Digital Commons Network^™

Learning Practices In Chinese Character Recognition: An Analysis Of Student Outcomes And Perceptions, Xiaoyan Hu

Open Access Dissertations

Research has shown that memorizing a character by its strokes is perhaps the most difficult aspect of learning the Chinese language, particularly for beginning students. Since learners can handwrite Chinese characters without knowing the meaning or the pronunciation, emphasizing drawing the characters from the beginning is not an efficient way of learning Chinese characters. Meanwhile, character recognition, grammar pattern drills, and memorization are not enough for college Chinese language learning. Currently, there is a gap in the literature about Chinese language acquisition research from classroom contexts to naturalistic settings, from an acquisition metaphor to a participation metaphor, and from Chinese …

Non-Sovereign Poetics: Rethinking Nationalism And Independence In Puerto Rico, Martinique, And Guadeloupe, Fély Catan

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation reconsiders the notion of political sovereignty, independence and nationalism in the non-sovereign Caribbean context. I explore the ways in which writers and artists from Puerto Rico, Martinique, and Guadeloupe envision alternative epistemologies to the Western concepts of sovereignty and the nation-state. By questioning the traditional model of state sovereignty through the linguistic, aesthetic, and thematic components of their texts, plays, and visual, I argue that these artists have expressed other ways to be sovereign. This dissertation analyzes a defiant artistic production that originates in a contemporary crossroads for economic survival in a Caribbean context. I investigate how the …

Perceptual Experience And Understanding Language, Seong Oh

Open Access Dissertations

Can we literally see and hear meanings? In my dissertation, I argue first that we have a conscious understanding experience which is (1) non-inferential, (2) cognitively impenetrable, and (2) with a specific sensory modal. Under the characterization of the experience, I conclude that the experience is literally perceptual. Thereafter, I argue that this characterized understanding experience is conceptual by virtue of being a high-level perceptual experience, and then plays the role of epistemic justifier for the belief of what an utterance means just as high-level perceptual experience in general performs as a justifier for perceptual belief.

Mexicanidad Reloaded: Multiple Histories And Narratives In Contemporary Novels And Film From 1989 To 2002, Ariana Heydi Magdaleno-Yntema

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines Brianda Domecq’s new historical novel La insólita historia de la Santa de Cabora (1990), Carmen Boullosa’s origin novel Duerme (1994), and Carlos Reygadas’s auteur film Japón (2002), and studies the way these texts rearticulate Mexican history and Mexicanidad. These works reload Mexico’s history and understanding of what is to be Mexican by intersecting fiction with the historical and literary archive and by positioning marginal figures in leading roles. I define the term reload as an intentional postmodern objective in which historical constructions of the past are continually updated; to reload does not mean to deconstruct or …

Impacts Of Demographics, Symptom Presentation, And Clinical Factors On Tf-Cbt Service Utilization, Lucia M. Walsh

Open Access Dissertations

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a common trauma, but up to half of youth who demonstrate associated symptoms do not obtain treatment in a timely manner. Demographic variables have been examined to better understand service utilization patterns in CSA youth, but more complex factors (e.g., symptom profiles) remain relatively ignored. This study sought to understand the relationship between symptoms, commonly examined demographics, and service utilization in a large sample of CSA youth. Youth were ethnically and linguistically diverse, predominantly low-income, and referred for evaluation and treatment at a Child Advocacy Center. Latent profile analysis was used to create profiles of …

Examining The Role Of Varying Levels Of Classroom Quality For Toddlers In Early Head Start And Subsidized Child Care Programs: Understanding Threshold Effects, Krystal Bichay Awadalla

Open Access Dissertations

The Toddler Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS-T) is one of the most commonly used measures to assess the quality of teacher-child interactions in toddler classrooms. Cut-points on the CLASS-T scores are being used to determine Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) ratings of programs as high or low quality, and therefore have policy implications for program funding and for parent consumers. Despite widespread use of the CLASS-T for these purposes, few studies have examined the construct validity of the CLASS-T for use in Early Head Start (EHS) and subsidized child care programs serving low-income, ethnically and linguistically diverse children and …

