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Does Joint Attention Mediate The Relationship Between Temperament And Language?, Brenda J. Salley May 2005

Does Joint Attention Mediate The Relationship Between Temperament And Language?, Brenda J. Salley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individual differences in child temperament have been associated with individual differences in language development; similarly, relationships have been separately reported among temperament, language and early nonverbal social communication (joint attention). The present study examined the relationship between temperament and language, in the context of joint attention as an underlying developmental variable mediating this association. Temperament, language and joint attention were assessed in 51 Appalachian 21-month-old toddlers. Results indicate a relationship between aspects of temperamental difficulty, including low executive control and high negative affect, and low language. A relationship was also found between temperament and joint attention, such that aspects of …


Housing Tenure Choice Of Immigrants In The United States., Zhenfeng Pan 1974- May 2005

Housing Tenure Choice Of Immigrants In The United States., Zhenfeng Pan 1974-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While housing tenure choice by the general population and minorities has been studied by a good number of researchers, current research on the tenure choice by immigrants has been limited and sporadic. This study provides further understanding of the immigrant households' housing tenure choice. Using Public Use Microdata files from the 2000 U.S. census, this study makes a number of methodological improvements to model the predictors of homeownership among the immigrants from 10 countries. The housing tenure choice predictors of immigrant households are also compared to those of the native-born counterparts to illustrate the differences in the factors affecting housing …


Preparing Teachers For Diversity : A Study Of Two University Teacher Education Programs In Indiana., Vella Goebel 1947- May 2005

Preparing Teachers For Diversity : A Study Of Two University Teacher Education Programs In Indiana., Vella Goebel 1947-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study assessed the efficacy of diversity training in teacher education programs at two Indiana universities from the viewpoints of teacher educators and teacher education majors. Three research questions guided the study: (a) To what extent did teacher educators exhibit classroom attitudes and behaviors consistent with practicing diversity education? (b) To what extent did teacher education majors perceive that teacher educators exhibited attitudes and behaviors consistent with practicing diversity education? (c) Did teacher education students and teacher educators agree about the extent to which their institutions supported diversity initiatives? The research questions were examined across the domains most frequently explored …


Survival Songs : How Refugee And Immigrant Women Experienced Violence., Judith C. Heitzman May 2005

Survival Songs : How Refugee And Immigrant Women Experienced Violence., Judith C. Heitzman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An interest in privileging the voices of women who are marginalized in many parts of the world coupled with knowledge of the restorative properties of music cultivated this qualitative study. Seven women, ages 20-49 years of age, from three continents were asked the following grand tour questions: What was your experience of violence? What were the residual grief and loss issues that you faced? What, if any, role did music play in helping you cope with the stress of surviving violence? Participants were required to (a) be over 18 years old, (b) currently reside in the United States, (c) have …


Drama Discovery: The Effect Of Dramatic Arts In Combination With Bibliotherapy On The Self-Efficacy Of Students With Emotional And/Or Behavioral Disabilities Regarding Their Understanding Of Their Own Exceptionalities, Michele Jacobs Jan 2005

Drama Discovery: The Effect Of Dramatic Arts In Combination With Bibliotherapy On The Self-Efficacy Of Students With Emotional And/Or Behavioral Disabilities Regarding Their Understanding Of Their Own Exceptionalities, Michele Jacobs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of dramatic arts in combination with bibliotherapy, which is the use of literary sources to help people solve complex problems and find understanding about a topic (Sullivan and Strang, 2003). The Drama Discovery curriculum was piloted in a middle school classroom for eleven students with emotional/ behavioral disabilities and one student with delinquent behaviors at a small private alternative education school in Western Pennsylvania. Students with emotional/ behavioral disabilities often have low self-efficacy when it comes to explaining their own disabilities, coping with the label of having a disability, and …


Implementing Lexical And Creative Intentionality In Synthetic Personality, Erik Vick Jan 2005

Implementing Lexical And Creative Intentionality In Synthetic Personality, Erik Vick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Creating engaging, interactive, and immersive synthetic characters is a difficult task and evaluating the success of a synthetic character is often even more difficult. The later problem is solved by extending Turing's Imitation Game thusly: computational construct should be evaluated based on the criteria of how well the character can mimic a human. In order to accomplish a successful evaluation of the proposed metric, synthetic characters must be consistently believable and capable of role-appropriate emotional expression. The author believes traditional synthetic characters must be improved to meet this goal. For a synthetic character to be believable, human users must be …


