Digital Commons Network^™

The Scales Are Still Unbalanced:A Phenomenological Study Of Parental Involvement Of Lower Socioeconomic Students Attending School In An Affluent Southeastern Educational Community, Debra Walker Smith

All ETDs from UAB

With the pressures of No Child Left Behind, and many schools being identified as failing, parents are willing to make major sacrifices in order to provide what they believe is a quality education. The research addressed what it meant for twelve low socioeconomic parents to be involved in their children’s education in an affluent educational environment. The researcher defined low socioeconomics as students participating in the National School Lunch Program, as this was one of the identifiers used to determine this subgroup for the State Department of Education’s Adequate Yearly Progress. A phenomenological study was conducted to answer the following …

Lexical Complexity Of Learner Discourse: Interpersonal And Presentational Mode Descriptions In Russian, Julia Mikhailova

Russian Language Journal

In this case study I will analyze the lexical complexity of oral descriptions produced by learners of Russian in two different but related kinds of oral proficiency interviews, the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and the Simulated Oral Proficiency Interview (SOPI). The OPI is a face-to-face or telephone interview of a speaker of a foreign language conducted by a tester certified by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). In the OPI, description is elicited by the examiner in the context of live interaction. The description is thus in interpersonal mode, as defined by the National Standards for …

Now I Know My Aбв’S: A Comparison Of Inductive And Deductive Methods Of Teaching On The Acquisition Of The Cyrillic Alphabet, Jennifer Bown, Thomas Bown, Courtenay Christiansen, Shalise Dudley, Shea Gibbons, Janine Green

Russian Language Journal

The study was designed to compare the effects of inductive verse deductive teaching methods on acquisition of the Russian alphabet. Inductive instruction refers to methods in which learners are first exposed to examples and then asked to extrapolate a rule from the example, whereas deductive instruction refers to methods in which learners are presented with a rule from the start. Eighty participants were randomly divided into two instructional groups, one receiving deductive instruction and the other receiving inductive instruction. Participants were given a pretest on Russian words and given instruction on the Cyrillic alphabet based on an inductive or a …

Rocking The Kenyan Cradle: Colonial Conditioning In Ngugi Wa Thiongo's Njamba Nene Stories, Jonathan Moore

Masters Theses

This thesis analyzes Ngugi wa Thiongo's critique of the colonial influences on the Church, the British educational system and the Kenyan middle class in and around the time of Kenya's State of Emergency of the 1950s. Specifically, I examine these colonial legacies through his two children's books Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus and Njamba Nene's Pistol. More than simply exploit the poor, all three condition the people into a state of submissive acceptance of British superiority. The middle class, a self-replicating product of the first two, is of particular concern to Ngugi because, in this case, Kenyans exploit Kenyans …

Impact Of Test-Wiseness Training On Kindergarteners' Performance On Early Reading Measures, Keath A. Murray

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of test-wiseness (TW) training on kindergartners' performance on an early reading measure. Scores obtained from kindergarten students who receive TW training for two of the kindergarten probes from the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) were compared to scores of kindergarten students did not receive TW training. Approximately 52 kindergarten students were randomly assigned to 2 conditions. In one condition, 26 students took an initial probe, received brief TW training 2 weeks after the initial probe followed by a second, alternate-form "practice probe", and then a third alternate-form …

Language-Based Spelling Instruction For Children Who Are Hard-Of-Hearing, Brittney L. Yakey

Masters Theses

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of SPELL-Links to Reading and Writing, a language-based instructional spelling program, with two hard-of-hearing children. Spelling skills were evaluated using the Spelling Performance Evaluation for Language (SPELL), Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT), and Featured Inventories. The participants included two hard-of-hearing children with mild hearing loss. Spelling intervention targeted four spelling patterns (short u, ck, ch/tch, and ng). The results showed that one child benefited from the SPELL-Links to Reading and Writing by the improvement across all four patterns, while the other child showed improvement in only two of the patterns.

