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Giving Voice To The Spirits: Storytelling In The Service Of Belizean Literacy, Gerald Joseph Kelly

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the participation of indigenous storytellers in a textbook project undertaken by Belizean educators. A qualitative study of these narrators, who contributed both traditional stories and personal narratives, extended from February 1991 until February 1996 in Belize's Toledo District. Featured narrators were interviewed and audio-taped by the author throughout this time period, as they contributed their oral lore to the project.

This investigation reveals the complex interrelationships of anthropological salvage and cultural renewal. Certain contemporary scholars decry what they perceive as the limited pastoral dimension of salvage, which may suggest that the true value of traditional stories lies …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Funding Levels And Expenditure Patterns In New Hampshire High Schools, 1985-1986 To 1993-1994, Thomas J. Carroll

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine if there was a relationship between the level of funds available and the pattern of expenditure in New Hampshire high schools. For example, was there a relationship between the percentage of its budget a high school spends on regular education programs and its overall per pupil cost? The hypothesis was that there would be less than a moderate correlation between each of eight variables and per pupil expenditure. A Pearson r value of 0.30 or greater was defined as indicating a moderate correlation.

The study also examined each high school's spending pattern …

The Relationship Between Intellectual Development Using Hunt's Paragraph Completion Method And Buczynski's Ways Of Knowing Inventory And Collaboration In Full-Year Student Intern And Cooperating Teacher Supervisory Pairs, Mildred H. Struck

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine if there is a correlation between Hunt's (1971) Paragraph Completion Method (PCM) and Buczynski's (1992) Ways of Knowing Inventory (WOKI) and to examine the relationship between intellectual development and collaboration. The sample for the research included student interns in a five-year Master of Education program who were interning to gain their teaching certification. Also in the sample were cooperating teachers and university supervisors. Each of 74 women participants completed the PCM and the WOKI; the results were tabulated, a Pearson r correlation and significance levels were calculated, and a multiple regression was …

Critical Thinking: A Voyage Of The Imagination, David Glenn Hodgdon

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation I contend that there is a strong connection between critical thinking and the imagination, a connection which increases the dynamism and vitality of critical thinking. By acknowledging a role for the imagination, we are able to form a more coherent and complete critical thinking conception, which leads to the positing of a new theory of critical thinking. This new conception has pedagogical implications demanding that we alter or augment current approaches to critical thinking instruction.

Employing a conceptual analysis, I first focus on critical thinking conceptions found on a continuum from traditional conceptions, which focus on logic …

"There Is No School Like The Family School": Literacy, Motherteaching, And The Alcott Family, Lisa Margaret Stepanski

Doctoral Dissertations

By the mid nineteenth century, Americans were increasingly recognizing the need for public education and literacy for all citizens if the United States was to survive, if not thrive. In addition, new industries and technologies were developed that would slowly transform the agrarian New England landscape into a terrain of mill towns and manufacturing sites. The industrialization of New England altered family life, as well, and lead to the rise of the "motherteacher" ideology, a cultural paradigm that profoundly influenced discussions of childrearing and public education in the United States.

This dissertation examines the motherteaching of three famous nineteenth-century figures, …

Performance Management Within Cooperative Extension: Perceptions Of Extension Educators In The Northeast Region, John Edward Pike

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine Cooperative Extension educator perceptions regarding performance management. Performance management is defined as a system comprised of an ongoing process of planning and appraising which includes the establishment of goals and expectations through performance planning; continuing year round performance feedback and coaching; and a formal performance appraisal at the end of the performance period.

This research was intended to provide a better understanding of how extension educators perceived the performance management process within their respective state Cooperative Extension organization. An assumption of this study was that extension educator attitudes toward performance management are …

Student Satisfaction With Faculty Advisors: Influences On Retention In Higher Education, Susan Carole Wyckoff

Doctoral Dissertations

This study sought to expand existing research focusing on factors contributing to student retention in higher education institutions. The study examined the impact of students' levels of satisfaction with the faculty advising process on student retention from first year to sophomore year. The research sought to answer the question, "Are students' decisions to remain at a college following their freshman year influenced by their satisfactory or unsatisfactory experiences with their academic advisors?".

The sample (N = 269), drawn from three higher education institutions in New Hampshire, included fulltime, traditional-aged sophomore (non-transfer) students seeking a bachelor degree with 30-60 credits completed …

Beyond The Postmodern Impasse Of Contemporary Composition: The Non-Foundational Alternative Of Deweyan Pragmatism, Donald Crosby Jones

Doctoral Dissertations

In their critique of the autonomous individual of foundationalism, postmodernists have rejected the epistemological assumption that a knower directly perceives reality in thought then expresses these perceptions through language. Yet as these theorists have asserted the influence of language upon an individual's thinking, they have been unable to explain an individual's agency--the ability to create, assert, examine, and maintain/or modify a belief. Once considered to be situated in prior discourses, the individual has been conceived as a postmodern subject dominated by language. Yet the subject's ability to influence as well as be influenced by discursive practices has not been explained …

Profiles Of Reform In The Teaching Of Calculus: A Study Of The Implementation Of Materials Developed By The Calculus Consortium Based At Harvard (Cch) Curriculum Project, Alice Darien Lauten

Doctoral Dissertations

The research question addressed in this study is: What profiles of interpretation and implementation of reform in the teaching of calculus emerge from data obtained from mathematics faculty members using Calculus Consortium Based at Harvard (CCH) Curriculum Project materials? Site liaisons from mathematics departments using CCH Curriculum Project materials in 117 academic institutions, consisting of 13 secondary schools, 30 two-year colleges, 19 doctoral and research universities, and 55 other colleges and universities, completed Initial and Site Liaison Surveys. Site liaisons and 266 other instructors from 117 academic institutions completed a Faculty Survey. Six clustering scales were developed from the survey …

Changes In Self-Sufficiency: A Feminist Approach To Literacy Program Evaluation, Marcia Ann Makris

Doctoral Dissertations

This research was a follow-up investigation of a federally-funded literacy program which was established to assist its participants to achieve self-sufficiency through employment. The program was designed and implemented in response to the federal legislative law, the Family Support of Act of 1988 (FSA), which mandated that states provide Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) programs to "assure that needy families with children obtain the education, training, and employment that will help them avoid long term dependency" and "assist recipients to become self-sufficient." The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the characteristics of the program that …

The Generation Of Predictive Inferences And The Availability Of Contextual Information, Michelle Lenore Rizzella

Doctoral Dissertations

Five experiments were conducted to determine whether readers generate predictive inferences when biasing context was available at either a local level (i.e., in short-term memory) or global level (i.e., in long-term memory). Subjects read passages that described two characters; one description contained contextual information supporting a predictive inference and the other description did not. Experiments 1 and 2 examined whether subjects generated a predictive inference when biasing context was locally available. Reading time differences in Experiment 1 demonstrated that subjects experienced comprehension difficulty when critical sentences were inconsistent with biasing context. Experiment 2 showed that subjects had generated a predictive …