College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

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Nonparticipation Issues Related to Passive Data Collection
(2024) Breslin, Alexandra Marie Brown; Presser, Stanley; Antoun, Chris; Survey Methodology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
New passive data collection techniques on smartphones allow for the direct observation of a participant’s behavior and environment in place of self-reported information. However, such studies are not appealing to all people, especially those with higher security concerns. The current work explores the mechanisms that impact a sample member’s decision to participate in a passive data collection using three different online panels. The first study explores nonparticipation bias in a financial tracking study and finds evidence of bias in the self-reported measures of financial behaviors, and that prior experience with the research organization positively impacts a sample member’s decision to participate. Studies two and three employ deception studies (i.e., the passive data collections were presented as real rather than hypothetical, but no data was passively collected) in which respondents received experimentally varied invitations to participate in a smartphone-based passive data collection. The second study varies the type of data requested and the study topic to understand better how these study components interact. The findings suggest that the type of data requested impacts participation while the study topic does not. The second study utilized video messages presented to all sample members who chose not to participate. These videos asked the sample member to reconsider, varying whether or not they reiterated the data and security measures of the study from the initial invitation. The results suggest that offering a follow-up video increased participation. Finally, the third study experimentally varied the level of control the sample member would have over what data is shared with researchers during a passive data collection. The findings suggest that an offer of control may not increase participation in app-based passive data collection. The three studies suggest that sample members are more likely to participate in a survey when they have prior experience with such a request and may be converted to participate with a video message, but that the type of data requested greatly impacts the decision to participate. Future work should include replicating these studies with different requested data types and shifting to samples not drawn from online panels.
Understanding the Unthinkable: A Comparative Analysis of Mass Shooters, Homicide Offenders, and Violent Extremists Using Criminological Theory
(2024) Yanez, Yesenia A.; LaFree, Gary; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
As mass shootings continue, the need for more theoretically driven solutions grows. Criminologists can offer tremendous insight, though they should be wary of applying existing theories to this relatively new phenomenon. In this dissertation, I explore how mass shootings fit into our understanding of crime and violence. I begin by describing mass shooter demographics and motives over time. I then compare mass shooters to homicide offenders and violent extremists. Focusing on social control and general strain variables, I find that mass shooters are significantly different than single-victim homicide offenders in terms of common correlates of crime. Mass shooters and violent extremists, on the other hand, show fewer differences and greater definitional overlap. Finally, I consider how mass shooting definitions shape our perception of mass shooters. Considering these results, I conclude that a mass shooter’s path to violence does not resemble that of a common homicide offender but rather one of a violent extremist. Future scholars can thus reimagine existing criminological theories to help explain mass shootings and provide solutions that are more appropriate.
ISOLATING EFFECTS OF PERCEPTUAL ANALYSIS AND SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT ON CHILDREN’S COMPREHENSION OF TWO DIALECTS OF ENGLISH, AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND GENERAL AMERICAN ENGLISH
(2023) Erskine, Michelle E; Edwards, Jan; Huang, Yi Ting; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
There is a long-standing gap in literacy achievement between African American and European American students (e.g., NAEP, 2019, 2022). A large body of research has examined different factors that continue to reinforce performance differences across students. One variable that has been a long-term interest to sociolinguists and applied scientists is children’s use of different dialects in the classroom. Many African American students speak African American English (AAE), a rule-governed, but socially stigmatized, dialect of English that differs in phonology, morphosyntax, and pragmatics from General American English (GAE), the dialect of classroom instruction. Empirical research on dialect variation and literacy achievement has demonstrated that linguistic differences between dialects make it more difficult to learn to read (Buhler et al., 2018; Charity et al., 2004; Gatlin & Wanzek, 2015; Washington et al., 2018, inter alia) and recently, more difficult to comprehend spoken language (Byrd et al., 2022, Edwards et al., 2014; Erskine, 2022a; Johnson, 