Cassandra Dorius

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Iowa State University

Multipartnered fertility (“MPF”) has become a major topic of interest in the United States due to potential negative linkages with parental, child, and family wellbeing. A first step in studying any newly emerging (or newly identified) social phenomenon is to properly define the issue and identify its prevalence. However, this is problematic in the...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Little is known about how the experience of infertility or identification as someone with infertility shapes women's fertility intentions, desires, or birth outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to help fill this gap in knowledge for fertility-intentions research. METHODS Using data from the National Survey of Fertility Ba...

Cohabitation is a common path to marriage for many millennials, with two-thirds of couples living with a significant other at least once before marriage. By delaying or opting out of marriage in early years, couples may be less financially prepared for retirement in later years. Previous research has found that men and women who have consumer debt...

More than 435,000 children reside in foster care in the United States, and despite the high number of children whom need homes, only a fraction of the entire pool of foster parents care for the majority of foster children. Furthermore, about half of foster parents quit within one year of receiving placements. Research has demonstrated that a lack o...

This study explores the relationship between family complexity and major depressive symptoms among middle-aged women, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). By analyzing relationship trajectories, transitions, and statuses, this research uncovers how various relational dynamics influence mental health outcomes. Fin...

Family income strongly influences child development. However, the impact of income trajectories on developmental outcomes is unclear. Using nationally representative data of children in poor and moderate income families and three relevant theoretical frameworks, the present study (a) empirically classified family income from 2001 to 2007 and (b) ev...

Iowa State University's Public Science Collaborative (PSC) partnered with the National Alcohol and Beverage Control Association (NABCA) and the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division (ABD) to better understand the relationship between alcohol outlets and health and safety risk factors in Iowa. The goal of this project was to develop data and analytics t...

This chapter describes best practices to address the challenges posed for implementing the second stage of team‐based learning (TBL), the Readiness Assurance Process (RAP), in online settings, and uses the experience of expert TBL users to suggest strategies for maintaining the essential aspects of the pedagogy.

Technical report utilizing integrated administrative data to explore the impact of birth risks on timing and enrollment in home visiting programs

Using a nationally representative dataset (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort) and bioecological-cumulative disadvantage framework, the present study investigated the relations between salient child and family risk experiences and American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) children's kindergarten academic and behavioral outcomes. Using h...

In response to demands on public systems to do more, do better, and cost less, the value of integrated administrative data systems (IDS) for social policy is increasing (Fantuzzo & Culhane, 2016). This is particularly relevant in programming for young children where services are historically fragmented, disconnected from systems serving school-aged...

Educational attainment is lower among children with divorced parents than those with continuously married parents. Most research has focused on the educational outcomes of children and little research has examined the effect of parental divorce on educational attainment beyond a bachelor’s degree. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of...

Purpose - High rates of union dissolution and repartnering among parents means that today’s youth are increasingly likely to spend some time living with a stepparent. Although family structure has been linked to adolescent well-being, most work has compared those in stepfamilies with those in intact families, so it is not clear which aspects of ste...

Data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were employed to explore the association between boomerang fathering from birth to age 18 on adolescent depressive symptomatology (N = 3,731). We examined the effects of experiencing a biological father exiting and entering the home because of breaking up and repartnering with an adolescent's...

Family demographers study population level characteristics and process that influence the composition and structure of families and households, as well as the relationships between family members. Using the first and second demographic transitions theories as a guide, demographers explore changes in mortality, fertility, marriage, divorce, cohabita...

The dramatic transformation of family life since the mid-twentieth century has led to a variety of new and complex family forms. As a result, researchers have begun to focus on the importance of family stability in understanding the health and well-being of children and adults. Research suggests that children growing up in stable households – wheth...

This paper will describe a synopsis of the development and application of a survey instrument to assess team skills and professional development outcomes of Team-Based Learning (TBL) in a human factors course. TBL is an advancing teaching pedagogy that shifts instruction from a traditional lecture-based teaching paradigm to a structured learning se...

Cohabitation continues to rise, but there is a lack of knowledge about expectations to cohabit and the linkage between expectations and subsequent cohabitation. We capitalize on a new opportunity to study cohabitation expectations by drawing on the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY79) main youth and two waves (2008 and 2010) of the NLSY yo...

Data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Young Adult file were used to explore the relationship between the number of family structure transitions experienced from birth to age 18 and weight status in young adulthood. This was done by testing both linear risk and threshold effect models by gender (N = 3,447). The findings su...

Why do some social movement leaders work harder than others? And, how does gender affect the patterns we uncover? Utilizing historical case study evidence of local chapters in the emerging movement opposing drinking and driving we are able to develop and test theoretical expectations about predictors of weekly effort among MADD and RID leaders. Tak...

We examine the link between parental testosterone and children's perceptions of their relationship with their mother and father. Using data from 352 predominantly white working and middle class families, we find no direct link between mother's and father's testosterone and parent-child closeness. However, the association between mothers' testostero...

This study examines different survey instruments used to assess the experiences of U.S. study abroad participants. The intended audience is international and area study practitioners interested in assessing study abroad programs through postprogram interviews. An interview with the top 20 universities for number of students sent on study abroad rev...

Using data from a probability sample of 4,987 adolescents, we examine the degree to which closeness to mother, closeness to father, parental support, and parental monitoring buffer the relationship between peer drug use and adolescent marijuana use. The relationship between peer drug use and adolescent marijuana use was attenuated by both closeness...

This study is one of the first to systematically co nsider variation in effort among activist leaders in social movement organizations. We develop and test theoretical accounts of activist participation to predict weekly effort among local anti-drunk driving chapter leaders, including measures of chapter structure (e.g., bureaucratic c omplexity an...

Thesis (M.S.) -- Brigham Young University. Dept. of Sociology. Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-64). cat