Digital Commons Network^™

Sharing The Power Of Words And Changing Lives Through College-Level Instruction In Grammar And Mechanics, Carol Ann Tillema

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intrigued by the English language and its far-reaching applications worldwide as a standard means of communication, I begin my disquisition with a focus on the meaning and derivation of grammar and its place in the trivium of ancient and modern study. I stress the need to reemphasize college-level instruction in grammar and mechanics as a complement to rhetoric and logic by studying and teaching editing, which involves semantics, syntax, phonology, morphology, conventions, mechanics (spelling, punctuation and format), in writing centers and classrooms. Noting growing nationwide illiteracy, I research the pedagogies and writing of experts in the field of rhetoric and …

Considerations Of Multicultural Science And Curriculum Reform: A Content Analysis Of State-Adopted Biology Textbooks In Florida, Margaret H. Delgato

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the extent to which multicultural science education, including indigenous knowledge representations, had been infused within the content of high school biology textbooks. The study evaluated the textbook as an instructional tool and framework for multicultural science education instruction by comparing the mainstream content to indigenous knowledge perspectives portrayed in the student and teacher editions of 34 textbooks adopted in Florida within the last four adoption cycles occurring from 1990 to 2006. The investigation involved a content analysis framed from a mixed methods approach. Emphasis was placed, in consideration of the research questions …

A Case Study In Public K-12 Education: Hispanic Female (Latinas) School Administrators’ Perceptions Of Their Role And Experiences As Principals Within Central Florida, Martha Santiago

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A gradual but significant change in America's demographic composition has occurred during the last few years. Millions of Hispanic students, many of them immigrants, have been absorbed in the nation's schools, turning public institutions into multiracial, multicultural, and to some degree, multilingual sites (Tallerico, 2001; Ferrandino, 2001).

In light of the demographic changes and the important role of school leaders, how is the Hispanic principal in the K-12 public schools reflecting the growth of the Hispanic school population? This research studies perceptions the Hispanic female principal attached to their role and role expectations as a principal.

This qualitative case study …

Peirce On The Passions: The Role Of Instinct, Emotion, And Sentiment In Inquiry And Action, Robert J. Beeson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

One of the least explored areas of C.S. Peirce's wide range of work is his contributions to psychology and the philosophy of mind. This dissertation examines the corpus of this work, especially as it relates to the subjects of mind, habit, instinct, sentiment, emotion, perception, consciousness, cognition, and community. The argument is that Peirce's contributions to these areas of investigation were both highly original and heavily influenced by the main intellectual currents of his time.

An effort has been made to present Peirce's philosophy without apology, within the conceptual framework and idiom of its time, and without appeal to a …

Contradictions In A Distance Content-Based English As A Foreign Language Course: Activity Theoretical Perspective, Irshat Madyarov

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores six English as a foreign language students in an English content-based course of critical thinking delivered via distance at the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) in Iran. Framed within cultural-historical activity theory, the study seeks to shed light on the complex nature of students' course-related activities with a particular focus on contradictions that underlie any human activity. The construct of contradictions provides a theoretical lens to understand the complex web of relationships among a number of elements in the course taking activity situated in a cultural-historical setting beset with political controversies, technological challenges, and demands of …

Culture Learning In Spanish Companion Book Websites: An Analysis Of Tasks, Angela Cresswell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Internet with its World Wide Web feature opened up a whole new frontier for language-culture learning that foreign language textbook authors have integrated into their programs. Designing tasks that progress beyond promoting learners' passive consumerism and reiteration of facts remains a goal and a challenge. Thus, three research questions characterized this study that sought to examine the on-line tasks associated with six current Spanish textbook programs. The design focused on an analysis of these tasks in light of prevailing culture learning concepts and other pedagogical paradigms posited by reputable foreign language educators to determine if they filled the gap …

The Acquisition Of Procedural Skills: An Analysis Of The Worked-Example Effect Using Animated Demonstrations, David Lewis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While many educators suggest active, rather than passive learning, this is not always the best solution, especially when learners are novices. Sweller and Cooper found learners who passively studied worked examples were significantly more efficient than those who actively solved problems (Cooper & Sweller, 1987; Sweller & Cooper, 1985) later described as the "worked-example effect" (Sweller & Chandler, 1991).

The current study tested the claims of Lewis (2005) who suggested animated demonstrations act as worked examples. It compared the performance of groups of preservice teachers who: studied animated demonstrations (demo); studied animated demonstrations and practiced procedures (demo+practice & demo2+practice), or …

The Virtual Landscape Of Geological Information Topics, Methods, And Rhetoric In Modern Geology, Sarah Elizabeth Fratesi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Geology is undergoing changes that could influence its knowledge claims, reportedly becoming more laboratory-based, technology-driven, quantitative, and physics- and chemistry-rich over time. This dissertation uses techniques from information science and linguistics to examine the geologic literature of 1945-2005. It consists of two studies: an examination of the geological literature as an expanding network of related subdisciplines, and an investigation of the linguistic and graphical argumentation strategies within geological journal articles.