2005; de Villiers & Johnson, 2007; JM Terry, Hendrick, Evangelou, et al., 2010; JM Terry, Thomas, Jackson, et al., 2022). The prevailing explanation for these results has been the perceptual analysis hypothesis, a framework that asserts that linguistic differences across dialects creates challenges in mapping variable speech signals to listeners’ stored mental representations (Adank et al., 2009; Clopper, 2012; Clopper & Bradlow, 2008; Cristia et al., 2012). However, spoken language comprehension is more than perceptual analysis, requiring the integration of perceptual information with communicative intent and sociocultural information (speaker identity). To this end, it is proposed that the perceptual analysis hypothesis views dialect variation as another form of signal degradation. Simplifying dialect variation to a signal-mapping problem potentially limits our understanding of the contribution of dialect variation to spoken language comprehension. This dissertation proposes that research on spoken language comprehension should integrate frameworks that are more sensitive to the contributions of the sociocultural aspects of dialect variation, such as the role of linguistic and nonlinguistic cues that are associated with speakers of different dialects. This dissertation includes four experiments that use the visual world paradigm to explore the effects of dialect variation on spoken language comprehension among children between the ages of 3;0 to 11;11 years old (years;months) from two linguistic communities, European American speakers of GAE and African American speakers with varying degrees of exposure to AAE and GAE. Chapter 2 (Erskine [2022a]) investigates the effects of dialect variation in auditory-only contexts in two spoken word recognition tasks that vary in linguistic complexity: a) word recognition in simple phrases and b) word recognition in sentences that vary in semantic predictability. Chapter 3 [Erskine (2022b)] examine the effects of visual and auditory speaker identity cues on dialect variation on literal semantic comprehension (i.e., word recognition in semantically facilitating sentences). Lastly, Chapter 4 [Erskine (2022c)] examines the effects of visual and auditory speaker identity cues on children’s comprehension of different dialects in a task that evaluates pragmatic inferencing (i.e., scalar implicature). Each of the studies investigate the validity of the perceptual analysis against sociolinguistcally informed hypotheses that account for the integration of linguistic and nonlinguistic speaker identity cues as adequate explanations for relationships that are observed between dialect variation and spoken language comprehension. Collectively, these studies address the question of how dialect variation impacts spoken language comprehension. This dissertation provides evidence that traditional explanations that focus on perceptual costs are limited in their ability to account for correlations typically reported between spoken language comprehension and dialect use. Additionally, it shows that school-age children rapidly integrate linguistic and nonlinguistic socioindexical cues in ways that meaningfully guide their comprehension of different speakers. The implication of these findings and future research directions are also addressed within.
EFFECTS OF INTERRUPTING NOISE AND SPEECH REPAIR MECHANISMS IN ADULT COCHLEAR-IMPLANT USERS
(2020) Jaekel, Brittany Nicole; Goupell, Matthew J; Newman, Rochelle S; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The long-term objective of this project is to help cochlear-implant (CI) users achieve better speech understanding in noisy, real-world listening environments. The specific objective of the proposed research is to evaluate why speech repair (“restoration”) mechanisms are often atypical or absent in this population. Restoration allows for improved speech understanding when signals are interrupted with noise, at least among normal-hearing listeners. These experiments measured how CI device factors like noise-reduction algorithms and compression and listener factors like peripheral auditory encoding and linguistic skills affected restoration mechanisms. We hypothesized that device factors reduce opportunities to restore speech; noise in the restoration paradigm must act as a plausible masker in order to prompt the illusion of intact speech, and CIs are designed to attenuate noise. We also hypothesized that CI users, when listening with an ear with better peripheral auditory encoding and provided with a semantic cue, would show improved restoration ability. The interaction of high-quality bottom-up acoustic information with top-down linguistic knowledge is integral to the restoration paradigm, and thus restoration could be possible if CI users listen to noise-interrupted speech with a “better ear” and have opportunities to utilize their linguistic knowledge. We found that CI users generally failed to restore speech regardless of device factors, ear presentation, and semantic cue availability. For CI users, interrupting noise apparently serves as an interferer rather than a promoter of restoration. The most common concern among CI users is difficulty understanding speech in noisy listening conditions; our results indicate that one reason for this difficulty could be that CI users are unable to utilize tools like restoration to process noise-interrupted speech effectively.
