Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Academic Achievement Of Esl Learners At A Teaching Hospital Training Programs, Abdul Fattah Rachdan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many students in an allied health program at a Middle Eastern Arab university were experiencing difficulties with courses taught in English, resulting in poor academic achievement, low grade point averages, a high failure rate amongst its first year students, and an adverse impact upon a future skilled and educated work force for the region. Tinto's theory of institutional action for students' success served as the conceptual framework for the inquiry that used a qualitative explanatory case study method to examine the experiences of those students who were facing difficulties with their studies. To address questions about why students were failing …

Narrowing The Mathematical Achievement Gap Among African American And Latino Students, Muriel Eileen Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study focused on the continued mathematical achievement gap between African American and Latino students in an urban elementary school. An illustrative case study design was used to examine the teachers' perception of factors contributing to this gap in mathematical performance, and what instructional math strategies can narrow the achievement gap. Socioconstructivism and culturally relevant pedagogy were the learning theories used to form the conceptual framework in this study. Qualitative data were obtained from 6 individual interviews with 4th grade math educators, classroom observations, and teacher artifacts. Data analysis in this study included data triangulation and coding, as well as …

Resiliency And Maternal Self-Efficacy Of Single African American Mothers: A Qualitative Study, Danielle Beatrice Massey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Traditionally, research involving single African American mothers (SAAMs) has been conducted using problem-focused or cultural deficit models with the emphases on the disadvantages. Consequently, little is known about how these women view their experiences as single mothers concerning their resilience and maternal self-efficacy. Using a snowball sampling method, 15 SAAMs were recruited to participate in this phenomenological study. This study employed a subject-intensive theoretical framework. Face-to-face interviews (using a questionnaire), participant observation, and a focus group were the methods used to capture the essence of the SAAMs' abilities to thrive despite the challenges associated with single parenting. All encounters were …

Leadership Influences Of The Veteran Alpha Female Leader, Danielle J. Moncrief

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In recent years, more women have entered positions of leadership, and their alpha personalities have compelled them to strive for higher positions of authority. With this influx, it has become necessary to better understand the influences of this type of female leader and to expand narrow conceptualizations. Previous studies examined alpha female leaders of high school and college-age, but studies have yet to explore this type of leader beyond college. This phenomenological study sought to examine the influence of the minority identity, life experience, and leadership duration on veteran alpha female leaders. It was grounded in social-role and ethnic-identity theory. …

Success Experiences Of Hispanic Nursing Students Who Persisted And Graduated After Academic Failure, Barbara Ninan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Twenty percent of Hispanic nursing students at a west coast university are being dismissed from the nursing program due to repeated failures in nursing courses. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of Hispanic nursing students' experiences of successfully completing a nursing program, earning a baccalaureate of science degree, and passing the state licensing examination for registered nurses despite having failed a nursing course and having been placed on academic probation. Guided by Tinto's theory of academic integration, a descriptive phenomenological design was used to explore Hispanic nursing graduates' success experiences. Purposive sampling was used to …

Quality-Of-Life Indicators For African American And European American Long-Term Survivors Of Early-Stage Breast Cancer, Cher De Rossiter

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This meta-analysis investigated the difference in perceptions of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among long-term early-stage breast cancer survivors (BCS). The comparison was between African American and European American women. Initial pilot searches suggested that enough studies existed for a meaningful meta-analysis of a BCS population at least 5 years post diagnosis. Only studies using the outcome measure HRQOL were included in the study; this yielded an initial sample of 212 study reports, with 56 reports entering the coding phase of the process. African American women were grossly underrepresented in this set of studies in comparison to the overall breast …

Hispanic High School Dropouts: Their Unheard Voices, Cheryl Ann Clayton-Molina

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

America is in the midst of a high school dropout crisis that will cost $3 trillion in lost wages over the lifetime of the 12 million students who are predicted to drop out. Each year, in an America's northern states, approximately 10,000 students drop out of high school; the majority of these students are Hispanic. Guided by Ogbu's cultural-ecological theory of academic disengagement, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the experiences of Hispanics who dropped out of high school and their rationales for dropping out.. Eight Hispanic dropouts in a local community were interviewed. The interviews were …

