisis, I find that a financial crisis leads to an increase in religious participation and affiliation via the financial crisis's effect on relative trust, when defined as trust in organized religion relative to either trust in banks and financial institutions or trust in the military. By empirically determining possible mechanisms through which a financial crisis leads to increased religiosity, the way a financial crisis could affect terrorism can be better understood, along with better understanding how religious institutions survive for centuries while secular institutions oftentimes collapse.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, EDU Policy and Leadership

Using grounded theory methodology, this dissertation reports on a study of 12 educators’ experiences as trainers in a state-level policy implementation. Interviews, policy and program documents provide evidence of the trainers enacting intermediary roles in the implementation process, standing as a primary information conduit between the state department of education, which developed the program, and the teachers, who would enact the program. Two main themes emerged from data analysis. First, the study shows how intermediaries engaging in ongoing knowledge building processes with the state department of education extended the department’s implementation capacity. They used their professional capital (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012)— a combination of human, social and decisional capital utilizing group commitments and capabilities— and their local knowledge (Kalb, 2006) — insights gained from situated and practical insights into local social relations and institutions— to reach the policy enactors, the teachers. Second, the data indicated the presence of collective trust— the trust that groups have in individuals and other groups— among the trainer group, contributed to their initial successes, which Forsyth, Adams and Hoy (2012) suggest can positively influence school reform. The study confirms the findings of prior implementation research, that the implementation process is complex and convoluted, yet contributes to the evidence that intermediaries play increasingly more powerful (and possibly more effective) roles in policy implementation. It also extends collective trust research by its examination of the role of trust, both in relationships among the state trainers, and from the state trainers to other factions involved in the implementation process. The study suggests opportunities for subsequent research concerning intermediaries and expanding trust research to include studies of trust disintegration over t (open full item for complete abstract)

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Education : Educational Studies

Historically, there has been a lack of educational studies measuring student trust and commercial messaging; therefore, this study presents and encourages further research into this problem. Today's American student is educated within a realm of brands, logos, and other corporate identifiers that may facilitate an educational environment that reinforces consumerism, rather than promotes critical thinking. As we progress into the technological, information-based, 21st Century, teachers may be eager to utilize new methods involving technology. In response to this instructional need, new products are being marketed towards teachers and students, many with advertising attached. Instructors that choose to incorporate current events, or popular culture into their curriculum may also wish to use materials from other commercial sources, such as ABC, NBC, or MTV. While commercially broadcast materials may present very relevant topics, is there a cost associated with presenting corporately sponsored media in the classroom? The literature review of this study demonstrates ways in which schools enter into partnerships with external funding sources with the desire of mutual gain. Through small donations and large contracts, corporations are able to get their messages to millions of students each day on textbook covers, satellite television, websites, and DVDs. To some, schools are seen as a powerful market to be privatized. Trust is seen as a necessary component of education. As a necessary component of education, this study identifies the historical and contemporary understandings of trust and creates and validates a survey instrument capable of measuring trust in an educational setting. The results of this quantitative study show that student trust and comprehension are affected by the endorsement of the educational material.