Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Professional Development On Infusing Engineering Design Into High School Science, Technology, Engineering And Math (Stem) Curricula, Zanj Kano Avery

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of professional development (PD) on the infusion of engineering design into high school curricula. Four inservice teachers with backgrounds in physics, chemistry, industrial education, math, and electrical engineering participated in the 2006 National Center of Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE)-sponsored PD workshops at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) and provided three sources of data that were used to answer the research question, “What are the effects of PD on infusing engineering design into high school science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curricula”? Three major themes emerged from the data. …

Paper Women: The Representation Of Female Offenders In Irish Newspapers, Lynsey Black

Dissertations

Reductionistic definitions characterise many of the representations of women in our society. From superficial depictions of women as sex objects to the elevation of motherhood as a paragon of womanhood, women navigate myriad roles available to them exclusively because of their gender. Female offenders are potentially more vulnerable to such limitations of representation due to their relative invisibility. Society is largely unacquainted with the realities of circumstance for such women, who are therefore reliant upon media outlets to inform the public. The operation of this process in Ireland has not been the subject of extensive research, and the current study …

Measuring Parent Involvement In Relation To Student Achievement, Tony O'Neal Brooks

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of parent involvement in relation to the influence on student achievement within a school community. In addition, this study worked towards gaining an understanding of the parent’s role in the school community. Researching educational data may suggest that more parent involvement will have a greater impact on student achievement, rather than little to no parent involvement, relating to student achievement.

Two sets of data were analyzed. One set came from information gathered in a parent questionnaire which was calculated to produce a parent rating score. The second set of data …

Patterns And Challenges Of Parenting School-Age Children Among Selected Sub-Saharan African Immigrant Parents In Southwest Michigan: A Multiple-Case Study, Israel M. Kafeero

Dissertations

Problem. Parenting among immigrants presents unique challenges to parents whose cultural orientation is different from the host culture. Because of the meager research literature on immigrant families in the USA, little is known about the phenomenon of parenting among sub-Saharan African immigrant parents. This study investigated the patterns related to the parenting practices of selected sub-Saharan African immigrant parents, how they conduct corrective discipline to their children, and the challenges they face rearing children in Southwest Michigan.

Method. Qualitative research methods including interviews, observations, focus group discussions, and artifact collection were used in this dissertation to generate data. A snowball …

A Critical Evaluation Of John Hick's Religious Pluralism In Light Of His Eschatological Model, Haejong Je

Dissertations

Introduction to the Problem

The philosophy of John Hick, who is famous for his religious pluralism, has received vigorous study in terms of its epistemology, authority, the concept of God, and Christology. However, less attention has been given to his pareschatology. As explained below, initial investigation shows that there is a need for in-depth study of Hick’s religious philosophy in this area.

The Problem

Based upon preliminary research, Hick’s religious pluralism seems to reveal a critical problem with external correspondency, as follows. His pareschatology, which is an attempt to accept all eschatologies of major world religions as valid, may as …

Regulation Of Transglutaminase By 5-Ht2a Receptor Signaling And Calmodulin, Ying Dai

Dissertations

Transglutaminase (TGase), nature’s biological glue, catalyzes the post-translational modification of proteins by formation of intra- and intermolecular protein cross-links or by primary amine incorporation. TGase has various physiological functions, such as skin-barrier formation and blood clot stabilization, whereas increasing evidence indicates they may also involved in neurodegenerative diseases including Huntington’s disease (HD), Alzheimer disease’s, and progressive supranuclear palsy. Mutant huntingtin (htt) and small G proteins (e.g. Rac 1) are potential substrates of TGases. The purpose of this dissertation was to characterize the mechanisms by which 5-HT2A receptor signaling and calmodulin (CaM) regulate TGase-catalyzed transamidation of Rac1 and htt in cultured …

Social Experiences Of Adolescents With High Functioning Autism (Hfa) And/Or Asperger Syndrome (As) - Their Perceptions And Their Views Of Their Caregivers: An Exploratory Study, Patricia Anne Kunz

Dissertations

This study used the Grounded Theory methodology to investigate, through an exploratory manner, the social experiences of adolescents with High Functioning Autism (HFA) and/or Asperger's Syndrome (AS) as shared by the adolescents themselves, and the views of their parent/caregivers regarding this experience. In addition the adolescents and parents shared their thoughts on having and managing a diagnosis of HFA/AS and the current adaptive behaviors of the adolescents.

