Digital Commons Network^™

The Effectiveness Of Electronic Discussions On Foreign Language Anxiety Levels Of Adult Egyptian Efl Learners, Dina Amr Abul Magd

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effect of electronic discussions on adult Egyptian EFL learners’ Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) levels. It also aims at investigating learners’ perceptions of FLA and the effectiveness of e-discussions with regards to reducing their FLA. Finally, the current study attempts to look into the effect of gender on FLA. For this purpose, a total of 45 learners participated in a pre- and post-online discussion intervention. Students completed the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) before and after involvement in the online discussion. Observations also took place before and after the online intervention. Finally, eight participants were interviewed …

The Interface Of Politeness Strategies And Power Relations In Disagreements Among Egyptian Students, Hend Tarek Bakry

Theses and Dissertations

Disagreement is generally done in opposition to a speaker's claim, in an educational context it can be defined as a student's verbal or non-verbal opposition to classmates' or the teacher's stance that emerge through different instructional and non-instructional situations. The purpose of the study is to qualitatively examine Egyptian undergraduates' disagreements with participants of different power relations in EFL classrooms from a politeness theory perspective. The study introduces Egyptian EFL classrooms as a new context for studying the interface of power and politeness in disagreements in general and for exploring the impact of other variables such as context, social distance …

Managing Multi-Cultural Engineering Teams In Egypt, Rania Joseph Busada

Theses and Dissertations

The exercise of project management altered drastically over the past two decades and is currently driven by the growing demand of standardizing the industry’s practice and the emerging globalization of the industry. According to the literature review, one of the obstacles facing the development of the engineering teams in both developed and developing countries is the poor performances of multi-located and multi-cultural teams. The literature review reflects on the influences of the culture complexity and social diversity on the multi-cultural team’s performances. There have been a number of empirical studies that focus on the performances of the effectiveness of these …

Foster Care In Egypt: A Study Of Policies, Laws, And Practice., Samar Mohamed Ali

Theses and Dissertations

Foster care in Egypt is regulated by Ministry of Social Solidarity according to detailed procedures of the child law no 126 for the year 1996 and its amendments of the year 2008. The system combines features of western foster care as well as adoption with the guidelines of Islamic Kafalah system. Children who are deprived from parental care for any reason are eligible to enter the foster care system. This qualitative study analyses the child law against the UN guidelines on alternative care to identify legislative and procedural gaps. It also analyses the current field practices of how placement of …

Individualism And Sensitivity Of Investment To Stock Prices: Evidence From Emerging Markets, Ayatallah Mohamed Amin

Theses and Dissertations

Chui et al. (2010) argue that cultures with high levels of individualism are defined by overconfidence and self-attribution bias. Markus and Kitayama (1991) and Heine et al. (1999) note that these biases lead to less efficient stock prices with excess volatility. Foucault and Frésard (2012) show that sensitivity of investment to stock prices is an increasing function of informativeness of stock prices. They argue that sensitivity of investment to stock prices increase because value-maximizing managers are forced to use all available information to forecast the cash flows of their capital allocation decisions. They argue that information revealed via informative stock …

The Visualization And Representation Of Gender In Egyptian Comics, What Is The Fuss All About?, Sara Hany Shaker Rizkallah

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates gender visualization in Egyptian comics published in 2011 and afterwards, focusing on three main themes: the veil, violence against women, and the role played by women during post-revolutionary Egypt. The three main comics utilized in this study are: TokTok magazine, Al-Shakmgia, and Qahera. The main purpose of the study is to examine whether these three comics re-inscribe or challenge the stereotyped gender representation of women in the previously mentioned themes. By examining these three comics, this thesis argues that the binary conception of gender is no longer based on stereotypes of men and women, of masculinity and …

Rhetoric: Spoken Discourse, A Systematic Appeal For Reasoning "Pathos", Marwa M. Adel Farid

