Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Navigating Cultural Identity In The Classroom, Caroline V. Phillips

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

As of 2016, ~25% of children in the United States are the children of immigrants (Nibbs & Brettell). Many of these youths struggle with the feeling that they belong neither to their parents’ cultural community nor to the locality in which they have been raised (Brockett, 2018). Furthermore, little academic research exists wherein these students share their experiences and engage in the processes of meaning making. This knowledge is essential for multicultural scholars and also for the (overwhelmingly white) population of K-6 teachers who help these youth construct personal identities. This project accomplishes the following:

1. I interview second-generation immigrants …

Organizational Culture And Communication Competence Workshop: Masters Plan B, Travis Bergon

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This project began as an attempt to understand how events, such as the “Great Resignation” (i.e., an unprecedented mass exit of employees from the U.S. workforce), have impacted the way in which organizations are attempting to mitigate employee turnover. In addition, this project examined what role managers might play in promoting a positive organizational culture. A review of literature identified Schein’s (1990) model of organizational culture and Spitzberg and Cupach’s (1984) conceptualization of communication competence as useful frameworks for helping managers understand and promote positive organizational culture and employee mental health and well-being. In addition, the review of literature pointed …

Compassionate Support Training For Adults Impacted By Mental Illness: A Workshop Series Using Transformative Learning Pedagogy, Lindsay Bennett

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This professional project aims to translate current compassion academic research and scholarship for my client partner, the Cache County chapter of NAMI, to aid the family members of loved ones who live with mental illness.

Allyship Training Programs In Higher Education: Creating A Critical Curriculum Of Change, Macy Marin Keith

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Allies Training Programs (also known as Safe Space/Zone training) are found in many institutions of higher education. Usually provided by an LGBTQA+ or Gender and Sexuality Center staff, the goal is to prepare participants for an allyship role in hopes of promoting safe spaces on campus and decrease instances of queerphobia. This thesis examined current allies training programs to determine what content is being presented and compare to the latest critiques and definitions. After analysis it is determined that current allyship trainings are inadequately preparing higher education staff and faculty for an ally role. Using the results of this study …

Pretendians, Settler Collectors, And #Nativetwitter: Indigenous Rhetorical Sovereignty, Carly Schaelling

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis paper uses thematic analysis to find and report themes in the minority online community space of #NativeTwitter. Drawing from Lisa King’s theory of rhetorical sovereignty, this paper outlines how Indigenous people use Twitter to assert and take back control of their voices and images, as well as build community and connect with each other. This paper outlines three major themes within #NativeTwitter, as analyzed from a group of tweets pulled from the community from October 28-31st in 2018. The themes are: Calling out and Calling in, Community Building and Fostering Connection, and Cultural Preservation. Examples for each of …

New Perspectives On Promoting Efl Teaching And Learning In Oman, Jihan Sulaiman Al Naabi

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is an accumulation of work that the author accomplished during her study in the program of Master of Second Language Teaching at Utah State University. It is an outcome of the author’s personal teaching experiences, insights gained from her master’s study, and several class observations as well.

The portfolio comprises three primary portions: (1) teaching perspectives, (2) research perspectives, and (3) an annotated bibliography. The teaching perspectives revolve around the author’s beliefs on the role of both teachers and students in L2 classrooms, the communicative teaching of grammar, and the value of a positive learning environment. The research …

Student-Centered, Interaction-Based, Community-Driven Language Teaching, Sharon Lyman

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation that highlights some of the author’s accomplished work while in the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU). Organized into sections that reflect the author’s teaching and research perspectives as a MSLT graduate student and instructor, who taught intensive English reading, writing, and conversation courses for the Intensive English Language Institute (IELI).

In the first section, teaching perspectives, the author describes her desired professional environment, shares her personal teaching philosophy statement, and accounts for her professional development through classroom observations. In the second section, research perspectives, two research papers and …

The Relationship Between Narrative Proficiency And Syntactic Complexity Of Spontaneously Generated Stories Elicited From Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder As Compared To Those Elicited From Children With Developmental Language Disorder, Samantha Winward

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of a narrative intervention on narrative proficiency and the use of complex sentences for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).

