Digital Commons Network^™

Beyond Note Cards: Rethinking The Freshman Research Paper, Bruce Ballenger

Doctoral Dissertations

Ever since its introduction as an assignment in composition textbooks in the 1920s, the freshman research paper has confounded students and discouraged their instructors. Yet the research paper remains a largely static fixture in most first-year writing courses. What accounts for assignment's persistence, despite the long history of complaint? What are the aims of the freshman research paper, and how well do students understand its purpose? Why do they struggle with the genre? How might it be reconceived?

Using extensive interviews with students and a close examination of student papers, I argue here that the conventional freshman research paper is …

Extending The National Council Of Teachers Of Mathematics' "Recognizing And Recording Reform In Mathematics Education" Documentation Project Through Cross-Case Analyses, Loren Phaffle Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary emphasis of this study was to broaden the understanding of data collected in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' (NCTM) Recognizing and Recording Reform in Mathematics Education (R$\sp3$M) project in order to more fully clarify the processes by which reform in mathematics education was occurring across five high school sites. A secondary emphasis was to develop a model of doing cross-case analyses and identifying those methodological elements and linkages that could be applied generally in large-scale studies of this sort.

R$\sp3$M documenters obtained data that resulted from interviews of mathematics teachers, administrators, and students; classroom observations; and …

The Availability Of Spatial Information In A Situation Model, Christopher Mark Hakala

Doctoral Dissertations

Four experiments were conducted to determine the availability of spatial information from a situation model. In Experiment 1, participants were told to either focus on spatial information while reading the texts or to read for comprehension. At the end of each text, participants were presented with a probe word to name. The probe word was either spatially associated or dissociated with the final spatial location of the main character. Participants named the spatial probe more quickly only when told to focus on spatial information. Experiment 2 used reading time as a dependent measure to determine ease of integration of spatially …

Making A Place For Poetry: Response In An Adult Writing Group, Andrea Luna

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how writers respond to other writer's work in the context of a community poetry group. A qualitative study of the poetry group, including participant-observation and tape recording of group meetings, analysis of conversation during meetings, collection of documents, and open-ended interviewing of participants, was undertaken over a period of ten months. Through narrative analysis of the data, one of the primary units of which is the single poem plus the group's response to that poem, the author attempted to create a credible interpretation of the activities and conversations of the group which addresses the question of what …

Emerging From The Chrysalis: Isolation And Publication In Nineteenth-Century Literacy Narratives, Lisa Ann Sisco

Doctoral Dissertations

"Emerging From the Chrysalis" begins with the words of Frederick Douglass, who explains in his 1845 slave narrative that learning to read was a conflicted experience, simultaneously enabling and painful. Douglass writes, "I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing." These powerful words reveal a paradoxical "double-consciousness" inherent in nineteenth-century narratives about literacy: literacy's capacity to simultaneously imprison and empower. Douglass's relationship to literacy, both as a character within his narrative and as an author in a historical context, exemplifies the focus of this dissertation.

I borrow my central metaphor from …

Education, Class And Gender In George Eliot And Thomas Hardy, Keith Ronald Jones

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the relationship between education, class and gender in The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Daniel Deronda (1876) by George Eliot; and in The Woodlanders (1887) and Jude the Obscure (1896) by Thomas Hardy. The Introduction discusses how, in nineteenth-century Britain, education was intended to "improve" individuals and society. The Introduction establishes the Marxist and feminist critical background of the study, and briefly surveys the nineteenth-century debates on "The Education Question," and on education for women.

The novels examined show education failing to 'improve.' Maggie Tulliver, in The Mill on the Floss, and Jude Fawley in Jude …

An Investigation Into Students' Conceptual Understandings Of The Graphical Representation Of Polynomial Functions, Judith Ellen Curran

Doctoral Dissertations

Mathematics educators are realizing the impact that technology is having on the way mathematical functions can be represented and manipulated. The increased use of graphing technology in the classroom is paralleled by an increased emphasis on the role of the graphical representation of a function to solve problems. These changes together with a recognition of the significance and complexity of developing a rich understanding of the graphical representations of polynomial functions are the motivation behind this research.