The Evolving Law Of Document Production In Japanese Civil Procedure: Context, Culture And Community, Carl F. Goodman

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Counterfeiting Truth: Statistical Reporting On The Basis Of Trust, David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Semantics and game theory offer modern approaches to very old problems.¹ David Lewis introduced game theoretic concepts into the study of language in his examination of conventions.² In this chapter we study the language of a specific sort of conventions: statistical estimators. Such estimators have the important property of being both well-defined mathematical objects and devices that form the basis of factual claims asserted and, perhaps, believed by rational agents.³ The convention we analyze allows econometric reporting to proceed on the basis of trust.⁴ In contrast with Lewis, we shall demonstrate that such a convention is …

Counterfeiting Truth: Statistical Reporting On The Basis Of Trust, Sandra J. Peart, David M. Levy

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

There are two parts of our chapter. First, we review Adam Smith's argument that the evolution of monetary institutions is tied up in the problem of detecting deceitful metal offered in exchange. Smith points to no such comparable institution by which deceitful policy advocacy is detected and severely punished.⁵ Yet his recommendation for caution in the evaluation of policy advocacy points to the caution that routinely prevailed in monetary matters before public safeguards evolved to make the metallic content of the medium of exchange transparent and to preserve its quality. Second, we tum to a different sort of deceit, …

Merkels & Acquisitions Or Locusts And Labor Law: What's Really "Plaguing" Cross-Border M&A; In Germany?, Margaret L. Hanson

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

No abstract provided.

Communication And Authenticity: Transformations Of The Self In The Digital Age, John Dowd

Masters Theses

Through an examination of disembodied forms of communication and technological discourse, this project explores the concepts of authenticity and its implications for communication research. Situated within phenomenological notions of embodiment, authenticity can serve as an important tool for doing rhetorical criticism. It provides an ethical component to criticism that is sorely lacking within many social scientific approaches to the study of human communication, which operate under the guise of objectivity. As authenticity, subjectivity, and embodiment are inescapably connected and as all three provide the foundation for this project, chapter one provides a working definition of each. It is argued that …

A Woman's Kind Of Love: Female Longing In The Tamil Alvar Poetry, Archana Venkatesan

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

In the eighth section of Andal's Nacciyar Tirumoli, a woman calls to the clouds and bids them to take a message of love to her delinquent lover, Vishnu, here figured as the lord of Venkatam. In the opening verse of the decad, she begins by plaintively questioning the clouds of her beloved's whereabouts only to end with a bitter complaint about her sullied womanhood -- pen-nirmai. Bracketed by her eager questions -- "has the lord of Venkatam come with you" -- and her bitter complaint -- "how does this bring him pride" -- is the landscape of her …

(Re)Visioning Sacramental Theology: A Response, David L. Johns

Quaker Religious Thought

No abstract provided.

A Standing Framework For Private Extraterritorial Antitrust Enforcement, Max Huffman

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nova Quarterly: The University Of Texas At El Paso, The University Of Texas At El Paso University Communications

NOVA

Winter 2007, Vol. 45, No. 4; No. 172

A Stylistic Approach To The God Of Small Things Written By Arundhati Roy, Wing Yi, Monica Chan

Lingnan Theses

This thesis presents a creative-analytical hybrid production in relation to the stylistic distinctiveness in The God of Small Things, the debut novel of Arundhati Roy. Roy’s text drew the world’s gaze after winning the Booker Prize in 1997. Many studies have been written on diverse aspects of the book, and much has been said regarding the writer’s style. However, those studies rarely focus on the minutiae of Roy’s writing and this thesis provides a greater degree of detailed analysis. The objective is to achieve a deeper understanding of the relationship between style and literary aesthetics in The God of Small …

The Discourse Of Disease : The Representation Of Sars - The China Daily And The South China Morning Post, Jie Duan

Lingnan Theses

This thesis is a case study on newspaper discourse representation of SARS. The study uses two representative English newspapers in Asia – the China Daily (“CD”) and the South China Morning Post (“SCMP”). By comparing the discursive construction of the same event – the outbreak of SARS - in the two newspapers, it aims to reveal that the practice of news follows institutional, cultural and political assumptions, and also make visible the two newspapers’ embedded attitudes and ideological positions. The methodology is a critical corpus linguistics (CCL) approach, especially using KWIC format (Key Word in context), word frequency, collocation, and …

