Digital Commons Network^™

The Issue Of Antitrinitarianism In The Fifteenth-Century Novgorod-Moscow Movement: Analysis And Evaluation, Oleg Zhigankov

Dissertations

This study attempts to examine the trinitarian beliefs of the fifteenth-century Novgorod-Moscow movement, analyzing both their own writings and the polemical writings of those who considered their teaching antitrinitarian.

The main objective of the present research is to contribute to the restoration of the authentic theological identity of this movement. Chapter 1 defines the problem, which has already been raised by some nineteenth-century scholars who have pointed out that the allegedly antitrinitarian character of the Subbotniks' movement must be open for further discussion. It also shows that no systematic research on Subbotniks' theology has ever been produced.

The second chapter …

Religious Commitment As A Correlate Of Mental Health And Life Satisfaction Among Black American Families, Judith Bernard-Fisher

Dissertations

Problem. The salutary effect of religion is receiving greater acceptance among researchers, and its positive association with both physical and mental health has been increasingly examined in the scientific literature. Since religion has played a central role in the lives of Blacks, and since previous research has identified positive correlations between some religious attributes and individual well-being, it would seem that religious Black families would enjoy a greater degree of health.

A religious commitment model encompassing affiliation, participation, devotional intensity, and practices was used in the investigation of Black families' mental health and life satisfaction. As the first study of …

A Study Of The Out-Of-Class Experiences Of Saint Mary's College Students Studying In Maynooth, Ireland, Carolyn S. Langley

Dissertations

Problem Statement. The purpose of this study is to describe the out-of-class experiences of 21 students who studied in the Saint Mary's College Ireland Program in Maynooth, Ireland, during the 1998-1999 academic year. It examines (1) how the program orientation influenced students' desire to become involved in out-of-class activities, (2) how out-of-class experiences fostered students' learning of the Irish culture, and (3) how the experiences influenced students' attitudes toward cultures other than their own.

Methodology. This study employed descriptive qualitative research. Focus groups were conducted to gather data used in developing questions for long interviews, and these long interviews …

Survey Of Nigerian University Student Affairs Services: A Comparison Of Students' Perceived Service Importance And The Students' Level Of Satisfaction, Michael Adewale Adeniyi

Dissertations

Problem. Nigerian university student-affairs serviceshave been characterized by negative campus activism, violent demonstrations, and the destruction of lives and properties, the result of which led to the closing down of many Nigerian universities. Thus far, little empirical data exist regarding the student personnel servicesavailable to students at Nigerian universities, the importance of student-affairs services, or the level of student satisfaction with these services.

Methods. A quantitative survey methodology was used to assess 35 student-affairs services. A developed and validated survey instrument, the Student ServicesQuestionnaire (SSQ), was administered to collect data from currently registered undergraduate and graduate students of …

Japanese Students' Perceived Need For Communicative English And Their Perceived Proficiency Levels, Takanori Mita

Dissertations

Japanese students of English need to develop their proficiencies not only in oral aspects but in overall practical language aspects. English programs from junior high school to college levels need to be improved in consideration of current needs of students.

This study was conducted to assess college students’ perceived need for changes in the English curricula enhancing communicative competence and to seek their perceived levels of proficiency at graduation in the four skill areas (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in relationship with students’ majors, academic experience in English-speaking countries, and lengths of such experience.

The research was conducted in Tokyo …

A Comparison Of The Effects Of Temporal Requirement And Response Form On Retention, Equivalence, And Endurance, Amy Lorraine Mccarty

Dissertations

Many researchers and practitioners have reported dramatic learning gains that they attribute to the fluency procedure, often citing rate of response as a critical feature. Others have been unsuccessful at demonstrating these claims empirically. A variety of differences between methods and procedures that may account for the different outcomes are discussed in this paper. In particular is the difference in outcomes when topography-based as opposed to selection-based responses were targeted for training. Fluency practitioners, and the researchers who have obtained similar positive outcomes, have for the most part used topography-based forms of response during the drill and practice sessions, or …

Site-Based Management And Student Achievement, Roxana Marie Hopkins

Dissertations

The question that this study seeks to answer is. Does site-based management increase student achievement? Researchers believe that when a school can function more like a closed system, involved in site-based decision making, the culture of the organization may be more conducive to higher student achievement. This study has attempted to determine if there is a basis for this belief.

