Author: Leslie Epps

In this experiment, researchers distributed questionnaires to one hundred first-year student attending Massey University. Ranging from ages 18 to 33, the participants all had left home and were permanently residing on campus. These students answered questions used from the Dundee Relocation Inventory, which measured homesickness, previous mobility and family functioning among various demographics.  In the first section, questions were designed to assess the feelings students held towards their home, security, family and general satisfaction, In the second section, the students answered questions about the functionality of their family. In the final section, the students were asked about the amount of times they had moved prior to attending college.
Through the experiment, the researchers collected the questionnaires and determined that there was a high level of family cohesion reported by the students as well as a high level of homesickness. Around 31% of participants had experienced homesickness, with 11% reporting familial functionality. In addition, it was concluded that previous mobility had no effect on disclosed mobility. In comparing the levels of homesickness, it was also found that there was no significant difference between genders and races, with age being the only demographic variable that had an effect on homesickness – 32.4% of participants under 19 and 27.8 % of students over the age of 19. This data thus suggests that familial cohesion as well as age were the most reliable indicators for homesickness.
In analyzing the acquired data, it was deduced that family cohesion accounted for 18% of the levels of homesickness in college students. As expected, there was a significant relationship between the levels of homesickness in students and their reported familial cohesion and age.

Flett, Ross. “FAMILY COHESION AND AGE AS DETERMINANTS OF HOMESICKNESS IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.” Social Behavior and Personality: an International Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, 1998, pp. 195–202.

In covering the Miss America Pageant, the news sources CNN and Fox News convey their bias’ through the subject matter of their articles and the diction found within their articles. CNN reported that the Miss America Pageant was historic as Cara Mund is the first Miss America winner representing North Dakota. In contrast, the Fox News article emphasizes the political questions that were posed to the contestants, which they found to be controversial. Even though both the winner and political questions were discussed in the articles, CNN solely focuses on the winner, casting the pageant in a positive light. Fox News solely focuses on the political questions, thus negatively critiquing the pageant. In their articles, each source also included tweets that coincided with their bias’ about the pageant. In the CNN article, celebratory tweets were included about Mund’s win. Fox News chose to include tweets that expressed frustration from viewers about the politically-charged questions. As shown by these two articles, both news sources had bias’ about the pageant as well as the overall political climate.

CNN Article:
France, L. R. (2017, September 11). Miss America 2018 is… Retrieved September 11, 2017, from http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/11/entertainment/miss-america-2018/index.html

Fox News Article:
Miss America gets political: Contestants asked about Trump-Russia collusion, Confederate statues. (2017, September 11). Retrieved September 11, 2017, from http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/09/11/miss-america-gets-political-contestants-asked-about-trump-russia-collusion-confederate-statues.html

In order to assess the relationship between sea otter population and the abundance of kelp forests, researchers conducted surveys in Alaska, comparing the densities of kelp forests in areas with a large sea otter population and areas with a small sea otter population. At several different sites lining the Alaskan coast, the density of kelp forests were measured by a scuba diver counting the amounts of kelp in specific sectioned off areas, with varying sea otter populations that were calculated in previous experiments.

The experiment concluded with results that showed that the decrease in kelp forests coincided with the decrease in sea otter population. Kelp density varied strikingly between areas with an abundance of sea otters in comparison to areas with a lower abundance, suggesting that the presence of sea otters protected the surrounding kelp forests and encouraged their propagation.

Estes, J., & Duggins, D. (1995). Sea Otters and Kelp Forests in Alaska: Generality and Variation in a Community Ecological Paradigm. Ecological Monographs, 65(1), 75-100. doi:10.2307/2937159

Within this study researchers explored the behavior of the orb spider after its web incurred damage from the wind.  The repair process of the orb spider was evaluated for its effectiveness of restoring the original structure and the behavior of the orb spider in response to wind damage, including response time as well as anticipation of damage, was analyzed. It was concluded that the spiders reacted to the damage of their webs through the same sequence of actions, resulting in a stronger web structure post-construction, and that spiders responded quickly to the damage caused by the winds, lending credibility to the idea that the spiders adapted to the windy environment.

Tew, Adamson, & Hesselberg. (2015). The web repair behaviour of an orb spider. Animal Behaviour, 103, 137-146.