Digital Commons Network^™

Portuguese As A Foreign Language: Motivations And Perceptions, Desiree Oliveira

Theses and Dissertations

Portuguese enrollments have been on a continuous rise at universities in the United States. Due to this increase it is important that teachers and department administrators understand what the motivations of Portuguese students are. This study reports on the findings of a survey conducted with lower-level Portuguese students at Brigham Young University regarding their motivations to study the language and compares these motivations with those of students of French, German, Italian, and Spanish. In addition, the study reports on students' perspectives on Portuguese in contrast to their perspectives on these other four European languages. Other issues considered include Portuguese students' …

Taxonomic And Nomenclatural Rearrangements In Artemisia Subgen. Tridentatae, Including A Redefinition Of Sphaeromeria (Asteraceae, Anthemideae), Sónia Garcia, Teresa Garnatje, E. Durant Mcarthur, Jaume Pellicer, Stewart C. Sanderson, Joan Vallés

Western North American Naturalist

A recent molecular phylogenetic study of all members of Artemisia subgenusTridentatae, as well as most of the other New World endemic Artemisia and the allied genera Sphaeromeria and Picrothamnus, raised the necessity of revising the taxonomic framework of the North American endemic Artemisia. Composition of the subgenusTridentatae is enlarged to accommodate other North American endemics and is organized into 3 sections: Tridentatae, Nebulosae, and Filifoliae. This paper deals with the combination of one section, the amendment of 2 more sections, and the combination in or the reversion to Artemisia of some Sphaeromeria and Picrothamnusspecies. The new names …

Measuring Mathematics Instruction In Elementary Classrooms: Comprehensive Mathematics Instruction (Cmi) Observation Protocol Development And Validation, Sue Ann Womack

Theses and Dissertations

Measuring Mathematics Instruction in Elementary Classrooms:Comprehensive Mathematics Instruction (CMI) Observation Protocol Development and Validation Sue A. Womack Department of Educational Leadership and Foundations Doctor of Philosophy despite the availability of reform standards in mathematics since 1989 (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics), teachers have not yet aligned instruction with reform ideals on a widespread basis. (Cohen & Hill, 2000; Hiebert, et al., 2005; Spillane & Zeuli, 1999; J. W. Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). Consequently, mathematics education in elementary schools has not produced students with strong mathematical understanding (Hiebert & Grouws, 2007).

Distribution Records And Comments On Fleas In Southwestern South Dakota, Omer R. Larson, Steven G. Platt, Zannita Fast Horse, Thomas R. Rainwater, Stanlee M. Miller

Western North American Naturalist

From October 2003 through April 2006, we collected 565 fleas incidental to a distribution survey of mammals in southwestern South Dakota. Sixty-one specimens, representing 18 species of mammals, possessed 20 species of fleas. The geographic distributions of these flea species revealed 8 new records for the Black Hills and its adjacent grasslands. Four species—Megarthroglossus divisus, Stenoponia americana, Odontopsyllus dentatus, and Amaradix euphorbi—constitute new records for South Dakota, thus increasing the state’s known flea fauna to 42 species. Hunters, trappers, and field biologists should be aware that serosurveillance during the 1990s revealed the presence of sylvatic plague and tularemia …

Impact, Sustainability, And Dependency: The Case Of Empower Playgrounds, Inc., Ammon B. Franklin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies impact, sustainability, and dependency in the nonprofit sector. Empower Playgrounds, Inc. (EPI) is a nonprofit organization working to improve educational conditions in Africa through educational recreation, lighting for education, and hands-on science labs. A social impact assessment I performed for EPI in 2008 creates the context for discussion of EPI's sustainability. Dependency results from a lack of sufficient conditions for sustainability—resources, capability, and opportunity—which I elucidate in a framework of corresponding theories of capital. Using this sufficiency framework I analyze the resources, capabilities, and opportunities required for EPI program sustainability, determine unmet conditions, and propose solutions to …

The Efficacy Of Social Communication Intervention In Improving Emotion Inferencing For School-Aged Children With Language Impairment, Matthew Keith Frank

Theses and Dissertations

Children with language impairment (LI) have demonstrated several language problems, including receptive and expressive deficits. A growing body of research has further demonstrated emotion understanding and, more specifically, emotion inferencing deficits that negatively affect the ability of this population to use language successfully in social interactions. Consequently, the present study examines social communication intervention focused on improving emotion inferencing for children with a diagnosis of LI or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as similar social communication deficits are occasionally seen in children with these diagnoses. Study participants were identified from the caseload of a practicing certified speech-language pathologist (SLP) and qualified …

The Sex Ratio Tipping Point: An Exploration Of Crime During Frontier America, Steven Matthew Stearmer

