Digital Commons Network^™

Modernism's Legacies: Forms, Feelings, And Figures, Shelby Sleevi

Dissertations

My dissertation, entitled "Modernism's Legacies: Forms, Feelings, and Figures," explores American modernism's legacies within contemporary fiction, not only as a set of aesthetic trends but also as a looming and influential mythos. Whether the practices and concerns of early twentieth-century literary modernism are evoked through obvious allusion, explicit reference, or strong resonance on the level of narrative, the contemporary texts in my discussion together attest to modernism's continued influence on and relevance for our current era. Tracing the legacies of William Faulkner, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, and Vladimir Nabokov in the contemporary fictions of Edward P. Jones, Julie Otsuka, George …

Content-Based Filtering Recommendation Approach To Label Irish Legal Judgements, Sandesh Gangadhar

Dissertations

Machine learning approaches are applied across several domains to either simplify or automate tasks which directly result in saved time or cost. Text document labelling is one such task that requires immense human knowledge about the domain and efforts to review, understand and label the documents. The company Stare Decisis summarises legal judgements and labels them as they are made available on Irish public legal source www.courts.ie. This research presents a recommendation-based approach to reduce the time for solicitors at Stare Decisis by reducing many numbers of available labels to pick from to a concentrated few that potentially contains the …

Early Detection Of Fake News On Social Media, Yang Liu

Dissertations

The ever-increasing popularity and convenience of social media enable the rapid widespread of fake news, which can cause a series of negative impacts both on individuals and society. Early detection of fake news is essential to minimize its social harm. Existing machine learning approaches are incapable of detecting a fake news story soon after it starts to spread, because they require certain amounts of data to reach decent effectiveness which take time to accumulate. To solve this problem, this research first analyzes and finds that, on social media, the user characteristics of fake news spreaders distribute significantly differently from those …

The Effects Of Health Beliefs, Acculturation, And A Culturally Appropriate Teaching Intervention On Parents' Knowledge Of And Compliance With Tuberculosis Treatment In A Mexican-American Population: A Preliminary Analysis, Renee P. Mcleod

Dissertations

The primary purpose of this research study, using a correlational and comparative descriptive design, was to examine the effects of health beliefs, acculturation, and a culturally appropriate Spanish-language audiotaped novena on knowledge of Tuberculosis (TB), and compliance with treatment and medications in Mexican-American parents' of a child with TB infection. Due to the limited number of subjects obtained (N = 31), the research data and analyses are presented as preliminary findings since meaningful hypothesis testing would be premature at this time.

Exemplary Chief Nurse Executives Leading Through Storytelling, Tricia Kassab

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and describe how exemplary human resources administrators use storytelling to lead organizations using Denning’s (2011) model. In addition, it was the purpose to understand how they use storytelling to create transformational change. Denning’s The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling highlights eight storytelling narrative patterns: to ignite action, to communicate who you are, to build your brand, to transmit values, to foster collaboration, to share knowledge, to tame the grapevine, and to share vision.

Methodology: This phenomenological qualitative study described the lived experiences of exemplary elementary chief nurse executives in California. The …

Culture Care Values, Beliefs And Practices Observed In Empowerment Of American Indian Community Health Representatives, Elizabeth A. Tyree

Dissertations

The World Health Organization (WHO) primary health care model emphasizes intervention at the home and family level, partnerships with the community, collaboration with lay community health workers, and prevention. Thus, the model has significance for nursing. Among the population groups in the United States, American Indians show the greatest disparity from the norm in access to health care and outcomes of care.* This study addresses the primary health care principle of community involvement in health using an empowerment model, with a participatory action research approach, informed by the ethnonursing method of Madeleine Leininger. The population of interest is American Indian …

White (Non-Hispanic) Nurse Practitioner Student Perceptions Of Hispanic Patients, Rose Iris Gonzalez

Dissertations

As the United States continues to become increasingly more diverse, the health care industry must adjust and develop improved strategies for the effective provision of health care services to all. The Hispanic population is the fastest growing minority group in the United States. This population (ethnic group) faces many challenges to receiving adequate health care including: stereotyping by health professionals; language and cultural barriers; limited access to health care; and a lack of trust in the current health care system. Hispanic patients are frequently met by predominantly White (non-Hispanic) health care practitioners, who bring their own set of biases and …

Narcan Can Save Your Loved One: Designing Messages For The Opioid Crisis Using The Extended Parallel Process Model, Braden Bagley

Dissertations

In 2017, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency. The opioid epidemic has become widespread because of over prescription and extreme addiction. In recent years, the crisis has become dire because of the staggering annual death toll from overdoses. Although the number of opioid-related deaths has risen, so too have the innovations designed to combat opioid abuse and overdoses. The use of naloxone is a safe and reliable option for treating overdose victims. In fact, many first responders are primarily relying on the medication in such emergencies. This study …

Unveiling Identities: A Cultural Study Of The Portrayal Of Leading Women In Zhang Yimou Films, Patrick Mcguire

Dissertations

It is imperative to recognize the ongoing collaborations of filmmakers from different countries. Film director Zhang Yimou, cited in this work, has reached out beyond his Chinese borders in recruiting both cast and crew on many of his latest features. But the field of film studies appears to have limited their investigations of such cross-cultural analyses, in particular the subjective analysis of the female lead character in film. Subjective and culturally wired as such, researchers bring forth conscious observations from their socialized unconscious minds.

