This dissertation investigates the pragmatic aspects of scalar modifiers from the standpoint of the interface between semantics and pragmatics, focusing on (i) the (non) parallelism between the truth-conditional scalar modifiers and the non-truth-conditional scalar modifiers, (ii) the compositionality and dimensionality of non-truth-conditional…

Burnout and decreased levels of self-efficacy are contributors to the high attrition rate and increasing demand for highly-qualified special educators nationwide. This has led to a national shortage of special educators, which is a critical reason why current special educators are encountering high stress levels, dissatisfaction, and overall…

The charter school movement, established to implement innovative educational methods that improve student outcomes (Nathan, 1996), necessitates further research on successful charter schools. Using a multivariate prediction design, this quantitative study sought to address the relationship between charter school success and demographic and…

This qualitative research addressed presidential leadership during the strategic transition of the respective Boards of Trustees at Gardner-Webb and Wingate Universities (private, Christian institutions in North Carolina). In addition to interviewing each institutional President, personal 60-minute interviews were conducted with selected faculty…

This qualitative descriptive study examined the attitudes, awareness, and actions of elementary teacher prep faculty at NCATE accredited universities on issues of preparing elementary school teachers for teaching "about" religion within the curriculum. The purpose of this study was to learn more about what colleges of education are currently…

Purpose of study. The purpose of the study was primarily concerned with exploring the major issues that are confronting presidents of higher education and if transformational or transactional leadership practices and concepts are warranted in addressing their issues. Procedure. A Delphi technique was used with a broad-based panel of 52 experts…

This study explored the relationship between community college students' working lives and student engagement. Student engagement has been used as a proxy for student persistence based on its strong association with student persistence and its powerful negative association with school drop-out. Work has been studied extensively as related to…

Although inequity in educational opportunity provided to children (based on poverty, ethnicity, disability, or English as a second language) has led to a massive federal and state initiative to reshape public education (ESEA 1965 and ESEA 2001, known as the No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB), the issue of the condition of the schools such children…

Little academic information exists regarding how private for-fee tutors view the business of tutoring and how they serve the needs of their clients. This study examined whether tutors view the provision of education as a fungible commodity driven by a business model or as a value-laden educational service. Using the concepts of globalization and…

Management's dilemma, when allocating financial resources towards the improvement of technological readiness and IT flexibility within their organizations, is to control financial risk and maximize IT effectiveness. Technological readiness is people's propensity to embrace and use technology. Its drivers are optimism, innovativeness, discomfort,…

This research project explored the transition from a traditional model to a Professional Learning Community model in a NJ Middle School. The administration overcame obstacles during the transition such as scheduling conflicts, teacher apathy, and resistance. This action research study gathered data to determine how to best structure the…

Professional school counselors' leadership capacity may well play a pivotal role in educational reform in the twenty-first century. Crucial to the success of this vision, supported by the American School Counseling Association, is the perspective of system-level supervisors of school counselors. This exploratory qualitative study employed in-depth…

This dissertation investigates the syntax-prosody interface in Standard Arabic, focusing on the ambiguity of a modifier (relative clause or adjective phrase) in relation to the two nouns in a complex noun phrase. Ambiguity resolution tendencies for this construction differ across languages, contrary to otherwise universal parsing tendencies. One…

Scholars have suggested that racism has not disappeared but has undergone a transformation into new subtle or symbolic forms. Since university life is a microcosm of United States society. racial prejudice can be found in most colleges and universities. The literature reveals three subtle forms of racism: modern racism, symbolic racism, and…

Given the increasing competition in the software industry and the critical consequences of software errors, it has become important for companies to achieve high levels of software quality. While cost reduction and timeliness of projects continue to be important measures, software companies are placing increasing attention on identifying the user…