Design and Effectiveness of Multimodal Definitions in Online Surveys
(2020) Spiegelman, Maura; Conrad, Frederick G; Survey Methodology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
If survey respondents do not interpret a question as it was intended, they may, in effect, answer the wrong question, increasing the chances of inaccurate data. Researchers can bring respondents’ interpretations into alignment with what is intended by defining the terms that respondents might misunderstand. This dissertation explores strategies to increase response alignment with definitions in online surveys. In particular, I compare the impact of unimodal (either spoken or textual) to multimodal (both spoken and textual) definitions on question interpretation and, indirectly, response quality. These definitions can be further categorized as conventional or optimized for the mode in which they are presented (for textual definitions, fewer words than in conventional definitions with key information made visually salient and easier for respondents to grasp; for spoken definitions, a shorter, more colloquial style of speaking). The effectiveness of conventional and optimized definitions are compared, as well as the effectiveness of unimodal and multimodal definitions. Amazon MTurk workers were randomly assigned to one of six definition conditions in a 2x3 design: conventional or optimized definitions, presented in a spoken, textual, or multimodal (both spoken and textual) format. While responses for unimodal optimized and conventional definitions were similar, multimodal definitions, and particularly multimodal optimized definitions, resulted in responses with greater alignment with definitions. Although complementary information presented in different modes can increase comprehension and lead to increased data quality, redundant or otherwise untailored multimodal information may not have the same positive effects. Even as not all respondents complied with instructions to read and/or listen to definitions, the compliance rates and effectiveness of multimodal presentation were sufficiently high to show improvements in data quality, and the effectiveness of multimodal definitions increased when only compliant observations were considered. Multimodal communication in a typically visual medium (such as web surveys) may increase the amount of time needed to complete a questionnaire, but respondents did not consider their use to be burdensome or otherwise unsatisfactory. While further techniques could be used to help increase respondent compliance with instructions, this study suggests that multimodal definitions, when thoughtfully designed, can improve data quality without negatively impacting respondents.
AN ANALYSIS OF CODE SWITCHING EVENTS IN TYPICALLY DEVELOPING SPANISH-ENGLISH BILINGUAL CHILDREN
(2020) Guevara, Sandra Stephanie; Ratner, Nan; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Code-switching (CS) patterns were investigated in language samples of 14 typically-developing Spanish-English bilingual preschool-aged children. CS occurred primarily when the children spoke in Spanish. We investigated code-switched events, vocabulary measures, and disfluencies to better understand if children utilize code-switching to fill in lexical gaps in Spanish, as measured by disfluencies surrounding the code-switch. Results indicate that children’s spoken vocabulary diversity is not related to code-switching frequency, although their receptive vocabulary skills are negatively correlated to proportions of code-switched events. We also found no significant relationship between code-switched events and disfluencies across participants. Findings suggest clinical implications related to best practice for speech-language pathologists when working with bilingual children, as they observe language attrition, and code-switching related to language proficiency and dominance.
IMMIGRATION EFFECTS ON FAMILY STRUCTURE AND HOMICIDE VICTIMIZATION FOR GROUPS WITH DIFFERENT RACE AND ETHNICITY STATUS
(2019) Luna, Mathew; Xie, Min; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Guided by the immigrant revitalization theory, this paper will argue that improvements in family structure play a role in the immigration-crime relationship. The data used in this study were obtained from the National Vital Statistics System, the American Community Survey, and the decennial census. This paper uses cross-sectional and longitudinal models to investigate whether family structure plays a role in the immigration-crime relationship. The longitudinal models will look at changes in homicide data from 2007 and 2017. Findings from the longitudinal models show no support to indicate that family structure plays a role in the immigration-crime relationship. However, findings from Black and White non-Hispanic cross-sectional models do show some support for the argument that family structure does play a role in the immigration-crime relationship.