A Qualitative Analysis Of Parent Observations Of Children Diagnosed With A Developmental Speech Delay, Diana Patrick Jan 2005

A Qualitative Analysis Of Parent Observations Of Children Diagnosed With A Developmental Speech Delay, Diana Patrick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study used qualitative (phenomenological) research methodology to obtain and analyze the "personal stories" of mothers of children with had received a diagnosis of either developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) or developmental phonological disorder (DPD). Using a semi-structured interview, six mothers of children with DAS and five mothers of children with DPD were asked to reflect on specific aspects of the development of their child over time, with emphasis on communication development and communication challenges. In addition to providing rich descriptions of performance, the present study addressed the proposition that DPD and DAS are separate disorders by examining the …


Effects Of Content Augmentation Strategies In An Instructional Virtual Environment, Roger Hamilton Jan 2005

Effects Of Content Augmentation Strategies In An Instructional Virtual Environment, Roger Hamilton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Content augmentation strategies (CAS) are instructional methods which specify the overlaying of content objects by content augmentation objects in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of instruction. The goals of this research were to build a comprehensive framework around CASs, determine the experimental effects of CASs in an instructional virtual environment (VE), and make recommendations regarding the employment and further study of CASs in instructional virtual environments. The VE experiment examined the effectiveness and efficiency impact of six different content augmentation strategies which overlayed different content augmentation objects onto four immersive VE scenarios. Sixty university students, 40 men and …


The Limits Of Philosophy: Plato's Sophist And Statesman, Mark Brouwer Jan 2005

The Limits Of Philosophy: Plato's Sophist And Statesman, Mark Brouwer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Plato's Sophist and Statesman articulate the limits or definition of philosophy. My selective interpretation begins with a problem from Sophist 259e-260a and 252e-253e: Is it possible to express correctly (in logos) the necessary conditions of logos? This is an instance of a universal problem: Is it possible for any expertise to define itself and have expert inspired confidence in this definition? I articulate this universal problem with recourse to Kantian meta-philosophy, Chomsky's generative grammar and Schoenberg's theory of harmony. Rudolph Carnap's distinction between questions internal and external to a scientific framework is the means of addressing this universal problem. Questions …


The Perceptions Of Beginning Counselor Education Candidates' Multicultural Knowledge And Awareness When Comparing Candidates Who Have Successfully Completed Instruction In Multicultural Counseling With Candidates Who Have Not Completed Instruction In Multicultural Counseling, Evelyn H. Kitchens-Stephens Jan 2005

The Perceptions Of Beginning Counselor Education Candidates' Multicultural Knowledge And Awareness When Comparing Candidates Who Have Successfully Completed Instruction In Multicultural Counseling With Candidates Who Have Not Completed Instruction In Multicultural Counseling, Evelyn H. Kitchens-Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within this study, the investigator attempts to determine the perceived effectiveness of counselor trainees using multicultural counseling competencies. The investigator measured the perceived degree of multicultural counseling knowledge and awareness among beginning master's level counseling students in a graduate counselor education program located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The primary research question was: Do counselor education candidates who have successfully completed a 3 credit graduate level course in multicultural counseling perceive themselves to be more knowledgeable and aware in cross-cultural counseling settings than trainees who have not completed the course? A 32-item inventory, the Multicultural Counseling Knowledge and Awareness Scale (MCKAS, Ponterotto …


Effects Of Emotional Intelligence Training On Incarcerated Adult Males Involved In Pre-Release Programming, Holly Moore Jan 2005

Effects Of Emotional Intelligence Training On Incarcerated Adult Males Involved In Pre-Release Programming, Holly Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation summarizes a study conducted to explore the effectiveness of emotional intelligence (EI) training for adult male inmates. Acts of crime and violence cause psychological repercussions to crime victims and financial burdens on our society. Historically, those involved in the criminal justice system have strived to gather knowledge about criminal behavior in order to guide interventions. Furthermore, research on potential interventions has been encouraged in order to support evidence-based rehabilitative efforts that may ultimately impact recidivism. Emotional intelligence is a relatively new construct that may be related to social functioning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the …