This textual analysis begins with a comparison of two Chinese films, particularly observing their similar female …

Addressing The Critical Steps Of The Building Of A Culture Of Collaboration In A Professional Learning Community (Plc): A Case Study, Ndeye Helene Diack

Dissertations

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OFNdeye Helene Oumou Diack, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Curriculum & Instruction, presented on October 23rd, 2019, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.TITLE: ADDRESSING THE CRITICAL STEPS OF BUILDING A CULTURE OF COLLABORATION IN A PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY (PLC): A CASE STUDYMAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. John McIntyre This case study examined PLC leaders and team members during their first year setting up their PLC collaborative process. It investigated the PLC design and activities, the team members lived experiences during the setting up of the PLC, and its impact on members’ interpersonal relationships and also their …

A Comparison Between A Modified And A Traditional Expressive Writing Intervention And Their Effect On Alexithymia And Emotional Expressivity, John Tzanos

Dissertations

The current study examined the effect of a modified expressive writing intervention compared to a traditional intervention and their effect on alexithymia and emotional expressivity while controlling for attachment style and social desirability among 150 undergraduate and graduate college students. The survey was administered online using a Qualtrics online survey tool. Participants were randomly divided into six groups: (a) low alexithymia/traditional intervention, (b) moderate alexithymia/traditional invention, (c) high alexithymia/traditional intervention, (d) low alexithymia/modified intervention, (e) moderate alexithymia/ modified intervention, and (f) high alexithymia/ modified intervention. The three groupings of levels of alexithymia—low (61) alexithymia—were based on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 …

Bicultural Development Of Students In A Dual Language Program, Quinn Wulbecker

Dissertations

Dual language programs are often viewed as enrichment programs for students of various language backgrounds. This study evaluated the long-term bicultural impact on students who participated in the Hawkins School District (pseudonym) Spanish-English dual language program. The participants in this study were graduates of the Hawkins Spanish-English dual language program who were in college or beginning their careers. These graduates participated in an interview to offer their perceptions on their current level of biculturalism and the extent to which their participation in the dual language program shaped it. The results of this study revealed that biculturalism is a possible outcome …

Impact Of Leader In Me On Social-Emotional Learning Of Elementary Students, David Danielski

Dissertations

Social-emotional learning and college and career readiness skills are increasingly important in preparing our students for a successful future. The Leader in Me, based on Steven Covey’s seven habits, offers a process intended to increase the leadership skills of students through the explicit teaching of each of the habits. By studying the practices and outcomes of The Leader in Me process from schools with high degrees of implementation, this study evaluates the impact on social-emotional learning of elementary students. The findings inform programmatic decisions for social-emotional learning implementation and advocate for policy that emphasizes teacher preparedness and accountability measures for …

Effects Of English Proficiency On Nursing Student Empowerment And Intent To Leave The Program, Nadja James

Dissertations

Individual (learner) empowerment plays an important role in the learning environment. A more empowered student is more likely to be academically successful and complete their program of study. The findings of this study showed nursing students who felt less empowered had a greater intent to leave their nursing program. Many prelicensure nursing programs struggle with high attrition rates, especially minority students, including students from a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) background. Since effective communication is crucial in the learning environment, students with lower English proficiency tend to struggle in that area. Communication issues affect CALD students’ sense of empowerment and …

A Phenomenological Study Exploring The Experiences And Perceptions Of Counselor Education Students Who Have Completed An Intensive Social Justice Retreat, Aaron James Henderson

Dissertations

The intention of this phenomenology research study was to better understand the experiences and perceptions of counseling students who attend a weekend intensive social justice retreat. This examination may shed light on whether an intensive social justice experience is a valuable and worthy training modality to compliment the traditional classroom learning environment often found in counselor preparation programs. The data from two semi-structured interviews, a focus group, and research participant journals were utilized from 10 counseling students from CACREP accredited counseling programs in a mid-Western mountain state. Seven themes emerged from the data including: Increased Awareness, Desired for Prolonged Training, …

Dual Language Elementary Teacher Supports In Rocky Mountain Resort Communities, Miguel Donald Salinas

