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Visual Form And A Typology Of Purpose: A Peircean-Based Approach To Visual Information Design Pedagogy, Christina Laraine Perkins Rosenquist Jun 2012

Visual Form And A Typology Of Purpose: A Peircean-Based Approach To Visual Information Design Pedagogy, Christina Laraine Perkins Rosenquist

Theses and Dissertations

Visual information design is a vital part of modern communication. Currently discussion is occurring in most disciplines to determine more effective ways to incorporate visual information design into all their communication, including website and document design. These discussions typically focus on elements of traditional graphic design that tell the student what is "good" graphic design; however, traditional graphic design depends on trial and error, luck, and best practices, with only rare attempts to construct general principles. Selection of visual elements is usually based on designer preference rather than any consistent conceptual framework or empirical support for design decisions. Another approach …

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Greening The Market: The Development And Effect Of Environmental Terms On Consumer Perception Of Products, Jae Parker Heiner Jun 2012

Greening The Market: The Development And Effect Of Environmental Terms On Consumer Perception Of Products, Jae Parker Heiner

Theses and Dissertations

History, discourse analysis, and corpus linguistics show the green movement (humankind's response to issues affecting the environment) to have proliferated both ecological ideologies and the linguistic tools to discuss them, (R. J. Alexander, 2002; Bang, Døør, Steffensen, & Nash, 2007; Carvalho, 2007; Mahlberg, 2007; Wang, 2009) showing the development of green or environmental language in the lexicon. The topic has also left its mark on the market, and green market research has shown effects of messages on perceptions of green brands (Phau & Ong, 2007) and profiles of m (J. A. Roberts, 1996). However , surprisingly little research has been …

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A Study In Computerized Translation Testing (Ctt) For The Arabic Language, Amanda J. Kuhn Jun 2012

A Study In Computerized Translation Testing (Ctt) For The Arabic Language, Amanda J. Kuhn

Theses and Dissertations

Translation quality assessment remains pertinent in both translation theory and in the industry. Specifically, the process of assessing a target document's quality or a person's translation competence involves a lot of time and money on the part of various governments, organizations and individuals. In response to this issue, this project builds on the ongoing research of Hague et al. (2012), who seek to determine the capabilities of a computerized translation test for the French-to-English and Spanish-to-English language pairs. Specifically, Hague et al. (2012) question whether a good score on a detect-and-correct style computerized translation test that is calculated by a …

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Using An Internet Learning Profile To Create Customized Plans, Beth Lynne Jun 2012

Using An Internet Learning Profile To Create Customized Plans, Beth Lynne

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop an Internet Learning Profile for eighth grade students based upon Gardner's Multiple Intelligences and to use the results to develop customized lesson plan activities for each profile that can be incorporated into existing curriculum. Another purpose of this study was to discover if students who are considered more literate (via NJ ASK language arts literacy scores) are immersed in the use of online social networking, role play/interactive gaming online, blogs, discussion boards, online classes, video websites, search engines, paint or animation applications, etc. I used a Multiple Intelligences Scale (Chislett & Chapman, …

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Social Circles Of Children With Language Impairment, Erin Whitworth Jun 2012

Social Circles Of Children With Language Impairment, Erin Whitworth

Theses and Dissertations

Children with language impairment (LI) often demonstrate difficulties in social communication. The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the quantity and quality of the social interactions of children with LI and their typical peers through an analysis of the social networks or circles of each child. Eight children with LI as well as eight children with typically developing language and their parents were interviewed. Children's social networks were organized by social circles to effectively paint a picture of each child's social communication (Blackstone & Hunt Berg, 2003). Children with LI were found to have overall fewer contacts in …

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Factors Affecting The Acquisition Of Pronunciation: Culture, Motivation, And Level Of Instruction, Joshua D. Tanner Jun 2012

Factors Affecting The Acquisition Of Pronunciation: Culture, Motivation, And Level Of Instruction, Joshua D. Tanner

Theses and Dissertations

Studies have looked at various factors that affect pronunciation including phonetic context (e.g., Canfield 1940), style variation (e.g., Diaz-Campos 2006, Gonzales-Bueno 1995, Major 2004, Shively 2008, Zampini 1994), L1 transfer (e.g., Major 2001), and experience abroad (e.g., Diaz-Campos 2004, 2006, Lafford 2006, Stevens 2001). Motivation has been shown to affect language learning in general (Gardner 1985) but its role in pronunciation has yet to be explored. The relationship between cultural sensitivity and the acquisition of pronunciation has also been relatively understudied. The current study further explores the relationship between these variables and pronunciation. Many studies have shown that students' pronunciation …