Theses and Dissertations

The tekhnē of spoken discourse is a critical tool for particular communications and is a substantial means to transform good knowledge . It is an objective tekhnē with an ergon, which is man-made. As such, it may be implemented for political, religious, social or educational purposes. Thus, understanding the implications of spoken discourse and establishing a shared understanding between the rhētōr and his listeners is not just an option in this context. On the contrary, both elements are the mind/soul/heart of the discourse. For what is the value of a discourse if its implications and representations are not well perceived …

Delivering The Parent-Implemented Communication Strategies ( Pics ) Intervention Using Distance Training And Coaching With A Father And His Child Who Is Hard Of Hearing, Marc Daczewitz

Theses and Dissertations

Many children with disabilities (i.e., deaf/hard of hearing; DHH) experience language delays (Sarant, Holt, Dowell, Rickards, & Blamey, 2009). Parents of children who are DHH can mediate their children's language delays with responsive communication (Guralnick, 2011; Pressman, Pipp-Siegel, & Yoshinaga-Itano, 1999; Warren & Brady, 2007). This study is a partial replication of the Parent-Implemented Communication Strategies (PiCS) Project (Meadan, Angell, Stoner, & Daczewitz, 2014). The PiCS project was implemented with 11 parents and their children with various disabilities (e.g., Down syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder). These parents were trained and coached to use naturalistic teaching strategies (i.e., environmental arrangement, modeling, mand-model, …

How A Secondary School As An Organization Defines And Embeds The Term College Readiness, Michele Critelli

Theses and Dissertations

With the many reforms and initiatives regarding college readiness, understanding how organizations use rhetoric to determine and define what college readiness is and what it looks like can either reinforce dominant institutional structures and practices, or create new definitions and understanding leading to institutional change. Through a rhetorical framework (Alvesson, 1993), members of an organization are not only conformists but also strategic agents who through the use of rhetoric construct and shape knowledge and institutional life. A case study was conducted of one secondary high school that included administrators and teachers who work within the context of college readiness. Through …

Age Related Decline In Memory: Examining The Mediation Effect Of Processing, Executive Functioning And Intelligence In Normal Adults, Jada J. Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

Multiple mediation analyses that collectively examine the prominent theories of cognitive aging (i.e., Common Cause, Processing, and Executive Decline Hypotheses) along with other cognitive domains that are sensitive to aging are rare. Moreover, having identified that cognition begins to decline as early as 30 years old, few studies have examined the mechanisms that underlie memory change among younger aging individuals. As a result, it is unclear whether relevant mediating variables have been excluded from early research on age-related memory decline, or to what extent rehabilitative strategies are applicable as early interventions for maintaining cognitive functioning into late life.

The present …

The Impact Of Singing-Integrated Reading Instruction On The Oral Reading Fluency And Motivation Of Elementary Students In An Out-Of-School Time Program, Yvette M. Moorehead-Carter

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of singing-integrated reading instruction on the oral reading fluency and motivation of elementary students in an after school program. Participants were third graders (n = 29) who attended the singing-integrated oral reading fluency (SI ORF) intervention twice a week for eight weeks. Components of the intervention included teacher-modeling of fluent oral reading, oral support, repeated reading and singing activities from a variety of children’s literature, and individual free-time.

The adapted Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS; McKenna & Kear, 1990) measured recreational, academic, and composite reading attitudes. The Qualitative Reading …

Assessing Lgbtq Youth Cultural Competency In Direct-Care Behavioral Health Workers: Development And Validation Of A Measure., Megan E. Gandy

Theses and Dissertations

Direct-care workers can provide an array of service types to children, adolescents, and their families in behavioral health treatment. They may also work in a variety of settings (e.g., group homes, inpatient units/hospitals, residential treatment, treatment foster care, day treatment, in-home treatment, etc.). Direct-care workers typically are involved in the supervision of youth and in the implementation of a treatment plan developed by the youth’s treatment team. For youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) and are receiving behavioral health services, such workers form a critical part of their therapeutic experience. However, …

