Digital Commons Network^™

A Transdisciplinary Approach To International Teaching Assistants: Perspectives From Applied Linguistics, Heidi Fischer

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The International Student Experience At U.S. Community Colleges At The Onset Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Melissa Whatley, Heidi Fischer

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

This study’s purpose is to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international students who were studying at U.S. community colleges at the onset of this public health crisis. While previous work has explored the impact of the pandemic on international students generally, we argue that community college international students deserve focused attention due to their potentially marginalized status on their campuses. Using a mixed methods research approach, we analyze survey and interview data provided by community college international educators. Our results speak to two overarching themes: the supports provided to students at the onset of the pandemic (and …

Disclosure Sentiment: Machine Learning Vs Dictionary Methods, Richard Frankel, Jared Jennings, Joshua A. Lee

Faculty Publications

We compare the ability of dictionary-based and machine-learning methods to capture disclosure sentiment at 10-K filing and conference call dates. Like Loughran and McDonald (2011), we use returns to assess sentiment. We find that measures based on machine learning offer a significant improvement in explanatory power over dictionary-based measures. Specifically, machine-learning measures explain returns at 10-K filing dates, while measures based on the Loughran and McDonald dictionary only explain returns at 10-K filing dates during the time period of their study. Moreover, at conference-call dates, machine-learning methods offer an improvement over the Loughran and McDonald dictionary method of a greater …

Counter-Narratives Matter: A Critical Race Analysis Of Black Servicemen’S School-To-Military Trajectory, Derece Vanterpool

Open Access Dissertations

For more than a decade the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and more recently the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) have mandated that schools allow military recruiters access to student information with the objective of recruitment for military service. Thus, national education reform has become the conduit through which schools are legally obligated to support the military agenda to recruit children. Enabled by ESSA, the military launched campaigns predominantly in large urban schools attended by poor and working-class Black students (Furumoto, 2005), which often offer a narrow and disempowering curriculum and are under-resourced (Anyon, 2014). The practice of military …

Working Towards Proficiency: Investigation Of Reclassification And Growth Rates For High School English Learners In An Asset And Research-Based English Learner Development Course, Amy Correia

Open Access Dissertations

This study evaluated the impact of a newly-developed asset and research-based English Learner Development (ELD) course on high school English Learners’ (ELs) likelihood of reaching reclassification or showing growth on an annually-administered state assessment of English language proficiency (ELP). Logistic regression was used to calculate the probability that an EL would reach reclassification while controlling for the student-level variables of gender, lunch status, and time in country. Linear regression was used to calculate growth rates in literacy. The findings of this study revealed that ELs who participated in the ELD course were 1.6 times more likely to reach reclassification status …

Turning Points: A Case Study Of Motivation In Foreign Language, Shawna C. Iula

Open Access Dissertations

Enrollment in foreign language courses has been declining. Fewer students are studying foreign languages and those that do often discontinue after the introductory levels. This single-embedded case study looks into why students who initially wanted to continue on to more intermediate levels did not, and also why students who initially only wanted to complete introductory levels changed their plans and continued on to more intermediate levels. Participants included two groups with nine participants total. The first group consists of five students who initially planned on discontinuing after introductory levels and changed their minds and decided to continue. The second group …

South Asian American College Students’ Mental Health Help-Seeking Attitudes And Preferences, Mehwish Shahid

Open Access Dissertations

Previous research has established that Asian Americans are less likely than other racial and ethnic groups to utilize mental health services. This has given rise to a multitude of studies examining Asian Americans’ attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help. However, given the immense diversity of the Asian American population, there exists a need for additional studies exploring the needs of specific subsets of the Asian American population. The present study explored the mental health help-seeking preferences and attitudes of South Asian Americans in particular. Participants were 131 South Asian American undergraduate and graduate students from universities across the United States. …

Gatekeepers And Access Agents: How Admissions Officers Understand Their Roles In Shaping College Access In The 21st Century Market For Higher Education, Brian Stevens

