Digital Commons Network^™

Effect Of Latinos In Action Peer Tutoring On Elementary Student Oral Reading Fluency Scores, Darren M. Hansen

Theses and Dissertations

The Latino population is the largest minority group in the United States, making up 16.3% of the total population. As the Latino population of the US grows, the Latino student population within schools across the nation is also growing, accounting for 10.5% of the student population. While the Latino student population continues to grow, there is evidence that this group is not achieving academically at the same rate as other groups. Latino statistics in Utah showed a similar situation within public schools. Fifty-one percent of Latino fourth graders were reading below the expected levels, compared to 22% for Caucasian students. …

English Learners' Participation In Mathematical Discourse, Lindsay Marie Merrill

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the increasing diversity of mathematics classrooms today, teachers need guidance on how to support English Learners (ELs) in mathematics classes in a way that situates language learning within mathematical activity. Unfortunately, neither mathematics education research nor EL education research is sure how to navigate the complexity of teaching ELs mathematics while supporting both their language development and their mathematical development through their participation in mathematical activity. This study examined ELs' participation in mathematical Discourse, investigating both the mathematical purposes ELs accomplished by using multiple symbol systems, and the way ELs used non-English language (NEL) symbol systems to support …

A Unit On The Family And Traditions: For Middle School Spanish Classes, Rebecca A. Proper

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project for a Master of Arts in Spanish Pedagogy consists of a four-week, ten-lesson unit on culture in the family. This unit is designed for a middle school Spanish I class and is intended to supplement Chapter 5 in the Realidades textbook in the cultural aspect of learning a foreign language. The intention is to engage students to consider cultural perspectives, or the “why” cultures do what they do. The lesson plans from the unit are based on backward design and are structured around essential questions including, “What constitutes an ideal family?” An emphasis is placed on cultural …

Automated Grammatical Tagging Of Clinical Language Samples With And Without Salt Coding, Andrea Nielson Hughes

Theses and Dissertations

Language samples are naturalistic sources of information that supersede many of the limitations found in standardized test administration. Although language samples have clinical utility, they are often time intensive. Despite the usefulness of language samples in evaluation and treatment, clinicians may not perform language sample analyses due to the necessary time commitment. Researchers have developed language sample analysis software that automates this process. Coding schemes such as that used by the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software were developed to provide more information regarding appropriate grammatical tag selection. The usefulness of SALT precoding in aiding automated grammatical tagging accuracy …

Does Caep Have It Right? An Analysis Of The Impact Of The Diversity Of Field Placements On Elementary Candidates' Teacher Performance Assessments Completed During Student Teaching, Jason Aaron Popham

Theses and Dissertations

The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) has replaced its predecessors, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) as the new sole accreditor for educator preparation in the United States. As the new accreditor, CAEP has established a new set of accreditation standards and cross-cutting themes by which it intends to measure educator preparation programs (EPPs) worthiness to received accredited status. These new standards and cross-cutting themes are untested and need to be researched in order to determine the degree to which they constitute valid and reliable measures …

Botheration And Recognition Of Prescriptive Rules, Sara D. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Passions flare up around the use and “misuse” of prescriptive rules. Where there is variation in language use, language judgment usually follows—attaching value judgment to linguistic variants forms the foundation of prescriptive ideology in English. Prescriptive attitudes prevail among speakers and writers of English, who feel some pressure to use these forms to avoid a negative judgment. This study surveyed American English speakers using Mechanical Turk to determine which types of rules—spelling, syntactic, morphological, and lexical—bother people the most and inspire the harshest judgments when violated. The surveys asked participants to identify a violated prescriptive rule in a sentence, found …

Pherc. 698 Cr. 3-4: A New Edition, Justin Asay Barney

Theses and Dissertations

The following is a new edition of PHerc. 698 cr. 3-4, including an introduction, English translation and commentary. An in-line reprint of PHerc. 19, including a new English translation, is also included for continuity of thought and language.