Seven adolescents and their respective parent/caregivers participated in video-taped paired interviews. The themes emergent from the interviews regarding the diagnosis of HFA/AS for the parents were: rejection, feeling blamed, emotional toll and management …

Empirical Development Of An Instructional Product And Its Impact On Mastery Of Geometry Concepts, Donaldson Williams

Dissertations

Problem

Relatively poor levels of mathematical thinking among American school children have been identified as a major issue over the past half century. Many efforts have been made to increase the mathematics performance of children in schools. Additionally, out-of-school-time programs have attempted to address this issue as well. Holistic development is one of the distinguishing features of Seventh-day Adventist instructional programs. Yet, as of 2007, the Pathfinder program, an informal educational program operated by the world-wide Seventh-day Adventist church, had no instructional product designed to foster participants’ cognitive development in mathematics. This study focused on the empirical development of an …

An Investigation Of The Knowledge And Beliefs Held By Teachers And Parents In A Parochial School System Regarding Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder And The Variables That Predict Their Knowledge, Kendra-Lee Yvonne Pearman

Dissertations

Problem

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent childhood disorders affecting 3 to 5% of school populations in the United States and other countries. Due to the behavioral and/or academic challenges of children with ADHD, they are at risk for grade retention, dropping out of high school, and teenage delinquency, which can lead to negative consequences in society. Children with ADHD are found in every school setting, including parochial schools. Past studies have found teachers and parents have inadequate knowledge about ADHD, which can negatively affect these children. This study investigated what teachers and parents of children in …

An Investigation Of The Perceptions Of Clergy And Laity On Race-Based Organizational Segregation In The Southern Union Conference Of Seventh-Day Adventists, David K. Penno

Dissertations

Problem

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the United States maintains a racially segregated organization in a society that has intentionally dismantled segregation in most of its organizations. The church needs to evaluate its current conference organization in light of this reality. The purpose of this study was to describe the perceptions of Seventh-day Adventist clergy and members in two conferences in the Southern Union concerning race-based organizational segregation in the church.

Method

This study used a mixed method and was descriptive in design. Four focus groups were conducted to explore the dimensions of the research problem. This step was followed …

Identity, Oppression, And Group Rights, Andrew Jared Pierce

Dissertations

The dissertation argues for a conception of group rights based on Habermasian discourse theory, as an alternative to the dominant multicultural liberal approach to group rights, which treats group rights as instrumental to individual rights.

Infectious Agents: Race And Environment In Nineteenth-Century America, Kristen Renee Egan

Dissertations

This dissertation critically examines the relationship between race and nature in nineteenth-century America by analyzing texts that attempt to discover, create, or preserve a pure national identity. Historical events in the nineteenth-century U.S. - such as mass immigration, Native American displacement, industrialization, westward expansion, and the rise of science - frustrated the quest for a unified American identity. While these events seem various, each one exacerbated a nation already bewildered by one central question. What is the traffic between body and space? Nineteenth-century American literature frequently portrays the American environment as an ideal space in need of preservation and at …

The Queer Work Of Fantasy: The Romance In Antebellum America, Zachary Neil Lamm

Dissertations

This project examines the ways in which antebellum writers of romances theorized the relationship between fantasy and queer desire. These writers produced vision of alternative forms of sociality that serve to criticize the heteronormativity of antebellum sexual culture and to promote fantasy as both a mode of critique and a strategy for cultural subversion. Antebellum romances thus represent both a deep dissatisfaction with their author's contemporary culture and a means of envisioning subversive socialities and intimacies that promote freedom of the expression of desire and allow for the queerness that might characterize such expressions if subjects were able to speak …

