Digital Commons Network^™

Dental Microwear Analysis Of Averbuch: A Dietary Reconstruction Of A Mississippian Culture, Melissa G. Muendel

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation reconstructs subsistence patterns of the inhabitants of Averbuch, a prehistoric late Mississippian culture, using SEM (scanning electron microscopy) to quantitatively assess the dental microwear of the permanent adult second mandibular molar of a selected skeletal sample from the Averbuch archaeological site. A comparison among the patterns of the Averbuch and those reported from other prehistoric sites in the United States is presented. The study uses the mesiolingual cusp (metaconid) tip facet (Kay and Hiiemae, 1974) of the mandibular permanent second molar to measure dental microwear features. Every cusp in the human mouth has an occlusal relationship to the …

Trust In Family Relationships : The Elderly Person And The Female Family Caregiver, Eileen Marie Amari-Vaught

Doctoral Dissertations

Elderly people and their family caregivers lack a much needed ethical framework for working through moral conflicts. Often, moral conflicts that arise in the home care setting center around the tension between respecting the elderly person's autonomy and protecting the family caregiver from harm. The family caregiver, who is most often female, is vulnerable to harm due to the strains of trying to accomplish the tasks from competing responsibilities to her immediate family, her job and her dependent elderly relatives. Additionally, the female family caregiver often feels tension from the societal pressure to assume this role. There are currently no …

Attachment Style Differences In Negative Affect And Cardiovascular Arousal, Richard Scot Adlin

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explored the association between the quality of attachment in close relationships during adulthood and patterns of negative affect. Based on attachment theory and research, it was hypothesized that attachment styles characterized by a negative "working model" of self (preoccupied and fearful avoidant) would be associated greater levels of self-reported negative affect compared with attachment styles defined by positive working models of self (secure and dismissing avoidant). Also, dismissing avoidance was expected to be related to greater cardiovascular activation, in spite of its association with lower levels of self-reported negative affect. A link between security and lower levels of …

A Comparative Study Of Public College And University Presidential Perceptions Of Effective Leadership Practices, Clay Eugene Brown

Doctoral Dissertations

Leadership has evolved through a variety of theories, definitions, and metaphors over the last century. Organizations, such as colleges and universities, have been influential in this leadership evolution. As such, college and university presidents have had significant influence on the phenomenon of leadership. One purpose of this study was to explore variations in public college and university presidential reports of their leadership practices as a function of institutional type and and as a function of the selected personal classification variables of race, age, gender, academic background, and years of experience. A second purpose was to compare public college and university …

Child Mental Health And Other Factors Of Children's Time In State Custody : An Evaluation Of The Protectionist/Satisficing Model Using Event-History Analysis, James William Bailey

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the role that children's mental health status and other factors play in determining the time that children spend in state custody. By combining the protectionist judicial model and Simon's (1956) satisficing view of decision making, a theoretical explanation is offered of the mechanisms that link these factors to time in custody. The study uses prospective data on 700 children in Tennessee state custody to test the effect of certain child, family and service variables on the hazard rate for exiting state custody. To test the study hypotheses an event-history model was constructed using Cox regression analysis with …

Social Support And Health Care Utilization In An Aged Population : A Comparison Of Private Residence And Assisted Living Dwellers In East Tennessee, Mary Jane Tremethick

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the level of social support in an aged population with deficits in activities of daily living. The social support for the aged residing in assisted living was contrasted with the social support of the aged who remained in a private dwelling and received home health services to assist with activities of daily living. The secondary purpose, was to correlate the level of social support to health care utilization and through the use of Andersen's Behavioral Model, social support was investigated as a predictor of health care utilization. Eighty individuals from each …

The Experiences Of Five Inner-City Interns, Stephen Philippe Rushton

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study, based on a blending of symbolic interactionism and narrative inquiry examined the experiences and perceptions of five women interns as they completed a fifth-year Master's internship in two inner-city schools. The interns gave accounts, both oral and written, of their experiences over the course of a year. The raw data consisted of four personal interviews with each intern (spaced evenly apart over a nine months), twelve written ‘reflections’ by the interns about events they had experienced during the previous week (for a period of three months), and weekly discussion-groups provided by the interns based on their written …

'Þe Bok As I Herde Say' : Orality As A Rhetoric In Medieval And Modern Discursive Contexts, Melissa C. Putnam Sprenkle

Doctoral Dissertations

Rather than viewing orality as a cognitive process or cultural context separate from literacy, this project argues that orality functions as a holistic rhetorical perspective and that there are three distinct orality rhetorics (epic, popular, and conversational) which use the notion of 'voice’ to differently organize the relation between language, culture, and the world. To demonstrate the interpretative differences which result from the application of different orality rhetorics, this study examines and compares oral approaches to textual problems in medieval vernacular narrative poetry (specifically in reference to Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Nibelungenlied). The first …

