Digital Commons Network^™

Nasals And Nasalization In Yoruba-Ijebu Dialect, Khadijat Olakintan Abdulrazaq

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis focuses on how nasals behave in Yoruba-Ijebu Dialect (YID); YID is one of the dialects of the Yoruba language spoken in Nigeria. The main findings of the thesis are in two parts. The first part discusses local nasalization spreading in a YID CV syllable (sequence of a consonant and a vowel). Three local nasalization spreading rules (simplified to two), which are (i) Nasal spreading from an inherent nasal consonant to an adjacent oral vowel, (ii) Nasal spreading from an inherent nasal vowel to an adjacent sonorant consonant, (iii) Oral (-Nas) spreading from an obstruent to adjacent nasal vowels …

Encouraging Equity Through Rural Elementary Professional Learning, Jana K. Stone

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study employed design-based research to explore the efficacy of professional learning materials and approaches in developing social justice advocacy with rural elementary teachers in Appalachia. Bronfenbrenner’s (2005) bioecological theory and Boler’s (1999) pedagogy of discomfort formed the theoretical framework for the design, implementation, and analysis. Mid-way through the study, Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis was included to inform the revision of intervention approaches. Four elementary teachers attended seven in-person informational discussion meetings over five months. During this time, these teachers also read two books and completed journal responses and surveys. The qualitative data was analyzed using Braun and Clark’s (2006) …

Analysis Of Mutations In Protein Kinase Ck2 Linked To Okur-Chung’S Neuropathy, Shivani Maan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The studies described here focus on mutations in protein kinase CK2 linked to ‘Okur-Chung’s Neuropathy’ (OCN), a neurodevelopmental disorder that involves 10 distinct mutations in the catalytic subunit CK2α. It has, however, remained unresolved if these mutations impair CK2α activity or if they also impair association with the regulatory CK2β subunit, which is necessary for assembly of the α2β2 holoenzyme. I describe efforts to resolve these questions for two mutations, Y50S and D175G. The former is thought to reside at the CK2α-CK2β interface, whereas the latter is located proximal to the active site. I therefore hypothesized that Y50S should perturb …

Gender Inclusivity In Italian: Can Gender Neutrality Be Reached In A Gendered Language? Difficulties, Proposals And Public Perception Of The Phenomenon, Gaia Prunotto

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Italian is a gendered language in which reference to grammatical gender has been constant and inevitable. As language reflects and shapes society, grammatical gender reinforces binary views of social gender and the invizibilization of non-binary identities. Movements for social justice have inspired gender-fair linguistic innovations, such as the feminization of job titles and gender-neutral markers, to promote gender equity and challenge hierarchies of power and dominance in society. This research aimed to explore gender-neutral forms in the Italian grammatical system and public perceptions of these innovations through two studies with two groups of participants.

The first group of participants (n=27) …

Intercultural Competence In The Esl Classroom: Challenges And Successes, Breno Santos Rodrigues Pereira

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This action-based research study investigated the challenges and successes involved in the teaching of intercultural competence in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. Most studies on intercultural competence take place in English as a foreign language classroom, and very few are centered on ESL instruction. It is this gap in the research that motivated the present study, in which the following research questions were posed: 1) How do targeted training practices in the classroom promote the development of intercultural competence as demonstrated by quantitative data?; 2) What challenges are associated with teaching intercultural competence to ESL learners?; 3) …

Analysis And Performance Of Osvaldo Golijov’S Hebreische Milonga, Gerardo Sanchez Pastrana

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov is one of the most important and well-recognized composers of the 21^st century. His works are unique because of the diverse mixing of styles due to the interculturalism present in his music. In the program notes of his Hebreische Milonga, Golijov mentions that this piece can connect his Argentinian and Jewish roots as well as the influence of Astor Piazzolla’s music. In addition, there is a connection between the tango and the Jewish people residing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that is not addressed frequently when discussing the history of the tango. This research begins …

Influences On Perceptions Of Students With Disabilities Regarding Services And Supports Rendered At Their Collegiate Institution, Taylor Leanne Mikalik

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Over the past several generations numerous policies and laws have been established that have allowed people with disabilities to further their education. Students with disabilities enter higher education with varied experiences, which allow for a wide array of perceptions of the services and supports provided on this level. The purpose of this dissertation was to study what these perceptions are and how these perceptions were formed; in hopes to encourage more students with disabilities to self-disclose and access beneficial services in the future. A semi-structured narrative interview was conducted with 8 students willing to self-disclose and who received services and …

