Digital Commons Network^™

The Influence Of Social Support And Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction On Student Academic Motivation At A Cameroonian University: Structural Equation Modeling, Samuel Adamou

Dissertations

Problem

The growing number of students at the university level in Cameroon created maladaptive behaviors including lack of behavior adaptation, interests, respect, happiness, self-esteem, which led to strikes, vandalism, academic failure and resulting in school dropout (Nwaimah, 2008). The Cameroonian government proposed a number of reforms to solve these issues. One of the major proposed reforms consisted of implementing the Bologna Model in higher education through borrowing and transferring of policies, ideas, and practices from a European higher education area (Eta, 2015; Mngo, 2011). Yet despite the surface progress, the question of how to enhance student learning and improve instruction …

How Does The Classroom Teacher Promote Academic Success In The Spanish Native Speaker Class: A Study Of Classroom Teachers' Perceptions Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In The Spanish Native Speaker Course At The High School Level, Michael Angelo Ayala

Dissertations

The achievement gap between Latino and White students is a significant problem, prompting the need to address the cultural conflicts that hinder relationships and compromise learning opportunities for Latino students in the United States. This exploratory qualitative study focused on Spanish Native Speaker (SNS) teachers' perceptions and use of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) at the high school level. Framed with theory related to CRP, data were collected through interviews and classroom observations with four SNS teachers who teach a SNS class at various high schools in the suburbs of Cook County. A thematic analysis and an analysis using Herrera's (2010) …

International Mindedness: Phenomenological Inquiry Into Teacher Candidate Experiences, Kathleen Patricia Castillo-Clark

Dissertations

This dissertation contributes to the scholarship surrounding the development of international mindedness in teacher candidates. Phenomenological interview techniques were used to explore the experiences and perceptions of teacher candidates who enrolled in an undergraduate teacher preparation program leading to the International Baccalaureate educator certificate. By highlighting the teacher candidates, this study captured the strengths, challenges, and needs unique to this group. The findings can inform an understanding of how international mindedness develops in teacher candidates and subsequently how it is enacted, identifying curricular and instructional supports in practice that best support this learning. This study will also inform teacher educators …

Beyond Body Mixing: Race, Space, And The Meaning Of School Integration In A Chicago Suburb, Megan Rigsby Klein

Dissertations

Integration is often characterized as an effective means of fixing the problems associated with segregation. Whether with respect to residential segregation, education, or to public spaces in general, integration is seen as a way to undo the perils of racial segregation. Yet often times, integration takes a certain reified form with a large white majority and non-white minority. How do lived experiences of Black residents in integrated spaces affect their perceptions of integration? Drawing on data collected from arcHIVal research, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with long-term African American residents, this dissertation examines the ways in which race, space, and …

Ecospatial Orientation And American Literature, Lowell Wyse

Dissertations

Place is complex, and it undergirds and influences our fictional and nonfictional narratives in ways we often fail to recognize. In this dissertation, Lowell Wyse argues for a more holistic understanding of place's role in literature while asking what it means to read environmentally€”spatially, ecologically, and historically. Drawing from ecocriticism, which emphasizes the biological world, and geocriticism, which privileges the spatial, Wyse proposes a hybrid "ecospatial" criticism, with a particular emphasis on the role of maps in reading for place. With individual chapters on the nonfiction of William Least Heat-Moon, John Steinbeck's Salinas Valley fiction, Richard Wright's Native Son, and …

An Investigation Into Factors Which Explain The Scores And Voting Patterns Of The Eurovision Song Contest., Oisín Leonard

Dissertations

The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is an annual international television song competition. Participating countries send a group or individual artist to perform an original song at the competition. The winner is decided by all participating countries using a voting system that incorporates both a public televote and an expert jury vote. Countries are excluded from voting for their entry and the country with the highest score wins. A high scoring performance and the voting patterns of the ESC can be explained by a complex set of factors. These factors can be divided into three groups; performance factors, competition factors and …

Examining The Role Of Arts Education Partnerships In Sustaining Arts Programs In California Elementary Schools, Marie-Helene Bauguil

Dissertations

This study investigated three arts education partnerships in California elementary schools. The research questions that guided the inquiry were exploratory in nature and intended to reveal the day-to-day functioning of these partnerships, the challenges they faced, and the factors that contributed to their success, through the recounted experiences of the various institutional actors involved. The participants (n=21) comprised school principals and teachers, arts organizations administrative staff, and teaching artists. Qualitative inquiry methods (in-person interviews, classroom observations, and review of relevant documents) were used to analyze the data. The findings showed that the schools’ administrators and faculty appreciated the arts residencies, …

Alabama Classroom Teachers Who Participated In Arts Integration Workshops And Their Implementation Of Music Into The Core Curriculum, Laurie Martin

Dissertations

Effective teachers employ instructional strategies that enhance student engagement and can positively affect student learning. This qualitative study investigated the instructional practices and experiences of classroom teacher who implement music into the academic lesson to increase student engagement and enhance learning.

