Digital Commons Network^™

Improving Vocabulary Outcomes Through Language Resources: A Single Case Design Of First Grade Emergent Bilinguals Engaged In Literacy Intervention, Brooke S, Coté

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While there is a strong literature base demonstrating the importance of early literacy interventions for monolingual learners at-risk for reading difficulties, little research exists on how to effectively support the literacy needs and language assets of emergent bilinguals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of an evidence-based reading intervention with a translanguaging component, on vocabulary outcomes for first grade emergent bilinguals. By utilizing an alternating treatment single case design with two conditions, this project aimed to address the following research questions: Is there a functional relationship between an evidence-based reading intervention with a translanguaging component compared …

Regardless, ‘I’ And ‘You’: Lessons From Black Feminist Literature, Jasmine Veronica Sauceda

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple from a Black feminist perspective to demonstrate oneness as capacious being. This project explores an I-You dialogue that works toward future-making through the notion of regardless, an idea from Walker’s definition of Womanist, deployed through sustained engagement with Kevin Quashie’s notion of oneness. Thus, this work extrapolates lessons found in the selected texts to demonstrate what it means to embody a capaciousness of being and how this then fosters healing in the face of trauma. In so doing, …

Opportunities And Challenges For Rural Educators: A Mixed Methods Study Of Emergent Bilingual Studies In Rural Colorado, Andrea Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over nine million students in the United States attend school in rural school districts, with a growing percentage of these students identified as emergent bilingual. The purpose of this study is to examine the national emergent bilingual literacy trends and to determine how the opportunities and challenges that rural educators encounter, impact emergent bilingual education in rural schools. Utilizing a theoretical framework of culturally sustaining practices and funds of knowledge, this study uses a convergent mixed methods design to answer the following research questions: What are the national trends in emergent bilingual reading test scores? What opportunities and challenges do …

Twice-Exceptional Identification And Identity Formation: A Mixed Methods Study, Robin Goldin Tobin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research study examined the parent perceptions of and relationships among intellectual potential, academic achievement, and the order of identification of exceptionality for twice-exceptional students. Twice-exceptional students exhibit both giftedness and a learning disability or difference. Consistently and equitably identifying and serving twice-exceptional students is a persistent problem of practice in the field of education (Artiles et al., 2010; Gentry et al., 2019; List & Dykeman, 2019; Moon & Reis, 2004; Webb et al., 2019). This study was supported by a community partner, a private educational testing and advocacy agency in a Western state.

This mixed methods study utilized a …

"How It Was Made", Bethany Fitts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a meta-autoethnography describing the researcher’s unfocused, rhizomatic research process throughout the COVID19 pandemic. Themes explored are the COVID19 pandemic, family, death, climate change, queer love, represenation, academia, genre, and religion. The study shows how multiple scales of grief arise during the research process. I locate this method within postcolonial theory of autoethnography that seeks to diversify structures within the academic genre.

Repetition And Retracing In Aphasia Across Discourse Types, Emily Anna Culbertson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: Fluency is an important criterion to classify subtypes of aphasia. Previous studies have discussed the factors of fluency using various speech-language aspects. However, limited research investigated how much lexical hesitations (i.e., repetitions and retraces) are produced in people with aphasia. Lexical hesitations are important indicators of word finding difficulty and self-error detection skills which may be mediated by cognitive-linguistic demands across different discourse tasks. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the lexical hesitations production in people with fluent and non-fluent aphasia compared to neurologically intact adults in various discourse tasks.Method: Three groups of people with fluent …

Linguistic Landscape-Economics, Marta Galindo Parra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is the result of studies in two fields, the linguistic landscape (LL) and the economics of language (EL), and the relationship between them. In particular, this study concentrates on: (1) the analysis of the language used in public signs in two specific areas in the southern U.S., Ybor City and West Tampa, both located in the City of Tampa, Florida; and (2) the evaluation of the language skills and labor market performance of the agency involved in the public signs. The literature review focuses on the theories and methodologies more commonly used in previous LL research and language …

The Role Of Technology: Graduate Students' Experiences In An Ed.D. Program, Veronica C. Crawford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study contributes to our understanding of online learning in a graduate program – the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) – designed to prepare practitioners to impact their local contexts, practices, and communities. Online learning is one of the fastest-growing trends in the instructional use of technology (Means, Toyama, Murphy, & Baki, 2013; Nguyen, 2015). However, the literature is scant on how graduate students learn in technology-rich environments. This study aimed to explore how graduate students perceive the online learning environment in an Ed.D. program at a public, not-for-profit research institution in the United States. Unequivocally, online education is ubiquitous. However, …

