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The Development Of The Meanings Of Think And Know Through Conversation, Lea Kessler Shaw

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An apparent discrepancy in the literature on mental verbs between findings of experimental studies (young children fail to contrast terms) and observational studies (children use terms correctly in conversation) can be reconciled using Nelson and Lucariello's (1985) theory of word meaning development. According to their analysis, three aspects of word meaning develop in order: reference, denotation, and sense. For success at experimental tasks, children must have attained a system of interrelated word meanings (sense). However, children's initial uses of think and know take their meanings from the roles in the language games in which they occur (Wittgenstein, 1953).

In this …

Perceptions Of Iowa High School Principals On The Relationship Of Leadership, School Size, And Socioeconomic Level To School Culture, Kevin Wayne Fiene

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

American society is changing. Consequently, public schools are being called to change as well. Previous reform efforts have failed to bring about substantive change and improvement. Current reform efforts are calling for the changing of school culture. What factors influence school culture? What role does leadership, school size, and socioeconomic levels play in developing school culture?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of leadership, school size, and socioeconomic level to school culture utilizing the Competing Values Framework. The Competing Values Framework provided four ideal culture types and eight leadership roles. Culture types included group, developmental, rational …

Social Class Depiction In Selected Award-Winning Children's Narrative Fiction, Edward L. Starkenburg

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This qualitative content analysis was designed to meet the following three objectives: to build an awareness of the depiction of social class in children's literature, to bolster the literature base on this depiction, and to better inform those who work with children's literature of its content in order to facilitate knowledgeable decisions regarding the selection and discussion of this literature. Eisner's (1991) connoisseurship and criticism heuristic guided the research throughout the data gathering as well as the inductive and deductive analyses of that data. The results of the study facilitate understanding and discerning social class in future experiences with children's …

The Relationship Between Phonemic Awareness And Preschool Children's Literacy Activities, Cheryl M. Geurts

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between preschool children's phonemic awareness and the literacy activities in which they choose to engage. Children (N=l4) in the study were observed twice weekly for 12 weeks in the normal preschool environment. Data collection was divided into two phases. The first phase consisted of watching one child at a time for 15 minutes and recording everything that child did during that time. The next phase c~ data collection consisted of watching the entire class and indicating on checklists what the children were doing during free play, circle time, and …

An Evaluation Of Adhd Assessment, Intervention, And Progress Monitoring Practices In One School According To Best Practice Recommendations, Kristin M. Briggs

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study investigated the quality of ADHD assessment, interventions, and progress monitoring practices in a school building. Education personnel were also surveyed (n = 8) to gain further insight into the current school policies and practices for ADHD. Barkley's 1990 model of ADHD assessment and intervention was chosen as the standard of best practice in which current practices were compared. One school was selected for participation in the study. All students on medication for ADHD in kindergarten through twelfth grades served as subjects (n = 13). Data analysis revealed that seven of these student files (54%) did not include documentation …

The Efficiency And Effectiveness Of Self-Monitoring For Increasing Fourth Graders' Work Completion, Stacy S. Jeffrey

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This research study investigated the efficiency and effectiveness of self-monitoring as an individual intervention technique. Data were collected for 10 weeks in a public elementary school in a small city in central Iowa. The subjects were 1 fourth-grade regular classroom teacher and 1 of her students and 1 special education teacher and 1 student from a fourth-grade regular classroom in which the special education teacher team-taught. Both teachers had willingly volunteered to participate in the research study and later identified a student in their class who had low rates of work completion. None of the 4 subjects had received formal …

Adolescent Depression : Further Examination Of Gender Differences, Elizabeth Marie O'Neill

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study was designed to examine pertinent research questions that remain unanswered by past investigations of adolescent depression. Specifically this study investigated potential differences between high and low scoring depressed adolescents, and whether gender is an influential variable for consideration. Subjects were 175 adolescent boys and girls from a laboratory school in Midwestern Iowa. Subjects were divided into four groups based on gender and responses two questions on the BDI-A. Specifically, the four groups were: boys who scored at or above IO on the BDI-A (sub-clinical group--boys), boys who scored below 10 on the BDI-A (control group--boys), girls who scored …

The Impact Behavior Of Austempered Ductile Iron At Sub-Zero Temperatures, Mikhail V. Riabov

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The objective of this study was to investigate impact properties of ASTM A897 Austempered Ductile Iron (ADI) grades 125/80/10, 150/100/7, 175/125/4, 200/155/1 and 230/185/- tested at sub-zero temperatures. Final results were compared to impact toughness of ferritic ductile iron (DI) grade 60-40-18 and pearlitic DI grade 100-70-03.

Two series of experiments were conducted: in the first series unnotched specimens of each ADI grade along with ferritic DI grade 60-40-18 and pearlitic DI grade 100-70-03 comparative samples were tested at temperatures of -40°C and -60°C. V-notched samples of ADI grade 1 and ADI grade 5 were tested in the second series …