Digital Commons Network^™

Students With Disabilities At Risk: Predictors Of On-Time Graduation, Kelli S. Henson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The deleterious effects of not completing high school in the United States and around the world in the current monetary, societal, and employment climate make efforts toward increasing graduation rates an imperative. The impetus for educational reform for improving graduation rates is even more salient for students with disabilities who graduate at lower rates than their peers without disabilities (Stetser & Stillwell, 2014). To provide the multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) necessary to engage in this reform, data-systems with accurate and timely information are necessary. This research included construction of Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models to investigate the individual- and school-level …

Investigating Students’ Basic Needs And Motivation In College Chemistry Courses With The Lens Of Self-Determination Theory, Yujuan Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

More graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathmetics (STEM) fields are needed to keep our nation’s preeminance in the global fields of technology and science. However, fewer than 40% of students who intend to major in STEM fields when entering college complete a STEM degree. Therefore, it is important to explore factors to improve student persistence in STEM fields at the college level as well as to understand the interrelationship between student motivation, academic achievement, and persistence. Motivation is strongly associated with student achievement and persistence; meanwhile, academic achievement can also affect persistence. Self-determination theory (SDT) represents a framework of …

Patterns In Words Related To Dna Rearrangements, Lukas Nabergall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Patterns, sequences of variables, have traditionally only been studied when morphic images of them appear as factors in words. In this thesis, we initiate a study of patterns in words that appear as subwords of words. We say that a pattern appears in a word if each pattern variable can be morphically mapped to a factor in the word. To gain insight into the complexity of, and similarities between, words, we define pattern indices and distances between two words relative a given set of patterns. The distance is defined as the minimum number of pattern insertions and/or removals that transform …

Laser Machining And Near Field Microwave Microscopy Of Silver Inks For 3d Printable Rf Devices, Anthony J. Ross Iii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

3D printable materials for RF devices need improvement in order to satisfy the demand for higher frequency and lower loss performance. Characterization of materials that have shown improvements of conductor conductivity have been performed. By using a laser machining technique the loss of a 3D printed 2.45 GHz microstrip Square Open Loop Resonator (SOLR) bandpass filter has been shown to improve by 2.1dB, along with an increase in bandwidth from 10% to 12.7% when compared to a SOLR filter that has not been laser machined. Both laser machined and microwaved silver inks have been mapped for conductivity using a Near …

Evaluation Of The Class Pass Intervention (Cpi): An Application To Improve Classroom Behavior In Children With Disabilities, Taylor Narozanick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Class Pass Intervention (CPI) is designed to be implemented within school-wide PBIS to decrease disruptive behavior and teach an appropriate replacement behavior for students needing Tier 2 intervention. The purpose of the present study was to extend the literature on the CPI by further evaluating the impact of the first component of the CPI on disruptive behavior and academic engagement of elementary school children with disabilities engaging in mild to moderate disruptive behavior. Three students and their respective teachers participated in the study. A multiple baseline across participants design with an embedded reversal was used to demonstrate the impact …

A Comparison Of Teacher And Student Choices On Reinforcement Criteria In Using The Caught Being Good Game (Cbgg) To Improve Classroom Behavior, Michael Marotta

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Caught Being Good Game (CBGG), a variation of Good Behavior Game, is an interdependent group contingency, which focuses on giving students points for engaging in appropriate, rule-following behavior. The present study aimed to expand the literature on CBGG by targeting students in general education classrooms and comparing the impact of student-chosen versus teacher-chosen contingency criteria on disruptive behavior and academic engagement. Four students who were at-risk for developing emotional disorders in two general elementary classrooms were targeted in the study. A multiple-baseline across participants design with an embedded alternating treatments design was used to evaluate the outcomes of the …

Structural Racism: Racists Without Racism In Liberal Institutions Within Colorblind States, Alexis Nicole Mootoo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Afro-Descendants suffer sustained discrimination and invisibility that is proliferated with policies that were once blatantly racist, but are now furtive. This study argues that structural racism is alive and well in liberal institutions such as publicly funded colleges and universities. Thus, structural racism is subtly replicated and reproduced within these institutions and by institutional agents who are Racist without Racism. This study builds on theories from Pierre Bourdieu, Frantz Fanon, Glen Loury and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. The juxtaposition of their theoretical arguments provides a deeper insight into how structural racism becomes a de facto reflexive phenomenon in liberal and progressive institutions …

Tensions Between Democracy And Expertise In The Florida Keys, Elizabeth A. Loyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The proposed release of genetically modified mosquitoes (GMM) in the Florida Keys to combat the spread of diseases such as Zika prompted heated local debate, turning a seemingly routine mosquito control policy into a public scientific controversy. Arguments about the GMM derive from inventional commonplaces where the historical conflict between democratic systems of civic deliberation and the epistemic authority of expertise is instantiated. This project analyzes the topoi that Keys participants gather around to generate their argumentative positions as published in public, local print and digital news articles, blog posts, and letters to the editor between 2011 and 2016. Investigating …

