Digital Commons Network^™

Investigating The Relationship Between Teachers’ State Evaluation Rating And Their Classroom-Based Assessment Practices And Systems, Christopher Jones

Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative research study investigates the relationship between teachers’ evaluation rating and their classroom-based assessment practices using a survey approach. Four middle schools consisting of 39 (grades six through eight) teachers in the Southwestern U.S. participated in the study. Research has shown that when teachers regularly use a system of evidence-based classroom assessment practices, student achievement increases. The problem addressed within this investigation is that students nationwide are performing at lower proficiency rates in math and English Language Arts than previously seen. Results from this study indicate that even teachers rated “highly effective” on evaluations are not employing evidence-based assessment …

Psychology Graduate Student Experiences, Social Support, And Mental Health, Kathryn Lang

Theses and Dissertations

Graduate school is a highly stressful experience for many psychology students. Accordingly, graduate psychology programs need to identify and minimize unnecessary sources of stress on their students. Despite the importance of this topic, there is little research on factors that increase psychology graduate students’ stress. The present study determined how a student’s financial difficulties, quality of their social support, quality of their faculty support, number of adverse experiences they had in their program, the impact of a student’s negative experience in their program; and the population size of the location of their program affect a student’s mental health, perceived progress …

Developing Inclusive Practices Through Peer Coaching In College Science Teaching, Briana Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Historically underrepresented students pursuing STEM majors encounter systemic barriers. Students are more likely to experience success when faculty implement inclusive practices. Faculty often lack the pedagogical training necessary to adopt inclusive practices, further perpetuating inequities. To eliminate barriers and offer equitable opportunities for success in STEM majors, this case study explores the implementation of peer coaching and Culturally Relevant Science Teaching (CRST) in college level science teaching, focusing on the experiences of three participating faculty. Through a year-long professional development (PD) cycle, three science faculty members from a small liberal arts college engaged in reflective practices aimed at improving their …

Risk Factor Patterns For Elder Abuse Among United States Indigenous Peoples: Native Elder Maltreatment Survey Secondary Data Analysis, Maylynn Riding In

Theses and Dissertations

Elder abuse is a significant public health issue, with findings indicating that 9% to 10% of older adults in the United States experience abuse. This figure is likely mirrored among Indigenous Peoples residing within tribal boundaries, although specific data is scarce. This study aims to fill the gap in understanding the prevalence and risk factors associated with elder abuse among United States Indigenous Peoples (USIP) through a secondary data analysis of the Native Elder Maltreatment Survey (NEMS). The NEMS employs two key instruments: the Hwalek-Sengstock Elder Abuse Screening Test (HS EAST), which is validated for community use, and the Native …

Investigation Of Gas Injection Eor In Conventional And Unconventional Reservoirs Based On Laboratory Experiments And Field Pilot Tests, Jin Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

Currently, fossil fuels (including oil, natural gas, and coal) are still the dominant energy sources in the United States. However, their extraction and utilization generate a significant volume of carbon dioxide (CO2) and associated gases, such as methane (CH4), ethane (C2H6), propane (C3H8), etc. Injecting these gases back into deep oil reservoirs offers a practical means to enhance oil recovery while reducing air pollution. The target formations are usually characterized by good porosity and permeability to ensure sufficient injectivity and storage capacity. However, recent unconventional reservoir development indicated that tight formations could also be potential targets for enhanced oil recovery …

Impact Of Delphi-Developed Rubrics On Rater Consistency In 14 Cfr 141 Flight Training Assessment Environments, Lewis Robert James Archer

Theses and Dissertations

Pilot schools operating in accordance with 14 CFR 141 provide a substantial supply of pilots to the aviation industry. Recent high industry demand for pilots has created turnover among the flight instructor workforce, often considered an entry-level position used by aspiring aviators to build flight experience. This in turn means that check instructors, evaluators who are often selected from the more senior flight instructor population at a pilot school, are generally less experienced than in the past. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there is low consistency among these check instructors when conducting performance-based assessments. This study sought to determine the existing …

A Thematic Analysis Of Experiences With Accommodation Plans Of College Students With Disabilities: Recommendations For Students, Faculty, And Administrators, Christina Dimauro

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the experiences of students with disabilities in higher education through a multiple case study design, incorporating both surveys and follow-up interviews to perform a thematic analysis across the cases. The primary aim was to amplify the voices of these students, gaining insights into their perspectives on the accommodations provided and gathering their advice for navigating the accommodations process. The interviews provided a qualitative depth, allowing students to share personal experiences and practical advice for other students. Findings reveal a diverse range of experiences, highlighting both successes and challenges in accessing and utilizing accommodations. Recommendations included advocating for …

Advisor Impacts On Student Learning In Undergraduate Engineering Sae Competition Projects, Sam Ertl

