Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

International Students' Experiences In Higher Education: A Case Study Examining Uncertainty Reduction Theory In Communication Classrooms, Susan Kuhn

Dissertations and Theses

This was an exploratory case study which focused on international students' experiences in higher education. In particular, this study investigated the efficacy of uncertainty reduction theory in communication classrooms. The research asked four exploratory questions: (a) What are the students’ perceptions of the teacher/student relationship? (b) Do international students experience uncertainty in communication classrooms? (c) If uncertainty is experienced, what is its source(s)? (d) If uncertainty is experienced, do students seek to reduce it, and if so, how?

A phenomenological perspective was utilized in this study as the organizing, theoretical framework. Relevant literature on uncertainty reduction theory was reviewed as …

Teacher Self-Disclosure From The Perspective Of International Students In The Communication Classroom: A Case Study, Darlene J. Geiger

Dissertations and Theses

Self-disclosure as an interpersonal concept was developed almost 40 years ago with the work of Sydney Jourard. Although the original definition included nonverbal forms of communication, the concept has evolved since then into an 'intentional act of sending verbal information about one's self. In contrast, the present study broadened the definition for self-disclosure to include nonverbal behaviors and took a new methodological approach to understanding the effects that self-disclosure can have for international students in the communication classroom context.

Teacher self-disclosure from the perspectives of international students is an unexplored area and therefore a phenomenological, qualitative case study approach utilizing …

Learning, Motivation, And Self: A Diary Study Of An Esl Teacher's Year In A Japanese Language Classroom, Laura Ruth Hawks

Dissertations and Theses

Using a journal kept during a year in a second-year level Japanese language class, a diary study of an adult's foreign language experience was undertaken by an ESL teacher and graduate student. Kept as a means of releasing the anger, stress, and frustration that initially accompanied the learning experience, the journal provides a basis for the analysis of cultural, pedagogical, and personal variables that affected the learning process.

The introspective and longitudinal nature of the study provides not only a description of the learning environment and teaching method over time, but also illuminates otherwise unobservable aspects of the learning experience, …

Diy, Community, And Technology: The Impact Of Technology On Community Cohesion In The Portland Indie Rock Production Culture, Jeffrey Ross London

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether differences exist between those steeped in the practice of the use of the computer in music production and those reared in a mostly analog environment. In addition, this study aimed to develop theory concerning who may be in or out of the technology revolution in music. The areas of inquiry included the artists' situated perceptions of the quality, production aesthetic, and community role of the computer.

Subjects were selected using a snowball sample of those producers with an interest in the topic area. As the research developed, subjects were chosen …

Structural Conflict Prevention: Examining Well-Being, Justice And Security In Northern Ireland, 1967-1973, Loreene N. O'Neill

Dissertations and Theses

Recent exploration into methods of preventing the escalation of conflicts, which are inherent in any society, to violent or deadly conflict suggests that social and political structures are an important factor in averting armed conflict. The Carnegie Commission on the Prevention of Deadly Conflict has recommended through their research that three areas are important in the structural prevention of deadly conflict: They are Well-Being, Justice and Security.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the usefulness of the structural prevention model in the context of an actual conflict. To this end, the conflict in Northern Ireland 1967-1973 has been …

Spatial Modeling In Emergency Medical Systems: Analysis Of A Regional Trauma System With Two Centers, Christopher A. Bangs

Dissertations and Theses

The allocation of trauma patients to one of two trauma centers based on multiple criteria presents significant challenges in modeling network-based solutions for Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Capabilities in a desktop Geographic Information Systems (GIS) include spatial analysis and map visualizations that contribute to improved understanding of EMS and the trauma allocation. Using a common desktop GIS application and a statistical analysis application, key spatial and temporal characteristics of both penetrating and blunt trauma are described, and the EMS allocation system is analyzed.

As a sub-group of all emergencies, trauma-system patients represent the most severely injured. Understanding the spatial-temporal distributions …

Survey Of Support For And Opposition To English Only Legislation In The Greater Portland Region, Leah Ann Woodruff

Dissertations and Theses

The politics of language is something that all ESL instructors will deal with at some point in their careers. The English Only Movement is an important part of the current trend in language legislation. As ESL instructors we need to understand what motivates people in our communities to support or oppose such legislation, so that we can better prepare our students to operate in that community. Many articles have been written on the English Only Movement, but the vast majority of them are from a historical or politically partisan view. Little research has been done in regard to why this …

International Environmental Regimes And Latin America: The Role Of Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations, Jennifer T. Eller

Dissertations and Theses

This study analyzes the obstacles to environmental policymaking in Latin America such as the poverty crisis, the North/South conflict and political corruption. These obstacles result in weak government institutions and create an opportunity for other actors to wield greater influence in the policymaking process.

