{"id":18044,"date":"2023-12-14T16:40:33","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T16:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/?p=18044"},"modified":"2023-12-14T16:58:54","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T16:58:54","slug":"dr-weathers-received-the-provosts-scholarship-development-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/blog\/2023\/12\/14\/dr-weathers-received-the-provosts-scholarship-development-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Weathers Received the Provost’s Scholarship Development Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Melinda Weathers, health communication professor, received the Provost\u2019s Scholarship Development Award on November 17 at the Western Carolina University Provost Office.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weather\u2019s research addressed <\/span>Assessing College Students\u2019 Perceptions of Digital Dating Abuse and Associated Correlates.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cMy research program on digital dating abuse has developed from my interests in health communication, interpersonal relationships, and new communication technologies,\u201d said Weathers. \u201cMy recent work aims to better understand college student\u2019s perceptions of digital dating abuse. Such research is critical to understand given that experiences with and perceptions of digital dating abuse are linked and provide an important point of public health prevention and intervention with adolescents and young adults.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Weathers has experience working in interdisciplinary grant teams and research studies from the ground up. She has worked with creating protocols and recruitment, data collection, and IRB submission and management of externally funded projects. As well as research experience in various health-related contexts.<\/span><\/p>\n

This topic was important to Weathers because of the increased use of technology in the dating scene.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDigital dating abuse (DDA) is an emerging form of dating violence in the United States. DDA involves the implicit and explicit use of technology to control, demean, threaten, or stalk another person in the context of a dating relationship and is thought to have serious health effects on young people. Research suggests that almost half of all adolescents and almost 70% of college students in the United States report being victims of this type of abuse (Reed et al., 2016)\u201d according to Weathers\u2019 research.<\/span><\/p>\n

Receiving the Provost\u2019s Scholarship Development Award will allow Weathers\u2019 to continue answering questions about DDA.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstanding which specific acts are perceived to be most and least abusive is critical for public health prevention efforts,\u201d said Weathers. \u201cFor example, if college students believe some abusive acts are not abusive, public health approaches may need to focus more heavily on education and shifting norms about these behaviors.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This project is important for social impacts because<\/span> there has been no comprehensive exploration of college students\u2019 perceptions of DDA behaviors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the findings from this study, we anticipate submitting the quantitative results for presentation at the biannual meeting of the Society for Research in Adolescence and submitting the qualitative results for presentation at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association,\u201d said Weathers. \u201cWe will also submit the resulting manuscripts to scholarly peer-reviewed journal outlets for publication. Possible outlets may include but are not limited to: <\/span>Women\u2019s Studies in Communication, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Violence Against Women, <\/span><\/i>or<\/span> Journal of Youth and Adolescence<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the goals of the research findings is to launch an impactful awareness campaign on the WCU\u2019s campus. As well as implementing the issues of DDA into COMM 325: Health Communication, highlighting the notion that classroom knowledge can become applicable in the real world. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Melinda Weathers, health communication professor, received the Provost\u2019s Scholarship Development Award on November 17 at the Western Carolina University Provost Office. Weather\u2019s research addressed Assessing College Students\u2019 Perceptions of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3360,"featured_media":18045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3360"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18052,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18044\/revisions\/18052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}