Digital Commons Network^™

Toward An Integrated Self: Making Meaning Of The Multiple Identities Of Gay Men In College, Daniel Weston Tillapaugh Phd

Dissertations

Since the mid-twentieth century, a shift in demographics of those attending higher education institutions has resulted in increased attention to underrepresented students and their development, specifically their social identities, including race (Cross, 1991), gender (Gilligan, 1982), and sexual orientation (Cass, 1979; D'Augelli, 1994; Fassinger, 1998). However, many theories have compartmentalized aspects of one's overall identity with little understanding of how one's social identity may influence the development of other identities. In the past decade, the concept of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1995), which explores the interplay between one's multiple identities and the larger systems of power and privilege within society, has been …

A Study Of Satp Scores And Principals’ Perceptions For Traditional And Alternate Routes To Teacher Certification, Eddie Eugene Moore

Dissertations

This study explores the differences between traditional and alternate route certification by focusing on the achievement of students who have been instructed by teachers from each program. In addition, this study identifies the strengths and weaknesses of teachers from each certification route through surveys and interviews with principals in the sample. Previous studies on this subject have focused on elementary or middle schools, which limits the information available for the high school level. This study was directed toward high school teachers in core subject areas tested in Mississippi’s accountability model. The purpose of this study was to connect student test …

The Impact Of Teacher Demographics On The Overrepresentation Of African American Males In Special Education In A Coastal School District, Myrick Lamon Nicks

Dissertations

African American students make up 17% of the public school population nationwide. Ironically, 41% percent of students in special education are African American (Kunjufu, 2005). The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of teacher demographics on the overrepresentation of African American males in special education in a coastal school district. Furthermore, this study examined the perception of teachers at different grade levels to see if there was a difference between elementary and secondary teachers’ perceptions. According to the literature, African American males are overrepresented in special education placement throughout the United States’ public school systems. Therefore this …

Using The Learners-As-Ethnographers Approach To Enhance Intercultural Learning Among American College Students Learning Chinese As A Foreign Language, Minhui M. Lu

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Integration Of Character Education And Its Impact On Teachers' Professional Practice, Katie L. Bahm

Dissertations

Research on pre-service teacher training in character education is minimal at best, as is the case with research on best practices in pre-service education in general. What does exist suggests that there is a lack of pre-service training about specific character education strategies. There are few empirical studies investigating the effects of pre-service character education training as it applies to later practice in K-12 school settings. This study explored the perceptions of beginning teachers regarding their past preparation and current implementation of character education. Each participant graduated from a university in a Northwest state that currently implements character education in …

Tripping With Stephen Gaskin: An Exploration Of A Hippy Adult Educator, Gabriel Patrick Morley

Dissertations

For the last 40 years, Stephen Gaskin has been an adult educator on the fringe, working with tens of thousands of adults in the counterculture movement in pursuit of social change regarding marijuana legalization, women’s rights, environmental justice issues and beyond. Gaskin has written 11 books about his experiences teaching and learning with adults outside the mainstream, yet, he is virtually unknown in the field of adult education. He lists his religion as hippy; he is a member of the Counterculture Hall of Fame (inducted 2004), a convicted felon, a United States Marine, a Korean War combat veteran, and a …

Classroom Management Styles: The Differences Among Traditionally-Licensed Teachers Who Were Formally Paraprofessionals And Alternatively-Licensed Teachers, Caterria Beasley Payton

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine ifthere was a difference in the attitudes and beliefs of traditionally certified teachers who were previously assistant teachers and alternatively certified teachers regarding classroom management. The instrument used in the study was the Attitudes and Beliefs on Classroom Control Inventory -Revised and Revisited (ABCC-R) (Martin, Yin, & Mayall, 2008). The sample included 171 participants. Seventy seven of those participants were traditionally certified teachers who were previously assistant teachers, and 94 alternatively certified teachers from four school districts across the state.

The study focused on two dimensions of classroom management: Instructional Management, tasks …

What’S In A Test? Constructions Of Literacy And Its Implications For English Proficiency Test Design, Josye Marie Brookter

Dissertations

Although college-level composition pedagogy is becoming more open to language diversity, some crucial current-traditional vestiges remain, particularly in proficiency exams. Too often these exams only identify students who are slipping through the cracks of literacy instruction, while the definition of English represented by this test limits alternate notions of writing and literacy. The test represents local, institutional values about written English, although those values must also be consistent with national standards. Typically, administrators, teachers, and students feel compelled to choose traditional forms of writing over postmodern ones, a choice that is seldom discussed in the literature. Conflicting perspectives of English …