The first investigation is a large-scale study of topics within articles from 67 geologic journals. Clustering of subdiscipline journals based on titles and keywords reveals six major areas of geology: …

Impact Of Seizure-Related Variables And Psychopathology On Health-Related Quality Of Life In Pediatric Epilepsy, Aja M. Meyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Psychopathology typically is a lasting condition that is persistent from childhood to adulthood. Therefore, it is imperative that children with health conditions and comorbid psychiatric disorders are treated for both conditions as they are likely to have a significant negative impact on children's overall health-related quality of life (HRQL). More specifically, it is important to identify the variables that affect HRQL in children with epilepsy. Research has shown that biomedical variables such as seizure severity and frequency have only moderate relationships with HRQL; therefore, additional factors, such as depression and anxiety, must be identified so that they also may be …

The Social Context Of Cervical Cancer Knowledge And Prevention Among Haitian Immigrant Women, Janelle Marie Menard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cervical cancer is the primary cause of cancer deaths among Haitian women; however, the social context of cervical cancer among Haitian immigrant women has not been systematically examined. The ways in which women assign meaning to this disease, understand its causality and situate it within the broader context of gynecological health are poorly understood. Further, Haitian immigrant women's perceptions of disease risk, including knowledge and understanding about Human Papillomavirus (HPV), the primary etiologic factor in cervical cancer, have not been explored. Few studies have assessed health behaviors, including culturally mediated feminine hygiene practices, among Haitian immigrant women, which may negatively …

U.S. Based Business Needs For Technical/Occupational Employees With International Skills: Considerations For Community College And Sub-Baccalaureate Programs In The Tampa Bay Economic Zone., Ronald L. Olney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Significance: This study provides the first systematic needs assessment of a U.S. business region to determine if businesses want international skills taught in community college technical and occupational programs. Without this assessment, community college leaders and faculty are not able to determine whether they are adequately preparing students in these skills to be successful in tomorrow's fast paced, mobile and integrated global workforce.

Research Aims:

1. Conduct a needs assessment to determine whether international skills were considered important for employment entry or movement

2. Determine where businesses obtain international skills training.

3. Garner business recommendations for the improvement of international …

Dynamic Assessment: Towards A Model Of Dialogic Engagement, Robert Summers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the effects of Dynamic Assessment (DA) training on the mediational strategies of experienced teachers of French as a foreign language. Moreover the strategies that mediators used for students at different levels of language experience were investigated. Last the ways in which mediators manifested mediational sensitivity, reciprocity and management was examined.

Four mediators underwent DA training that exposed them to the theoretical underpinnings of DA as well as sound DA procedures. To determine the effect of this training, the way in which the mediators conducted their mediation was compared from pre-DA training to post-DA training. Three of these …

Three Wittgensteins: Interpreting The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Thomas J. Brommage Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are historically three main trends in understanding Wittgenstein's Tractatus. The first is the interpretation offered by the Vienna Circle. They read Wittgenstein as arguing that neither metaphysical nor normative propositions have any cognitive meaning, and thus are to be considered nonsense. This interpretation understands Wittgenstein as setting the limits of sense, and prescribing that nothing of substantive philosophical importance lies beyond that line. The second way of reading the Tractatus, which has became popular since the 1950s, is the interpretation which most currently accept as the early Wittgenstein's view; for this reason I refer to it …

Factors Affecting Message Intelligibility Of Cued Speech Transliterators, Katherine Pelley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While a majority of deaf students mainstreamed in public schools rely on interpreters, little research has investigated interpreter skills and no research to date has focused on interpreter intelligibility (Kluwin & Stewart, 2001). This thesis is the second in a series of experiments designed to quantify the contribution of various factors affecting the intelligibility of interpreters (transliterators) who use English-based communication modes. In the first experiment, 12 Cued Speech transliterators were asked to transliterate an audio lecture. Two aspects of these transliterated performances were then analyzed: 1) accuracy, as measured as the percent-correct cues produced, and 2) lag time, the …

Identity, Desire And Spectatorship: An Examination Of Germaine Dulac’S La Coquille Et Le Clergyman, Jennifer A. Melko

