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Causes Of Nonattendance And Its Effect On Student Achievement At The High School Level, Kelly D. Bracht

Dissertations

Many high schools in America have issues with student nonattendance. The researcher designed this mixed methods study to determine the affect of nonattendance on student achievement and to ascertain whether home-related factors or school-related factors were more significant causes of nonattendance. Both the high school in this study and other similar schools may use the results to develop effective nonattendance intervention programs. The researcher used cluster sampling to determine the sample population. She then collected attendance data (the number of absences each student had during one semester) and achievement data (each student’s Grade Point Average during that same semester) about …

The Evolution Of Self-Directedness In An Undergraduate Ethics Course: A Comparison Of Three Course Delivery Methods, Shawna Leigh Strickland

Dissertations

Many studies have investigated relationships between self-directedness and various indicators of success in university coursework but few have explored the evolution of self-directedness that may or may not occur in these settings. This study sought to discover how self-direction in learning of participants in an undergraduate healthcare ethics course evolved. Emphasis of this evolution was placed on the learner’s perspective. The study also examined the relationship between course delivery method and degree of evolution of self-directedness during the studied semester. A traditional section, a blended section, and an online section of the healthcare ethics course were studied. Within three sections …

Interpreting Cultural And Sociopolitical Landscapes In The Upper Piura Valley, Far North Coast Of Perú (1100 B.C.- A.D. 1532), Jorge Antonio Montenegro

Dissertations

This dissertation is a diachronic settlement and landscape study undertaken from an interpretive archaeology perspective. The outcome of this study has been an interpretation of the settlement and landscape configurations as well as of the sociopolitical organization during the entire prehispanic occupation (ca. 1100 B.C.- A.D. 1532) of the Upper Piura River Valley in the Far North Coast of Perú. Also, the sociopolitical interaction between the local polities of the Upper Piura River Valley and the southern foreign Northern North Coast polities has been assessed. The Far North Coast is not an environmentally "marginal" area as compared to the Northern …

Political Ideology And Its Relationship To Perceptions Of Social Justice Advocacy Among Members Of The American Counseling Association (Aca), Janeé Steele Steele

Dissertations

Social justice has become an increasingly controversial topic among members of the American Counseling Association (ACA). Specifically, concerns have been raised over what is perceived to be: (a) the liberal political agenda of social justice advocates, (b) the marginalization of conservative counselors, and (c) the inappropriate use of ACA resources for social activism. Concerns of this nature suggest that contrary to what is most often expressed by social justice proponents, many counselors may question if efforts to address social and political issues are appropriate tasks for counselors in their professional roles. They further imply that opinions about social justice advocacy …

Information Acquisition And Sociality Among Migratory Birds, Zoltán Németh

Dissertations

Information use is a key feature of adaptive behavior: the better informed an individual, the better it is able to adjust its behavior to meet the demands of a variable world. Therefore, most animals attempt to reduce environmental uncertainty by gathering information when it is available. However, tracking unpredictable ecological factors may carry costs as individuals invest valuable time and energy in the process of information acquisition. Social learning (i.e., use of social information inadvertently produced by other individuals) enables the individual to gain rapid and more complete assessment of its novel environment. This process may be particularly important for …

Social Studies Teachers Who Teach Toward Social Justice: An Examination Of Life Histories, Robert Andrew Good

Dissertations

This dissertation reports on a qualitative investigation of two research questions: What experiences lead secondary social studies teachers to become passionate and committed to teaching toward social justice? How do these teachers conceptualize and practice teaching toward social justice in the social studies? The study, which employed a life history design informed by a sociocultural approach, examined data from interviews with thirteen secondary social studies teachers whose practice emphasized social justice concepts. Data were interpreted using both narrative analysis and inductive content analysis. A variety of life experiences such as family, schooling, oppression, spirituality, friendships, teaching experience, work experience, community, …

In Their Voices-Retaining African American Students At A Predominately White University: An Examination Of Theoretical Implications And Student Cerntered Practices, Gwendolyn Deloach-Packnett

Dissertations

This investigation is a study on the impact of a research-based holistic developmental retention plan for African American students who attend/attended a predominately White institution (PWI). The strategic praxis connected theoretical implications and student centered practices to enhance positive retention outcomes. This study examined the impact of these student centered retention offerings used in the Office of Multicultural Relations (MCR) at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). Founded in 1997, the expressed mission of MCR was to address the challenges of the University’s largest minority population, placing emphasis on the retention of its African American students. Two focus groups (graduate …

The Effects Of An Inquiry-Based Earth Science Course On The Spatial Thinking Of Pre-Service Elementary Teacher Education Students, Kevin Douglas Weakley