Images Of The Female Adolescent In Exile In Select Works Of Russian And German Women Writers, Xenia Srebrianski Harwell

Doctoral Dissertations

The image of the adolescent girl in exile has rarely been discussed in Russian and German literary scholarship, but is worthy of investigation as another way of understanding the exile experience, which has been a wide- ranging phenomenon of the twentieth century. The works and their authors–Izol'da by Irina Odoevtseva, Mys bur' by Nina Berberova, Kind aller Länder by Irmgard Keun, and Heimatsuchen by Ilse Tielsch-were selected, in part, because scant research has been devoted to them. Both works and authors are first placed within their historical context and then into the context of literary scholarship within the individual fields …

On-Line Customers : Identifying Store, Product And Consumer Attributes Which Influence Shopping On The Internet, Michelle B. Kunz

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to systematically analyze the influence of store, consumer, and product attributes on adoption of shopping via the Internet. The objectives of this study were to determine why consumers use the Internet as a shopping medium, which consumers were making purchases via the Internet, and what kinds of products they were more likely to purchase via this medium.

Ten retail store characteristics were analyzed, and intent to purchase fifteen product categories via the Internet was investigated. Additionally, consumer demographics and attitudes were included in the analysis models. Factor analysis was used to group products together, …

Indian And Riverboat Casino Patrons : An Analytic Description Of Demographic Characteristics, Expectations, And Items Of Importance, Carl J. Pfaffenberg

Doctoral Dissertations

The rapid growth in Indian and riverboat casino development since 1989 had occurred without any basic knowledge about the patrons of these types of casinos. A study was designed to find the differences and similarities between the patrons of Indian and riverboat casinos related to the following variables: age, sex, race, income, educational level, work status, marital status, number of dependent children, annual frequency of casino play, amount of money budgeted for a casino visit, distance traveled to a casino, first time visitor's, and limit loss established. The patrons of Indian and riverboat casinos also were asked about features they …

Relationship Between Personality Type, Learning Style Preference, And Mathematics Achievement In College Developmental Mathematics, Azar D. Raiszadeh

Doctoral Dissertations

Most community colleges have open-door policies, thus allowing the enrollment of underprepared students. They provide remedial courses to prepare those students for college level mathematics. The primary goal of the remedial and developmental courses is to prepare students to perform as well in their first college level course as the students who do not need a developmental course. In other words, the developmental courses are designed to provide students with the competencies necessary for college work

The increasing demand for remedial and developmental mathematics courses, however, may not necessarily be indicative of students' inability to learn mathematics. It might be …

Metabolic Effects Of Cortisol During Exercise In Humans, Pedro Del Corral Salcedo

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined the physiological effects of an acute reduction in cortisol (C) during exercise in humans. The effects of normal C (NC) were compared to metyrapone-induced low C (LC) on plasma substrate availability and utilization during 2 h of exercise @~60% V0_2max in 5 men and 4 women. The C responses were compared to pre-exercise (PRE) levels and to a rest day (CON). At rest, C was attenuated by- 70% during LC compared to NC, whereas resting plasma glucose (GLU), lactate (LA), glycerol (GLY), hydroxybutyrate (HYD), alanine (AL), branched chain amino acids (BCAA), insulin (I), glucagon (GLG), growth …

Stretching The Boundaries : Space, Gender, And Sentimental Education In Four Novels By British Women 1791-1853, Catherine Bowen Emanuel

Doctoral Dissertations

The separation of home and work spheres during the eighteenth century not only narrowed economic opportunities for women, but it also aided in creating definite gender roles. Mary Wollstonecraft's Wrongs of Woman, Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story, Jane Austen's Emma, and Charlotte Brontë's Villette all challenge the boundaries of gender and limitations of the domestic sphere by using varying degrees of gothic elements and by creating atypical heroines who, with the aid of the males who double them, rewrite gender roles and question the sanctity of male authority within the home. By inscribing various spaces with meaning, these authors also …

The Problematics Of Gender Specificity In Sarraute's Enfance, Yourcenar's Quoi? L'Eérniteℓ́And Desvignes's Le Grain Du Chanvre Ou L'Histoire De Jeanne, Brenda Young Ferrell

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the problematics of gender specificity in three twentieth-century French women writers' works in which there is a strong female protagonist. These works are Nathalie Sarraute's Enfance, Marguerite Yourcenar's Quoi? L'éternité, and Lucette Desvignes's Le Grain du chanvre ou l'histoire de Jeanne. This study is divided into two parts. Part One is comprised of two chapters, and Part Two of five. The first chapter of Part One deals with the theory of a specific women's writing and is subdivided into three parts: woman as reader, woman as writer, and woman as autobiographer. The second chapter …

Examination Of Select Factors Contributing To Performance On Hip Joint Range-Of-Motion Tests, Kelly Rebecca Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations

Thirty-five subjects (15 men and 20 women) volunteered to participate in this study. Volunteers were tested on the PSLR, AKET, SRT, and TSRT, tests were administered in a counterbalanced order. Three warm-up trials were administered prior to data collection on each test. Measurements were made on the right side of the body; three trials were recorded for analysis. Eight subjects agreed to return on a second day to be retested in order to look at test-retest reliability from one test session to the next. Technical problems with PSLR administration. necessitated dropping this test as the criterion measure and using the …

Biological Relationships Among Siberians: Craniometric, Serological, And Dermatoglyphic Approaches, Miyo Yokota

Doctoral Dissertations

Siberian people, residing in the wide range bounded by the Urals to the West, Beringia to the East, Mongolia to the South, and Arctic to the North, form an important link between Asia, Europe and people in the New World. However, biological contribution of Siberians to Asians, Europeans and people in the New World were not sufficiently studied until recently.

Previous extensive Siberian studies were mainly conducted by Russians and Japanese researchers, most of whom agreed that Siberians were clearly classified by typology. However, their typology is problematic when explaining tribes i.e., Evenks and Evens, who are exchanging genes and …

Quality Of Life Following Stroke: The Survivors' Perspective, Janet A. Secrest

Doctoral Dissertations

Stroke survivors are a common patient population encountered in many areas of nursing practice. Although there are studies on particular aspects of stroke survivors' lives, the information provided is usually decontextualized and compartmentalized so that a sense of the whole person in his/her context is missing. Without a fuller understanding of the stroke survivors' complete experience, it is difficult for nurses to have an empathic understanding of what lies ahead. The purpose of this study was to investigate quality of life as experienced by stroke survivors following rehabilitation. This study was guided by an existential-phenomenological approach. The goal was to …

The Haunted House Formula In American Fiction, Dale Bailey

Doctoral Dissertations

"The Haunted House Formula in American Fiction" traces the generic roots of such tales to the European gothic tradition as transformed by Edgar Allan Poe in "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Nathaniel Hawthorne in The House of the Seven Gables. These embryonic haunted house tales can be distinguished from traditional ghost stories—as practiced by Henry James and Edith Wharton—by their reduced ambiguity, their focus on the family, and their exclusion of traditional ghosts in favor of a malign and self-conscious house. Perhaps the most conventional expression of this revised formula is Jay Anson's potboiler The Amityville Horror. …

The Relationship Between Critical Thinking And Attitudes Toward Reading Of The Community College Student Enrolled In A Critical Reading Course At Roane State Community College, Wanda June Hembree Manning

Doctoral Dissertations

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between critical thinking and attitudes toward reading of community college students enrolled in a Critical Reading course at Roane State Community College. The study was conducted with two sections with a total of 31 students enrolled in Critical Reading at Roane State Community College. One instructor taught both classes: one class was taught the regular curriculum and the other class was taught the regular curriculum plus instruction in five critical thinking skills. The design allowed for a comparison of the two different treatments one on the Roane County campus and the other …

Victim-Offender Reconciliation Programs : Juvenile Property Offender Recidivism And Severity Of Reoffense In Three Tennessee Counties, Lizabeth Ann Wiinamaki

Doctoral Dissertations

The Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP) was marketed by the Mennonite Central Committee since 1975 as an alternative criminal justice intervention. VORP was based on a restorative rather than retributive criminal justice model. This correlational, ex-post-facto study investigated the effects of VORP on juvenile property offender recidivism and severity of reoffense in three eastern Tennessee counties (N=420). The study compared simple random samples of the VORP group (N=203) to the nonVORP group (N=217) that received traditional sentences of probation, incarceration, or fines. Results of a logistic regression indicated that VORP had a significant main effect (p=.008) on one year recidivism when …

The Work Ethic Of Contingent Workers : A Demographic Analysis, Barbara Herndon Williamson

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to examine differences in work ethic among contingent workers based on the demographic variables of employment type, occupational classification, age, gender, education, race, marital status and dependent caregiver status. The sample was comprised of 285 contingent workers employed in two large businesses in East Tennessee. The Occupational Work Ethic Inventory (OWEI), which is comprised of four subscales (ambitious, considerate, cooperative, and dependable,/em>), and self-reported demographic information provided the source of data. A multivariate analysis of variance, using Hotelling's Trace, was used to test the eight null hypotheses. If significant differences …

Instructional Leadership As Perceived By Principals Involved With Restructuring Kentucky High Schools And Area Technology Centers, Joyce Wogoman

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between schools' Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS) scores and the principals' instructional leadership. The Bossert, Dwyer, Rowan, and Lee (1982) theoretical model was adapted for this study. This model expresses the importance of the principal as the instructional leader of a school.