Moral Reasons Arbitrariness, Brad Seeman

Dissertations

Bradley Nelson Seeman

Loyola University Chicago

MORAL REASONS ARBITRARINESS

The moral philosophies of Allan Gibbard, Christine Korsgaard, and John Post (following Ruth Garrett Millikan's "teleosemantics") each succumb to moral reasons arbitrariness. If a moral philosophy suffers from moral reasons arbitrariness, it fails to establish support relations for moral judgments that uniquely justify those judgments in terms that make essential reference to a person's ability to consider and weigh those support relations in making a moral decision. Moral reasons arbitrariness arises when (1) moral reasons are rooted in factors adventitious to the consideration of support relations, or (2) conflicting moral judgments …

Gender Differences In Antecedents To Academic And Personal Well-Being In Urban Youth: What Is The Role Of Social Support?, Erin Caskey

Dissertations

Urban youth are an important, yet understudied population. Moreover, the vast majority of existing research has focused on negative outcomes. Recently, there has been a trend in the field of adolescent research toward creating models that attempt to understand and explain why some members of at-risk populations are able to overcome adversities and to achieve successful adaptation. The present study investigated the relationships between perceived social support, gender, academic outcomes, and personal well-being in urban youth. Overall, perceived social support was found to be related to many outcome variables for males and females. Gender differences were found in the relationships …

Therapeutic Mentoring: Outcomes For Youth In Foster Care, Sara B. Johnson

Dissertations

This study examined the impact of therapeutic mentoring on youth in foster care. Youth outcomes on the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) measure for four groups of youth were compared. Three treatment groups were divided based on the amount of therapeutic mentoring received and compared on CANS outcome scores as measured from baseline to 6, 12, and 18 months. The fourth group did not receive any therapeutic mentoring. Outcome domains for emotional and behavioral functioning, peer relationships, academic functioning, and community involvement were analyzed. All youth in the study (n = 262) received counseling and support through the …

The Importance Of Comprehensive Clinical Social Work Assessments For Determination Of Older Adult Guardianship Petitions In Cook County Probate Court, Chicago, Illinois, Heather Jones

Dissertations

As our population ages there seems to be a strong current toward seeking surrogate decision-makers for individuals, who appear unable to manage their lives and make clear choices. Guardianship is the most profound course of action when determining that an older adult lacks decisional capacity. Older adults make up the majority of persons adjudicated incapacitated and, in turn, are assigned guardians (Crampton, 2004; Teaster, Schmidt, and Roberto, 2004). There is limited research about older adult guardianship, so this study is opportune because of the increased longevity of the population, with the most rapid growth among the very old, who likely …

Connection, Caretaking, And Conflict: The Recalled, Lived Experience Of Adultdaughters Of Bipolar Mothers, Louise Ribeiro Presley

Dissertations

At present in the United States approximately four million people (1.6%) suffer from bipolar I and bipolar II disorders. About 20% are not helped by medication. Each bipolar person has two parents,and may have siblings, friends, spouses and children. All of these people are affected by the feelings and behavior of the bipolar person. The children are especially vulnerable to behavior disorders, depression, and anxiety, even if protective factors mitigate the family situation.

This qualitative research addresses the events recalled by adult daughters whose mothers are bipolar: what they recalled of what they thought, felt and did in response. Events …

Degree Attainment Among Adult Learners, Maureen O'Conor

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to expand understanding and discover knowledge about degree attainment among adult learners. This qualitative inquiry is about what 15 bachelor's degree recipients over the age of 25 felt contributed to their efforts to attain the bachelor's degree.