The Occupied Strike Back: Writing Against Empire And Constructing Postmemory In Occupied Hispaniola, Elizabeth Langley

Open Access Dissertations

The Occupied Strike Back: Writing against Empire and Constructing Postmemory argues that the specter and experience of occupation have inextricably influenced the island of Hispaniola. The centenaries of the US Occupations of Haiti (1915-1934) and the Dominican Republic (1916-1924), which took place in 2015 and 2016, serve as a mnemonic point of departure for this work. Using a comparative approach, this manuscript analyzes narratives in French, Spanish, English, and some Haitian Creole that contribute(d) to a project of resistance against US occupation and intervention over time—spanning the early twentieth century to the early twenty-first century. It further avers that these …

Teachers’ Experiences In Serving Late-Entering Central American Refugees With Limited Or Interrupted Formal Education, Kristin W. Kibler

Open Access Dissertations

The overarching purpose of this study was to fill a gap in the academic literature not only by shedding light on the experiences and perceptions of teachers of late-entering Central American students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE), all of whom teach in segregated, high-poverty, under-resourced, urban high schools, but in looking at what works in those challenging contexts. Therefore, the research questions asked what the teachers’ experiences have been in serving the focal students, what challenges the teachers have faced and how they have addressed them, how they effectively leveraged the focal students’ strengths and languaging practices in …

“Estamos Buscando Acorns!”: Examining Dual Language Learning Head Start Children’S Conceptual Science Knowledge Across Languages, Brooke Rumper

Open Access Dissertations

Children from low-income homes are at risk for an academic achievement gap that spans the domains of language, math, and science. Latino Dual Language Learning (DLL) children are disproportionately more likely to come from low-income homes than their peers, making them more likely to face additional risks to their academic achievement. Science has recently been recognized on a national level as an area of importance for early childhood education. Science is a key content area for DLL children because it provides opportunities to learn vocabulary through hands-on activities, develop social-emotional skills, engage in critical-thinking, and problem-solving. High quality early science …

The Effects Of Cognitively Guided Instruction (Cgi) On The Use Of Representational Modeling By First And Second Grade English Language Learners (Ells) During Individualized Assessments Of Arithmetic Word Problem Solving., Edwing A. Medina

Open Access Dissertations

Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) is a professional development framework that informs participating teachers regarding research-based knowledge of elementary arithmetic-problem types and children’s developmental strategies for solving them. A classroom taught led by CGI participants includes one where heterogeneous learners (including English Language Learners, ELLs) are using and discussing representational systems and modeling tools (such as base-10 blocks, snap cubes, fingers, and verbal narratives) as part of the collaborative whole-class and small group problem solving process. This exploratory study investigated the effects of classroom instruction by CGI teachers on ELLs’ use of representational systems as they independently solved arithmetic word problems. …

Offensive Uses Of Language: Slurring And Synecdochical Utterances, Amanda Mcmullen

Open Access Dissertations

Be advised that some offensive language is mentioned in the following abstract. ‘That woman’s a dyke’. ‘She’s a piece of ass’. The former utterance is an example of a slurring utterance, and the latter is an instance of an utterance that I call a Synecdochical Utterance Targeting Women (SUTW). A synecdochical utterance targeting women is one in which an anatomical part term is predicated of a woman. What these utterances have in common is that, in many contexts in which either is uttered, the speaker does something at least alienating, if not disrespectful or worse. I argue, in this dissertation, …

Metaphysical Grounding And Property Theory, Wei Huang

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to offer an account of metaphysical grounding based on property theory. In Chapter 1, I explain the motivation behind the project. In Chapter 2, I propose a property theory, and argue that true real definition statements show property constitution. In Chapter 3, I relate true grounding claims with true factive real definition statements. This suggests that defining metaphysical grounding in terms of property constitution and property instantiation might be promising. To carry out the project, I define the notion of determinant assignment on the basis of the property theory proposed in Chapter 2. Then, …