Linguistic Expressions Of Pidgin In Nigerian Stand-Up Comedy, Jimoh Junior Braimoh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of the comics’ lexical choices and how they achieve their goals with words. The comics’ choice of words is far from being incidental, superficial, or supplementary. Performers’ choices of words show how their ideas are embodied in language. That is to say, the effect of how a comedian uses words and humor strategies is vital for understanding the contextual meaning of jokes and how they appeal to logic and reason. The objectives are to identify and categorize lexical choices and interpret their denotative, connotative, and affective meanings. Based on the Incongruity Theory (Attardo, 1994) Data …

Domestic Lives Of The Worthless And Insignificant: Land And Labor In Eighteenth-Century British Literature, Mellissa Black

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Domestic Lives posits that the proliferation of the georgic mode in selected eighteenth-century works provided writers with the language and tropes needed to negotiate burgeoning stresses on the stability of political, cultural, and class systems. In my reading of the georgic as a “gentrifying” force, the mode generates and recreates a managerial authority over the productive potential of what I call the “laboring sort,” those who are rooted in agricultural labor. In turn, the georgic aided the expansion of the British empire by allowing for the expansion of definitions of national identity. As national identity was gentrified, so too was …

Karaites & Reformers: Two Failed Cases Of Coherent Interpretation, Menashe Chaim Roberts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are two groups which claim that proper textual interpretation does not require extratextual information. They posit that the meaning of texts is discoverable from the words of the text and/or an individual's reason alone. Thus, no extratextual information is required to arrive at a cogent and coherent interpretation. The medieval Karaites reject the notion that there is any such thing as interpretive precedent and everyone's interpretation, when guided by reason, is as valid and coherent as anyone else's. Early Protestant Reformers such as John Calvin and Martin Luther argue that all one needs to interpret the Bible is the …

The Perception And Strategies Of Speech-Language Pathologists In Rapport Building With People With Aphasia Via Tele-Practice: Qualitative And Quantitative Mixed Design, Emily Hershberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Tele-practice has become an important service delivery method, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic. A majority of research investigated effectiveness in therapeutic outcomes among children and adolescents, while tele-practice studies among people with aphasia were relatively limited. Rapport building may present more challenges in tele-practice compared to in-person services, yet no study compared it across the two therapy delivery approaches among people with aphasia.

Method: This current study conducted interviews regarding how rapport building is affected in tele-practice from speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who have experienced both in-person and tele-practice among people with aphasia. Nine SLPs were interviewed about their perceptions …

"The Wild Asleep": A Cultural And Environmental History Of Ramps, Catherine Jessee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ramps, wild onions, or allium tricoccum are a variety of spring ephemeral, or a flowering plant that emerges for a brief period every spring. In working through stereotypical ideas about Appalachian regional identity, I interpret the environmental history of this plant. Incorporating memory, oral histories, and folklore, this thesis complicates wider conceptions of home, community, and boundary. Tapping into an archive of ramps knowledge as it is created, I ask, what can the future of ramps tell us about place, space, and belonging?

Building Cultural Competence In Schools Through Teacher Capacity, Latonya R. Robinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand the dynamics of how teaching culturally responsive strategies to teachers can help eliminate the opportunity gap between students of color and their White counterparts. The action research method involved first collecting quantitative data through several surveys and then explaining the quantitative results with in- depth qualitative data through interviews and professional learning communities. In the first phase of the study, the culturally responsive and teacher efficacy scale data was collected from the participants within the study and the district at large. While the district survey was not mandated, it was strongly encouraged. …

Metaphors In Language Learning And Teaching: Discovering The Underlying Factors Affecting Demotivation In Anglophone Learners Of Modern Foreign Languages, Holly Sallah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In response to increased levels of demotivation in anglophone students of modern foreignlanguages, this thesis attempted to discover potential underlying causes through the use of metaphor elicitation directed at tertiary learners in the United States of America. Students were asked to metaphorize both the language learning process and the role of the language teacher. Afterwards, a qualitative metaphor analysis revealed that participants were overwhelmingly positive in respect to the role of the language teacher, but more mixed in their metaphors regarding the language learning process, with high frequency words such as “work” and “skill”. Contrary to the literature, the role …

Perceptions Of English Learner Support Provided By K-12 Leaders To Educators In Mississippi, Ladonna Thomas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The demographic of public schools in America is continuously changing. According to the United States Department of Education (USDE), the English learner population increased in over 25 states from the 2009-2010 school year to the 2014-2015 school year (USDE, 2017). In 2014-15, there were more than 4,800,000 English learners enrolled in schools, accounting for 10% of the total student population (USDE, 2017). With this shifting demographic, educators must be prepared to meet the needs of EL students.