A Constructionist Analysis Of Same-Sex Marriage, Sandra Kay Nead Jan 2005

A Constructionist Analysis Of Same-Sex Marriage, Sandra Kay Nead

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Same-sex marriage has been heavily debated in academics and in the public sphere. During the 2004 Presidential election same-sex marriage became an issue that polarized the candidates. It has become a lightning rod for public debate. Due to the increasing attention to the controversy of legalizing same-sex marriage, it is an important topic for research. This paper seeks to contribute to the research of same-sex marriage by providing insight into claims-making efforts to define same-sex marriage as a social problem. My findings shed light on this topic from a social constructionist perspective by examining the use of rhetorical idioms of …


Compressed Pattern Matching For Text And Images, Tao Tao Jan 2005

Compressed Pattern Matching For Text And Images, Tao Tao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The amount of information that we are dealing with today is being generated at an ever-increasing rate. On one hand, data compression is needed to efficiently store, organize the data and transport the data over the limited-bandwidth network. On the other hand, efficient information retrieval is needed to speedily find the relevant information from this huge mass of data using available resources. The compressed pattern matching problem can be stated as: given the compressed format of a text or an image and a pattern string or a pattern image, report the occurrence(s) of the pattern in the text or image …


Couple Play As A Predictor Of Couple Bonding, Physical Health And Emotional Health, Linda Vanderbleek Jan 2005

Couple Play As A Predictor Of Couple Bonding, Physical Health And Emotional Health, Linda Vanderbleek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditional couple counseling research focused on why people end relationships, with research only recently addressing what factors contribute to relationship satisfaction and stability. Yet, throughout this research, minimal attention has been paid to the role of play in couple counseling. The research available on play in couple counseling had varied definitions of couple play and was not based on current couple counseling theory. The research and anecdotal data on couple play proposed a strong relationship between couple play and the factors that predict successful, long-term couple relationships, individual physical health and emotional health. This study applied current couple counseling theory …


The Development Of A Fuzzy Model To Quantify Training Andeducational Factors And The Resulting Impact On Student Successand Lear, Chandre Butler Jan 2005

The Development Of A Fuzzy Model To Quantify Training Andeducational Factors And The Resulting Impact On Student Successand Lear, Chandre Butler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The utilization of fuzzy mathematical modeling for quantification of the quality of training and educational delivery is an innovative application that can result in measurable and repeatable results. This research was designed to apply proven quantification techniques and Industrial Engineering methodologies to a nontraditional environment. The outcomes of this research provide the foundation, initial steps and preliminary validation for the development of a systematic fuzzy theoretical model to be applied for the quantification of various areas within training and education delivery. The test bed for this methodology is Orange County Public School system, the twelfth largest school district in the …


Speaker Identification Based On Discriminative Vector Quantization And Data Fusion, Guangyu Zhou Jan 2005

Speaker Identification Based On Discriminative Vector Quantization And Data Fusion, Guangyu Zhou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Speaker Identification (SI) approaches based on discriminative Vector Quantization (VQ) and data fusion techniques are presented in this dissertation. The SI approaches based on Discriminative VQ (DVQ) proposed in this dissertation are the DVQ for SI (DVQSI), the DVQSI with Unique speech feature vector space segmentation for each speaker pair (DVQSI-U), and the Adaptive DVQSI (ADVQSI) methods. The difference of the probability distributions of the speech feature vector sets from various speakers (or speaker groups) is called the interspeaker variation between speakers (or speaker groups). The interspeaker variation is the measure of template differences between speakers (or speaker groups). All …


Generic And Professional Health Care Beliefs, Expressions And Practices Of Syrian Muslims Living In The Midwestern United States, Hiba Wehbe-Alamah Jan 2005

Generic And Professional Health Care Beliefs, Expressions And Practices Of Syrian Muslims Living In The Midwestern United States, Hiba Wehbe-Alamah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this ethnonursing study was to discover the generic and professional health care beliefs, expressions, and practices of Syrian Muslims living in the Midwestern United States and to describe the influence of worldview, cultural context, and social structure, such as technological, religious, political, educational, and economical factors on their folk care beliefs and practices. Leininger's Culture Care Theory was used as an orientational framework for this study. Ten key and twenty general informants participated in this study. Several qualitative enablers were used to assist with the collection and analysis of data. QSR NUD*IST 4, a qualitative research software …