Interval-Based Uncertainty Modeling, Analysis And Design Optimization Of Structural And Mechanical Systems, Mashhour Ahmad Alazwari

Open Access Dissertations

Most engineering systems involve several uncertain or imprecise parameters such as geometric dimensions (due to tolerances), material constants such as yield strength, Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio and external actions such as gust, earthquake and other dynamic loads. These input uncertainties cause the output or response of the system also to be uncertain. If approximate deterministic values of the basic input parameters are used in the analysis of structural/mechanical systems, the high accuracy and reliability expected of these systems cannot be assured. This indicates that, for more reliable performance and to meet the stringent design requirements of practical systems, the …

Voices From The Borderlands: The Experiences Of Latina Women Who Have Sex With Women (Wsw), Zamira Castro

Open Access Dissertations

This study sought to contribute to psychological understandings of Latina women who have sex with women (WSW) via a qualitative, phenomenological inquiry. Grounded in a feminist, intersectional framework, this study followed Smith and Osborn’s (2015) interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to gain a better understanding of what it means to be a Latina WSW and how this experience is influenced by multiple stressors related to racial, ethnic, and sexual identity. Interviews were conducted with 13 participants and subsequently analyzed using Smith and Osborn’s (2015) guidelines for interpretation, thematic labeling, and narrative synthesis. Emergent themes characterizing participants’ experiences as Latina WSW were …

Leoš Janácek: The Theory Of Speech Melody In His Piano Sonata 1.X.1905 And In The Mists., Mirette Hanna

Open Access Dissertations

Janáček’s fascination with the intonation of speech started at an early age, and it accompanied him throughout his life. The study outlines elements of speech found in Janáček’s two piano works: the piano sonata “1. X. 1905” and the piano cycle “In the Mists” based on comparing and drawing parallels between his speech melody snippets that he collected during his lifetime with a number of motifs and techniques he employed in those studied works. This parallelizing process also relies on Janáček’s written articles, interviews and essays, as well as on research conducted on his operas and vocal works. Their importance …

Data From Non-Musical Material As Spectral Compositional Resources, As Utilized In The Orchestral Work, Hello Universe, Anruo Cheng

Open Access Dissertations

Hello Universe is a chamber orchestra piece in three movements: “One Small Step for Man”, “Ad astra”, and “Hello Universe.” It was inspired by and celebrates the decades of humanity’s exploration of the universe since the first US Apollo 11 mission landed on the Moon in 1969. The topics of the three movements are: humankind’s first moon landing; the sounds of outer space; and communication between humanity and extraterrestrial lifeforms. My compositional process includes raw material collection, non- musical data mining, translation from non-musical data to musical materials, and applying those materials in orchestral music composition. In this work, I …

Practicing Translingualism: Faculty Conceptions And Practices, Adrienne Jones Daly

Open Access Dissertations

Translingualism (Horner, Lu, Royster, & Trimbur, 2011; Sugiharto, 2015) has received increasing interest in recent years as a way of recognizing and valuing students’ linguistic diversity and of pushing back against language ideology that can disenfranchise minority groups. Composition scholarship has taken on the task of understanding how to implement the translingual paradigm in the writing classroom and has examined the importance of an openness to language difference in reading practices (Gallagher & Noonan, 2017; Horner, 2017) and assessment practices (Kraemer Sohan, 2014; Dryer & Mitchell, 2017) and at translanguaging, or code-meshing, in student writing (Canagarajah, 2011; Lu; Bommarito & …

Can Asl-Gloss Be Used As An Instructional Tool To Teach Written English To The Deaf?, Emma S. Rathkey

Open Access Dissertations

This study addressed the use of ASL-gloss as a potential method for improving reading ability and comprehension for those with profound deafness through the use of the Gray Silent Reading Test (GRST). ASL-gloss can be described as a written form of American Sign Language. Research suggests that on average, individuals who are deaf are reading at about a third- to fifth-grade level. Presently, there is limited research on the effects of using ASL-gloss with students who are deaf. Participants (n = 31) self-reported as having a profound hearing loss, used ASL as their primary or preferred language, and were over …