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of environmental agreements such as debt-for-nature swaps. Debt-for-nature swaps emerged as a solution to the conundrum of the debt crisis and environmental degradation. The cases of Bolivia, Costa Rica and Ecuador illustrate the tensions between development and environmental degradation. The most important lesson learned from these swaps is that the support …

Predictors Of Task And Contextual Performance: Frame-Of-Reference Effects And Applicant Reaction Effects On Selection System Validity, John Hunthausen

Dissertations and Theses

An employment process suprasystem contains human resource-related systems such as training, recruitment, performance appraisal, and personnel selection. Similarly, a personnel selection system consists of interdependent subsystems that work together to manifest its properties (e.g., the acquisition of qualified and high-potential individuals). Finally, each of these complex subsystems (e.g., applicant reactions to selection methods) have interdependent elements (e.g., procedural and distributive justice) that work together to manifest the properties of the subsystem (e.g., applicant fairness perceptions).

This dissertation takes such a systems approach to understanding the complexities of a personnel selection system to explore the interactions among three of its subsystems: …

The Relationship Between Chinese Character Recognition Strategies And The Success Of Character Memorization For Students Of Mandarin Chinese, Hui-Yen Emmy Chen

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between beginning Chinese language students' character memorization and the strategies they used for the recognition of Chinese characters. In the experiment, a new character teaching approach, the phonetic-ideograph strategy, was introduced to all the subjects during two quarter terms. Subjects participated in the study were divided into two groups depended upon their language backgrounds: the phonographic group and the morphographic group. All the subjects in the phonographic group were English speakers and subjects in the morphographic group were Japanese speakers. All the subjects received the same treatment in the study. …

Tribal Constructs And Kinship Realities : Individual And Family Organization On The Grand Ronde Reservation From 1856, Aeron Teverbaugh

Dissertations and Theses

This project examines marriage and residence patterns on the Grand Ronde Reservation between 1856 and the early 1900s. It demonstrates that indigenous cultural patterns continued despite a colonial imagination that refused to see them. Members of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde continued to live in family groups much as they had in the pre-reservation era. They continued to exhibit patterns of marriage and kinship that were described in the ethnographies and by the earliest explorers in the Oregon area.

An Examination Of Commercial Medicinal Plant Harvests, Mount Hood National Forest, Oregon, Shannon Michelle Campbell

Dissertations and Theses

During the past fifteen years, non-timber or special for(?St products have become an important economic resource in the Pacific Northwest. These products are primarily derived from understory species and contribute approximately $200 million to the regional economy. Medicinal plants are a little researched component of the non-timber forest product industry that relies on cultivated and wildcrafted ( or wild-collected) medicinal plant species. This study examines the commercial extraction of wild crafted medicinal plants from Mount Hood National Forest. Specifically, this study documents the medicinal plant species extracted from Mount Hood National Forest, their annual yield amounts, harvesting methods, and the …

Error Correction Preferences Of Latino Esl Students, John Burrell

Dissertations and Theses

The present study looked at the error correction preferences of 172 adult Latino ESL students. It was a modified replication of a study which looked at the error correction preferences of Japanese university students. A questionnaire was used to gather the data. The questionnaire measured the participants' general preferences for error correction, attitudes towards peer correction, the desired frequency of correction in five aspects of language and preferences for specific types or methods of error correction.

The study found a very positive attitude towards error correction by the teacher. There was a positive attitude towards peer correction, but only from …

The Influence Of Cultural Backgrounds On The Interpretations Of Literature Texts Used In The Esl Classroom, Barbara Jostrom Gates

Dissertations and Theses

This study was a detailed descriptive investigation into the different interpretations and perceptions that are evoked by readers of United States literature, based on their cultural backgrounds and experience. Grounded in research that advocates for the convergence of culture and literature in the language classroom and a research design based on reader-response theory, this study explored the responses of two groups of students from the University of Portland: international students, the majority of whom were English as a Second Language (ESL), and U.S. citizens, all of whom were native speakers of American English.