This study contains professional research and expert material on motivation, challenges and barriers, learning preferences, and skills. These areas form the foundation of the study. This research also provides detailed demographic profiles of adult undergraduates and non-traditional-age bachelor's degree recipients, as well as economic data including unemployment, financial aid and debt burden. This inquiry utilizes data, reports …

Language Attitudes, Linguistic Knowledge, And The Multicultural Education Of Pre-Service Teachers: A Sociolinguistic Study, Maria Elisa Paredes

Dissertations

Abstract This research created, implemented and evaluated the impact of a language unit designed to increase linguistic knowledge and change attitudes toward linguistic diversity for pre-service teachers taking an education class that focused on child and adolescent development at an urban university in Missouri. Both quantitative and qualitative measures were used to document learning and attitude change toward linguistic variety during 4-8 hours of instruction. The language unit included a pretest/posttest design, an overview of general linguistics, phonetics, phonology, sociolinguistics, language acquisition and bilingualism; the unit utilized multiple digital tools (DVD & CD) created by the researcher. Demographic correlates to …

Mezirow's Transformational Learning Theory And Alternative Health Therapeutics Of Mind, Body, And Spirit, Lewis Edward Blackwell

Dissertations

An illness, like prostate cancer, brings crisis to our experience and confuses the structure of our reality as well as disturbs our meaning which is upheld by interpretive imagery. Hence, recovery involves a learning experience that consists of a reflective, educational, and spiritual process to rebuild and reconstruct meaning through the use and transformation of our images and themes to create meaning. The purpose of the research was to investigate the meaning of the illness experience through the lens of transformational learning theory. As such, one-on-one interviews were conducted with 10 African American men who lived in large metropolitan areas …

Supporting E-Learning Within A Social Framework, Barbara J. Keene

Dissertations

E-learning has become a major delivery platform for higher education, continuing education and corporate training. The majority of e-learning research to date has taken place in academic environments using survey or qualitative research. This study used an experimental design (N = 99) to view three different models for supporting asynchronous e-learning in a corporate setting where learners are geographically distributed. The support interventions were rooted in andragogical principles of learning. Two treatment groups were provided socially engaging proactive models while the control group used a learner directed reactive authoritarian model. The purpose of this study was to see if different …

Synthesis And Evaluation Of Structural Analogs Of Escherichia Coli Lipid A For Application Towards Cd14-Targeting Glycotherapeutics, Aileen Fay Galos Bongat

Dissertations

Lipid A is a glucosamine-based phospholipid that anchors carbohydrate molecules to the outer membrane of most Gram-negative bacteria. During severe infection, this amphiphilic macromolecule invoke a strong and acute pro-inflammatory response that leads to sepsis and ultimately to septic shock, organ failure and death. Thus, following the convention that the best antidote is often a derivative of the parent agonistic molecule, researchers have actively pursued the idea of creating an analog of Lipid A that can block the cellular receptor for this molecule and thereby arrest the cascade of events that lead to sepsis. Consequently, we became interested in creating …

Gene Expression Profiles As Molecular Indicators Of Dissolved Oxygen Stress In Grass Shrimp Palaemonetes Pugio Holthuis 1949, Tiandao Li

Dissertations

Occurrence and severity of hypoxia is increasing in coastal and estuarine environments, and recovery of impacted habitats and living resources is slow. Detection of early biological effects of hypoxia is needed for timely remedial action to be taken. The overall objectives of this research was to develop molecular indicators of dissolved oxygen stress to assess the biological impact of hypoxia in coastal estuaries and validate their use through a combination of laboratory and field studies. To achieve these goals, grass shrimp, Palaemonetes pugio, oxygen-sensitive and hypoxia-tolerant species abundant in estuarine systems, were exposed to hypoxia under controlled laboratory conditions, and …