“Building The Roots”: A Delphi Study Examining The Aims Of A Multicultural Competency Graduate Course In Sport And Exercise Psychology, Matthew Paul Gonzalez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Historically, opportunities to develop cultural competency in sport and exercise psychology graduate programs have been limited (Lee, 2015). Recently, major sport psychology organizations across the world have started to require cultural competency in their credentialing requirements. While this represents progress, these requirements can be met with a single course, which falls below the ideal of integrated cultural competency education (Martens et al., 2000). The present study investigated how to maximize the quality of a single course by coming to agreement on a proposed set of impactful and feasible learning outcomes and assessments in that proposed single course related to cultural …

A Longitudinal Study Of Factors That Affect User Interactions With Social Media And Email Spam, Wojciech M. Mazurek

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Given the rapid growth of social media and the increasing prevalence of spam, it is crucial to understand users’ interactions with unsolicited content to develop effective countermeasures against spam. This thesis focuses on exploring the factors that influence users’ decisions to interact with spam on social media and email. It builds upon prior work, which serves as a foundation for further research and conducting a longitudinal analysis. Our results are based on the analysis of 221 responses collected through an online survey. The survey not only gathered demographic information such as age, gender, and race but also collected data on …

The Everyday Work-Lives Of Public Librarians In A Diverse Us City, Mariam Jalalifard

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation is situated within the context of the author's personal experience as a librarian of color and educator, exploring the dissonance between the perceived value of their role and their own understanding of its worth. The study aims to bring to light the processes that shape the experiences of female librarians, particularly those who are women of color. The research is informed by Institutional Ethnography (IE) and Narrative Analysis, which focus on the everyday lived experiences of people as the research problematic, and progress through layers to uncover how external power structures influence daily life. Five active female and …

Epistemological Insecurity In The Anthropocene, Dustin Purvis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation analyzes how increased mainstream awareness of climate change and other complex environmental phenomena transforms some of the basic tools we use to understand the world, including notions of agency, evidence, and causality. More specifically, this project highlights numerous contemporary literary and cultural narratives that formally and thematically depict impromptu systems of action and comprehension developed by humans confronting the unique forms of information overload that result from damaged and rapidly changing environments. Following critics like Ulrich Beck, Rob Nixon, and Stacy Alaimo, I suggest our current era of ecological instability and destructive environmental practices dictate what I refer …

Organizing (Eternal) Identity And Identification: An Upward Glance Into Religious Institutions, Casey M. Stratton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation disrupts at least two religious spaces: First, scholars religiously adhering to (social) scientific norms, and second, people identifying with religious organizations (i.e., churches). First, we begin constructing a theoretical lens using poststructural ideas offered by Foucault, Derrida, and Bakhtin to read and disrupt (religious) discourse. Second, we complicate organizational identification as a concept, deeming it fixed and fluid—a paradox within religious discourses that endorse Truth and Perfection. Here, we draw from the communication constitutes organization (CCO) approach. Third, we further curate the lens by applying poststructuralism, identification, and CCO in a specific context: The Church of Jesus Christ …

Enabling Cybersecure And Resilient Smart Distribution Grid With Edge Devices, Partha Sarathi Sarker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The smart distribution grid achieves enhanced efficiency and flexibility through the utilization of advanced communication infrastructure, digital devices, and robust computation and control capabilities. Grid-edge devices including distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar photovoltaics (PV), battery storage systems, and intelligent electric loads like electric vehicles and smart appliances, are contributing to the growth of the smart distribution grid. This evolution is transforming the grid into a multifaceted network of interconnected devices and systems, enabling bidirectional data communication and power flows. However, these new layers of data integration and control in the smart grid introduce vulnerabilities to cyberattacks and accidental failures, …

Challenges And Solutions For Native Mandarin-Chinese Speakers In Singing German Lieder, Fei Xia

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

ABSTRACT Challenges and Solutions for Native Mandarin-Chinese Speakers in Singing German Lieder Fei Xia The purpose of this research is to focus on the challenges faced by Mandarin-Chinese speaking singers singing German Lieder, as well as providing these singers with solutions for overcoming these difficulties. Singing art songs such as French Mélodies and German Lieder can greatly improve singers’ artistic and aesthetic values because of the beauty of the poetry and the language. However, it is very difficult for native Mandarin- Chinese speakers to sing German Lieder. Some of the primary difficulties faced by Mandarin-Chinese-speaking singers are German diction and …

“I’Ll Tell You No Lies”: An Exploration Of Trauma, Memory, And Violence Against Women In North Carolina Murder Ballads, Madison Ava Helman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation explores trauma, memory and violence against women in Western North Carolina murder ballads “Tom Dooley,” “Poor Omie Wise,” “Poor Ellen Smith,” “The Ballad of the Lawson Family,” and “Frankie Silver.” I posit that these ballads were influenced by prescriptive societal conceptions of femininity, which in turn influenced societal ideations of violence against women. Using folklore performance theory, I analyze the text and context of these ballads and their subsequent histories, eventually arriving at a template for polyvocality that incorporates multiple ballad variants and encourages diverse performances.