Through a reader-response style questionnaire modeled after …

Just For Money? : An Exploratory Study Into The Motivations Of Nude Dancers, Elaine Vance

Dissertations and Theses

Women working as nude dancers have been depicted both in academia and popular literature either as victims of patriarchal exploitation and economic oppression, or as empowered women choosing the most profitable form of work out of the limited options provided for them. This study explores these opposing motivational factors for the entrance and continuance of nude dancing, integrating the theoretical framework of Sex Positive feminism with Strauss and Corbin's (1990) grounded theory approach. Sex Positive feminism asserts that sex work is neither oppressive nor exploitative but rather can be a consensual and legitimate avenue resulting in an increase in women's …

A Comparison Of The Child Directed Speech Of Traditional Dads With That Of Stay-At-Home Dads, Judith Nancarrow Barr

Dissertations and Theses

The speech that mothers use when addressing adults has consistently been shown to exhibit modifications when the conversation partner is their language-learning child. Fathers adopt similar changes in the structural linguistic aspects of their Child Directed Speech (CDS), but their patterns of discourse remain more of a challenge for the child. This contrast in parental language is thought to be beneficial to the language-learning child: a mother's language focuses on the child as a conversation partner, whilst a father's more demanding language is considered a "Bridge" between the mother's and that of adults in the outside world. With family roles …

Chinese Numeratives And The Mass/Count Distinction, David Goodman

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigates the mass/count distinction for lexical nouns, and how this is formalized morphosyntactically in language. English is one language in which a grammaticized mass/count distinction can be seen--though there are varying explanations regarding what this distinction actually signifies. Chinese, on the other hand, is a language which might appear to be missing a formalized mass/count distinction. However, I postulate that Mandarin Chinese does in fact have a syntactic-distributional diagnostic available for teasing apart mass nouns from count nouns.

The diagnostic that I propose for finding a mass/count distinction among lexical nouns in Mandarin lies in the distribution of …

The Presentation Of Gender-Based Sexuality Scripts In Sex Education Films, Patricia Anne Drew

Dissertations and Theses

The manifest purpose of sex education films is to transmit factual information about sexuality to schoolchildren. However, films additionally contain covert messages informing students of proper and improper sexual roles. Films can reinforce patriarchal gender-differentiation within the sexual realm or, alternately, films can promote commensurate, non-patriarchal gender scripts for sexuality. This paper researches the ideological gender messages set within and transmitted by sex education films. Although sex education films represent only a small part of the sexual culture, the trends revealed in the films may indicate general parameters of US sexual culture.

The data set for this content analysis consisted …

Lesbian Gender Identities: An Expansion Of Bern's Sex-Role Inventory, Sheilagh Van Belthowing

Dissertations and Theses

The central research question of the current study had to do with self - an stereotypically- gendered identities of lesbians. The purpose was to determine the nature and form of gender identity and gender stereotypes among women who self-identify as lesbians, and more specifically, to determine whether or not “gender” means the same to lesbians as it does to heterosexual women. Identity measures were Bern’s (1974) Sex-role Inventory (BSRI) and a butch-femme rating scale. The sample consisted of 65 women who self-identified as lesbian. The lesbians in the current sample did identify more strongly with masculine attributes (Masculinity scale mean …

Counter Culture: The Social Construction Of Beauty In A Cosmetic Department, Jodie Kollanda Ruggiero

Dissertations and Theses

Traditional female places, such as a cosmetic department, and the communication that occurs in such contexts are rarely taken seriously, and often considered insignificant (Spitzack & Carter, 1987). This study, however, revealed the significance of a cosmetic department by answering the following questions: 1) How is beauty socially constructed in a cosmetic department? 2) What are the messages women receive about beauty in a cosmetic department? 3) How are messages of beauty communicated in a cosmetic department? and 4) What meanings do women make of their experiences in the cosmetic department?

Data were collected through participant observation in a cosmetic …

Harrowing Heroines And Communist Plots: Krest'ianka And Rural Policy, 1946-1949, Rachael Preiss Susman

Dissertations and Theses

After World War II, women became very important to the Soviet plan to reassert control over the countryside and reestablish agriculture in those areas hard hit by war. This happened because long term migration trends to the city and wartime casualties had made women the majority in the countryside. There was a need for them to exceed their previous contributions to agriculture, even as they struggled to cope with wartime losses.

State propaganda encouraged rural women to regard employment in agriculture as their patriotic duty. This study analyzes one publication aimed at rural women, Krest'ianka, and examines the following …

A Comparison Of African-American And White Caregivers Of Elderly With Dementia ... More Alike Than Different?, Fred C. Miller

Dissertations and Theses

The family is recognized as an important social unit in society. Traditionally, one role played by family members is that of providing long term care. The demands of prolonged caregiving can lead to increased role strain and negative health outcomes for caregivers. Little research has addressed the diversity among caregivers' racial, cultural or ethnic backgrounds. This study investigates the differential impacts of caregiver role strain among Americans of African and European descent.

A hierarchical multiple regression was used to determine if African American caregivers report less caregiver role strain than White caregivers and if higher socioeconomic status is associated with …

The Assessment Of Children With Attachment Disorder: The Randolph Attachment Disorder Questionnaire, The Behavioral And Emotional Rating Scale, And The Biopsychosocial Attachment Types Framework, Alice Myrth Ogilvie

Dissertations and Theses

Children with attachment disorder (AD) have an ongoing risk of mental health challenges and an exacerbated resistance to traditional treatments. The inability to trust and inadequate relationship skills present a substantial challenge for supervising adults in families, child welfare, juvenile justice, public schools, and other community settings.