Tourism And Justice On Catalina Island: Burdens, Power, And Decision-Making, Katherine Canfield

Open Access Dissertations

The uneven distribution of the benefits and burdens of tourism development is creating an experience of social injustice for residents today on tourism-dependent Catalina Island, off the coast of California. While there is a great breadth of work covering archaeology and ecology of the island, there is minimal research related to recent human experience on the island (Higgins & Mehta, 2018; Hofmeister & Voss, 2017; Teeter et al., 2013). The island has been developed as a privately owned and managed tourism resort since 1880, and this private status has allowed for fluctuating involvement of island residents in decision-making and prolonged …

Charmed Modernisms: Fantasies Of Sociality And Difference In Twentieth-Century British And American Literature, Kara Watts

Open Access Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine what mobilized the simultaneous discourses of charm and anti-charm rhetoric in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British and American modernist literature. Charm moves through texts as a trojan horse of sorts, ostensibly supporting normative ideologies of the social order while its use actually imagines sociopolitical transformation. I look to Oscar Wilde’s works to assess how charm possesses an aesthetic magic that bonds persons across normative time and social stratification. Charm becomes an experimental force of social form in the early decades of the twentieth-century. In the works of Gertrude Stein and Sylvia Townsend Warner, charm’s …

Augmentative And Alternative Communication Systems For Students With Disabilities: A Case Study Of Four Students And Their Communication Team, Angela Palazini

Open Access Dissertations

A qualitative methodology was used to investigate the perceptions of four students and their communication team members regarding many facets of augmentative and alternative communication systems. A multiple case study design with cases across three academic levels within a public school district was implemented. Information was gathered through semi-structured interviews, document review, and observations. Four themes emerged from the data: “They told us about it” (Laurette), “Give our kids relationships” (Elizabeth), team approach, and working with AAC. Participants described their experience in regards to decision-making, ideal function, training, usage, maintenance, benefits, and challenges. Participants expressed a lack of choice when …

A Critical Examination Of Rhode Island Speech-Language Pathologists Working Under Federal And State Education Policy, Patricia J. Murtagh

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the discourse of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working in Rhode Island public schools under restrictive policy. The research questions were partly informed from a 2015 pilot study surrounding comments about a state education rule that SLPs named the nine-year rule.

In that 2015 survey, many SLPs working in RI public schools had negatively charged comments about that rule because it required SLPs to terminate speech services for students with only speech sound disorders at the age of nine. Because of the risks associated for these students, this study was value mediated. Using a …

Navigating Internal And External Borderlands: The Experience Of Emergent Bilingual Cape Verdean Middle School Students, Abigale E. Jansen

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this grounded theory research study was to better understand the experiences of emergent bilingual Cape Verdean Middle School students as they navigate internal and external borderlands. This study was conducted in an urban middle school in New England. Nine female, emergent bilingual Cape Verdean middle school students, participated in this study. This study was also completed with the assistance of the school district’s middle school language acquisition coach. The participants contributed to student surveys, focus group discussions, participant observations and member checking. All data was analyzed using coding and grounded theory, which lead to the development of …

“There Is No Racism In Cuba”: A Field Study Of The “Post-Race” Rhetoric Of Modern Cuba, Clarissa J. Walker

Open Access Dissertations

Claims of racelessness in present-day Cuba conflate identities and generate public discourse that misalign with the social realities of black Cubans on the island. Decolonial and critical race theorists argue the necessity of racial-identity language: Unconfronted race-based injustice and unproblematized whiteness are among the unaddressed issues concretized by racial democracy rhetoric. The aim of this qualitative study is to investigate the collective narrative of modern-day Cuban interviewees to determine their epistemological knowledge and current uses for the rhetorics of racelessness; further, the study tracks the island’s century-old rhetorical practices designed to sustain erasure of race rhetoric in Cuba. This work …