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effects of advisor characteristics on student learning in large scale undergraduate engineering project competitions. A survey was conducted to measure statistical significance between student ratings of their advisors and student ratings of their learning in key skill areas. Additional items measured include demographics and project characteristics which allowed for additional analyses. The purpose of this study was to identify areas of improvement for project advisors to advance the learning potential for student participants. The survey was distributed in an online format to students participating in five SAE University Program projects. Collected data was analyzed using Kendall’s …

Fluorescence Imaging Systems To Detect Contamination On Surfaces Common In Food Processing And Medical Facilities, Benjamin Hu

Theses and Dissertations

Biofilm are aggregates of microbial cells encased under an extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) and resist sanitizers or antibiotics. Because of their persistence on various surfaces such as medical devices or industrial piping, biofilm formation is associated with approximately 65% of all microbial infections. Thus, their detection and deactivation are of great importance to public health. Many detection methods such as swabbing require sampling by rubbing , which can be inefficient and challenging. This study proposes the use of handheld multispectral fluorescence imaging systems to detect and deactivate biofilm in situ. We utilized the Contamination and Sanitization Inspection (CSI) and -Disinfection …

Using High-Impact Practices To Support Online Students In Two-Year And Four-Year Institutions, Sarah Kallock

Theses and Dissertations

Online students face challenges that on-campus students often do not. “Online students can feel isolated since they are not in synchronous courses where they get to see peers and instructors and interact face-to-face” (Garivaldis et al., 2022). The online learning community lacks support for students who choose to learn online. Teachers who teach online have had little to no training on how to support and offer similar experiences compared to what on-campus students receive. High-Impact Practices (HIPs) are widely researched educational practices that, when implemented well, enhance student learning and engagement, as well as improve retention, and are associated with …

Life In Sitcoms: Episodes In Love And Loss, Amy Kielmeyer

Theses and Dissertations

Sitcoms have been an enduring part of television history, but for as much as they have been an important part of the ways we’ve interacted with television, they have also been criticized over the years for being too the same, too unrealistic, for avoiding complexity, and minimizing the lived experiences of many people. These critiques are necessary, but they can also overlook some of the ways that these very critiques are part of what makes the sitcom a valuable vehicle for telling familiar stories. Using sitcoms, obituaries, and poetry, this collection of creative nonfiction offers ways of looking at sitcoms …

Cyclical Musicians: Collegiate Music Students’ Experiences Of Instrumental Musicking Processes Across The Menstrual Cycle, Anne Marques Catarin

Theses and Dissertations

Instrumental music researchers tend to focus on non-sex-specific health topics, such as posture (e.g., Garnett et al., 2022; Rousseau et al., 2023), musculoskeletal health (e.g., Mizrahi, 2020; Pratt et al., 2020), or neurological movement disorders (e.g., Altenmüller & Jabusch, 2010; Frucht, 2009). Despite the considerable extent of topics covered in musician health, the role of menstrual health in instrumentalists is currently underdeveloped. Using a case study design (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2014), I explored the unspoken experiences of collegiate instrumental music majors who menstruate, in an investigation to better understand the role of menstrual cycles in their musicking. For four months, …

Indigenous Innovation: Exploring Substance Use And Drone Applications In Indigenous Contexts Across Canada, Jacob Nelson Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

This is a dissertation in practice which addresses Indigenous health, substance use, dronetechnology, and ethical considerations of drone use. A dissertation in practice results in three products with practical application in community. Through development of a grant application, journal manuscript, and community toolkit for ethical drone use, this dissertation addresses a broader narrative about the empowerment of Indigenous communities in Canada.

In Chapter 2, a grant application has been designed for submission to Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addiction Program. The grant explores substance use among Indigenous Peoples working in the forest sector. The grant application addresses the need for …

“How Can I Teach When I Was Not Taught How?”: Teacher Education For Mother Tongue Instruction For Stem In Southwest Nigeria, Motunrayo Adeosun

Theses and Dissertations

In this qualitative study, the experiences, training, and challenges of teachers in primary schools in a community in southwest Nigeria were explored. The purpose of this study was to identify the experiences of teachers about their training for mother tongue instruction and how they teach pupils with the mother tongue or local language of the community, the challenges faced by teachers in teaching with the mother tongue, and the strategies used by teachers to overcome the challenges. This study found that teachers received no training and there is no curriculum for the training of teachers to teach in the mother …

Multi-Task Learning For Deployable, Boundary-Refined Semantic Segmentation, Alessandro Dos Santos

Theses and Dissertations

Semantic segmentation is a task in computer vision that frequently employs convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to learn dense, pixel-wise object classification. Low-level feature preservation and robust, real-time network deployment are regarded as two of the biggest challenges in this task. The former challenge loses low-level features during downsampling operations, which are integral to learning object semantics, posing a seemingly paradoxical challenge. There have been many approaches for resolving this problem such as skip connections and multi-scale feature extraction, but none quite as explicit as modeling edge prior information. The latter challenge is often resolved by exploiting lightweight CNN architectures, where …