Black Girl Magic?: Negotiating Emotions And Success In College Bridge Programs, Olivia Ann Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews, this project explores the extent to which race, class, and gender shape the socialization that Black women receive about their emotions and attitudes in a college bridge program. It unpacks the ways that dominant emotion cultures can inform the emotional socialization practices of a college bridge program in ways that resist and reproduce larger cultural narratives about Black women. To operationalize this emotional socialization, I introduce a concept called emotional respectability, which suggests that emotional reactions and demeanor must always align with the larger emotion cultures and goals of institutions such as family and …

Perceptual Learning Styles Modalities Utilizing The Multimodal Paired Associates Learning Test: An Analysis Of Latinos Born In Central And South America, Matias Ramirez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Businesses and Human Resources professionals face the ongoing challenge of continuously upskilling and developing employees. Changes to processes or procedures, changes in technology, changes in job functions, and updates or changes to compliance laws or regulations are all reasons that employees must attend and complete employer-developed training. This study utilized the updated Multimodal Paired Associates Learning Test, version four (MMPALT-IV) instrument to determine perceptual learning styles and to determine if there exists a measureable difference in Latinos perceptual learning styles.

The purpose of this study was to measure the perceptual learning styles of Latino adults from Central and South America …

Psychopathic Traits And Substance Use In The Context Of Erotic Services And Sex Exchange Among College Students, Bethany Edwards

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With increasing education expenses and characterization of our culture as “sexualized”, scholars have begun to explore student engagement in erotic services, but most research has been done outside the United States. This study tested personality correlates, prevalence and type of erotic service involvement in men and women college students in the United States. Specifically, the present study examined gender differences and whether substance use and psychopathic traits exhibit unique and/or interactive associations with both provision and consumption of erotic services among students. A total of 820 undergraduate students (54.3% women) took part in a study on personality and sexual behavior, …

The Empirical Selection Of Anchor Items Using A Multistage Approach, Brandon Craig

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if using a multistage approach for the empirical selection of anchor items would lead to more accurate DIF detection rates than the anchor selection methods proposed by Kopf, Zeileis, & Strobl (2015b). A simulation study was conducted in which the sample size, percentage of DIF, and balance of DIF were manipulated. The outcomes of interest were true positive rates, false positive rates, familywise false positive rates, anchor contamination rates, and familywise anchor contamination rates. Results showed the proposed multistage methods produced lower anchor contamination rates than the non-multistage methods under some conditions, …

Exploring Nutritional Needs, Roles, And Expectations Of Latina Breast Cancer Survivors, Pamela Carolina Birriel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Latina breast cancer survivors, especially those who have undergone chemotherapy, may face major disruptions to their diet and eating habits; and a major concern is their ability to function in daily life roles throughout survivorship. Food and nutrition are suggested to be significant factors that can influence the process of cancer development, yet little research has been done to understand the nutritional needs, roles, and expectations among Latina breast cancer survivors. The purpose of this study was to understand Latina breast cancer survivors’ perceptions of the role of diet and nutrition in helping them cope with the effect of chemotherapy …

Early Childhood Mathematics Through A Social Justice Lens: An Autoethnography, Jennifer Ward

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this autoethnography was to explore the experiences, both successes and challenges, as I worked to teach mathematics using a social justice framework in a summer enrichment camp with four and five-year-old children. Drawing from both critical approaches (Freire, 1968) and sociocultural approaches (Rogoff, 2008), this dissertation outlines critical perspectives within Early Childhood Education, as well as trends in teaching mathematics for social justice to frame the research study. Autoethnography was selected as a methodological approach in this study as I examined my own teaching experiences and journey engaging in teaching mathematics for social justice. Primary data sources …

Examining Cross-Cultural Affective Components Of Global Competence From A Value Perspective, Nadia Awaida-Nachabe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore perceived importance of cultural values and affective components in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and their relationships. This study identified which of the nine affective components of global competence and four higher order cultural values were perceived to be important in the MENA region. It also examined the correlations between cultural values and affective components and whether significant differences existed based on gender, age, and country of citizenship.

This research involved the combination of Wallenberg-Lerner’s Affective Component Questionnaire (ACQ) and Schwartz’s Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ). In conjunction with a …

Validity Of A New Measure Of Phonemic Awareness That Does Not Require Spoken Responses In Children With Complex Communication Needs, Tiffany Chavers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children with complex communication needs (CCN) routinely have difficulty attaining appropriate literacy skills. Two indicators of literacy development are the alphabetic principle and phonemic awareness (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1989). The acquisition of minimal literacy skills such as letter sound knowledge can give children with CCN the opportunity to communicate and generate their own messages, instead of being reliant on vocabulary provided by others. In order to identify appropriate intervention approaches, nonverbal assessments of phonological and phonemic awareness for individuals with CCN are needed.