Establishing Normative Data For Contact Patterns Of Fricative Production By Native German Speakers: An Electropalatography Study, Lisa Diane Isaacson

Theses and Dissertations

Electropalatography (EPG) provides real-time visual biofeedback for linguapalatal contact during speech and swallowing. Historically, EPG has proved to be an effective tool for assessment and treatment of a variety of speech disorders across a wide age range. The present thesis is part of a larger study examining the effectiveness of using EPG in assisting second language (L2) learners to acquire the German fricatives , [x], and //. Real and nonsense word productions were collected from six native German speakers. Electrode activation levels were generally highest for and lowest for [x]. Even when considering the impact of vowel context, [x] consistently …

Egyptian Presidents' Speeches In Times Of Crisis: Comparative Analysis, Dina Tawfic Abdel Fattah

Theses and Dissertations

The political speech is a bridge between politicians and the public, with most politicians seek to gain the public’s support and persuade them with their policies. In the modern era, the political speech becomes a crucial tool of Presidents’ communication with the public, particularly during domestic or international strife. Previous literature highlighted the political speeches of foreign Presidents in the U.S., Indonesia, and UK, with few studies analyzed the Arab political speeches. This study fills the gap by presenting a critique of the speeches given by three Egyptian Presidents during periods of crisis. Crisis in that context refer to "events …

Reinventing The Artistic Self: Coetzee's Summertime And Matar's In The Country Of Men, Rana Mounir Elbowety

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis attempts to explore the revival of the Kunstlerroman genre in two contemporary works of autobiographical fiction: J. M. Coetzee's Summertime (2009) and Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men (2006). The two main goals are to examine how an artist (author) reveals elements that have shaped his childhood in their writing in an attempt to reinvent the self in an artistic framework, and to understand how different genres transgress their boundaries to form hybrid genres that do not conform to the norms and conventions of one specific genre. I also explore the intertwining figures of the author, narrator, …

Interests, Identity, And The Geopolitical Causes For Military Rule In Egypt., William Lamon

Theses and Dissertations

"Interests, Identity, and the Geopolitical Causes for Military Rule in Egypt." The thesis is an examination of the geopolitics of Egypt, from the Free Officers revolution in 1952, up to the present. The work analyzes the evolution of Egypt's political and economic infrastructure as subsequent military regimes simultaneously pursued state interests and managed internal discontent associated with regional identities. In the work, "identity" refers to ethnic, tribal, and religious affiliations present within populations throughout the Middle East. A population’s loyalty and identification with an alternative community complicates security dynamics in the region, as they undermine the legitimacy of governments and …

Grammatical Versus Pragmatic Awareness: The Case Of Egyptian Students In An English-Medium University, Nourhan Sorour

Theses and Dissertations

Proficiency in a second language (L2) has traditionally been linked to grammatical competence. It has been widely believed that grammaticality is the main indicator of proficiency in a second language. This limited view of L2 proficiency, however, disregards the fact that communicative competence constitutes an integral part of linguistic competence. According to Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford (1991), the development of grammatical competence in L2 usually takes place without the development of the necessary pragmatic competence. This absence of pragmatic competence is one of the major causes of communication breakdowns that may take place between proficient speakers and learners of a language. …

Tab Asta'zen Ana Ba'a: A Corpus-Based Study Of Three Discourse Markers In Egyptian Film Language, Ahmad Ismail

Theses and Dissertations

This is a corpus-based study focusing on the analysis of three highly frequent discourse markers (DMs) in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, namely ba'a, ṭayyeb, and ṭab. Based on a purposeful sample of seven Egyptian films, ba'a, ṭayyeb, and ṭab have been analyzed qualitatively using the corpus software WordSmith Tools. The analysis shows that these markers fulfill a multitude of functions and can operate (sometimes simultaneously) on discourse and interpersonal levels. Since DMs enhance discourse coherence and signal speakers’ attitudes, thus facilitating interaction, it is reasonable to expect that insufficient or incorrect use of DMs by learners of Arabic as a foreign …

Responding To Non-Stereotypical Material: A Case Study In Egypt, Amira Rashad

Theses and Dissertations

Examining the effect of exposing young children to non-stereotypical material has received an increasing amount of attention. Researchers investigated how the different sources of media that young children are exposed to affect their perceptions of gender roles and gender-related characteristics. Researchers in the Arab countries have started calling for enhancing females’ representation in children’s fiction. However, little research has been conducted with the aim of investigating how young children in the Arab countries would respond to non-stereotypical material The study examines how eight-year-old Egyptian children perceive gender roles and what kind of characteristics they employ when describing males and females. …

An Approach To Evaluating The Pedagogical Value Of Concordances In Arabic Foreign Language Classrooms: Perspectives From The Users, Ola Hashad

Theses and Dissertations

The use of electronic corpora in recent years has been widely spreading among language educators, yet they are still at their initial stages of exploring key issues relating to this approach. One way to integrate corpora in language courses is through concordances, which Baker, Hardie, and McEnery (2006) define as “a list of all the occurrences of a particular search term in a corpus, presented within the context in which they occur, usually a few words to the left and right of search term” (p.42). Despite opposing and supporting arguments on the adaptation, there is a lack of evaluative research …

