Welcome to Vtext at Valdosta State University
Vtext is Valdosta State University's institutional repository, providing open access to the scholarly, creative, and administrative works of the University community. It also houses digitized materials from the VSU Archives and Special Collections.
Faculty, students, and staff can register and deposit their work directly into Vtext, ensuring that it is securely preserved, permanently accessible, and discoverable worldwide. Each item receives a stable, citable URL designed for long-term reliability—supporting both academic visibility and digital preservation for years to come. Please contact the VSU Archives and Special Collections for more information.
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Recent Submissions
Item Is Grey the New Black? A Narrative Inquiry of Growing Up as a Black-White Biracial Child in the South(2026-01-19)The experiences of Black-White biracial individuals remain understudied in educational research despite their growing presence in U.S. schools, particularly in the southern United States. This qualitative study employed narrative inquiry to examine how Black-White biracial young adults who grew up in the South made meaning of racial identity within predominantly White classrooms, schools, and communities. Guided by Seidman’s (2019) three-interview approach and Daiute’s (2014) narrative framework, four participants ages 18–22 shared life stories across family, school, and peer contexts. The study was framed by critical race theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2023), Yosso’s (2005) cultural wealth model, and Poston’s (1990) biracial identity development model to analyze structural inequities, personal agency, and cultural resources shaping self-perception. Findings revealed pressures of racial categorization where Black-White biracial identity was often collapsed into Blackness, alongside the significance of hair, appearance, and phenotypical visibility in shaping belonging. Participants described a dual burden of invisibility and hypervisibility that challenged binary racial norms while inviting scrutiny. Family conversations, mentorship, and participation in sports, arts, and peer groups functioned as key sources of affirmation and resilience, whereas classrooms frequently minimized or ignored race altogether. This study contributes to limited scholarship on Black-White biracial identity in the South by centering participant narratives that disrupt monoracial frameworks. Findings underscore the need for culturally responsive pedagogy, intentional representation, and teacher preparation practices that promote inclusivity.Item A Look at Cirri Presence and Preference: Utilizing Field and Laboratory Studies to Explore a Novel Appendage in Hippocampus zosterae(2026-01-16)Dwarf seahorses (Hippocampus zosterae) are a cryptic species displaying filamentous appendages, known as cirri, which have been historically assumed to have evolved for camouflage purposes. To investigate potential patterns in cirri presence in H. zosterae, photos from monthly sampling over a year-long period in Tampa Bay, Florida were analyzed to deduce which environmental parameters could be correlated with cirri. Cirri presence on wild caught seahorses was quantified using a scoring system of cirri on three head areas and one body area that summed to an overall cirri score for each fish. Preliminary results indicated that females had more cirri than males, and that fish with more cirri were present during the wet season, coinciding with the breeding season of H. zosterae. The sexual dimorphism identified in this trait for dwarf seahorses led to a hypothesis centered around cirri’s potential role in mating preferences. To determine if cirri are a sexually selected trait, wild seahorses were brought into the laboratory for mating trials consisting of three size-matched seahorses: a male, a highly ornamented female, and a less ornamented female. We developed a novel methodology for photographing female seahorses to measure cirri counts, length, and surface area and documented the potential loss of cirri in a captive setting. Our genetic results confirmed the highly ornamented female was chosen in 17 out of 19 trials, supporting our hypothesis that this trait serves as a sexually selected trait with males showing a mating preference for females with greater cirri. Drastic cirri loss was recorded for females over 21 days in captivity, prompting new hypotheses that cirri function as a condition-dependent trait involved in mate signaling, and may serve as an indicator of seahorse health and survival.Item Baiting the Lens: Analysis of Environment, Species, and Interactions in Seagrass Beds Using Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUV)(2026-01-15)Seagrass ecosystems are one of the most biodiverse habitats on the planet, supporting a wide variety of species across many trophic levels. This ecosystem is under threat due to its proximity to coasts where seagrasses are negatively impacted by anthropogenic activities, such as eutrophication and rapidly warming waters. Over the last few decades, baited remote underwater video (BRUV) surveys have been implemented for studying underwater ecosystems, representing a non-extractive and non-destructive sampling method that can observe species diversity within different habitats. In this study, we aimed to determine the feasibility of utilizing BRUVs in an estuarine seagrass ecosystem to analyze the seasonal environmental parameters, species diversity, and species interactions. We performed a yearlong study, deploying a total of 200 BRUV units at varying distances from seagrass across three depth profiles in Tampa Bay. This study reveals that although environmental parameters varied across seasons, the number of species documented throughout the year did not significantly differ between the wet and dry seasons. When seagrass was detected (n = 37), we observed a greater number of species and broader representation of functional groups than when seagrass was absent (n = 110). A variety of species interactions were successfully observed between both conspecific and heterospecific assemblages, that were positively influenced by the presence of seagrass. Our deployment of BRUVs in Tampa Bay identified challenges, such as technological issues, difficulty in replication of deployment location due to seasonal tidal changes, and turbidity altering video clarity reducing the accuracy of species identification. Overall, this study resulted in 147 successful deployments supporting the feasibility of utilizing BRUVs to monitor seagrass ecosystems by measuring species diversity in a fluctuating coastal environment.Item The Impact of Safety Through Seat Belt Enforcement Laws(2026-01-14)The United States depends significantly on vehicles as a major aspect of transportation. Passenger vehicle occupants were involved in nearly 24,000 unrestrained fatal crashes, which accounted for almost half of those who died. While many citizens use their seat belts, some refuse to buckle up. Research indicates that states that switch their seat belt law from secondary to primary see seat belt usage increase by 10%. One research gap is the motivation of at-risk populations regarding restraint use. The primary purpose of this research is to analyze seat belt use, social vulnerability, and crash outcomes. One unique aspect of this study is that it integrates the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) data from the CDC by combining SVI and county-level crash data using predictor variables from traffic crashes. The research uses the following analyses: descriptive comparisons, inferential statistics (χ², t tests, logistic regression), overlaying SVI data, and economic calculations. Deterrence theory provides how the certainty, swiftness, and severity of enforcement impact seat belt use compliance. The use of social learning theory helps explain why people choose to wear or not wear seat belts. Understanding the differences in these laws and their impacts across demographics explains how they affect whether someone buckles up.Item A Statistical Examination of Factors Influencing Graduation Status of Students with Disabilities(2026-01-09)The current study examined student-level and school-level factors influencing on-time high school graduation among 425 students with disabilities (SWD) across the 2022, 2023, and 2024 graduation cohorts in a South Georgia school district and compared the predictive accuracy of multiple statistical and machine learning models.Results revealed that students who were not chronically absent and those spending more time in general education classrooms had substantially higher odds of graduating. In contrast, students placed in alternative schools demonstrated lower graduation odds. Unexpectedly, students who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch had higher graduation odds in this district, contradicting national patterns linking economic disadvantage to lower graduation rates. In addition, logistic regression provided the highest overall accuracy (82.4%) and interpretability, compared to neural network, random forest, and support vector machine models. For class imbalance, none of the models accurately classified non-graduates, with specificity ranging from 29% to 48%. These results highlight the importance of early detection and intervention efforts focused on attendance, inclusive placement, and support for students in alternative settings. While advanced machine learning models offer incremental gains in accuracy in some contexts, the current study highlights the practical value of logistic regression for school districts seeking clear, data-driven methods to identify students at risk and inform policy interventions that support the graduation of students with disabilities.