Digital Commons Network^™

Design And Evaluation Of A Nonverbal Communication Platform Between Assistive Robots And Their Users, Anthony Threatt

All Dissertations

Assistive robotics will become integral to the everyday lives of a human population that is increasingly mobile, older, urban-centric and networked. The overwhelming demands on healthcare delivery alone will compel the adoption of assistive robotics. How will we communicate with such robots, and how will they communicate with us? This research makes the case for a relatively 'artificial' mode of nonverbal human-robot communication that is non-disruptive, non-competitive, and non-invasive human-robot communication that we envision will be willingly invited into our private and working lives over time. This research proposes a non-verbal communication (NVC) platform be conveyed by familiar lights and …

Impact Of Awareness Raising About Listening Micro-Skills On The Listening Comprehension Enhancement: An Exploration Of The Listening Micro-Skills In Efl Classes, Amir Rezaei, Fatimah Hashim

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

It is common practice in the classes that teachers focus on the outcome of listening rather than the listening process itself. Based on the interventionist view of language teaching, one of the ways proposed for teaching listening is to break it into smaller micro-skills and give learners awareness about them. But before giving awareness, it is important to identify the micro-skills that learners need mostly in performing listening tasks. This study was aimed at exploring the most frequently used listening micro-skills in EFL classes at lower levels. Also, an attempt was made to investigate the impact of awareness raising about …

The Portfolio Effect: Enhancing Turkish Elt Student-Teachers’ Autonomy, Rana Yildirim

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This article reports on the use of portfolios to develop ELT major student-teachers’ autonomy. The research was carried out for 14 weeks with twenty-one 3rd grade student-teachers in the English Language Teaching Department of Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey. To evaluate the impact of portfolios on fostering the participants’ autonomy, data were collected from an autonomy readiness questionnaire, semi-structured interviews with the student-teachers and three portfolio evidences: graded goal sheets, reflection reports, and cover letters. The findings revealed that the use of portfolios assisted the student-teachers in becoming autonomous in regard to their personal and professional development and that the student-teachers …

An Examination Of At Risk High School Students' Perceptions Of The Factors That Foster Resiliency In Their Suburban High School, Dionne Johnson-Olamiju

Education Doctoral

Research has continued to indicate that students’ academic success is determined by their socioeconomic status. In responding to the challenges faced by youth living in poverty, researchers have focused on identifying factors that provide supportive resources and protective mechanisms for fostering healthy development and learning success of at risk children and youth. The research described in this study involved qualitative research methodologies and grounded theory to examine at-risk high school students’ perceptions of their school’s ability to foster a culture of resilience. The purpose of the study was to identify those protective factors crucial for fostering educational resilience for at …

Cultivating Educational Resilience In Students Experiencing Multiple Grade Retention, Debra Lamb

Education Doctoral

This study examined the cultivation of educational resilience among upper elementary and middle school students experiencing multiple grade retention. Multiple grade retention means that a student has been retained in grade or “left back” more than once. These students are referred to within this study as “Multiple Holdovers” (MHO). The primary purpose of this study was to (a) examine the presence of resilience attributes as self-reported by MHO students in grades four through eight; and to (b) illuminate the perceptions of school leaders and teachers in schools attended by these MHO students with regard to each school’s readiness, efforts, accomplishments, …

The Impact Of Separationist Models Of Instructional Support On The Self-Efficacy Perceptions Of Latino English Language Learners, Brenda Triplett

Education Doctoral

Federal and state mandated linguistic and academic supports for English Language Learners (ELLs) compete for instructional time, resulting in ELLs being pulled away from the general population of students multiple times per day. Grounded in the socio-cognitive and socio-cultural theories, the research investigated the correlation between the amount of time ELL students were segregated from the general population for the purposes of delivering instructional support services and their self-efficacy perceptions to succeed in school. The study also examined the correlation between the number of different academic support services ELL students received and their self-efficacy perceptions to succeed in school. A …

Use Of The Combination Of The Brief And Basc-2 In Assessment Of Adhd, Andrea R. Knoll

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ADHD is one of the most frequently diagnosed childhood disorders in the United States today; however, diagnostic specificity remains challenging. Accepted models of ADHD routinely highlight the role of executive function (EF) deficits as a core feature of ADHD. However, performance based measures of EF do not consistently discriminate between ADHD and no-ADHD clinical groups. Research has supported use of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) in discriminating between ADHD and no-ADHD and between subtypes. However, EF deficits can occur for various reasons. Broad range behavior rating scales help identify areas of behavioral concern that may aid clinicians …

Harding School Of Theology 2013-2014 General Catalog, Harding University

Harding Academic Catalogs

Academic catalog for the graduate program in Bible and religion.