Dissertations

This study examined the effectiveness of two geography courses at improving student spatial thinking skills. Spatial thinking is an important cognitive skill in the sciences and everyday life. A taxonomy of spatial thinking was constructed by Gersmehl (2008) in geography education which included core modes assessed in this study: comparison, region, transition, analogy, pattern, and association. Two additional modes related to space over time, change and movement, were also assessed. The central research question in this study is: What are the effects of a pre-service teacher education earth science content course (Geography 1900) that is conceptually designed and inquirybased on …

What Role For Ethnicity? Political Behavior And Mobilization In Post-Conflict Sierra Leone And Liberia, Fodei Joseph Batty

Dissertations

This dissertation examines political behavior in Sierra Leone and Liberia following the end of their civil wars. Dominant theories on politics in African societies suggest that ethnic interests underpin political behavior and elections are mere censuses of ethnic support for co-ethnic party elites. Yet, while using a proportional representation electoral system that is expected to result in splintered vote shares for multiple political parties, Sierra Leone's elections in 2002 concentrated votes around one presidential candidate and political party. Conversely Liberia's elections in 2005, held using a first-past-the-post electoral system that expectedly discourages multiple vote shares, diffused votes among several political …

A Study Of The Effectiveness Of A Pilot Training Program In An Organizational Setting: An Intervention For Work Engagement, John Joseph Kmiec Jr.

Dissertations

This study measured the effects of a learning intervention designed to enhance the capabilities of immediate managers to increase the level of work engagement in line employees at a small manufacturing firm in south Mississippi. The study answered the call of researchers to investigate the impact of innovative management practices on work engagement (Bakker, Schaufeli, Leiter, & Taris, 2008). The firm’s Production business unit managers participated in a 90-day learning program based on five skills outlined by Flagello and Dugas (2009); the Maintenance business unit managers did not participate in the learning. At three intervals during the intervention, the researcher …

Critical Multicultural Education For Social Action, Jan Ricketts Ferrari

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Balancing Act: A Study Of International School Heads' Efforts To Manage The Professional And Personal Aspects Of Their Lives, Christiane Pj Sorenson Edd

Dissertations

Interest in the topic of professional and personal life balance has increased exponentially over the past several decades. The topic even is listed by the current First Lady of the United States as a priority item to be addressed during her husband's first four years in office. While studies have been conducted about the professional/personal balance of corporate executives and other professionals, including government employees, there has been almost no direct study of balance in educational professionals' lives. This study investigated school heads' perceptions about the factors that impact their ability to achieve balance between their professional and personal lives. …

Neurodevelopmental Outcomes Of High Risk Infants, Lisa E. Miklush Phd, Msn, Rnc, Cns

Dissertations

Background: Infant developmental research has revealed amazing physical, cognitive, and social capacities of the human infant. Along with this knowledge is a growing appreciation of numerous factors that have the potential to impact the individual infant's developmental trajectory, either enhancing or compromising the eventual outcome. Enhanced understanding of those factors that shape infant developmental trajectories will provide an evidence base for the establishment of a supportive environment for the youngest members of society. Purpose: To determine the relationship between neurodevelopmental outcome and gestational age, birth weight, Apgar scores, NICU admission, infant gender, maternal depression, home environment, and parent-child interaction. Methodology: …

Safe Haven Infant Protection : Incidence Of Use And Characteristics Of Surrendered Infants And Relinquishing Users, Sallie Anne Porter

Dissertations

Background: Safe Haven Infant Protection (SHIP) laws are variously-titled state-level laws that permit infants to be surrendered to designated persons and/or places in a generally anonymous fashion with prescribed limits on prosecution.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the number of infants surrendered under SHIP laws in the United States, detail the characteristics of surrendered Safe Haven (SH) infants and relinquishing users, and directly compare the SH infant/relinquishing user population and the discarded infant/discarding mother populations.

Methods: Non-profit reports and communications, government documents and communications, and media reports provided the basis of the national SH estimate. Data …

Xperts And Novices: Differences In Their Use Of Mental Representation And Metacognition In Engineering Design, Raymond Anthony Dixon

Dissertations

Research shows that mental representation such as analogical reasoning is a fundamental cognitive tool for design problem solving (Daugherty & Mentzer, 2008; Hey, Lensey, Agogino, & Wood, 2008; Lewis, 2008). Not much is known, however, about the way students and professional engineers actively generate and change their mental representation when solving a engineering design problem. There are very few studies that show how different types of mental representations; such as metaphors, propositions, and analogies; interplay with higher order cognitive processes; such as planning, monitoring, and evaluation; as engineering designers navigate their problem and solution spaces. This empirical study investigated the …