A Comparison Of Decontextualized And Contextualized Reading Skills In Persons With Severe Aphasia, Carey Smith Jan 2005

A Comparison Of Decontextualized And Contextualized Reading Skills In Persons With Severe Aphasia, Carey Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A repeated measures comparative design compared the reading comprehension accuracy scores of three participants across two conditions: Condition A -- Decontextualized Stimulus Reading Task (DSRT), resembling traditional reading therapy, and Condition B -- Contextual Choice Reading Conversation (CCRC) with a communication partner. In the DSRT condition, participants read a sentence-length question prior to selecting one of 3-to-5 printed responses with no supports. In CCRC, partners presented graphic sentence stimuli representing conversational questions and response choices with the following supports: simultaneous auditory input, supplemental drawings or gestures, natural repetitions, consistent topic, and conversational order. Experimental conditions were administered in counterbalanced order …


Games People Play: Identity And Relationships In An Online Role-Playing Game, Jennifer Bortle Jan 2005

Games People Play: Identity And Relationships In An Online Role-Playing Game, Jennifer Bortle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The following is a study of online relationships and identity formation in Everquest, a multiplayer online role-playing game. Using a phenomenological and reflexive approach, the study seeks to explicate the attractions of this type of online forum, which draws hundreds of thousands of players who spend many hours each week playing the game. Three Everquest players' experiences are considered in light of literature from mainstream psychological, social constructionist, psychodynamic, and cyborg theory, with special focus on the players' reports of the dialogue between player and character, and of the nature of their relationships in Everquest. Subjects participated in a non-directive, …


Eyes In The Text: Surveying The Ocular Aesthetic In Pat Barker's War Trilogy, James Hammond Jan 2005

Eyes In The Text: Surveying The Ocular Aesthetic In Pat Barker's War Trilogy, James Hammond

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1991, British novelist Patricia Barker published Regeneration, the first of three novels that portrayed the exploits of both factual and fictional characters during the darkest days of WWI. Barker's Eye in the Door (1993), followed by The Ghost Road (1995) for which she won the Booker Prize for Fiction, completed the series that explored the effects of combat on the human psyche. What emerges as a dominant feature of Barker's war novels is her depiction of the ocular sense. Reminiscent of Orwellianism, Barker's texts contain a seemingly ubiquitous ocular presence. For example, neurasthenic patients are scrutinized by army psychiatrists, …


The Effects Of An Arts-Integrated Curriculum Compared To A Text-Based Curriculum In Sixth Grade Social Studies, Joanna Floyd Jan 2005

The Effects Of An Arts-Integrated Curriculum Compared To A Text-Based Curriculum In Sixth Grade Social Studies, Joanna Floyd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.


Revisiting Emotional Writing : An Investigation Of Emotional Regulation And Experimenter Cues / By Leslie J. Rogers, Leslie J. Rogers Jan 2005

Revisiting Emotional Writing : An Investigation Of Emotional Regulation And Experimenter Cues / By Leslie J. Rogers, Leslie J. Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.


Daughter Of Invention : Storytelling As Identity Negation And Negotion In Julia Alvarez's How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents And Yo!, Jordan Craven Jan 2005

Daughter Of Invention : Storytelling As Identity Negation And Negotion In Julia Alvarez's How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents And Yo!, Jordan Craven

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.


Preparing Teachers To Partner With Families, Mary Senne Jan 2005

Preparing Teachers To Partner With Families, Mary Senne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Decades of research have demonstrated that family involvement significantly contributes to improved student outcomes relating to learning and overall school success. Teachers must be prepared to promote effective family involvement in the education of all children including those students with disabilities. Many factors can be attributed to successful outcomes for a student with a disability both in the school and the broader community. Families of children with disabilities can be one of these significant factors, yet teachers and those who prepare teachers are often ill prepared and lack essential skills and basic knowledge about the process of partnering with families …


Academic Achievement Of Hispanic Students In Orange County Public High Schools:Do Hispanic Students Have Varying Degrees Of Academic Success Based On The High School They Attend?, Lawrence Marc Fox Jan 2005

