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Teacher Perceptions Of Their Effectiveness In Supporting Reading Strategies As A Result Of Collaboration With A Literacy Coach, Sharon S. Miller

Dissertations

Problem

The poor reading and comprehension skills of many secondary-school students present a challenge for secondary teachers, the majority of whom have no training in the teaching of reading. The increasing expectations of the No Child Left Behind legislature add to the pressures on public educators. Is coaching an effective way to support and encourage secondary content-area teachers to include reading strategies in their daily work with students?

Purpose

The purpose of the study was to examine the literacy coach initiative in two small junior-senior high schools. A further purpose was to closely study the coach and two of the …

Knowledge Visualisation Of Wikipedia, Jinhui Wang

Dissertations

Wikipedia is a popular online encyclopaedia, in which articles are created together by anyone who is willing to contribute. There is debate on the quality, reliability and consistency of articles due to its openness. Besides, it is hard to see the growing path of articles because there is no centralised control in Wikipedia. The history of articles is available but in form that is difficult to process to get a picture of article evolution. Knowledge visualisation addresses the problem by providing analysis and comprehension of large amounts of data to gain insights and to facilitate knowledge creation and sharing. However, …

Missouri Ozark Women's Experiences Of Living With Postpartum Depression Symptoms, Nathalie B. Williams

Dissertations

Depression is a serious complication of the postpartum period that affects not only women but their children and families as well. Rural women are of particular concern because of the significant barriers to health care that they experience as a result of isolation, poverty, traditional beliefs, and a lack of accessible and adequate health related services. A review of the literature to identify evidence based nursing interventions that focused on primary and secondary prevention of postpartum depression revealed few interventions and there were no studies identified that targeted or even included women living in rural areas of the United States. …

Intensive Professional Development In Early Literacy Instruction For Preschool Teachers, Rebecca Brinks

Dissertations

This study assesses the efficacy of using an intensive professional development program to improve preschool teachers' practices related to early literacy. A mixed methods approach was employed to review secondary data from a federally-funded Early Reading First Grant. The population studied consisted of thirty-one preschool teachers at four diverse programs serving low income children located in the mid-western urban community of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The intensive professional development used in this study resulted in significant improvements in the mean scores for all areas of the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation (ELLCO) when comparing baseline to the final scores in …

Resilient Teachers: A Qualitative Study Of Six Thriving Educators In Urban Elementary Schools, Paul Giroux

Dissertations

This qualitative research study used elements of phenomenological and narrative research methodology to explore the common characteristics and experiences of a sample of resilient elementary teachers working in urban schools. The six research subjects in this study’s sample each had at least eight years of teaching experience, and each participated in a cycle of three in-depth interviews designed to determine their degree of resilience and to develop a portrait of their personal and professional characteristics, experiences, attitudes and beliefs. Once the data collection phase was complete, data was coded and then analyzed to identify which of the characteristics and experiences …

Audio-Assisted Reading With Digital Audiobooks For Upper Elementary Students With Reading Disabilities, Kelli J. Esteves

Dissertations

Audio-assisted reading has been used as an effective instructional intervention for students with learning disabilities (Carbo, 1978; Gilbert, Williams, & McLaughlin, 1996) and with struggling readers (Chomsky, 1976; Hollingsworth, 1978; Hoskisson & Krohm, 1974; Koskinen, Blum, Bisson, Phillips, Creamer, & Baker, 2000; Rasinski, 1990). The strategy involves reading along while listening to an audio recording of a fluent model (Evans, 1997).

The goal of this study was to compare the efficacy of audio-assisted reading with digital audiobooks against the traditional practice of sustained silent reading in terms of reading fluency rates and reading attitude scores with upper elementary students with …

Creating A Culture Of Safety: The Influence Of Medical Simulation On The Attitudes Of Surgical Team Members, Diane J. Jones

Dissertations

The objective of this study was to determine change in individual and aggregate attitudes of the members of two subspecialty surgery teams (cardiac and vascular) in six domains (teamwork climate, safety climate, job satisfaction, stress recognition, perception of management, and working conditions) following medical team simulation and debriefing exercises. The study was a pre-post partially randomized controlled, quasi-experimental study that took place in a 545-bed hospital with a high-volume cardiovascular surgery program. Participants included interdisciplinary team members caring for cardiac and vascular surgery patients.

