Digital Commons Network^™

The Group Twice Promised: Reflections About Co-Teaching In Israel, Yousef Alajarma, Keren Barzilay Schechter

Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice

No abstract provided.

A Collision Course, Eleanor Roffman

Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice

No abstract provided.

Parents' Perceptions About An Early Childhood Program: Analysis Of Parents Focus Group Discussions: A Dissertation, Natalie Ann Zakarian

Educational Studies Dissertations

This study focuses on identifying the primary concerns parents have at school entry for their children. The investigation is a qualitative analysis of data derived from a series of ten parent focus group sessions conducted in a large northeastern school district. The ten sessions were conducted over a period of four months for a total of twenty hours of data. Regular members of the focus group included four parents who had 4 and 5 year old children in an early childhood literacy program, a volunteer community member in the program and the researcher. Each session was audio taped then transcribed …

Convergent Validity And Test-Retest Reliability Of The Preschool Behavioral And Emotional Behavior Rating Scale: Parents As Respondents, Philip D. Nordness, Michael H. Epstein, Lori Synhorst

Special Education and Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

A number of professional organizations have called on the need for valid and reliable assessments that measure young children’s strengths and competencies for the purpose of making decisions about teaching and learning, identifying areas of lesser strength, and for designing and evaluating interventions. The Preschool Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (PreBERS; Epstein & Synhorst, in press) is a standardized test designed to assess the emotional and behavioral strengths and competencies of children 3 to 5 years of age. Two studies investigated the PreBERS with parents as the primary respondents. The first study investigated the convergent validity of the PreBERS by …

Talking With Copyright Holders And Pirates: Grass Roots Voices Concerning Chinese Copyright Piracy Of U.S. Ip Products, Dexin Tian, Chin-Chung Chao

Communication Faculty Publications

Through a thematic analysis of 45 in-depth interviews via the theoretical frameworks of the theory of reasoned action and culture change, this study explores the grass roots voices concerning Chinese copyright piracy of U.S. IP products in China. The study found that both the U.S. neglect of the Chinese historical heritage in terms of IPR protection and the traditional Chinese conceptions of private property account for the rampant copyright piracy in China. As the solutions to the issue, readjusted U.S. IPR policies and flexible IP product prices, sufficient media supervision and public education in China, and effective enforcement of IPR …

Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17, James D. Westwood, Mukul Mukherjee, K.-C. Siu, I. H. Suh, A. Klutman, D. Oleynikov, Nikolaos Stergiou, E. Monk

Faculty Books and Monographs

Chapter, A Virtual Reality Training Program for Improvement of Robotic Surgical Skills, co-authored by Mukul Mukherjee and Nicholas Stergiou, UNO faculty members.

Chapter, Consistency of Performance of Robot-Assisted Surgical Tasks in Virtual Reality, co-authored by Mukul Mukherjee and Nicholas Stergiou, UNO faculty members.

The 17th annual Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR17) was held January 19-22, 2009, in Long Beach, CA, USA. The conference is well established as a forum for emerging data-centered technologies for medical care and education. Each year, it brings together an international community of computer scientists and engineers, physicians and surgeons, medical educators and students, military medicine …

Knowledge Management And Organizational Learning, William R. King, Sajda Qureshi, Mehruz Kamal, Peter Keen

Faculty Books and Monographs

Editor: William R. King

Chapter, Knowledge Networking to Overcome the Digital Divide, co-authored by Sajda Qureshi, UNO faculty member.

