This study will explore the constructed image of deaf people in the American society as drawn through analyses of discursive structures in articles on cochlear implantation in major U.S. newspapers published between 2006-2009. To analyze discursive structures of newspaper articles, the approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) will be…

This dissertation examines the ways in which a principal of a K-12 school in Chile exercises leadership through talk and nonverbal communication when engaging other educational practitioners about how to view particular school events. More specifically, this study focuses on the verbal and nonverbal means that the principal uses, as a political…

This dissertation reports my study of the institutionally situated challenges involved in designing and maintaining Rhetoric and Composition doctoral program websites via two primary research methods. First, I conduct content analyses of nine methodically selected doctoral program websites in order to develop a detailed set of site…

Existing research on first-generation college students has focused on the student and their paths from high school to college, experiences attending college, and expectations of the middle-class academy. Such student populations are not situated within similar positions that conventional students are often faced with. When differences in literacy…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational explanatory research study was to identify the relationship between lower-achieving children's standardized test scores and the low level of parental involvement in their children's education and to determine whether these variables are associated in students attending a small urban middle…

Student achievement and public school funding are national concerns. Federal, state, and local funding vary across the nation and within systems in each state. In the past several years, Georgia school systems have faced austerity cuts by the state legislature and governor, and function with less money while trying to improve student achievement…

Despite the frequent use of joint mobilizations and the available evidence of its effectiveness as a treatment for various musculoskeletal disorders, it is a technique that has been shown to have great variability within and between raters. This variability is believed to occur because of differences between therapists' ability to perceive…

Organizational change and organizational culture have been studied and written about by many authors, most notably by Edgar Schein (1990, 1992), and are named as critical components of organizational maturity through such industry standards as The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), Control Objectives for Information and Related…

The primary purpose of the current research was to determine whether low-income, high-risk young children's emergent literacy skills, including measures of oral language and letter knowledge, were related to their social competence. Other goals included determining the reliability of a social competence rating scale, the Social Competence…

Research points to a current and growing shortage of school leaders, yet qualified women are still under represented in school administration. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of female principals in the state of Missouri regarding gender bias. Data were collected using a 20 question survey sent electronically to all 980…

This mixed methods research study sought to find if the implementation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) would reduce incidences of bullying in a suburban Atlanta middle school. Data was collected and compared over a two year period with Year 1 data representing pre-implementation of the OBPP. Discipline records associated with…

This dissertation explores the lived experiences of educators who teach in flex model blended learning settings using online, vendor-provided courseware. The tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology grounds this inquiry (Heidegger, 1927/2008). Phenomenological research activities designed by van Manen (1990, 2002) provide the methodological…

The formation of the Common Core State Standards can be regarded as the predecessor of a national curriculum. This research addresses how the proposed national math curriculum compares to the math curricula of a sample of peer-nations (Singapore, Netherlands, Germany, and Japan) with high student achievement rates in math, while relating the math…

This study focused on the degree to which New Jersey public middle school principals perceived that New Jersey public middle school teachers are implementing the New Jersey Core Curricular Content Standard for Technology (Standard 8.1 Computer and Information Literacy), mandated by the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) into their teaching…

This study examined aspects of emerging adulthood that contribute to success in English developmental courses. The research approach included qualitative interviews with a collective case study of 12 emerging adults between the ages of 18-25 who successfully completed EN085 and EN085L at the University of Guam. The emerging adults shared…