Banished For Life: Deportation Of Juvenile Offenders As Cruel And Unusual Punishment, Beth Caldwell

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Published Choral Folk Songs Of Cyrillus Kreek, Estonian Nationalist, Jonathan Patrick Rodgers

Dissertations

This research will trace the development and productivity of Cyrillus Kreek (1889-1962) as a composer of choral folk songs and his influence on Estonian culture. The core of the study provides a chronological examination of Kreek’s published choral folk song arrangements. Kreek’s work is the summation of direct and indirect influences in his life, such as Estonian folk music and the Estonian national awakening that began in the late nineteenth century and flourished in the early decades of the twentieth century; conversely, his music, along with that of his contemporaries, impacted the process of defining what it meant to be …

The Perceptions Of The Effectiveness Of Making Middle Grades Work, Darryl Rene Porter

Dissertations

Many school districts throughout the United States utilize educational programs in their schools to improve student achievement. The Southern Regional Education Board recognized that to improve graduation rates in high school, students’ academic performance in middle schools needed to be improved, which gave rise to the Making Middle Grades Work initiative. The researcher conducted this study to determine the perceptions of the effectiveness of Making Middle Grades Work initiative. Participants in this study included 114 teachers and 18 administrators. The participants indicated their perceptions of the effectiveness of the Making Middle Grades Work initiative by responding to questions on a …

2013-2014 Campus Plan

Complete College Georgia Campus Plans

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Attitudes And Emotions On The Desire To Use Arabic In Communication: Case Study Of The Learners Of Arabic As A Second Language At The Malysian University Of Islamic Sciences, Mechael Ibrahim

Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of attitudes and emotions on the desire to use Arabic in communication in a second language learning context, in this case learners of Arabic as a second language at the Malaysian University of Islamic Sciences. A number of 225 students from the Islamic Science University of Malaysiavoluntarily participated in the study. The students represented four faculties of the University. A model of "willingness" to communicate in the second language was tested using Structural Equation Modeling and was found to accurately fit the data. The study found that language competence …

Reasonable Persons, Reasonable Circumstances, Christopher Jackson

San Diego Law Review

The reasonable person test is a common thread that runs through the fabric of Anglo-American law. It has become such a common trope in legal discourse that it scarcely receives much attention in its own right. This Article analyzes one facet of the test that will yield significant benefits in understanding the subject as a whole: how we ought to go about determining which circumstances are relevant to the reasonable person inquiry. The Article will argue that the circumstances that ought to be part of the test will vary based on one’s underlying theoretical commitments: the reasonable person test is …

Redesigning A Performance Practice: Synergising Woodwind Improvisation With Bespoke Software Technology., Seán Mac Erlaine

Doctoral

This research examines how the designing of a new performance practice based on the incorporation of custom digital signal processing software impacts on solo improvised woodwind performance. Through the development of bespoke software, I investigate how these new technologies can be integrated into solo woodwind performance practice. This research presents a new improvised music practice as well as a suite of new software tools and performance techniques. Through a workshop and performance-­‐based research process, a suite of software processors are developed which respond, and are complementary, to a personalised style of improvised performance. This electronic augmentation of the woodwind instrument …

Locative Expressions In Signed Languages: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison, Sarah E. Eberle

Theses and Dissertations

The primary focus of this paper is to examine whether sign languages organize their locative expressions similarly to spoken languages. Paving the way in the study of spatial relations by focusing on the structuring of ON and IN locatives in spoken languages, Bowerman and colleagues (Bowerman 1980; Melissa Bowerman & Eric Pederson 1992a; Bowerman 1993; 1994; 1996a; 1996b; Bowerman & Levinson 2001) found that spoken languages organize the locative phrases representing the relationships of ON and IN in a continuum which is called the ON-IN continuum.