Associative Factors Of Acculturative Stress In Latino Immigrants, Sam Kedem

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

For the past 200 years, Latinos have comprised the largest, consistent category of immigrants in the United States. This influx has created a need for culturally competent psychological treatment of a population that suffers from acculturative stress, defined as the stress a minority member experiences while trying to adjust to the culture of the majority. Researchers have studied Latino immigrants' enduring trials as they adjust to life in the United States. Nevertheless, there is limited research on the quantification of factors contributing to acculturative stress. Based on the conceptual framework of bidimensional acculturation and Latina/o critical race theory, predictors of …

Secondary Principals Who Are Mothers: Balancing Home And Career, Turina Parker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Working mothers who are school leaders face challenges as they attempt to manage competing time demands and personal and professional responsibilities. A need exists for existing school leaders, as well as women aspiring to school leadership, to understand the coping strategies used by mothers who are also school principals. To that end, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the experiences of mothers who are school principals. Strategies used to navigate multiple roles were examined through a role conflict lens. Three overarching research questions guided this study to focus on how female principals with children accommodate their dual …

Subsurface Parameter Estimation In Oilfield Modeling, Fatin Alawam

All ETDs from UAB

Inverse problems involving partial differential equations have many physical applica- tions. One of the most important applications is in petroleum reservoir modeling. The estimation of petroleum reservoir properties is an essential component in predicting reservoir behavior. Generally, oil and water are present together in petroleum reservoirs and the resulting reservoir model consists of two nonlinear partial differential equations. Much research deals with two phase flow in porous media assuming incompressibility, but a few researchers consider the weakly compressible case which generally applies when the reservoir model does not include a gas phase. In this thesis we assume the weakly compressible …

Assessment Of Streams And Aquatic Organisms In The Vicinity Of Birmingham, Alabama For The Presence And Biological Activity Of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals, Bryan Stuart Arwood

All ETDs from UAB

Freshwater ecosystems play a central role in the environment. Through various processes such as nutrient recycling, groundwater recharging, and the attenuation of many pollutants these biological systems help to maintain environmental health. Unfortunately, many recent studies have identified emerging threats to these special environments and the life they sustain. One source of mounting concern is a group of compounds that interact with the endocrine systems of humans and wildlife. Known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), these natural and synthetic chemicals may mimic or interfere with the action of natural hormones—thus disrupting the endocrine system. Multiple studies have reported negative effects …

From This Dark Place To The Other: Violence And Connection In The Poetry Of Brian Turner, Alan R. Swirsky

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Brian Turner is a poet and American soldier who served in Iraq at the start of the 21^st century. His poetry is about his experiences as a soldier interacting with the Iraqi people, his time in America following the war, PTSD, and the endless violence in the war zone. As a comparatively recent entry into the genre of War Poetry, his work pays homage to the writers who preceded him, like Wilfred Owen and Bruce Weigl, while also referencing Middle Eastern poets typically outside the scope of American literature. Through Turner’s recurring themes and motifs, connections are established between …

Functional Violence In Martin Mcdonagh's The Lieutenant Of Inishmore And The Pillowman, Lindsay Shalom

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

While Martin McDonagh’s plays have engendered laughter, disgust, and fear, he might be best known as part of a long line of Irish playwrights who faced controversy due to their art. Much like Synge, Shaw, and O’Casey, McDonagh has faced criticism and even outrage due to the violence and misunderstood portrayals of the Irish in his plays. Though the violence in plays like The Pillowman and The Lieutenant of Inishmore has been labeled gratuitous, we might better understand the purpose of that violence by examining them in light of Michel Foucault’s concepts of knowledge and power. Foucault’s approaches best highlight …

Confabulation, Ruth Lakhani

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

I create work that is an investigation of memory- individual memories from a single location over a span of time. Over time, these individual memories are layered on top of each other to become remembered as one. When the boundaries between the original and successive memories become unstable and unreliable false memories are produced.