To Be Continued: Seriality In New Media, Ryan Engley

Open Access Dissertations

Seriality has maintained a pervasive presence across media for over a century. Despite widespread critical and popular interest into seriality and serial texts, very few book-length theories of seriality have been attempted. Though uncommented upon critically, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan have both offered insights into seriality that this dissertation puts in dialogue with serial media texts. My dissertation begins in the Victorian era with Freud’s encounter with serial fiction through Charles Dickens. I then turn to looking at new media texts such as the “Twitterature” of Jennifer Egan and Joshua Clover, the first season of Sarah Koenig’s and WEBZ-Chicago’s …

Alexa Or Alex? Gendered Technology’S Influence On Consumer Judgments, Jiyoon An

Open Access Dissertations

This research attempts to examine when technological products are seen as a gendered agent rather than an object. Based on a review of the literature on consumer- technology relationship and social cognition theory, this research addresses the conditions for gendering of technology, its process and outcomes by using multi-method empirical studies. The stereotype model tests the mediating and moderating hypotheses regarding gendering and its effects on consumer judgments. The disruption model attempts to disrupt the stereotyped gender effects by using a counter-stereotypical gendered cue. The research provides theoretical, managerial, and public policy insights.

Developing An Online Computational Thinking Instrument For Elementary Students, Guanhua Chen

Open Access Dissertations

This study is part of a larger design study that iteratively improves a robotics programming curriculum as well as a computational thinking (CT) instrument. Its focus was majorly on CT assessment and particularly on an online CT instrument with logging functionality that can store a student's problem-solving process by recording interactions between a test-taker and the items with timestamps. The purposes of this research were to examine the psychometric properties of an online CT instrument, test if significant improvement in CT could be found by 200 5th graders who took a robotics programming course and the CT instrument as pretest …

A Comparative Analysis Of Techniques Of Euphonium And Vocal Performance Using Acoustical Properties, Brian Logan

Open Access Dissertations

After researching that many brass pedagogy texts make allusions to vocal performance as the ideal standard, this essay observed the ability of the euphonium performer to create different articulation sounds. Comparisons between voice and brass articulations were made. The effectiveness was determined by comparing pertinent acoustical components of brass methods to that of a single vocalist. To begin, this study catalogued preeminent suggested techniques for performing brass articulation found in method, pedagogy, magazine, and personal memoire texts. These techniques were collected into a list and given to a euphonium player subject from the University of Miami. In an anechoic chamber, …

Novel Methods For Reasoning With Uncertain Hard And Soft Data Using Probabilistic And Belief Theoretic Methods, Rafael Camilo Nunez Sanchez

Open Access Dissertations

Effectively combining multiple and complementary sources of information is becoming one of the most promising paths for increased accuracy and more detailed analysis in numerous applications. Neuroscience, business analytics, military intelligence, and sociology are among the areas that could significantly benefit from properly processing diverse data sources. However, traditional methods for combining multiple sources of information are based on slow or impractical methods that rely either on vast amounts of manual processing or on suboptimal representations of data. Moreover, most of the existing methods are not well suited for dealing with the increasing amount of human-generated data. We introduce an …

Shifting Masculinities From North Africa: In Yasmina Khadra, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Mohamed Leftah And Abdellah Taïa’S Fictions, Melyssa Haffaf

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation concentrates on four texts by Maghrebian writers, published between the late 1990s to the 2000s, and explores the ways in which their fictional narratives portray, articulate and challenge the dominant discourse on masculinity in postcolonial North Africa. The four novels are the following: Wolf Dreams (1999) by Yasmina Khadra, Leaving Tangier (2006) by Tahar Ben Jelloun, An Arab Melancholia (2008) by Abdellah Taïa and Le dernier combat du Captain Ni’mat (2011) by Mohamed Leftah. I demonstrate that despite a strong influence of hegemonic models of masculinity promoted and cultivated during and after the decolonization processes, the masculinities presented …