The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of the Dynamic Assessment of the Alphabetic …

"There's A Real Hole Here": Female Masochism And Spectatorship In Michael Haneke's La Pianiste, Morgan J. Jennings

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this project, I examine the relationship between female masochism, performance, and spectatorship in Michael Haneke’s film La Pianiste (2001). The film stages a relationship to sexuality that structures the subject’s excruciating negotiations with the other as always mediated by the law, the letter, or the body as instrument, which is allegorized by the protagonist’s occupation as a piano teacher. In my analysis, I identify the ways in which the film paradoxically offers a critique of mediation’s effect on the feminine position while encouraging viewers to confront the possibility that desire is only possible through these mediations. Contributing to feminist …

Predictors Of Behavior Problems In The Context Of Peer Play Interactions: A Sample Of Low-Income Latino Preschoolers, Olivia Hernandez Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Latinos are the fastest-growing minority group in the United States and have higher dropout rates compared to other groups. Moreover, problem behaviors are common in preschool classrooms, and the incidence of these problems is higher for children from low-income families. The purpose of this study was to understand Latino children's problem behaviors in the context of peer play interactions and identify those variables that influence such behavior. 265 five and six-year-old Spanish-speaking children (53.6% female) attending Head Start or kindergarten participated in the study. Additionally, 198 mothers and 78 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten lead teachers participated in the study. Child level …

Modern Mythologies: The Epic Imagination In Contemporary Indian Literature, Sucheta Kanjilal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project delineates a cultural history of modern Hinduism in conversation with contemporary Indian literature. Its central focus is literary adaptations of the Sanskrit epic the Mahābhārata, in English, Hindi, and Bengali. Among Hindu religious texts, this epic has been most persistently reproduced in literary and popular discourses because its scale matches the grandeur of the Indian national imagining. Further, many epic adaptations explicitly invite devotion to the nation, often emboldening conservative Hindu nationalism. This interdisciplinary project draws its methodology from literary theory, history, gender, and religious studies. Little scholarship has put Indian Anglophone literatures in conversation with other …

Longitudinal Awareness: A Study Of Vulnerability To Flooding In Polk County, Iowa, Kerri A. Dickey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Flooding has become a problem of national proportion and many scholars have started to take note of the human impacts in this area. This study will focus on the social vulnerability framework in tandem with the environmental justice theoretical frameworks being applied to Polk County Iowa so that information can be added to the body of works within a Midwestern U.S. context. This research will contribute to the current geographical knowledge in natural hazards, environmental justice, and vulnerability to flood hazards. Taking into consideration the scarcity of county or sub-county studies in the Midwest U.S. measuring spatial tendencies in hazards …

Evolution, Ecology, And Disparities: Constructing Stature, Immune Functioning, And Reproduction In Brazilian Quilombo, And United States, Women, Anna C. Rivara

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to test how growth, reproduction, and immune functioning interact in two populations of adult women residing in vastly different socio-economic and ecological environments, the Kalunga quilombo in Brazil, and the United States of America. The presence of life history trade-offs was tested to determine how the different envirnonments, and socio-ecological contexts of the populations were creating differential risks for health and reproductive outcomes, and life history trade-offs.

I hypothesized that the Kalunga people, living in very difficult and harsh conditions, would experience greater amounts of, and more severe, life history trade-offs than the U.S. …

Heteroglossic Chinese Online Literacy Practices On Micro-Blogging And Video-Sharing Sites, Yi Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates Chinese online users’ adoptions of various languages and other meaning making signs in their online literacy practices in two popular Chinese CMC sites, Weibo (micro-blogging) and bilibili.com (video-sharing). Adopting the theoretical framework of heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981), I explore how various meaning making resources are creatively and playfully utilized by Chinese users in their online communication. After two-month data collection, I sampled the non-standard literacy practices (e.g., foreign language transliteration) identified from micro-blogging postings and comments in Weibo, as well as spontaneous (known as “bullet curtain” comments) and traditional text-box comments from featured videos in bilibili.com. The findings …

Perceptual Learning Style Modalities: Comparing Latino, Black, And Caucasian Adults, Nicolle Chantelle Hardy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the individual learning modalities of Latino, Black, and Caucasian males and females with at least some college education utilizing the Multi-modal Paired Associates Learning Test IV (MMPALT IV). Using the MMPALT IV, 20 participants from each of the three race/ethnicities above the age of 40 were measured in each of the seven perceptual modalities: Visual, Print, Aural, Interactive, Haptic, Kinesthetic, and Olfactory. The MMPALT IV is a performance-based test, which measures a person’s capacity to acquire information through each of the seven learning channels.