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Open (Adoption) For Business: Opposing Movements And Environmental Opportunity Structures In The Adoption Organizational Field, 1972-2000, Krista Marie Frederico Jun 2012

Open (Adoption) For Business: Opposing Movements And Environmental Opportunity Structures In The Adoption Organizational Field, 1972-2000, Krista Marie Frederico

Theses and Dissertations

Recent directions in organizational studies have demonstrated progressive social movements' ability to generate rewarding enterprises or environmental opportunity structures (EOS) in receptive markets. However, more nuanced opposing movements (Meyer and Staggenborg 1996), such as the pro-choice and pro-life movements, receive far less attention, leaving scholars to postulate that there is much yet to know about the impact of movements other than those with strict progressive orientations (Zald, Morrill, and Rao 2005). To better understand how opposing movements contribute to environmental opportunity structures, this thesis examines dramatic growth in the number of adoption agencies advertising services in the Yellow Pages during …

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A Translation And Cultural Adaptation Of The Japanese Version Of The Outcome Questionnaire 45 (Oq), Risa Takara Jun 2012

A Translation And Cultural Adaptation Of The Japanese Version Of The Outcome Questionnaire 45 (Oq), Risa Takara

Theses and Dissertations

The need for psychotherapy outcome research is growing in Japan as the societal demands for psychotherapy have increased in recent years. Although researchers in Japan recognize the importance of integrating clinical practice and empirical research in evaluating psychotherapy outcome, most Japanese studies to date have relied heavily on qualitative case studies (Haebara, 1997; Kanazawa, 2004; Tanno, 2001). With the help of six translators and 116 native Japanese pilot respondents, this study adapted the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ; Lambert et al., 1996), one of the most common quantitative measures of clinical outcome, for use in Japan. The translation of the original OQ …

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The Effect Of Furigana On Lexical Inferencing Of Unknown Kanji Words, Joy A. Palmer Jun 2012

The Effect Of Furigana On Lexical Inferencing Of Unknown Kanji Words, Joy A. Palmer

Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigates the effect of furigana on lexical inferencing. After completing a pretest to determine their knowledge of the target words, participants read a passage and completed a think-aloud protocol and questionnaire. The experimental group read a passage with furigana over all kanji words while the control group read a passage without furigana. The protocols were evaluated to determine the rate and quality of lexical inferences of 16 target kanji words. The results of the questionnaire were evaluated to determine participant perception of passage and kanji difficulty, self-assessed percentage of the story that was understood, and the degree …

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The Correlation Between Spectral Moment Measures And Electropalatographic Contact Patterns For /S/ And /Ʃ/, Benjamin James Marshall Jun 2012

The Correlation Between Spectral Moment Measures And Electropalatographic Contact Patterns For /S/ And /Ʃ/, Benjamin James Marshall

Theses and Dissertations

Spectral Moment Analysis has helped further our understanding of the spectral properties of obstruent speech production; however, the physiologic correlates of these spectral measures are not well understood. The aim of the present study was to examine the possible correlations between the linguapalatal contact patterns used to produce the fricatives /s/ and /ʃ/ and the resulting spectral characteristics. Using spectral moment analysis and electropalatography (EPG), the real-word productions of eight speakers of American English were investigated. The spectral measures for the fricative tokens in the present study were found to be similar to data reported in previous research with adult …

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The Effect Of An Artificially Flattened Fundamental Frequency Contour On Intelligibility In Speakers With Dysarthria, Emily E. Redd Jun 2012

The Effect Of An Artificially Flattened Fundamental Frequency Contour On Intelligibility In Speakers With Dysarthria, Emily E. Redd

Theses and Dissertations

Prosody plays an important role in speech communication. Many individuals with motor speech disorders have decreased prosodic control and thus lower overall intelligibility. Few studies have examined the effect of a flattened prosodic contour on the intelligibility of dysarthric speech, and little is known about the role that listener gender plays in understanding disordered speech. The purpose of this study was to quantify the impact of artificial prosodic manipulation on the intelligibility of dysarthric speech as a function of the extent of fundamental frequency (F0) contour flattening. A further goal was to examine the influence of listener gender on intelligibility. …

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Brain Mapping Of The Mismatch Negativity Response In Vowel Formant Processing, Elizabeth Anne Perry Jun 2012

Brain Mapping Of The Mismatch Negativity Response In Vowel Formant Processing, Elizabeth Anne Perry

