Search

Over the past few decades, physics education researchers (PER) developed a variety of assessments instrument for research and instructional purposes. Most of these instruments are designed to measure topical understanding. Generally, if student performance is satisfactory, it is assumed that the students possess the content understanding and that the instruction was successful. If performance is less satisfactory, it is assumed that the student understanding is weak and significant changes in instruction are required. The challenge with this assessment approach is that the term "student understanding" is not well defined. Moreover, factors that contribute to improved student understanding have not been examined explicitly and systematically. Recently, PER researchers started integrating findings from cognitive psychology to explore the impact of specific factors on student performance in physics, including the strength of content knowledge (or mindware), reasoning skills, and cognitive reflection tendencies. Traditional assessments do not differentiate between these (or other) factors. This thesis describes work that uses Dual Process Theories of Reasoning as a theoretical framework to investigate patterns in student performance in physics, disentangles various factors that impact performance, discusses the development of a diagnostic instrument designed to measure changes in content knowledge and reasoning necessary to apply this knowledge correctly. Specifically, we examined to what degree student reasoning patterns are consistent with the reasoning pathways predicted by DPToR. Next, we applied a screening-target methodology to disentangle student content knowledge (i.e., mindware) from their reasoning approaches on a sequence of 11 screening-target pairs of physics tasks. We explored the relationships among mindware, reasoning, and tendencies toward cognitive reflection. We found that most item pairs function as expected: screening item performance predicts performance on a target item and that CRT performance is linked to that on target items under certain conditions. Finally, we explored the use of hierarchical cluster analysis to categorize changes in item profiles that measure content knowledge and reasoning consistency with that content knowledge. We found that the instrument could differentiate students along these axes but not into the groups expected by DPToR. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Skill acquisition theorists conceptualize second language (L2) learning as the acquisition of a set of perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills. The dominant view in skill acquisition theory is to regard L2 skill acquisition as a three-stage process "from initial representation of knowledge through initial changes in behavior to eventual fluent, spontaneous, largely effortless, and highly skilled behavior" (DeKeyser, 2020, p. 83). While there is indirect evidence that indicates the existence of such developmental stages, the number and the nature of those stages are often assumed a priori, and whether or not these stages actually exist remains untested. My dissertation study was designed to test and validate the three-stage model of L2 skill acquisition derived from cognitive psychological research, namely, the cognitive, associative, and autonomous stage (Fitts & Posner, 1967), each of which draws on distinct cognitive processes for learning. Sixty-five adult learners deliberately learned and practiced a miniature language based on Japanese, called "Mini-Nihongo", for a total of 1,056 practice trials. The participants also took a battery of tests on three dimensions of cognitive abilities that are known to be active at each stage of skill acquisition: declarative memory, procedural memory, and psychomotor ability (Ackerman, 1988, 1992; Anderson, 1982). Comprehension practice took place in the form of a sentence-picture matching task, and production practice was implemented in the form a productive maze task. Accuracy, reaction time (RT), and the coefficient of variability (CV) of RT were analyzed as the dependent variables. There were six tests of cognitive abilities: the Continuous Visual Memory Task and LLAMA-B for declarative memory ability, an alternating serial reaction time task and a statistical learning task for procedural memory ability, and the alternating serial reaction time task and a two-choice RT task for psychomotor ability. I analyzed the data from the language practice and the battery of cognitive tests in two steps. First, I fitted a series of hidden Markov models (HMMs) to the RT data that represented different hypotheses regarding the number of skill acquisition stages (i.e., one, two, or three stages). This first step of the analysis revealed that the acquisition of comprehension skills can be best conceptualized as a three-stage process, whereas the acquisition of production skills encompassed two stages. Based on the best-fitting HMMs and the corresponding number of learning stages, I then utilized a series of generalized linear mixed models to investigate the nature of the identified skill acquisition stages. Specifically, I examined whether the three dependent variables, accuracy, RT, and the CV, could be predicted by the three dimension of cognitive abilities at each stage of skill acquisition. The results showed that different cognitive abilities variably predicted learning at each stage, with the trends largely consistent with the general skill acquisition theory (DeKeyser, 2020; Lyster & Sato, 2013; Y. Suzuki, 2022).Overall, the findings of the study lend support to the three-stage model of L2 skill acquisition, but its proposed mechanisms may have to be revised to suit the specific cognitive processes involved in L2 learning. In addition, when applying the skill acquisition theory (or variants thereof) to L2 learning, one may have to analyze the theory not only at the level of learning mechanisms and processes (e.g., declarative learning, proceduralization, and production tuning) but also at the level of cognitive processing (e.g., lexical and grammatical de/encoding, syntactic parsing, and monitoring) that are specific to L2 learning. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The human brain is a byproduct of the natural process of evolution, as is the knowledge it contains. Like other natural resources fit for human consumption, knowledge can be modeled as a physical entity that can be sought after and acquired. In ancient times, knowledge was geographically constrained as a consequence of being a physical entity located inside the mind of an individual or in another physical form that could be transferred. These geographic constraints informed how education processes would evolve to satisfy relevant societal needs. The emergence of telecommunications technology in the second half of the 20th century have persistently eroded the legacy geographic constraints that have limited access to knowledge. The internet allows individual humans to access a seemingly infinite amount of information from nearly everywhere on the planet almost instantaneously. This unprecedented access disrupts legacy barriers to knowledge in the form of financial, cultural, or regulatory restrictions. Education processes optimized when access to knowledge was geographically constrained seem ill-suited for a modern ecosystem with ubiquitous access to global knowledge. Many of the systems used in the global telecommunications network that serve a critical role in modern society have been developed using principles of modern physics. Unfortunately, the pre-college system used to educate the general public for labor force considerations have not yet incorporated modern physics concepts due to the clandestine nature in which early modern physics-based technology was developed. The gap between widespread utilization of these technologies and the lack of sufficient labor force training has created the need for a novel education