Digital Commons Network^™

Directing Attention In Second Language Phonological Contrast Learning, Laura Conover

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Why are some people better at learning new languages than others? There is a rich body of research examining this issue from multiple perspectives and at all levels of language. This study attempts to add to that knowledge at the most fundamental level of language by examining potential influences on the learning of novel phoneme contrasts. The purpose of this study was to explore whether individual differences in attentional capabilities would help adults learn a non-native phonological contrast, and whether providing explicit directions that would guide the learners’ attention could help boost their performance. VCV recordings of the Thai /p/ …

Gao Bid Protests By Small Business: Analysis Of Perceived And Reported Outcomes In Federal Contracting, David M. Snyder

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to better understand GAO bid protest outcomes, if they are perceived as effective by stakeholders particularly small businesses, and what implications perceptions of outcomes have for small businesses. As a small business owner in the U.S. Federal government contracting space, the rationale for this research improves my business’s performance and inform other small business practitioners of the practical utility of GAO protests. The GAO protest system is well intended American innovation in accountability of government agencies’ acquisition of supplies and services.

The GAO reports protest outcome rates are reflected as moderately effective at approximately …

School Professional Coaching On Facilitation Of Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (Ptr) Model For Students With Persistent Problem Behavior, Rachel Ayres

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study evaluated the process and outcomes of the Prevent-Teach-Reinforce (PTR) model implementation with school professionals’ facilitation for elementary school students with problem behavior. Two school professionals (behavior specialist and student support staff) were trained through a 2-phase coaching process to facilitate the PTR implementation: co-facilitation and independent facilitation. Four elementary school classroom teachers and four students with challenging behavior participated in this study spanning across two schools. Following coaching, school professionals independently facilitated the PTR process with fidelity which led to desired changes in student behavior. Results indicate that a multi-step coaching process is effective in training school professionals …

From Mythology To Pop Culture: Myth, Representation, And The Historiography Of The Amazon Warrior Woman In Ancient Art And Modern Media, James William Poorman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In today’s global society, the mediums in which cultural iconography are portrayed are mostly film, photography, and other mass media. 2500 years ago, in classical Athens, pottery and sculpture dominated the social scene. . Regardless of societies, religions, cultures, etc., certain human traits seem to follow us through time. On the other hand, some things do change, i.e.: the way civilizations view other groups through cultural lenses, view their own culture through perceived gender norms, and how civilizations and cultures try to correlate taboos into the exotic or barbaric. Wonder Woman is a recreation, or reinvention, of an ancient Athenian …

Dismantling Hegemony Through Inclusive Sexual Health Education, Lauren Wright

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the process of developing a sexual health education curriculum that is not only tailored to the unique needs of foster-engaged young women, but also those who may experience further marginalization from other mainstream programs due to their race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or their religious beliefs. In conjunction with the Adolescent Sexual Health Education and Research (ASHER) Program, I helped develop a sexual health education curriculum, "Choosing Myself," targeted toward foster-engaged young women and young women (ages 13-24) in the state of Florida. "Choosing Myself" is intended to be an inclusive program that empowers participants, improves their …

Identifying Skeletal Puberty Stages In A Modern Sample From The United States, Jordan T. Wright

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Investigating the onset and progression of puberty can provide insight and evidence for social changes regarding the transition to adulthood. There are also many social factors that can lead to variation in the timing of the onset and progression of puberty. Methods created by Mary Lewis and Fiona Shapland for assessing changes in skeletal development associated with pubertal timing were applied to computerized tomography scans (n=400) from the New Mexico Decedent Image Database and recorded in an attempt to identify adolescent growth trends in a modern skeletal sample from the United States. This is a novel study using the methods …

Sharing Their Stories: A Qualitative Investigation Of Adolescents’ Inpatient Experiences During Psychiatric Hospitalization, Jessica L. Rice

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Psychiatric hospitalization is an intensive treatment intervention, reserved for youth with severe mental illnesses, considered in imminent danger of harm to themselves and/or others. Although the prevalence of youth that are psychiatrically hospitalized continues to rise, there remains a gap in the available research about adolescents’ appraisals of their inpatient treatment, as most studies draw conclusions from surveys, administered after patients are discharged. Not only does this limit insights about treatment changes that could be beneficial in reducing psychiatric hospital recidivism, but it also inhibits youth from sharing their subjective experiences. As such, the current study sought to develop a …

The Characteristics Of Deaf Adult Learners Related To Predictors Of Online Learning Success, Caitlin Mckeown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Online learning has grown substantially in recent years, and there has been an emphasis among administrators, instructors, and researchers alike to better understand what drives student success in their online courses. Success in online learning is also a concern for deaf students, who face unique challenges in online courses. This survey-based correlational study used the Test of Online Leaning Success (TOOLS) to examine the characteristics of deaf adult students shown to impact success in online courses. There were 22 full responses (for a response rate of 20.95%), and an additional 7 partial responses which were included in analysis where possible. …

