Digital Commons Network^™

“I’M Like Their Gps”: How Mathematics Faculty Support Underprepared Community College Students In Corequisite Courses, Bonita B. Tyler

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

As American community colleges replace prerequisite developmental mathematics courses with corequisite courses, the work of faculty to support underprepared students merits attention. This curricular change means underprepared students are enrolling directly in both college-level content courses with required corequisite support courses for necessary remediation, thus broadening the range of student skills and abilities in the classroom. Faculty work is significantly impacted by this change. Previous research indicates that corequisite course configurations have mitigated some problems with the traditional multi-course sequence of developmental courses. Noticeably, scholars described course structures in detail but failed to describe adequately how students were actually supported. …

“I Felt Seen”: A Mixed-Methods Investigation Of Culturally Responsive Teaching In Postsecondary Education, Caiti Siobhan Griffiths

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Instructors’ beliefs and behaviors shape students’ learning environments (Bandura, 2007). Culturally responsive teaching can make instruction more relevant and supportive to historically marginalized students (Gay, 2000, 2018). Instructor support and care for students are important to undergraduate persistence (Tinto, 1986, 1993). However, White postsecondary instructors may not feel prepared to use culturally responsive teaching (Heitner & Jennings, 2016; Sue et al., 2009). This study used a sequential mixed-methods design to examine postsecondary instructors’ self-perceptions, and students’ lived experiences, related to culturally responsive teaching. In Fall 2020, instructors (N = 99) rated their self-efficacy for culturally responsive teaching on a …

Exploring The Impact Of Pre-College Stem Exposure On First-Year Engineering Student Self-Efficacy, Micaha Dean Hughes

Theses and Dissertations--Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) outreach programs for high school students have become more widely available during the last decade in an effort to drive more graduates into the ever-growing STEM field in the United States. This study utilizes the Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE) survey to investigate a possible relationship between specific pre-college STEM outreach programs and noncognitive predictors of success in first-year undergraduate engineering students. Students in their first semester of a first-year engineering program at a large, public research university completed the LAESE survey and were asked to identify their participation in one of three …

Computer Self-Efficacy And Math Performance In Adult Basic Education Students, Morgan Hilary Dow

Theses and Dissertations--Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education

Domain-specific self-efficacy is increasingly known to be related to student academic performance. This study investigated the relationship between computer and math self-efficacy, math performance, and guided in-class use of an online educational program for adult basic education students enrolled in classes at an adult education program during the 2019 – 2020 school year. Initial math test scores and pre-survey results indicated no statistically significant relationship between computer self-efficacy and math performance, or math self-efficacy and math performance. After attending between 1 and 15 class sessions where an online educational program was used, post-survey results indicated no statistically significant relationship between …

Factors In The Success Of Female Computing Majors In Community Colleges, Melanie Williamson

Theses and Dissertations--Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education

Historically, the role of women in computing changes over time as does their presence in the field. In 1985, 37% of computer science bachelor’s degree recipients were women, but in recent years, that number has decreased and currently holds at, around, 18%. Using a mixed methods approach, the study looked at the success of women enrolled in a computing degree program at a community college and the impact that self-efficacy, involvement in academic support opportunities, and profession perception influences persistence to successfully complete a computing course. Using Astin’s Student Involvement theory (1984; 1999) and Astin’s Involvement – Environment – Output …

Action Research As Professional Development: Creating Effective Professional Development In Every Classroom, Lori A. Cambareri

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Professional development is a critical component of teacher professional growth that directly influences increased student learning and achievement. As professionals, teachers continue to develop their knowledge and skills with the aim of improving their teaching to assure that students can learn better. A huge investment in time and resources is invested in teacher professional learning every year. However, teachers report, and research supports, that teacher professional development often does not meet teachers’ needs and does not perform its integral function of creating a sustained change in teacher behavior that leads to a corresponding positive change in student achievement. This problem …

How Mathematicians Assign Homework Problems In Abstract Algebra Courses, Rachel L. Rupnow, Meredith Hegg, Tim Fukawa-Connelly, Estrella Johnson, Keith Weber

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

While many aspects of the teaching and learning of advanced mathematics have been explored, the role, construction, and values of homework have been virtually ignored. This report draws on task-based interviews with six mathematicians to explore the relationship between an instructor’s learning goals and factors considered when selecting homework problems. All participants viewed homework as critical to student learning, and the majority of the participants’ claims focused on either the mathematics or how the problem would help students learn; no instructor gave primacy to evaluative reasons for homework. We highlight six themes used by participants to evaluate and select items …

