Throughout the United States, school districts are integrating programs into their reading curricula in response to an increased focus on reading achievement. While many school districts are implementing successful remedial and after-school programs, their approach does not include providing literacy instruction for students during summer vacation. Thus, during the summer months, learners with low reading achievement lose literacy skills gained throughout the school year. This mixed-metho...
Brianna R Strahler.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Helterbran, Valeri R. Committee members: George Bieger; DeAnna Laverick.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

Children grow and change more rapidly during the first eight years of life than any other time in their life span. Progression through the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional developmental stages varies for each individual child. Children with atypical development experience a wide spectrum of variability in their development. Over the past several years the Office of Special Education, the Division for Early Childhood Education of the Council for Exceptional Children, and researchers a...
Janet Anne Mattern.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Hannibal, Mary Anne Committee members: Becky Knickelbein; Jennifer Rotigel.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

Drawing from contemporary spatial theories, this dissertation examines how nineteenth-century women writers use movement in their texts to resist dominant spatial ideologies, re-map physical spaces, and transform social relations. Lefebvre's triadic definition of social space allows scholars to analyze how the material and the ideological construct social relationships. Spatial theories also emphasize that physical movements are significant in spatial transformations because movements initiat...
Michelle Gaffner Wood.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Thompson, Todd N. Committee members: David Downing; Veronica Watson.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

Mutuality practice in the composition classroom attempts to create equal subject positions between teachers and students, mitigating the effects of dominant power structures inherent to an authority-driven classroom while showing teachers that their students are fully capable, though fledgling, members of an academic community. Understanding how those mutuality practices create and maintain equal subject positions currently falls under the theoretically broad category of critical pedagogy and...
John Leonard Reilly.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Bizzaro, Patrick Committee members: David Wallace; Michael Williamson.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2012.
English

This descriptive study identifies: 1) the factors which motivated Pennsylvania teachers to begin the National Board Certification process; 2) the factors of persistence which led teachers to successful achievement of National Board Certification and; 3) the personal transformation which took place in the process. Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the study. The study population was 497 teachers in Pennsylvania who successfully attained National Board Certification. The gro...
Ronald Jay Starnes.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Rutter, Alison; Millward, Robert Committee members: Douglas Lare.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

This dissertation examines the 9/11 novel for evidence of the continuities of Orientalism, for an intensified resistance to Orientalism, and for a new discourse of conciliation. The analysis primarily employs Said's Orientalism as the theoretical framework to study the selected texts. Said's Orientalism looks at how the colonial relationship manifests itself in cultural representations. He claims that Western discourse creates prejudices against non- Western cultures by putting them in the cl...
Bahramand Shah.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Orchard, Christopher Committee members: Todd Thomspon; Lingyan Yang.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

Pastors and ministers in Christian congregations experience the role expectations of multiple constituents. The literature on clergy roles and role expectations indicates that the role of pastors and ministers has developed and changed. The existing literature also indicates a lack of role consensus and the presence of role conflict and overload. These factors have contributed to many pastors experiencing a lack of job satisfaction and also the experience of stress, and many have left vocatio...
W. Alan Robinson.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Anderson, John A. Committee members: Barbara Denison; Wade Seibert.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2012.
English

This study offers a step-by-step process for encouraging mutuality in the freshman composition class. This discussion begins by reexamining the theoretical underpinnings of response methodology in an effort to situate the act of responding to student writing within the scope of mutuality. In particular, this reconsideration reveals that most traditional response methods fall short of creating mutuality, since the teacher-responder most often orchestrates the revision process for students rath...
John Ryan Hrebik.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Williamson, Michael M. Committee members: Patrick Bizzaro; Mike Sell.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

The purpose of this qualitative dissertation is to explore the experiences lived by public high school teachers in a Southwestern Pennsylvania suburban area and digital plagiarized content they have received from their students. The study provided real world accounts of teachers and how they have dealt with digital plagiarism in their classrooms and what methods they have used to help combat the issue of digital plagiarism by their students. The theoretical foundation of constructivism ...
Cheryl Ann Kohler.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Wilson, B. Gail Committee members: Nurhaya Muchtar; Mark Piwinsky.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

Previous research has explored women's experiences of objectification, body image, and disordered eating and the connections between these variables. Most of this research was conducted on heterosexual, Caucasian women; therefore, results are not generalizable to a variety of women. The present study compared non-heterosexual women's experiences of objectification, body image, and disordered eating to heterosexual women's experiences of these dimensions. This comparison occurred through ...
Joanne A Petursson.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: McHugh, Maureen C. Committee members: Anson Long; Laurie Roehrich.
Psy.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

Multiple-choice tests of punctuation and usage are used throughout the United States to assess the writing skills of new community college students in order to place them in either a basic writing course or first-year composition. To determine whether using the COMPASS Writing Test (CWT) is a valid placement at a community college, student test scores and grades in basic writing and the first-year composition courses from 2000 - 2005 were correlated. Students who scored 13-37 were told to enr...
Mary F Verbout.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Williamson, Michael M. Committee members: Patrick Bizarro; Gian Pagnucci.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