Essays On Ceo Personal Characteristics And Corporate Outcomes: Athlete Ceos And Foreign Ceos, Kirill Pervun

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two essays that explore the effect of top managers’ background in competitive sports and foreign nationality on the organizational outcomes. In the first essay I document that one in four chief executive officers of large American companies (S&P 1500) have background in competitive sports developed during youth or adult years (Athlete CEOs). Using novel hand-collected data from detailed biographies of top executives I find strong evidence that Athlete-CEO-run firms are more profitable and invest more in long-term projects. Additionally, firms managed by CEOs with background in individual sports, but not in team sports, are more debt-averse and …

The Validation Of The Self Advocacy Skills Inventory Beta, Richard Aaron Chapman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is meant to explore the psychometric properties of The Self-Advocacy Skills Inventory Beta. The Beta is a measurement of self-advocacy skills for individuals with different disabilities. This dissertation presents the results of a confirmatory factor analysis, as well as an examination of reliability of the Beta as well as its scales. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the theorized factor structure of The Self-Advocacy Skills Beta did not fit the data. However, the Self-Advocacy Skills Inventory Beta is measuring self-advocacy skills reliably. Implications for counseling education and future development of The Self-Advocacy Skills Beta are …

How Race Is Made In Everyday Life: Food, Eating, And Dietary Acculturation Among Black And White Migrants In Florida, U.S., Laura Kihlstrom

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how race impacts everyday food decisions and experiences among Black and White migrants in Florida, United States. The study is rooted in scholarship on food and immigration, which asserts that dietary acculturation or the “Americanization” of diets adversely affects the overall health status of migrant populations in the U.S. To date, the majority of this literature has focused on the experiences of Latinx migrants and has not centered race in its analysis. Building on participant observation and semi-structured interviews (n=49) completed over a period of 13 months in the Tampa and Miami Metropolitan areas among Ethiopian and …

Jewish Early Adolescent Perceptions Of Their Positive Youth Development, Identity Development, And Purpose, Lauren B. Kurnov

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored Jewish early adolescents’ perceptions of their positive youth development, identity development, and purpose. Three theoretical frameworks informed the study, including Lerner’s 5 C’s of positive youth development, Marcia’s identity development, and Damon’s youth purpose. Specifically, the study explored how Jewish early adolescents perceive certain aspects of the local Jewish community as supportive of positive youth development, identity development, and youth purpose. I collected qualitative data through a series of three interviews with 4 Jewish early adolescents recruited using purposeful sampling. Data were analyzed through a hybrid approach to thematic analysis. The first finding was that Jewish …

Investigating The Hydrology Of The Western Greenland Ice Sheet: Spatiotemporal Variability And Implications On Ice-Dynamics, Jessica Z. Mejia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1990's the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) has been losing mass at an accelerating rate in response to climatic warming and is currently the largest terrestrial contributor to sea-level rise. While ice sheet models agree the GrIS will continue losing mass throughout the century, there are significant uncertainties associated with future sea-level rise contributions. Predicting the GrIS's response to future climate warming scenarios is limited by gaps in our understanding of the links between ice sheet hydrology and dynamics. Meltwater produced on the ice surface flows within supraglacial streams that deliver it to crevasses or moulins—vertical conduits extending from …

Analysis Of Denial Of Service Attacks In Emerging Software Defined Network Infrastructures, Andrea P. Wright

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Software defined networking (SDN) improves upon traditional networking protocol technologies by decoupling the data and control planes and moving all control provisioning decisions to a centralized SDN controller entity. This concept has matured over the last decade, having gained strong industry traction, and is now being widely deployed within enterprise and carrier networks to streamline network services provisioning and reduce costs. Overall, centralized control delivers much more cost-effective and flexible networking setups that can support a wide range of customized user-driven network management applications, e.g., traffic engineering, security, survivability, admission control, policy control, etc.