As organizations become increasingly extended across global boundaries, their reliance on information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support their processes increases. The use of ICTs to activate dispersed knowledge within complex webs of human networks can enable the gap between the information rich and information poor to be overcome. This paper develops a new concept called knowledge networking and investigates how this process enables the digital divide to be overcome. Following a phenomenological analysis of knowledge networking using a selection of …

The Psychology Of Amber Alert: Unresolved Issues And Implications, Monica K. Miller, Timothy Griffin, Samantha S. Clinkinbeard, Rebecca M. Thomas

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The AMBER alert system is likely affected by a number of psychological processes, yet remains understudied. The system assumes people will remember Alert information accurately and notify police, but psychological research on related phenomena (e.g., memory, willingness to help) indicates that people may not be able or willing to act in ways the promote the success of the system. In addition, the system is intended to deter child abductions, however, the system could prompt copycat crimes from perpetrators seeking publicity. The system could also cause a precipitation effect in which a perpetrator who sees the Alert could decide to murder …

Seeking The Sense Of Community: A Comparison Of Two Elementary School's Ethical Climates, Kay Anne Keiser, Laura E. Schulte

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

School climate is created through the combined culture of the adults and students within a school – both the culture they share as an organization and the diverse cultures they bring from home. This study compared the school climate of two elementary schools, one urban and one suburban, by measuring 179 fourth and fifth grade students’ and 65 teachers’ perceptions of their schools’ ethical climates. The Elementary School Ethical Climate Index (ESECI) was utilized to factor perceptions into teacher to student, student to teacher/learning environment, and student to student interactions. For each of the ESECI subscales, two-way analyses of variance …

Crossing Into Uncharted Territory: Developing Thoughtful, Ethical School Administrators, Jeanne L. Surface

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

In this distrustful, unstable, and ethically polarized era, there is a need to prepare school administrators to resolve a myriad of moral dilemmas. As professors of school administration, how can we make sure that our future leaders have the capacity to make thoughtful, ethical decisions? How do we prepare these leaders to develop, foster and lead tolerant and democratic schools? What follows is a small action research project aimed at elevating moral and ethical wherewithal among graduate students studying school administration. Ninety-Six percent of the students indicated that learning through dialogue or Socratic questioning, deepened their understanding of the topic. …

Effects Of Service-Learning On Student Attitudes Toward Academic Engagement And Civic Responsibility, Larry Joseph Moss

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

This empirical study explored the impact of service-learning participation on high school students' attitudes toward academic engagement and civic responsibility. This study focused whether a group of high school students who participated in a service-learning project had more positive attitudes toward academic engagement and civic responsibility than their high school peers who did not participate in a service learning project.

The Effects And Perceived Consequences Of Testing Accommodations On Math And Science Performance Assessments, Stephen N. Elliott, Thomas R. Kratochwill, Brian Mckevitt, Christine Kerres Malecki

Psychology Faculty Publications

The present study examined the effect accommodations have on test results of students with and without disabilities and documented experts’ judgments about the appropriateness of testing accommodations. Test score data were collected from 218 fourth-grade students with and without disabilities on mathematics and science performance tasks and from eight testing experts who evaluated the fairness and validity of a sample of testing accommodations used with these students. Results indicated that, for most students with disabilities and some students without disabilities, packages of testing accommodations had a moderate to large effect on performance task scores. Expert reviewers rated most accommodations for …

Reading And Responding To Children’S Books About Bullying, Kathy Everts Danielson, Jan Labonty

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Which of the following scenarios is an example of bullying?

A. Older boys repeatedly steal a second-grader’s lunch money.
B. A group of girls start and perpetuate vicious rumours about a shy classmate.
C. On a daily basis, a boy makes fun of a peer’s old-fashioned clothes.
D. During recess, bigger kids push, shove, and taunt smaller children.
E. All of the above.