This study examined the assessment of AD in children between ages 6 and 18 utilizing two standardized instruments, the Randolph Attachment Disorder Questionnaire and the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale. A new framework developed by the author, Biopsychosocial Attachment Types (BAT), for conceptualizing childhood attachment concerns, was explored as a foundation for assessment …

Japan's War Memories: A Political Approach, Miyuki Sakuta

Dissertations and Theses

In discussion of Japan's role in the world, scholars and politicians have often pointed out the significance of Japan's war memories. Japan is considered an anomalous actor because of its status as an economic superpower without military or political weight. Memories of World War II have been defined as a constraining factor in Japan's attempts to assume a greater role in international affairs.

The purpose of the present study is to analyze the origins and the functions of the memory factor. While common explanations have been either psychological or cultural, I took a political approach, adopting the Realists' theory that …

Nativism In American Political Culture, Julie M. Wacker

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this discussion is to dispel the notion that the United States is and always has been a polity grounded in egalitarian ideals and open political processes. We should not ignore or make light of injustices such as slavery, segregation, Eurocentric immigration policies, and social and economic discrimination that have played a major part in our history. If only for the sake of historical accuracy, we should not dismiss these trends as temporary lapses in judgment in an otherwise open and plural society.

Yet some scholars do make the claim that we are a country founded on the …

The Effectiveness Of An Accent Reduction Program On Foreign Speaker’S Oral English Proficiency And Understandability, Kara Elizabeth Sewell

Dissertations and Theses

Accent reduction is a program to assist foreign speakers in developing a level of oral English proficiency that is more similar to native English speakers. This study examined whether an accent reduction program, focusing on intonation and articulation, would improve the oral English proficiency and understandability of 2 Vietnamese speakers.

The research questions this study sought to answer were: (a) Does a foreign speaker's oral English proficiency as measured by the Proficiency of Oral English Communication (POEC) subtest scores improve immediately after completion of an accent reduction program?, (b) Does a foreign speaker's POEC subtest scores 4 weeks after termination …

Another Look At The Portrayal Of Minorities And Women In Prime-Time Television, Tellisa Amos

Dissertations and Theses

This study updates a 10-year longitudinal study investigating TV's portrayal of minorities and women on prime time television. Prior studies focused on the types of roles held by performers. This study extends prior research, examining not only the types of roles held by performers, but also networks' preference for women and minorities and the genre that most often feature women and minorities.

Data were collected for a consecutive five-week period from February 19, 1997 to March 14,1997. From this sample 40 dramas and 115 situation comedies were recorded and coded. Programming was taken from shows that aired in the Pacific …

American Indian Elderly And Long-Term Care : Interorganizational Barriers To The Use Of Oregon's Home And Community-Based Medicaid Waiver, Jo Lynn Isgrigg

Dissertations and Theses

Developing culturally supportive long-term care services for Native American elderly has gained increasing attention on the federal level. On the state level, Oregon's Senior and Disabled Services Division (SDSD) possesses a federal Medicaid waiver that allows for the development of home and community-based long-term care services. While this waiver is culturally neutral, its value is that it would allow tribal governments within Oregon to develop their own culturally supportive home- and community-based services, yet none have done so.

The purpose of this study was to determine why senior service agencies of tribal governments within Oregon have not participated in the …

The Value Of Independence In Old Age, Paula C. Carder

Dissertations and Theses

Why is independence a central theme for proponents of assisted living facilities? How do assisted living providers respond to this theme? These questions are pursued in an ethnographic study centered on Oregon's assisted living program. Assisted living facilities (ALF), defined and monitored by Oregon's Senior and Disabled Services Division (SDSD), are a type of housing for disabled, primarily elderly, persons. Oregon Administrative Rules (OAR-411-56) define independence, requiring ALF providers to support resident independence.

Using social worlds theory as a sensitizing concept, assisted living is treated as a distinct social world. The activities of key groups, including SDSD staff, an ALF …

An Ethnographic Study: Building An Identity Through The Stories Of An Italian-American Family, Gloria Marie Tottten

Dissertations and Theses

Storytelling involves the active utilization of both past experiences and future possibilities, which is sustained through interaction, and could not exist without its past and future counterparts. It is the vehicle through which all intertwine.

This implies that communication is a very important element in the formation of an individual's identity - and to the meaning given to the storytelling practices. As a family member tells a story, other members listen, question, and request more about particular aspects of the story. By talking and listening, family members produce a narrative together, a story.

The purpose of this study was to …