Open Access Dissertations

Many scholars (Cox, 2016; Harklau & McClanahan, 2012; Niemann & Maruyama, 2005; Solórzano, 2005) have explored the causes of opportunity gaps in higher education. Those studies have looked at the various impediments to accessing higher education that have led to the persistence of gaps in college attendance rates, but few have specifically explored the complex relationship between college admissions officers and institutional admissions policies. This study will contribute to literature related to higher education access by examining the roles of admissions officers and adding their perspectives to a body of work where their voices have been largely absent. Grounded in …

Who Counts As A Citizen? Toward An Interdisciplinary Understanding Of Statelessness, Cole S. Kovarik

Nebraska Anthropologist

This paper highlights several limitations of the dominant legal framework for addressing statelessness and incorporates sociological understandings of citizenship and nationality into a revised approach to the issue. The analysis examines various national group dynamics surrounding the issue of statelessness for the Rohingya of Myanmar and concludes that legal citizenship status is neither the sole cause of nor the sole solution for the crisis that has emerged. It concludes with an assessment of the social dynamics that lead to statelessness and recommendations for future research.

Kindergarten Entry Assessment Practices In Pennsylvania, Anne Katona Linn Ed.D.

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there is significant variation in kindergarten programs and the entry assessment systems used in school districts. There are no reliable data on the kindergarten entry assessment (KEA) systems used in public kindergarten programs across the Commonwealth. It is well-established that comprehensive KEAs should be part of a broader preschool through third grade (P-3) continuum of early childhood education to assess whole-child skills, include families and community partners, be culturally and linguistically responsive, and developmentally appropriate. This study aimed to understand the KEA practices of kindergarten teachers in Pennsylvania. An online survey was distributed to kindergarten …

Critical Communities Of Practice In Distance American Sign Language Interpreter Education, Danielle South

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

American Sign Language interpreter education must center the Deaf community in the learning environment. In a distance-education environment, the task of connecting students with the Deaf community is challenging due to time constraints and geographic separation. In order to facilitate meaningful, engaging, experiential online learning, I developed a critical community of practice (CCoP), similar to Lave & Wenger’s (1991) community of practice (CoP). I facilitate my research through one primary research question and three subquestions: (1) How does integration of the critical community of practice framework impact students’ learning in an online language-interpreting-based learning environment? (a) How does critical discourse …

Chronic Customers Or Increased Awareness? The Dynamics Of Social Media Customer Service, Shujing Sun, Yang Gao, Huaxia Rui

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Despite that social media has become a promising alternative to traditional call centers, managers hesitate to fully harness its power because they worry that active service intervention may encourage excessive use of the channel by disgruntled customers. This paper sheds light on such a concern by examining the dynamics between brand-level customer complaints and service interventions on social media. Using details of customer-brand interactions of 40 airlines on Twitter, we find that more service interventions indeed cause more customer complaints, accounting for the online customer population and service quality. However, the increased complaints are primarily driven by the awareness enhancement …

University Of New Hampshire Graduate Academic Catalog, 2021-2022, University Of New Hampshire

Graduate Catalog

No abstract provided.

Locational Disparity In Rural Education, Carlie A. Hedlund

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Location impacts the quality of education a student receives. Specifically in rural areas, the challenges that students face are unique to their location. The purpose of this literature review on locational disparity in rural education was to understand the complex problems facing rural students and educators. Resource inequities, lower population across an expansive area, and high poverty impact the educational achievement, postsecondary attainment, as well as the special education and gifted programs in these schools. These aspects were analyzed as they paint a cumulative picture of the rural educational experience. As a quarter of the United States population lives in …

Concerning Recommendations From The Colorado Behavioral Health Task Force, And, In Connection Therewith, Establishing A Behavioral Health Administration., Colorado General Assembly

Session Laws 2001-Present

No abstract provided.