My sculptures are non-literal representations of selected interior details from my memories of a place that I visited regularly throughout my life. This place that I am inspired by has undergone several different stages of repair, from when the house was first constructed up to the …

Constructing The World's Largest Prison: Understanding Identity By Examining Labor, Hubert J. Gibson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

A Civil War prison camp operated by the Confederacy known as Camp Lawton was once considered the largest prison in the world. This label was attributed to the fact that Lawton’s stockade enclosed 42 acres. The historical record does not have a clear picture of who built it. Newspaper interviews claim the construction was carried out by 500 impressed slave laborers and 300 Union POWs, but these lack the credibility of official orders. Unfortunately, many Confederate documents were lost when Sherman’s army came through Millen, GA. This study archaeologically examines construction techniques utilized for building stockades in an effort …

Calliope, Armstrong State University

Calliope Magazine

Volume 31

Paradoxical Agency: The Ethics Of Women's Rhetoric In Shakespeare's Rome, Catherine Riley Godbold

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this project, I address the problems of ethics and agency for women’s speech in Shakepseare’s Roman plays—Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, and Coriolanus—and the narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece. Regardless of their rhetorical skill, virtue, or agency, it seems that the Roman women in these works are doomed to fail: either their lives become unlivable or they lose the people most important to them. This prompts the project’s initiating question: why do Shakespeare’s Roman women speak if their words have no long-term effect? For these characters, rhetorical success in Shakespeare’s Rome is dependent upon a particular …

White Manhood In Louisiana During Reconstruction, 1865-1877, Arthur Wendel Stout

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Economic, political, and social landscapes changed for white men in Louisiana after the Civil War. Suffering displacement, business interruption, property confiscation, and lower social and political standing vis-à-vis the former slaves, white men’s standing in every realm seemed diminished, including their core identity as men. It was important to them and to their families for white men to regain a sense of competence as men. Using letters, diaries, and court cases involving white people with strong connections to Louisiana during the Reconstruction era, this dissertation analyzes the gendered problems that white men and their families sought to resolve. Newspaper articles, …

Ernst Mahle: A Pedagogical Edition Of His Four Concertinos For Piano And Orchestra, Joao Paulo Casarotti

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

German-born composer Ernst Mahle (b. 1929) holds a respected position in the music field in Brazil, his adopted country since 1951. Mahle is the artistic director and co-founder of the “Escola de Musica de Piracicaba,” one of the most important musical institutions in Brazil. His work has focused on conducting, composition, and elementary music education. The main focus of this research will be to examine Mahle’s four concertinos for piano and orchestra intended for young performers. This paper will also provide information regarding Mahle’s sixty years of musical legacy in Brazil and his pedagogical idiom for piano solo. For a …

Political Conspiracy In Napoleonic France, Kelly Diane Jernigan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

An in-depth analysis of primary source material indicates that the conspiracies hatched against Napoleon served as the impetus for his decision to change the government from the Consulate to the Empire. His ambitious personality drove him to achieve as much power and prestige for himself as possible, a point discussed by numerous historians, but the conspiratorial actions designed to strike him down provided the opportunity. He was a master of manipulating situations—and people—in order to achieve his ambitious goals. Knowing that his constituents worried over renewed political turmoil if something happened to him, Napoleon used their fears to strengthen his …

Olivier Messiaen's Influence In The Violoncello Works Of Toru Takemitsu, Susannah Violet Montandon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This monograph is an examination of Oliver Messiaen’s influence in the violoncello solo and chamber compositions of Tōru Takemitsu. A total of sixteen pieces: Le Son Calligraphie I (1958), Le Son Calligraphie III (1960), Scene (1959), Landscape (1960), Corona II (1962), Valeria (1969), Quatrain (1975), Quatrain II (1977), Waterways (1978), A Way Alone (1981), Orion for Violoncello and Piano (1984), Orion and Pleiades: Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (1984), Entre-Temps (1986), A Solitary Road (1988), Herbstlied (1993), and Between Tides (1993), are studied to determine the degree of Messiaen’s influence. The research is through a cellistic and musicological analysis including …

Review Of The Women's War Of 1929: Gender And Violence In Colonial Nigeria, Chima J. Korieh

History Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Higher Worlds Meet The Lower Criticism New Scholarship On Rudolf Steiner, Peter Staudenmaier

History Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Elliptic Equations And Systems With Nonlinear Boundary Conditions, Alzaki Mohmoud Muhammed Fadlallah

All ETDs from UAB

This dissertation presents some results on the solvability of second order elliptic equations with nonlinear boundary conditions at resonance, in which the nonlinear boundary conditions perturbation is not necessarily required to satisfy Landesman- Lazer conditions or the monotonicity assumption. The nonlinearity may be unbounded. The nonlinearity interacts in some sense with the Steklov spectrum. The proofs are based on a priori estimates for possible solutions to a homotopy on suitable trace spaces and topological degree arguments. We will also study solvability of nonlinear second-order elliptic systems of partial differential equations with nonlinear boundary conditions. We study the generalized Steklov-Robin eigensystem …