The purpose of this study is to examine educators and instructional leaders’ perceptions of EL instructional support and to highlight the need for …

Transforming Place: The Socio-Environmental Afterlives Of Tellico, Cheyenne Bennett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis assesses the socio-environmental afterlives of the Tellico Dam controversy that affected citizens of Loudon, Blount, and Monroe Counties in East Tennessee. The central goal is to understand the impacts that development-induced displacement and resettlement had on communities following dam construction. The people from the aforementioned counties witnessed the landscape transform from one that had an abundance of farmland to an area where the farmland is diminished due to the creation of the dam, the reservoir, and the waterfront properties that surround the reservoir. This project analyzes these post-Tellico Dam impacts in terms of waterfront property development, gentrification, land …

Speech Fluency Changes Following Deep Brain Stimulation Of The Subthalamic Nucleus In Parkinson’S Disease: A Meta-Analysis, Emily Morphis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: Speech fluency changes following deep brain stimulation are one aspect that is crucial to consider when exploring treatments for Parkinson’s disease. Deep brain stimulation, specifically of the subthalamic nucleus, has been linked to a decrease in speech fluency despite improved bodily motor control. This acquired dysfluency is referred to as “neurogenic stuttering.” The purpose of the current study is to determine the incidence and severity of speech fluency decline following deep brain stimulation in patients with Parkinson’s disease. A meta-analysis was conducted with 7 studies (239 subjects) that recorded changes in speech fluency. All studies used a quantitative assessment, …

The Impact Of Ethnicity Within The Field Of Speech-Language Pathology, Maliah Wilkinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The estimated racial/ethnic diversity within the field of speech-language pathology is considered to be less than 10% despite population trends predicting that over half of the United States’ population will be identified as a racial/ethnic minority by 2044 (Projections of the Size and Composition of the U.S. Population: 2014 to 2060, 2014). The limited diversity is likely to be coupled with inclusion and equity barriers in higher education (i.e., barriers related to financial and educational demographics, graduate school preparedness/support, etc.). In the field of speech language pathology, little is known about the impact of these challenges experienced by students from …

Sentiment Without Sentiment Analysis: Using The Recommendation Outcome Of Steam Game Reviews As Sentiment Predictor, Anqi Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents and explores a novel way to determine the sentiment of a Steam game review based on the predicted recommendation of the review, testing different regression models on a combination of Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) features. A dataset of Steam game reviews extracted from the Programming games genre consisting of 21 games along with other significant features such as the number of helpful likes on the recommendation, number of hours played, and others. Based on the features, they are grouped into three datasets: 1) either having keyword features only, 2) keyword features …

Equity Battles: Multicultural Leadership For English Language Learner Students, Alfredo Pargas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this study was to increase teachers’ and school leaders’ capacity and awareness to be better multicultural leaders for English Language Learner (ELL) students. This study produced several recommendations to address this issue. During this study, I used improvement science as the methodology and included a variety of stakeholders as participants. The conceptual framework used to guide this study included community cultural wealth and funds of knowledge. Using both the voices of ELL families and the input of the school equity team, which includes teachers and a school leader, we collaboratively created a six-stage intervention program to increase …

Making The Invisible Visible: Redefining Giftedness To Include Ell Students’ Community Cultural Wealth And Funds Of Knowledge, Molly I. Pargas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study used improvement science methods to investigate a problem of practice surrounding the underrepresentation of ELL students in GT programming. This research addressed how teachers define giftedness using their underlying knowledge frameworks. The researcher conducted empathy interviews with parents of ELL students and a team of teachers to determine what the underlying issues are regarding the underrepresentation of ELL students in GT. The parent empathy interviews were coded using the combined conceptual framework of community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) and funds of knowledge (Moll et al, 1992). Through this process the types of capital and funds of knowledge were …

Policymaker Discourse In Colorado Public Higher Education Appropriations, Nathan Willers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

State funding for higher education is one of the most pressing issues facing both institutions and policymakers in 2022. Colorado has seen significant declines in the amount of state funding per student over the past two decades, resulting in increases in student burdens for tuition. Policy discourse analysis through a poststructural and neoliberal lens provided insight towards the legislative process and the discursive themes utilized by Colorado policymakers during the 2021-22 legislative budgeting cycle. Twelve artifacts were analyzed, including a mix of policy briefs, hearings, and budget and appropriations reports, for discursive data related to the state’s appropriations for public …

Heavenly Clothing Liturgically Worn: The Clothing Metaphor In The Book Of Revelation As Exegetically Performed In The Byzantine Liturgical Rite, Elias Issa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Problem

The subject of these hermeneutical and performative approaches to the biblical texts and the liturgical dimensions and metaphors in the Book of Revelation are of particular interest to this dissertation, whose ultimate goal is to ask how the Byzantine rites, as practiced in the Orthodox Church, actualize the liturgical dimensions of the Book of the Revelation. The question will focus on a case study of the clothing metaphor as used in Revelation and related apocalyptic texts.