Method: Two multiple-baseline across participants studies were conducted. Five participants with ASD ages 8 to 12 and six participants with DLD ages 6;7 to 10;4 participated in each study. Narrative proficiency and syntactic complexity were examined during baseline, intervention, and follow-up periods.

Results: All of the children in the ASD increased in narrative and syntactic complexity by the end of the study. …

The Use Of Metacognitive Verbs By A Student With Asd: Marking Perspective In Conversational Discourse During Narrative Intervention, Mary Ann Hammon Stenquist

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The purpose of this study was to assess whether a program designed to teach narrative language skills was effective for improving the use of metacognitive verbs produced during conversations that took place during intervention to mark perspective.

Speech Rate Entrainment In Children And Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Camille Wynn

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Purpose: Conversational entrainment, the phenomenon whereby people modify their behaviors to match their communication partner, has been evidenced as critical to successful conversation. It is plausible that deficits in entrainment contribute to the conversational breakdowns and social difficulties exhibited by people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study examined speech rate entrainment in populations with and without ASD.

Method: Sixty participants including typically developing children, children with ASD, typically developed adults, and adults with ASD, participated in a quasi-conversational paradigm with a pseudo-confederate. The confederate’s speech rate was digitally manipulated to create slow and fast speech rate conditions.

Results: …

A Case Study Of Oncological Aphasia: Clinical Profile And Response To Integrated Language Treatment, Emma Anderson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Purpose: A large body of research addresses the best methods and practices to treat individuals with aphasia. Much of this research focuses on individuals who have aphasia secondary to stroke. While the most common cause of aphasia is stroke, aphasia can also result from other brain diseases or injury. Relatively little research has focused on oncological aphasia resulting from brain cancer. This research examined aphasia treatment efficacy in an individual with aphasia following removal of a brain tumor. Methods: Standardized testing was used to evaluate the clinical profile of an individual with oncological aphasia. An integrated language treatment approach was …

Teaching Communication: Helping Students To Learn And To Love A New Language, Jacob Fredrickson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio represents many hours spent in classrooms (as a student and as a teacher), in the library reading and writing, and spent in quiet contemplation. My views on teaching languages and on education in general have grown and changed. What a tragedy it would be to pass through a graduate program and not to have one’s views evolve and grow. Most importantly, this portfolio represents that growth and the ideal that, as an educator and as a human being, time on this earth ought to be spent growing, learning, and striving for something better.

Alice's Adventure Through Second Language Acquisition: An Educator's Perspective, Jessica Pryor Lee

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The author employs narrative writing to illustrate annotated bibliographies, classroom observations, research and research proposals, and self-reflections for second language learning. Elementary, secondary, adult, and college-level teachings are addressed. The author focuses on communicative language teaching, brain-based teaching, and dual language immersion with content based instruction. She addresses the importance of writing, authentic materials, task-based activities, communication, and the recognition of heritage learners. The main character is Alice and she travels through Argentina and Chile. Footnotes are used to keep the narrative style of the portfolio coherent. While the storyline is fictitious, all information included is based on the author’s …

Learning Two Languages: Maze Behaviors In Narrative Discourse For Spanish-English Bilinguals, Joel Hopper

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This study was designed to determine whether mazing behavior in narrative retells of bilingual English and Spanish speaking children was affected by language, complexity of sentence structure, and language development over time. Language transcripts were analyzed from English and Spanish narrative retells elicited from 216 children between the ages of 5 and 9 at the beginning and end of kindergarten, first, and second grade years. Findings revealed a statistically significant difference in the average maze scores and sentence types. A significant interaction was also found between time and language, with maze scores remaining nearly level over time in English and …

Examining Written And Spoken Fast-Mapping Abilities In Children With And Without Language Impairment: A Feasibility Study, Brooke Rice