The Use of Email in Establishment Surveys
(2019) Langeland, Joshua Lee; Abraham, Katharine; Wagner, James; Survey Methodology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation evaluates the effectiveness of using Email for survey solicitation, nonresponse follow-up, and notifications for upcoming scheduled interviews in an establishment survey setting. Reasons for interest in the use of Email include the possibility that it could reduce printing and postage expenses, speed responses and encourage online reporting. To date, however, there has been limited research on the extent to which these benefits can in fact be realized in an establishment survey context. In order to send an Email for survey purposes, those administering a survey must have Email addresses for the units in the sample. One method for collecting Email addresses is to send a prenotification letter to sampled businesses prior to the initial survey invitation, informing respondents about the upcoming survey and requesting they provide contact information for someone within the organization who will have knowledge of the survey topic. Relatively little is known, however, about what makes a prenotification letter more or less effective. The first experiment on which this dissertation reports varies the content of prenotification letters sent to establishments selected for participation in a business survey in order to identify how different features affect the probability of obtaining a respondent's Email address. In this experiment, neither survey sponsorship, appeal type, nor a message about saving taxpayer dollars had a significant impact on response. The second experiment is a pilot study designed to compare the results of sending an initial Email invitation to participate in an establishment survey to the results of sending a standard postal invitation. Sampled businesses that provided an Email address were randomized into two groups. Half of the units in the experiment received the initial survey invitation by Email and the other half received the standard survey materials through postal mail; all units received the same nonresponse follow-up treatments. The analysis of this experiment focuses on response rates, timeliness of response, mode of response and cost per response. In this production environment, Email invitations achieved an equivalent response rate at reduced cost per response. Units receiving the Email invitation were more likely to report online, but it took them longer on average to respond. The third experiment built on the second and was an investigation into nonresponse follow-up procedures. In the second experiment, at the point when the cohort that received the initial survey invitation by Email received their first nonresponse follow-up, there was a large increase in response. The third experiment tests whether this large increase in response can be achieved by sending a follow-up Email instead of a postal reminder. Sampled units that provided an Email address were randomized into three groups. All units received the initial survey invitation by Email and all units also received nonresponse follow-ups by Email. The treatments varied in the point in the nonresponse follow-up period at which the Emails were augmented with a postal mailing. The analysis focuses on how this timing affects response rates and mode of response. The sequence that introduced postal mail early in nonresponse follow-up achieved the highest final response rate. All mode sequences were successful in encouraging online data reporting. The fourth and final experiment studies the use of Email in a monthly business panel survey conducted through Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). After the first month in which an interviewer in this survey collects data from a business, she schedules a date to call and collect data the following month. The current procedure is to send a postcard to the business a few days prior to the scheduled appointment to serve as a reminder of the upcoming interview. The fourth experiment investigates the effects of replacing this reminder postcard with an Email. Businesses in a sample that included both businesses for which the survey organization had an Email address and businesses for which no Email address was available were randomized into three groups. The first group acts as the control and received the standard postcard; the second group was designated to receive an Email reminder, provided an Email address was available, instead of the postcard; and the third group received an Email reminder with an iCalendar attachment instead of the postcard, again provided an Email address was available. Results focus on response rates, call length, percent of units reporting on time, and number of calls to respondents. The experiment found that the use of Email as a reminder for a scheduled interview significantly increased response rates and decreased the effort required to collect data.