A survey instrument was used to collect the data. The population consisted of 65 area technology center principals, under both state and local control, and 212 high school principals of grades 9 through 12, in the state of Kentucky. Therefore, the total population was 277. Of …

Predicting Women's Use Of The Structural Role Redefinition Strategy For Coping With Role Conflict, Kristin Michelle Siebrecht

Doctoral Dissertations

Based on A. Bandura's self-efficacy theory (1977) , factors related to women's use of the Structural Role Redefinition strategy for coping with role conflict are investigated. Surveys were administered to 106 working mothers measuring women's use of the Structural Role Redefinition coping strategy and five predictor variables: Assertiveness, attitudes toward women's roles, sexist beliefs, career commitment, and self-efficacy expectations. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the predictor variables accounted for 30% of the variance in women's use of the Structural Role Redefinition coping strategy, p < .0001. Suggestions for using the self-efficacy model to design intervention programs aimed at increasing women's ability to use the Structural Role Redefinition strategy are offered. Additional factors, related to power and resources, that may mediate women's use of the Structural Role Redefinition coping strategy are identified.

Violence In Secondary Schools As Perceived By Business And Marketing Educators, William Hobert Salyer

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to examine the perceptions of Tennessee’s business and marketing education teachers as to whether violence had increased within the past three years, and what were the underlying causes of any increased violence in secondary schools. The population for the study consisted of business and marketing education teachers in Tennessee’s secondary schools. The response rate from randomly selected teachers was 72 percent, which included 125 females and 45 males. Fifty-three percent of the respondents had 15 or more years of teaching experience. Significant differences were found in responses on some questions based on gender. No …

Living Responsibly : A Study Of Sustainable Living In East Tennessee And The Southern Appalachian Bioregion, Jonathan Matthew Scherch

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined the ways in which people living and working within East Tennessee and the Southern Appalachian bioregion attempt to do so more sustainably, and by extension, responsibly. A total of 94 subjects participated in guided interviews (N=76), with some interviews having multiple participants. The interviews examined the range of sustainable living practices which were being learned, developed, and practiced; the subjects’ personal pathways to their practices and world views, as distinct from the social mainstream; and the subjects’ demographic characteristics. Results from data analysis drawn from subject responses to both open- and closed-ended questions indicate the following: (a) …

Early Adolescents' Levels Of Cognition And Personal Fable Ideation As Related To Lesson Activities In Decision-Making Skills, Selene Diane Skonie-Hardin

Doctoral Dissertations

This study sought to view the constructs of formal operational thinking and personal fable ideation and their relation to each other as well as their relation to decision-making skills activities in teacher-provided lesson plans at the seventh grade level. Data was collected from four sources; 1) the student completed New Personal Fable Survey; 2) the student completed Arlin Test of Formal Reasoning; 3) teacher-provided lesson plans dealing with decision-making skills; and 4) expert analysis of these lesson plans for evidence of required student cognitive skills. As a result of this data collection and subsequent data analysis, it was found that …

Reasons Influencing The Probability Of Dropping Out Of School In An East Tennessee Rural County, Mariah Long Starling

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this descriptive research was to analyze the reasons students drop out of school. The objective of this research was to identify specific reasons students in Sevier County dropped out of school. The population for this study consisted of 233 non-graduating students. Students were identified through annual school system attendance records as dropout students during the 1993-1994, 1994-1995, and the 1995- 1996 school years. A survey instrument consisting of four parts was designed and given to all 233 members of the population. Participants were asked to respond to questions that: Addressed attitude and beliefs about dropping out of …

"The Limits Of Individualism" : Family And Community In The Fiction Of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft And George Eliot, Rebecca Bruch King

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines William Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Things As They Are, or The Adventures of Caleb Williams; Mary Wollstonecraft's Mary, A Fiction; and George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch. Godwin, Wollstonecraft, and Eliot participated in a progressive discursive tradition that began in seventeenth-century debates over political economy, and continues today in debates over modern liberal democracy. While liberal individualism, arising from Hobbes and Locke, has been well explored, another tradition, represented by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, is often ignored in describing contributions to the progressive tradition. These moral philosophers attack the …

Overt Conflict Style, Parenting Behaviors, And Youth Problem Behaviors : An Ethnic Profile, Ambika Krishnakumar

Doctoral Dissertations

Although the theoretical and empirical literature dealing with the crucial linkages among overt conflict style, parenting behavior, and youth problem behavior in European-American families is substantial, cross-ethnic perspectives are minimal. This research examines these variables through the lens of ethnicity. The investigation is based on data from youth living in Knox County, Tennessee and Ogden, Utah. The family socialization behaviors of 536 European-American and 147 African-American families (Knox County) along with 371 European-American and 59 Mexican-American families (Ogden) are assessed from the youth's perspective. This ethnic model of family process is built inductively starting with the process of validating the …