The study was designed to explore students' conceptual understandings of the graphs of polynomial functions. Guided by a constructivist approach to conceptual change, …

Self-Reported Factors That Influence Eighth Graders' Performance On Standardized Mathematics Tests: An Empirical Analysis., Joseph Appolinaire Meyinsse

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study examined some of the factors that influence African-American and Caucasian eighth graders' performance on standardized mathematics tests. Specifically, I examined the effects of high and low achievers' beliefs and attitudes toward mathematics and perceptions of self, mathematics, teacher, school, and parents on their performance levels. I employed a two-phase design with qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative phase focused on one grand-tour question: Considering the times you took standardized mathematics tests, would you please describe some of the things that affected your performance on those tests? Individual students and focus groups were the units of analysis. I interviewed …

The Efficacy Of The Collaborative Teaching Model For Serving Academically-Able Special Education Students: A Review Of Liturature, Paul J. Gerber

MERC Publications

Collaborative teaching is the latest attempt by the field of education to address the instructional needs of students with disabilities in at least restrictive environment. It is distinctive in design because of the focus of the collaborative teaching concept is keeping students with disabilities in regular classes to be educated alongside their non-disabled peers (a "keep in" program versus a "pull out" program. In a collaborative teaching arrangement both regular and special educators use their coincidental and complementary skills to teach students with disabilities. Because of the diversity of learning arrangement needed in classrooms with students with disabilities, collaborative teaching …

Edwards V. Aguillard: Court History And Implications For Legislation, Wendy Call

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

An affirmative chorus rose in the 1981 Louisiana Legislature to enact the "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction" Act. This statute, which required public school teachers to give equal time to creation- and evolution-science, set in motion a chain of litigation with the momentum to reach the Supreme Court of the United States as Edwards v. Aguillard. Rooted in more than a century of religious controversy surrounding Darwin's The Origin of Species, the threat of religious-educational enmeshment brought Edwards to the threshold of First Amendment interpretation. Although Louisiana's Balanced Treatment Act was not upheld as constitutional …

January-December 1993 & January-June 1994 Annual Report, South Carolina Institute Of Archaeology And Anthropology--University Of South Carolina

Annual Reports

The review presented in this Report is for the period January 1993-June 1994 and summarizes the ongoing research, public service, and educational benefits of the Institute's programs.

Contents:

Table of Contents.....p. 1
Introduction.....p. 2
Division Synopsis.....p. 4
Office of the State Archaeologist.....p. 6
Research Division.....p. 12
Underwater Archaeology Division.....p. 24
Savannah River Archaeological Research Program.....p. 39
Archaeology Week.....p. 47
Cultural Resources Consulting Division.....p. 49
Archaeological Society of South Carolina.....p. 52
Research Trust.....p. 56
Staff.....p. 58
Appendix A - Publications.....p. 60
Appendix B - Editorships.....p. 67
Appendix C - Papers Presented.....p. 68
Appendix D - Courses Taught.....p. 75
Appendix E - …

Trigg County, Kentucky African American Oral History Project (Fa 196), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid for Folklife Archives Project 196. Project by four WKU Folk Studies students in which they interviewed Trigg County, Kentucky African Americans about various aspects of their lives. Most of the individuals that were interviewed had a rural background and were born in the early 1900s. Interviews may be accessed by clicking on the "Additional Files" below.

From Teaching To Learning: A New Paradigm For Undergraduate Education, Robert B. Barr, John Tagg

Higher Education

Two alternative paradigms for undergraduate education are compared; one holds teaching as its purpose, the other learning. The natures of the two paradigms are examined on the following dimensions: mission and purposes, criteria for success, teaching and learning structures, underlying learning theory, concepts of productivity and methods of funding, and faculty and staff roles in instruction and governance.

Total Quality Management Versus Business Process Reengineering : Are Academics Teaching What Businesses Are Practicing?, Cindy Krieter

Honors Capstones

This paper examined the differences between Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR) as seen through the eyes of both practitioners and academics. The main purpose of this research project was to determine what practitioners and academics defined TQM and BPR as and how they felt the two quality movements differed. I performed a literature review to determine what the definitions and differences actually were. I then prepared a questionnaire which would draw out the opinions of the respondents on each of those aspects. After I prepared this, I sent out 400 questionnaires to practitioners and 300 questionnaires …

Queen Anne's Lace, Patricia Z. Cowden

Intertext

This paper, an assignment for Chris Madden's Writing 105 Class, asked us to write about a time or event which caused us to change our minds about something important to us. I thought that there couldn't be a better change for me to write about than the one that seemed to be culminating at that moment. We were asked to explain and contextualize our original belief, identify how our ideas had changed, and account for the process of re-thinking. Writing Queen Anne's Lace was quite a release, and the experience has left me fascinated with the power of writing to …

The Relationship Between The Demographic Classification And The Per Pupil General Fund Appropriation Of Indiana Public School Corporations And Student Achievement As Measured By Istep And Sat Scores, Jacqueline J. Beery