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Linguistic skills foundational to literacy success are skills such as phonology, morphology, and orthographic knowledge. Phonological awareness, the awareness of specific units of sounds within words, and morphological awareness, the meaningful units which make up words, have been studied in depth and received recent attention in research. Phonological awareness has been attributed to increased literacy abilities of written word decoding, syllable analysis, and word recognition (Stackhouse, 1997). Additionally, morphological awareness has been attributed to increased literacy abilities of sight word reading, decoding, reading comprehension, and spelling (Carlisle, 1995, 2000; Carlisle & Nomanbhoy, 1993; Wolter, Wood, & D’zatko, 2009). Orthographic awareness, …

Does Teaching Narrative Structure To Children With Language Impairments Improve Comprehension Of Expository Text?, Brynne Cook Evans

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Research has shown that knowledge of narrative text structure enhances students’ abilities to comprehend and produce narrative discourse. The current study was designed to determine if training in narrative text structure was associated with improved comprehension for expository passages that adhered to a narrative structure. Six children between the ages of 5:3 and 9:7 with language impairments participated. Children were matched by grade and randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Participants in the intervention group received instruction 2 times a week for 45-minute sessions for a duration of 12 weeks from a graduate student in speech-language pathology with …

Fostering Effective French Communication In The Classroom, Lindi Brown

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation of work the author completed while in the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University. It is focused on her beliefs of how French should be taught in a university classroom. It also includes three artifacts addressing how a challenging aspect of the language should be taught, how authentic literature can be utilized in the classroom, and why the French culture should be incorporated into the curriculum. Finally, there is an annotated bibliography of books and articles which have shaped the author’s beliefs and opinions about teaching French as a foreign …

Superior/Subordinate Communication In An Effective Organization, Jim Sawdey

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis documents the communication climate of a Fortune 500 business to determine if it contains key components essential for effective communication. A model developed to identify components of an ideal managerial climate for effective communication between superiors and subordinates was used. The model was published in 1972 by Dr. W. Charles Redding of Purdue and applied to a rocket manufacturing plant's communication climate that existed from 1991 to 1996. The findings contain evidence that validates Redding's model 25 years after it was first published and provides a framework for improving communication effectiveness at the plant.

The Development Of An Electronic Newspaper At The Deseret News And A Survey Of Its Users, Marilyn L. Karras

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis looks at the history of electronic newspaper delivery systems at several newspapers and provides an in-depth study of how one Utah daily newspaper, the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, developed its own electronic newspaper over a period of years and convinced its board of directors to support it. It outlines the process of defining goals, policies and processes for creating and managing the system. It contains results of a survey conducted of subscribers to the electronic edition, called Crossroads. The survey provides demographic profiles of Crossroads users, shows how often the electronic edition is used in their …

Multimedia In Communication Education: A Survey Of Communication Educators, Michelle Hales

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This project was an attempt to determine if and how educators are adapting their curriculum to reflect changes in technology. The survey revealed that the respondents, for the most part, are incorporating multimedia technologies into their curriculum. Results also showed an interesting pattern to that integration. This pattern involved two concepts of multimedia: 1) multimedia as a new form of communication (HTML, CD-ROMs, etc.), and 2) multimedia as a tool to enhance traditional forms of communication (broadcast news, print journalism, etc.). It was found that educators considered multimedia applications to enhance traditional forms of communication (i.e. image creation software, desktop/non-linear …

Evolution Of A Free Press In Taiwan: A Case Study, Chi Wang

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

In this case study, interviews with leaders of China Times and Central Daily, plus other mass media scholars and professionals, provide evidence that a free press in Taiwan evolved after a nearly four-decade old martial law was lifted in 1987. The interviews were based on the description of press philosophies by William A. Hachten (1981) to determine whether Taiwan's press has changed from developmental to Western. Secondly, based on early work of Schramm (1964) and Lerner (1958), economic prosperity and political pluralism were studied as keys to the government's relaxation of restrictions on the Taiwanese press. The finding of interviews …

Osprey Summer: Ospreys Nesting On Flaming Gorge, Ron Stewart

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The osprey, sometimes known as the "fish hawk" is one of Utah's rare and unique raptors. The osprey's diet is almost exclusively fish. Considering the osprey has evolved both physically and behaviorally to catch fish, their distribution is quite limited in a state as dry as Utah. Most ospreys only pass through Utah on their northern or southern migration but a few stop, build nests, hatch and raise their young.