Concerning Increasing The Capacity Of Quality Early Childhood Education Through Grant Programs, And, In Connection Therewith, Making An Appropriation., Colorado General Assembly

Session Laws 2001-Present

No abstract provided.

Concerning The Expansion Of Multilingual Ballot Access For Electors In The State, And, In Connection Therewith, Making An Appropriation., Colorado General Assembly

Session Laws 2001-Present

No abstract provided.

Concerning The Creation Of The Colorado Office Of New Americans., Colorado General Assembly

Session Laws 2001-Present

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Phonemic Awareness In Reading Development In The Primary Grades, Zachary Carl Erickson

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reading is a multifaceted skill, which requires careful and explicit instruction. The majority of students do not acquire the skill of reading naturally. The teaching of reading is important so students do not become struggling readers. Phonemic awareness is a research-based skill to grow early literacy development. The literature review researched if phonemic awareness would assist students in the early stages of learning to read, the involvement phonemic awareness has with assisting struggling readers, and the effects of small group interventions in phonemic awareness. A total of 30 studies were reviewed with focus on phonemic awareness, interventions, early reading development …

Authority And Meaning, Laurence Claus

Connecticut Law Review

This conference contribution celebrates Richard Kay’s contention that a sound theory of legal meaning depends on a sound theory of legal status. Contrary to Kay, I conclude that identifying law’s true source reveals that we should seek law’s meaning not primarily in lawgivers’ intentions, but in public understanding.

The Folly Of The Famous Family: Why Matter Of L-E- A-’S Definition Of Distinction Does Not Merit Deference, Danielle L. Schmalz Fullam

Connecticut Law Review

Attorney General Barr abruptly changed the course of asylum law in the United States on July 29, 2019, in his decision in Matter of L-E-A-. Barr declared that usually, family-based, particular social group asylum claims would fail due to a lack of specific social distinction. Essentially, Barr decided that in order to constitute a cognizable particular social group, a family would have to be well-known within the society in question. While social distinction has been a component of asylum law jurisprudence for some time, never before was there the requirement of specific social distinction. Despite making a major change to …

Hate Speech On Social Media: Content Moderation In Context, Richard A. Wilson, Molly Land

Connecticut Law Review

For all practical purposes, the policy of social media companies to suppress hate speech on their platforms means that the longstanding debate in the United States about whether to limit hate speech in the public square has been resolved in favor of vigorous regulation. Nonetheless, revisiting these debates provides insights essential for developing more empirically-based and narrowly tailored policies regarding online hate.

First, a central issue in the hate speech debate is the extent to which hate speech contributes to violence. Those in favor of more robust regulation claim a connection to violence, while others dismiss these arguments as tenuous. …

Institutional Change And The Continuity Of Law, Peter Lindseth

Connecticut Law Review

This contribution offers reflections on Richard Kay’s theoretical and historical scholarship regarding processes of institutional (and, by extension, constitutional) change. The focus here is on Kay’s 2014 legal-historical monograph, The Glorious Revolution and the Continuity of Law. Kay’s analysis draws theoretical inspiration primarily (though hardly exclusively) from an Anglo-American tradition, based particularly on the work of H. L. A. Hart. This Essay argues that Kay’s Hartian approach ultimately depends on a somewhat strained distinction between law and non-law in processes of change that does not map well onto the historical record that Kay otherwise cogently analyzes. Kay is forced, therefore, …

Legislative Intentions In Antonin Scalia’S And Bryan Garner’S Textualism, Jeffrey Goldsworthy

Connecticut Law Review

In Reading Law, the late Justice Antonin Scalia and his co-author Bryan Garner defend “pure textualism,” partly because they deny that legislatures can have any intentions other than to enact statutory texts. This denial would, if adhered to rigorously, make their version of textualism unviable. It is inconsistent with context and purpose being used to (a) dispel ambiguities, (b) correct scrivener’s errors, (c) reveal presumptions or background assumptions that qualify literal textual meanings, (d) reveal most kinds of implicit and implied content, and (e) resolve conflicts between the interpretive canons. It would, in other words, entail hyperliteralism, which Scalia and …