Historical Change Of Seagrasses In The Mississippi And Chandeleur Sounds, Linh Thuy Pham

Dissertations

Seagrasses are important coastal resources facing numerous stressors, and losses have been documented from local to global assessments. Under the broad theme of habitat loss and fragmentation, a study of historical change in total area and landscape configuration of seagrasses in the Mississippi and Chandeleur Sounds was conducted. Mapping data was collated from a multitude of previous projects from 1940 to 2011.

Comparisons of seagrass area among various studies that used different mapping methods can result in overestimation of area change and misleading conclusions of change over time. The vegetated seagrass area (VSA) data were generalized to a common resolution …

Strategic Culture In Sub-Saharan Africa: The Divergent Paths Of Uganda And Tanzania, Kevin Frank

Dissertations

Strategic culture is a concept accepted by scholars and practitioners, but with problematic applicability to states newly independent or emerging from conflict. The elements that comprise strategic culture in the developed world are not always present in emerging states. This research addresses the pertinency of strategic culture in Uganda and Tanzania, and then tests the operationalization of the concept using the case of participation in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). The African Union and the international community expected Uganda and Tanzania to contribute troops to AMISON in 2007. In the event, Uganda did and Tanzania chose another path. …

Policy Advocacy: Adoption The 4 C’S Rubrics Into Illinois Vision 20/20, Michael Marassa

Dissertations

The focus of this policy advocacy is to add evaluation language to the Illinois Vision 20/20 policy specific to 21st Century Learning. The Illinois Vision 20/20 policy pillar of 21st Century Learning already identifies that students in Illinois develop skills of critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. The policy does not provide an explanation for school districts on how to achieve this goal. This policy advocacy adds language to the 21st Century Learning pillar through rubrics. These rubrics, specific to the skills described above and referenced throughout this dissertation as the 4 C’s, provide standard definitions for each of these …

The Lived Experiences Of Educators Using Co-Teaching To Meet The Needs Of Students With Disabilities In A Virtual Environment, Laura Elizabeth Ridings

Dissertations

Virtual education in the United States continues to be a popular option for K-12 students. The enrollment in full-time virtual schools not only represents typical learners but a growing number of students with disabilities, including low-incidence disabilities. In some states, this population exceeds the state-wide average percentage of students with disabilities enrolled in public education and is compelling virtual schools to focus their attention on the legal expectations of serving individual needs. A pilot study, Virtual K-12 Teachers’ Perspectives on the Provision of Inclusive Online Environments (Ridings, 2016), investigated the types of inclusive strategies used by teachers in the virtual …

Race And Sexual Orientation Lssues In Graduate Classrooms: How Faculty In Psychology Experience Them Emerging Alongside One Another, Raymond L. Sheets Jr.

Dissertations

The inclusion of sexual orientation and race-related issues into mainstream psychology has gained much needed momentum in recent years. The field of counseling psychology, in particular, has helped fuel this momentum with its appreciation for, and commitment to, developing academic and applied psychologists who attend to an evolving multicultural society. Within the academic environment, faculty members have the responsibility of facilitating student learning in their respective classrooms; this facilitation becomes challenging in the face of emotionally charged topics such as race and sexual orientation. How then do graduate faculty who teach these courses experience race and sexual orientation comingling within …

Public Perceptions Of The Functions Of Natural And Engineered Infrastructure In Coastal Hazards Mitigation: The Cases Of Two Communities In The Raritan Bayshore, New Jersey, Jaime D. Ewalt Gray

Dissertations

Emerging United States (U.S.) federal policies call for more comprehensive integration of both engineered and natural infrastructure in mitigating coastal hazards. For such policies to be effectively implemented, the mitigation functions of and relationship between natural infrastructure and engineered infrastructure must be understood and their integrated use accepted by affected actors, especially residents living in at-risk coastal communities. Little is known about public perceptions of the functions of engineered and natural infrastructure in coastal hazard mitigation and the interactions between these two types of infrastructure. This study analyzes perceptions based on semi-structured interviews of 14 residents in Laurence Harbor, Middlesex …