Outage Prediction And Detecting Influential Factors Under Extreme Weather Events Using Shap Analysis, Farishta Rahman

Theses and Dissertations

As electricity demands continue to grow and extreme weather events become more frequent, the need for resilient energy infrastructure is increasingly urgent. This thesis addresses three critical areas of power system resilience and monitoring. The first section of the thesis reviews the Texas power blackout in February 2021, which highlighted severe vulnerabilities in energy systems under extreme weather conditions. This analysis investigates the blackout event's causes, including generation capacity limitations and over-reliance on specific energy sources. The second section presents another weather event (ice storms) in North Dakota causing a multi-day blackout. Multiple machine learning approaches are deployed to predict …

Renewable Assignments: Comparing Faculty And Student Perceptions, Julie Lazzara, Matthew Bloom, Virginia Clinton-Lisell

Education, Health & Behavior Studies Faculty Publications

This study examined faculty and student perceptions of renewable assignments within an OER-enabled pedagogy framework. Building on Wiley and Hilton’s (2018) framework, this study focused on the subset of practices that result in renewable assignments. Renewable assignments leverage OER permissions (reuse, redistribute, retain, remix, revise) to produce student work with value beyond the classroom. The study compared college students’ (N = 24) perceptions of value, interest, motivation, and reward for renewable assignments versus those of the instructor (N = 1) in one online class. Students reported that the value, interest, motivation, and reward of the renewable assignment were somewhat better …

Und Leads Implementation Team Meeting Agenda — November 14, 2024, University Of North Dakota

LEADS Implementation Documents

Agenda for the November 14, 2024 meeting of the UND LEADS Implementation Team. The agenda includes subgroup reports and discussion of campus outreach, messaging, and marketing related to UND LEADS implementation.

Borrowed Time, Chloe Piekkola

Floodwall Magazine

No abstract provided.

A Gold-Lined Barrel, Dani Ogawa

Floodwall Magazine

No abstract provided.

Body, Rachael Erickson

Floodwall Magazine

No abstract provided.

Those Who Fail To Learn, Jasmine Patera

Floodwall Magazine

No abstract provided.

The Little Things, Brenden Kimpe

Floodwall Magazine

No abstract provided.

Strengthening Online Psychology Students’ Sense Of Belonging With Social Annotation: An Experimental Study, Alison E. Kelly, Virginia Clinton-Lisell

Education, Health & Behavior Studies Faculty Publications

Sense of belonging is associated with postsecondary student success outcomes and has largely been studied within face-to-face course contexts. The increasing demand for online courses after the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates identifying ways instructors can foster belonging in their online courses. This study experimentally tested the effect of using social annotation on students’ sense of belonging in asynchronous online courses. Students in two psychology courses (N = 44) were randomly assigned to complete annotation assignments individually (control) or in groups using a social annotation platform (treatment). Students completed a course-level sense of belonging measure at the end of their courses …

November 6 ,2024, The Dakota Student

The Dakota Student

No abstract provided.

Plagiarism: History, Culture, And Prevention, Laura Egan

Librarian Publications

This entry covers the origins of the word plagiarism, how it differentiates from common knowledge and copyright, and defines different types of plagiarism. It addresses how perceptions of plagiarism have changed over time, variations in how different cultures view plagiarism, and how technological advances have led to increases in plagiarism. One section focuses on plagiarism and academic integrity, providing examples of incidents and their consequences, as well as non-academic examples. Later sections identify how training and skillsets can reduce plagiarism, as well as providing a detailed list of plagiarism detection tools. Finally, the entry addresses plagiarism issues related to using …

Und Leads Implementation Team Meeting Agenda — October 17, 2024, University Of North Dakota

LEADS Implementation Documents

Agenda for the October 17, 2024 meeting of the UND LEADS Implementation Team. The agenda includes subgroup reports, a LEADS Activity Inventory how-to module with Jonathan Puhl from TTaDA, current inventory status, and campus outreach.

Keynote Address: The Language Of Disability And The Inclusion Revolution, Haley Moss Esq.

Just Ask: Accessibility & Disability at UND Conference

No abstract provided.

Opening Remarks, Beth Valentine

Just Ask: Accessibility & Disability at UND Conference

Welcoming remarks for the first day of the 2024 Just Ask Conference. This draws on material from the Understanding Disabilities in American Indian & Alaska Native Communities toolkit.

So You Want To Support Open Education Resources?, Jackson Harper

Librarian Posters and Presentations

Open education resources (OER) are learning materials that are free for users to utilize and share. They can take many forms-- learning modules, video lectures, etc.-- but they are most commonly known as free online textbooks. In this form, they are a growing presence on course syllabi, but what exactly are these things that faculty are integrating into their courses? Where do they come from? How do they help students? In the presentation, attendees will learn the fundamentals of OER and the reasons instructors choose to adopt them.