Theses and Dissertations

The mismatch negativity (MMN) response, a passively-elicited component of the auditory event-related potential (ERP), reflects preattentive identification of infrequent changes in acoustic stimuli. In the current study, the MMN response was examined closely to determine what extent natural speech sounds evoke the MMN. It was hypothesized that a significant MMN response results during the presentation of deviant stimuli from which spectral energy within formant bands critical to vowel identification has been removed. Localizations of dipoles within the cortex were hypothesized to yield information pertaining to the processing of formant-specific linguistic information. A same/different discrimination task was administered to 20 adult …

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Building Nations, Dividing Peoples: Israel, Syria And The Struggle For The Druze, Daniel W. Stoker Jun 2012

Building Nations, Dividing Peoples: Israel, Syria And The Struggle For The Druze, Daniel W. Stoker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the development of nationalism and foundation of nation-states in the Levant have contributed to the development of new national identities among the Druze communities in the Golan Heights and Israel and how it has impacted each community. This study builds on the ideas of Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm regarding nationalism and the development of the nation as both invented and imagined. This thesis then analyzes the policies of Israel and Syria regarding the Druze communities in the Golan Heights and the question of Druze feelings toward these policies. It also examines how Druze history has …

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The Voice Of The Other: Representations Of The United States In Egyptian Popular Discourse, Sara Pulliam Jun 2012

The Voice Of The Other: Representations Of The United States In Egyptian Popular Discourse, Sara Pulliam

Theses and Dissertations

The Egyptian-American relationship is complex and problematic on many levels and, similar to Arab-American relations as a whole, often draws the attention of policy makers and academics within political science and its subfield of international relations. Previous analyses of this topic have focused on the dimensions surrounding US policies in the Middle East and the consequences of these policies on both the US and the Arab region. These studies range from being scathingly critical, such as Gregory's The Colonial Present, to advocating for a US foreign policy that is based in rational pursuit of interests that overlooks the discontent of …

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Linguistic Projection And The Ownership Of English: Solidarity And Power With The English Language In Egypt, Alexander Lewko Jun 2012

Linguistic Projection And The Ownership Of English: Solidarity And Power With The English Language In Egypt, Alexander Lewko

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates aspects of English usage in Egypt, including any possible linguistic projection of solidarity or power with other Egyptians, and the degree, if any, of linguistic ownership of English. As in many other Expanding Circle contexts, English realizes its role in Egypt as lingua franca in order to fulfill educational and business transactions. English is used to such a degree in the Egyptian context that it could at some point become its own variety of World English. Yet, it is possible that a speaker could produce either English or Arabic in different situations in reaction to perceived social …

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The Attitude Of Egyptian Nubian University Students Towards Arabic And Nubian Languages, Sanaa Gamal Abou-Ras Jun 2012

The Attitude Of Egyptian Nubian University Students Towards Arabic And Nubian Languages, Sanaa Gamal Abou-Ras

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the attitude of Egyptian Nubian university students towards the Arabic and the two Nubian languages, Nobiin and Kenuzi-Dongola. The Nubian languages are called by Egyptian Nubians, Fadijja/Fadicca and Kenzi, respectively. Nubians are people who live in the Nubia area which lies between Egypt's southern borders with the northern part of Sudan. Nubia is divided into two parts - one under the Egyptian regime, and the other under the Sudanese regime. The number of participants used in the study was forty - half male and half female. Twenty of these participants live in the Nubian region and are …

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The Impact Of Speech Rate Reduction Techniques On The Listening Comprehension Performance Of Egyptian High School Students, Ghada Abdul-Moneim Ibrahim Jun 2012

The Impact Of Speech Rate Reduction Techniques On The Listening Comprehension Performance Of Egyptian High School Students, Ghada Abdul-Moneim Ibrahim

Theses and Dissertations

The speech rate (SR) of the recorded aural native input has been recurrently reported by EFL listeners worldwide as being the major obstacle to achieve successful listening comprehension (LC). To investigate the efficacy of natural rate reduction techniques in facilitating LC, this study was designed to compare and contrast the immediate effect(s) of exposing two intact classes (n=46) of Egyptian high school students enrolled in the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) to two SR reduction techniques. The first technique was the deliberate articulation (DA), and the second was inserting three-second pauses at T-unit boundaries. The dependent variables were …

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The Legal Methodology Of The Salafi Movement In Egypt, Brian Wright Jun 2012

The Legal Methodology Of The Salafi Movement In Egypt, Brian Wright

Theses and Dissertations

This study derives the legal methodology of the modern Salafi movement in Egypt. The first two sections develop context, pondering global Salafism as well as the effects of the Egyptian political, economic, and cultural spheres on the movement's development, while the third section discusses the legal opinions of Salafi preachers in the fields of democracy, law, economics, women's rights, non-Muslims, Al Azhar, the Shi'a, as well as the arts and leisure. Section four synthesizes these opinions to create the general approach of the movement to Islamic Law. This study suggests that each manifestation of Salafism is the result of local …