Non-Reified Space: Henry James's Critique Of Capitalism Through Abstractness And Ambiguity, Elizabeth Aileen Barnum

Theses and Dissertations

Despite Henry James’s reputation as a novelist of upper class manners, many critics have argued that his work also contains well-grounded criticism of capitalism and consumer culture. An even larger number of writers have analyzed James’s idiosyncratic style, characterized by ambiguity and abstractness. Where these two analytic approaches overlap, the area examined in this dissertation, James makes a deeper critique of capitalism’s redefinition of human purpose and its reification of the human mind and consciousness. James suggests, through his ambiguous and abstract language, that open-ended language which rejects concrete and conceptual meaning can gesture toward a space in which people …

Historical Violence And Modernist Form In Zoe Wicomb's David's Story, Kaelie Rianne Giffel

Theses and Dissertations

The essay brings together Zoe Wicomb’s David’s Story with Walter Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History” and (less centrally) Julia Kristeva’s work on “Women’s Time.” I argue that, while Derek Attridge claims that the novel’s modernism emerges from its interrogation of historical crisis, David’s Story is modernist because of its experimentation with nonlinear narrative and an engagement with modern intertexts such as Heart of Darkness and Ulysses. Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History” illuminates the structure of Wicomb’s novel, which creates what Benjamin calls a “constellation” of stories that are non-causally yet historically related to each other. …

Psycholinguistics In Fluency Disorders: Prearticulatory Speech Planning In Stuttering And Cluttering, Emily O’Dell Garnett

Theses and Dissertations

The Covert Repair Hypothesis (CRH) is an account for speech errors in normally fluent speakers, and also hypothesizes errors in the phonological encoding stage in people who stutter (PWS). Previous research has shown that PWS exhibit poorer performance compared to typically fluent adults (TFA) on linguistic tasks designed to tap into the level of phonological encoding, such as phoneme monitoring. Stuttering and cluttering often co-occur, thus the field can benefit from extending this methodology to study people who clutter (PWC). Experiment 1 in Chapter 2 used phoneme monitoring to study phonological encoding in PWS and PWC, with three conclusions: (1) …

Female Representations In Contemporary Postmodern War Novels Of Spain And The United States: Women As Tools Of Modern Catharsis In The Works Of Javier Cercas And Tim O'Brien, Joseph P. Weil

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, the notion of women being used as tools of modern catharsis is explored through the comparative analysis of the Spanish novel Soldiers of Salamis (2001) by Javier Cercas, and the American novel The Things They Carried (1990) by Tim O’Brien. The two novels, separated by linguistic and national traditions, and personal choices by each author, will both be evaluated for their unique postmodern treatments of war, memory, and verisimilitude. Expanding from this base and through an application of feminist theory, the female representations—which are partly crafted by an unconscious masculine language—will be deconstructed for their intended and …

Comic Art And Humor In The Workplace: An Exploratory Study ...Zzzzzz, Kella Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This study is a qualitative, exploratory examination of the phenomena of humor in the workplace. The purpose is to derive a better understanding of how real people enact humor in the workplace by examining the humor depicted by and through fictional characters in comic art. The body of work of cartoonist, Scott Adams, was the primary source of data. The study relies on what the imaginary characters of Dilbert find absurd, funny, and ridiculous about an imaginary workplace, the employee-employer relationship, the content of the characters' jobs, or in the social relationships of fictional characters. It involves analyzing specific cultural …

Building Home-School Partnerships With Parents Of English Language Learners In A High School Community: A Mixed Methods Phenomenlogical Study Of One High School In Southern California, Lisa Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine home-school partnerships practices between the high school community and English Language Learner (ELL) parents. More specifically, this study examined the experiences and benefits, if any, of ELL parents who participated in 1 or more of the following four ELL parent engagement practices implemented at 1 high school in Southern California during the 2009-2012 school years: 1. ELAC Parent education meetings 2. ELL Parent Handbook 3. ELL Parent Orientation Day 4. ELL Guidance Counselor The convergent parallel mixed methods design allowed for qualitative data of parent interviews and quantitative data of …