Main outcome measures included change in responses to safety attitudes questionnaires (SAQs) administered before, 1 week …

The Social Construction Of Linguistic Reality: A Case Study Exploring The Relationships Among Poverty, Race, And Remediation In An Urban Community College, Rosemary Robinson Jackson

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Mapk Survival Signaling In Melanoma, Matthew W. Vanbrocklin

Dissertations

Extracellular signals activate mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades potentiating biological activities such as cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival. Constitutive activation of MAPK signaling pathways is implicated in the development and progression of many human cancers, including melanoma. Mutually exclusive activating mutations in NRAS or BRAF are found in ∼85% of all melanomas resulting in constitutive activation of the MAPK pathway (RAS-BRAF-MEK-ERK-RSK). We have previously demonstrated that inhibition of this pathway with small molecule MEK inhibitors selectively induces apoptosis in human melanoma cells both in vitro and in vivo, but not in normal melanocytes. These results support the notion that the …

Leadership-Influenced Practices That Impact Classroom Instruction Related To Writing: A Case Study Of A Successful Elementary School, Barb Johnson

Dissertations

This research studied the practices of educators at an ethnically diverse suburban elementary school which had demonstrated success in the area of student writing, even among at-risk students. The overall research goal was to examine to what extent and how leadership-related practices impacted classroom instruction in a manner that helped produce successful writing scores. A case study approach was used to explore four key leadership-related practices (supervision, curriculum, professional development, and knowledgeable leaders) and their impact on classroom literacy-based instructional strategies.

The study participants included two leaders and fourteen teachers from a single elementary school located in a metropolitan Michigan …

Exposing Star Teachers Of Children In Poverty, Bobbi Morehead

Dissertations

Public schools have control over whom they choose to hire to serve as teachers. When quality teachers are hired, all students have a better chance at achieving academic success. It is the responsibility of every public school principal to truly understand common patterns, which can assist teachers to become outstanding teachers, defined in this study as Star Teachers. It is also the principals' responsibility to make sure the work conditions of such Star Teachers are conducive to personal and professional renewal.

The passion to educate all children drives the following research questions: (1) How do Star Teachers describe the significant …

Behavioral, Attitudinal, And Decision-Altering Effects Of Aggressive Video Games On Young Adults, Kent Smallwood

Dissertations

Each year, interactive video game technology becomes more and more advanced, offering more lifelike environments, immersive experiences, and realistic situations in which the player must decide how to act. As a result of these technological advancements, the violent content in video games has become increasingly realistic and graphic. Unlike the passive viewing experience of television, video game players adopt roles in which they initiate actions and direct the progression of video game experience. In these active roles, they may engage in and be rewarded for violent acts against fictitious video game characters or other online players. Furthermore, the videogame industry …

A Qualitative Exploration Of First-Generation Asian Indian Women In Cross-Cultural Marriages, Monica Thiagarajan

Dissertations

The literature on Asian Indian women has not adequately addressed the experiences that first generation Asian Indian women face while going through the process of making the decision to marry cross-culturally. The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify, describe, and understand the struggles, challenges, and conflict experienced by Asian Indian women who decide to marry cross-culturally and to understand the consequences of the decision on the lives of these women and their interpersonal relationships.

Initial and follow-up phone interviews were conducted with eight Asian Indian women who had experienced cultural and familial challenges regarding their decision to marry …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Stilbenoids And Their Aza-Analogs As Photoluminescent Materials For The Detection Of Nerve Agent Mimics, Chun Wang

Dissertations

A novel series of stilbenoids and their aza analogs were synthesized, characterized and used as photoluminescent components in the detection of nerve agents. Their structure-property relationship was elucidated through UV-visible and fluorescence spectroscopy. The research in this thesis is driven by the hypothesis that the two-block sensor system consisting of a receptor incorporated ruthenium complex and a fluorescent signal molecule of stilbenoids, is capable of detecting chemical warfare agents. The sensor anchored onto nanoparticles and subsequently the nanoparticles were arranged through mediated self-assembly. While photo-induced electron transfer is a well-known mechanism for sensor design, the described system showed that photo-induced …

Vygotsky’S Theory Of The Creative Imagination: A Study Of The Influences On Preservice Teachers’ Creative Thinking Capacities, Stephen J. Worst

Dissertations

This study investigated the effect of formal instruction in the use of creative thinking skills on preservice teachers' capacities for increased creative activity. It emerged from Vygotsky's theory of the creative imagination. Emphasizing the impact of formal schooling on the growth of creative activity, he implied that individuals who are continually adding to accumulation of knowledge develop an abundant imagination from which creativity flows.

