Digital Commons Network^™

Literacy Instruction In Three Preschool Programs: A Multiple Case Study, Cherrie Lovejoy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many preschool students enter kindergarten without the oral language and phonetic awareness skills necessary for academic success. Qualitative research is also limited about the instructional practices preschool teachers use to improve the literacy skills of their students. The purpose of this study was to explore how teachers used developmentally appropriate instructional practices to improve the literacy skills of preschool students. The conceptual framework was based on the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky in relation to language development. A multiple case study research design was used. Participants included 6 teachers from 3 different preschool programs in an urban school district in …

Attention Deficit Democracy: The Paradox Of Civic Engagement, Ben Berger

Political Science Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Sign Language Humor, Human Singularities, And The Origins Of Language, Donna Jo Napoli, R. Sutton-Spence

Linguistics Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Patterns From Particularities, Steven P. Hopkins

Religion Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Computer Mediated Discourse: Applying Defamation Laws Of Slander And Libel In The 21st Century, Derreck Langwith

Honors Theses

With the integration of technology into society computer mediated discourse (CMD) has become a standard form of communication. E-mail, chat rooms, and social networking websites are used daily to discuss a variety of informal and formal topics. The ability to communicate with millions of people across the world instantaneously has not come without legal repercussions and court cases involving online defamation have started to appear. Traditional law separates defamation into two categories: slander encompassing oral defamation and requiring greater proof of injury, and libel including written texts without need of definitive proof to collect compensation. Current lawsuits involving online defamation …

Comparative Empiricism And Police Investigative Practices, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In the search and seizure context, the United States is much more heavily wedded to warrants and exclusion than European countries and in the interrogation setting requires more robust warnings than most nations in Europe. Comparative empiricism is an empirical assessment of the relative effectiveness of these types of differences between nations regulatory regimes. In the law enforcement context, this type of assessment might be the only realistic means of determining the combination of mechanisms that best protects against government over-reaching without unduly stymying good police-work. Domestic research that attempts to explore differing regulatory approaches either occurs in experimental settings …

Getting Real About Legal Realism, New Legal Realism And Clinical Legal Education, Katherine R. Kruse

Scholarly Works

Jerome Frank’s call for a “clinical lawyer-school” is cited so frequently in clinical scholarship that it borders on the canonical. Like many calls for reform in legal education, Frank’s plea for clinical lawyer-schools was based on a critique of the appellate case method of legal instruction. However, unlike most critiques, the legal realist critique was embedded within a jurisprudential challenge to the meaning of law itself, arising from American Legal Realism. Running through legal realist jurisprudence was a distinction between the “law in books” and the “law in action,” with the idea that law is not found primarily in statutes …

Spanish Language Christian Academic Publishing, Robert A. Danielson

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Systems Change: A Study Of Response To Intervention Model Implementation At Two Elementary School In Southern California, Nancy Teola Barker

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative comparative study examined three core components of RtI² implementation at two purposefully selected elementary schools in one county in Southern California. The researcher interviewed principals, teachers, and support staff regarding leadership attributes, skills and behaviors perceived as critical, professional development opportunities needed for, and the new roles for teachers and support staff in the implementation of the RtI² model at their particular site. The interviews revealed that the most critical behavior was a leader's knowledge of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Five additional leadership behaviors were identified to a lesser degree. Four of these behaviors were identified as "second-order" …

Retention And Advancement Of African American Women Into Senior Leadership Positions In High Technology Companies, Odetta Scott

Theses and Dissertations

High technology companies have a reputation for innovation and delivering cutting edge technologies to the American public. Additionally, the ability to innovate gives companies important competitive advantages such as being able to better satisfy customer needs, respond to environmental changes, and leverage emerging opportunities. However, a company's ability to innovate is hampered when diversity is lacking. Research has demonstrated that African American women are under-represented in both high technology and in the executive ranks of organizations. This qualitative study involved interviews with 15 African American women who held or had held a senior-level position within a high technology company. They …

A Study Of Early Childhood Education Teachers' Level Of Education, Compensation, Work Environment And Retention, M. Elida Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined Early Childhood Education (ECE) teacher job retention in the context of educational level, compensation, and work environment ratings. The study surveyed ECE teachers online in the Southern California, especially in Los Angeles County. Statistical analysis was conducted on survey responses from 76 ECE teachers and 55 ECE administrators. The majority of the ECE teachers (51%) possessed bachelor's degrees. Data findings revealed statistically non-significant relationships between anticipated job retention and teachers' level of education as well as for compensation earned. Study participants reported a mean monthly salary of $3,268. The data for ECE administrators, however, did reveal a …

Colonial Cartographies, Postcolonial Borders, And Enduring Failures Of International Law: The Unending Wars Along The Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

Many of today's pervasive and intractable security and nation-building dilemmas issue from the dissonance between the prescribed model of territorially bounded nation-states and the imprisonment of postcolonial polities in territorial straitjackets bequeathed by colonial cartographies. With a focus on the Durand Line, the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the epicenter of the prolonged war in the region, this article explores the enduring ramifications of the mutually constitutive role of colonialism and modern law. The global reach of colonial rule reordered subjects and reconfigured space. Fixed territorial demarcations of colonial possessions played a pivotal role in this process. Nineteenth century …