What Gives? Leveraging Marketing Knowledge To Increase Consumers’ Charitable Giving, Caitlin Michael

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Marketing plays a central role in nonprofit organizations that compete for the donations of individual consumers to achieve their respective missions. To this end, marketing researchers and practitioners have devoted much attention to the antecedents of charitable giving and ways in which solicitations may be made more effective and efficient. This gives rise to the questions: “What has the field learned?” and, relatedly, “What novel effects have not yet been explored?” Within this dissertation, three essays address these questions through the use of multiple methodologies.

The first essay seeks to outline what the marketing field has learned about consumers’ charitable …

Tesol And Feminist Pedagogy: The Application Of Feminist Pedagogy In Esl Versus Efl Settings, Emil Asanov

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Feminist pedagogy, which emerged in the United States in the 1980s, is an-anti oppressive pedagogy that invites students to build community, fosters an inclusive learning environment for everyone to succeed and lead, and encourages power sharing among and between students and teachers. With feminism spreading and varying across the world, feminist pedagogy advertently or inadvertently manifests itself in the work of some English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers. Feminist pedagogy has received popularity in English classrooms all over the world, which is evidenced by increasing research on the topic (e.g., Vandrick, 1994, …

Sacramental Ethnicity: Women’S Culture And Vernacular Religion In Twentieth-Century America, Aaron J. Rovan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This project examines the reciprocal and evolving relationship between American women’s culture, vernacular religion, and the social development of American ethnicity. This project focuses on the roles of white ethnic women, both literary and real, in the construction, maintenance, and transmission of ethnic identity. The project highlights the connections between the folkloric performances of vernacular religion and the discursive articulation of ethnicity by focusing on two women writers and two groups of Slovak American women. The fiction of Kate Chopin and Anzia Yezierska illustrates how literary authors bring their contemporary concepts of folklore into their writing. The writings of these …

Investigating The Marketing Language Among Online Retailers Of Violin Strings To Determine The Implied Aesthetic, Kira Kay Browning

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The aim of this research is to determine if language in the advertising of violin strings is acting as an exclusionary tool in favor of a Western art music “sound” produced by “classical” violinists. It posits that the marketing of strings to violinists is a topic laden with unacknowledged biases and values of musicians within Western art music. The aesthetic values attached to playing Western art music for the violin in the United States are passed on through pedagogic practice and acculturation of language. Product descriptions for strings in the United States employ language which adheres to these cultural values …

Appalachian Broadcast News Coverage Of The Coronavirus: A Content Analysis Of Media Framing In The Midst Of A Health Crisis, Jensen M. Mills

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Media framing of broadcast news is more than identifying an issue, but rather interpreting and explaining the issue for others to better understand. Previous framing scholarship in broadcast news, as well as COVID-19 specifically, has focused mostly on national or international news, so this research explores broadcast coverage from a local perspective in a rural location. During the health crisis of COVID-19, the specific use of media frames can impact how people made sense of the pandemic. Through a content analysis of 165 newscast scripts from five different local news stations in Appalachia, this study contributes to the understanding of …

Learning Mathematics While Black In Rural Appalachia: Black Students' Counterstories And Freedom Dreams About Mathematics Education, Sean P. Freeland

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation aims to illuminate and uncover the experiences of Black students’ learning mathematics in rural Appalachia and specifically West Virginia. The focal theory for this study is Critical Race Theory (CRT) which centers the experience of Black students and their voices. The intersection of race, mathematics education, and the context of rural Appalachia contribute to the analysis of these experiences in specific ways. Participants for this study included six Black high school students from various communities throughout West Virginia. Through interviews and mathematical autobiographies, these students shared their experiences learning mathematics across their schooling experiences and also considering their …

Clitic Doubling: The Case Of Nariño Andean Spanish, Jessica Paola Jurado Eraso

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis examines the behavior of clitic doubling in Nariñense, a little-studied Andean Spanish variety spoken in the southwest of Colombia, and compares it to well-studied varieties such as standard Peninsular, Rioplatense, and other Andean Spanish varieties. Its aim is to present novel data about clitic doubling in order to shed more light into the extensive literature about this phenomenon in Spanish. Through spontaneous speech recordings obtained from thirty native speakers of Nariñense, 133 sentences involving clitic doubling were analyzed. Features such as agreement matching between the clitic and the doubled NP, use of the preposition a to introduce the …

Beyond What's Missing: Silence In Women-Authored Novels From Wollstonecraft To Shelley, Kelli Wilhelm