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The Image Of Woman In Pre-Islamic Qasida: The Mu’Allaqat Poetry As A Case Study., Yakubu Zahrrah Kamaldeen Jun 2012

The Image Of Woman In Pre-Islamic Qasida: The Mu’Allaqat Poetry As A Case Study., Yakubu Zahrrah Kamaldeen

Theses and Dissertations

This study is intended to examine the depiction of woman in the pre-Islamic poetic collection known as the Mu'allaqat; which are considered the best piece of poetic collection in literary Arabic. The significance of this study is to identify the true rationale behind the poets' over emphasis on woman in their odes. A combination of both empirical and library-based method is adopted in this study and Discourse and Qualitative contents Analysis are the techniques applied in interpreting the data. The study identifies two different types of women in the odes, the ideal woman who is not a specific woman per …

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The Dynamics Of Oppression Portrayed In Harold Pinter's One For The Road And Salah Abdul-Saboor's Night Traveller, Salma Zohdi Jun 2012

The Dynamics Of Oppression Portrayed In Harold Pinter's One For The Road And Salah Abdul-Saboor's Night Traveller, Salma Zohdi

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis comparatively analyzes the dynamics of oppression portrayed in Harold Pinter's One for the Road, and Salah Abdul-Saboor's Night Traveller, using Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, and â Theater of the Absurdâ for the critical framework. With oppressive regimes regenerating themselves, and morphing into new types of practices, the power of art remains an essential motivation for the masses to resist those regimes. This applies particularly to theater, due its vitality. Whilst one may utilize a theatrical performance to entertain, others may utilize it to either inspire resistance, or chronicle and …

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Strategies For Change: Exploring The Impact Of The 2004 Nationality Law Reform Campaign On Gender Equality In Egypt, Catherine Mackay Jun 2012

Strategies For Change: Exploring The Impact Of The 2004 Nationality Law Reform Campaign On Gender Equality In Egypt, Catherine Mackay

Theses and Dissertations

Prior to 2004 Egyptian law allowed for conferral of nationality by paternal descent only, with few exceptions. By barring Egyptian women from passing their nationality to their children, such legislation reflected a belief that women were in fact not full members of the national political community on an equal footing with men. Facing pressure from both internal and external sources, the Egyptian government reformed the law in 2004, thereby allowing women to confer their nationality on their children. Yet nearly eight years later many children eligible for Egyptian nationality have yet to acquire it, and Egyptian women are arguably no …

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Egypt's Post-Colonial Approaches To Internal Self-Determination, Charlotte Kaeppel Jun 2012

Egypt's Post-Colonial Approaches To Internal Self-Determination, Charlotte Kaeppel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the linkage between the right to self-determination and democracy. In view of the popular uprisings taking place throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it is highly relevant to revisit the concept of self-determination. In particular, considering the undetermined nature of the right to self-determination, this thesis examines the contemporary legal meaning of self-determination. Specifically, it questions the prospects of â the peopleâ to self-determination against the background of undemocratic structures at the global level. Following the introduction, the second part of this thesis deals with a critical overview of the international legal ideology on self-determination. In …

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Musical Protest And Revolutionary Media: Capital Transformation Among Artists, Activists, And Journalists During The 14 January Revolution, Nathanael Mannone Jun 2012

Musical Protest And Revolutionary Media: Capital Transformation Among Artists, Activists, And Journalists During The 14 January Revolution, Nathanael Mannone

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the transformations of cultural, symbolic and material capital (and power) both within and among the fields of music, activist, and journalism during the recent uprising in Tunisia. Analyzing a selection of Tunisian music juxtaposed to several ubiquitous conjectures in the news media, I also challenge the role music is purported to have played in these revolutions. In recent months, many in the international press and music industry have credited hip-hop artists in Tunisia as being a driving force in the 14 January Revolution. Many cite substantially increased levels of outspokenness among the artist community against the regime …

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The Afghan Government's Relationship With The Pashtun Community And Its Effect On Stability; A Comparative Approach, Alfred Jasins Jun 2012

The Afghan Government's Relationship With The Pashtun Community And Its Effect On Stability; A Comparative Approach, Alfred Jasins