Supporting the study are three organization theories. Bureaucracy Theory, Systems Theory, and Human Resource Development Theory. These three theories run like threads in a tapestry throughout the research and legislation upon which this research is developed.

Researchers, up to this …

A Comparison Of International And U.S. Students In Apa-Accredited Programs: Acculturation, Counseling Self-Efficacy And Role Difficulties In Supervision, Johanna E. Nilsson

Dissertations

There has been a call in the multicultural supervision literature to enhance the understanding of minority students’ unique training needs and develop appropriate theories and models of training for these students (Leong & Wagner, 1994; McNeill, Horn, & Perez, 1995). Although a few researchers have empirically examined differences between U.S. majority and minority students in multicultural supervision (Cook & Helms, 1988; Vander Kolk, 1974), virtually no empirical studies have been published on international students’ training experiences.

The main purpose of the present study was to advance knowledge regarding the training needs of international students in APA-accredited programs in psychology. It …

Detection And Robustness Of Digital Image Watermarking Signals : A Communication Theory Approach, George F. Elmasry

Dissertations

The detection and robustness of the watermark signal is studied from a communications point of view. The contributions of this dissertation are presented in two parts. The first part, which covers the detection aspect, introduces a new digital image watermarking approach that embeds meaningful information in a copyright protection watermark signal; demonstrates the need to approach the watermark signal as a power-constrained signal; studies the relationship between the watermark signal dimension and the image capacity to the signal; explains the similarities and differences between detecting the watermark signal and detecting a signal over a spread-spectrum communication channel; and analyzes the …

Another Person's Skin: Imagining Race In The Works Of Crane, Dunbar, Cather And Stevens, Lisa M. Durose

Dissertations

This study is interested in the motivations behind certain authors' attempts to, in the words of Willa Cather, "enter into another person's skin"~in the desires compelling writers to cross, transgress, or perhaps transcend those barriers that have historically divided people in the world: barriers of color, class, and gender. In particular it seeks to examine the works of four early twentieth century writers who undertake what these days is considered risky: transracial and transethnic crossings. By relying on biographical, cultural, and historical sources, I explore the strategies American writers Stephen Crane (1871-1900), Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872- 1906), Willa Cather (1873-1947), …

Skin: A Work Of Fiction, Kellie Wells

Dissertations

In Skin, a polyphonous novel, a community of characters similarly metaphysically vexed and similarly grappling with issues of selfhood and identity intersect and catalyze in one another moments of recognition. These brief self-reckonings suggest to the characters that though the quest to discern their place in the universe is a plagued one, it is not without value as it at least results in faint glimmers of enlightenment. Ultimately, how ever, these flickerings of understanding inch the characters no closer to the big certainties they seek, and they therefore must determine that the process itself, or, more to the point, …

The Use Of Curriculum-Based Measurement To Evaluate The Effects Of A Remedial Education Program, Michael D. Hixson

Dissertations

This study examined the effectiveness of two Direct Instruction programs: Corrective Reading: Decoding and Connecting Math Concepts. The effectiveness of the interventions was evaluated using a single-subject experimental design with curriculumbased measurement (CBM) probes as the main means of assessment. Other methods of assessment included standardized achievement tests, school reports, and pre- and postcurriculum- based assessment probes. The CBM probes for all students were sensitive to the effects of the interventions, although there was a great deal of variability in the CBM reading probes and little correspondence across methods of assessment. The results indicate that the two Direct Instruction programs …