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Germaine Dulac's 1928 avant-garde film, La Coquille et le Clergyman, based on a script written by Antonin Artaud, presents the idea of the woman as an object of desire, subjected to the male gaze through the cinematic process. Not only is the lone female character the object of desire of her two male suitors on screen, but she also becomes the object of desire for the presumably male viewer of the film, who has become a silent character in the film. Rather than simply being the spectator, the viewer's own identity becomes entwined with that of the on screen …

Relationships Among Language Use, Phonological Skill, And Vocabulary In English Language Learning Preschoolers, Timothy D. Hill

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study present study explored the relationships among language use, phonological skill, and vocabulary development for 36 Cuban and Puerto Rican ELL preschoolers. Family-level variables included mother's education level and mother's language ability. Three-way ANOVAs were used to investigate the relationships among child- and family-level variables and children's performance on articulation (completeness of phonetic inventory (CPI) and proportion of whole-word proximity (PWP)) and language measures (Picture Vocabulary (PV) and Memory for Sentences (MS) subtests of the WLPB-R) in English and Spanish. Regression and correlational analyses were conducted to describe relationships between variables.

Findings indicated that children in all language …

The Efficacy Of Florida’S Approach To In-Service English Speakers Of Other Languages Teacher Training Programs, Ronald D. Simmons Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Much of how Florida and other states across the country justify the practice of mainstreaming English language learners into regular content classrooms rests on the premise that with the guidance of state officials, local school districts adequately train content teachers to work with English language learners. Yet little to no research exists that can help identify and analyze the overall efficacy of these programs. Consequently, this study has attempted to determine whether district training sessions in Florida are sufficiently covering the state-mandated content areas that teachers are required to learn and to what extent in-service teachers agree or disagree that …

State Dominance And Political Corruption: Testing The Efficacy Of An Alternate Configuration Of Institutional-Anomie Theory Cross-Nationally, Carol L. S. Trent

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extant assessments of Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional-anomie theory (1994) have generally supported the thesis that, in social collectives where the economy dominates, non-economic institutions (i.e. the family, education, polity) are rendered feeble, unable to exert their normative controls. The cultural values of these societies place primacy on "making it" (monetary success), while at the same time placing a much weaker emphasis on the licit means of achieving these goals. The resultant state is one of anomie, conducive to crime. Messner and Rosenfeld have extended their argument stating that it is not economic dominance per se that contributes to high crime …

Net/Work: Composing The Posthuman Self, Julia L. Mason

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The overall question this dissertation asks is: what does it mean to teach posthumans? To answer this question, this dissertation turns toward scholarship on the body in order to understand the virtual and material presence that students develop, it looks to online video gaming communities as alternative classrooms providing effective models of learning, and it investigates the circulation of service learning pedagogies within academic institutions as a marker of the persistence of humanistic values within the framework of a posthuman work environment.

The American university in general, and the humanities specifically, is struggling to make sense of its place in …

The Autoethnographic Call: Current Considerations And Possible Futures, Kendall Smith-Sullivan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the increase of personal narratives in the past several decades, particularly the autoethnographic approach. The project begins with a historical contextualization of personal writing and autoethnography in relation to the crisis of representation and other diverse socio-political shifts. One outcome of these cultural transitions was a proliferation of illness narratives, narrative therapy, therapeutic writing, and narrative health communication. Also included in this research are data from interviews with emerging autoethnographers and participant observation that occurred at the Third International Qualitative Inquiry Congress. The conference served as prism through which to view qualitative scholarship as a whole, as …

Learning, Living, And Leaving The Closet: Making Gay Identity Relational, Tony E. Adams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gay identity is inextricably tied to the metaphor of the closet. This tie is best exemplified by the act of "coming out of the closet," an act when a person discloses a gay identity to another, an act of self-identification and confession that others can motivate but never force, an act typically thought of as necessary, dangerous, and consequential, and an act often viewed as a discrete, linear process. Gay identity is also frequently framed as a self-contained trait thus making coming out a one-sided, personal affair.

In this project, I use autoethnography and narrative inquiry, life story interviews of …

Framing In Leadership Communication: Strategies, Breakdowns And Outcomes, Slaheddine Mnasri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examined framing practices used by leaders who participated in the Capacity Day 2007 event, which is organized by the World Bank Institute, as part of its Leadership Development Program. The study examined strategic uses of framing as a meaning-making tool. The framing strategies identified in this study were accomplished through the strategic use of language. Furthermore, the study recognized the implied negotiations of frames made by the skilled 'framers' and found that situations are continuously 'reframable'. Unsuccessful framing attempts were correlated with the contradictions between what was said and what was eventually understood. The positive outcomes that followed …

The Nature Of Questioning Moves Used By Exemplary Teachers During Reading Instruction, Melinda M. Lundy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines and describes the nature of questioning moves used by two exemplary fourth-grade teachers during reading instruction. Questioning moves are defined in this study as the ways in which teachers use scaffolding questions to engage students in talk about text. Another point of interest in this study was to determine how teachers perceive the influence of instructional materials on the language they use to engage students in talk about text.

