This dissertation investigates statistical properties of segment collocation and syllable geometry of the Hungarian language. A corpus and dictionary based approach to studying language phonologies is outlined. In order to conduct research on Hungarian, a phonological lexicon was created by compiling existing dictionaries and corpora and using a…

The African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, like many historically black denomination over the years, has been actively involved in social change and racial uplift. The concepts of racial uplift and self-determination dominated black social, political, and economic thought throughout the late-eighteenth into the nineteenth century. Having…

Literature has warned of an impending leadership crisis for American community colleges (Amey, Vanderlinden, & Brown, 2002; Shults, 2001). At the present time, the majority of community college president positions are held by members of the Boomer generation. These individuals will soon be retiring and members of the Xer generation will be called…

This simulation study compared the performance of two multilevel measurement testlet (MMMT) models: Beretvas and Walker's (2008) two-level MMMT model and Jiao, Wang, and Kamata's (2005) three-level model. Several conditions were manipulated (including testlet length, sample size, and the pattern of the testlet effects) to assess the impact on the…

Imagine an active happily engaged, communicative, curious group of four-year-old children investigating and discovering as they play together in an early childhood classroom. Imagine yet again, the teacher beckoning them to gather on the rug to listen to a story. What happens next? Are the children allowed to continue in this curiosity-seeking,…

This dissertation investigates the viability of utilizing linguistic pragmatics to interpret the biblical text and to determine its hermeneutical significance. As a complementary aid to historical and literary readings of a text, linguistic pragmatics utilizes certain tools to discover and/or describe the implicit meaning encoded into a text. A…

This causal-comparative study investigates the differences in the End of Course Examination Program (EOCEP) test scores of ninth grade students in English I and Algebra I/Math for the technologies, as influenced by schedules used in South Carolina public high schools during the 2005-2006 academic year. Framing this study is the previous…

With retention and persistence-to-graduation rates showing little improvement in previous decades, institutions of higher education continue to seek ways to encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning in order to achieve. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the roles and relationships of selected psychological and…

The task of managing an information technology (IT) system in a school environment poses unique challenges. For example, one of the greatest challenges facing individual schools is the lack of integration among various information systems. The present situation in many schools is that there are many disconnected systems managing many different…

More than thirty years of research has shown that the practical value of business-IT alignment is significant and that its importance derives from strategic impact on business outcomes. The purpose of this exploratory study is to identify the current-state of business-IT alignment maturity within the hospital organization. Data for this study was…

This doctoral team project focused on the state policies and procedures for evaluation of career education programs in Missouri. The project team worked with the Career Education department at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to investigate the current evaluation policies used. It was determined that the Career…

Sports participation can result in strong associations with the athlete role for participants. While strong athletic identity can have positive implications, it can also create vulnerability to emotional difficulty following exit from sport (Brewer, 1993). Exit from sport is inevitable, resulting from a wide range of sources such as injury, aging,…

Many high schools in America have issues with student nonattendance. The researcher designed this mixed methods study to determine the affect of nonattendance on student achievement and to ascertain whether home-related factors or school-related factors were more significant causes of nonattendance. Both the high school in this study and other…

Occupational therapy (OT) and physical therapy (PT) are related services that are provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA, 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq.). Related services are provided under the IDEA to assist children with disabilities to benefit from special education. Nationally, there is a critical…

Despite substantial evidence that women suffer from depression at twice the rate of men, the etiology for this difference remains unclear. Prior to puberty, the difference in depression is negligible; however, when adolescence begins, a precipitous rise in female depression occurs that persists across the lifespan. While no definitive biological…