methodology that can teach certain STEM fundamentals efficiently and effectively. A novel framework for teaching modern physics fundamentals, referred to as Small-To-Big Physics has been developed. This novel framework is a combination of cognitive psychology theories coupled with a novel sequence of scientific theory introduction. The cognitive psychology portion of the framework informs how various scientific theories should be presented to students for the purpose of concept mastery. The scientific theory portion of the framework contains the minimally necessary concepts that will enable students to rapidly assimilate a broad range of STEM concepts in preparation for subsequent STEM careers. The Small-To-Big Physics Framework was developed in various military, private sector engineering, pre-college, and college educational environments. To the maximum extent practicable, cognitive psychology theories were tested in real-world learning scenarios. Where appropriate, empirical guidelines were developed to inform educational methodologies in instances where existing theories were not able to achieve desired outcomes. Experimental curricula developed using the Small-To-Big Physics Framework has been used in elementary and high school classrooms in New York and Connecticut respectively with overwhelmingly positive results. The feedback from those sessions has been useful in developing a long-term validation plan to incorporate Small-To-Big Physics methodologies into the existing education infrastructure. Several options for exploratory scientific research, identified using the Small-To-Big Physics methodology, have also been included for additional consideration. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation presents various machine learning applications for predicting different cognitive states of students while they are using a vocabulary tutoring system, DSCoVAR. We conduct four studies, each of which includes a comprehensive analysis of behavioral and linguistic data and provides data-driven evidence for designing personalized features for the system. The first study presents how behavioral and linguistic interactions from the vocabulary tutoring system can be used to predict students' off-task states. The study identifies which predictive features from interaction signals are more important and examines different types of off-task behaviors. The second study investigates how to automatically evaluate students' partial word knowledge from open-ended responses to definition questions. We present a technique that augments modern word-embedding techniques with a classic semantic differential scaling method from cognitive psychology. We then use this interpretable semantic scale method for predicting students' short- and long-term learning. The third and fourth studies show how to develop a model that can generate more efficient training curricula for both human and machine vocabulary learners. The third study illustrates a deep-learning model to score sentences for a contextual vocabulary learning curriculum. We use pre-trained language models, such as ELMo or BERT, and an additional attention layer to capture how the context words are less or more important with respect to the meaning of the target word. The fourth study examines how the contextual informativeness model, originally designed to develop curricula for human vocabulary learning, can also be used for developing curricula for various word embedding models. We identify sentences predicted as low informative for human learners are also less helpful for machine learning algorithms. Having a rich understanding of user behaviors, responses, and learning stimuli is imperative to develop an intelligent online system. Our studies demonstrate interpretable methods with cross-disciplinary approaches to understand various cognitive states of students during learning. The analysis results provide data-driven evidence for designing personalized features that can maximize learning outcomes. Datasets we collected from the studies will be shared publicly to promote future studies related to online tutoring systems. And these findings can also be applied to represent different user states observed in other online systems. In the future, we believe our findings can help to implement a more personalized vocabulary learning system, to develop a system that uses non-English texts or different types of inputs, and to investigate how the machine learning outputs interact with students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Currently, educational games are designed with the educational content as the primary factor driving the design of the game. While this may seem to be the optimal approach, this design paradigm causes multiple issues. For one, the games themselves are often not engaging as game design principles were put aside in favor of increasing the educational value of the game. The other issue is that the code base of the game is mostly or completely unusable for any other games as the game mechanics are too strongly connected to the educational content being taught. This means that the mechanics are impossible to reuse in future projects without major revisions, and starting over is often more time and cost efficient. This thesis presents the Content Agnostic Game Engineering (CAGE) model for designing educational games. CAGE is a way to separate the educational content from the game mechanics without compromising the educational value of the game. This is done by designing mechanics that can have multiple educational contents layered on top of them which can be switched out at any time. CAGE allows games to be designed with a game design first approach which allows them to maintain higher engagement levels. In addition, since the mechanics are not tied to the educational content several different educational topics can reuse the same set of mechanics without requiring major revisions to the existing code. Results show that CAGE greatly reduces the amount of code needed to make additional versions of educational games, and speeds up the development process. The CAGE model is also shown to not induce high levels of cognitive load, allowing for more in depth topic work than was attempted in this thesis. However, engagement was low and switching the active content does interrupt the game flow considerably. Altering the difficulty of the game in real time in response to the affective state of the player was not shown to increase engagement. Potential causes of the issues with CAGE games and potential fixes are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The present study aimed to represent the innovative assessments that support students' learning in STEM education through using the integrative framework for Cognitive Diagnostic Modeling (CDM). This framework is based on three components, cognition, observation, and interpretation (National Research Council, 2001). Specifically, this dissertation demonstrates how this framework combines psychometrics and cognitive psychology, and utilizes the integrative nature of cognition, observation, and interpretation in science and math assessments. At present, STEM assessments do not fully support students' learning (National Research Council, 2001; Songer & Ruiz-Primo, 2012). We need innovative well-defined assessments that respond to students' and educators' needs, particularly for formative purposes. Using the three components of the assessment triangle, cognition, observation, and interpretation (National Research Council, 2001), this study articulated an integrative framework grounded in both a psychometric model and cognitive theory. This framework can both validate learning theory and provide assessment information with diagnostic and formative implications. Guided by this framework, the CDM approach can uniquely support any innovative assessment, as it combines psychology of learning and statistical methods to make inferences about students' specific