This study examined motivators for and barriers encountered by non-traditional adult students in their efforts to access, persist in, and succeed in obtaining higher education. It surveyed four-year institutions to examine the extent to which different categories of four-year institutions are meeting adult students' needs and thereby promoting their success. This study drew conclusions about best practices, services, and policies at four-year institutions that promote or hinder the success of...
Heidi A. C Watson.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Kerry-Moran, Kelli Jo Committee members: Gary Dean; David Piper.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2012.
English

The purpose of this study was to determine K-12 teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and practices of brain-based learning strategies in western Pennsylvania schools. The following five research questions were explored: (a) What is the extent of knowledge K-12 public school teachers have about the indicators of brain-based learning and Brain Gym?; (b) To what extent do K-12 public school teachers rate the value of brain-based learning and Brain Gym?; (c) To what extent do K-12 public school teachers...
David A Wachob.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Bieger, George R. Committee members: Valeri Helterbran; Dave Lorenzi.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2012.
English

As a second-generation Puerto Rican poet who grew up in the projects of East New York, critics have, on the whole, tended to focus more on Martin Espada's placement within Latino writing traditions, his reclamation of "hidden" history, or his clear bent toward resistance poetics without acknowledging in any substantive way how the underlying global economic and political conditions of late capitalism (neoliberalism) have shaped his subjectivity and informed his literary responses. This disser...
Edward Joseph Carvalho.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Downing, David B. Committee members: Patrick Bizzaro; Susan Comfort.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2011.
English

Reflective practice is an essential component in helping pre-service teachers to learn from their experiences and grow as teachers. The purpose of the study was to identify both the levels of reflection and the themes that emanate from the reflective practices of pre-service health education teachers as they reviewed lessons that they taught in conjunction with a methods course during their undergraduate programs. To accomplish this task, two types of data were collected. First, professors of...
Jennifer E Rodgers.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Jalongo, Mary Renck Committee members: Valeri Helterbran; Crystal Machado.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2012.
English

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between the development of adaptive capacity and disaster response and recovery outcomes. History informs of the devastation and loss of life that occur when disasters strike communities. National-level frameworks and doctrine support the development of community disaster readiness capabilities, or adaptive capacity, as the means to increase favorable outcomes in disaster response and recovery. There is a lack of research, ho...
Rebecca S Zukowski.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Anderson, John A. Committee members: William Donner; Willard Radell.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

This research project explores the lived experiences of African American academic professionals in the field of Rhetoric and Composition. The goal of the study is to examine how career and relative life experiences have influenced these African American scholars' interests in rhetoric and composition and their subsequent development as professionals in the field. This research focuses on those scholars' early life histories and how those aspects influenced their perceptions of themselves as a...
Kimberly Thomas.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Hurlbert, Claude M. Committee members: David Downing; Gloria Park.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

This dissertation gathers and classifies the self-reported reasons students gave for withdrawing or considering withdrawing from first year composition (FYC) courses at an urban community college on the Gulf Coast of Texas (CCGC) between 2004 and 2008. With an average student attrition rate of 20% in FYC courses at CCGC, the research question began as the following, "What can FYC teachers learn from students' stories of withdrawing from FYC that can inform a composition pedagogy developed to ...
LeeAnn Mysti Rudd.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Hurlbert, Claude M. Committee members: David Downing; Gian Pagnucci.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2012.
English

This dissertation explores the importance of voice, representation, and authenticity of lived experiences in writing through the story of my literacy learning and teaching of English. I use narratives to argue that valuing World Englishes, story-writing and identity construction helps students in their writing and literacy learning. The narratives show what first-generation immigrants go through in terms of cultural adjustments and literacy practices in the target culture and how they constru...
Deepak K Pant.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Hurlbert, Claude Mark Committee members: Gian Pagnucci; Michael Williamson.
Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

One of the ultimate goals of teacher education programs is to produce highly qualified educators who will be able to teach and inspire students. One way to prepare effective teachers is to include reflection in teacher education programs (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2007; Moore, 2012; Schon, 1987). Reflection aids teachers to make instructional decisions which impact student learning (Schon, 1987; Shkedi, 2000). Using reflective thinking is a skill which requires thought and practice (Schon,...
Christine L Fryer.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Waddington-Vagliardo, Margot; Paquette, Kelli R. Committee members: Angelo Senese.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013.
English

This study identified key background variables that are highly correlated with Limited English Proficient student outcomes, either individually or in combinations. Archival data for primary grade second language learners was gathered from the records of a large urban school district in Central Ohio, including specific social, cultural and educational factors and multiple administrations of the Ohio Test of English Language Acquisition (OTELA). Analyses conducted indicated that nearly ever...
Jeffrey Paul Lotas.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Kovaleski, Joseph F. Committee members: Antoinette Miranda; Monte Tidwell.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2012.
English

This research project investigated the possibility of School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS) as a way to address racial/ethnic disproportionality in the Emotional Disturbance (ED) category. The sample consisted of 114 elementary schools from a suburban school district in the Mid-Atlantic region. There were 57 SWPBS schools and 57 non-SWPBS schools. SWPBS and non-SWPBS schools were matched on four demographic factors-student enrollment, ethnicity, free and reduced lunch, and English pr...
Jodi Abraham Porter.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Advisors: Kovaleski, Joseph F. Committee members: William Barker; Kathleen McQuillan; Timothy Runge.
D.Ed. Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2012.
English