Applied Learning - Honors College
In order to graduate with Honors, students spend at least two semesters working on an honors project in a one-on-one relationship with a faculty member who serves as a supervisor and mentor. Typically, students have spent another semester or more developing ideas with their mentors before starting the projects. It is quite an accomplishment to bring the project to completion - and to be recognized as graduating with Honors. Graduate schools and future employers know this; the ability to carry out this type of project shows that the student can conduct independent scholarly work and possesses the type of skills necessary for many jobs and for graduate level work.
Fall 2019 Graduates
Accounting
Isabella Mary White
ANALYSIS OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE AND THEIR COMFORT USING CASH FLOW CONCEPTS
Small businesses are an essential part of communities but often fail due to issues surrounding cash flow. The purpose of this research is to assess the correlation between years of experience of small business managers and their comfort levels using cash flow concepts. Each participant completed a survey asking about years of experience and their comfort levels using various cash flow tools. Results revealed a statistically significant relationship between years of experience of small business managers and their comfort levels using cash flow forecasts, cash flow analysis, and cash budgets. The relationship between the years of experience of small business managers and their comfort levels utilizing the cash flow statement and free cash flow was found not to be statistically significant. Participants felt the most comfortable using the cash flow statement and cash budgets and the least comfortable using free cash flow.
Marketing
Caroline Emily Webb
CONSUMER NEUROSCIENCE: ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY (EEG) AS A METHOD OF QUANTIFYING AND SUPPORTING CONSUMER RESPONSES TO COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS
The emerging field known as Neuromarketing involves conducting and analyzing neuroscientific data about how a consumer responds to marketing stimuli, for the purposes of creating more effective marketing strategies. Findings and conclusions from consumer neuroscience data can be used to understand how certain elements of a marketing tactic or advertisement impacts consumers’ reported opinions of the strategy or advertisement they experience. This Neuromarketing study aims to understand which types of brainwaves occur in relation to a consumer’s self-reported opinions of a commercial advertisement, with the hypothesis being that if a student enjoyed the commercial, then alpha brainwaves (8-13 Hz) would occur more frequently in the data compared to his or her baseline brainwave activity. The Muse headset, which collects electroencephalography (EEG) data, was used to measure each subject’s baseline EEG as a control, which was compared to activity during one of two commercials. Participants then answered a series of questions in a survey. Each subject’s baseline and commercial brainwave averages were analyzed against his or her survey responses using SPSS Statistics software. The objective of this study was to understand what goes on in consumers’ brains while viewing an advertisement they later reported liking or disliking.
Economics and Finance
Samuel Pope Struhsaker
VARIATION IN INTERNATIONAL MARKET RESPONSE TO US MONETARY POLICY
The Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the recent global crisis of 2008 highlight the importance of understanding interconnectivities between nations. Previous literature has taken several approaches to examining factors that contribute to the transmission of economic events, specifically financial shocks and monetary policy across borders and the impact on international business cycles. This paper integrates these ideas into a broader examination of how trade relations impact the transmission of US monetary policy across borders. To examine how trade relations impact policy transmission, I use an ARDL model and a two-stage regression process. First, a model is developed to examine the change in 54 international market indices in response to movements in the Federal Funds rate. A second regression is then conducted regressing these bilateral relationships on policy and trade data to identify the relationship between trade and financial responsiveness. Results of the estimates suggest that there is market movement in correlation to the Federal Funds rate.