The Needs And Concerns Of The Siblings Of The Deaf-Blind, Lori P. Rowan

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The needs and concerns of the siblings of children who are deaf-blind were studied. Subjects included 12 siblings (eight males, four females) whose families are involved in the Utah Intervener Services Program.

Information was collected by conducting one-on-one interviews with the siblings. The Siblings' Perceptions of the Intervener Interview (SPII) and Taylor's Siblings' Problems Questionnaire were administered.

The results indicated that individual sibling's perspectives were unique, varying from positive to negative. As a group, the siblings made positive comments about the intervener and their life with their deaf-blind brother or sister.

The Reliance On The Four Major News Agencies For International News Reports In Taiwan, Denise Hsiu-Wen Li

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The purpose of this case study is to figure out the reliance on the four major news agencies (AP, UPI, Reuters, and AFP) for international news reports in Taiwan, and CNA's, Taiwan's only regional news agency, role in supplying international news stories. Taiwan's three large circulation, general purpose newspapers -- United Daily News, China Times, and Central Daily News were selected and analyzed.

The study is based primarily on a content analysis of these three Chinese-language newspapers in terms of their coverage of international happenings and their news coverage.

The findings indicate that the control of international information by the …

Office Signs: Reflectors Of Organizational Culture, Melvin Leon Jeppson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Social scientists widely believe that symbols can reveal important information about personalities, values, beliefs and characteristics of the communicator. Although scholars from fields such as semiology, psychology, sociology and anthropology have analyzed symbols and the messages they reveal as cultural indicators, few communication researchers have studied organizational symbols as organizational cultural indicators. In an article entitled, "Organizational Symbolism: A Topic to Expand Organizational Analysis," Dandridge, Mitroff and Joyce chastened communication researchers for overlooking a wealth of organizational data available through the study of organizational symbols. Stephen R. Barley supported these claims when he wrote that culture is embodied in and …

The Writing And Production Of A Series Of Mini-Documentary Radio Programs On Animal Control And Care In Logan, Camille Cornish-Dryden

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Human beings have for ages domesticated animals which they have kept for companionship as pets. Originally man and his animals lived on scattered farms and ranches where pets had plenty of room to roam. As human social structures changed and people crowded into towns and cities, the matter of controlling one's pets in order to prevent their becoming the neighbor's pests became a serious concern. Next to fights over water rights in the west, perhaps the most frequent cause for contention was the control of one's pets.

Images And Sequences: A Demonstration Project On The Use Of Photography As A Tool For Academic Motivation In Logan Junior High School, H. Gordon Hilden

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This is a report of an after-school, non-credit, photo-enrichment course that was developed and offered to students at the Logan Junior High School during the period March 30 through May 6, 1981.

The artistic intent of this course was to teach students how to see with a camera, recording images on transparency film, and later arranging transparencies into idea-development or story-telling sequences.

The educational intent was to see if such a course would motivate students to perform better in other classes and improve their school relationships in general.

The course was of too short a duration to develop any hard …

Facilitating Effective Communication Between Foreigners And Americans At Utah State University, Aruneeprabha Homsettee

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

As one of the foreign students in this country, I have had a lot of problems while studying here. For example , how should I express myself, how should I behave when going to an American party and participating in other traditional occasions such as Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. Also, how can I learn about Americans' activities and manners? Some of them I can solve by learning from others or by myself. Many Americans have trouble when communicating with foreigners. They try hard, but they often do not understand each other.

Information from both Americans and foreigners indicates that if …

A Description Of Scheduling Methods And Caseloads In The Utah Public Schools, Jocelyn A. Taylor

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the following:

1. What methods of scheduling, namely intermittent or block, are used most by clinicians working in Utah public schools.

2. What is the average size and composition of caseloads of Utah public school clinicians. Conclusions are drawn as to the implications of the data collected and based on these conclusions, recommendations are made.