Theses and Dissertations

Prior research confirms that the number of men in a population is associated with elevated levels of crime. The connection between higher numbers of males relative to females and crime is far less studied in larger aggregate populations, and the nature of the relationship is less clear. This study seeks to answer three questions: are unbalanced sex ratios associated with crime at the state level? At what level does the skew begin to matter? How quickly is the impact observed? These questions are examined through analysis of a novel longitudinal dataset of social characteristics and crime indicators for frontier American …

Influence Of Subglottic Geometry On Computational And Synthetic Vocal Fold Model Vibration, Simeon L. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

The voice plays a vital role in human communication. The purpose of voice research is to advance the understanding of voice production physics, with the ultimate goal of leading to improved voice care. In this research computational and synthetic vocal fold models were used to explore the role of subglottal geometry in vocal fold vibration. Three specific studies were performed. First, the effect of the inferior vocal fold surface angle on voice production was investigated using a two-dimensional self-oscillating finite element vocal fold model. Varying the inferior angle resulted in significant changes to model vibratory motion, glottal width, flow rate, …

Hykss: Hybrid Keyword And Semantic Search, Andrew J. Zitzelberger

Theses and Dissertations

The rapid production of digital information makes the task of locating relevant information increasingly difficult. Keyword search alleviates this difficulty by retrieving documents containing keywords of interest. However, keyword search suffers from a number of issues such ambiguity, synonymy, and the inability to handle semantic constraints. Semantic search helps resolve these issues but is limited by the quality of annotations which are likely to be incomplete or imprecise. Hybrid search, a search technique that combines the merits of both keyword and semantic search, appears to be a promising solution. In this work we introduce HyKSS, a hybrid search system driven …

An Evaluation Of The Implementation Of A Call Program In A Pilot Curriculum At The Provo Lds Missionary Training Center, Amberly Patch Betteridge

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examines the implementation of one computer-assisted language learning program (CALL) called Technology Assisted Language Learning (TALL) in a pilot language curriculum at the LDS Missionary Training Center. Because CALL implementation is determined in large part by how successfully users are able to use the computer program to learn language, a primary purpose of this study was to investigate which implementation issues affected the language learning success of the missionaries that used TALL in the pilot curriculum. A survey was, therefore, designed and administered to 86 missionaries from French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin language areas in order to …

Writing From Sources And Learners Of English For Academic Purposes: Insights From The Perspectives Of The Applied Linguistics Researcher, The Program Coordinator, And The Classroom Teacher, Robb Mark Mccollum

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the challenges faced by learners of English for academic purposes (EAP) when required to complete writing assignments that use source texts. In order to address this problem, I explore the issue from the perspectives of applied linguistic researchers, writing program administrators, and classroom composition instructors. These three perspectives are highlighted in distinct articles that build on one another to create a more complete understanding of the challenges that EAP students face when writing from sources. The first article contains a literature review of relevant studies that explore the reading-to-write construct. Experts suggest that unintentional plagiarism, or patchwriting, …

Taking The Gospel To The Lamanites: Doctrinal Foundations For Establishing The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In Mexico, Matthew G. Geilman

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a study about the influence of the Book of Mormon message to the Lamanites upon the establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mexico, primarily focusing upon the years 1875-1950. Several important events, people, and publications from the first seventy-five years of the Church's history in Mexico are evaluated as historical case studies in order to examine the extent to which the message to the Lamanites influenced the beginnings of the Latter-day Saints there. These case studies include the first mission to Mexico in 1875, early publications in Spanish, the dedication of Mexico …

Academic Websites And Minority Portrayal: A Content Analysis, Aymara Jimenez

Theses and Dissertations

The Internet has changed the way society communicates with one another. One of the organizations that utilize the Internet in order to communicate with their audience is universities. The imagery and information that is featured in the homepages of university websites can portray a certain perception of that university. Universities were found to be diverse in the ethnic background of the persons used for their homepage imagery. The way minority characters were found to be portrayed in gave a general idea of what exist within academia as to how they view and portray minority groups.

Preservice Special Education Teachers' Beliefs About Effective Reading Instruction For Students With Mild/Moderate Disabilities, Nari Carter

Theses and Dissertations

No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002) mandated that all students learn to read and specified that instructional practice in schools be informed by scientifically-based research. NCLB specifically aimed to improve reading achievement among struggling readers, students with disabilities, and other marginalized students. The National Reading Panel and reading experts have identified instructional practices for teaching reading to struggling readers; and yet, teachers do not always implement effective practices in their classrooms. To identify factors that influence teachers’ practice, I conducted a literature review of teachers’ beliefs about reading instruction. The results of the review were mixed in terms of whether …

Muslim Social Entrepreneurship: Religious Underpinnings And Modern Applications, Scott Jackson