A Bare Unpainted Table: A Manuscript Of Poems, Gladys Cardiff

Dissertations

The poems in this collection reflect Cardiff's bi-cultural Native American and Euro-American inheritance. The book title comes from a sixteenth century chronicle in which the native peoples of the Americas are seen as "simple gentiles" living under the "lawe of nature " . These narrative poems refute the Eurocentric notion that American Indians can be likened to a "bare table" or "a blank sheet of paper to be written upon ". The poem s celebrate her Indian heritage and also engage allusively with Western and Asian tradition s and conventions. Sometimes edgy, sometimes honorific, the juxtaposition of traditions in these …

An Analysis Of Nine K-12 School Districts That Have Established Membership With The Coalition Of Essential Schools, Shari A. Peters Kitchen

Dissertations

In the late 1970s, Ted Sizer, professor of education at Brown University, and a team of researchers traveled the country visiting dozens of secondary schools. The purpose of these visits was to understand the American high school by observing it firsthand. Sizer reported his findings in 1984 in Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School.

In response to the compromises raised in Horace's Compromise, 12 schools volunteered to become the Coalition of Essential Schools. The Coalition rests on a set of nine Common Principles, which include intellectual rigor, simple and universal goals, personalized school, graduation by exhibitions …

An Analysis Of Grade-Level Expenditures Of At-Risk Funding Among Districts Of Different Economic Status In The State Of Michigan, Benard A. Meyer

Dissertations

Many of the recent financial reforms failed to address the needs of at-risk children. Effective solutions to the problems of the educationally disadvantaged must include changes within the schools, how the schools are funded, and how the schools spend their funding. Michigan’s 1994 finance reform included a funded plan for “unequal treatment of unequals” directed for the support of at-risk students. This fund was called Section 31a Program for At-Risk Pupils and involved a 230 million dollar compensatory education funding allowance for students at risk of school failure. This study presented here will determine if there is a relationship between …

Utilization Of Processed Fly Ash In Mortar, Walairat Bumrongjaroen

Dissertations

Grinding process is introduced to provide fine particles of coal fly ash that enhances the strength gain of cement mortars. It is discovered that grinding can make all the studied fly ashes more suitable for concrete use at higher replacement value than previously anticipated even when the effect of high carbon content is considered.

In this study, new mechanisms for strength gain of fly ash mortars are proposed. They are dispersion and nucleation, which are results from the presence of fly ash in the cement mortar. These effects are shown to enhance the hydration of cement. The pozzolanic action of …

Development Of Computer Model And Expert System For Pneumatic Fracturing Of Geologic Formations, Brian Michael Sielski

Dissertations

The objective of this study was the development of a new computer program called PF-Model to analyze pneumatic fracturing of geologic formations. Pneumatic fracturing is an in situ remediation process that involves injecting high pressure gas into soil or rock matrices to enhance permeability, as well as to introduce liquid and solid amendments. PF-Model has two principal components: (1) Site Screening, which heuristically evaluates sites with regard to process applicability; and (2) System Design, which uses the numerical solution of a coupled algorithm to generate preliminary design parameters.

Designed as an expert system, the Site Screening component is a high …

Modeling Controlled Vocabularies Using Oodbs And Multilevel Area Diagrams, Li-Min Liu

Dissertations

A Controlled Vocabulary (CV) is a software system of domain knowledge that consolidates and unifies the terminology of a large application domain. With a common, centralized CV, costly and time-consuming translations can be eliminated between pairs of organizations and pairs of software systems. Unfortunately, the more knowledge we put into a CV, the harder it is to understand and maintain it. In this dissertation, a comprehensive theoretical methodology for modeling CVs using Object-Oriented Database (OODB) technology is presented. We present two methods for representing a semantic network CV as an equivalent OODB, which we call an Object-Oriented Vocabulary Repository (OOVR). …

Towards A New Theory Of Personal Teaching Efficacy: The Development And Testing Of A New Model And Scale Using Teachers And Student Teachers Participating In A Reflective Practitioner Model Practicum, Jan Shields Edd