Evaluation Of The Youth Development Project: A School And Community Based Intervention Program For At-Risk Youth, Mike Sherman

Theses and Dissertations

Attempts to meet the mental health needs of at-risk youth have led to the development of numerous prevention, intervention, and diversion programs. This study is the first to utilize statistical analyses to assess the treatment efficacy of the Saint John's Child and Family Development Center's Youth Development Project (CFDC-YDP), a school- and community-based treatment program for at-risk youth. The study involved analysis of data that were collected from 87 culturally diverse at-risk youth, ranging in age from 11-19 years old, who were treated by the Youth Development Project program within John Adams Middle School, Lincoln Middle School, Olympic Continuation High …

Challenges Of Neuropsychological Testing With Asian American Adults: A Critical Review Of The Literature, Heejin Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The present study is a critical analysis of literature surrounding the challenges faced during neuropsychological testing with Asian American adults. This dissertation will provide a comprehensive overview and critically analyze what is known with regards to neuropsychological assessment of Asian individuals, challenges that psychologists face in conducting culturally competent neuropsychological assessment of this population, and recommendations for conducting such assessments. Current literature reveals how confounds such as culture, acculturation, language, and the inappropriate use of tests and normative data can impact scores and subsequent treatment recommendations. Given these confounds, recommendations will be made regarding the neuropsychological test selection, test administration, …

Exploring The Moral Underground: Self-Organizing Teachers In The Complex Adaptive System Of A School, Jennifer Moore

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored how and why teachers self-organize to help students living in poverty. Schools have characteristics of complex adaptive systems, the primary one being a capacity to change and adapt to its environment through self-organizing. The main focus of the study was how teachers in urban elementary schools create and utilize self-organizing to meet the needs of their students. The research investigated the experiences of teachers who help students living in poverty. This study highlighted committed, caring teachers breaking rules and taking a stand for children caught up economic injustice. The teachers in this study are participants in a …

An Exploration Of The Implementation Of A Multi-Tiered Framework For Educational Reform In A Major Urban School District, David Baca

Theses and Dissertations

This study focused on a major urban district in Southern California that has recently begun one of the largest K-12 implementations of a multi-tiered framework for educational reform, known as Response to Intervention (RTI), in the entire nation. The purpose of this qualitative and phenomenological study was twofold: (a) to explore the RTI implementation experience of school-based leadership teams in 22 elementary, middle, and high schools in a major urban school district in southern California; and (b) to investigate experiences surrounding levels and fidelity of implementation in regards to 3 core components of RTI (multi-tiered system of service delivery, problem-solving …

The Role Of Emotional Intelligence In Achieving Success For Women In Engineering And Technology, Kim-Elisha Proctor

Theses and Dissertations

With the growing demand for technical talent, more women and men will be needed in the workforce. Given the unique culture they work in, this study examined the use of emotional intelligence (EI) and perceptions of success and burnout among women in technology to better understand what EI competencies are needed to be successful. A mixed method approach was used, which consisted of three surveys and an interview. Twenty-three female participants who earned a technical degree or who had a minimum of 5 years' experience in a technical field participated in the study. Analyses were performed on the data to …

The Role Of Mentoring In The Identification And Selection Of College Student Unions/Activities Careers, Kathleen K. Mcintosh

Theses and Dissertations

Commonly referred to as the living room of campuses, student union facilities serve as an environment for the social, cognitive, cultural, and intellectual education of students that occurs outside the classroom. This study aims to provide an understanding and knowledge of the student union-activities profession, its dedicated professionals, and the impact of their work on college students. This grounded theory and phenomenological study sought to deduce how student union-activities professionals identified and selected their careers based on available alternatives. The research questions explored in this study were: (a) What are student union and activities administrators' recollections of their lived experiences …

Using Discourse Analysis Methodology To Teach "Legal English", Craig Hoffman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this study, I propose a curriculum focused on raising students’ linguistic awareness through rigorous discourse analysis and reflective writing in a legal context. Students analyze authentic, full-text legal documents using discourse analysis methodology. By carefully analyzing the language in legal opinions, appellate briefs, law review articles, law school exams, typical commercial contracts, and statutes, students become experts in analyzing and evaluating legal texts. Students learn to manipulate legal language to achieve various desired linguistic and legal effects. This approach has three primary advantages. First, it forces the students to carefully read authentic legal texts. Second, it gives students the …

A Case For 'Be Going To' As Prospective Aspect, Sara E. Schroeder

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The focus of this thesis is the feature of current relevance as it is expressed by the English present perfect and the present be going to construction. I propose that be going to expresses the current relevance of a future situation in the same way that the present perfect expresses the current relevance of a past situation. Based on this shared feature of current relevance, I propose that the be going to construction is prospective aspect, the future equivalent of the present perfect. While literature on the English be going to construction has discussed the notion of current relevance as …