Dissertations

Dual language (DL) programs have been proven to increase student achievement (Thomas & Collier, 2002; Thomas, Collier, & Collier, 2010) but a gap remains in how to support teachers in their instruction of Spanish to both English home language and Spanish home language students. This mixed methods, explanatory, sequential design study was conducted in two Rocky Mountain resort communities in two school districts. Participants were chosen based on the research criterion of being DL elementary teachers in rural amenity-based destinations. The Guiding Principles for Dual-language Education (Howard et al., 2018) was used as the conceptual framework. Data were obtained from …

Social Media Sentiment Analysis With A Deep Neural Network: An Enhanced Approach Using User Behavioral Information, Ahmed Sulaiman M. Alharbi

Dissertations

Sentiment analysis on social media such as Twitter has become a very important and challenging task. Due to the characteristics of such data (including tweet length, spelling errors, abbreviations, and special characters), the sentiment analysis task in such an environment requires a non-traditional approach. Moreover, social media sentiment analysis constitutes a fundamental problem with many interesting applications, such as for Business Intelligence, Medical Monitoring, and National Security. Most current social media sentiment classification methods judge the sentiment polarity primarily according to textual content and neglect other information on these platforms. In this research, we propose deep learning based frameworks that …

The Effectiveness Of Oral Retelling As A Reading Comprehension Strategy For Elementary Students With Reading Delays, Brandi Michelle Fontenot

Dissertations

Comprehension is an essential component of reading proficiency that produces long-term gains for learners. However, many upper elementary school-age children struggle with reading comprehension. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of a self-monitoring intervention on reading comprehension for three elementary school-age children with reading delays. Two studies were conducted. In Study 1, behavioral skills training was used to teach participants the elements of a story retell and how-to self-monitor their own story retells. In Study 2, a multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of self-monitoring on four dependent variables: a) …

Karczma/Taberna: Public Houses In Cracow During The Jagiellonian Dynasty, Peter Paul Dobek

Dissertations

Public houses—inns, taverns, and alehouses—during the Jagiellonian Dynasty (1385-1572) in the city of Cracow and its immediate surroundings functioned as important establishments in the everyday life of the city. While the city continued to grow and prosper as the preferred residence of the dynasty, inhabitants, travelers, and migrants increasingly relied on the public houses of the conurbation to meet their many needs and desires. Although scholars have studied these establishments throughout Europe during various epochs, they have neglected to analyze the public houses in Cracow during the Jagiellonian era.

This study provides a comprehensive examination of a multitude of sources, …

Community Schools In St. Louis Then And Now: Exploring The Influence Of Family, School, And Community Engagement On Student And Community Outcomes, Kimberly Ann Carothers

Dissertations

All children should have access to the American Dream by receiving a meaningful and equitable educational opportunity that prepares them to be successful in school and life thereafter. Today, many children are denied this dream over and over again. Minority and low-income children often face multiple barriers that stagnate their growth; resulting in equity and achievement gaps. Schools that implement the community schools strategy integrate resources and services from family, school, and community partners to prepare students for success in meeting the demands of the twenty-first century. Community schools are hubs with evening and weekend hours that bring together a …

The Role Of Bro Culture In Exploration Of Why Women Leave It, Ana Krasteva

Dissertations

The goal of this exploratory study is to investigate ways in which whether the phenomena called the ‘bro culture’ may influence on women in the information technology (IT) workforce. It specifically seeks to determine whether bro culture has an impact on why women in IT move from one IT company to another; leave IT for a non-technical field; or leave the workforce entirely.

Although there is a plethora of studies on why women leave positions in IT, less understood is the impact and influence of bro culture on the decision.

My findings suggest that bro culture in the workplace is …

Educators’ Perceptions Concerning The Leading Factors Of Mathematics Achievement In Top-Ranking Nations Around The World, Kendra Snow

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of post-secondary mathematics educators from countries considered to be highly successful in the area of mathematics based upon results of international assessments. Four instructors were randomly selected from a homogenous sample within the nations of Canada, China, Japan, and Singapore to contribute information about the phenomenon of mathematical achievement. Frameworks from SRI International (2009), Matthews (2013), and Schoenfeld (2014) were integrated to design this study focused on curriculum, pedagogy and instructional approach, teacher knowledge and expectations, and organizational and social climate as possible factors that support student mathematical proficiency. Interviews …

A Mixed-Methods Study Of Applying Andragogical Practices To An Online Tesol Teacher Training Course At A Midwestern University, Daisy Anne Mary Skelly