Dissertations

Research shows that teachers' sense of efficacy is a central mediator of teacher effectiveness and is related to student achievement. Generally, the results have been interpreted using a two-factor model of teacher efficacy. However, most researchers consider teachers' sense of efficacy to be a multidimensional construct with many underlying factors. This study introduces a new theory of personal teaching efficacy which proposes that personal teaching efficacy is best explained from a volitional perspective. The first purpose of the study was to reconceptualize the personal teaching efficacy construct and develop a model and scale. As a result of factor analysis techniques, …

Determining Cutoff Scores For The Mmpi-2 Substance Abuse Scales For An Inmate Population, Barbara A. Johnston

Dissertations

The current research project examined the psychometric properties of the substance abuse scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Second Edition (MMPI-2) with an inmate population. The scales of interest included the MacAndrews Alcoholism Scale Revised (MAC-R), the Addiction Potential Scale (APS) and the Addiction Acknowledgement Scale (AAS).

A total of 80 subjects were administered the MMPI-2 which resulted in 73 valid profiles. Of the valid profiles, 54 were chemically dependent and 19 were nonchemically dependent inmates. There were no differences between groups in regard to sociodemographic variables.

The data analyses indicated that the AAS and APS are efficient and …

The Muggletonians: A People Apart, Juleen Audrey Eichinger

Dissertations

Muggletonians were followers of John Reeve and Lodowick Muggleton, seventeenth-century London tailors who believed that they were the last two witnesses of the Spirit described in Revelation 11:3. A dizzying array of religious and political groups flowered for a time in mid-seventeenth-century England, inspired by the establishment of the Church of England and the continental Reformation in prior centuries, and unleashed by the collapse of the English monarchy in 1640. Muggletonians were long considered to be heretics or lunatics, one example of the many religious eccentrics and fanatics who flourished in England during this period.

The opportunity now exists to …

Indoor/Outdoor: Poems, Jeffrey Greer

Dissertations

The poems in this manuscript can be sorted into two distinct, but compatible, categories. First, a series of narrative poems attempt to challenge Edgar Allen Poe’s dictum that an American poet cannot successfully write a poem longer than 100 lines. These poems approach coherent subjects through disjunctive forms. There is non-linear and linear movement in these poems that meander along in an attempt to capture a witnessed scene along with the action of making sense of that witnessing. There is a process of breaking the familiar and coherent down into something strange, then reconstituting it again into something newer and …

Diversity, Collaboration, Reflective Practice, And Technology In Professional Education Programs: Strategic Choices For Higher Education, Caren L. Sax Edd

Dissertations

Today's postsecondary students are entering American institutions of higher education (IHEs) with different experiences, expectations, and learning needs than students of previous generations. Calls for more diverse campuses, advanced technology, and lifelong learning are maintaining pressure on IHEs to adjust to new demands for a more encompassing vision as traditional approaches are no longer adequate. The challenges are tremendous; the responses must be extensive and reflective if higher education is to achieve its goals of preparing students for productive and meaningful lives. This study investigated student experiences in a yearlong professional education program that was focused by four strategic choices …

Marital Satisfaction Factors For Korean-Americans, Soonja Choi Lee

Dissertations

Problem. Many marital satisfaction studies have focused on many sub-groups: Caucasians, Blacks, and many ethnic groups such as Japanese, German, Polish, Indian, Chinese-American, Swedish, Mexican-American, Nigerian, and Koreans in Korea. No study was found that has investigated marital satisfaction factors for Korean-American couples.

Method. This study evaluated marital satisfaction factors that were important to Korean Americans. The Korean-American population for this study was reached through the Korean-American church organizations in America by random selection of churches.

