UNCW Institutional Repository
Welcome to the UNCW Institutional Repository, a digital archive dedicated to preserving and showcasing the scholarly and creative works of the University. This repository provides open access to research papers, theses, dissertations, and other academic outputs, ensuring that the valuable contributions of our academic community are accessible to a global audience. Join us in celebrating and disseminating the impactful work produced by our institution.
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Diversifying curricula in the Deep North: experiences of educators of color during divisive times
(2025-05-09) Malone, Larissa
Purpose:
The purpose of this study is to seek answers to the following question: What are educators of color experiences with racially diversifying curricula during divisive times? This qualitative research study seeks to understand the ways in which educators of color experienced their professional role during the aftermath of the social justice movements of 2020.
Design/methodology/approach:
Ten educators of color provided descriptions of their experiences and role in racially diversifying curricula. Using critical race theory as a theoretical framework, both the historical role of educators of color in the USA and the unique setting in which the study takes place, the state of Maine, were explained.
Findings:
The participants shared they were often thrust into a role of leadership in an environment that did not understand what racially diversifying curricula meant. Although longtime advocates for racial diversification in their individual sphere of influence, the participants found they faced opposition and reluctancy from their colleagues and administrators, when they were asked to spread their knowledge beyond their classrooms.
Research limitations/implications:
Implications include the need to consider the experiences of the participants and other marginalized and minoritized educators when making curricula and policy decisions. This study also implies that it is just as important for schools to provide an environment that fosters a sense of belonging for educators of color as it is for students of color.
Originality/value:
This research is significant because it provides a voice to an often overlooked minoritized population, educators of color in the whitest state in America. This study adds value to larger conversations in the field of education, such as the recruitment and retention of educators of color and the examination of how whiteness works in educational institutions.
ICT Access and Inequality in Global Reading Achievement: Cross-Level Interactions and Compensatory Effects in PISA 2018
(Journal of Education and Training Studies, 2025-05-19) Ghimire, Nirmal
This study analyzed Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 data (N = 612, 004 students across 79 countries) using hierarchical linear modeling to examine relationships between information and communication technologies (ICT) and reading achievement. Student-level predictors included home access, skills, attitudes, and usage patterns; school-level factors comprised infrastructure, resources, and classroom integration. Findings revealed complex relationships with student-level factors, with home access and perceived competence showing positive associations but excessive academic technology use relating negatively to reading scores. Country-level analysis demonstrated that ICT resource inequality correlated negatively with reading achievement regardless of absolute resource levels. Most significantly, cross-level interactions indicated compensatory rather than amplifying effects, with home technology access showing stronger positive associations with reading achievement in technology-poor schools. These findings challenge concerns that educational technology inherently widens achievement gaps and suggests strategic resource allocation could potentially narrow disparities. Results support a nuanced perspective toward technology in education, emphasizing equitable distribution and context-specific implementation rather than universal approaches to digital integration.
Examining a Telemedicine-Based Virtual Reality Clinic in Treating Adults With Specific Phobia: Protocol for a Feasibility Randomized Controlled Efficacy Trial
(JMIR Research Protocols, 2025) Schuler, Kaitlyn R.
Background:
Virtual reality (VR) has strong potential to enhance the effectiveness of telemental health care (TMH) by providing accessible, personalized treatment from home. While there is ample research supporting VR for in-person treatment, there is only preliminary data on the efficacy of telemedicine-based VR. Furthermore, the majority of VR apps used in therapy are not designed for mental health care. VR has the potential to enhance TMH through innovative technology solutions designed specifically for the enhancement of remotely delivered evidence-based practices. This feasibility randomized controlled efficacy trial aims to fill both of these gaps by piloting a novel telemedicine-based VR app (Doxy.me VR) equipped with animal phobia exposure stimuli.
Objective:
This is a feasibility randomized controlled efficacy trial comparing exposure therapy via a telemedicine-based VR clinic versus standard TMH with adults with an intense fear of dogs, snakes, or spiders. The primary objective is to assess the feasibility of a fully powered trial. The secondary objective is to conduct a preliminary examination of clinical outcomes (eg, specific phobia symptoms).
Methods:
This single-site trial will enroll a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 60 adults with self-reported fear of dogs, snakes, or spiders. Potential participants will be recruited through clinical trial and research recruitment websites and posting flyers. All self-report assessments and homework will be partially automated using REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture; Vanderbilt University) forms and surveys, but the baseline assessment of phobia symptoms and exposure intervention will be administered by the study therapist.
Results:
The feasibility of the proposed trial methodology will be assessed using enrollment, retention, assessment completion, and treatment protocol fidelity benchmarks. Between-group differences in specific phobia, anxiety, and depression symptoms while covarying for pretreatment scores, will be conducted using repeated measures ANOVA along with differences in therapeutic alliance and presence. Data obtained from these analyses will inform power analyses for a fully powered efficacy trial. In total, 54 participants were randomized between October 25, 2023, and July 26, 2024 (Doxy.me VR n=28 and TMH n=26). Data analysis will be completed and submitted by the end of the second quarter of 2025.
Conclusions:
This feasibility randomized controlled trial comparing Doxy.me VR versus TMH aims to enhance the delivery of evidence-based treatments via telemedicine and reduce barriers to remotely delivered exposure therapy. This feasibility trial will be followed by a fully powered efficacy trial on telemedicine-based VR for animal phobias.
S-MODE: The Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2025-04-25) Bingham, Frederick Morton
The Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) is a NASA Earth Ventures Suborbital investigation designed to test the hypothesis that oceanic frontogenesis and the kilometer-scale (“submesoscale”) instabilities that accompany it make important contributions to vertical exchange of climate and biological variables in the upper ocean. These processes have been difficult to resolve in observations, making model validation challenging. A necessary step toward testing the hypothesis was to make accurate measurements of upper-ocean velocity fields over a broad range of scales and to relate them to the observed variability of vertical transport and surface forcing. A further goal was to examine the relationship between surface velocity, temperature, and chlorophyll measured by remote sensing and their depth-dependent distributions, within and beneath the surface boundary layer. To achieve these goals, we used aircraft-based remote sensing, satellite remote sensing, ships, drifter deployments, and a fleet of autonomous vehicles. The observational component of S-MODE consisted of three campaigns, all conducted in the Pacific Ocean approximately 100-km west of San Francisco during 2021–23 fall and spring. S-MODE was enabled by recent developments in remote sensing technology that allowed operational airborne observation of ocean surface velocity fields and by advances in autonomous instrumentation that allowed coordinated sampling with dozens of uncrewed vehicles at sea. The coordinated use of remote sensing measurements from three aircraft with arrays of remotely operated vehicles and other in situ measurements is a major novelty of S-MODE. All S-MODE data are freely available, and their use is encouraged.
Maritime Cybersecurity Workshop Report
(2025-05-16) Clark, Ulku; Karabacak, Bilge; Alamleh, Hosam; Cummings, Jeff; Stoker, Geoff; Miller, Kasey C.; Ebrahimi, Ellie; Rachakonda, Laavanya; Greer, Jeff; Daim, Tugrul; Garces, Edwin