This thesis shows that sign languages do not linguistically pattern similarly to spoken languages …

Toward A Further Understanding Of The Extensibility Of Sign Languages, Jason Hopkins

Theses and Dissertations

Sign language video recordings have limited extensibility when compared with live, face-to-face communication by signers. In an effort to improve the extensibility of video recordings this study explores the possibility of leveraging a common meaning negotiation technique, depictional signing, to increase understanding of recorded texts. In an effort to gauge the understanding of depictional signing compared to lexical signing a Recorded Text Test was devised using two texts, one with a high number of visual depictions, the other with a high number of lexical signs. While a comparison of the results of the two tests did not substantiate the hypothesis …

Science Fair: Is It Worth The Work? A Qualitative Study On Deaf Students' Perceptions And Experiences Regarding Science Fair In Primary And Secondary School, Vivian Lee Smith

Dissertations

Science fairs have a long history in American education. They play an important role for establishing inquiry-based experiences in a science classroom. Students may be more motivated to learn science content when they are allowed to choose their own science fair topics. The purpose of this study was to examine Deaf college students’ perceptions and experiences regarding science fair participation during primary and/or secondary school and determine the influence of science fair involvement on the development of language skills, writing skills, and higher order thinking skills as well as its impact on choice of a STEM major.

This study examined …

Examining The Association Between Personality And Alcohol Use Among Mexican Americans: Acculturation And Gender As Moderators, Miguel A. Reyes

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

In this study the moderating effects of gender and acculturation on the association between personality traits and alcohol use among Mexican American adults were examined. Participants for this study were undergraduate students from a university in the southwestern USA (N=572, 94.5% Hispanic, 72.6% female). The sample completed self-report measures of personality, alcohol use, and acculturation. When using, regression analyses, alcohol use was found to be weakly yet negatively associated with Conscientiousness, weakly yet positively with Neuroticism, and statistically unrelated to Extroversion. The moderation hypotheses were not supported when utilizing a multiple regression analyses. However, a post-hoc analysis of variance involving …

Lifespan Communication, Social Media Policy, And Societal Institutions: A Content Analysis, Jessica Larae Bedenbaugh

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

This thesis is a qualitative study of the major societal institutions' social media policies. Three features are compared-length, readability, and legal orientation and punitive degree-in order to determine the homogeneity of the policies across the institutional categories. The top ten words featured in the policies, from highest weighted percentage to lowest, are the following: social, use, media, post, sites, content, personal, policy, communication, and web. The shortest policy length was 274 words. The longest policy was 36,036 words and the collective average word count was 2,571. The lowest reading level, based on the Gunning Fog Readability Index was 8.21, the …

A Structured Pc-Patr Grammar Editor And Application To Bahasa Indonesia, Trafton Fletcher Hardison

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the development of a structured editor for grammar files for the PC-PATR syntactic parsing program and an analysis tool for its output called PC-PATR-EDITOR. It describes the difficulties with authoring plain text grammar files and reading the parser's output. The editor solves these problems by providing an editing environment where users do not have to remember the file's syntax, where users can only input content valid at the point of editing, and by processing the parser's output and displaying it in ways familiar to most linguists. The paper contains three case studies that illustrate PC-PATR-EDITOR's usefulness by …

Grammar Enhanced Biliteracy: Naskapi Language Structures For Facilitating Reading In Naskapi, William Joseph Jancewicz

Theses and Dissertations

The Naskapi language is the language of instruction in the early primary grades of the school in the Naskapi community. Only recently have Naskapi-speaking teachers received formal instruction in pedagogy, with a cohort of Naskapi teachers following courses for their Bachelor of Education degree towards careers teaching in the Naskapi language in their local school. These adults are highly motivated to become literate in their mother tongue in order to teach or prepare curriculum materials in the Naskapi language. This thesis explores how basic grammatical structures can be mastered, and provides insight into the form that pedagogical grammatical instruction should …

Ell Vocabulary Acquisition: How Improvement Measurements Are Affected By Text Type, English Reading Ability, And Assessment Methods, Joellen Magnus

Theses and Dissertations

Vocabulary acquisition is a crucial part of language learning. This study seeks to determine what textual and student factors affect vocabulary acquisition rates from reading English texts for high school students for whom English is a second language, as well as how assessment factors affect the measurement of vocabulary acquisition. In this study, vocabulary acquisition was measured by comparing the differences between pre-test and post-test scores from before and after reading different texts. Text type did not affect student outcomes, but the improvement rates were affected by students' pre-test scores, students' English reading ability, and the types of assessment questions. …