If you guessed E, you not only know a lot about test construction, you also understand the classic definition of bullying: “Bullying is a deliberate attempt to hurt another that is repeated over time,” (Craig, 1997, p. …

Completions 2009-10, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

IPEDS Completions

IPEDS Completions annual report contains the following information:

• Number of awards conferred by program, by level, and by race/ethnicity and gender of recipient
• Number of completers, separately by race/ethnicity, gender, age and level of award

How Can Information And Communication Technology Bring About Development? An Information Architecture For Guiding Interventions In Developing Regions, Mehruz Kamal, Sajda Qureshi

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

While a great deal is known about how Information and Communication Technologies are used in developing and underserved communities, there are still gaps as to how ICTs may enable development outcomes to be achieved. It appears that the majority of businesses in developing regions are micro-enterprises which employ between 1-5 people and face challenges of limited resources. This research investigates what is known about how ICTs bring about development and uses these insights to develop an information architecture adapted from the Zachman Framework that integrates the different perspectives. In this research, the key stakeholders are the micro-entrepreneurs who adopt technology …

Lilith And Mysticism, Charles Beaucham

North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Aerobic Exercise On State Anxiety In College Students, Emily Carruth, Nadine Taylor

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

Many college students have feelings of state anxiety, a temporary emotional response that is described by subjective, perceived feelings of concern, stress, and apprehension. The present study measured state anxiety across participants separated into a control and experimental group, which performed an exercise routine. Participants were also designated as regular or non-exercisers. Individuals in the experimental group and those who do not normally exercise were predicted to show larger decreases in state anxiety. All participants completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and Zung Self-rating Anxiety Scale at three separate sessions over a two-week time span. Results showed no …

How Service Learning Addresses The Mental Health Needs Of Students In Urban School, Felicia Wilczenski, Amy Cook

Counseling, School Psychology & Sport Faculty Publication Series

Service learning promotes social-emotional and academic development through active engagement in community activities. It empowers students to think beyond themselves and to develop a commitment to serve others. In so doing, service learning builds connections with school and community that are critically important in urban settings. This paper links key components of effective mental health programs in urban schools with service learning.

Toward Credible Conflict Of Interest Policies In Clinical Psychiatry, Lisa Cosgrove, Harold J. Bursztajn

Counseling, School Psychology & Sport Faculty Publication Series

A recent letter to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) from Sen Chuck Grassley about the APA’s financial relationship with pharmaceutical companies raises concerns about undue industry influence. By instituting a disclosure policy for DSM-V, the APA took a halting first step in restoring public trust in the most influential text on psychiatric taxonomy in the world. Unfortunately, the APA’s efforts at creating a conflict of interest (COI) policy have failed to ensure that the process for revising diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines is one that the public can trust. The need for more safeguards was evidenced when the APA reported that …

A Reason For Lynching : The Media's Portrayal 1880-1940, Carroll Gunn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

It's Funny 'Cause It's True, Laurie G. Fisher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Promoting Self-Determination For Students With Emotional And Behavioral Disorders, David J. Landers

Education Masters

Students with emotional disturbance (ED) oftentimes feel as though their ideas and opinions are ignored or not taken seriously. Unfortunately, they are often justified in feeling this way. As ED students have some of the highest dropout rates in the United States, it should be our goal as educators to do whatever is necessary to keep them in school and help them to succeed. Using these students' naturally strong will seems the best method of doing this. Allowing them to have some power over their own education may help to assuage their feeling of powerlessness. Yet how do we promote …

Employee Engagement: A Brief Explanation, Louise J. Rombaut

Education Masters

Due to the fact that globalization is here to stay, organizations need to face and make the changes necessary as to how they treat their employees to be competitive on the world-wide market. Failure to address this simple fact will result in the loss of valuable employees. Every effort must be made to attract and retain individuals who are passionate about their work. This paper explores the steps necessary to hire and engage dedicated professionals in a global market.

