Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Technology From The Perspective Of Society And Public Interest, Chanwoon Park

Purdue Polytechnic Doctoral Dissertations

The ultimate goals of this study were to determine ways to reconcile technology with public interest and to understand the relationship between what we know and how we feel about technology. To achieve the goals, related literatures were reviewed; the mechanism of technology development was described with empirical data; and human perception of technology was tested with a survey. The duality of technology that implied technological inherencies of technical reason and social meanings was the principle assumption of the study. Neutrality of technology becomes a myth with the presence of social meanings embodied in technology. Given the huge impact of …

Teoria De La Mente Y Sociedad En La Narrativa Policiaca De Lorenzo Silva Y Francisco Garcia Pavon: Estereotipos, Roles De Genero Y Minorias, Jesus Castro Gorfti

Open Access Dissertations

Spanish:

The purpose of this study is to utilize certain aspects of cognitive psychology as a framework to analyze the police procedural novels of two Spanish authors: Francisco García Pavón and Lorenzo Silva. Specifically, we will focus on two main aspects of the mind studied by the cognitive sciences: Theory of Mind and metarepresentations. Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the capacity that human beings have to attribute mental states to other humans, as well as oneself, based on their bodily and facial gestures. The concept of metarepresentation refers to the ability of humans to keep track of who said …

Sounding Sacred: The Adoption Of Biblical Archaisms In The Book Of Mormon And Other 19th Century Texts, Gregory A. Bowen

Open Access Dissertations

The Book of Mormon is a text published in 1830 and considered a sacred work of scripture by adherents of the Latter-day Saint movement. Although written 200 years later, it exhibits many linguistic features of the King James translation of the Bible. Such stylistic imitation has been little studied, though a notable exception is Sigelman & Jacoby (1996).

Three hypotheses are considered: that this is a feature of 19th century religious texts, and the Book of Mormon adopts the style of its genre as a religious text; that this is a feature of translations of ancient texts, and the Book …

The Swiss German Language And Identity: Stereotyping Between The Aargau And The Zurich Dialects, Jessica Rohr

Open Access Theses

Swiss German dialects contribute to the social identity of a speaker, especially on a local level (Christen, 1995). Many dialects of Switzerland are associated with a common stereotype which relates to the identity of the speakers (Rash, 2002). This research looks at these notions and investigates concepts of identity ascription and stereotyping that arise between and from the dialects of canton Aargau and canton Zürich, in Switzerland. The generation of a definition of identity for the project, drawing off existing identity theories in sociolinguistics, and stereotyping theories, allow for an investigation of how the Aargau and Zürich dialects fit into …

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 …

Knitting Rebellion: Elizabeth Zimmermann, Identity, And Craftsmanship In Post War America, Maureen Lilly Marsh

Open Access Dissertations

At mid 20th century, hand knitting in the United States was practiced as a minor and fading chore of the domestic economy, with decreasing pattern publications in national women’s magazines, and the demise of Vogue Knitting Book by the late nineteen-sixties. By 1990, it had rebounded into major new publications in periodicals and books, new and revived artisanship practices, gallery exhibitions and major international conferences and gatherings. A driving figure in this resurgence was the knitter, writer, teacher, designer, and publisher Elizabeth Zimmermann. With her initial publication in 1955 up to her retirement in 1989, Elizabeth’s philosophy of knitting stressed …

Psychosocial Factors And Mental Health Of Muslims Living In The United States, Lamise N. Shawahin

Open Access Dissertations

Muslim Americans are at risk for experiencing systematic and interpersonal acts of discrimination (Rippy & Newman, 2006). Such experiences of discrimination can lead to the development of depressive symptoms. Thus, it is critical to understand factors that may influence the relationship between experiencing discrimination and developing depressive symptoms. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between psychosocial adversities (i.e., perceived discrimination), psychosocial resources (i.e., coping strategies, religious community support) and depressive symptoms. Hypotheses regarding both the relationships among the variables, as well as the mediating role psychosocial resources play in the relationship between perceived discrimination and …

Superheroes And Social Action: Reproduction, Recurrence, And Recognition In The Superhero Genre, Max M. Renner

Open Access Theses

Rhetorical genre analysis examines genre as social action and is primarily concerned with the experiences of individual users (Miller, 1984). The genres that rhetorical genre scholarship takes up are typically functional genres or genres in which individuals have direct means of utilizing and modifying a genre. This focus on functional genres makes sense in terms of the tradition’s interest in user experience and reciprocity. This project seeks to examine the potential implications rhetorical genre analysis has for vernacular genres which, for the most part, have remained the domain of literary scholarship due to their focus on structural, formal elements.

