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Browsing by Author "Young, Akeisha"

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    Exploring Substance Use, Mental Health, and Safety Among College Students At Four-Year Public Institutions
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2021) Young, Akeisha; Laanan, Frankie; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    Substance use and misuse among college students has presented unique challenges for institutions of higher education. As such, this three-article dissertation sought to examine and explore antecedent factors, such as student demographics, protective behavior strategies, mental health, academic performance, and how they interact with alcohol consumption, including heavy episodic drinking. Using the 2015 – 2019 American College Health Association – National College Health Assessment II (ACHA-NCHA II) data cohorts, the first article examined the factor structure of the items assessing protective behavioral strategies and mental health through exploratory factor analysis using principle component analysis. Building upon the first article, the second article used the factor solution found in the previous article to include in structural equation model analyses to assess the indirect and direct effects of the predictor variables of interest on academic performance. Moving from the empirical articles, the third article focused on a higher education practitioner’s perspective of the current status of collegiate recovery centers and how results from analyses in the previous two articles inform how higher education professionals and administrators should combat the increasingly alarming issues with substance use prevalent among college students. This three-article dissertation concluded with discussions on future directions for research as well as implications and recommendations for practitioners and policy in institutions of higher education.
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    Guilty or not guilty - trust, affect, & cognition in mock juror decision making
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2017) Young, Akeisha; Williams, Jimmy John; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    Legitimacy, more specifically, trust in legal authorities and procedural fairness, has garnered a great deal of significance in the legal system and society. The current study assessed the construct dimensionality of trust in legal authorities and procedural fairness to serve as the initial steps for the development of a brief measure of trust in legal authorities and procedural fairness. Moreover, this study investigated whether the relationship between trust in legal authorities, procedural fairness, need for affect (NFA), need for cognition (NFC), need for cognitive closure (NFCS), and individual demographic characteristics predict juror outcome decisions. Participants were given individual difference measures (i.e., NFA, NFC, NFCS), the trust in legal authorities measure, a case scenario, juror outcome decision questionnaire, and demographic questionnaire. A principal component analysis was conducted with 42 items using an oblique rotation (promax). Five statistically significant components, as determined through parallel analysis, explained 53.29% of the variance in trust in legal authorities and procedural fairness. This inductive approach indicated that trust in legal authorities and procedural fairness was comprised of five dimensions: trust in police, institutional trust in courts, procedural fairness- voice, motive-based trust in courts, and procedural fairness – neutrality. Moreover, a binary logistic regression indicated that trust in police and procedural fairness – voice significantly predicted juror outcome decisions. A discussion of these results along with the limitations of this study and future research is discussed.