Other English Language and Literature Commons^™

Development Of A Quality Management Assessment Tool To Evaluate Software Using Software Quality Management Best Practices, Kishore Erukulapati

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Organizations are constantly in search of competitive advantages in today’s complex global marketplace through improvement of quality, better affordability, and quicker delivery of products and services. This is significantly true for software as a product and service. With other things being equal, the quality of software will impact consumers, organizations, and nations. The quality and efficiency of the process utilized to create and deploy software can result in cost and schedule overruns, cancelled projects, loss of revenue, loss of market share, and loss of consumer confidence. Hence, it behooves us to constantly explore quality management strategies to deliver high quality …

Relationship Between Athletic Identity And Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Among Korean Collegiate Student Athletes, Jong Joo Moon

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This study explored barriers that Korean collegiate student athletes confront with regard to pursuing careers outside of professional athletics. More specifically, the purpose of the study was to identify the barriers to Korean student athletes’ career development, as well as to examine the relationships among the psychological constructs of athlete identity and career decision making self-efficacy. A total of 321 Korean student athletes participated in the study, including 263 men (81.9%) and 59 women (18.1%). Participants completed demographic information along with a parental influence questionnaire, the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale, Career Decision Making Self-Efficacy Scale Short Form, and two open-ended …

The Nature Of God: Perceptions Of God With Exposure To Nature And Natural Events, Holly Ann Kolberg

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Research studies have shown that the sense of awe evoked by natural settings may be associated with transcendental thinking about God. Similarly, other researchers have suggested that people attribute events to God when they cannot develop a sufficient naturalistic explanation for a phenomenon. People appear to prefer attributing events to a benevolent God but will modify their beliefs to assume that God is punitive if event outcomes do not appear to favor their well-being or religious attributions do not accommodate a situation. In the current study, the goal was to evaluate how exposure to photographs of different environments influenced beliefs …

The Language Of Fashion: Communication, Conceptual Clothing, And The Runway Performance, Jarred Johnson

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Scholars have long neglected the study of fashion as anything other than a socioeconomic and cultural phenomena that reflects the more substantial political and historical zeitgeist of a time period. This study takes up Gilles Lipovetsky’s plea for a “theoretical facelift” of the study of fashion. Using an original theoretical framework that delineates the communicative structures of fashion as fabric, drape, and accessory, this work analyzes the conceptual meaning of runway performances by designers Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs. Though conceptual fashion shows are often described as spectacles intended to stir up a label’s recognition and ultimately bolster sales, the …

Lingua Franca: An Analysis Of Globalization And Language Evolution, Abigail Watson

Honors Projects

This project details the evolution of languages and how globalization and advances in communication have effected smaller language groups. A world community in which communication is standardized by a Lingua Franca is in most cases harmful for isolated language groups without many speakers. The extinction of language is harmful for human society and culture, and there are many different ways to help prevent language extinction.

This project includes an essay, an animation, six illustrations, and a coloring book that all relate to endangered languages.

An Exploratory Study On The Impact Of Mobile Wireless Technologies In A Teacher Education Classroom, Anupama Ghattu

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mobile technology is revolutionizing the American higher education system. Integrating mobile technology into college classrooms is changing the teaching and learning process. Today’s millennial generation students are tech savvy and using their mobile devices to learn and explore in many possible ways. Mobile technology devices can be used as effective tools to enhance teaching and learning. The ubiquitous nature of these mobile devices with wireless capabilities makes learning possible instantly anywhere and everywhere with easy access to information for everyone. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of integrating mobile wireless technologies (MWT) on preservice teachers’ attitudes …

The Influence Of Peer Educators In A First-Year Seminar On Freshman Preparation For Collegiate Challenges: A Qualitative Investigation Of Observational Learning, Sarah A. Forbes

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Most high school students have not spent deliberate time preparing for their transition to college. Knowing this, institutions have developed a first-year seminar geared toward transitional issues inherent to a specific institution. While the research on these programs illustrates their utility, there appears to be an opportunity to further their success by incorporating peers as educators in the classroom. Bandura (1986) saw the potential of observational learning through peer modeling, though few researchers have studied first-year seminars from this theoretical perspective. Through a postpositivistic philosophical paradigm, this exploratory qualitative study utilized a phenomenological design to investigate two research questions: what …

Generic Organizational Strategy Integration Impacts On Profit Margin Ratio And Inventory Turnover In Publically Traded Oklahoma Manufacturing Organizations, Christopher Bell