The Mouthing Of Verbs In Japanese Sign Language, Mark Penner

Theses and Dissertations

Analyzing four publicly available stories told by Japanese Deaf people, this paper shows that verbs are mouthed in natural Japanese Sign Language roughly 20% of the time, whereas other word classes are mouthed roughly 46% of the time. More than half of mouthed verbs are always or nearly always mouthed as one of their lexical properties. Abstract verbs tend to be mouthed more frequently than concrete verbs. When a Japanese Sign Language verb corresponds to a word that is not a verb in Japanese, it is far more likely to be mouthed. Verbs in headed relative clauses are mouthed whenever …

Examining The Inner Experience Of Left-Handers Using Descriptive Experience Sampling, Aadee Mizrachi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Research suggests there are anatomical asymmetries of the human brain associated with right-hand or left-hand preference. In addition, left-handedness has been related to a wide range of psychological and physical problems. Despite these relationships, little is known about the inner experience of left-handers.

The present study, a replication of Mizrachi (2010) using a larger sample, used Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) with three objectives: 1) examine the inner experience of left-handers; 2) compare the results of the present study to the results of Mizrachi (2010); and 3) compare the inner experience of left-handers to that of the general population as reported …

Parents' Perspectives, Observations, And Interpretations Of: Cancer-Related Fatigue And How The Symptom Shapes Their Child's Day-To-Day Quality Of Life, Tina Antill Keener

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Fatigue is a common and distressing symptom of childhood cancer that is often viewed as an inevitable part of cancer treatment and under assessed in clinical practice. Yet, cancer-related fatigue can disrupt normal childhood development and family functioning, as well as, signal serious complications of cancer and its treatment. Little is known about fatigue and quality of life among children undergoing cancer treatment in outpatient settings. This qualitative descriptive study explored parents' observations and interpretations of cancer-related fatigue and how it shaped their child's day-to-day quality of life during cancer treatment. Eleven participant interviews were gathered from parents of children …

Indigenous Cuisine: An Archaeological And Linguistic Study Of Colonial Zapotec Foodways On The Isthmus Of Tehuantepec, Michelle R. Zulauf

Graduate Masters Theses

Cuisine refers to the ethnically idiosyncratic food choices and the manner and methods in which these foods are prepared and served. In this investigation I will explore traditional Zapotec cuisine and its early colonial changes and continuities on Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec by examining available food sources, food preparation techniques and equipment, and food serving traditions evidenced at the archaeological site of Rancho Santa Cruz. In order to achieve this I developed a two-fold analysis. The first component was the analysis of the Vocabulario en Lengua Zapoteca published by Fray Juan de Córdova in 1578. This historical dictionary provides an …

Beliefs In Action: Ideologies, Motivations, And Capital Among English As A Second Language Learners, Damon Lasiter

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Language learning motivations among immigrants are tied - via language ideologies - to socio-economic position, social networks, and problems encountered by the language learners in their everyday lives. Research into immigrants' reasons for language learning has often overlooked these factors (see Klassen & Burnaby, 1993, and Norton, 1995), but I offer in this thesis that the above factors are foundations for many immigrants' language ideologies - beliefs that people have about language. These language ideologies are, in turn, the foundations upon which one's motivations to learn a language are based. Using a Bourdieuvian paradigm, where inequitable positions of power exist …

On The Merits Of The Resource Curse Theory: Resource Rents And Corruption, David Paul Snyder

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Since the breakup of the colonial empires following World War II, many newly independent states have embarked on a path of seeking political and economic development. Scholars studying this phenomenon soon became aware of an interesting puzzle. Why do the economies that have substantial natural resource endowments at their disposal tend to develop at a slower rate than economies that are less endowed with natural resources? From this question, the resource curse theory was derived. The resource curse theory has three main claims. The first claim is that resource rich economies grow at a slower rate than non-resource rich economies. …

Toward An Interactive Directory For Norfolk, Nebraska: 1899-1900, Robert B. Allen

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

We describe steps toward an interactive directory for the town of Norfolk, Nebraska for the years 1899 and 1900. This directory would extend the traditional city directory by including a wider range of entities being described, much richer information about the entities mentioned and linkages to mentions of the entities in material such as digitized historical newspapers. Such a directory would be useful to readers who browse the historical newspapers by providing structured summaries of the entities mentioned. We describe the occurrence of entities in two years of the Norfolk Weekly News, focusing on several individuals to better understand the …