This study was situated within a constructivist paradigm of inquiry and drew from the case study tradition for its design. Naturalistic methods of data collection were employed including …

Yeats, Eliot, And Apocalyptic Poetry, Nancy Helen Fletcher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Yeats and Eliot merit comparison because they wrote poetry that has been described as apocalyptic in the same historical period and in the same general geographic area but described entirely different visions. These particular works of Yeats and Eliot are appropriate because they represent two widely varying viewpoints on the causes, nature and desirability of what each author felt would be the coming apocalypse. Therefore, more can be learned by comparing the very different outlooks of the poems than by considering each poem separately.

Yeats sees humanity as both the victim and the beneficiary of a series of inescapable historical …

The Effects Of Pre-Writing Strategy Training Guided By Computer-Based Procedural Facilitation On Esl Students’ Strategy Use, Writing Quantity, And Writing Quality, Darunee Dujsik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pre-writing strategies are conscious thoughts, actions, or behaviors used by writers when they plan before writing. Research in second language writing suggests that specific writing strategies related to writing purposes, audience, brainstorming, and organizing ideas are teachable and have a potential to improve the quantity and quality of writing produced by English as second language (ESL) learners. This study investigated the effects of computer-based pre-writing strategy training guided by procedural facilitation (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987) on intermediate ESL students' writing strategy use, writing quantity, and writing quality.

A sequential mixed methods design was utilized with an initial quasi-experimental phase followed …

(Re)Defining Relationships In A Mediated Context: Graduate Student Use Of Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication, Michael P. Nicholas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study consists of qualitative interviews with 8 graduate students about the use of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC), or instant message (IM), programs in their interpersonal relationships. Participants were interviewed twice, once via an instant message program and once in a face-to-face setting. They were asked about their frequency of use, their use of multi-tasking, and the types of conversations they have via IM. Results of the interviews are discussed, with a concentration on the paradoxical nature of IM communication as impersonal, but at the same time, conducive to personal disclosure and intimacy.

Black Beauty As Antebellum Slave Narrative, Bonnie L. Blossom

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Published in November 1877, Black Beauty is one of the most popular and enduring works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book, in which the eponymous narrator relates his life's story, sold well following its publication in England and in the United States; by 1985, sales were estimated at over forty million. While usually regarded as entertaining, Black Beauty has a strong crusading purpose: Anna Sewell herself said she wrote to improve the treatment of horses.

This study springs from an intuitive notion. While reading the 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, I could not shake …

Effects Of Bilingualism On Speech Recognition Performance In Noise, Mitzarie A. Carlo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effects of bilingualism on speech recognition in noise performance of young normal-hearing Spanish-English bilinguals across several signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). The estimated signal-to-noise ratio needed for 50% correct recognition performance obtained for bilingual listeners was compared to young normal-hearing monolingual listeners of both English and Spanish. The estimated mean SNR needed for 50% correct recognition was significantly higher (i.e., poorer) for the bilingual than for the monolingual English listeners. The Spanish language performance of the bilingual listeners did not significantly differ from that of the monolingual Spanish listeners. The bilinguals were then divided into subgroups based on …

Pensar En La Habana: Literatura, Memoria Y Ciudad En El Discurso De Tres Escritores Cubanos, Axel Presas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In my thesis I endeavor to examine the influence and impact of memory -the mental and psychological processes of recollection-on the writings of three Cuban authors of the twentieth century. I have chosen José Lezama Lima, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and Eliseo Diego because of their particularly vast and evocative literatures about the city: la Ciudad de La Habana. One of the main objectives of this work is to suggest the cultural predisposition of a twentieth century Cuban Literature that is consequential on its authors' recollections and reminiscences about the city. But, does this mnemonic-literary tendency truly exist in contemporary …

“To Know Where I Have Got To”: The Postmodern Chronotope In Beckett’S Malone Dies And Coetzee’S Foe, Brian J. Mcallister

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study addresses two works of fiction--Samuel Beckett's Malone Dies and J. M. Coetzee's Foe--and is separated into two chapters. The first chapter analyzes the indeterminate nature of postmodern space within the two novels as related to M. M. Bakhtin's idea of the chronotope found in his work The Dialogic Imagination. The second chapter addresses the self-reflexive creation of this postmodern space within each novel's hypodiegetic narratives and discussions of narrative creation within each respective diegetic narratives.

In each novel, characters as authors create or discuss "inner" narratives that reflect upon the way chronotopes are created in fiction …