A total of 558 surveys was usable for analyses. Of the 558 subjects, approximately 49% were husbands and 51% were wives. Three hundred …

An Understanding Of Selected Familial Dynamics As They Relate To The Prevention Of Substance Use Among Youth From St. Martin, Vincent A. David

Dissertations

Problem. Various studies examined the relationship between youth, drug use, and the role that families play in influencing such use. Thus, it is evident that youth use drugs, and thereasons for their drug use vary widely. However, there have not been widespread research done on the youth who do not use drugs, particularly from a family perspective. Also, no research study has been known to be conducted on St. Martin of such nature.

Purpose. This study sought to gain an understanding on how selected familial dynamics functioned within three families in deterring their youth from becoming involved in …

Pastoral Effectiveness : A Study Of Differences Among Comparison Groups Of Seventh-Day Adventist Clergy, Peter Swanson

Dissertations

Problem. Methods of comparison are required to evaluate pastoral effectiveness. This study was an examination of statistically significant differences among contrasted groups of clergy to identify characteristics and performance patterns associated with productivity and effectiveness.

Method. Pastors from Anglo Seventh-day Adventist churches in North America and Canada were assigned to five groups that were evaluated using the Adventist Pastor Inventory, Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, Pastoral Tasks Survey, and Pastoral Tasks Questionnaire. Ministers who baptized 50 or more persons within 3 years were compared with those who baptized 10 or fewer in the same period and clergy rated most effective …

Indicators Of Typology Within The Old Testament : The Exodus Motif, Friedbert Ninow

Dissertations

The Topic

This dissertation seeks to ascertain whether there are indicators of Exodus typology within the Old Testament.

The Purpose

Based on R. M. Davidson’s definition of biblical typology, various elements that comprise biblical typology such as the historical aspect, divine design, prophetic aspect, Steigerung (intensification), and eschatology are traced in a number of texts that deal with the Exodus motif. This examination seems to be crucial for establishing the exegetical and hermeneutical basis for the use of Exodus typology by the New Testament writers. Chapter 1 surveys the perception and use of typology throughout the centuries up to the …

The Textual Relation Of The Peshitta Of Ezekiel 1-12 To Mt And To The Ancient Versions (Tg-J And Lxx), Joaquim Azevedo

Dissertations

Problem . The dilemma of the Syriac version is its mysterious provenance and the direct relationship it may have to the other versions (particularly G [Septuagint] and C^J [Targum Jonathan]). Thus some scholars have automatically discarded or ignored the Peshitta version as a useful tool (as a textual witness) for the study of the Hebrew text. The knowledge of textual problems, in this case the relationship of S [Peshitta Version] to the ancient versions, is of extreme importance in the analysis and study of the Hebrew Bible. The awareness of G [Septuagint], C^J [Targum Jonathan], and M [Masoretic …

The Church As An Agent Of Reconciliation In The Thought Of Desmond Tutu, Trust J. Ndlovu

Dissertations

South Africa was both the first and last bastion of extended European colonial rule in Sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the extensive interaction between the Black and White races over time, who were distinguished by divergent philosophies of life, friction developed between these two major ethnic blocs, as well as the other peoples that came as labor for the Whites or have arisen as a result of miscegenation between the Blacks and the Whites. Archbishop Desmond Tutu holds that racial tension is neither good for South Africa nor even Christian, and insists that it should be eliminated, giving way to reconciliation. …

The Relationship Between Parent Status And The Home Learning Environment, Self-Esteem, And Academic Achievement Of Fifth- To Eighth-Grade Students From Ohio Conference Seventh-Day Adventist Schools, Joseph R. Allison

Dissertations

Problem. The social issues at the end of the 20^th century have not left the Seventh-day Adventist church untouched. This present study sought to determine the differences that may exist between one- and two-parent students in the area of home learning environment, self-esteem, and academic achievement.

Method. Eighty-eight male and female students from 14 Ohio Seventh-day Adventist schools in grades 5-8 were studied. Data for the study were collected from three instruments: the Hare Self-Esteem Scale, the modified Henderson Environmental Learning Process Scale, and the Family Survey. Additional data were gathered from the Iowa Test of Basic Skills student …