ESSAYS IN BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS
(2019) Chadd, Ian; Ozbay, Erkut; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Chapter 1: In many settings, it is natural to think of limited consideration exhibiting spillovers: attention paid to a particular alternative may “spill over” to another alternative based on shared characteristics, complementarities, features of the choice environment, etc. However, it is not straightforward whether, given choice data, a) preferences among alternatives can be revealed, or b) the network of consideration spillovers can be revealed. Using a novel laboratory experiment, I test a deterministic Network Choice model proposed in previous work and find a plethora of violations thereof, even at the individual level. I then propose a stochastic model, Random Network Choice, and analyze its properties regarding the formation of consideration sets. When applied to the laboratory data, I find considerable consistency with the general Random Network Choice model. Armed with a model of network choice consistent with my experimental data, I consider one application in the realm of advertising to show that such a generalization of so-called “positive spillovers” in attention is necessary to avoid misleading welfare analysis. Chapter 2: This paper experimentally investigates the effect of introducing un- available alternatives and irrelevant information regarding the alternatives on the optimality of decisions in choice problems. We find that interaction between the unavailable alternatives and irrelevant information regarding the alternatives generates suboptimal decisions. Irrelevant information in any dimension increases the time costs of decisions. We also identify a pure “preference for simplicity” beyond the desire to make optimal decisions or minimize time spent on a decision problem. Our results imply that the presentation set, distinct from the alternative set, needs to be a part of decision making models. Chapter 3: To what extent does positive reciprocity extent to environments with uncertainty? In order to answer this question, we propose a new game, the Stochastic Gift Exchange game (SGE), that extends the standard sequential deterministic Gift Exchange game (DGE) into an environment with uncertainty. SGE shares the unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium with DGE wherein no players trade, leading to a suboptimal ex-ante allocation. However, contrary to DGE, leading models of reciprocity do not predict departures from this equilibrium in the direction of positive giving. When we conduct SGE in a laboratory experiment, we find positive Wages and Effort, indicating the presence of an ex-ante reciprocal motive. Moreover, Wages are lower in SGE than in DGE, indicating both that ex-post reciprocal motives also matter and that laboratory studies of gift exchange, which have been exclusively conducted with DGE, may overestimate the amount of positive reciprocity in the real world. Finally, we conduct two alterations of the SGE to investigate to what extent the source of uncertainty matters for reciprocal giving. Results from these treatments indicate that a) the source of uncertainty does not matter for Wage and Effort determination, but that b) there is evidence of an endowment effect in the ex-ante vs ex-post fairness domains. When endowed with the ability to affect the ex-ante (ex-post) allocation, ex-ante (ex-post) reciprocal motives dominate. Such a phenomenon runs contrary to the additive separability of ex-ante and ex-post motives, a common assumption in leading models that incorporate both risk and social preferences. Our results suggest new directions for future theoretical explorations of ex-ante reciprocity.
The role of the government in the creation of Places and, the impact that that action has on Identity: A case study in Puerto Rico
(2018) Sanchez-Rivera, Ana Ivelisse; Geores, Martha; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Identity is at the crux of a person’s life. People’s pursuit of uniqueness strongly motivates the process of constructing identity. Place has a major role in that process but present theories focused on identity consider places as manifestations of the self, at the mercy of their populations who change and give meaning to them. The research presented here demonstrates that places are more than personal or groups’ constructions and that they act as agents, directly influencing identity dimensions. This research tests how places created by the government -and not by the people who live in them- can directly influence identity creation in Puerto Rico. The Island was selected as a case study because in 1948 the government decided to re-define “Puerto Ricannes” after recognizing the cultural influences the US was having on the population. Although it highlighted three groups as representatives of the culture -i.e., Tainos (Native-Indians), Spaniards (colonizers) and Africans (slaves)-, it selected the “Jíbaro” -a light-skinned peasant from the mountains- as the main representative of the “real” Puerto Rican. Today, even though PR is understood as a racially diverse place, over 75% of the population selects White as their race in the US Census. This study seeks to understand if the narratives created by the government about the Island influence how participants selected a racial category and identified with the ethnic/racial groups involved in history. Also, it tests how the construction of Loíza, (municipio with the highest proportion of “Blacks”) affects the way people talk and identify with it. The research uses Mixed Methods to interpret data collected in four communities. The result are analyzed using two binary logistic regression models on over two-hundred-and-ninety surveys and, a Two-way Cluster Analysis based on frequency codes of twenty-five in-depth interviews. Findings suggest the identity construction the government has created around Puerto Rico and Loíza as places, actively informs participant responses to questions about their ethnic, national and racial identities.

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