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between student achievement, as measured by the ISTEP and SAT, and the demographic classification and per student General Fund appropriation of Indiana public school corporations. Indiana's Department of Education's four deomographic classifications for public school corporations were rural, suburban, town, and metropolitan. These classifications were based on population and location. The three wealth classifications of above average, average, and below average were defined to be equal thirds based on per student General Fund appropriation for the public school corporations' budgets. The null hypotheses regarding the effect of demographic classification on …

Career Aspirations, Expectations, And Beliefs Of African-American, White, And Hispanic Male Adolescents With Holland Social Personality Types, Davies E. Bellamy

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in career aspirations, expectations, and beliefs of male adolescents as a function of race and Holland social personality type. Participants were 22 African-American, 38 White, and 28 Hispanic male, ninth-graders from a suburban high school. Participants responded to four instruments: (a) A demographics form (b) a career aspiration and expectation questionnaire, (c) the Vocational Preference Inventory, and (d) the Career Beliefs Inventory. Two null hypotheses were tested using a 3 X 2 analysis of covariance. There were no differences in career aspirations and expectations either by race or by Holland social …

Effects Of Parental Presence/Absence On Children In Extended Families, Shirlene Denise Smith

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this study was to determine if children in parent-present and parent-absent extended homes could be differentially described by a subset of the following variables: self-esteem, school performance (grade, absences, conduct), and psycho-social adjustment (relationship, personal growth, system maintenance). The sample comprised standard six students from ten parochial schools in Belize City. One hundred seventy-two students were identified as living in extended families. Seventeen of these cases had missing information on at least one discriminating variable and were excluded from the study. Of the resulting sample, 55 were identified as living in parent-present extended and 42 in parent-absent …

The Comparison Of The Test Of Cognitive Skills And The Wechsler Intelligence Scale For Children-Revised For Students With Learning Disabilities, Jennifer Louise Mcgiverin

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the criterion-related validity of the Test of Cognitive Skills (TCS) as an estimate of cognitive ability for students with learning disabilities. Research indicates that knowledge of scores from group ability tests significantly influences teachers' instruction and treatment of students. In contrast, school psychologists rarely consider group administered test scores and must devote substantial time to administering and interpreting individual intelligence measures. The present study compared the TCS to the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised (WISC-R) for students with learning disabilities in order to contribute to the valid use of the TCS by both teachers and …

The Reader Response Of Male Juvenile Offenders To Two Short Stories By Robert Cormier, Judith Griffin Sheese

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted with male juvenile offenders who were incarcerated at a juvenile treatment facility operated by the State of Indiana. The students were aged 13 to 18 and were enrolled in grades seven through eleven. Thirty-three students were selected for the final analysis because only those 33 had completeEducational records available at the facility. The students were asked to respond to two short stories by Robert Cormier. The stories, "The Moustache" and "President Cleveland, Where Are You?" were chosen because of Cormier's reputation as a popular author of adolescent literature. The stories also were chosen because the stories …

Literacy Portfolios: Considering Issues Of Purpose, Power, And Potential, Carol A. Wilcox

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study, I examine the complexities of incorporating literacy portfolios into an elementary school classroom: the purposes for using portfolios, issues of ownership and audience, the nature of children's evaluative decisions, adults' responsibilities in children's development as evaluators, and the institutional pressures impacting adults' abilities to incorporate children's voices into existing evaluative practices.

The study was conducted in a third grade classroom where children read and wrote in a variety of genres for authentic purposes and audiences every day. Although the study cannot be described as an ethnography in the strictest sense, research methodology is drawn from that discipline. …

Differential Item Functioning In Performance Assessments: A Comparison Of Three Procedures., Hae-Seong Park

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

As performance assessments grow in popularity, it becomes increasingly important to investigate the effect of such assessments on various population subgroups. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relative empirical power of three popular statistical procedures (an extension of the generalized Mantel-Haenszel procedure, Logistic Discriminant Function Analysis, and a combined t-test procedure) in identifying polytomously scored items that function differentially for two subgroups of examinees. In the Monte Carlo study computer simulations were conducted to study the behavior of these procedures for identifying items exhibiting varying degrees of differential-item functioning (DIF). Each statistic was converted to a probability …

Factors Influencing The Intention To Choose A Physical Or An Applied Science Track In College: A Ghanaian District-Level Study., James Adu Opare

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of the study was to identify the determinants of Ghanaian senior secondary school students' intentions to choose their college majors from the physical and applied sciences. The specific objectives were, first, to find out if males and females are equally likely to major in the physical and applied sciences, and second, to find out if the sex composition of the school a student attends can have an influence on his or her inclination toward the subjects in question. Through paper-and-pencil questionnaires, data for the study were collected in summer 1994, from a sample of 624 12th graders drawn …