The Soul And The Body In Hegel's Anthropology, Nicholas Mowad

Dissertations

I provide a close exegetical reading of Hegel's "anthropology," his doctrine of the human body and soul, located in the first part of the Philosophy of Spirit, volume three of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. In the course of this exegesis I show how Hegel demonstrates that all of the phenomena there under investigation must be understood as at once corporeal and distinctively human. Accordingly, anthropological phenomena should not be understood as essentially the same in humans as it is in animals, though many commentators allege that they should be. I provide a survey of the secondary literature on …

Immigrant Stories: Generation 1.5 Mexican American Students And English Language Learning In An Illinois Community College, Thomas Lloyd Hansen

Dissertations

The number of recent immigrants to the United States has increased dramatically in the last few years, and more of these immigrants are members of a group often designated as "Generation 1.5" students. These immigrant students were born in another country, came to the United States at the age of 13 or older, and graduated from high school in this country. This qualitative research study occurs within two Illinois community colleges that require some students to enroll in courses below regular English Composition I as indicated by one or more placement tests. These courses are English as a Second Language …

Towards A New Measure Of Playfulness: The Capacity To Fully And Freely Engage In Play, Rebecca Cornelli Sanderson

Dissertations

The current study involved the development and validation of a new measure of playfulness, the Project Joy Playfulness Scale (PJPS). The PJPS was designed specifically as a brief teacher-report measure for use in the preschool classroom. Playfulness was hypothesized to include four dimensions: Active Engagement, Internal Control, Joyfulness, and Social Connection. Blending academic knowledge with on-the-ground clinical experience, the measure was collaboratively developed and then tested in two separate phases of data collection.

In the first phase of the study, two hundred and twenty-two preschool students aged three to five were rated by two classroom teachers on the alpha version …

Haima In Hebrews, Hermann V. Kuma

Dissertations

Problem. The focus of the dissertation is the significance of the term αἷμα (“blood”) in the Epistle to the Hebrews and how the author of Hebrews uses the term to formulate the argument and message of the Epistle. The dissertation traces the scholarly blood debate involving blood as life or death which began in the last decade of the nineteenth century and eventually fizzled out in the mid-1950s. Recognition of the ambivalence of blood, symbolizing both life and death, is necessary to understand the message of Hebrews.

Method. The dissertation provides a discussion of the concept of blood in the …

Resurrecting The Past, Constructing The Future: A Historical Investigation On The Formation Of A Greek National Identity In Schools, 1834-1913, Theodore G. Zervas

Dissertations

This dissertation research combines archival data and historical methods and analyzes how schooling and education in Greece between 1834 and 1913 sought to shape a Greek national identity. The goal of this project is to present a historical analysis, that has thus far been absent from scholarship on the subject, and to convey how the adoption of a common national history in Greece, with roots to ancient Greece, assisted in the shaping of a Greek national identity. The timeframe this project examines is significant because it covers an important portion of Modern Greek history. The beginning of the modern state …

Interpretive Teleology Without Eschatology: A Study Of The Hermeneutic Strategies Of Nietzsche's Genealogical Project, Darin Sean Mcginnis

Dissertations

In contemporary philosophy, there exists a vigorous debate between those thinkers who advocate the need for a truth that exists outside of historical forces and those who hold that all understanding must be historical in its basis. My research is focused on deciphering this problem by providing a description of how understanding and interpretation occur. More specifically, I have proposed a project that explores how the philosophical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche can give some insight into this problem of understanding truth. I argue that Nietzsche develops a method of interpretation - a hermeneutics - that focuses on the manner in …

Sea-Cards For The Impetuous Muse: A Reading Of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks, Travis Sean Cook

Dissertations

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, by Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, marks an important dissent from the general trend of early modern philosophy. This dissertation argues that Shaftesbury's book undertakes a restoration of the classical understanding of philosophy in contradistinction to the understanding presented by the writings of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and other modern thin0kers. According to Shaftesbury, modern philosophy introduces a method of radical skepticism in order to combat the moral and political effects of Christianity. This methodical skepticism, however, turns out to be at least as corrosive to moral and political life as the worldview …

I Am Black And Beautiful: An Examiniaton Of The Black Coptic Church As The Manifestation Of Liberation Theology, Leonard Mckinnis

Dissertations

What does the Black Coptic Church have to offer the study of Black theology? This is the essential question this dissertation seeks to examine through a descriptive and constructive analysis. I submit the doctrinal formulation of black liberation theology is locatable within the Black Coptic Church, which was founded, and still boasts its largest membership in Chicago. This is the tradition that has informed my own faith background and has played a tremendous role in my earlier theological convictions. In fact, I was attracted to this tradition as a young child because it seemed to offer its adherents a sense …