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how the Afghan government's relationship with the Pashtun communities affects the group's acquiescence and support, thereby creating a less belligerent and more stable environment. The emphasis on the Pashtun communities is especially relevant due to their historical role as king maker, as well as the leaderships primary threat of delegitimization and conflict. To fully understand how the current Karzai government's relationship with the Pashtun communities has failed to create conditions amenable to stability and has generally fostered an environment of discord and conflict, this analysis will utilize a comparative approach. The comparison …

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The Church In The Square: Negotiations Of Religion And Revolution At An Evangelical Church In Cairo, Egypt, Anna Dowell Jun 2012

The Church In The Square: Negotiations Of Religion And Revolution At An Evangelical Church In Cairo, Egypt, Anna Dowell

Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the Egyptian January 25, 2011 popular uprisings that deposed Hosni Mubarak from the presidency, youth and leaders from Kanisset Kasr el Dobara (KDEC) in Tahrir Square embarked on new and unpredictable political projects and activisms. This ethnographic study is an engagement with these new revolutionary negotiations on the part of the largest Protestant congregation in the Middle East. Using participant observation, focus groups, and interviews this research seeks to elucidate the ways that youth and leaders utilized institutionalized discourse, religious imagery, and relational networks in order to carve out a place in the Egyptian public sphere …

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Arabizi: A Writing Variety Worth Learning? An Exploratory Study Of The Views Of Foreign Learners Of Arabic On Arabizi., Mona Farrag Jun 2012

Arabizi: A Writing Variety Worth Learning? An Exploratory Study Of The Views Of Foreign Learners Of Arabic On Arabizi., Mona Farrag

Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates the views of learners of Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) on Arabizi as well as the possible effects of these views on the field of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL). For purposes of this paper, Arabizi is defined as: writing Arabic in Latin characters and Arabic numerals on computer-mediated communication (CMC). The study tries to answer the following research question: What is the attitude of AFL learners on Arabizi regarding: a. its effect on their communicative skills with native Egyptians on CMC? b. learning AFL? In a pilot study, a web-based questionnaire was posted …

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Seating Arrangement And Cooperative Learning Activities: Students' On-Task/Off-Task Participation In Efl Classrooms, Nohayer Lotfy Jun 2012

Seating Arrangement And Cooperative Learning Activities: Students' On-Task/Off-Task Participation In Efl Classrooms, Nohayer Lotfy

Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that student participation is affected by a number of factors that include students' gender, personality differences as well as class environment. This class environment includes classroom seating arrangements which are believed to play an important role in fostering students' on-task behavior. However, how a seating arrangement can encourage on-task or off-task behavior is found to depend on how far this seating arrangement agrees with the activity being done and the interaction pattern aimed at in class. On the other hand, some research linked teachers' choice of different classroom seating arrangement and their beliefs in their role inside …

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Ruqual: A System For Assessing Post-Editing, Jason K. Housley May 2012

Ruqual: A System For Assessing Post-Editing, Jason K. Housley

Theses and Dissertations

Post-editing machine translation has become more common in recent years due to the increase in materials requiring translation and the effectiveness of machine translation systems. This project presents a system for formalizing structured translation specifications that facilitates the assessment of the performance of a post-editor. This report provides details concerning two software applications: the Ruqual Specifications Writer, which aids in the authoring of post-editing project specifications, and the Ruqual Rubric Viewer which provides a graphical user interface for filling out a machine readable rubric file. The project as a whole relies on a definition of translation quality based on the …

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Warm Compression – Damp Gestures, Melanie Mclain May 2012

Warm Compression – Damp Gestures, Melanie Mclain

Theses and Dissertations

Thoughts on vulnerability, emotions, social interaction, self-awareness, skin, touching, bodily functions, and the combination of all these ideas into a confined space filled with heat and humidity just enough to leave you feeling damp and perhaps a bit sore.

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A Study Of K-12 Teacher Interns' Incorporation Of Multicultural Content And Theory Into Their Teaching Practices, Edith Mechelle Dzoole May 2012

A Study Of K-12 Teacher Interns' Incorporation Of Multicultural Content And Theory Into Their Teaching Practices, Edith Mechelle Dzoole

Theses and Dissertations

This research study examined 394 K-12 teacher interns' incorporation of multicultural content and theory into their teaching practices during a 16-week internship in schools, mostly located within a 30-mile radius of Mississippi State University. The teacher interns had completed all coursework and practicum hours required by their teacher education program. As part of their duties, the mentor teachers evaluated the interns' incorporation of multicultural content and theory, using two indicators from the Teacher Intern Assessment Instrument: "Uses knowledge of students’ backgrounds, interests, experiences, and prior knowledge to make instructions relevant and meaningful" and “Incorporates diversity, including multicultural perspectives into lessons”. …

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