Student Works

In 2010, the Wolfensohn Center for Development issued a report entitled "Social Entrepreneurship in the Middle East: Toward Sustainable Development for the Next Generation." In this report, the authors presented a dilemma: "Although young people across the region face a diverse and complex set of challenges, the core of the struggle is defined by a lack of promising career trajectories and, more generally, by limited economic opportunity." With close to 25 percent of the Middle East's young people ages 15 to 24 unemployed and prospects for a "youth bulge" over the next decade, this is a crisis of critical proportions …

Modern Views Of Caste: The Pervasiveness Of Western Democratic And Christian Thought, Jaclyn Smith

Student Works

Within anthropology the study of India and her caste system has been vast. Caste in India is a complex hierarchical system that is foundationally grounded in Hinduism. Social mobility, marriage, daily habits and every aspect of life is affected by caste. India over the last two centuries has been occupied and built up by western invaders. This influence has combined to effect Indian cultural norms and daily life. When Indian constitution was established in 1950, provisions protecting against discrimination based upon caste, gender, age, etc. were put into effect.

Oat Snp Marker Discovery And Mapping Based On 454 Pyrosequencing Of Genome-Reduced Avena Magna Murphy Et Terrell, Rachel Rebecca Redman

Theses and Dissertations

The size and complexity of the oat genomes (Avena L., x = 7) have made genetic studies, including the discovery of molecular markers, difficult. Recent attention to these species has resulted in the development of many DArT -based markers in the tetraploid A. magna Murphy et Terrill (2n = 28, CCDD genomes), along with numerous RFLP's, SSR's, DArT's, and EST-based SNPs in hexaploid A. sativa L. (2n = 42, AACCDD). Here we report the first SNP markers for tetraploid oat based on genome reduction and high-throughput pyrosequencing in two inbred lines of A. magna: A-169 (wild) and Ba …

A Hell House Divided: Performing Identity Politics Through Christian Mediums Of Proselytization, Allan N. Davis

Theses and Dissertations

Every year, during the month of October, hundreds of Christian churches throughout the United States open the doors of their Hell House to surrounding communities. Hell Houses are Christian haunted houses designed to literally scare the Hell out of visitors so they will accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. In the place of vampires or zombies, Hell Houses portray the sins Satan is mostly likely to tempt teenagers to commit. Scenes include young girls receiving abortions, young men believing lies that they were born gay, and careless individuals drinking and driving. As para-theatrical performances, Hell Houses lead …

Nurse Practitioner Barriers To Reporting Child Maltreatment, Steven Lee Barlow

Theses and Dissertations

Each year approximately 1,000,000 child become the victims of abuse or neglect. The detrimental effects of child maltreatment (CM) have been well documented and create significant problems for the survivors and for society as well. All fifty states have enacted mandatory reporting laws to combat the CM epidemic. As mandated reporters, nurse practitioners and nurse midwives (APRNs) have the opportunity and responsibilities to identify and refer potential victims of CM, in this study a significant percentage choose not to report their suspicions. Respondents to the study survey identified several potential barriers to APRN reporting such as lack of education and …

Identifying How Successful Vocabulary-Learning Strategies Affect Reading Comprehension Among Intermediate Learners Of Mandarin Chinese, Hongyi Jia

Theses and Dissertations

The Chinese language has become an increasingly important Asian language for American students and more and more of them have a desire to learn it. The problems and the difficulties that Chinese foreign language (CFL) learners have when they try to use their knowledge of new vocabulary in reading comprehension are apparent. Previous studies have described some aspects that may influence reading comprehension and have indicated that Chinese is a relatively difficult language for native speakers of American English, but there are few studies that have focused on improving CFL learners' Chinese reading comprehension. This study investigates the effect of …

Utah Pacific Islander Former Gang Members: Meanings Of Everyday Lived Experiences, Natasha Leeann Afalava

Theses and Dissertations

Gangs continue to extend a strong influence around the United States, impacting most urban areas and spreading into suburban and rural communities. With approximately one million members actively involved, gangs account for up to 80% of crimes in some communities. Amidst crime and antisocial activities associated with gangs, gangs continue to be a strong allure for youth. Much research has investigated reasons for youth joining gangs; however, there is a lack of research exploring the kinds of experiences youths receive while living the gang life. According to Utah statistics, Pacific Islander youth are at high risk of joining a gang: …

Reliability And A Measure Of Sexual Interest: Examining The Temporal Stability Of Scores On Affinity 2.5, Kristina S. Withers Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

Affinity 2.5 is a computer-based instrument designed to measure sexual interest using viewing time of images depicting fully-clothed males and females of different ages. Participants are asked to rate the sexual attractiveness of the person in the image according to a 15-point scale while their viewing time of each image is surreptitiously monitored. The validity of viewing time as a measure of sexual interest is based on social cognition theory and is established in the review of literature. The number of images comprising Affinity 2.5 represents a 42.9% increase from the previous version of the assessment, Affinity 2.0. The purpose …