This …

South Asian Women's Sexual Relationship Power: Examining The Role Of Sexism, Cultural Values Conflict, Discrimination, And Social Support, Chandni D. Shah

Open Access Dissertations

The lack of literature examining sexual experiences of South Asian women in dating relationships has important implications for the healthy development of long lasting romantic relationships. It is important to understand South Asian women’s relationship experiences in the context of power and sexism (interpersonal power framework; Pulerwitz, Gortmaker, & DeJong, 2000) and the role of specific sociopolitical factors (e.g., discrimination). Understanding South Asian women’s experiences of power in a sociopolitical context will help professionals when working with them to develop healthier sexual relationships through therapy outreach, and community programming. I used a correlational, quantitative study to examine the associations between …

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 …

Technical Communication In Place-Making Professions: Exploring The Network Pictures Of Urban Designers, Fernando Sanchez

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation addresses how professional writing as a field can pay attention to broader definitions of design in order to help further conversations of spatial justice (the act of helping to promote equity in matters of development in urban spaces). I begin by noting the conversations that have circulated regarding the relationship between urban design and rhetoric, noting that professional writing can help add a unique lens to the conversation. The second chapter provides an overview of how design is discussed in technical communication scholarship. Here, I showcase how most of these discussions regarding research in design have centered on …

Why Are Some Aggressive Adolescents Popular: Subgroups Of Chinese Aggressive Youth, Li Niu

Open Access Theses

This study examined the heterogeneity of Chinese aggressive adolescents to assess why some aggressive youths are popular and others are not. The sample included 1548 adolescents from eighth and eleventh grade in China and data were obtained from self-reports, teacher reports, and peer assessments. Results from a subgroup analysis in which aggressive youths were classified into high, average, and low popularity subgroups and a k-means cluster analysis indicated that there were two heterogeneous subgroups of aggressive youths who exhibited distinct behavioral profiles. Popular aggressive youths differed from less popular aggressive youths in their higher levels of aggression, prosocial behavior, …

Conexiones Transatlanticas: Expandiendo Limites En El Mundo Hispano (1890-1910), Argelia Garcia Saldivar

Open Access Dissertations

Este trabajo examina las transformaciones a patrones socio-culturales en el mundo hispano, que permiten a la mujer incorporarse a la fuerza productiva; como producto de la presión ejercida por comunidades de escritoras en foros internacionales sobre el atraso educativo y cultural que sufre la mujer. En esta disertación se estudia una economía que gira alrededor de las necesidades de la mujer promovida por la prensa periódica, que además de fortalecer la industria cultural y de entretenimiento, también auto-educa a la sociedad sobre la necesidad de educación profesional, mejora de condiciones laborales y apertura a espacios comerciales y profesionales para la …

A Black Art: Ontology, Data, And The Tower Of Babel Problem, Andrew J. Iliadis

Open Access Dissertations

Computational ontologies are a new type of emerging scientific media (Smith, 2016) that process large quantities of heterogeneous data about portions of reality. Applied computational ontologies are used for semantically integrating (Heiler, 1995; Pileggi & Fernandez-Llatas, 2012) divergent data to represent reality and in so doing applied computational ontologies alter conceptions of materiality and produce new realities based on levels of informational granularity and abstraction (Floridi, 2011), resulting in a new type of informational ontology (Iliadis, 2013) the critical analysis of which requires new methods and frameworks. Currently, there is a lack of literature addressing the theoretical, social, and critical …

Rethinking Reference: Towards A Holistic Approach To Linguistic Reference, Libby C. Chernouski

Open Access Theses

In this thesis, a review of linguistic reference identifies four entities (speaker, hearer, term, and object) and their interrelations as falling under the umbrella of reference. This review brings to light certain underdeveloped areas of research into linguistic reference, and the second chapter addresses these gaps by distinguishing between the experiences of speaker and hearer as regards linguistic reference, differentiating between the cognitive processes required by each interlocutor, asking how the speaker establishes reference pre-utterance, and drawing on various pragmatic, philosophic, and semantic approaches and theories to see how they could begin to approach for this important issue. …

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 …

Understanding The Communicative Processes Of Baby Boomer Women Adjusting To Retirement: Connecting Micro And Macro Discourses, Patricia E. Gettings