Dissertations

Preservice teachers needed to be prepared to teach culturally and linguistically diverse learners, because English learners continued to enroll in new geographic areas. In response to the reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requirements for teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students were added to teacher certification programs at the state level. Universities offering teacher certification programs addressed new program requirements in different ways, including adding competencies to existing courses or creating new courses. The purpose of this mixedmethods study was to investigate the knowledge, pedagogical skill, and self-efficacy levels of preservice teachers and their perceptions of English …

Negotiating The Intersection Of Arabic And Anglo-American Literary Journalism: Exploring Possibilities, Challenging Canons, Samah Gomaa Abou Marzouk

Dissertations

Literary journalism is an art form that combines storytelling techniques with the verifiability of standard journalism. Research in the field is recent and predominantly Western. Unlike Anglo-American literary journalism, there are no studies on Arabic literary journalism as a stand-alone art form in Arabic and only one in English, which examines the reasons for its scarcity. This study aims to prove otherwise. The objective of this research is to combine history and criticism in exploring Arabic literary journalism; examine it is predecessors, characteristics, motives and how it relates to its Anglo-American counterpart; and determine whether the two are fundamentally different …

African Centered Education, The Maji Shujaa Online Academy: A Descriptive Case Study, Beverly Jackson

Dissertations

The purpose of this descriptive case study framed by African centered theory, is to advance the knowledge about the online African centered educational programming, Maji Shujaa Academy. The researcher is the Chief Executive Officer( CEO) and lead teacher/lead developer of online educational media for the Academy. Considerable private African-centered educators with enterprenueural spirit have advanced and created online African centered global educational programming for the students of Africa and African Diaspora population groups today. Yet the available literature is shallow with regard to the workings of online African centered educational programming. This study explores in which the online Academy makes …

The Value Of Interactive Multimodal Online Higher Education Classrooms: Examining The Impact Of Interactive Multimedia-Based Instructional Design (Imbid), Andrea Munro

Dissertations

Purpose: Despite their affordability and convenience, online courses have higher student failure and dropout rates than ground based-courses. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative single-case study was to determine if there is a difference between interactive, multimedia-based online instruction and traditional text-based online instruction as it relates to the level of student performance, engagement, and satisfaction in higher education.

Methodology: This quantitative research design used inferential statistics to analyze the research questions. The researcher selected 13 text-based courses that were redesigned to become interactive, multimedia-based courses. Archival student performance, engagement, and satisfaction data was abstracted from both the text-based and …

The Ontology, Epistemology, And Axiology Of Social And Racial Justice Educators: An Untapped Resource To Address The Unequal Educational Outcomes For Students Of Color And Other Non-Dominant Comunities, Adriana Eva Rangel

Dissertations

Despite repeated efforts towards educational reform, white students continue to experience higher educational attainment levels than historically underserved students. While the responsibility to change these outcomes has been vastly placed on the educational system, these disenfranchised populations have largely carried the blame for not improving their educational achievement. Thus, Students of Color have been portrayed as not possessing the drive nor interest to increase their educational attainment rates. Research notes many educators working with Communities of Color often lack the necessary critical consciousness around issues of race, privilege, power and oppression. These are warranted to adequately understand and support opportunities …

Students Of Black Or African American Ancestry In Grades 10th -12th Perceptions Of Their Schooling Experiences, Annette Renee Kennedy

Dissertations

California continues to tackle blatant racist acts within school systems across the state as recent headlines read, “Deeply offensive blackface video of California high school student sparks backlash” (Yancey-Bragg, Guynn, & Rhor, 2019, n.p.) and “Four teachers and their principal placed on leave after cheerfully posing for photo with noose” (Lunning, 2019, n.p.). Gaining a greater awareness of the non-headlining actions that take place on a day-to-day basis that have an equally powerful adverse effect on the school experiences of black learners was the focus of this study. Microaggressions are “subtle, stunning, often automatic, and non-verbal exchanges which are put …

Adjustment Issues Of Saudi Arabian Students And Their Spouses In The U.S., Saleh Saeed Alshihri

Dissertations

A significant proportion of Saudi Arabians seek further studies in western countries, including the United States. The benefits of an international education come with the challenges of relationship stress for Saudi s tudents and their spouses that increase during their stay in the United States. The purpose of this study was to understand the adjustment issues of Saudi Arabian students and their spouses in the U.S. This study u sed a sample of 320 Saudi Arabian students and student spouses, 65 of which could be matched with their spouse, in the U.S. The couples were sampled from different areas in …

Attitudes, Subjective Norms, And Perceived Behavioral Control: Critical Care Nurses' Intentions To Provide Culturally Congruent Care To Arab Muslims, Stephen R. Marrone

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among critical care nurses' attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and intentions to provide culturally congruent care to Arab Muslims. A purposive convenience sample of 208 critical care nurses participated in this investigation. Data were collected using four Likert-scale instruments. Each subject received an attitude score, subjective norms score, perceived behavioral control score, and intention score.