Yellow Head Virus: Transmission And Genome Analyses, Hongwei Ma

Dissertations

Yellow head virus (YHV) is an important pathogen to shrimp aquaculture. Among 13 species of naturally YHV-negative crustaceans in the Mississippi coastal area, the daggerblade grass shrimp, Palaemonetes pugio, and the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, were tested for potential reservoir and carrier hosts of YHV using PCR and real time PCR. The YHV replicated in the daggerblade grass shrimp, and was still detectable on 36 d post-inoculation, causing 8% mortality after injection. However, YHV did not replicate in the blue crab. These data suggest that the daggerblade grass shrimp could act as a reservoir host for YHV. Storage conditions of …

Examination Of An Aloe Vera Galacturonate Polysaccharide Capable Of In Situ Gelation For The Controlled Release Of Protein Therapeutics, Shawn David Mcconaughy

Dissertations

A therapeutic delivery platform has been investigated with the ultimate goal of designing a sustained protein release matrix utilizing an in-situ gelling, acidic polysaccharide derived from the Aloe vera plant. The Aloe vera polysaccharide (AvP) has been examined in order to determine how chemical composition, structure, molecular weight and solution behavior affect gelation and protein/peptide delivery. Correlations are drawn between structural characteristics and solution behavior in order to determine the impact of polymer conformation and solvation on gel formation under conditions designed to simulate nasal applications. Steady state and dynamic rheology, classic and dynamic light scattering, zeta potential, pulse field …

Factors That Contribute To A Successful Secondary Vocational Education Program In The State Of Mississippi, Erin Leigh Parker

Dissertations

This study was designed to assess and identify factors that make a vocational program successful. Using qualitative methods for collection and analysis of data, vocational instructors and students in programs identified to be successful were interviewed to better depict the classroom setting, teachers, methods, etc. of these successful programs. Participants included instructors of and students enrolled in secondary vocational programs in the state of Mississippi identified to be most successful according to C-PAS test scores in each of the following training areas: Building Trades (carpentry), Business and Computer Technology, Marketing Management Technology, and Allied Health. MS-CPAS test scores were analyzed …

The Relationship Between Principals' Leadership Self-Efficacy, Student Achievement And School Performance, Robert Louis Williams

Dissertations

The two major components of school accountability, under the Mississippi Schools Accountability System, are growth expectation and school achievement. Mississippi schools are assigned a school performance classification based upon student achievement and whether schools did not meet, met, or exceeded their growth expectation. The primary purpose of this study was to determine if there is a statistically significant relationship between principals' ratings of self-efficacy, school performance, and school growth status. In addition, this study sought to determine if there is a statistically significant relationship between principals' ratings of delegatee performance, school performance and school growth status.

The participants for this …

Factors Associated With Attitudes Toward Learning In An Online Environment: Transactional Distance, Technical Efficacy, And Physical Surroundings, Jodi Elizabeth Pettazzoni

Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between a student's environment in an online course and their academic achievement. This study surveyed students who completed world literature classes in an online format that were part of their universities' general education curricula. Students responded to items assessing several constructs and personal demographic variables that together defined their learning environments: content, delivery, assessment and feedback, technical support, learner experience with technology, learner experience with distance learning, interaction, physical space, support network, characteristics of adult learners, and major. Academic achievement was the dependent variable and was defined as anticipated grade in the course. Using Spearman …

Factors Related To Nonacademic Adjustment Of Freshmen Students, Nykela Horne Jackson

Dissertations

Student retention remains a major concern of higher education institutions. With decreasing state funding, higher education institutions have implemented creative strategies and methods to recruit students. Once students are recruited it is critical that they be retained. Research has confirmed that student withdrawals can be attributed to the lack of successful transition and adjustment to the college environment. Numerous studies have focused on how demographic factors (socioeconomic status, race, employment, and parental education level) affect retention with the major focus on academic adjustment. Current research has shown that nonacademic adjustment (social adjustment, personal/emotional adjustment, and institutional attachment) plays a significant …