Open Access Dissertations

Baby Boomers are changing the face of retirement in the United States. For example, retirement traditionally refers to the time when an individual who has worked full-time for the majority of her life chooses to entirely and permanently exit the workforce, but now includes a range of formations (e.g., bridge employment). Baby Boomer women are most affected by this “new” retirement because they have worked a broader range of jobs for longer periods of time than ever before. Transitioning to retirement implicates processes of adjusting beyond just a change in one’s employment status as retirees potentially confront instrumental (e.g., where …

Enhancing Travel Experience With The Combination Of Information Visualization, Situation Awareness, And Distributed Cognition, Weiran Lei

Open Access Theses

With the new forms of travel introduced by new technologies of transportation and communication, a satisfied travel experience could be affected by various factors before and during a trip. Especially for road trips, traveling by car provides freedom on time control while leading to more possibilities of rescheduling initial plans made under time constraints. When overwhelmed with the need for changed travel context to avoid unexpected events that will require a serious change of initial plans, travelers need to find and access helpful contextual information quickly. This is a context-related decision making process that requires amplifying human situation awareness and …

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 …

Prostate Cancer Education In The African American Community: Implcations For Community-Based Health Communication Strategies, Barry Charles Hill

Open Access Theses

This paper examines the social milieu of African American barbershops by exploring health discussions and information transfer between barbers and barbershop clients. This paper examines associations between peer helper and health promotion intervention variables, and peer helper intervention effectiveness in increasing knowledge and health discussion frequency. Study findings suggest barbers with higher education are significantly more effective as peer helpers in discussing health topics more frequently (OR 4.64; CI 1.00 - 21.49) and in increasing client knowledge (β 0.94; CI 0.26 - 1.63). Additionally, barbershop health educational materials were significantly associated with increased barber health discussion (OR 4.13; CI 1.32 …

Nurturing Transitions: Housewife Organizations In (Colonial) Indonesia, 1900-1972, Liberty P. Sproat

Open Access Dissertations

From 1900-1972, housewife organizations in the Netherlands Indies and Indonesia assisted the population of the archipelago in adapting to the political upheaval that attended Indonesia's national liberation from the Netherlands. Under the Ethical Policy (1900-1942), the Association of Housewives sought to "uplift" indigenous society in the Netherlands Indies through teaching women household management skills including proper sanitation, hygiene, and food preservation methods. Through educational and social welfare initiatives, Dutch housewives maintained the Netherlands' control over the territory while promoting Dutch development efforts. At the same time, the Indonesian women's movement aligned with the Indonesian nationalist movement, as exemplified in the …

Exclusion From Gender Counter-Stereotypic Activities: Proximal And Distal Effects, Megan Kathleen Mccarty

Open Access Dissertations

The current work explored whether an incidence of exclusion is experienced differently depending on the activity from which one is excluded. Specifically, we investigated whether exclusion from gender stereotypic vs. counter-stereotypic activities affects both how threatening the experience is and beliefs about gender stereotypes. The effects of exclusion activity on need threat and beliefs about gender stereotypes were explored in a series of four studies using multiple methods: participants relived exclusion or inclusion instances from their real lives (Study 1), imagined exclusion or inclusion scenarios (Study 2), were excluded from a virtual ball toss game (Study 3), and were included …

Investigation Of Industry Perceptions Of Building Information Modeling (Bim)-Based Estimating Practices In The U.S. And China, Zhihang Yi

Open Access Theses

While the Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology has been seen as next revolutionary technology for the Architectural, Engineering, Construction and Facility Management (AEC/FM) fields, the AEC/FM industry does not implement BIM technology on the cost estimating practices as widely as expected. The efficiency improvement on cost estimating with BIM could be accomplished through automating quantity take-offs, closely collaborating design with the estimating professionals and so on. This research explores the advantages and barriers of imbedding BIM technology into the estimating practices which enables the industry deepen their understandings on BIM-based cost estimation method. This study also compares the industry perceptions …

Becoming Kin: Modernity, Authenticity, And The Construction Of Spiritual Relatedness In An Evangelical Parachurch Ministry, Brad Codr

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation explores how families are formed and spiritual kinship is created by members of the Body of Christ evangelical parachurch ministry at one public university in the United States. Spiritual relatedness is used to conceptualize members' social relationships and demonstrate the diverse forms of Christian community that emerge in the lives of young adults. Results from this study provide an alternative perspective to social science literature labeling Christianity as an individualistic belief system. It also contributes to continuing dialogue within the anthropology of Christianity, which seeks to describe and understand what it means to be Christian. I argue that …