Practices That Promote Parent Engagement In An Urban Elementary School: A Phenomenological Study Of Latino Parents Of English Language Learners, Maria M. Morales-Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

From 2007-2012 at Hubble Elementary School, located in Southern California, there has been a consistent population of approximately 50% English Language Learners (ELLs). Parents of the ELL students present a challenge because schools have a hard time engaging them in school activities and in the decision-making processes. The purpose of this phenomenological study was twofold: (a) to explore the perception of Latino parents of ELLs regarding the concept of parent engagement and (b) to examine the best practices related to parent engagement and major barriers that prevented them from being active participants in school activities and decision making processes at …

Overcoming The Barriers: Success Stories Of English Learners In A U.S. High School, Robbie Wedeen

Theses and Dissertations

A disproportionate number of high school dropouts are Latino immigrant students with emergent English language skills. Statistically, students that meet these demographic characteristics are more likely to drop out of high school before receiving their diploma. Thus, these same students will then enter the workforce ill equipped for job advancement or the requirements of postsecondary education. A set of negative experiences, referred to as the process of marginalization, may occur in high school, leaving these students alienated and less confident of success than their English-speaking peers. This study used a qualitative research method approach to investigate the factors that lead …

Assessment And Diagnosis Of Autism Spectrum Disorder In Latino Children, Gesenia S. Sloan-Peña

Theses and Dissertations

There is an increase in the number of children who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. However, significant racial and ethnic disparities exist in the diagnosis and treatment of the disorder. Based on the literature, Latino children appear to be under diagnosed or misdiagnosed with other psychological disorders rather than autism spectrum disorder. In addition, Latino children are typically diagnosed at a later age than their White peers. There is almost no research devoted to the assessment of autism spectrum disorder with young Latino children and there is insufficient research related to cultural perceptions of symptoms which can influence parental …

On The Validity And Reliability Of The Computerized Memory Interference Test For Primary Spanish-Speaking Individuals, Reneh Karamians

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, the Computerized Memory Interference Test (CMIT), a derivative of the Picture Memory Interference Test (PMIT) was assessed for reliability, validity and internal consistency with a primary Spanish-speaking sample. Five hypotheses were formulated and tested. For the first hypothesis correlational studies assessing relationships between the CMIT scores and those of the WMS-III, Visual Reproduction subtests were used to establish convergent validity. Hypotheses two and three, produced correlational studies to assess relationships between the CMIT scores and those of the RAVLT and WAIS-III Block Design, Vocabulary and Matrix Resonating subtests. To test the fourth hypothesis, known-group methods were used …

Examination Of Cultural Intelligence Within Law Firm Librarians In The United States : A Mixed Methods Study, Michele A. L. Villagran

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the research is to explore the cultural intelligence (CQ) of law firm librarians in the United States. This dissertation is motivated by three research questions: (a) What is the overall level of CQ of participating law firm librarians? (b) What variations among participating law firm librarians, if any, exist among the four capabilities of CQ?; and (c) What viewpoints do the librarians have about the value and importance of CQ within their law firms? This research contributes to the limited amount of empirical literature on CQ. Officially defined in early 2000s, the CQ framework is what guides …

Redefining Synchronous Learning For The 21st Century: A Descriptive Case Study To Examine Multi-Channel Synchronous Online Communication And Critical Thinking, Mary Wegner