Ideological “Smackdown”: A Textual Analysis Of Class, Race And Gender In Wwe Televised Professional Wrestling, Casey Brandon Hart

Dissertations

The focus of this study is an in-depth intertextual examination of how the WWE in 2010 and by extension contemporary professional wrestling in general represents a microcosm of modern cultural ideology. The study examines three major areas in which this occurs. The first of these areas is that of class values. This section focuses on the establishment and extension middle-American values, defined as those values generally shared by the middle-class of the United States. The second section of this study focuses on how the WWE uses racial commodification in the treatment of people of color. Using concepts of Marxist power …

The Effect Of Teachers’ Expectations And Perceptions On Student Achievement In Reading For Third And Fifth Grade Students, Alfreda Ragland Williams

Dissertations

All too often, a student’s lack of success is blamed on his or her background, and/or the parent or the parent’s educational level. Many factors such as socioeconomic conditions, student behaviors, attendance, and teacher demographics can directly or indirectly affect class environment, classroom management, interaction with students, and equal treatment of students. In addition, a teacher’s perception of students plays a vital role in the teacher’s expectations, interactions, and relationships with his or her students. The purpose of the study was twofold. First, this study investigated the relationship between teachers’ expectations of equal treatment of students, class environment, interaction with …

An Analysis Of The Success Of A High School Athletic Program On Student Achievement, Peter Randall Giles

Dissertations

The decisions on how to spend money in the public school system will continue to remain throughout the years, but how that money best impacts student achievement should always remain at the forefront of every decision. Often in today’s tough economic times school systems will cut expenditures in athletics without the full knowledge of how a high school athletic program impacts student achievement and the climate and culture within the school. The researcher investigated the success of an overall high school athletic program and the correlation with standardized test scores in English and math. Additionally, the success of a high …

Closing The Achievement Gap: A Study Of Leadership Behaviors Of Principals At Title I Distinguished Schools, Liss Althea Maynard

Dissertations

Education, a fundamental privilege in America, has been deemed the great equalizer that should afford each individual access and opportunity (Hale, 2004). However, research has proven that for many students of color, the American dream is simply a nightmare. Many minority students have lagged behind academically, failing to graduate and failing to become productive, law abiding citizens. A huge educational disparity has evolved and closing the achievement gap has become crucial in today’s educational system. However, despite the many challenges, there are schools across this nation that experience noteworthy achievement for all students including high minority and high poverty schools. …

The Essence Of The Distributed Leadership Experience Of A High School Literacy Coaching Team: A Phenomenological Study, Nancy Spaniak

Dissertations

This is a phenomenological study of a high school literacy coaching team’s experience during the 2010-2011 school year, the first year of its existence. As a distributed leadership organizational routine, the practice of literacy coaching was adopted by a large suburban high school to promote its initiative to infuse literacy strategies into every teacher’s classroom instruction. The purpose of the study was to uncover the essence of the literacy coaching team’s distributed leadership experience in order to elucidate the effect of distributed leadership on developing the literacy coaching initiative in general, and the literacy coaching team members as leaders in …

Oncology Nurses' Cultural Competence, Knowledge, And Attitudes Toward Cancer Pain, Ayman Alnems Phd, Msn, Rn

Dissertations

Effective pain management requires appropriate knowledge, attitudes, and assessment skills. The purposes of this study were to obtain information about the knowledge and attitudes of oncology nurses related to cancer pain and its management, to evaluate oncology nurses' cultural competence, and to investigate relationships between oncology nurses' cultural competence and their pain management knowledge and attitudes. Ferrell and McCaffery's (2008) Nurses' Knowledge and Attitude Survey Regarding Pain (NKASRP), the Cultural Competence Assessment Survey (CCA) (Doorenbos, Schim, Benkert, & Borse, 2005; Schim, Doorenbos, Miller, & Benkert, 2003), and a demographic questionnaire were used to measure oncology registered nurses' cultural competence and …

Factors And Health Promoting Behaviors That Influence Maternal And Infant Outcomes In Older Pregnant Thai Women, Supawadee Thaewpia Phd, Msn, Rn

Dissertations

This dissertation summarizes research conducted in partial fulfillment of the program requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing degree from the Hahn school of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of San Diego. The results of the dissertation research are organized as three discrete papers. Article one is entitled; "Reliability and Validity of Thai Translations of Instruments Measuring Psychosocial Factors and Health Promoting Behaviors among Older Pregnant Thai Women." This article describes the dissertation research study in which the selected instruments were piloted at an antenatal clinic in Thailand. The article determines the instruments' ability to examine perceived benefits, perceived …

Faithful Remembering: Constructing Dutch America In The Twentieth Century, David E. Zwart

Dissertations

The people of the Dutch-American community constructed and maintained a strong ethnoreligion identity in the twentieth despite pressures to join the mainstream of the United States. A strong institutional completeness of congregations and schools resulted from and contributed to this identity. The people in these institutions created a shared identity by demanding the loyalty of members as well as constructing narratives that convinced people of the need for the ethnoreligious institutions.