Foreign Language Anxiety: Perceptions And Attitudes In The Egyptian Esl Classroom, Shaden Samir Attia

Theses and Dissertations

Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) has been extensively researched and different variables have been investigated to determine the relationship that ties FLA with these variables. Foreign Language Anxiety affects both the learning and teaching environments and some teachers are unaware of this phenomenon and the effects it has on the learning environment and more specifically on the students learning English. The literature has shown a lack of information on Egyptian teachers' and students' perceptions of FLA. For this reason, the present study investigated FLA and teachers' perceptions and awareness of its presence in the classrooms. The relationship between students' sex and …

Language Learning Beliefs And Gender Dynamics Of University Students In Egypt: An Exploratory Study, Hebatallah Abdel Aal Mohamed

Theses and Dissertations

The present study contributes to the growing body of research in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) literature on foreign language learners' beliefs about language learning. It aims at exploring students’ beliefs about language learning in an English-medium university in Cairo, Egypt and examining the gender dynamics that shape and sustain those beliefs. The study adopted a mixed-methods data collection approach, data was collected using a questionnaire and interviews. Sixty-five first year students took a modified version of Horwitz’s (1987) Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI). Nine participants were interviewed for an in-depth exploration of their language learning beliefs. The results showed …

Factors Affecting Code Switching Between Arabic And English, Rana Medhat Hafez

Theses and Dissertations

Code switching in the Arab world has been discussed extensively. This study explores different factors that affect the process of code switching between English, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic among a specific cohort. It examines how speakers position themselves and reflect their identities by using different associations of different codes in formal and informal settings. Data were collected through observations, a demographic questionnaire and interviews from eight board members at the Leo Club of Alexandria, Egypt, a charity and community service club. Five general and board meetings were recorded and transcribed in order to investigate the occurrence of …

Investor Trading Behavior: Empirical Evidence From The Egyptian Stock Exchange, Heba Mohamed Khalil

Theses and Dissertations

Using unique, intraday transactions data from Egypt, this study examines the extent to which past returns, over several intervals going back to up to six months of past returns, and the level of sophistication of the different investor types, determine the propensity of different investor groups to buy and sell. I adopted the buy ratio differences method to determine which investors adopt a momentum behavior and which investors adopt a contrarian behavior. I find that non-Arab foreign investors tend to be momentum investors, buying past winning stocks and selling past losers while domestic investors, especially individual investors, tend to exhibit …

Effects Of Point-Of-View Modeling To Teach Life Skills To Students With Cognitive Impairments, Madeline Zacharkow

Theses and Dissertations

The purposes of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of point-of-view (POV) video modeling in teaching culinary skills to elementary students with developmental and cognitive disabilities, compare when the video contains narration versus sound indicators, and to evaluate students' maintenance of gained skills without watching the video. A total of 8 students in grades 3-5 with an age range from 8-11 participated in the study. A single subject research design with ABCD phases was used in this study (Phase A baseline, Phase B and C intervention, and Phase D maintenance). Results showed that students gained skills during the intervention …

The Storm Still Echoes: Suspense And Ambivalence As A Way Of Life, Shailen Mishra

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of three interrelated components that inquire into two themes: the epistemological and aesthetic merit of narrative suspense, and the generative potential of constraint-based writing. In the opening chapter, titled "Doubt in Perpetuity: Rethinking Suspense as a Mode of Aesthetics, and an Epistemological Inquiry," I undertake a theoretical inquiry to prove that suspense can be a rich analytical device to study complex aesthetics of writers. I theorize suspense at its elemental level and from an epistemological standpoint to prove that suspense is not simply a plot-level concept of "what happens next." Instead, by analyzing particular scenes from …

Task-Switching In Bilinguals: Further Investigation Of The Bilingual Advantage, Jennifer M. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Recent research has suggested that speaking more than one language may lead to benefits across a variety of different cognitive tasks (Bialystok, Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2009). This effect has been dubbed the Bilingual Advantage. It has been suggested that this advantage relates to more the development of greater efficiency with processes involved in task-switching. The current study used a task-switching task to investigate three of these processes: reconfiguration, monitoring, and inhibitory control processes.