knowledge structures and processing skills (Alvers, 2012; de la Torre & Minchen, 2014). Nevertheless, this framework must be carefully applied to assure that the assessment procedures are cohesive, thus providing good support for students' learning. Specifically, the research questions are: "What is the integrative framework for CDM?" and "How can this CDM integrative framework be applied to develop and validate STEM assessments?". To answer these research questions, this dissertation includes three publications that demonstrate what an integrative framework for CDM is and how this framework can be applied. The first paper, "Models for cognitive diagnostic modeling," focuses on fundamental knowledge about the models used for CDM. Grounded in a systematic review of the literature, the integrative framework for assessments is defined based on the components of cognition, observation, and interpretation. This integrative CDM framework, based upon cognitive science and statistical techniques, can be used as a guide for performing CDM analysis.The second and third papers focus on applying CDM in science and math assessments. Specifically, the second paper, "A cognitive diagnostic modeling approach to instructional sensitivity," emphasizes using CDM for elementary science data analysis in relation to instructional sensitivity. To answer the research questions, "Are assessments sensitive enough to detect student learning differences due to instruction? If so, do they have formative value for teachers and students?", we examined the formative value of instructional sensitivity of assessment items from two elementary science modules. To determine whether items varying in instructional sensitivity yield different formative values for diagnosing student learning, we created booklets with items of different instructional proximity (from "close" to "far proximal"), and administered them in 38 classrooms (824 students) using a pretest-posttest design. Incorporated into the CDM analysis, the item and test indices show that the data fit well with the specified Q-matrix. Attributes with higher gain had been heavily addressed in the intended curriculum (i.e., a greater number of learning activities) compared to those with relatively smaller gain. The third paper, "Examining the relationship of characteristics of word problems and item parameters in the context of an online math game," demonstrates the application of CDM for math word problem game data. The main research question was "How are item characteristics of word problems associated with item parameters?" The sample included 225 Grade 4-6 players and their performance on 22 items across two booklets. We performed a correlation to investigate the relationship of item characteristics and CDM item parameters. Results showed that consistency and model type were significantly correlated with item difficulty. The sequence analysis with students' action log data provided visualization of their modeling strategies that further validated the results of CDM and correlation.This framework consists of two elements--CDM as theory-driven model and statistical procedures--and tends to improve the capacity of CDM by increasing the formative values of assessment and validate any cognitive/learning theory that guides the design of assessments. This dissertation illustrates how such a framework can be applied to develop and validate STEM assessments. Specifically, it can be used to generate indices of the instructional sensitivity of assessment items which allow score interpretations at a finer grid. Moreover, it can be used to examine the relationship between item characteristics and item parameters that can in turn guide assessment development and interpretation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This practicum was designed to increase middle-level teaching teams' understanding of cognitively guided instructional strategies or brain-based learning theories and to promote the incorporation of these strategies into the teaching of cross-curriculum thematic units. Twelve staff development modules based on a new perspective of learning which has surfaced in theory and research in cognitive psychology were developed and implemented. Analysis of the survey and interview data revealed that middle-level educators who were consistently involved in staff development sessions discussed the meaning of cognitive instruction, implemented more strategies within their classroom, and demonstrated understanding of cognitively guided instructional strategies' relationships to curriculum integration. Appendices which compose more than half of the document include definitions of terms, the survey instruments, modules, thinking logo, and hypermedia project of learning disabled students. (Contains 56 references.) (EH)

One common claim in second language (L2) acquisition research is that attention is crucial for development to occur. Although previous empirical research supports this claim, methodological approaches have not been able to directly measure attention. This thesis utilized eye-tracking to directly measure attention and thus provide converging evidence in support of previous research. Additionally, this study explored how the distinction between external and internal attentional mechanisms, as posited by cognitive psychology theory, may play out in L2 development. These mechanisms are aligned with attentional manipulations established through the L2 instructional interventions of input enhancement and structured input practice. How such manipulations affect attention and whether they lead to development were addressed by the following experimental design. Beginning learners of Spanish learned a novel target-form: direct-object pronouns--e.g., lo, ("him") in lo besa Maria ("Maria kisses him")--which represents the theme in the sentence. Practice consisted of two variations of a picture-sentence matching activity where participants had to choose which image (from a pair) best depicted a written sentence. The two variations were: an external condition, where sentences presented in the matching activity included the target-form in a different color, as in input enhancement, and an internal condition, where exposure to two initial pictures that differed only in relation to the direct object preceded the matching activity, as in structured input practice. Immediate and delayed interpretation tasks assessed In all conditions, participant attention will be operationalized using three measures of eye movement: (a) total time fixating the pronoun, (b) total number of fixations on the pronoun, and (c) skipping rate of the pronoun. L2 development. To assess effects of attention, eye-tracking measures recorded during the two conditions were compared to those recorded on control trials (with no manipulation of attention). For the external condition, attention was directed to the pronoun as participants skipped the pronoun less, and L2 development was found at the delayed interpretation task. For the internal condition, attention was directed to the pronoun as participants skipped the pronoun less and total time looking at the pronoun increased. Furthermore, L2 development was found at immediate and delayed interpretation tasks for this condition. Although both conditions appear to effectively manipulate attention, results suggest that different manipulations differentially affect attentional allocation, which may have implications for the amount of resulting L2 development. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Elementary education has theoretical underpinnings based on cognitive psychology. Ideas from cognitive psychologists such as James, Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky coalesce to form constructivism (Cooper, 1993; Yager, 2000; Yilmaz, 2011). Among others, the Montessori Method (1912/1964) is an exemplar of constructivism. Currently, public education in the United States is heavily impacted by the No Child Left Behind legislation (Paige, 2006) which emphasizes high stakes academic achievement testing. Absent from the literature is an examination of the academic achievement of Montessori students in public education. This study explores the academic achievement outcomes of public school students who completed varying numbers of years in Montessori elementary education. Singer and Willett's (2003) multilevel model of change serves as the statistical tool utilized to explore the academic achievement outcomes of a first grade cohort through their elementary and secondary school careers. Accrued years in Montessori did not account for significant variance amongst the trajectories, and gender and ethnicity, when considered without the interactions with accrued years, had minimal impact. Socioeconomic status, when the variable of accrued years in Montessori was removed from the equation, was a significant predictor of reading and math achievement. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This work examines how a better understanding of visual perception and attention can impact visualization design. In a collection of studies, I explore how different levels of the visual system can measurably affect a variety of visualization metrics. The results show that expert preference, user performance, and even computational performance are all related to how our eyes and brain work to see the world. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Research has shown student inattention, off-task behaviors, and lack of listening skills in the classroom can impact progress in reading, math, and language development. Lack of verbal interaction in home environments, variations in learning and teaching modalities, and larger class sizes contribute to the difficulties students have in developing listening skills and focused attention behaviors. To address this problem, Quantum Learning, a professional staff development program that teaches strategies to stimulate the brain and increase learning, was implemented in the subject school district. Cognitive psychology, which uses the understanding of the internal processes of the mind to understand the actions of people, was the theoretical framework for this study. When implemented in the classroom, the brain-based strategies of Quantum Learning should increase student achievement through better listening skills and reduced off-task behaviors. Twenty-three teachers and administrators at an elementary school responded to survey questions regarding which brain-based strategies from the Quantum Learning program were implemented and what impact the strategies had on the students' achievement as indicated by the benchmark testing. These data were analyzed using ANOVA and Cronbach's alpha. Although the ANOVA revealed no statistically significant differences in achievement when comparing levels of implementation and years of teaching experience, the findings nevertheless provide recommendations for school leaders to determine future professional staff development opportunities. Because 100% of participants indicated the strategies impact student learning, continued staff development was recommended. By increasing teachers' knowledge of brain-based strategies, student listening and on-task behaviors may be increased. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Developing and maintaining a "completion mindset" is a necessary mental condition for online educational doctorate (EdD) and educational specialist (EdS) students to obtain their advanced degrees. The purpose of this research study was to examine the effect of a neuroeducational intervention on a volunteer convenience sample of EdD and EdS students enrolled in online research and analysis courses at a private central Virginia university to determine if the intervention would have a positive effect on the level of perseverance through the stages of practical inquiry when compared to a control group. The independent variable was a web-based instructional method consisting of seven weekly multi-media modules, a creativity survey to enhance intrapersonal knowledge, and a weekly self-report instrument to foster relatedness and to protect for treatment fidelity. The four dependent variables were end-of-course grades, a self-determination survey, and two persistence instruments. An experimental posttest, control-group only research design was used to measure the magnitude of the effect for this intervention. The problem addressed by this study was the high attrition rate for online doctoral students, and the potential for using a neuroeducational intervention to positively affect perseverance. Due to the short-term nature of this intervention (seven weeks), perseverance was defined as completion of the practical inquiry cycle; therefore, additional research will be required to explore the longitudinal impact on perseverance related to attrition rates. The null hypotheses were not rejected; however, the means of the treatment group were higher than the control group for all measures except autonomy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

To best meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population, we must develop an integrative writing pedagogy that is informed by what the cognitive and neurosciences have uncovered about learning so that our theories of learning and practices of instruction are consistent with our most current and accurate knowledge of the biological and psychological processes of brain development and cognition. This dissertation reviews the history of composition studies and reveals the relationship between theories of learning and models of writing. This historical look at composition studies and survey of cognitive theory proves the necessity of reintegrating into writing studies what has been systematically ignored for thirty years. An integrated approach to teaching writing acknowledges that learning happens differently for each individual based on a variety of factors, including biology, psychology, and social circumstance. The second chapter, "The Thinking Brain: Scientific, Behavioral, and Cognitive Psychology," traces the development of the field of cognitive psychology that has led to a new understanding of the mind as a complex and integrated network of hierarchically organized mental processes. The third chapter, "The Learning Brain: Neuroscience and Cognition," surveys the early advances in neuroscience, which brought about new ways of seeing the mind in action, of measuring, and theorizing the cognitive processes that underlie human thought and behavior. The fourth chapter, "The Processing Brain: Neural Networks and Cybernetics," looks at how the electronic computer has been used as both a research tool and a model of the mind, providing a new view of the brain as a processor. The fifth chapter, "Reflections and Refractions: A Historical Review of the Cognitive Roots of Composition Studies," traces the development of various cognitive approaches to composition studies from the foundation of the field through the early twenty-first century. The sixth chapter, "Growing Minds: An Integrated Approach to Teaching Writing," concludes by pointing toward the development of a truly integrated model of teaching writing in which we must acknowledge that learning happens differently for each individual based on a variety of factors, including biology, psychology, and social circumstance. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation explored beliefs about learning from multiple related visual representations in science, and compared beliefs to learning outcomes. Three research questions were explored: 1) What beliefs do pre-service teachers, non-educators and children have about learning from visual representations? 