Liberalism And Disagreement In American Constitutional Theory, J. Joel Alicea

Scholarly Articles

For forty years, American constitutional theory has been viewed as a clash between originalists and non-originalists. This depiction misunderstands and oversimplifies the nature of the debate within constitutional theory. Although originalism and non-originalism describe important differences between families of constitutional methodologies, the foundations of the disagreement among theorists are the justifications that they offer for those methodologies, not the methodologies themselves. Once the debate is refocused on the justifications that theorists offer for their constitutional methodologies, it becomes clear that the debate within constitutional theory is ultimately a debate about liberalism as a political theory. Specifically, it is a debate …

A Human Face To Instream Flow: Indigenous Rights To Water For Salmon And Fisheries, Paul Stanton Kibel

Emory International Law Review

In the United States and throughout the world, there are many indigenous peoples whose culture and identity are closely connected to salmon and fisheries. Such salmon and fisheries are often dependent on maintaining adequate instream flows of water in rivers. Indigenous groups in the United States and in other countries have increasingly relied on indigenous human rights laws as a basis to keep water instream to maintain salmon and fisheries. This includes reliance on sources of international law such as the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the International …

Dual Language Teachers' Beliefs And Practices Regarding Effective Second Language Instruction: A Qualitative Study, Deddy Amrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The present study examined dual language (DL) teachers' beliefs and practices regarding effective second language instruction. DL teachers are expected to integrate language teaching and content instruction. However, balancing the two areas of instruction has been proved challenging. It has also been reported that bilingual educators lack pedagogical skills and hold incorrect beliefs about second language acquisition. Five DL educators participated in the study. Data about the teacher's beliefs were collected using semi-structured interviews, and data about their classroom practices were gathered from their teaching journals. Second semi-structured interviews were conducted to reveal the factors influencing the enactment of stated …

Mathematical Knowledge For Teaching: Instructional Reasoning In High-Density Black Populations, Desheila Rumph

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

To be economically competitive, U.S. citizens must be mathematically competent (Wang et al., 2010). However, students in the United States have consistently underperformed those in other industrialized nations in mathematics (Program for International Student Assessment [PISA], 2018), which threatens the economic health of the nation (Achieve, 2013; Auguste et al., 2009; Harbour et al., 2018; Mickelson et al., 2013). Federal education reform was implemented and failed to improve the mathematics achievement of U.S. pupils (Cheong Cheng, 2020). Researchers have found links between teacher knowledge and student achievement; however, factors mediate this relationship (Hatisauri & Erbas, 2017). As a result, non-significant …

Psychological Distress And Affective, Behavioral And Cognitive Experiences Of Stuttering, Randy W. Panzarino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Adults who stutter (AWS) are vulnerable to the development of various psychopathological symptoms, although prevalence data are mixed, and even less clarity exists as it relates to the factors that potentially influence their occurrence. The current study sought to shed light on the prevalence of self-reported psychopathology in AWS and aimed to identify relationships between affective, behavioral and cognitive (ABC) experiences of stuttering and psychological distress. This was based on AWS' reports of speech situation-specific anxiety and speech disruption, the use of behaviors to avoid or escape stuttering, and one's communication attitude. The self-reports administered to 40 AWS via Qualtrics, …

Parental Fear Of Hypoglycemia, Adherence, And Glycemic Control In Young Children With Type 1 Diabetes, Jennifer Scheurich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Background: With the rising incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1D) among young children, it is important to understand factors related to management and outcomes in this population. Parental fear of hypoglycemia (FOH) has been examined in relation to children's glycemic control, but findings have been inconsistent. Adherence has been offered as a potential mechanism, but this has not been examined empirically with this population. This study aimed to elucidate the relations among parental FOH, adherence, and glycemic control in young children with T1D. Methods: Parents of children diagnosed with T1D before age 6 (n = 143) completed self-report measures of …