Ecohydrology Of Epiphytes: Modelling Water Balance, Cam Photosynthesis, And Their Climate Impacts, Gretta Miller, Samantha Hartzell, Amilcare Porporato

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Epiphytes are aerial plants, often characterized by CAM (crassulacean acid metabolism) photosynthesis, which make up a significant portion of the biomass in some rainforests. Their unique characteristics have not yet been included in ecohydrological models, and their potential impact on local hydrometeorology is largely unexplored. This work introduces a water balance model for epiphytes, which adapts the soil‐plant‐atmosphere continuum model to represent a plant system without soil and couples it to the Photo3 photosynthesis model, which includes CAM photosynthesis. The model, which is parameterized with field data of Guzmania monostachia, accurately captures the observed hydraulic and photosynthetic behaviour of …

Reference Analysis In Biotika Journals As The Scientific Literature In The Biology Field, Mohamad Nurzaman, Hanny Hafiar, Risa Nurisani, Nurul Asiah

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The quality of a scientific journal is determined by several standards. In Indonesia, one of the assessments of the quality of national journals uses the SINTA (Science and Technology Index) rating system. To obtain SINTA ranking results, it is necessary to match the contents of the journal with the assessment points contained in ARJUNA (National Journal Accreditation). Several points of assessment include primary and secondary reference ratios, the ratio of the reference source year, and the suitability of the article content with the focus and scope determined by each journal. Biotika is a Biology journal that is currently submitting for …

Glacial Deposits, Vol. 46, 2021, Department Of Geography, Geology, And The Environment

Glacial Deposits

Newsletter of the Department of Geography, Geology, and the Environment

Social-Emotional Learning And Its Relationship To High School Student Academic Achievement In Stem Courses, Maurice Lavelle Mcdougald

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to determine the correlation of high school student social-emotional learning and its relationship to academic achievement in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) courses as moderated by gender and racial groups and within a rural school in the Sandhills area of North Carolina. Using a quasi-experimental variable-centered design, 202 Junior Reserve Officer Corps students participated in this research. The researcher sought to answer: (1) Do individual high school students' self-perceptions of social-emotional learning skills influence academic achievement in traditional STEM courses? (2) Are there significant variations of individual high school students' self-perception of social-emotional learning …

Enthusiastic But Inconsistent: Graduate Teaching Assistants’ Perceptions Of Their Role In The Cure Classroom, Erin Shortlidge, Jessica R, Cary, Emma C. Goodwin

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite growing evidence of positive student outcomes from course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), little consideration has been given to employing graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) as CURE instructors. GTAs may be novice researchers and/or teachers and likely vary in their interest in teaching a CURE. Guided by expectancy-value theory, we explored how GTAs’ self-efficacy and values regarding teaching a CURE impact motivation and perceptions of their roles as CURE instructors. Using a multiple case study design, we interviewed nine GTAs who taught a network CURE at one research institution. Though most GTAs held a relatively high value for teaching a CURE …

The History Of Congressional Apportionment, Charles M. Biles

Trade & Scholarly Monographs

NEW REVISED SECOND EDITION.

The Congressional apportionment problem is deceptively easy to state: How many seats in the U. S. House of Representatives does each state get? To answer that question, Charles Biles, award-winning Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Humboldt State University, examines the math and politics that has shaped government and power from the founding of the country to the modern day.

Employing an interdisciplinary approach that stems from his research in mathematical modeling and the modeling of natural resource systems, Biles tells a flowing evolutionary tale of how slight changes in calculating apportionment has wrought massive shifts in …

Remarks On And Characterizations Of 2s-Lindley And 2d-Lindley Distributions Introduced By Chesneau Et Al. (2020), Gholamhossein Hamedani, Mahrokh Najaf

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

Chesneau et al. (2020) considered the distributions of sum and differences of two independent and identically distributed random variables with the common Lindley distribution. They derived, very nicely, the above mentioned distributions and provided certain important mathematical and statistical properties as well as simulations and applications of the new distributions. In this short note, we like to show that the assumption of “independence” can be replaced with a much weaker assumption of “sub-independence”. Then we present certain characterizations of the proposed distributions to complete, in someway, their work.