"Consider With Whom You Are Working": Discourse Models Of School Librarianship In Collaboration, Sue C. Kimmel

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

The question of why school librarians still struggle to fully enact the roles defined in "Information Power" and "Empowering Learners" may be viewed as a struggle to gain recognition from others that this is what a "real school librarian" does. Discourse Analysis offers school library research a new theoretical and analytical tool to explore how these roles or identities are created or contested in interactions with others by examining the moment-to-moment talk for the presence of larger meanings, or "discourses." Applying a discourse analysis to an exchange that occurred near the end of an ethnographic study of collaborative discourse between …

Foreword: Divided Loyalties, Michael J. Benza, David F. O'Brien

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Equal Accessibility For Sign Language Under The Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities, Andrea R. Ball

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Transitions: The Role Of Lame Ducks And Caretakers, Rivka Weill

Utah Law Review

As a lame-duck president, George W. Bush was criticized for finalizing a bilateral military accord with the Iraqi government against the wishes of Presidentelect Obama, U.S. Congress, and the American people. He thus tied the hands of his successor in handling foreign and military affairs, and partially subverted the powerful call for “change” that the nation had demanded at the voting booth. President Bush’s predecessor engaged in similar “midnight” actions. As a lameduck president, President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, which led the newly elected President Bush to take the remarkable and …

“V” Is For Vegetarian: Fda-Mandated Vegetarian Food Labeling, Carrie Griffin Basas

Utah Law Review

More than eight million adults in the United States are vegetarians, and around forty percent of all people in the United States regularly seek vegetarian food options while dining. Vegetarianism comes in a multitude of flavors, but a “pure vegetarian,” also called a vegan, does not consume any products that come from animals, including meat, milk, eggs, and gelatin. People practicing a vegetarian lifestyle may have turned to these dietary restrictions for ethical, religious, environmental, health, or other reasons.

Evaluation Of Verbal Behavior In Older Adults, Amy Gross

Dissertations

Older adults make up a large and increasing portion of the population (U.S. apply those assessments to the evaluation of verbal behavior in older adults with and without dementia. The research addressed two questions. First, in what way do verbal behavior problems differ between older adults with and without dementia? Second, does language deteriorate in a pattern compatible with Skinner's analysis of functionally independent verbal operants? Thirty-one participants were categorized into Control (n=15) and Dementia (n=16) Groups based on their score on the Dementia Rating Scale-2. Verbal behavior assessments were administered to participants on two occasions, separated by one week. …

The Bandi Of Northwestern Liberia: A Study Of Change And Continuityin Bandi Society To 1964, Samuel Benedict Ngovo

Dissertations

Relying on oral accounts and archival and published sources, this dissertation employed interdisciplinary methodology to examine change and continuity in traditional Bandi systems to 1964. It focuses on traditional Bandi social, religious, economic and political systems that changed and those that persisted as a result of contacts with neighboring ethnic groups, Islam, Christianity, and the Liberian state.

The Bandi of northwestern Liberia are divided into six subgroups. Nevertheless, the six subgroups of Bandi share common traditional values. The Bandi people belong to the Mande-linguistic group and share common traditional values with neighboring Mande speakers such as the Loma and Mende. …

Reading, Writing, And Repetition: Performance On Nonword Measures Bystudents With And Without Language-Learning Disabilities, Patricia J. Tattersall

Dissertations

The central purpose of this three-paper dissertation was to explore the ability of school-age children with and without language-learning disabilities (LLD) to apply sound/word level structure knowledge when performing speaking, spelling, and reading tasks. Data came from a larger investigation that used stratified sampling to create two ability groups—children with typical language (TL) and with LLD—comparable in terms of age (range 6 through 18 years), sex, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

The central purpose of this three-paper dissertation was to explore the ability of school-age children with and without language-learning disabilities (LLD) to apply sound/word level structure knowledge when performing speaking, …

Social Life And Ancient Andean Public Landscapes: Actions And Performances As Seen Through The Use Of A 1st Millennium Bce Plaza At Caylán, Peru, Matthew Ryan Helmer

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines ancient Andean performances from the early urban site of Caylán (800-10 cal. BCE) on the North-Central coast of Peru, Ancash. Spaces utilized for public events such as feasting, spectacles, and rituals have been a rich source of data for anthropologists looking to understand dynamics of community, power, and ideology. These spaces are also undervalued in terms of their potential multivocal qualities. During the Formative Period (1600-100 BCE), sunken plazas were the focus of a vast array of public activities and performances in ancient Peru. This thesis focuses on Formative Period public spaces as theaters of heightened interactions, …

Implementing A Natural Language To Structured Query Language Translator, Kevin J. Shannon

Honors Program Theses

Since the beginning of computing, humans have been trying to make computers understand each other more completely. Humans have always had difficulties encoding their thoughts and computational problems and in tum, computers have had difficulty understanding the subtle nuances of the human mind. The first computers were nothing more than large calculators, but as time went on, they became become more sophisticated. Various technologies and techniques have been created that add features and capabilities to modern computer systems, and many of these will be discussed in this paper.

This paper describes my Honors Thesis project to design and implement a …