Evaluating The Efficacy Of Communicative Reading Strategies With High-Risk First-Grade Students., Melanie Crim Michaelson-Ezell

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The specific aim of this project was to determine the efficacy of an integrated approach to remediation of oral language and reading. Communicative Reading Strategies (CRS) (Norris, 1985) was used with a group of twenty-one high-risk first grade students. Improvements were measured for aspects of language development that are specifically related to success in oral language use and reading. Nine children demonstrating below average performance on standardized measures assessing language and reading received intervention. A control group of 12 matched children served to control for changes as a result of maturation or general curriculum effect. The treatment group received intervention …

Factors Influencing The Selection Of Business Majors As Perceived By Transfer And Non-Transfer Business Students., Norma Jeanne Jenkins Soileau

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The objectives of this study were to: (1) describe the students enrolled in the two-year business programs offered by state colleges and universities in Louisiana on selected demographic characteristics, (2) compare the students declaring transfer and non transfer majors in two-year business programs on selected demographic characteristics, (3) determine the influence of selected factors on the selection of a two-year business major, (4) determine the desirability of two-year business majors as perceived by students enrolled in Louisiana colleges and universities, which offer two-year business programs, and (5) determine the perceptions of students enrolled in Louisiana colleges and universities on selected …

A Study Of The Relationship Among Teacher, Process, And Outcome Variables Within School-Based Consultation., Katherine Frances Wickstrom

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated the relationship among several teacher, process, and outcome variables within school-based consultation. A total of 32 consultant-consultee dyads participated in the study until completion of a problem identification interview, a problem analysis interview, and a follow-up session. Four types of data were collected. First, sessions were tape recorded and coded to examine the effect of an "expert" versus a "collaborative" interaction style. Second, teachers completed paper and pencil measures pertaining to (a) attributions of child behavior, (b) preferred service delivery, (c) severity of behavior problem, (d) consultant verbal interactions, (e) treatment acceptability, and (f) teacher satisfaction. Third, …

Consultant Effectiveness And Treatment Acceptability: An Examination Of Consultee Requests And Consultant Responses., Dinah Stuart Graham

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Consultation is a process whereby a consultant (e.g., a psychologist) works with a direct caregiver (e.g., a teacher) to provide services to a client (e.g., a child). There has emerged a very strong supposition in the literature and in practice that consultation be a collaborative venture between co-equal professionals. Although a collaborative approach has been generally assumed beneficial, an emerging body of research is calling this into question. Further explication of the collaborative process is needed. Commonly held notions of "collaborative behavior" and "expert behavior" may be misleading, or inaccurate. This study was designed to elucidate the collaborative process. Teachers …

Using Drawing Tasks To Communicate Ideas About Photosynthesis: A Conceptual Change Strategy For Use In The Elementary School Classroom., Byron Levy Launey

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

It is difficult for a teacher to determine if a learner has acquired an accurate concept of the topic being taught. Most of the children in this study had sufficient language skills to communicate successfully with their teachers even though they held inappropriate concepts of photosynthesis. This study examined the use of drawing tasks to assess children's ideas related to photosynthesis in an elementary-grade classroom. Two research questions guided the study to determine if this strategy was a valid improvement over traditional methods of classroom instruction. The first question asked if elementary-grade students receiving instruction about photosynthesis would acquire and …

Identification Of Activities That Are Appropriate Parts Of A Partnership Between Secondary Technology Education Programs And Business And Industry., Charles Edward Backes

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to identify specific activities that are considered appropriate parts of a partnership between secondary technology education programs and the business and industry community by experts in the field of technology education and business and industry in the southeastern region of the United States. The states included in the study were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. A form of the Delphi Technique was used to solicit and reach consensus on the appropriateness of partnership activities between secondary technology education programs and members of the business and industry community. …

The Effects Of Teacher Efficacy, School Climate, And Stages Of Concern On The Implementation Of A Physical Science Program., Jennifer B. Baird

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated the implementation of a physical science education innovation in a large, urban school system. The program began in the summer of 1993 with the selection of two teachers from each of seventeen elementary schools. Participants were selected by program staff from among a pool of applicants with an interest in science education. The goals of the program included retraining teachers to implement hands-on, inquiry-based physical science and performance-based assessments. Teachers were provided with instructional materials, including science kits, and on-going support and assistance from science and assessment specialists. Specifically, the study examined the relationship between the independent …