The narratives of the Dutch-American community reflected and reinforced a shared identity, which relied on a collective memory. The framing, maintaining, altering, and remodeling of the collective memory from …

Stop Snitching: Hip Hop's Influence On Crime Reporting In The Inner City, Ladel Lewis

Dissertations

The “stop snitching” phenomenon is a social epidemic that is affecting inner cities from coast to coast. These street politics have an adverse effect on the way individuals in the inner city view cooperation with police. With hip hop culture claiming a larger stake on the global stage, and mainstream artists sparking attention by denouncing cooperation with authorities while reproving others that choose to do so, this research examines if a relationship exists between individuals that adhere to the “code of silence” and self-professed hip hoppers. While much has been written about the significance of hip hop culture on the …

In Their Own Words: The Lived Experiences Of Unemployed African American Men, Kenlana R. Ferguson

Dissertations

Due to staggering unemployment rates, African American men's experience with work in the U.S. has historically received widespread attention in the media and social science literature. Terms such as black male unemployment crisis, puzzle, epidemic and catastrophe have been used to describe the unemployment woes of black. Attempts at explaining why African American men are experiencing such difficulty in the world of work has been undertaken across the disciplines, however much of this work has amounted to nothing more than acknowledgement that isolating independent factors as causes does not suffice and that a more interdisciplinary framework is needed if we …

Change Is Constant: The Ongoing Reengineering Of Senior Administratrion In Community Colleges, Maria H. Coons

Dissertations

Change is typically initiated to improve efficiency and effectiveness or when a new vision is created. Facilitating change within an organization is difficult, particularly when a new leader is appointed. Newly appointed community college presidents almost always reengineer senior administrative leadership upon arriving at their new institutions. What is needed is a change management process that facilitates change while minimizing disruption to the operations, and eases fears among those impacted by the changes. In addition, assessing the effectiveness of the changes is paramount in determining if further modifications are necessary. The purpose of this study was to explore what precipitates …

First-Year Superintendents‘ Perceptions Of Preparation And Practice, Brady D. Quirk

Dissertations

Through this qualitative study, the perceptions of first-year superintendents in Missouri were obtained regarding their graduate preparation program and the types of supports they sought in their new position. The superintendency is a complex role, requiring the school district leader to work within the often-conflicting framework of organizational manager versus instructional leader. The superintendents, both male and female from districts of varying sizes, were interviewed within this framework in order to make comparisons with the existing related literature. Certain themes emerged from the data, notably, a relationship between district size and the perception of the primary responsibilities of the superintendent. …

Sports Data Mining Technology Used In Basketball Outcome Prediction, Chenjie Cao

Dissertations

Driven by the increasing comprehensive data in sports datasets and data mining technique successfully used in different area, sports data mining technique emerges and enables us to find hidden knowledge to impact the sport industry. In many instances, predicting the outcomes of sporting events has always been a challenging and attractive work and is therefore drawing a wide concern to conduct research in this field. This project focuses on using machine learning algorithms to build a model for predicting the NBA game outcomes and the algorithms involve Simple Logistics Classifier, Artificial Neural Networks, SVM and Naïve Bayes. In order to …

An Empirical Look At Recipient Benefits Associated With A University-Issued Student Leadership Award, Robyn L. Adams Phd

Dissertations

Within academia there is an elaborate and extensive system of awards for both students and faculty (Frey, 2006). Although the majority of student-based awards are for outstanding leadership and related accomplishments, there has been virtually no research on the impact of receiving such a leadership award (Frey, 2006). Due to the conspicuous absence of empirical studies in this area, a significant knowledge gap exists regarding the possible value or positive effects associated with winning a university-issued student leadership award. To begin to fill this knowledge gap, this study examined the San Diego State University (SDSU) Quest for the Best award …

An Exploration Of Stepfamily Experiences Of Young People In Ireland., Audrey Mcgee

Dissertations

This qualitative research study conducted semi-structured interviews to explore the stepfamily experiences of ten individuals, aged eighteen to twenty four years. The findings indicated that the stepfamily brought challenges and a range of benefits to the participants’ life experiences. The key difficulties pertained to issues regarding conflict, lack of communication and complex challenges. The cited benefits of stepfamily experiences included improved financial resources, an additional parental figure, a sense of stability, opportunities for personal growth and the gaining of additional siblings. One significant finding of the study was the positive enduring bonds that some individuals made with stepparents and stepsiblings. …

The Effects Of A Videoconferencing Implementation Project On Educators' Level Of Concern In Southwest Michigan Schools, Dennis David Lundgren

Dissertations

Problem. Two-way, interactive videoconferencing is emerging as an important technology tool for K-12 educators. The challenge is to identify and describe successful implementation. Educator concerns related to implementation may inhibit success. The focus of this study of a federally funded videoconferencing project is to address the factors that influence educators' level of concern.