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This study sought to determine if and to what extent strategy integration was related to the financial indicators profit margin ratio and inventory turnover for publically traded manufacturing organizations in Oklahoma. Current strategy theory states that the more thoroughly an organization adopts a given strategy the greater the effect will be on these financial indicators. Hence the need to more fully understand the extent and rates at which strategy integration effects these indicators. This study looked at perceived strategy integration scores for publically traded Oklahoma manufacturing organizations taken from June to August 2014 and financial indicators from 2012 and 2013. …

Factors That Impact End-Of-Course Assessments In Indiana Public, Non-Charter High Schools, Donald Edward Harman

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The purpose of this study was to determine whether a relationship exists between Indiana End-of-Course Assessments (ECA) in English 10 and Algebra I and the following indicators at the high school level: (a) socioeconomic status, (b) instructional expenditures per student, (c) attendance rate, (d) school size, (e) percentage of ELLs, (f) mobility rate, (g) minority rate, and (h) percentage of special education students. This study examined which indicators had the greatest effect on English 10 ECA scores and Algebra I ECA scores in Indiana. To expand the purpose of this study to a specific variable, the study also examined if …

Fatherless Homes And Implications On Student Achievement, Timothy James Garland

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The primary purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there is a relationship between fatherly involvement in students’ lives and select factors of student descriptors and school success. Specifically, the study sought to discover if there is a significant relationship between fatherlessness and student success and if there is a significant relationship between fatherlessness and select student descriptors. Descriptive statistics and linear regression were used to interpret and analyze the data for the study. There were 1,780 respondents who participated in the study. Respondents included seniors from rural, suburban, and urban public schools. In conducting this study, the …

Applications For Dummies, Carla M. Sanchez

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This poem discusses the overwhelming pressure that is put on students to justify their right to be admitted into universities or to receive scholarships based on their extracurricular activities. Many working-class, first-generation college students are unable to participate in organizations and programs that offer students a more well-rounded college experience. This can lead first-gen students, like the author, to feel isolated, inadequate, or illegitimate. "Applications for Dummies" expresses Sanchez's incessant fear that she will never be able to compete with other students who were given the opportunity to build more worldly resumes, despite her strong academic commitment and intellectual potential.

Speed And Resolution In The Age Of Technological Reproducibility, Shawn Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

The rate of acceleration of the biologic and synthetic world has for a while now, been in the process of exponentially speeding up, maxing out servers and landfills, merging with each other, destroying each other. The last prehistoric relics on Earth are absorbing the same oxygen, carbon dioxide and electronic waves in our biosphere as us. A degraded .jpeg enlarged to full screen on a Samsung 4K UHD HU8550 Series Smart TV - 85” Class (84.5” diag.). Within this composite ecology, the ancient limestone of the grand canyon competes with the iMax movie of itself, the production of Mac pros, …

College Students’ Perceptions Of Barriers To Seeking Health Care, Harika Medavarapu

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Access to health care is important to obtain health equity and improve quality of life (Healthy People, 2012). Various factors such as religion, education, family income, geographic location, and travel constraints act as barriers to access health care (Celeya et al., 2010). On the other hand, the health behaviors of medical students vary from general population of same age (Clair, Wilson, & Clore, 2004). Consequently, the perceived barriers may also vary based on the majors of students. Therefore, the main purpose of this research was to identify the difference in perceived barriers between students with health-based majors and non-health based …

A Study Of Effective Characteristics Most Valued In Superintendents By Principals, Camille Goldman

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The purpose of this study was to examine the effective characteristics of superintendents through the principal’s perception. The perceptions of principals were compared to those of superintendents. A one-way ANOVA was used to interpret and analyze the data for this study. All superintendents and principals in public schools in Indiana were invited to participate in this study. This study was conducted by administering a survey to public school district superintendents and principals in Indiana. The Effective Characteristics of Superintendents survey was developed by me to quantitatively measure the perceptions of superintendents and principals with research from the ISLLC standards, theorists, …

The Essence Of A Gentleman: A Phenomenological Study Of Honor And Masculinity In Wabash College’S Gentleman’S Rule, Jacob Isaacs

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This dissertation examined how college men at Wabash College understand good behavior and masculinity while living under a subjective honor code: the Gentleman’s Rule. This included how students learned about and talk about the honor code and particular behaviors that students would identify as exemplifying the Gentleman’s Rule in action. To unearth this information, 12 current Wabash students were each individually interviewed for roughly an hour. Contributions from respondents were subjected to a phenomenological analysis to determine the essence of students’ experiences related to the Gentleman’s Rule. The study found that students typically learned about the Gentleman’s Rule as prospective …