ANOVA tests (2 x 3) with a …

Learner-Directed Vs. Instructor-Provided Curriculum Among Undergraduate Students, Christopher D. Martinez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There has been little or no research on the use of a Learning Object in the field of religious studies. The purpose of this research study was to assess undergraduate student knowledge gain outcomes between instructor-provided and learner-directed methods, which is the independent variable, using asynchronous, online, narrated PowerPoint presentations compared to undergraduate student knowledge gain using an online learning-objects unit, in a college-level world religions survey course at St. Petersburg College. This study assessed undergraduate student knowledge gain outcomes between instructor-provided and learner-directed methods among 90 college undergraduate students and determined whether there was a significant difference in the …

Traveling Women And Consuming Place In Eighteenth-Century Travel Letters And Journals, Cassie Patricia Childs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traveling Women and Consuming Place in Eighteenth-Century Travel Letters and Journals considers how various women-authored travel narratives of the long eighteenth century employ food in the construction of place and identity. Chronologically charting the letters and journals of Delarivier Manley, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Janet Schaw, and Frances Burney, I argue that the “critical food moments” described in their letters and journals demonstrate material, cultural, and social implications about consumption. My interdisciplinary project is located at the intersection of three seemingly divergent topics: food studies, human geography, and women-authored travel narratives. Approaching “place” as a way of being-in-the-world, my project …

The Relationship Between Trait Emotional Intelligence And L2 Motivation, Jelena Vuksanovic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Motivation is considered an important factor in initiating and sustaining the second language (L2) process. Since learning an L2 can be seen as a lengthy process, one that needs sustained motivation over a long period of time, learners need to be able to successfully deal with their and others’ emotions in order to generate and sustain their motivation for learning. The role of learners’ emotions and trait emotional self-efficacy, or trait emotional intelligence (EI), in L2 motivation and language learning has been a relatively unexplored area. To fill this gap, the current study posed three research questions that addressed the …

Practical Theology In An Interpretive Community: An Ethnography Of Talk, Texts And Video In A Mediated Women's Bible Study, Nancie Hudson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study of social interaction in a small religious group used ethnography of communication as a research method to collect and analyze data from 20 months of fieldwork. As a long-term participant-observer in a women-only interdenominational Bible study, I investigated the group’s patterned ways of speaking, how print and electronic learning materials influenced the practical application of Scripture to daily life, and how the contemporary format for women’s Bible study alters the traditional Bible study experience. Patterned ways of speaking in this setting included group discussions and conversational narratives about religion, motherhood and lack of time. Using affirmations of faith, …

“The Nations Of The Field And Wood”: The Uncertain Ontology Of Animals In Eighteenth-Century British Literature, J. Kevin Jordan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the relationship between important intellectual discourses of the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries and the ontological status of non-human animals. The Enlightenment marks a distinct change in the ways in which humans gather knowledge and interact with the world, a change that forms the foundation for modern relationships between human and non-human animals. Through a theoretical framework that draws from animal studies and ecofeminism, I analyze the ways in which the status of non-human animals is shaped by the intersection of multiple anthropocentric concerns. In doing so, this dissertation probes the foundation of what defines the animal apart …

"There Is No Planet B": Frame Disputes Within The Environmental Movement Over Geoengineering, David Russell Zeller Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines frame disputes within the environmental movement over geoengineering proposals. Among other core framing tasks, social movement organizations must evaluate solutions and strategies for the social problems they seek to address. These framings are frequently disputed by those within the movement. Recent controversies regarding a set of climate intervention proposals commonly known as geoengineering offer the opportunity to document the ongoing construction of competing visions of environmental sustainability. The nascent quality of these proposals generate dissonant framings—episodes where organizations within the environmental movement exhibit disagreement about one or more core framing tasks—a situation Goffman referred to as a …

Germania- And Silica-Based Perfluorinated And Non-Fluorinated Sol-Gel Sorbents For Capillary Microextraction In Chromatographic Analysis, Emre Seyyal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sample preparation is the most time-consuming and error-prone step in chemical analysis. Miniaturization and automation of the sample preparation equipment eliminating or reducing the use of hazardous organic solvents, online hyphenation of sample preparation with analytical instruments in a cost-effective way are important factors that need to be considered to design and implement innovative sample preparation techniques and strategies. Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is a simple, environmentally benign technique well suited for hyphenation with analytical instruments. However, poor coating stability is a significant drawback of SPME employing conventionally prepared coatings. This shortcoming arises from the lack of chemical bonding between the …