The purpose of this study was to develop and content validate a Performance Rating Scale and Interview Protocol, enabling study of the social role performance of adult daughters and sons as they fulfill the societal norms and expectations of adult children. This exploratory investigation was one of 13 contemporary adult social roles completed by…

The purpose of the study was to discover and analyze the competencies that senior adult ministers should possess in order to be effective within the church as perceived by senior adult ministry educators and senior adult ministry practitioners. The participants were limited to senior adult ministry educators who were seminary faculty and adult…

This mixed-method study explores the variables that teachers consider when deciding to remain at or leave their schools, with a specific focus on how teachers consider an incentive program. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that schools serving high concentrations of low-performing, non-White, and low socioeconomically situated students have…

A vast majority of the studies exploring the associations between student and school related factors and standardized test scores were conducted in developed countries. On the other hand, research suggests that the generalization of the findings of those studies to developing countries often leads to incorrect conclusions. The purpose of this…

The field of ultra-cold atoms, since the achievement of Bose-Einstein Condensation (Anderson et al., 1995; Davis et al., 1995; Bradley et al., 1995), have seen an immensely growing interest over the past decade. With the creation of optical lattices, new possibilities of studying some of the widely used models in condensed matter have opened up.…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how fifteen students with blindness and visual impairments experienced their engagement in undergraduate studies at four 4-year universities and perceived their success. They also provided their understandings of the impact of institutions, faculty, staff, and others on their academic success.…

Though a participant of the Little Theatre Movement in North America, Roy Mitchell was largely ignored or--at best--marginalized by theatre practitioners and scholars after his death in 1944 until the late 1980s. Most of the material written about him had labelled him a prophet--a lone voice in the wilderness advocating for a new direction from a…

This project examines the role of southern Africa (from the Cape to the Zambezi) in the constitution of British identity from the rise of the systematic exploitation of the region's mineral deposits through the close of World War One. Reading a wide variety of print culture produced by South Africa's "authorial informants"--British authors who…

This study explores the impact of non-traditional rhetorical media such as art, architecture, coins, and city planning in order to examine how these media promoted dynastic rule and influenced practices of citizenship during Augustus' reign, the period between the Roman Republic and Empire (31 BCE-14CE). My findings challenge the long-standing…

This dissertation was designed to examine and evaluate the effectiveness of a Ninth-Grade Transition Program at a Rural High School in Central North Carolina. The ninth grade is a pivotal year that determines which students will prevail and which students will fail to finish high school (Hertzog, 2003). It is essential that schools put in place…

Systems of linear equations are used in a variety of fields. Exposure to the concept of systems of equations initially occurs at the high school level and continues through college. Attempts to unearth what students understand about the solutions of linear systems have been limited. Gaps exist in our knowledge of how students understand systems…

This study used simulation (a) to compare the kernel equating method to traditional equipercentile equating methods under the equivalent-groups (EG) design and the nonequivalent-groups with anchor test (NEAT) design and (b) to apply the parametric bootstrap method for estimating standard errors of equating. A two-parameter logistic item response…

After more than ten years of thoughtful planning, Michael Tippett (1905-1998) summed up his musical, political, spiritual and philosophical beliefs in his first oratorio, "A Child of Our Time" (1941). Representing the emergence of a new level of confidence and musical maturity for Tippett, the oratorio has become the composer's most widely known…

This research examined the impact of collaborative teaching (co-teaching) on the Reading/Language Arts and Math achievement of Middle Tennessee students in grades 5-8, as measured by the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) Achievement test. Within the context of this study, the co-teaching model of instruction is defined as the…

High performance, massively-parallel multi-physics simulations are built on efficient mesh data structures. Most data structures are designed from the bottom up, focusing on the implementation of linear algebra routines. In this thesis, we explore a top-down approach to design, evaluating the various needs of many aspects of simulation, not just…