This quantitative study used a quasi-experimental design and attempted to test Vygotsky's assumptions within a sample population of 113 preservice teachers. Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking served as the pre- and post-tests that measured the creative …

Are High School Gpa, Rank In High School Graduating Class Or Act Scores Adequate Predictors Of College Freshmen Success?, Maryann Michel Townsend, Donna Nack

Dissertations

This study was developed to determine if High School Grade Point Average, High School Class Rank or the ACT scores were effective measures of college freshmen success. Procedure 1. Eight hundred twenty one first-time freshmen were admitted to Lindenwood University in 2005-2006. 2. Of those students, the required information was available for 536 students. 3. Fifty-eight students were used for this study. Findings 1. A statistical significance was found in the correlation of High School Grade Point Average and freshmen success. 2. The ACT scores did not result in as significant a correlation as did the High School Grade Point …

Early Childhood Program Director Leadership Characteristics And Program Quality, Barbara J. June

Dissertations

This phenomenological research study was conducted to explore and describe how the characteristics, traits, and styles of directors, as described and perceived by the teachers, reflect the factors that are currently addressed in the indicators forming the basis for evaluating program quality. Teacher participants from six sites participated in a survey, questionnaire, and interview to determine director and program profiles. The Program Quality Assessment score was used as a standardized data source.

The data were collected, coded, and analyzed to determine the director and program profiles for each of the sites. The director and program data for each site were …

Gender Disparity In Nigerian Education: Women’S Experience Of Barriers To Equal Educational Opportunity, Eugene Okoli

Dissertations

Discrepancies between males and females in access to schooling, school completion rates, and participation in employment opportunities are still more the norm in some regions of the world than others. Limited access to education plagues women in Nigeria as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa. Disparity in access to educational opportunity is a pressing gender equity issue in Nigeria (World Bank, 2003).

Relatively few studies have focused on obtaining the viewpoints of women who experience this phenomenon. To hear the voices of these women regarding how they gained or were denied access to education in the Nigerian context, a cross-section of …

Effects Of Job Stereotype, Applicant Gender, And Powerful And Powerless Speech Styles On Telephone Interview Outcomes, Heather Deanna Palmer Mcfarland

Dissertations

By examining the effects of powerful and powerless speech styles, gender stereotyped jobs, and gendered voices during the employment interviewing process, this study sought to further the research of Parton (1996); Parton, Siltanen, Hosman, and Langenderfer (2002); and Juodvalkis, Grefe, Hogue, Svyantek, and DeLamarter (2003). This study was designed to further explore the possibility of longitudinal changes within acceptable communicative expectations during telephone job interviewing. Participants (undergraduate and professional) listened to two audio taped interviews manipulated by speech style, stereotyped job title, and interviewee gender. Variables were evaluated on semantic differential scales following the previous work of Parton (1996). Similar …

The Role Of Communication Channel, Feedback Valence And Cultural Differences In Performance Appraisal Outcomes, James C. Matchen

Dissertations

The effects of feedback valence (positive or negative) across culture (Individualistic or Collectivistic) for both the verbal and nonverbal communication channels on performance appraisal outcomes were investigated. It was hypothesized that participants would react differently to the performance appraisal they received based on (1) their own cultural values and on (2) the valence of the verbal feedback and nonverbal feedback provided by the manager. Main effects of both verbal feedback valence and nonverbal feedback valence were predicted and found. Participants reported more positive reactions to both the performance appraisal process and to the manager after receiving positive feedback than after …

Mobile Information Communication Technology For Crisis Management : Understanding User Behavior, Response And Training, Elizabeth Avery Gomez

Dissertations

SMS text-messaging is an interoperable communication vehicle known to be dependable for mass media alert notifications in crisis management. SMS text-messaging also offers potential as one viable two-way communication alternative for field responders in crisis response. Both continuously changing mobile information communication technologies and the importance of precise information exchange constitute a need for communication protocol training and practice. This study introduces a technology-mediated training technique based on speech act and communicative action theories. These theories are used to inform the design of a baseline measure for task performance improvement and to suggest a model to predict communication readiness. Because …

Land Use And Settlement Patterns In Michigan, 1763-1837, Ray De Bruler Jr.

Dissertations

This dissertation examines various types of land use practices and settlement patterns from the end of the French era through statehood at Detroit, the Straits of Mackinac and the St. Joseph River Valley. In addition, this work describes a series of land ordinances, treaties, land office practices and acts and demonstrates how they shaped, or tried to shape, the ways people viewed the land and what they did with it. Michigan is an excellent case study for analyzing land use because it was the point of interaction among three distinct cultural and political groups, French, British and American, and each …

I Teach What I Do, I Do What I Teach: The Experiences And Impacts Of Teaching Artists, Patricia L. Saraniero Edd