Phase Transitions Under Nanoconfining Conditions, Reza Farasat

All ETDs from UAB

The objective of this dissertation was to study the effects of nanoconfinement on the thermodynamic and kinetic parameters of phase transitions in selected compounds. The compounds were loaded into silica gel nanopores and filled them partially. A model was developed for estimating the fullness of the nanopores as well as the height of the compound layer deposited on the pore walls. A study of the phase transition in NH4Cl confined to the native silica gel nanopores revealed that the heat of transition increases with the increasing the layer height. Also the transition temperature measured on heating and cooling respectively increases …

Exercise Adherence Among Pregnant Women: The Roles Of Socioeconomic Status, Attitudes Towards Prenatal Exercise, And Social Support, Lee Anne Flagg

All ETDs from UAB

Drawing on the sociological theories of fundamental causes and social support, it was hypothesized that exercise during pregnancy would be positively associated with both socioeconomic status (SES) and social support for exercise and that the association between SES and exercise levels would be at least partially explained by attitudes towards exercise. It was also hypothesized that there would be a positive interaction between SES and social support for exercise in relation to exercise levels during pregnancy. Cross-sectional observational data was obtained from a survey of pregnant women, predominantly from those accessing prenatal care at Birmingham, AL area obstetric clinics. The …

Emotion Regulation And Neuropathic Pain Following Spinal Cord Injury (Sci): Influence Of Emotional Processes On The Efficacy Of A Novel Treatment Paradigm For Sci-Related Pain, Juliette Galindo

All ETDs from UAB

While spinal cord injury (SCI) is a relatively rare in the general population, it has significant implications on functionality, independence, and quality of life for individuals who are affected by it. Common sequelae of SCI include sensorimotor dysfunction and pain symptoms that are often severe. More specifically, approximately 33% of individuals with SCI experience severe, intractable neuropathic pain. Additionally, treatments for neuropathic pain have variable efficacy and/or many side effects. While SCI-related neuropathic pain is thought to be related to cortical reorganization and nerve damage, there may be psychological factors that contribute to increased pain severity and variable treatment response. …

Benefit Finding Among Caregivers Of Childhood Cancer Survivors, Molly Gardner

All ETDs from UAB

With improved survival rates for children diagnosed with cancer brings a focus on the psychological adjustment of both children and caregivers. Benefit finding, defined as positive change in the face of adversity, has been documented among caregivers of children with cancer and other chronic illness conditions. The first manuscript is a comprehensive literature review of studies investigating benefit finding among caregivers of children with chronic illness conditions, including caregiver demographic and psychosocial, and child demographic and medical predictors, as well as outcomes of benefit finding. The second manuscript reports on predictors of benefit finding in a sample of caregivers of …

A Redescription Of The Cretaceous Marine Turtle Ctenochelys Acris Zangerl, 1953 And A Systematic Revision Of The 'Toxochelyid'-Grade Taxa Using Cladistic Analysis, Andrew Douglas Gentry

All ETDs from UAB

Within this thesis are two separate articles, each representing a distinct chapter. The first chapter is a redescription of the ‘toxochelyid’-grade marine turtle Ctenochelys acris Zangerl, 1953. This redescription, based on several nearly complete specimens from the early Campanian Mooreville Chalk of Alabama, reveals multiple previously undescribed autapomorphic characteristics of this species and contributes significantly to our understanding of ‘toxochelyid’ alpha taxonomy. The second chapter is comprised entirely of the results of multiple cladistic analyses of the ‘toxochelyid’-grade taxa that produce a hypothesized phylogenetic system of classification for this clade. 108 characters from the cranium, carapace, plastron, and appendicular skeleton …

On Fire Or Burnt Out? The Social Psychological Health Of United Methodist Pastors, Philip Gibson

All ETDs from UAB

This study examines the social processes and structures that shape the social psychological health of United Methodist pastors. These individuals play a central role in a religious institution that is in a state of decline in the 21st century United States. In addition, burnout, a state of compromised social psychological health related to work involving relationships, is a salient issue among clergy. Using a qualitative approach based in grounded theory methodology, 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted with current and former United Methodist pastors, including those in a supervisory role within the Church hierarchy. Using grounded theory coding practices, data from …