Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.Decision-making

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    EXPLORING THE ROLE OF PRINCIPALS AND BIAS IN DISPROPORTIONATE SUSPENSIONS OF BLACK BOYS
    (2024) Scales, Tangela Contessa; Shetley, Pamela; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation examines the decision-making processes of principals regarding out-of-school suspension of Black boys. Employing a mixed-method approach integrating survey questions and interviews, it delves into the multifaceted layers influencing disciplinary decisions in educational settings. A primary objective is to investigate the potential impact of implicit biases, training, and lived experiences on principals' suspension decision-making. This research sheds light on the underlying factors shaping educational leaders' disciplinary actions through a nuanced exploration of their perspectives and practices. It aims to contribute to more equitable disciplinary policies and practices in schools. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, misbehavior, discipline issues, and suspensions have surged in schools, with 87% of public schools reporting negative impacts on students' socio-emotional development and 84% on behavioral development during the 2021–22 school year. These issues, highlighted by increased classroom disruptions and disrespect towards staff, underscore the need for comprehensive social, emotional, and behavioral support, as NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr emphasized. The mixed-methods study found a correlation between disproportionality in disciplinary actions to lower academic achievement and a negative impact on student attendance. Implementing restorative practices was positively associated with student well-being, while alternative discipline approaches showed promise in reducing suspension rates without compromising safety. These findings underscore the importance of holistic disciplinary approaches for fostering equitable, supportive school environments conducive to student success. The findings also underscore the prevalence of disproportionate suspensions of Black boys as a result of principal disciplinary decision-making for a select group of principals in an identified school district. The results from this study illustrate that principals' decision-making for the select sample group of principals in the study is influenced by a combination of implicit biases and professional experiences, emphasizing their pivotal role in disciplinary actions. The results of this study help provide insight into the significance of restorative practices and cultural competency training in mitigating disproportionate suspension. This study explores the interplay between lived experience, training, institutional policies, and sociocultural influences, illuminating the complexities of disciplinary practices in educational settings.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    WHY SOCIAL MOVEMENTS BECOME SUSTAINED: THE ROLE OF DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES IN SOCIAL MOVEMENT ORGANIZATION SURVIVAL
    (2021) Partridge, Diana M; Telhami, Shibley; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Why do some social movements become sustained while others fade away? Is it chance, the strength of the grievances, the type of claims, access to resources, or some other movement feature? Current social movement theory focuses on what sparks social movements rather than what sustains them. Yet arguably, social movements can achieve more profound and long-lasting change when they endure, while short-lived movements are more prone to bring about cosmetic change. This dissertation refocuses on how social movement organization (SMO) decision-making affects SMO sustainability. I argue that SMOs that use community-anchored decision-making processes are more adept at survival because these processes bolster the SMO’s legitimacy; foster interpersonal trust among activists; provide the SMO a modus operandi for how to continue operations during challenging times, and increase the changes the SMO has a contingency plan; and slow the onset of collective action burnout. These four mechanisms render SMOs more resilient to organizational disruption and deterrence from the authorities, increasing the likelihood of SMO survival. By contrast, SMOs that use decision-making processes unanchored in the community are more vulnerable to disruption and deterrence. Community-anchored decision-making processes are not synonymous with highly participatory movements, robust solidarity among activists, or even strong community. A movement can have all these features and still have unanchored decision-making processes, highlighting that not all strong communities are equal in their ability to sustain collective action. I test my hypotheses with case material from contemporary North African social movements. Based on dozens of interviews with social movement activists, journalists, academics, and officials; SMO statements; and government documents and secondary source material, I find strong support for the first and second hypotheses, moderate support for the third, and minimal support for the fourth. The results indeed suggest that SMOs’ decision-making processes affect their survival.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE IN INTEGRATED URBAN WATER MANAGEMENT: MODELING AND SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM APPROACHES
    (2020) Mosleh, Leila; Pavao-Zuckerman, Mitchell Adam; Environmental Science and Technology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Urbanization, climate change, increasing water demand, deteriorating water quality, and insufficiencies in system resilience have encouraged city planners to consider integrated urban water management (IUWM) as a solution. One of the main benefits of IUWM is looking into stormwater as a resource to decrease the need for potable water and put less burden on wastewater treatment systems and the environment. Green infrastructure (GI) is an essential part of stormwater management that is designed to mimic the natural hydrological cycle and allows for infiltration, capture and reuse, and treatment of stormwater. This dissertation is designed to inform urban water decision-makers with a special focus on GI via assessment and management frameworks and stakeholder engagement. In my first study, I provided a comparative study of IUWM models aimed at assisting users to select the most appropriate model according to any specific needs. Our results showed that most of IUWM models included stormwater management and GI selection, but do not consider ecosystem services evaluation and the supply and demand from GI. Following these deficiencies of the available models, in my second study, I looked into the stakeholders’ knowledge, perception, and practice of GI with respect to ecosystem services supply and demand. The results showed the study of supply and demand, as well as ecosystem disservices, can help the selection of effective forms of GI to address the priority of stakeholders and environmental issues. Selection of the right type of GI is important for the sustainability of GI in providing ecosystem services, but so is monitoring and evaluation of GI. Thus, my third study focused on developing a generalized social-ecological framework for assessing urban stormwater GI resilience. The results of this study showed that assessing resilience requires linking indicators to critical functionality of GI, as well as a social-ecological approach that goes beyond design and technical specifications. This study can help prioritize resources to address goals related to building resilience. In my last study, I aimed to refine and co-produce a specific social-ecological framework for stormwater GI resilience with stakeholders that links to perceived barriers and challenges of implementing GI. Stakeholders co-created indicators considering current GI challenges and linked them with resilience management dimensions. This framework could inform the management of adverse events and improve resilience by decision-makers and multi-stakeholders in various sectors related to GI planning, design, and implementation.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Enhancing Decision-making in Smart and Connected Communities with Digital Traces
    (2019) Hong, Lingzi; Frias-Martinez, Vanessa; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The ubiquitous use of information communication technologies (ICTs) enables generation of digital traces associated with human behaviors at unprecedented breadth, depth, and scale. Large-scale digital traces provide the potential to understand population behaviors automatically, including the characterization of how individuals interact with the physical environment. As a result, the use of digital traces generated by humans might mitigate some of the challenges associated to the use of surveys to understand human behaviors such as, high cost in collecting information, lack of quality real-time information, and hard to capture behavioral level information. In this dissertation, I study how to extract information from digital traces to characterize human behavior in the built environment; and how to use such information to enhance decision-making processes in the area of Smart and Connected Communities. Specifically, I present three case studies that aim at using data-driven methods for decision-making in Smart and Connected Communities. First, I discuss data-driven methods for socioeconomic development with a focus on inference of socioeconomic maps with cell phone data. Second, I present data-driven methods for emergency preparedness and response, with a focus on understanding user needs in different communities with geotagged social media data. Third, I describe data-driven methods for migration studies, focusing on characterizing the post-migration behaviors of internal migrants with cell phone data. In these case studies, I present data-driven frameworks that integrate innovative behavior modeling approaches to help solve decision-making questions using digital traces. The explored methods enhance our understanding of how to model and explain population behavior patterns in different physical and socioeconomic contexts. The methods also have practical significance in terms of how decision-making can become cost-effective and efficient with the help of data-driven methods.