A Corpus-Based Synchronic Comparison And Diachronic Interpretation Of Lexicalized Emotion Metaphors In English And Chinese, Shixiong, George Wu

Lingnan Theses

This study is a corpus-based contrastive study of the cross-language diachronic changes and synchronic variations of lexicalized emotion metaphors (LEMS) in English and Chinese within the framework of cognitive linguistics. Since it is based on a series of basic assumptions of the Lakoffian Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), it is also expected to prove or improve them by making this cross-cultural comparative study of LEMS in English and Chinese. Therefore this study aims at not only the diachronic changes and synchronic variations of LEMS but also the cultural factors underlying them. By applying CMT in the analysis of the corresponding data …

Context, Translator And History : A Study Of Three Translations Of Luotuo Xiangzi In The Usa, Ying Jun Li

Lingnan Theses

Three different English translations of Lao She’s (老舍) Luotuo Xiangzi (骆驼祥子) were marketed in the USA from 1945 to 2005. What are the major historical occurrences and trends from the late 19th to the early 21st century that define the contexts of these translations? Beginning with an analysis of the stylistic features of each translation, the present study explores how each of the three translators and the corresponding historical context impacted on the production of the translated text, its marketing orientation and its reception in the USA.

With a comparison of the three translated texts and their meta-textual features, the …

African Religious Integration In Florida During The First Spanish Period, Christopher Beats

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an examination of the unique conditions for African-descended slaves in St. Augustine, Florida, during the First Spanish Period. St. Augustine was an important garrison at a remote point in the Spanish Empire at the edge of a hostile frontier. As such, economics were less a priority than defense. Slaves, therefore, received different treatment here than in English colonies or even other Spanish colonies. Due to the threat of Protestantism, religious adherence was more important as a test of loyalty than ethnicity and slaves and freed-people were able to integrate better than in other Spanish holdings. In order …

The Effects Of Reciprocal Teaching Strategies On Students' Comprehension Of A Seventh Grade Life Science Text, Brooke Bess

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This action research study was conducted with 7th grade life science students at a public middle school in central Florida. The author used Reciprocal Teaching (RT) as described by Annemarie Palincsar and Anne Brown (1984) to examine changes in student comprehension when reading their life science textbook and changes in how the students used the predicting, questioning, and summarizing strategies. The RT strategies ask students to employ 4 strategies: predict what they will read, generate questions about what was read, clarify any ideas that were not understood in the reading, and summarize the main idea of the reading. Students were …

We're Becoming Bilingual And Biliterate! An Ethnographic Study On How A Dual-Language Program In Florida Contributes To The Literacy Development Of English-Language Learners, Diane Black

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine whether participation in a dual-language program by English-language learners (ELLs) contributed to the literacy development of this student population. This qualitative research spanned 5 months and was conducted within an elementary school located in central Florida. It is important to note that the researcher was also a teacher within the dual-language program under study, hence possessed an inside perspective of the program and the progression of several participating students. The study was guided by the following research questions: 1. What factors contribute to the improved literacy development for ELLs through participation in …

Attitudes Towards Seeking Professional Counseling: The Role Of Outcome Expectations And Emotional Openness In English-Speaking C, Wendy-Lou Greenidge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The college environment is documented as a universally stressful period where students face many challenges (Baysden, 2002; Pandit, 2003). In addition to these potential stressors, international students face other unique challenges such as loss of support network, feelings of isolation, economic hardship, coping with oftentimes competing cultures, and anxiety which emanates from unfamiliarity (Kim & Omizo, 2003; Rounds & Kline, 2005). Unsuccessful resolution of these challenges can negatively impact the acculturation process, their mental health, and their academic programs (Roysircar, 2002). Despite these many challenges, research consistently shows that international students are less likely than their US counterparts to …