The Theory Of Imaginative Resistance: Narrative Conflict & Contested Realities In The Right To Die Versus Disability Studies Perspectives On Medical Euthanasia, Jessica Fawley

Open Access Theses

In this thesis, I introduce a philosophic concept termed "imaginative resistance," a concept which targets the unimaginability of narratives, which I argue offers new insights into polarized communication. I discuss the philosophic debate on imaginative resistance to date, and piece out central puzzles and approaches. I show that imaginative resistance can be applied to broader types of communication than those currently being discussed by philosophers, and indicate that polarized debates are especially likely places to uncover imaginative resistance. I discuss, and respond to, a recent article by Susan M. Behuniak (2011) in which she analyzes a subsection of the contemporary …

Negotiating Trans Activism In Guatemala City: The Case Of Redmmutrans, Maria Alejandra Wundram Pimentel

Open Access Theses

The purpose of this ethnographic project is to investigate how the activists in REDMMUTRANS, a trans women rights activist group in Guatemala City, understand their individual and collective identity as trans. By analyzing the way REDMMUTRANS navigates and negotiates national and transnational discourses on gender, this thesis takes particular attention to the influence that activist practice has had in individual's adoption of 'trans' as an identity category. By looking at the way REDMMUTRANS's members construct their collective identity, I explore the interactions between the transnational development industry, localized experiences, and activist practice has in constructing what 'trans' means in the …

The Use Of Oral History And Narrative Research In Broadening The Historical Foundation Of The Agricultural Communication Field, Natalie L Federer

Open Access Dissertations

The historical foundation of the agricultural communication community (consisting of both academics and the profession) is shallow and void of humanistic perspective, and there is a minimal amount of historical content that focuses on academic and professional history. The need to explore and interpret historical dimensions of this field is vital to further development of the discipline as an academic and professional field. Oral history was utilized to capture and preserve the interview content from a small sample of agricultural communication and Extension professionals and faculty while narrative research, interpretative theory, and constructivism were utilized to further understand and interpret …

Disentangling Fluency, Comprehensibility And Coherence: Toward A Better Understanding Of Oral Proficiency Profiles, Haiying Cao

Open Access Dissertations

This study is an empirical attempt to examine how removal of all possible disfluency markers can help disentangle proficiency components assessed by the Oral English Proficiency Test (OEPT) in order to help build empirical foundations for establishing OEPT profiles. Silent and filled pauses, false starts and repetitions were removed from 50 test recordings in WAVEPAD SOUND EDITOR. Five trained OEPT raters rated the original and edited speeches. Statistical analyses addressed three research questions: 1) do fluency, comprehensibility and coherence ratings significantly change after the disfluency manipulation; 2) do correlations between fluency, comprehensibility, coherence and coherence subcomponents change after the disfluency …

Culturally Responsive Engineering Education: A Case Study Of A Pre-College Introductory Engineering Course At Tibetan Children's Village School Of Selakui, Marisol Mercado Santiago

Open Access Dissertations

Culturally responsive teaching has been argued to be effective in the education of Indigenous youth. This approach emphasizes the legitimacy of a group's cultural heritage, helps to associate abstract academic knowledge with the group's sociocultural context, seeks to incorporate a variety of strategies to engage students who have different learning styles, and strives to integrate multicultural information in the educational contents, among other considerations. ^ In this work, I explore the outcomes of a culturally responsive introductory engineering short course that I developed and taught to Tibetan students at Tibetan Children's Village of Selakui (in Uttarakhand, India). Based on my …

Chinese Undergraduate Students’ Preference For Chinese Tas And American Tas In The U.S. Context, Ruochen Li

Open Access Theses

This study researches and compares Chinese undergraduate students' (N=70) perceptions of and preferences for American TAs and Chinese TAs, and identifies factors that play significant roles in influencing Chinese students' perceptions and preferences. Multiple independent variables were measured, including age; gender; years at Purdue; years in the U.S.; GPA; overall TOEFL score; experiences with Chinese TAs; effectiveness of Chinese TAs; effectiveness of American TAs; English ability of Chinese TAs; and native speaker preference, ethnic identity, and level of acculturation, among which ethnic identity and level of acculturation are the major variables the current study aims to examine. Preference for Chinese …