The National University System Repository exists to increase public access to research and other materials created by students and faculty of the affiliate institutions of National University System. Most items in the repository are open access, freely available to everyone.
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Item Mental Health Therapy Efficacy Differences as a Function of the Delivery Method of Telehealth or In-person(2026-04)This quantitative causal-comparative study examined whether perceived therapeutic efficacy differs between in-person and telehealth delivery of outpatient mental health counseling. The research addressed the lack of clarity about how the rapid expansion of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced clients’ perceptions of treatment effectiveness. Grounded in social psychology theory, the study explored how relational processes and perceived interpersonal quality shape clients’ experiences of therapy across modalities. A purposive sample of 70 adults receiving services at a Utah outpatient clinic participated, with 35 completing in-person counseling and 35 using telehealth. Therapeutic efficacy was measured with the Session Rating Scale (SRS), and an independent samples t-test compared mean scores across groups. Results showed no statistically significant differences between modalities, indicating that clients perceived therapy to be equally effective whether delivered in person or remotely. These findings support existing research showing comparable outcomes across modalities and extend the literature by providing post-pandemic data from a general outpatient population. Implications highlight the need for clinicians to develop hybrid-competence skills and routinely incorporate alliance-based feedback tools into telehealth sessions. Future research should examine mechanisms—such as therapeutic alliance, psychological presence, and relational attunement—that may explain why efficacy remains stable across delivery methods, as well as explore how different client subgroups experience modality in a permanently hybrid mental health landscape.Item Green Bucket - Red Bucket Paradigm(2026-04-15)Education often reduces complex learning to simplified scores, obscuring the processes they represent. Central to this problem is the distinction between assessment and evaluation: assessment is qualitative, focused on describing learning and guiding improvement, while evaluation is quantitative, assigning value through scores. When these functions are merged prematurely, feedback loses its instructional value and scores lose accuracy. The Green Bucket–Red Bucket paradigm addresses this by separating qualitative and quantitative judgment. In the Green Bucket, AI-infused rubrics generate structured, non-graded feedback that supports revision and clarifies expectations. In the Red Bucket, the same rubric converts established qualitative evidence into quantitative outcomes, ensuring consistency and transparency. This approach restructures how judgment operates in education by allowing qualitative understanding to develop before numerical value is assigned. Supported by AI, this separation reduces bias, improves alignment, and produces more accurate, transparent, and equitable representations of learning.Item The Grading Architecture: Measurement, Systems and Reform in Higher Education(2026-04-16)This book analyzes grading in higher education as a system of measurement shaped by design rather than by instructor leniency or student motivation. It argues that grade outcomes emerge from structural features such as scale thresholds, rubric construction, assessment formats, and institutional policy contexts. By reframing grade inflation as a systemic design issue, the text explains how grading architectures generate GPA distributions and affect the interpretive value of transcripts. It offers a design-oriented framework for educators, administrators, and researchers to understand and redesign grading systems to maintain validity, differentiation, and credibility. Topics include the separation of assessment and evaluation, shifting A-range thresholds, persistent inflation absent policy response, AI’s impact on evaluation, rubric reliability, two-tier examination models, and program-level feedback systems, alongside practical tools for structural reform grounded in measurement principles.Item Exploring the Factors of Suicidality in Individuals with Level One Autism Spectrum Disorder(2026-04)There is a lack of information about individuals with autism who are regularly experiencing suicidality. The problem addressed by this qualitative phenomenological study was to learn about the lived experience of individuals with level one autism who have experienced suicidality. The purpose of this study was to learn about the factors that led to the high prevalence of suicidality, lived experiences of suicidality, and the factors of suicidality that are experienced by individuals with autism. Data was collected through recorded phone calls during semi-structured interviews that were linked to the problem, purpose, and research questions. A total of seven clients’ experiences were shared by their therapists from the states of Washington, Wisconsin, California and Oregon. The Interpersonal Theory of Suicide states that individuals process through at least three stages to suicide: thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and acquired capability (Joiner, 2005). Mental health professionals and researchers are impacted by the individualized information gathered, and how the clients with autism in this study did not process through the suicidality theory as expected. Future research is needed in this area. Mandated reporters are impacted by this study due to the childhood trauma and abuse. These experiences led to suicidality for every client and effected adult relationships significantly. Mental health and healthcare professionals are impacted by these results, and can learn what is needed when an individual with autism is experiencing suicidality. Creating access to suicide programs, individualizing questionnaires and intake forms at clinics and emergency rooms to include communication, poverty, abuse, and immigration issues will help with suicide prevention, especially for individuals with autism.Item The Role of Paternal Anxiety in Emotional Regulation and Child Anxiety(2026-04)Most research on parental anxiety has focused on mothers, and fathers have been studied much less. Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health concerns in children and adolescents, affecting approximately 31.9% of adolescents and nearly 10% of children in the United States. Recent research shows that fathers also experience anxiety, which may play a role in family functioning and children’s emotional well-being. This study examined the relationship between paternal anxiety, fathers’ ability to regulate emotions, and fathers’ reports of anxiety symptoms in their children. A quantitative, cross-sectional design was used. The sample included 50 fathers of children between the ages of 6 and 18. Fathers completed an online survey that included the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale–Parent Report (SCAS-P). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted, controlling for fathers’ age. Results showed that higher paternal anxiety was strongly related to greater emotion regulation difficulties in fathers and higher levels of father-reported child anxiety. Paternal anxiety accounted for over half of the variance in both outcomes (54% and 55%), while paternal age was not a significant factor. These findings suggest that fathers’ anxiety is important in how emotions are handled in families and how children experience anxiety. The results also show the importance of including fathers in research and clinical work related to child anxiety and family mental health.
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