Method

The question of this dissertation is framed within this context of the liturgical performative exegesis. The question will be approached in its …

Culturally Therapeutic Approaches To Prejudice And Discrimination: Formulations, Interventions, And Structural Change, Jayme J. Jenkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Aims. Though psychologists are generally well-positioned to implement micro- and macro-level interventions from their roles as clinicians, educators, researchers, and consultants, there is a paucity of formal guidance on how to approach client-generated or structural prejudice and discrimination. The current study addresses this literature gap by integrating previous literature and implementation models from a related field toward a novel treatment approach.

Background. A critical literature review supported intervention-focused conceptualizations of “supremacism” and demonstrated that mutually reinforcing micro- and macro-level discrimination generates demographic disparities in safety, liberty, and well-being. This typically emerges in the United States as White supremacist heteropatriarchy while …

Philosophical Anthropology And Biblical Interpretation In John Paul Ii’S Theology Of The Body, Shawn Conoboy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the Theology of the Body, through a series of Wednesday Catecheses, John Paul II presents a magisterial understanding of the sacrament of marriage and of marriage and family ethics. At the same time, John Paul II presents a theological anthropology, which forms a basis for the magisterial teaching. His theological anthropology is developed through an exegesis of selected biblical texts, especially Genesis 1-3 and Ephesians 5, and through an application of a philosophical anthropology articulated by Karol Wojtyła. This dissertation draws the connection between the philosophical anthropology of Wojtyła, especially as it is articulated in his major works, …

Counselors Dumbfounded: Implications For Counseling Ethics, Ivan Irizarry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How counselors should make ethical decisions frequently differs from how counselors actually make ethical decisions, which is often a non-linear process. Social Intuitionist Theory (Haidt, 2003) suggests this process entails a socially influenced intuitive judgment followed by post hoc rationale. The purpose of this study was to examine whether moral dumbfounding, which entails maintaining a moral judgment without supporting reason, occurs with practicing counselors. The results of survey data and open-ended coding showed that 58.5% of counselors were dumbfounded at least once when presented with four moral or ethical vignettes. Additional analyses exploring differences in dilemma-based vs. non-counseling vignettes, moral …

Does Speech-To-Text Assistive Technology Paired With Graphic Organizers Improve The Written Expression Of Students With Traumatic Brain Injuries?, Kayla Cuifolo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can range from mild to severe and can cause debilitating outcomes that require children to need specialized medical or educational services post-injury. Outcomes vary and are dependent on the location of injury, age, severity, and environmental factors. Some common deficits that happen as a result of a brain injury are fine motor and executive functioning skill difficulties. Fine motor and executive functioning skills are an important component of written expression. Therefore, this current study utilized a brief experimental analysis in order to determine the effects that speech-to-text assistive technology along with a graphic organizer has …

A Public Health Ethics Approach To Substance Use Disorder, Adele Flaherty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of the dissertation is to undertake an analysis of substance use disorders that focuses on a public health ethics perspective. The ethical argument focuses upon justifying the use of harm reduction and is primarily concerned with the current opioid crisis. While substance abuse/misuse over the course of history has been identified as a public health concern, this dissertation presents substance use disorders over the course of the lifespan, examining various contexts in which it can affect daily living and health outcomes. It achieves this by analyzing substance use disorders through the lens of the socioecological model of public …

The Journey Towards Critical Self-Authorship For Native Lacrosse Athletes At Ncaa Division I Institutions., Brandon C. Joseph

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an examination of contemporary collegiate lacrosse as a symptom of settler colonialism and the experiences of Native lacrosse athletes at NCAA Division I historically white institutions. It begins with a brief historical overview of Native lacrosse and Native education through a lens of settler colonial theory and Tribal Critical Race Theory. It uses Critical Indigenous Research Methods to examine the experiences of contemporary Native collegiate lacrosse players and their journey towards critical self-authorship. The ultimate goal was to explore the extent to which Native lacrosse athletes felt they could show up as their authentic Native self in …