Dissertations

Nationwide, many public school districts are struggling to keep arts education available for their students. California public school districts, in particular, are hard-pressed to provide arts instruction to their students. One response to dwindling arts instruction has been the use of teaching artists. A teaching artist is at once a practicing artist and an educator. Very little is known about teaching artists, and the formal empirical research on them is limited. This dissertation used a mixed-method design, incorporating both surveys of principals and teaching artists and interviews with teaching artists, to develop a better understanding of the experiences and impact …

A Post-Marxist Perspective On Chuck Palahniuk’S Early Novels And The Four Plays Of Incarcerated, Ron Riekki

Dissertations

Incarcerated: a collection of four plays includes the plays Home Schooling, Good Behavior, 2 Mics, and All Saints' Day. Incarcerated explores Foucault's carceral networking and Althusser's Ideological and Repressive State Apparatuses as exemplified in characters faced with such cataclysmic events as the Holocaust (Home Schooling and All Saints' Day) and the degradation/slavery of the American prison system (Good Behavior and 2 Mics). In this RCG-centered working class playwriting, we see how performativity is in inherent in carceral sociology, where each character in all four plays has to take masks and costumes and roles in order to …

Nude With Anything, James D'Agostino

Dissertations

Nude With Anything is a book-length manuscript of poetry that sources itself in a painterly world, one in which a visual vocabulary privileges the materiality of language in all its attempts to rival experience. Its teleos leans often toward velocity, a fevered stacking up of phrases, and so its range of poetic forms documents attempts at building calm into the rapids, intersecting verbal excess with contrasting silences, a kind of late-phase Henry James short through by haiku. With each syntactical tactic and shift in diction, Nude With Anything employs an abiding collage aesthetic, braiding different strands of discourse and seeking …

Evaluation Of A School-Based Program Targeting Pediatric Asthma Self-Management Skills In An Urban Population, Dawn J. Dore-Stites

Dissertations

Asthma is the most commonly diagnosed chronic disorder in childhood and is linked with several problematic outcomes including frequent school absences, increased hospitalizations and decreased quality of life. Further, urban populations struggling with low socioeconomic status are disproportionately represented in prevalence statistics and suffer from increased functional morbidity relative to other children with asthma. These findings exist in the midst of largely effective pharmacological interventions.

Asthma self-management programs (SMPs) target several behaviors linked to improved outcomes and are often used as an adjunct to medication management. SMPs have been employed using a variety of techniques and treatment targets in a …

The Biographic And Poetic Dimensions In Gary Synder’S Green Buddhism Poetry: Cold Mountain, Mountains And Rivers Without End, And Danger On Peaks, Byoungkook Park

Dissertations

From the perspective of ecology, many scholars have examined works of Gary Synder, who is an environmental activist, a peasant-Buddhist, and one of the most beloved and significant poets in the East and West. While his poems have been widely read, they have been rarely articulated from the perspective of East Asian Mahayana Buddhism or, which I would call, Green Buddhism. Considering this, my dissertation focuses on Snyder's Green Buddhism poetry and delineates the concept of Green Buddhism and how it has emerged in his Green Buddhism poetry over the past fifty years. According to my research, his poetic dimensions …

Community College Retention: The Role Of Late Registration Policies, Kay L. Keck

Dissertations

The study provided for a clearer understanding of the impact of late registration on community college retention and student persistence. Of particular interest were the results of the examination of the course-specific side of late registration. The most significant findings of this study were: (1) Students who registered and began a course on time had a greater likelihood to successfully complete the course. The consequences students associated with late registration included missing critical first class day information and feeling rushed and unprepared to begin the class; (2) A majority of late registrants were successful in the late registered course, and …

Evaluation Of Researchers And Their Research: Toward Making The Implicit Explicit, Chris L. S. Coryn

Dissertations

Due to its very nature, the evaluation of research permeates nearly every aspect of the work of researchers. They evaluate the work of others or have their own work evaluated. They evaluate hypotheses that come to mind, the previous literature, the quality of data, the explanatory power of theories, or the design of experiments or instruments. And this is not always casual evaluation. It is highly skilled evaluation, and becoming a first-rate or world-class researcher is a process of improving the quality of these evaluations. However, deciding when someone is or has become a first-rate or world-class researcher is an …

Metaevaluation Case Study Of Four Evaluations Of Osha Vpp Programs, Jafar Momani

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the controversy about shifts in the U.S. Administration's policy related to the Labor Department (OSHA) shift from enforcement to partnerships and voluntary protection programs (VPP). A metaevaluation of four OSHA VPP evaluation reports was conducted and included the investigation of objectives, methodologies, strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Conducting a crosswalk of the 1994 Joint Committee evaluation standards (JCS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) standards was an opportunity to provide additional validity to the evaluation standards, evaluation reports findings and conclusions, and to highlight the importance of the shared elements between …