Monolingual and bilingual participants were presented blocks of trials in which they had to either categorize words as either abstract or concrete, or pictures as human-made …

Effects Of Explicit Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction For English Learners With Specific Learning Disabilities, Sara Lynn Jozwik

Theses and Dissertations

In this intervention study, I engaged principles of culturally responsive research to examine the effectiveness of explicit reading comprehension strategy instruction for English Learners (ELs) with specific learning disabilities (SLD). This study replicated and extended previous research (Jitendra, Hoppes, & Xin, 2000) by modifying instruction found to be effective for native English speakers (i.e., explicit reading comprehension strategy instruction with a self-monitoring procedure). Modifications included: (a) integrating culturally relevant text, (b) providing native language support, and (c) melding strategies from the fields of teaching English as a second language and special education. Through a co-teaching model, I provided instruction to …

Using Ipads In Vocabulary Instruction For Elementary English Language Learners, Rachel Janice

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine if English language learners (ELLs) would increase their vocabulary scores in the areas of word recognition, word meaning, and word application when iPads were used during vocabulary instruction. Five at risk third graders enrolled in the school's ELL program participated in the study. All students demonstrated weak English vocabulary skills in the tests during the baseline. During the intervention, 36 vocabulary words selected from the 3rd grade's Dolch word list were taught using flashcards and practiced using the iPad application: Learning Touch Sight Words Pro. All students were assessed weekly and their …

Insights And Characterization Of L1-Norm Based Sparsity Learning Of A Lexicographically Encoded Capacity Vector For The Choquet Integral, Titilope Adeola Adeyeba

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to simultaneously minimize function error and model complexity for data fusion via the Choquet integral (CI). The CI is a generator function, i.e., it is parametric and yields a wealth of aggregation operators based on the specifics of the underlying fuzzy measure. It is often the case that we desire to learn a fusion from data and the goal is to have the smallest possible sum of squared error between the trained model and a set of labels. However, we also desire to learn as “simple’’ of solutions as possible. Herein, L1-norm regularization of a lexicographically encoded …

The Effect Of The Pre-Kindergarten Program On The Reading Achievement Of African American Students, Sebrina R. Palmer

Theses and Dissertations

This study utilized the 2013 language arts data from the Mississippi Curriculum Test II to examine the impact Pre-k has on the reading achievement of low socio-economic African American students. This study was guided by one research question and employed a causal-comparative research design. The research question sought to determine the difference in MCT2 language arts scores of third grade students who participated in a school district’s Pre-k program and those who did not attend the district’s Pre-k program. The results indicated that there was a significant difference in the language arts scores of students who attended Pre-k and those …

Investigation Of Sense Of Place Effects In An Online Learning Environment, Jeanne Lambert Sumrall

Theses and Dissertations

In relation to the constructivist learning theory, understanding what a student may already know in order to use this knowledge as a scaffold for further education is imperative. The online classroom offers a unique and challenging environment for the evaluation of a student’s previous knowledge, especially in the field of geosciences where knowledge may be associated with geographic affiliation. An individual’s geological and meteorological sense of place may play an important role in evaluating a student’s previous knowledge in this field of study. To test this hypothesis, students in an online master’s program were given pre-knowledge surveys to evaluate their …

Transformative Learning Applied To The Development Of Community Capacity In A Local Grassroots Organization, Betty Sue Turner

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation assesses the impact of structural constraints to participation on residents of a rural, non-core county and members of a local grassroots organization in conjunction with the measurement of grassroots members for the presence of transformative learning. This study was motivated by three research questions: (1) To what extent may the presence of structural constraints to participation in community action activities be found in the adult residents of a rural, non-core county? (2) To what extent may the presence of structural constraints to participation in community action activities be found in members of a local grassroots organization? (3) How …

Papua New Guinea: New Approaches To Quantifying Democratic Backslide, Zachary Swain Lyford

Theses and Dissertations

What constitutes a stable democracy has consistently changed over time, with varying thresholds of democratic achievement being utilized. The definitions of a liberal democracy have remained rather broad. This allows for states to be deemed democratic rather easily through weak characteristics. However, while some states clearly begin to exhibit illiberal democratic policies, therefore missing the democratic threshold, they are able to maintain stability. What the precise causal factors to democratic backslide are, have yet to be fully realized. Academics pose a multitude of characteristics contributing to backslide. This thesis seeks to examine two of those factors: ethnic heterogeneity and state …

Absolving The Sin: Redemptive Feminine Figures In Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Wife Of Bath's Prologue" And John Milton's Paradise Lost, Rory Griffiths

Theses and Dissertations

Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton have been ceaselessly studied in isolation to one another, but undergraduate students must begin to study them in conjunction. Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” serves as social critique of medieval misogynist practices that allows students to study social practices as they study his language. Milton’s Eve in Paradise Lost reflects the religious and social instability that marked the Interregnum of the English Civil War, allowing Eve to embody the culture’s desire to return to a virtuous Church. Students will learn to examine the space of the authorial paradox, primarily the questions of authority that …