Developing A Blended Learning Model In Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Programs: Faculty Development Through Action Research, Eugene Basil

Dissertations

Public institutions of higher education in Kentucky have been experiencing cuts in state budgets. Kentucky lawmakers have moved state colleges to a performance-based form of budgeting. In this new budget paradigm, an institution’s funding is based on a metric that significantly considers student outcomes. Technical college programs are not currently meeting the quantity, and in some cases quality, outputs required to sustain the economic growth in the community. To increase the capacity, quality, and accessibility of technical programs, the faculty members of the Advanced Manufacturing Technologies division of the Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College implemented a blended learning approach …

The Academic And Behavioral Impact Of Multiple Sport Participation On High School Athletes, Christopher James Kohl

Dissertations

For many high school student athletes, there is increased pressure to specialize in one sport, to participate at a high level, and to play year-round (Brenner, 2016). This increased emphasis on sport specialization has led to a proliferation of overuse injuries, overtraining, and burnout (Brenner, 2016). Sport specialization significantly contributes to overuse injuries, which account for almost half of all sport injuries (Andrews & Yaeger, 2013). This research was designed to clarify if there are significant differences in the behavioral and academic performance of student athletes who compete in one sport and student athletes who compete in multiple sports. Six …

The Relationship Between Political Affiliation And Student Achievement In The Areas Of Reading And Mathematics, With Respect To Black Students, Steven Michael Smith

Dissertations

The role of politicians is integral within the public school system. Politician influence directly the policies that impact student achievement. The impact could be based on ideologies. These ideologies could influence a significant difference in Black student achievement. In preparing for this study, the researcher was unable to find investigations of the potential influence political affiliations of state and local officials may have on student achievement, and specifically on Black student achievement. This exploratory, correlational study analyzed the potential relationship between political party affiliation and student achievement of fourth and eighth grade students in the areas of mathematics and reading, …

A Comparative Analysis Of Missouri Elementary School Arts Curriculums, Shenicquel Larene Spotts

Dissertations

Since the beginning of recorded history, artists of distinction have contributed to society’s aesthetic sensibilities through their media of choice. The lives of these artists continue through their visually recorded work. We see their best products featured in history books and films, thus generally contributing to our day-to-day lives. Despite the influence of art on society, this deep and multi-faceted subject is often among the first to be cut during periods of economic instability or budget constraints. While funding may reflect the impact of arts programs on the educational experience, the true value of arts programs emerges when their usefulness …

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Temporal Stability Of Crime Hot Spots And The Criminology Of Place, Michael J. Deckard

Dissertations

It is widely recognized that the distribution of crime in urban areas is not randomly distributed, but is highly concentrated in small pockets of space known as crime “hot spots”. While the empirical evidence supporting the law of crime concentration is strong, most studies that have examined the stability of crime hot spots over time have aggregated crime across years. This dissertation seeks to expand our understanding of the temporal stability of micro-geographic crime hot spots by addressing three research questions: (1) How are high-crime micro-places distributed at the monthly level? How much variation exists in the distribution of crime …

Programming Frameworks For Mobile Sensing, Hillol Debnath

Dissertations

The proliferation of smart mobile devices in people’s daily lives is making context-aware computing a reality. A plethora of sensors available in these devices can be utilized to understand users’ context better. Apps can provide more relevant data or services to the user based on improved understanding of user’s context. With the advent of cloud-assisted mobile platforms, apps can also perform collaborative computation over the sensing data collected from a group of users. However, there are still two main issues: (1) A lack of simple and effective personal sensing frameworks: existing frameworks do not provide support for real-time fusing of …

Case Study Of Distance Learning At University Of Najran, Mahdi Mohammed Saleh Alqotami Alzamanan

Dissertations

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the need for distance-learning programs in the universities has been gaining importance. Najran, the area in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which this study addressed, has been the target of serious attacks against both the government and the civilian population in a recent conflict with Yemen. Because all areas of Najran have been targeted, including educational institutions, the ability for students to attend the university in recent years has been severely curtailed. While conflict prompted the study, there were, and are, other reasons for promoting distance learning in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The …

The Perceived Community Engagement Survey: Further Exploration Of Its Reliability And Validity, Rafael Rivera

Dissertations

Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) have become the source of delivery for a number of social and health-related services in many communities. CBOs provide needed services in some of the most resource-poor communities. The moniker of community-based implies that these organizations are located within specific communities in order to provide services to community members. As organizations that have bloomed within communities to respond to particular community needs continue to grow and receive government funding, a primary funding source for many CBOs, questions arise about how responsive they remain to their surrounding communities. Funder mandates and foci may become more critical to CBOs …