Altgeld Gardens: Evolution Of Culture And Educatiion In An Isolated African American Community, Beverly Anne Lesueur

Dissertations

Altgeld Gardens, a Chicago public housing project, was selected for this study because its unique attributes were designed as a model, self-contained complex located in a geographically and socially, isolated area of Chicago built to house African American war armament workers and their families beginning in the mid-1940’s. Oral testimonies from teachers and community members chronicle significant changes to the local culture and the primary school’s efforts to provide effective instructional services within the cultural context of this community. The most effective and frequently used modification of instruction was the incorporation of culturally relevant pedagogy. The goal was to effectively …

Mid-Childhood Immigrant Perspectives On Achieving College Success, Mark John Litwicki

Dissertations

This study extends what is known about the experience of mid-childhood immigration. Fifteen participants, college students who immigrated to the U.S. from Latin America between the ages of 8 and 16 and who had completed at least a semester of transferable college-level coursework, provided their narratives by way of an open-ended interview focusing primarily on academic performance and achievement. Interviews were conducted using a life story methodology which seeks to maximize participant control over responses. Participants recounted their experiences from arrival through school completion and at college, and described which variables - circumstances, characteristics, behaviors, attitudes, events - they perceived …

Turmoil, Tirades And Transformation: The Wars For The National History Standards 1991-2004, Phyllis Margaret Henry

Dissertations

This document presents a research project in the format of an historical narrative that chronicles the issues, process of consensus, and the impact of the National History Standards Project (NHSP) on local policies and curricula in history education. The influence of the voluntary national history standards movement is chronicled with the local development of social science standards-based curricula with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

This dissertation is a case study that utilizes multiple sources of research such as archival primary sources, oral history interviews and participant observations to corroborate the evidence. The …

Uncovering Medical And Mental Health Professionals' Decision-Making In The Treatment Of Trans-Variant Patients, Jodie M. Dewey

Dissertations

This project is a study of medical and mental health professionals who treat trans-variant patients. Using in-depth interviews, I show how providers describe the process by which they make decisions with patients who desire, through formal means, to hormonally and/or surgically transition from one gender to the other. This work uncovers the ways professionals make decisions in the absence or limitation of formal knowledge while simulaneously attemping to ground their work in this same knoweldge to obtain respect and legitimacy. Professionals must also acknowledge that they relinquesh some power to patients to make decisions which involve high risk for them. …

The Ethnic Identity Of Returning Immigrants To A Pueblo In Yucatan, David Piacenti

Dissertations

This study seeks to understand: 1) motivations for leaving and, if applicable, racialized, segregated environment, which is represented by the returned cholo, whose "urban gangbanger" mentality confronts the traditional, rural ethnic identity. San Francisco also affects the overall perception of immigration and desire for permanent U.S. residence. Of the San Francisco cohort, 42% say immigration is "positive overall." Conversely, 62% of the Kalamazoo cohort says that immigration is "positive overall." Only 29% of the San Francisco cohort desire permanent residence in the U.S. while 54% of the Kalamazoo cohort desire permanent U.S. residence. Therefore, the suburban context of Kalamazoo may …

Role Of Residence Hall Staff In Offering Early Warning Academic Intervention, Jon L. Shaffer

Dissertations

Despite anecdotal evidence that residence hall staff are involved in the intrusive delivery of early warning academic intervention programs, little literature exists that defines these programs or the role of residence life staff in their delivery. Understanding the existence of such programs and the involvement of residence life staff is important in developing collaborative efforts between student and academic affairs aimed at promoting student success.

A national on-line survey of senior housing officers was utilized in this research. Results identified that early warning programs existed at 187 (67.3%) of the 278 responding institutions. Of those, 119 institutions (63.6%) utilized residence …

Black Female Student's Experiences In A Predominantly White High Achieving Suburban School: Implications For Theory And Practice, Erika Raissa Nash

Dissertations

Previous literature states that Black females experience cultural discontinuity, academic and social stressors, and inequities that are associated with psychological distress and risky behaviors as a result of not fitting into the school environment. These patterns have been found to exist in low-income, underachieving, urban schools, but middle class, high-achieving, suburban, and predominantly White schools have not been examined. Primarily through semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study investigated the experiences of 12 Black females who attend a predominantly White, high achieving suburban school in a Midwestern state. Utilizing a grounded theory approach, the data collected suggests that there are two groups …