Theses and Dissertations

Students in the 21st century seek connection with each other through synchronous online avenues, yet the education community does not embrace the use of synchronous online tools within the formal process of schooling. This creates a disconnect between the way that students learn outside of school and the way that they are schooled. In addition to matching the communication patterns of students, synchronous online tools provide opportunities for participants to communicate using a number of channels (audio, text, and interactive media) within a single communication environment. An important and useful perspective in this regard is to view the multi-channel environment …

The Role Of The Chief Executive Officer: Unlocking The Full Potential Of Women Leaders, Pamela A. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research study examined the role of the chief executive officer (CEO) in achieving an inclusive environment, specifically reviewing the messaging and actions of the CEO and how they impact executive women. Data were gathered from 15 executive women through interviews with predetermined, semi-structured questions. This study provides evidence that CEOs can create an inclusive environment by instilling an atmosphere of mutual respect, openly listening and valuing diverse perspectives, and encouraging healthy dialogue and debate. Internal competition, an imbalance of power, and perceived bias on the part of the CEO hindered participants from feeling like equal partners in the …

Apology As A Leadership Behavior: A Meta-Analysis With Implications For Organizational Leaders, Matthew W. Brubaker

Theses and Dissertations

Leaders are frequently called to apologize on behalf of their organizations, in some cases skillfully resolving episodes of failure while meeting the unique, competing needs of diverse stakeholders. However, too often leaders handle apology poorly, exacerbating tense situations and alienating key constituents. This study is an examination of the practice of apology as a leadership behavior in an organizational context. To answer the question, How might the existing literatures on apology be examined, integrated and refocused to apply specifically to leaders operating within an organizational context? the study provides a meta-analysis of the diverse literatures that address the practice of …

Southern California Small Business Leaders And Emotional Intelligence: Exploring Perceptions Of Effect And Value In The Workplace, Steven P. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Although they represent 99.7% of all employers in the American domestic workforce, the annual failure rate of small businesses is alarming. Given this high failure rate, research is needed to better understand the characteristics of leaders who create and sustain success in small businesses. The two-part purpose of this sequential, explanatory mixed-methods study was to (a) measure the emotional intelligence of small business leaders in Southern California and (b) explore the leaders’ perceptions of the effect and value of EI in the workplace. Following the collection of quantitative data using an online version of the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence …

Detection Of Traumatic Brain Injury With The Picture Memory Interference Test In College Students, Bryce Erich

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine potential effects of head-injury on individuals’ performance on the Picture Memory Interference Test (PMIT). This study examined differences in the performance of college-aged students with and without a history of head-injury on the PMIT. Data was drawn from an archival dataset of PMIT completions held at UCLA and analyzed with permission. From the total dataset of 12,227 completions, experimental groups were derived and separated based upon assumed severity of head-injury, based upon self-report data. Following exclusions, the final data sub-set for analysis consisted of 6,897 unique completions of the PMIT. Of these, …

A Study Of High-Performing At-Risk High School Students And Their Perceptions On Academic Success And Achievement, Charles H. Pak

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to explore and describe the school factors experienced by students at an alternative high school with an independent study program and a 90% CASHEE passage rate and to identify those factors, if any, that students perceived as contributing to their improved academic performance. The school factors included: the nature and quality of the school learning environment, learning experiences, program interventions, and the independent study program. This study was guided by the following 5 research questions: 1. How do students who have been enrolled at SMHS for at least 1 year and who …

Opening Doors: A Collective Case Study Of Integrating Technology In The Preschool Through 3rd Grade Classroom In A Developmentally Appropriate Way, Amy Louise Cox Cameron

Theses and Dissertations

Children today are growing up in a technology-saturated world and yet early childhood teachers do not typically include technology in their classrooms, or if they do, they include it inappropriately. The literature states that integrating technology in early education can yield many benefits, but many teachers of young children avoid using technology because they do not know how to incorporate it appropriately. This dissertation is an exploratory observational study of early childhood teachers (preschool through third grade) who integrate technology in their programs in developmentally appropriate ways. This study involved three classroom teachers who were identified as model teachers at …