Engineer Manual 385 Effectiveness: A Study Of Predictive Analytics, Scott Arias

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Under the guidance of the United States Army Corps of Engineering Manual 385 (EM 385), the federal government has taken a stringent stance on construction safety. Using the mandated Occupational Safety and Health regulations and the 29 Code of Federal Regulation as a safety foundation, the EM 385 requires project-specific planning, continuous oversight and direct control of all safety activities. These mandates, required of every Department of Defense entity, focus on safety management not found within other federal agencies, in an attempt to reduce the number and severity of mishaps. This study looks for causation between the use of the …

Effective Literacy Instruction Across The Curriculum At The Secondary Level In Indiana, Paul Michael White

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The purpose of this study was to discover school- teacher- and student-level factors that describe effective literacy instruction at the secondary level of high-performing schools. A sub-question of the study focused on whether high-performing schools practiced “literacy across the curriculum.” National data suggest only about one-third of secondary-level students in the United States read at a proficient level. A recent trend to improve secondary-level student literacy has been to emphasize literacy development in all content areas. A mixed-method approach was used for this study. A linear regression was executed for all middle and high schools in Indiana for spring 2011, …

The Experiences Of Gay And Lesbian College Athletes, Channell Barbour

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The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of gay and lesbian college student athletes. Participants of the study were given an opportunity to share their stories about their lived experiences on college campuses as gay or lesbian student athletes. The primary research question explored was, What are the experiences of gay and lesbian college student athletes on college campuses? Other questions that guided this study included, What impact does self-disclosing as gay or lesbian have on student athletes’ sport participation? How does the larger campus environment impact gay and lesbian student athletes’ overall collegiate experiences? Furthermore, this …

Polysubstance Use Patterns And Psychosocial Functioning Among Participants In The Electronic Dance Music Scene, Danielle D. Alfrey

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Electronic dance music (EDM) events are strongly associated with polydrug use, or the use of several substances at one time (Fernandez-Calderon et al., 2011), which has contributed to overall negative stereotypes of the EDM scene. Nitrous oxide use has been documented in EDM research, but mainly in qualitative designs (Hunt, Evans, Moloney, and Bailey, 2009). Qualitative research suggested participants pair nitrous oxide inhalation with use of ecstasy, or MDMA, for feeling an enhanced effect. This EDM study examined nitrous oxide use using a quantitative design and investigated how polysubstance use was related to positive and negative consequences of involvement in …

Analytical Modeling And Feasibility Study For Adoption Of Renewable Energy Sources In A Single Family Dwelling, Jimmy B. Linn

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In the last four or five decades, increased political and social pressure has been placed on commercial and residential consumers to reduce consumption of fossil fuels and invest in alternative methods of energy production for electricity, heating and cooling. Commercially, wind turbines and photovoltaic energy production equipment has sprung up all over the country. Other forms of energy production such as hydroelectric and geothermal energy production facilities have also been built. During this time however, very few residential ‘green energy’ investments have been made. Only in recent years have residential home owners begun to “wet their feet” on ‘green’ energy …

Identifying, Cultivating, And Utilizing Elementary Teacher Leaders, April Holder

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The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate how elementary principals identify, cultivate, and utilize teacher leaders within high-growth elementary schools. For the purpose of this study, high-growth schools are schools that surpassed the state average of high growth for the bottom 25% and top 75% in English/language arts and math for two consecutive years based on the Indiana Department of Education A-F Accountability Report Card. Through this qualitative study, the roles of the principals in three similar Indiana elementary schools were analyzed in regard to the commonalities of the identification of teacher leaders, cultivating talent and leadership, and …

Impact Of Corporate Sustainability Behavior On Financial Performance In Aerospace Companies, Petulia Blake

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Sustainability is increasingly becoming an integral part of how organizations communicate their business operation to stakeholders. As it is common knowledge that organizations are more inclined to invest in programs that contribute to their bottom-line, this study presents an analysis of the relationship between corporate sustainability behaviors and their impact on financial performance. The sample size was 40 United States (U.S.) aerospace companies, selected from the “Top 100 Aerospace Companies” world-wide in a report produced by Candesic consulting firm in 2012. Of the 40 U.S. companies, 21 were found to provide some form of sustainability report. Quantitative and qualitative instruments …

Parental Involvement And Its Relationship To A Child’S Educational Success, Abbigail Suzanne Oliver