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation responds to and intends to subvert binary interpretations of silence, particularly women’s silences, as representing either submission or resistance to oppressive institutions and societal expectations. I examine five women-authored novels from British Romanticism. The first half of this dissertation focuses on three radical works of the 1790s, Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman, Mary Hays’s The Victim of Prejudice, and Charlotte Smith's The Old Manor House. The second half discusses two well-known early nineteenth-century novels, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). Through examinations of these novels, I discuss how silence functions …

The Effects Of Script Therapy In A Patient With Old Chronic Aphasia, Busra Ensar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

There are some gaps in the literature regarding the efficacy of script therapy in patients with chronic aphasia, particularly chronic aphasia that lasts for several years post-onset, in terms of treatments to improve functional communication during daily activities. This study investigates the relationship between script therapy and communication effectiveness and communicative efficiency. In this context, communication effectiveness was measured by the percent script correct, and communicative efficiency was measured by the total duration to produce the script and the mean duration of pauses at the beginning of sentences.

The efficacy of intensive script training on discourse effectiveness and efficiency was …

Multimodal Adversarial Learning, Uche Osahor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNN) have proven to be an exceptional tool for object recognition, generative modelling, and multi-modal learning in various computer vision applications. However, recent findings have shown that such state-of-the-art models can be easily deceived by inserting slight imperceptible perturbations to key pixels in the input. A good target detection systems can accurately identify targets by localizing their coordinates on the input image of interest. This is ideally achieved by labeling each pixel in an image as a background or a potential target pixel. However, prior research still confirms that such state of the art targets models …

Reckoning With Privilege In Appalachia And Higher Education: A Project Of Critical Consciousness, Sarah Powell

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation sought to interrogate the ways in which White, rural students from West Virginia conceptualized diversity before, during, and since their transition to a large PWI in their home state. Using Critical Whiteness Studies and intersectionality as driving theory, student participants and I engaged in deconstruction of privilege through individual and culture circle conversations. Then, participants engaged in self-reflection using codes established in Critical Whiteness (White normativity, White complicity, epistemologies of ignorance) as well as participant-drive codes that reflected other forms of identity-based power. Three waves of reflection demonstrate the participants’ continued cycle of praxis (reflection, action, repeat) and …

Borderlands And Mestiza Consciousness In Appalachia: Latina Undergraduate Experiences In A Predominantly White Institution, Susana Mazuelas Quirce

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This qualitative phenomenological study explores the experiences of eight undergraduate Latinas in a Predominantly White Institution in the Appalachian region using Gloria Anzaldúa’s insights on Borderlands and Mestiza consciousness. A vast majority of the studies focused on the Latinx college student population that takes place in states and tertiary institutions with a dense concentration of Latinx population, leaving rural areas—especially the Appalachian region— unexplored. There is, as well, a scarcity of studies in research focused on four-year-degree-granting institutions in which Latinx are highly underrepresented. A substantial number of studies continue presenting Latinx students as a homogenous group despite their heterogeneity …

Representation Of Muslims In Time Magazine: A Corpus Linguistic Study, Constantia Rhinehart

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis sought to explore the representation of Muslims in US-American

Press. In order to do this, the Time Magazine Corpus was used to observe words that collocate with the word “Muslim” in Time Magazine. The frequency of the word “Muslim” was observed for each decade and coded to determine the semantic prosody of each token. The 1960s-2006 were observed in order to provide a more comprehensive view of Muslim representation in Western media and how this representation has changed over time. The majority of collocations were considered to be neutral, however, a large number of collocations were considered …

“The Illusion Of Collaboration”: An Integrated Examination Of The Antecedents, Processes, And Consequences Of Online Group Work, Jill Cathleen Woods

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) presents postsecondary educators with a conundrum: how to design and support small-group activities without stifling deep and meaningful learning. The literature indicates that students are not consistently practicing higher-order cognitive activities, educators are not reliably designing or facilitating them, and/or researchers are not locating or identifying them where they are occurring. The aim of this dissertation is to explore these deficits by identifying the antecedent conditions that most affect collaboration. Specifically, I answer the question, how do learner’s prior knowledge, characteristics, and experiences manifest in their collaborative processes. Addressing a gap in the literature, this study …

Knowledge And Training In Language Sample Analysis Of Us Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Students, Allegra Cornaglia

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Purpose: Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) play an integral role in identification and treatment of developmental language disorders (DLD). Best practices include the use of language sample analysis (LSA) as part of a comprehensive evaluation. However, LSA requires a specific set of foundational morphological and syntactic knowledge. Previous studies have shown a knowledge gap for both SLPs and SLP graduate students for other areas of morphosyntax and phonology. This study examined the language analysis skills of current SLP graduate students on a test of Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) analysis and Clausal Density (CD) and whether there were possible factors associated with …