However, the separation of the data …

An Automated Framework For Connected Speech Evaluation Of Neurodegenerative Disease: A Case Study In Parkinson's Disease, Sai Bharadwaj Appakaya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neurodegenerative diseases affect millions of people around the world. The progressive degeneration worsens the symptoms, heavily impacting the quality of life of the patients as well as the caregivers. Speech production is one of the physiological processes affected by neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Speech is the most basic form of communication, and the effect of neurodegeneration degrades speech production, thereby reducing social interaction and mental well-being. PD is the second most common neurodegenerative disease affecting speech production in 90% of the diagnosed individuals. Speech analysis methods for PD in clinical methods …

A Review Of Manualized Behavioral Parent Training Interventions For Young Children With Problem Behavior, Khendal I. Robinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Behavioral parent training (BPT) interventions have been developed to aid in the treatment of children with problem behavior. The goals of these interventions are to reduce child specific problem behavior and improve skills, and enhance parenting skills and competence. However, more information is needed on the manualized BPT interventions in particular, on children and parents who benefited from the BPT interventions, any individualized cultural adaptations made for families from diverse cultural backgrounds, and training provided to the parents to help them address their children’ problem behavior during family routines. Therefore, this study reviewed literature on BPT interventions, in particular, single …

Case Study: Using A Contingency-Based Delay Procedure To Decrease Tantrums During Periods Of Delayed Reinforcement, Lindsey Snyder

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Functional Communication Training (FCT) involves reinforcing a functional communicative response (FCR) while placing problem behaviors on extinction (Carr & Durrand, 1985). When reinforcement for the FCR is delayed or unavailable, the individual’s problem behavior may return to previous levels (i.e., resurgence of previously reinforced problem behavior; Briggs et al., 2018) or the participant may exhibit emotional responding consistent with an extinction burst (Lerman & Iwata, 1996). A contingency-based delay procedure was introduced which increased the participant’s percentage of trials without tantrums and decreased the overall duration of tantrums.

Instructional Experiences: A Case Study Of Perceptions Of High School American Sign Language Teachers Who Are Hearing, Rhonda S. Leslie

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A significant gap has been identified in research-based findings and classroom instructional practices of hearing ASL teachers in high schools in the U.S. (Rosen, 2015). Research has shown the absence of standardized ASL instructional guidelines, rules, and procedures has created a significant gap in teaching and learning practices at the high school level, and research-based findings about the most suitable pedagogical approaches that should be used in ASL induction and immersion programs. This study aims to understand hearing teachers’ perceptions of their ASL instructional practices and choices, using a qualitative research approach and a case study design. Based on a …

Relationship Between Working With Professional Evaluators And An Organization’S Evaluation Culture, James M. Wharton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mission-based organizations like zoos and aquariums are investing in evaluation capacity to help them improve their mission performance, but are these resources improving their professional culture, or merely creating evaluations? This study surveyed the leadership from 100 programming departments at accredited U.S. zoos and aquariums to learn how work with professional evaluators might be related to the nature of an organization’s evaluation culture. Survey results showed no statistically significant relationships between a self-reported measure of evaluation culture and either institutional demographics or work with professional evaluators. Follow-up interviews with nine case study organizations, however, were more supportive of the role …

School Music Administration During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Trauma, Loss, Meaning, Change, And Innovation, Christopher Burns

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

On Friday, March 13, 2020, the School District of Osceola closed its doors for Spring Break and did not open again until 3 weeks later in a digital capacity. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way teachers and students learned. The band, chorus, and orchestra classrooms were empty, and replaced with digital meetings with the need to unmute and turn cameras on. This study is an autoethnographic narrative of my life during the COVID-19 pandemic as a district resource for the teachers that I serve. While music administration has existed in many forms over the past 100 years, there are no …

Activity-Dependent Regulation Of Extracellular Ube3a In A Novel Angelman Syndrome Rat Model, Andie Dodge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Angelman Syndrome (AS) is a rare genetic and neurologic disorder affecting approximately 1 in every 15,000 people. This disorder is characterized by seizures, absence of speech, motor and cognitive deficits, ataxia, and notably an abnormal happy demeanor with frequent smiling and laughter. A neuron-specific loss of function of the maternal allele of UBE3A, encoding for an E3 ubiquitin ligase, leads to the manifestation of AS. There are currently no cures for AS and few therapeutic options to abate symptoms. Although much investigation is required, research using the null mutation AS mouse model suggests a plausible case for pharmacological intervention.

Major …

Educators’ Sensemaking Of Data Within An Mtss Framework: An Exploratory Case Study, Stephanie Marie Green

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine how educators working within a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) framework make sense of data, how they use data for instructional decision-making, and how the data use cultures at the district and school levels influence this data use. The study was designed with a theoretical framework informed by the sensemaking about student outcomes model (Bertrand & Marsh, 2015), the data literacy for teaching framework (Mandinach & Gummer, 2016c), and the data use cultures framework (Firestone & Gonzales, 2007). I explored these issues through a case study methodology, utilizing semi-structured interviews, observations, document …