The Transmuted Inverted Nadarajah-Haghighi Distribution With An Application To Lifetime Data, Aliyeh Toumaj, S.M.T.K. Mirmostafaee, Gholamhossein Hamedani

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Poisson Transmuted-G Family Of Distributions: Its Properties And Applications, Laba Handique, Subrata Chakraborty, M. S. Eliwa, Gholamhossein Hamedani

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

In this article, an extension of the transmuted-G family is proposed, in the so-called Poison transmuted-G family of distributions. Some of its statistical properties including quantile function, moment generating function, order statistics, probability weighted moment, stress-strength reliability, residual lifetime, reversed residual lifetime, Rényi entropy and mean deviation are derived. A few important special models of the proposed family are listed. Stochastic characterizations of the proposed family based on truncated moments, hazard function and reverse hazard function, are also studied. The family parameters are estimated via the maximum likelihood approach. A simulation study is carried out to examine the bias and …

A New Parametric Lifetime Distribution With Modified Chi-Square Type Test For Right Censored Validation, Characterizations And Different Estimation Methods, Haitham M. Yousof, Khaoula Aidi, Gholamhossein Hamedani, Mohammed Ibrahim

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

A new three-parameter extension of the generalized Nadarajah-Haghighi model is introduced and studied. Some of its statistical properties are derived. Characterization results are presented. The failure rate can be "increasing", "decreasing", "bathtub", "upside-down", "upside-down-constant", "increasing-constant" or "constant". Different non-Bayesian estimation methods under uncensored scheme are considered. Numerical simulations are performed for comparing the estimation methods using different sample sizes. The censored Barzilai-Borwein algorithm is employed via a simulation study. Using the approach of the Bagdonavicius-Nikulin chi-square goodness-of-fit test for validation under the right censored data, we propose a modified chi-square goodness-of-fit test for the new model. Based on the maximum …

The Type I Quasi Lambert Family: Properties, Characterizations And Different Estimation Methods., Gholamhossein G. Hamedani, Mustafa Ç. Korkmaz, Nadeem Shafique Butt, Haitham M. Yousof

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

A new G family of probability distributions called the type I quasi Lambert family is defined and applied for modeling real lifetime data. Some new bivariate type G families using "Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern copula", "modified Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern copula", "Clayton copula" and "Renyi's entropy copula" are derived. Three characterizations of the new family are presented. Some of its statistical properties are derived and studied. The maximum likelihood estimation, maximum product spacing estimation, least squares estimation, Anderson-Darling estimation and Cramer-von Mises estimation methods are used for estimating the unknown parameters. Graphical assessments under the five different estimation methods are introduced. Based on these assessments, all …

Characterizations Of The Discrete Lindley And Discrete Poisson-Lindley Distributions, Gholamhossein G. Hamedani, Mahrokh Najaf

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

Certain characterizations of the discrete Lindley and discrete Poisson-Lindley distributions, originally introduced by Bakouch, Jazi and Nadarjah (2014) and Sankaran (1970), respectively, are presented. Al-Babtain, Gemeay and Afify (2020) revisited these distributions and provided estimation methods and actuarial measures as well as their applications in medicine. This short note is intended to complete, in some way, Al-Babtain, Gemeay and Afify (2020)’s work. It should be mentioned that the probability mass functions reported in the two papers mentioned above are not correct. In this note, it will be explained why they are not correct.

The Renaissance Of Odum's Outwelling Hypothesis In 'Blue Carbon' Science, Isaac R. Santos, David J. Burdige, Tim C. Jennerjahn, Steven Bouillon, Alex Cabral, Oscar Serrano, Thomas Wernberg, Karen Filbee-Dexter, Julia A. Guimond, Joseph J. Tamborski

OES Faculty Publications

The term ‘Blue Carbon’ was coined about a decade ago to highlight the important carbon sequestration capacity of coastal vegetated ecosystems. The term has paved the way for the development of programs and policies that preserve and restore these threatened coastal ecosystems for climate change mitigation. Blue carbon research has focused on quantifying carbon stocks and burial rates in sediments or accumulating as biomass. This focus on habitat-bound carbon led us to losing sight of the mobile blue carbon fraction. Oceans, the largest active reservoir of carbon, have become somewhat of a blind spot. Multiple recent investigations have revealed high …

Trichome Lengths Of The Heterocystous N2-Fixing Cyanobacteria In The Tropical Marginal Seas Of The Western North Pacific, Sing-How Tuo, Margaret R. Mulholland, Yukiko Taniuchi, Houng-Yung Chen, Wann-Neng Jane, Yen-Huei Lin, Yuh-Ling Lee Chen