Evaluating Relevance And Reliability Of Twitter Data For Risk Communication, Xiaohui Liu

Dissertations

While Twitter has been touted to provide up-to-date information about hazard events, the relevance and reliability of tweets is yet to be tested. This research examined the relevance and reliability of risk information extracted from Twitter during the 2013 Colorado floods using five different approaches. The first approach examined the relationship between tweet volume and precipitation amount. The second approach explored the relationship between geo-tagged tweets and degree of damage. In the third approach, the spatiotemporal distribution of tweets was compared with flood extent. In the fourth approach, risk information from tweets were compared with survey responses obtained in a …

The Body Mends Itself, Hannah Elizabeth Dow

Dissertations

The following poems were completed by the author between September 2014 and April 2017.

Finding Common Ground: Learning From Leaders Who Have Utilized Conflict Transformation Behaviors In The Mental Health Field In The United States, Tamarah E. Tilos

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to discover and describe how exemplary leaders establish common ground and produce breakthrough results in the mental health field by utilizing the 6 domains of conflict transformation: collaboration, communication, problem solving, process, emotional intelligence, and ethics.

Methodology: This thematic, phenomenological study was accomplished through examination of the lived experiences of exemplary leaders with firsthand experience transforming conflict and finding common ground. The target population for this study included executive-level leaders of nonprofit organizations, governmental institutions, state and national associations, and private businesses serving adults and children with mental illness, developmental or behavioral disabilities, …

Age Appropriate Treatment Of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis In South Africa, Brittney Jayne Sullivan

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe the time from DR-TB diagnosis to treatment initiation for people in South Africa with DR-TB with and without HIV and to evaluate the influence of age on the timing of treatment initiation after controlling for patient and health system characteristics. It was hypothesized that younger patients would have a greater number of days from DR-TB diagnosis to DR-TB treatment initiation. Additionally, we address the knowledge gaps pertaining to prescription of guideline-based treatment for DR-TB at treatment initiation and the influence of individual and health system factors on prescribed treatment for youth and …

Dual Credit Instructor And Counselor Opinions Concerning The Effectiveness Of Dual Credit Programs On Post-Secondary Readiness In Southwest Missouri, Natalie Gail Cook

Dissertations

Dual enrollment numbers continue to increase in public school districts; therefore, dual credit programs must be effective for students, adequately challenging them academically and preparing them for the college environment (Flores, 2014). The intention of this study was to survey dual credit instructors and counselors to determine their opinions of post-secondary readiness among dual credit learners in southwest Missouri. Results of the study were organized based upon significance regarding effectiveness. Researchers are uncertain concerning the effectiveness of dual credit programs for post-secondary readiness (Cowan & Goldhaber, 2015). This study was intended to close gaps in the research and to support …

The African American/Black Racial Tapestry: Black Adolescents' Private, Independent School Experiences And Racial Identity Development, Angela R. Birts

Dissertations

While private, independent schools are homes to students of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, the subjective experiences of African American students within these spaces are distinct. Twelve African American high school students attending ten different private, independent schools were asked to describe their racial and ethnic backgrounds, and explain how race is manifested in their schooling experiences. A methodological bricolage, including ground theory methods, is intricately woven into the fabric of this study to reflect the rich tapestry of African American/Black youth identities and their experiences in independent schools that underscore youth’s interpretation of contemporary black culture and my personal …

Professional Learning Community (Plc): Technology Integration At A Title I Elementary School, Pamela Lan Cheng

Dissertations

Calls for educational technology integration over more than thirty years have taken on

new urgency in an era of computerized assessments for accountability. As Internet Communication Technology (ICT) becomes more widely available, the digital divide is evolving into a digital use divide, characterized by differences between students’ productive uses of technology to create and communicate compared with passive uses for entertainment or skills practice. A growing body of research points to the important interplay among teachers’ frames of reference, school-level context, and alignment of supports in creating conditions for technology innovation. Meanwhile Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) hold potential as leverage …

Seeing Polar Bears In A Snowstorm: Examining Racial Equity Work In A Predominantly White Suburban School, Timothy Hayes

Dissertations

This three-part dissertation examines efforts to address racial equity at a predominantly white, suburban school. The first part is a program evaluation of Pacific Educational Group's Beyond Diversity Workshop. The second part proposes a change leadership approach to implementing a youth participatory action research project examining racial equity at the school. The final part proposes a professional development policy ensuring all teachers are prepared to engage in racial equity work at the school.