Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Tempered Experience: The Educational Foundation Of Democratic Ideology, Nicholas J. Schwarm

Philosophy Undergraduate

Democracy is a political ideology, one that requires a person to believe in that ideology for it to exist. The contemporary political landscape is dominated by democracies, and for this reason we need to understand how to build and sustain Them. There needs to be a well educated populace of citizens, who are able to engage in democratic actions, and aid the community. What they need is tempered experience, experience that is understood though the knowledge that a citizen already has.

Preparedness To Counsel Transgender College Students: Perceptions Of College Mental Health Clinicians, Valerie G. Couture

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceived preparedness levels of college mental health clinicians to counsel transgender college students. Multicultural counseling competency is required of professional counselors and transgender individuals are considered to be part of the multicultural population. A survey was completed by college mental health counselors (N = 84) from across the United States. The results showed a moderate amount of preparedness overall with no significant differences based on years of counseling experience nor graduation from a CACREP accredited program. Results did show the participants believed they do have a professional duty to be knowledgeable …

Decentering The Writing Program Archive: How Composition Instructors Save And Share Their Teaching Materials, Stacy Olivia Nall

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation decenters the writing program archive through research on instructors’ digital archives. Artifacts of composition instruction are no longer saved to print archives alone; rather, digital technologies expand the locations where artifacts of writing pedagogy can be archived and accessed. The following archival ethnography, focused on a community engagement writing course in the Introductory Composition at Purdue (ICaP) program, finds that many digital archives of composition are hidden to outside researchers or not sustained (which are theorized as either “abandoned” or “pop-up” archives). At the same time, some pedagogical materials are publicly visible by virtue of personal web spaces …

Emerging Genres, Dangerous Classifications: The Kairos Of Digital Composing Policy, Ellery Sills

Open Access Dissertations

Emerging Genres, Dangerous Classifications: The Kairos of Digital Composing Policy argues that writing policy infrastructure plays a significant (if often invisible) role in affording emerging digital genres in rhetoric and composition. Within the last few decades, the accelerating transformations and instabilities of emerging genres have posed a challenge for contemporary writing programs, which demonstrate a persistent wariness over incorporating digital composing into their mission. In response to this challenge, national educational associations have issued a growing number of policy statements meant to encourage a broader understanding of composing in the classroom. Curiously, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to …

Revision And Re-Writing As Adaptation: Using Adaptation Theory To Encourage Student Recognition Of Rhetorical Situations, Alicia Claire Troby

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many students don’t want to revise their writing, or do so in small, surface-level ways. This has been an issue many composition instructors have faced over the years, and there is a large body of scholarship about revision and the writing process by many in writing studies. From Nancy Sommers, Janet Emig, Donald Murray, and others, to more recent publications “post-process,” composition instructors and writing studies scholars are concerned about revision and the role it plays in students’ learning to write. As a strategy for teaching bigger-level revision, I implemented the use of adaptation theory (reading/watching and doing adaptation) as …

Global-To-Local-To-Global: A Model For Tutoring Esl Students In The Writing Center, David Aguilar

Theses and Dissertations

Since its inception, the writing center has always focused on traditional students, and today that tradition is continued in such a way that the overwhelming amount of research dedicated to writing center theory and practice addresses the concerns of those students. However, universities with unique student populations, such as the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley with its majority of Hispanic students, require novel practices within their writing centers. Moreover, much of the linguistic, social, and cultural factors of the region are not well documented and therefore are not addressed by the mainstream theory and practices of other universities. With …

Selling College: Student Recruitment And Education Reform Rhetoric In The Age Of Privatization, Paige Marie Hermansen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the success of for-profit colleges and universities (FPCUs) as a socio-cultural phenomenon that hinges on distinct public discursive strains and neoliberal rhetorics. This project examines the role of language in creating and sustaining particular discourses of higher education and how those discourses are reinforced and reflected in channels of discourse like documentary films and advertisements.

In the context of shifting demands on and representations of higher education, this project critiques the evolving rhetoric of American education and the shift toward a wider acceptance of privatization efforts, as well as the effect this shift has had on prospective …

"We Are Still In Apartheid:" Girls' Perspectives On Education Inequality In Democratic South Africa And Models For Social Change, Rebekah Lindsey Joyce

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Centering on the perceptions of black South African girl learners from impoverished township communities provides a new informed lived knowledge regarding social and educational inequality in the nation’s post-apartheid era. Perspectives from intersectional feminist theory and Black Feminist Thought offer an appropriate and unique approach to analyze the multiple socio-economic inequalities these girl learners face every day. By gathering original narrative data from a group of girls, their teachers, and the principal of Fezeka Secondary School in Gugulethu, South Africa, the intersections of inequality these girls face will be illuminated as critical factors to consider for policy and program aid …

Learning The Language Of Academic Engineering: Sociocognitive Writing In Graduate Students, Catherine G. P. Berdanier

Open Access Dissertations

Although engineering graduate programs rarely require academic writing courses, the indicators of merit in academic engineering, such as journal publications, successful grants, and doctoral milestones (e.g. theses, dissertations) are based in effective written argumentation and disciplinary discourse. Further, graduate student attrition averages 57% across all disciplines, with some studies classifying up to 50% of these students as “ABD” (All But Dissertation.) In engineering disciplines specifically, graduate attrition rates across the U.S. average 36% (both Master’s and PhD students), according to the Council of Graduate Schools. The lack of socialization is generally noted as a main reason for graduate attrition, one …

Designing Prenatal M-Health Interventions Through Transmigrants Reflection On Their Pregnancy Ecology, Hana Aljaberi

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation presents the findings from three participatory focus group and co-design sessions with Caribbean transmigrant women in the United States. Informed by their focus group discussions regarding their pregnancy experiences in the United States, the participants produced design ideas that reflected on physical, emotional, informational and social gap themes. The purpose of this study was to understand the challenges affecting the women’s prenatal wellbeing practices, and to conceive a set of recommendations and opportunities for mHealth technology design to assist with prenatal preventative care and management. The study uses the theoretical concept of pregnancy ecology to identify gaps in …

Pedagogy In Performance: An Investigation Into Decision Training As A Cognitive Approach To Circus Training, Jonathan Burtt

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research project represents the first formal research conducted into the potential application of Decision Training in an elite circus arts school environment. The research examines the effects of the introduction of Decision Training—a training model developed for sports applications—into the elite circus arts training program at the National Circus School (NCS), a key circus arts school in one of the world’s most vital circus domains, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Decision Training, a cognitive-based training model, has been shown through extensive sports-based research to support the development of decision-making ability and self-regulatory learning behaviour, both of which are fundamental for the …

Use Of Student Created Video Podcasts To Promote Foreign Language Grammar Acquisition In Middle School, Sergio Parra

CCE Theses and Dissertations

The use of video podcasts in education has emerged as a phenomenon that has gained a considerable amount of attention over the last few years. Although video podcasting is becoming a well-established technology in higher education, new multimedia instructional strategies such as student-created video podcasts in grades K-12 are under-researched.

The study investigated the effects of video podcasts created by students to promote foreign language grammar acquisition at the middle school level and find how students described such experience. The current investigation was conducted by using the explanatory sequential design, which is a mixed methods research design that occurs in …