Confronting The Unknown: Mothers’ Reactions, Challenges, And Ways Of Coping With A Child's Diagnosis Of Long Qt Syndrome, Twain Gonzales

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is a life-threatening inherited cardiac condition. It is caused by a disturbance in the ion channel genes that control cardiac repolarization, resulting in ventricular arrhythmias that can lead to syncope, sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), or sudden cardiac death (SCD). Most deaths occur in children, adolescents, and young adults. Although congenital LQTS occurs in 1/3000 to 1/5000 individuals, to date, little research has been conducted on the psychosocial effects of LQTS. Mothers who are confronted with a new diagnosis of their children’s LQTS are likely to have never heard of the disease prior to diagnosis, and few …

Does Alcoholics Anonymous Participation Decrease Learned Helplessness And Increase Self-Efficacy? , Philip John Pellegrino

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has long been the major treatment of choice in the United States for individuals with alcohol related problems. Research on AA has had methodological problems and there is no clear evidence that AA in and of itself is effective in treating alcohol problems. Treatment studies on alcohol and substance users have found that abstinence self-efficacy and approach coping skills have been related to improved drinking outcomes. Also, depression and alcohol problems have been shown to be highly correlated with each other. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between participation in AA and improvements in abstinence self-efficacy, learned …

Teachers' Understanding Of Components Of Response To Intervention (Rti) In Pennsylvania, Gabrielle Wilcox

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Since recent regulations allow the use of response to intervention (RTI) for specific learning disability determination, many districts have implemented RTI. This study surveyed a stratified random sample of 2,000 teachers in Pennsylvania with 141 usable responses. The purpose of this study was to ascertain teacher understanding of components of RTI in districts using and not using RTI and to determine if district implementation procedures impacted perceived effectiveness. Overall, the groups were similar in understanding and perceived importance of RTI components; however, there were small but notable differences. Respondents with higher levels of perceived effectiveness indicated greater support from a …

The Psychometric Properties Of The Mahan And Ditomasso Anger Scale (Mad-As) And Its Relationship To Cognitive Distortions And Attitudes Among Adults Who Experience Symptoms Of Anger, Dorothy Latella-Zakhireh

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The influence of cognitive schema on negative emotions such as depression and anger has been investigated in a number of prior studies. This study sought to assess the relationship between anger and various components of anger with cognitive distortions, and dysfunctional attitudes in a nonclinical sample. Subjects were 128 adult males and females who completed several measures related to anger and cognitive distortions. The measures were the Mahan and DiTomasso Anger Scale (MAD-AS), the Inventory of Cognitive Distortions (ICD), and the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS). It was hypothesized that cognitive distortions including depressogenic cognitions, as reflected in various subscales of …

The Effectiveness Of Asynchronous Podcasting Of Classes, John Chen

Mechanical Engineering

In this study we examine in some detail the effectiveness of enhanced podcasting compared with traditional face-to-face class meeting. Enhanced podcasting goes beyond simply recording the audio portion of a lecture. It may include the video footage from the class meeting or, as in our case, the presented material (including each written pen stroke) exactly as seen by students sitting in the classroom with the instructor. The course we studied is Applied Thermodynamics, a junior-level course for mechanical engineering students. For this study we had access to three sections of the course, all taught by the same faculty member. For …

On Mutilation: The Sublime Body Of Chuck Palahniuk's Fiction, Andrew Slade

English Faculty Publications

Much of Chuck Palahniuk's writing centers on the mutilation of bodies. Bodies are broken from the outside. They are beaten unrecognizable and destroyed beyond recuperation. Bodies are transformed from one sex to another, one gender to another. In Palahniuk's writing, the human body is the site for the inscription of a search for modes of authentic living in a world where the difference between the fake and the genuine has ceased to function. Not just the rules that had regulated behavior and prospects for a good life, but the rules that determine desire, pleasure, gender identity, and family role are …

Contextualizing Observational Data For Modeling Human Performance, Viet Trinh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on the ability to contextualize observed human behaviors in efforts to automate the process of tactical human performance modeling through learning from observations. This effort to contextualize human behavior is aimed at minimizing the role and involvement of the knowledge engineers required in building intelligent Context-based Reasoning (CxBR) agents. More specifically, the goal is to automatically discover the context in which a human actor is situated when performing a mission to facilitate the learning of such CxBR models. This research is derived from the contextualization problem left behind in Fernlund's research on using the Genetic Context Learner …