Academic Achievement Of Hispanic Students In Orange County Public High Schools:Do Hispanic Students Have Varying Degrees Of Academic Success Based On The High School They Attend?, Lawrence Marc Fox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined academic achievement levels of Hispanic high school students. Seven high schools in Orange County Public Schools in Orlando, Florida were selected. The schools were selected based on socio-economic status and demographics to provide a wide range of participation. The following are some of the purposes that guided this study: (a) to determine if there are differences in academic achievement among Hispanic high school students in each school, (b) to determine differences in academic achievement based on gender, (c) to determine differences in academic achievement based on LEP status, and (d) to determine if there is a relationship …


Regional Readiness For Intelligence Information Sharing To Support Homeland Security, Christine Genet Kemp Jan 2005

Regional Readiness For Intelligence Information Sharing To Support Homeland Security, Christine Genet Kemp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age was created to produce recommendations on how to best leverage intelligence and information to improve security without compromising existing civil liberties. Their second report proposed that the government set up an information-sharing network using currently available technology to improve our ability to prevent terrorist attacks, while protecting civil liberties. The Markle recommendations have been incorporated into the recent Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The proposition is that the Markle task force recommendations are sufficient to achieve the required data integration in the United States. To affirm …


An Inquiry Into Discourse Choices As Indicators Of Gender Attitudes In A Non-Profit Conservative Christian Business, Dawn Marie Kruger Jan 2005

An Inquiry Into Discourse Choices As Indicators Of Gender Attitudes In A Non-Profit Conservative Christian Business, Dawn Marie Kruger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper is an inquiry into the discourse styles of men and women who work together in a conservative Protestant Christian business. Many conservative Protestant Christian churches teach that the Bible forbids women from holding positions of authority over men. Yet in the communications department of this particular business, women fill the top three management positions, supervising a mixed-gender staff of 15. Research has shown that men and women subconsciously use language markers that indicate personal attitudes toward the same and the opposite genders. This research project draws on that information while it analyzes the oral and electronic discourse of …


Supplemental Instruction In A Community College Developmental Mathematics Curriculum: A Phenomenological Study Of Learning Experiences, Julie Meer Phelps Jan 2005

Supplemental Instruction In A Community College Developmental Mathematics Curriculum: A Phenomenological Study Of Learning Experiences, Julie Meer Phelps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mirroring the changing demographics of the nation, the community college student population continues to grow in size and in diversity. Almost half of all students who enter these institutions need at least one remedial course, which is often developmental mathematics. Developed in 1973, Supplemental Instruction (SI) has quickly gained recognition as an academic support program that is used to aid student performance, retention, and academic success. This dissertation used a phenomenological approach to identify factors that motivated students' attendance and subsequent learning experiences in SI sessions associated with developmental mathematics. Sources of data included five rounds of interviews (three with …


Collective Teacher Efficacy And Reading Achievement For Hispanic Students In Reading First And Non-Reading First Schools In Southwest Florida, Larry Hylemon Jan 2005

Collective Teacher Efficacy And Reading Achievement For Hispanic Students In Reading First And Non-Reading First Schools In Southwest Florida, Larry Hylemon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined explicit and systematic reading instruction for Hispanic, limited English, lower SES students in a southwest Florida school district. Additionally, collective teacher efficacy was assessed to determine if differences existed between a Reading First and a non-Reading First school. A total of 68 students participated in the study and were divided equally between a Reading First and non-Reading First school. While the Reading First school concentrated resources on grades 2 and 3, all students received some degree of Reading First strategies. Available reading measures for analyses at the time of the study included the Group Reading Assessment and …


Investigation Of The Outcomes Of Delivering Training To Spanish Speakers In Standard Spanish Versus Their Native Dialect, Mary Kosarzycki Jan 2005

Investigation Of The Outcomes Of Delivering Training To Spanish Speakers In Standard Spanish Versus Their Native Dialect, Mary Kosarzycki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study explored the outcomes of delivering training to Spanish speakers in either their native dialect or in Standard Spanish in the context of a self-running, narrated PowerPoint presentation on a health topic, "The Importance of Vaccinations." The training outcomes that were examined included learning scores; attitudes toward the training; and attitudes toward employment with organizations that employed the same or different dialect-speaking employees, supervisors, and trainers. In addition to examining the effects of ethnicity upon outcomes, this study also examined the effect of age, education level, time in the U.S., and familiarity with the locally dominant subgroup's dialect. …