OES Faculty Publications

Calothrix rhizosoleniae and Richelia intracellularis are heterocystous cyanobacteria found in the tropical oceans. C. rhizosoleniae commonly live epiphytically on diatom genera Chaetoceros (C-C) and Bacteriastrum (B-C) while R. intracellularis live endosymbiotically within Rhizosolenia (R-R), Guinardia (G-R), and Hemiaulus (H-R); although, they occasionally live freely (FL-C and FL-R). Both species have much shorter trichomes than the other marine filamentous cyanobacteria such as Trichodesmium spp. and Anabaena gerdii. We investigated the trichome lengths of C. rhizosoleniae and R. intracellularis in the South China Sea (SCS) and the Philippine …

Plate Boundary And Triple Junction Control Of Shatsky Rise Formation And Implications For Other Ocean Plateaus, Jennifer E. Georgen, Katrina Shotorban

OES Faculty Publications

In the study of marine large igneous provinces, investigations often focus on the importance of mantle plumes in generating excess magmatism. Few studies, however, have addressed the role of plate boundary processes in promoting widespread and extensive mantle melting. This study investigates how spreading center geometry may have facilitated the emplacement of Shatsky Rise, an oceanic plateau in the western Pacific Ocean. The largest structure within Shatsky Rise, Tamu Massif, was created ∼140–150 Ma at the Pacific-Izanagi-Farallon (PIF) ridge-ridge-ridge triple junction. Moreover, the PIF triple junction was one of three triple junctions operating in close proximity at the time, as …

Teaching Critical Thinking Skills In A Chinese Immersion School, Pui Hung Helen Wong

Doctoral Dissertations

As a frontline teacher and administrator, I received feedback consistently from parents and students asking for a fun and effective method of instruction for Chinese language development in the US. This study explored the micro-level of how teachers in Chinese immersion schools create an environment to support development of students’ critical thinking skills while learning Chinese. I applied a qualitative approach to the research and designed a case study focused on answering the following research questions: How do teachers help their students to develop critical thinking skills when teaching in a Chinese immersion program? What are the challenges teachers have …

Boolean Network Control With Ideals, Ian H. Dinwoodie

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

A method is given for finding controls to transition an initial state x0 to a target set in deterministic or stochastic Boolean network control models. The algorithms use multivariate polynomial algebra. Examples illustrate the application.

Simulations Of Single- And Two-Tone Tm-Doped Optical Fiber Laser Amplifiers, Tathagata Goswami, J. Grosek, Jay Gopalakrishnan

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This work uses numerical simulations of a thulium-doped optical fiber amplifier to predict various performance characteristics such as peak temperatures, expected output powers and efficiencies, presence of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE), and transverse mode instability (TMI) onset power thresholds. Single- and two-tone configurations are studied. In the latter case, the two laser sources are separated in frequency by the amount that corresponds to the peak Raman gain, and a few seed ratios at various total seed powers are examined. The goal is to provide the field with pertinent information on what is feasible for this type of amplifier.

Torsion And Curvature In Continuously Defective Solid Crystals, Marek Z. Elźanowski

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

I show how one can utilize the concept of a canonical connection on a homogeneous space to describe defectiveness of a continuous elastic crystal solid.

Five Ps (Policies, Practices, Power Structures, Places; And People): A Framework To Analyze Systemic Inequalities, Eva Thanheiser, Lisa Weasel, Idowu Ajibade, Larry Martinez, Gina Greco

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chart is part of a framework to establish institutional equity and is part of the following National Science Foundation grant project:

The Spaces of Empowerment for Equity and Diversity: Advancement Through Access (SEE-DATA) project at Portland State University (PSU) aims to identify, understand, and improve the workplace experiences and retention of faculty in STEM fields who have been traditionally minoritized and marginalized based on gender, race/ethnicity, and other intersectional identities (e.g., sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, national origin, immigrant status). The project will collect, analyze, and map data about faculty’s experiences at PSU to inform programs and policies that …

An Analysis Of The Global Warming Impact Of Humboldt State University's Refrigerant Inventory, Alex Eckert-Ross

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

With global warming potentials (GWP) in the thousands to tens of thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO₂e) and the possibility for substantial emissions associated with leaks of refrigerants used in heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVACR) equipment, it is important for Humboldt State University (HSU) to document and report greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) associated with refrigerant leaks.

This study has collected data on HSU’s HVACR inventory, emphasizing the refrigerant types used, the charges of the equipment (i.e., the amounts of refrigerant in the systems), and the types of equipment. The data were aggregated into …

Full Issue: Volume 14, Number 2, Spring 2021

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Complete .pdf file of Volume 14, Number 2 of The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences. Published Spring 2021.

Full Issue: Volume 15, Number 1, Fall 2021

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Complete .pdf file of Volume 15, Number 1 of The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences. Published Fall 2021.