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There were three primary purposes of this study. One purpose of the study was to increase the understanding and awareness of parental involvement with regard to their children’s education. The second purpose of the study was to analyze two schools’ poverty levels in regard to their students’ academic goals. Last, the study was to analyze and understand parental involvement in regard to the academic goals parents have for their children. Demographic data regarding two schools’ level of poverty were collected from the Indiana Department of Education. The study was to add more information to the existing data in regard to …

The Lived Career Experiences Of Professional Academic Advisors Who Went On To Earn Doctoral Degrees In Higher Education Administration, Alison K. Rynearson

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The purpose of this study is to examine the lived career experiences of professional academic advisors who went on to earn a doctoral degree in higher education administration. When undergraduate students consider various majors, they often wonder “What can I do with a major in this area? What are my career options?” Such is the case with professional academic advisors who are considering a doctoral degree in higher education administration. Because of a lack of literature, advisors considering the doctoral option may seek out or may be referred to others like them who have accomplished this goal. A connection with …

Acoustic Communication In The Temperate Treefrogs Pseudacris Crucifer And Acris Crepitans, John Keating

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Spring peepers and cricket frogs produce advertisement calls to attract females. As ectotherms their body temperatures are greatly affected by ambient air temperature. Some characteristics of their advertisement calls are correlated with temperature. I analyzed advertisement calls of both species recorded in western-central Indiana. I compared call characteristic correlations with temperature found in our populations to those in populations in other geographic areas and found similar trends throughout the range of both species. Secondly, I examined aggressive calls in the spring peepers. Aggressive calls are used in male-male interactions, and in the spring peeper are a distinct call type different …

The Effect Of Intentionally Engaging Attention When Viewing Restorative Environments: Exploring Attention Restoration Theory, Charles E. Jaggard

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Although research exploring Attention Restoration Theory has been extensive, certain procedures for its study seem to be taken as implicit, but require investigation for a deeper understanding and application of both the theory and its underlying processes. This study aimed to answer the questions: “What is the result of engaging directed attention when viewing otherwise restorative environments?” and “Does this intentional engagement have any effect on already fatiguing non-restorative environments?” Participants were asked to complete a task designed to fatigue their directed attentional capacity and then view images of restorative or non-restorative environments, wherein they either were asked to direct …

The Effects Of Instructional Schedule Type On Student Achievement, Attendance, And Graduation At The High School Level, Andrew S. Freeman

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The primary purpose of this quantitative study was to analyze the effects of instructional scheduling type on student achievement and school outcomes. This study specifically analyzed the differences between traditional schedules and block schedules on the six dependent variables of Algebra I End-of-Course Assessment scores, English 10 End-of-Course Assessment scores, Biology I End-of-Course Assessment scores, attendance rates, graduation rates, and college and career readiness rates and controlling for socioeconomic status, school size, and average years of experience of faculty. Data from all Indiana public high schools from the 2012-2013 school year were obtained from the Indiana Department of Education. A …

Acoustic Communication In The Temperate Treefrogs Pseudacris Crucifer And Acris Crepitans, John Keating

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spring peepers and cricket frogs produce advertisement calls to attract females. As ectotherms their body temperatures are greatly affected by ambient air temperature. Some characteristics of their advertisement calls are correlated with temperature. I analyzed advertisement calls of both species recorded in western-central Indiana. I compared call characteristic correlations with temperature found in our populations to those in populations in other geographic areas and found similar trends throughout the range of both species. Secondly, I examined aggressive calls in the spring peepers. Aggressive calls are used in male-male interactions, and in the spring peeper are a distinct call type different …

Literacy Narratives Of African-American Community College Students: Implications For Curriculum Alignment, Instructional Design, And Entry-Level Assessment, Roderick S. Brown

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This study investigated potential causes of developmental English placement among recent African-American high school graduates enrolled at a community college. Participants were four men and five women from lower- and lower-middle economic backgrounds who had completed an entry-level writing assessment prior to enrollment. An electronic survey was administered to all participants and included questions about literacy experiences in elementary, middle, and high school. Using an ethnographic approach to thematic narrative analysis, the author compared the literacy narratives of students who had tested into college-level composition with those who had tested into developmental English. Results indicated that participants who had tested …

Development Of An Optimal Lean Six Sigma Model, James Taylor

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Lean six sigma is a hybrid continuous improvement methodology that is not standardized and is not well understood. A review of literature found that the spectrum of lean six sigma approaches extends from those that are lean dominant to those that are six sigma dominant. This research illuminated the lean six sigma methodology by methodically assessing the literature via text mining and cluster analysis. Text mining was used to establish the degree to which lean six sigma models, as described in articles published in the International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, are lean dominant versus six sigma dominant. The iterative …