Method. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) Stages of Concern (SoC) instrument was administered to measure the level of concern of two cohorts of participants. Data related to project, including number of connections, district and building technical support, professional development, and equipment reliability were also collected. One-way …

Disturbing The Power Equilibrium: How Notions Of Private And Public Construct The Lesbian Educator In The American School System, Lillian Petrovich Brandt

Dissertations

Educational institutions are places permeated with the dominant social ideology and are sites for social reproduction; that is, the American school socially reproduces the white, male heteronormativity of the American public life. These dominant institutions perpetuate privilege for some, but not for others who are not represented in the dominant discourse. At times rendered invisible and private inside the school, a lesbian educator, may, in fact, be visible and public outside the school. There is a paucity of research on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) educators, yet queer educators exist in the school setting in which a "don't ask …

How Do Secondary Science Teachers Understand And Implement Technological Design In Their Classrooms?, Kathryn H. Heroux

Dissertations

This qualitative, phenomenological study examined how ten secondary science teachers from a variety of different schools around the country understand and implement technological design in their classrooms. The results of this study indicate that these teachers were drawn to the tenets of technological design because of its inherent challenge to their own pedagogical strategies, and its ability to stimulate and motivate their students. The future of science education with respect to technological design is examined, and compared with the standards that will emerge in the new science standards soon to be finalized and circulated.

Modernism En Vogue: Popular Periodicals And Their Engagement With Modernist Culture, Natalie Kalich

Dissertations

My project investigates commercial magazines from the 1920s, including, The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Vogue, and Vanity Fair to reveal the frequency with which modernist writers contributed to these periodicals and the extent to which editors of these magazines found modernist discourse marketable to larger audiences, thereby undermining the assumption that modernists only spoke to a coterie audience. Furthermore, by investigating the similarities present in discourse on modernism and developments in popular culture such as jazz and film in a commercial context, I expand and complicate constructions of modernist and popular culture from both sides of the cultural …

Image Slavery And Mass Media Pollution: Examining The Sociopolitical Context Of Beauty And Self Image In The Lives Of Black Women, Jennifer Richardson

Dissertations

The ways in which African American women negotiate the intersections of popular media, dominant discourses of beauty, and identity are rarely explored. This work brings into focus how African American women consume, understand, and make meaning of mediated images and representations of African American women. In order to inform this particular research project, this study engages a constellation of literature and theoretical perspectives and explores historical representations of African American women and beauty messages they contain. Throughout this process I examine concepts of identity formation; discuss connections between sexuality and the politics of imagery; and investigate linkages between structural racism, …

Receptor-Mediated Hypertrophic Signaling Via Protein Kinase D And Histone Deacetylase 5 In Adult Myocytes, Chia-Wei Jenny Chang

Dissertations

Hemodynamic stress and neurohumoral signaling are common causes of cardiac hypertrophy. These extrinsic stress stimuli typically act on GPCR and induce a cascade of signal transduction to re-program terminally differentiated myocytes to grow in length or width. The compensatory hypertrophic response can enhance cardiac output briefly due to increased work load. However, prolonged stress results in maladaptive changes in the heart and gradually deteriorates ventricular function to supply blood throughout the body. Sustained hypertrophic signaling can also progress toward heart failure.

My dissertation research focuses on the hypertrophic signaling in adult cardiac myocytes in response to neurohumoral stimuli, ET-1 and …

The Development Of Science Identity: An Evaluation Of Youth Development Programs At The Museum Of Science And Industry, Chicago, Sam Cole

Dissertations

The following dissertation presents findings from a year-long evaluation of informal scientific education programs at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. Science identity, rather than scientific knowledge, was the analytic lens through which the programs' effectiveness was assessed. A goal of the Museum generally, and the programs specifically, is to increase public identification with the field of science. Science identity was assessed using a novel survey instrument and three focus groups. Hierarchical linear models found a positive relationship between time enrolled in the Science Minors program and the development of science identity. These analyses also point to …