Perceptions Of The Emotional/Behavioral Disability Label On Educators' Referral And Placement Decisions To Gifted And Talent, Charissa Marrah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Socio-culturally diverse students with disabilities are underrepresented in gifted and talented programs. This study investigated the differences in educators' referral and placement decisions based on a students' disability label, socio-economic status (SES), and ethnicity. Two hundred and eighty five educators' (classroom teachers, school counselors, school psychologists, and school social workers) across a Florida school district participated in the study. Educators' were randomly assigned to treatment and control case vignettes that described a student with emotional/behavioral disabled (EBD) and gifted characteristics. Treatment case vignettes explicitly stated the students' disability label, socio-economic status, and ethnicity. Control case vignettes described of the student …

Postmodern Feminism, Hypertext, And The Rhetoric Of Cooking Websites, Heather Eaton Mcgrane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the ways cookbooks and their rhetorical dimensions have been re-imagined using hypertext and Web technology. Using the tenets of postmodern feminist rhetoric and Web design theory, the study considers how commercial cooking hypertexts construct users' identities. Although hypertext is a potentially empowering technology, democratizing rhetoric and knowledge making practices, commercial hypertext often circumscribes agency formation and prohibits participation. Participatory, constructive hypertexts are difficult to design and costly to maintain. Of the three sites studied, Epicurious.com, BettyCrocker.com, and FoodNetwork.com, only Epicurious.com encourages meaningful communication between users and between users and designers. In many ways, Epicurious.com conceives of its …

Limited English Proficient Students And Their Teachers Attitudes Of The Learning Environment In Mathematics Classes, Michelle C. Snider

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study described the attitudes of students who are limited English proficient (LEP) and their teachers toward the learning environment within their mathematics classes. Data collected via a student survey, student and teacher interviews, and classroom observations were analyzed in this mixed-method study to investigate these attitudes. Accuracy of the findings was confirmed via triangulation. A population of 79 students was chosen through purposive sampling methods that included LEP and non-LEP students in algebra and geometry classes. Students were administered a 30-item questionnaire using the What is Happening in This Class? survey. Scores provided from the survey's six scales were …

Patent Symmetry, Alan L. Durham

Articles

The patent system suggests a natural symmetry if nonobvious changes are enough to distinguish a patentable invention from the prior art then further nonobvious changes should be enough to avoid infringing the patent Logical as this seems the courts have adopted the notoriously difficult standard of insubstantial differences rather than nonobviousness as the ultimate test of infringement In this article I consider the possibility of a genuinely symmetrical patent system and find the difficulties profound However I conclude that a semisymmetrical adaptation of the nonobviousness standard of patentability could provide a superior infringement analysis an analysis more objective in application …

The Relationship Between Level Of Empathy And Stress Contagion, Heather Lynn Kirby

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Although potential benefits associated with social support are well documented, it is also the case that social networks expose an individual to the stressful life events of others. Studies have shown that the stressful life events of others are positively related to negative affect. It has been theorized by several researchers that relationships between, for example, stressful life events of others and negative affect are evidence of a stress contagion process that may occur through empathy. The current study addressed this idea by testing whether the positive relationship that exists between network stress and depressive symptoms varied dependent upon (ie. …

The Use Of Mathematics Dialogues To Support Student Learning In High School Prealgebra Classes, Susann Meachelle Bradford

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study explored the use of mathematics dialogue activities as an intervention for low achieving mathematics students. These activities consisted of short scripts that portrayed mathematics students working together to solve problems like those in their lessons. These were accompanied by discussion questions and mathematics problems intended to facilitate student discourse in small groups. This intervention strategy was based on the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, which recommends the use of teaching methods that provide opportunities for student discourse. The purpose of the study was to help teachers and schools identify whether the use of discourse could provide an effective …

Public Archaeology In Montana: A Sample Of University Of Montana Students' Perceptions Of Archaeology And Knowledge Of Local Sites, Helen Alexandra Keremedjiev

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Archaeologists have an obligation to disseminate publicly their research and theories. To do this effectively, they need to know how each public perceives archaeology. A voluntary Institutional Review Board certified questionnaire was given to 606 University of Montana undergraduates and graduates. It included topics on the basics of archaeology and sites in Montana. After the results were tabulated, a website was created to show the overall results. Its location is at www.umt.edu/publicarchaeology. This online resource includes the questionnaire, the total raw results of all classes’ responses, and a discussion section. (See Appendix E for screenshot images of the website.) This …