Educational Experiences Of Congolese Refugees In West-Central Florida High Schools, Michaela J. Inks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since 2016, refugees from the Congo Wars (RFCWs) have been one of the largestpopulations of refugees resettled in the United States. High-school aged RFCW students are, however, dropping out of Florida public high schools are alarmingly high rates. This study uses ethnographic methods such as interviews and participant observation to investigate educational challenges experienced by RFCW youth. This study has three objectives: to learn more about refugees with discontinuous education and the barriers to graduating from public high schools after resettlement; to better understand Tampa bay area programs that serve culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students; and to use ethnographic …

Esol Educational Programs For Secondary Slife: Planning For Educational Equity, Terri L. Mossgrove

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE) are a sub-group of English Learners (ELs). Policies related to the language education programming for secondary SLIFE in United States public brick and mortar schools were examined through applied policy research using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for document analysis. Documents for this analysis included the 1990 Florida Consent Decree, District English Language Learner (ELL) Plans, as well as district English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Programs, and a sampling of school based ESOL program information shared on public facing websites. The study focused on current practices in one state related to secondary …

Land Goddesses, Divine Pigs, And Royal Tricksters: Subversive Mythologies And Imperialist Land Ownership Dispossession In Twentieth Century Irish And American Literature, Elizabeth Ricketts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Land ownership dispossession is a key feature in establishing imperial hegemonies. In the colonial context, limiting access to land concentrates wealth, power, and influence in the hands of a small colonial or neocolonial elite, excluding others from financial independence, accumulation of generational wealth, political representation, and a stable living situation. British imperial activities spanned multiple continents, engaging similar patterns of dispossessing the native population from their land, language, and cultures. In this endeavor, culture and literature in particular, as Edward Said points out in Culture and Imperialism, have been complicit in inculcating imperial ideologies and justifying territorial occupation. As Said …

A Modular Framework For Multi-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles For Military Operations, Dante Tezza

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Multi-rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (MR-UAV) are commonly used in a wide range of military operations. However, current MR-UAV models have limited payload capabilities and flight time, making it impractical for a single system to be well-suited for different applications. For instance, a drone designed to carry heavier equipment is not well suited for uses that require agility and speed. Therefore, military organizations employ multiple MR-UAV models, leading to complex logistics, training, and overall increased costs.

This dissertation presents a modular MR-UAV framework that allows a user to quickly tailor the aircraft for different military operations by easily changing modular parts …

A Process Evaluation Of Human Resource Practices In Support Of Title I Turnaround Schools With Instructional Vacancies, Herbert Peeples

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Superintendents, human resources personnel, and principals are under immense pressure to ensure that their students perform well on standardized tests due to school accountability and school grades. This pressure is magnified for principals who are leaders of high poverty, high minority, Title I schools. These principals are constantly trying to hire quality teachers to meet the needs of their students. Researchers agree that the most important decision a principal must make is who to hire (e.g., Peterson, 2002; Rothman, 2004). Quality hires help schools move their students toward academic success.

This study examined how a human resource (HR) partner worked …

The Relationship Between Parenting Stress, Attendance, And Attrition In A Group-Based Parent Management Training Program, David Rubio Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Disruptive behaviors rate among the most common referral concern for young children to mental health clinics (Kazdin, 2003). The preferred treatment for child behavior problems is parent management training (PMT; Matthys & Lochman, 2017). Raising a child with externalizing behaviors is associated with high levels of parenting stress, which can interfere with treatment engagement (Deater-Deckard, 2004). One negative outcome that has been associated with high levels of parenting stress is dropping out from treatment (Kazdin et al., 1997). Helping Our Toddlers, Developing Our Children’s Skills (HOT DOCS; Agazzi, Childres, & Armstrong, 2017) is a PMT program that has experienced participant …

The Communicative Constitution Of Environment: Land, Weather, Climate, Leanna K. Smithberger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My project examines the communicative constitution of environment: how we mediate environment in discursive practice, and arrange chaotic and complex timeplaces into organized relationships of agents and objects which act and are acted upon. Climate scholars across disciplines are calling for a paradigm shift in how we understand, study, inhabit, and relate to Earth’s varied environments. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how communication practices do the work of constituting the environment as we know it, and therefore conclude with the hopeful suggestion that these same practices can be used to do the work of a paradigm shift — that is, …

Momentum For Learning: Defining A Pedagogy Of Movement For Improved Learning And Cognition, Gretchen L. Stewart

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study reports the findings of a mixed-methods investigation into learning and cognition that has been theoretically and methodologically positioned as embodied. Embodied learning places pedagogical value on the biophysiologically dependent nature of learning on the development of the central nervous system. Rooted in empirical evidence of structural and functional brain change through movement, the purpose of this study was to investigate the primary teaching and learning features of a neurodevelopmental approach to schooling. The research question was, how do interdisciplinary experts operationalize movement as fundamental pedagogy in a brain relevant school model? Methods included qualitative interviews, a consensus building …