The Dilemma Of Mixed Methods, Bradford J. Wiggins

Theses and Dissertations

The past three decades have seen a proliferation of research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, available to psychologists. Whereas some scholars have claimed that qualitative and quantitative methods are inherently opposed, recently many more researchers have argued in favor of "mixed methods" approaches. In this dissertation I begin with a review of the mixed methods literature regarding how to integrate qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Based on this review, I argue that current mixed methods approaches have fallen short of their goal of integrating qualitative and quantitative methodologies and I argue that this problem may be due to a problematic ontology. …

Co-Learning Pedagogies In The Media Literacy Education Classroom, Erika Hill

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research project describes the experiences of students in BYU's Hands on a Camera Project as they were introduced to co-learning pedagogies. Hands on a Camera is a media literacy service-learning project where university students are placed in public schools to teach K-12 students documentary production and media literacy. The project consists of a preparation phase and a teaching phase. In the research project, students were required to complete peer-learning and peer-teaching assignments during the preparation phase as in order to prepare for the teaching phase. This ethnographic study describes student experiences—positive and negative—with peer learning during both phases …

An Invasive Species Reduces Aquatic Insect Flux To Terrestrial Food Webs, Steven S. Merkley

Theses and Dissertations

Although it is well documented how introduced species can negatively affect native species, we only poorly understand how they may alter ecosystem functions. We investigated how an invasive fish affected the flux of aquatic insects to terrestrial food webs using mesocosms in a desert spring ecosystem. We compared aquatic insect emergence between alternative community states with monocultures and polycultures of two native species of fish, least chub (Iotichthys phlegethontis) and Utah chub (Gila atraria) plus, introduced western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis). We tested three hypotheses: (1) aquatic insect biomass will be greater than terrestrial insect …

Language Anxiety Among Heritage Speakers Of Spanish On The Texas-Mexico Border, Leigh A. Cherry

Theses and Dissertations

There is an increased need for bilingual education programs throughout the U.S. as a result of the increasing bilingual population, especially Spanish-English bilinguals. With the implementation of such programs there also exists the need to be aware of issues that affect bilinguals and their language learning experience. One of these issues that has been investigated among foreign language learners, but less among bilinguals, is the issue of language anxiety. This case study reports the findings gathered from classroom observations, a language survey, focus group interviews and teacher interviews in order to better understand the issue of language anxiety among heritage …

Prediction Of Fluid Dielectric Constants, Jiangping Liu

Theses and Dissertations

The dielectric constant or relative static permittivity of a material represents the capacitance of the material relative to a vacuum and is important in many industrial applications. Nevertheless, accurate experimental values are often unavailable and current prediction methods lack accuracy and are often unreliable. A new QSPR (quantitative structure-property relation) correlation of dielectric constant for pure organic chemicals is developed and tested. The average absolute percent error is expected to be less than 3% when applied to hydrocarbons and non-polar compounds and less than 18% when applied to polar compounds with dielectric constant values ranging from 1.0 to 50.0. A …

Higher Education In Native American Communities: Who Graduates And Why?, Ramon Francisco Castillo Ii

Theses and Dissertations

In this case study, I examine the graduation patterns of students attending Chief Dull Knife College located on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Lame Deer, Montana. While comparing the characteristics of students attending this college with that of two-year colleges nationally and tribal schools throughout the nation, we begin to understand the unique situation that this community faces. With the use of logistic and linear regressions, I explored the characteristics of those who graduate and ask the question, who graduates and what makes them unique? This study found that the credits attempted per semester, the number of credits they earned …

Mechanical Characterization Of The Interspinous Ligament Using Anisotropic Small Punch Testing, Rachel Jane Bradshaw

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: The objective of this work was to characterize the nonlinear anisotropic material constitutive response of the interspinous ligament (ISL).

Methods: Cadaveric test samples of the interspinous ligament were tested using the anisotropic small punch test. The measured force-displacement response served as experimental input into a system identification optimization routine to determine the constitutive material parameters that replicated the measured material response.

Results: The constitutive behavior of the ISL is notably different from that reported for knee, shoulder, and hip ligaments. Specifically, the high collagen fiber content and unique collagen architecture provided a stiffer material response. The results from the …

How Student Positioning Can Lead To Failure In Inquiry-Based Classrooms, Kelly Beatrice Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

In an effort to improve mathematics instruction, I studied how the positions students choose or are pressed to take on can lead to failure in an inquiry-based classroom. Positioning refers to the temporary roles that a student or a teacher can place each other in or take on in a given classroom environment. Since positions are constructed and maintained by language use, I drew from positioning theory and discourse theory for my theoretical framework. From analyzing transcripts of classroom episodes and interviews with the teacher and a student, I identified common positions that the teacher and the student took on. …