2) What format of presenting those representations is most effective for learning? And, 3) Can children's ability to process conceptually related science diagrams be enhanced with added support? Three groups of participants, 89 pre-service teachers, 211 adult non-educators, and 385 middle school children, were surveyed about whether they felt related visual representations presented serially or simultaneously would lead to better learning outcomes. Two experiments, one with adults and one with child participants, explored the validity of these beliefs. Pre-service teachers did not endorse either serial or simultaneous related visual representations for their own learning. They were, however, significantly more likely to indicate that children would learn better from serially presented diagrams. In direct contrast to the educators, middle school students believed they would learn better from related visual representations presented simultaneously. Experimental data indicated that the beliefs adult non-educators held about their own learning needs matched learning outcomes. These participants endorsed simultaneous presentation of related diagrams for their own learning. When comparing learning from related diagrams presented simultaneously to learning from the same diagrams presented serially indicate that those in the simultaneously condition were able to create more complex mental models. A second experiment compared children's learning from related diagrams across four randomly-assigned conditions: serial, simultaneous, simultaneous with signaling, and simultaneous with structure mapping support. Providing middle school students with simultaneous related diagrams with support for structure mapping led to a lessened reliance on surface features, and a better understanding of the science concepts presented. These findings suggest that presenting diagrams serially in an effort to reduce cognitive load may not be preferable for learning if making connections across representations, and by extension across science concepts, is desired. Instead, providing simultaneous diagrams with structure mapping support may result in greater attention to the salient relationships between related visual representations as well as between the representations and the science concepts they depict. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The worked-example effect, an application of cognitive load theory, is a well-supported method of instruction for well-structured problems (Chandler and Sweller, 1991; Cooper and Sweller, 1987; Sweller and Cooper, 1985; Tuovinen & Sweller, 1999; Ward and Sweller, 1990). One limitation is expertise-reversal effect, where advanced students perform less well when exposed to worked examples than when exposed to traditional problem solving (Kalyuga, Ayres, Chandler, & Sweller, 2003; Kalyuga, Chandler, & Sweller, 1998; Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen, & Sweller, 2001). A possible alternative to the worked-example approach is the fading example, designed to transition intermediate students to solving well-structured problems without assistance (Renkl, Atkinson & Grobe, 2004). This study showed that studying worked examples was more effective than solving problems or completing fading examples when learning to form search queries for library databases, an ill-structured problem-solving environment. In addition, participants within the worked-example group with low, intermediate and high levels of domain-specific knowledge achieved parity. Within the traditional problem-solving group, those with low domain-specific knowledge performed less well than those with high domain-specific knowledge. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The increase in online course delivery in higher education has implications for students and instructors. In fall 2002, 1.6 million students took at least one online course and this number increased by the fall of 2012 to 6.7 million. The increase in the rate of enrollment in online courses in higher education provides an opportunity to examine the strategies and technologies used in course design and delivery and student engagement in the online culture. Two of the key factors in creating student engagement are the instructor's interaction with students and the course design and delivery itself. An examination of students' and instructors' perceptions of what factors contribute to a positive online experience may assist those developing and delivering online courses. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between the perceptions of online instructors and online students regarding student engagement and course design and delivery. Data collection techniques included the use of a survey with a 5-point Likert-type scale and collection of demographic information. Data were analyzed through a nonexperimental quantitative methodology and further explained through the use of "positioning theory." Positioning theory combines cognitive and social psychology to describe how individuals interact through conversation or speech acts (Harre & van Langenhove, 1999). This theory provides a framework for discussion of the findings as to how the first interactions between students and instructors set a tone for student engagement for the duration of the course. The study revealed that there is a strong statistical significance to the number of both student and instructors posting to perceived student engagement. The more students and instructors post in the first 2 weeks the higher the perception of student engagement. This finding allows for the application of the use of positioning theory in how students and instructors relate and experience engagement in the course. Findings also revealed that academic discipline was not statistically significant in regards to instructor and students perception of engagement. Significance was also established between student age and traditional or nontraditional status in their perceived engagement in online classes. Traditional students and also students in the age category of 24 and under reported higher rates of perceived student engagement than nontraditional students and students in the age category of 25 and older. Recommendations for practice are included in the discussion. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This quantitative study sought to identify the effect of heightened situational awareness (SA) on persistence of doctoral distance learners. Factors in the distance learners' micro-environment, vis-à-vis Urie Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecology theory of human development, were the focus. Study participants included new doctoral candidates continuing their studies in the fall 2012 and spring 2013 semesters at a large private university located in the southeastern United States. A posttest-only control group experimental design was used. Quantitative experimental results were supplemented by qualitative survey results. The experimental treatment consisted of two instruments hypothesized to elevate the SA of distance learners, the Woodman (2001) Analysis, and Grover's (2007) Doctoral Checklist. The research question was: Is there a difference in persistence behavior among doctoral-level distance learners based on level of situational awareness? The principal statistical analysis was a chi-square (?[superscript 2]) test for independence. Quantitative results showed no significant association between the learners' persistence decisions and the heightened SA of micro-environmental factors created by their exposure to various levels of the study treatment at the inception of their doctoral candidacy. Qualitative results, however, showed evidence of participants' perceived valuation of SA to support their persistence. The study suggested the utility of a doctoral program orientation to establish SA at the outset and the value of mentorship to maintain SA throughout the program as means to positively influence the persistence of doctoral distance learners. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Educators are being called upon to be equal contributors and collaborators within the emerging field of mind, brain, and education, which is a trans-disciplinary field that seeks to unite education, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience in a quest to address educational issues. In the wake of the excitement that resulted from the advancement of neuroimaging techniques in the nineties, a flurry of publishing occurred with several manuals being written on how to use the findings of neuroscience in the classroom. As many excitedly and perhaps somewhat desperately embraced these manuals within the context of the Age of Accountability, several neuromyths emerged or collective beliefs in falsehoods about how neuroscientific findings could be applied in the classroom. The literature is rife with assumptions and condemnations of educators for embracing brain-based education without a substantial amount of skepticism and critical consumerism, yet little research exists regarding educators' actual beliefs. So the purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine and explore if and to what extent teachers' beliefs regarding education contained neuromyths and how this has affected teachers' practices in XYZ School District. Of the 161 participants that were surveyed, more than half of the participants agreed with the following neuromyths: (a) left-brained/right-brained thinking (77.7% agreed), (b) the ten percent myth (88.8% agreed), (c) visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning modalities (93.7% agreed), (d) multiple intelligences that are tied to brain differences (72% agreed), and (e) differences in female and male learning that result from significant differences in male and female brains (57.1% agreed). The findings from four qualitative interviews that were conducted with participants that typified the survey results indicated the following themes: (a) the role of the five most popular neuromyths as tools in the participants' teaching and pedagogical paradigms, (b) the limited amount of exposure that participants have had to the five neuromyths, (c) participants' limited knowledge of the brain, (d) the interview participants' rejection of student labeling, (e) participants' struggles with differentiation, (f) difficulty in rectifying the differences between brain-based education concepts, (g) a perception of the brain as functioning in isolated parts, and (h) an overlapping of educational concepts, such as, brain-based education, engagement, and differentiation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The act of categorization produces conceptual representations in memory while knowledge organization (KO) systems provide conceptual representations that are used in information storage and retrieval systems. Previous research has explored how KO systems can be designed to resemble the user's internal conceptual structures. However, the more important question of how a user cognitively interacts with KO systems remains largely uninvestigated. This study investigated how navigating a hierarchical classification scheme affects conceptualization by priming concepts at different levels in the hierarchy. The study asked approximately 100 participants to rank a set of characteristics in terms of their importance for vacation planning. One week later, participants navigated one of four small hierarchical classifications of potential vacations before ranking the same characteristics a second time. Participants gave significantly higher rankings to the characteristic that matched the top level of the hierarchy that they were given. However, this effect reached significance only among participants who were given hierarchies with expressive labels. These findings indicate that priming effects are associated with interaction with hierarchical organizations but that these effects are not as strong as priming effects that occur when participants are also provided with meaningful labels. Participants also provided pairwise similarity ratings for characteristics. Similarity ratings tended to increase between the pre-test and post-test except for those participants who were presented with non-meaningful labels. These findings suggest that people tend to increase ratings of similarity after interacting with a KO system; however, when people use a KO system in which principles of organization are not clear, they appear to be less inclined, or less able, to identify similarities between concepts. Future research will investigate these effects in hierarchical classifications of other concept domains. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Engagement is a worthwhile psychological construct to examine in the context of online training and video games. In this context, previous research suggests that the more engaged a person is, the more likely they are to experience overall positive affect while performing at a high level. This research builds on theories of engagement, Flow Theory, and Cognitive Load Theory, to operationalize engagement in terms of cognitive load, affect, and performance. Studies One and Two examined the development of a puzzle-based video game as a platform for measuring engagement. Results of these studies demonstrated that: cognitive load could be measured using a secondary task, affect could be measured using a novel game-clock mechanism, and performance could be captured incrementally throughout gameplay. Study Three compared traditional linear gameplay, choice-based gameplay, and adaptive gameplay that used a real-time measure of engagement to select game levels. Results showed that those in the Adaptive condition performed higher compared to those in the other two conditions without any degradation of overall affect or self-report of engagement. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Complex productivity applications that integrate tasks in the workplace are becoming more common. Usability typically focuses on short-term, immediate measures of task performance. This study incorporates a long-term goal of more durable learning, focusing on implicit learning (spontaneous, unplanned, usually unconscious learning as a result of other activities). It looks at how the design of complex applications can facilitate such incidental learning of both the application and the task domain when a conceptual model of the task domain is intentionally embedded. This can lead to more productive communication lower development and training costs, and improved task performance. The study targets the navigation interface as a gateway to exposing structural knowledge about the task domain as well as the organization of the application. Schema theory and cognitive load are discussed. The study used an application developed to design and manage lessons in large training programs. The application reflected an explicit conceptual model of Instructional Systems Design (ISD). The experiment was conducted over the internet and exposed a range of users to application tasks using one of three. navigation interfaces. These menus reflected the underlying model to different degrees; content pages were the same. The pre-test assessed participants' understanding of the embedded model as a baseline. A series of typical application tasks ensured exposure to concepts. Performance and subjective data were collected to assist interpretation of results. The test, a multiple choice version of concept map assessment, was then repeated to show changes in model alignment. Despite very brief contact time, the study confirmed that application interaction led to learning and greater alignment with the embedded model on all three measures: relationships, sequence, and vocabulary. Interaction was influenced by the cognitive load of high perceived difficulty and unfamiliarity and by the dominance of time spent on content pages over navigation time. Trends indicate a preference for constant menu visibility, familiarity, and simplicity (low informational density). Performance and learning for treatments reflecting the embedded model faired better than the standard Windows menu which shows only the application organization, not the embedded model. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Among known communication systems, human language alone exhibits open-ended productivity of meaning. Interest in the psychological mechanisms supporting this ability, and their evolutionary origins, has resurged following the suggestion that the only uniquely human ability underlying language is a mechanism of recursion. This "Unique Recursion" hypothesis has its roots in the field of generative grammar founded by Chomsky, which has been highly influential in shaping hypotheses about linguistic processes in psychology. The present research follows up on an initial demonstration that a songbird species, the European starling ("Sturnus vulgaris"), can learn to recognize patterns following a recursive rule (Gentner, Fenn, Margoliash, and Nusbaum, 2006). In a series of three experiments utilizing a context-free (A[superscript n]B[superscript n]) and a finite-state (AB[superscript n]) grammar, I extend the original results to show that many of the assumptions underlying the Unique Recursion hypothesis, including the premise of a monolithic recursive capacity itself, are not easy to reconcile with the learning results obtained for these artificial grammars. Instead of being an automatic, all-or-none ability, recursive pattern-learning depends on constituent fluency, training set, and feedback. Whereas the data are consistent with the context-free grammar making additional demands for subjects, recursion is supported by many interacting learning mechanisms, rather than a qualitatively new mechanism enabling limitless recursion in a single stroke as envisioned in the Unique Recursion hypothesis. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In this dissertation, I investigate how the usage of collaboration technologies consciously and subconsciously affects both communicators and how they communicate. I present two related studies examining different facets of how the use of collaboration technologies such as email and voicemail influence affective processing in the communicator and the composition or interpretation of communicated messages. The primary goal is to understand how emotional responses and communication are changed by the use of different technologies. Communicating with leaner, less natural technologies such as email are theorized to elicit different positive or negative emotional responses compared to other richer, more natural technologies. I also test whether the use of these technologies changes the creation or perception of communication messages. Along with affective responses and communication outcomes driven by usage of different technologies, I also investigate how individual mood, valence of communication task, tone and content of communication messages, and an individual's trait emotional intelligence interact with the technology to change behavior and emotion. In the first study, I show how the technology differences, mood, emotional intelligence, and the valence of communication tasks influence emotional outcomes in the sender and the messages composed. In the second study, I demonstrate how the technology and message characteristics change the interpretation of messages received. In both studies, I use psychophysiological measures to examine how the technology affects emotional response. The results of the studies presented in this dissertation have implications for researchers examining collaboration technologies as well as practitioners using these technologies to communicate. The studies highlight the theoretical importance of emotional processing in the use collaboration technologies and show how the differences in technology can strongly influence physiological reactions, message creation, and interpretation. Examining cognitive processing during technology use may provide a new lens for understanding the influence of information technology. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Early language research has revealed important insights into the building blocks of language, such as morphosyntactic features and rules and truth-conditions of sentences. Once we situate language in real-life use, however, a wide range of factors come into play. Language interacts not only with the surrounding linguistic context but also with the situational context, our mental representation of content, and our background knowledge. The discourse-level interaction among linguistic and extralinguistic factors is relevant to both sides of the communication--the speaker, in choosing and organizing linguistic expressions, and the listener, in selecting among different possible structures and meanings for the linguistic input. The question I address in this dissertation is "how we keep track of time when we use language." My specific interests are (1) whether story time in narrative discourse is one of the critical dimensions that are dynamically updated as discourse progresses, and (2) how fine-grained our time representation is for discourse--whether it is simply an ordering of temporal points and intervals for the events and states described in the discourse, or a timeline where duration is preserved in greater detail. In order to elaborate on these issues, I discuss results from my narrative production experiment and my narrative comprehension experiment. In the production study, based on wordless picture books, two kinds of linguistic expressions were found much more frequently after longer intervals in story time compared to shorter intervals: (1) explicit temporal marking with lexical or phrasal markers of topic time (e.g., when, the next morning , etc.); and (2) proper names in referring back to previously mentioned characters. In the comprehension study, based on short "two-minute mysteries," longer duration in temporal adverbials in the stories tended to lead to longer reading times. I conclude that magnitudes such as duration in story content are preserved in our linguistic encoding and have observable impact on our linguistic decoding, and extend the situation-model framework of discourse comprehension (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983; Zwaan, 1999) to discourse production. My findings thus support an account of communication as alignment of situation models (Pickering & Garrod, 2006). [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Students' academic performance and health may be related to the coping strategies they employ while negotiating the demands of college life, an association anticipated by Pennebaker's inhibition-confrontation theory. Yet this association has only been examined among traditional college students, typically undergraduates. In this cross-sectional study, the relationships between the amount of emotions expressed in a single written essay, stress level, and GPA were examined among a sample of online graduate students ( N = 116). Also examined was whether social and academic integrations, as measured by the Institutional Integration Scales (IIS), moderated the relationship between emotional expression and GPA. Based on analyses from the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program, results showed an unexpected positive correlation between amount of negative emotional words disclosed in writing and GPA. Program level and Academic and Intellectual Development; a subscale of IIS, also correlated with GPA. None of the moderation analyses were significant. The findings showed that the students who earned the highest GPA were also those who wrote the most about negative feelings about their past traumatic event. These findings are not compatible with Pennebaker's inhibition-confrontation theory or with positive psychology theories. Future studies may determine whether these conflicting findings are the results of the methodology used in the present study, or whether the theories on which the study was based need further revision. The study contributes to the literature on student success and expands it by focusing on the growing population of online graduate students; it may also aid faculty and administrators to better understand factors associated with student academic success. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone(800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Psychology graduate students experience unique stressors resulting from academic tasks and regular exposure to emotional distress (Stratton, Kellaway, & Rottini, 2007). Pervasive stress may eventually lead to burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Maslach, 1986). Burnout impinges on academic performance and quality of services provided to clients (Maslach, 1982). It is imperative that this population practice self-care regularly to prevent the state of burnout. Yoga encompasses physical postures and breathing exercises that facilitate mindfulness. This project incorporates a selective literature review that examines the research revolving around the psychological and physical benefits of emotional well-being resulting from the practice of yoga. I apply this research to develop a theory of self-care for graduate students in psychology that practicing yoga may serve as a resource for preventing burnout in graduate trainees. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In the preparation and education of civil engineers it is essential to both increase student knowledge of the world (conceptual understanding), but also to establish and develop new ways of thinking (epistemology). Both of these processes of change can be considered learning, but they are vastly different in the time, energy and resources they require to accomplish. The second type of learning (conceptual change) is more difficult, and is only rarely accomplished in traditional university education. The purpose of this research is to apply existing research approaches from cognitive science and educational psychology to explain why by investigating conceptual change in the contexts of student learning and faculty adoption of new pedagogies. In each context, the difficulty with conceptual change was associated with the ways in which people categorize fundamental phenomena in the world around them, and with epistemological expectations of how those categorizations should be applied in new contexts. While attempts to encourage change often focus on "educating" people by providing them with more knowledge, the change processes seem to be primarily limited by people's existing knowledge and how it is structured. Because civil engineers interact closely with societal goals and processes (such as human safety and environmental policies), they adopt epistemological stances that are as-yet unaccounted for in most research on the subject, which assumes a strong distinction between epistemological stances toward the physical world compared to the social world. These differences suggest that civil engineers' conceptual change could be enhanced by more directly addressing their particular epistemological stances--which incorporate high needs for certainty in guaranteeing human safety, as well as high flexibility when being applied to human systems. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This is a study of adult ethical development in Christian congregations. Using an empirical hermeneutic phenomenological methodology, this study examined how five pastors understand and encourage ethical development, developing an in-depth analysis and interpretation of their perceptions of the phenomenon of adult ethical development. Two primary themes emerged, with several significant subthemes contributing to those primary themes: (1) the integrity of ethical and spiritual development; and (2) the relational nature of ethical development. The sub-themes of theme one include the nature of spiritual development, the nature of ethical development, indicators of ethical development, and best practices for ethical development. The sub-themes of theme two include the centrality of the desert experience, the relationships that matter, and relationships give us value because they teach us to love. Drawing on a theoretical background of neo-pragmatic appropriations of both value theory and cognitive science, the relational nature of adult ethical development that emerges from this study makes contributions to the field of adult education in its understanding of the richness of the concrete spiritual context, the importance of informal learning environments, and the breadth of intersubjective experience that serves to incubate adult ethical development. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this exploratory correlation research study was to determine if students who engaged in exercises designed to increase left and right brain hemisphere connections would score higher on identical tests than those who did not perform the exercises. Because the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act requires students to reach benchmarks of academic achievement, teachers need additional ways to help students process and assimilate information more effectively and efficiently to earn acceptable scores on end-of-course tests. The research question involved understanding whether students who participated in physical activities that engaged both sides of the brain would achieve higher scores on the same tests than those who did not participate in the exercises. A constructivist theoretical approach provided the framework for this study. The scores for treatment and comparison group were compared using an independent samples t test. Findings indicated that scores of those who engaged in physical activities each day before class achieved higher communication arts scores than those who did not. Implications for social change include increased academic achievement and greater school success. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation investigates how discourse-pragmatics informs children's choice of referential forms. Three studies utilizing naturalistic data examine the role that six discourse-pragmatic features play in the acquisition of referential forms in a non-null subject language, English. The influence of child-directed speech on development is also examined. Two accounts of omitted arguments in non-null subject languages (the competence-based account and the discourse-pragmatic account) are compared to discover how each contributes to a complete explanation. Study 1 analyzes the production of overt versus null subjects for four children and their caregivers at two times (T1: 2;0-2;7; T2: 3;0-3;1). This study confirms that children at T1 omit more subjects and produce fewer pronouns than children at T2. Moreover, results of a baseline study indicate that a full range of forms must be analyzed for a clear picture of the acquisition of referential choice to emerge. Study 2 measures the cumulative effect of six accessibility features on whether children and caregivers select null, pronominal, demonstrative, or lexical forms. Caregivers and children use lexical forms when referents are highly inaccessible demonstrating that at T1, children are somewhat sensitive to accessibility, and this sensitivity increases at T2. Multinomial regression analyses demonstrate that three features, PRIOR MENTION, PHYSICAL PRESENCE, and JOINT ATTENTION, are stronger predictors than the others. Study 3 explores explanations from the competence-based account and the discourse-pragmatic-based account for the well-established finding that children omit more subjects in non-finite contexts. Significantly more accessible subjects occur with non-finite verbs, revealing a previously unobserved interplay between discourse-pragmatic and grammatical effects, and providing further insight into the asymmetry of subject realization in finite and non-finite contexts. ANIMACY plays a particularly strong role, together with CONTEXTUAL and LINGUISTIC DISAMBIGUATION. Grammatical competence also plays a role; verb finiteness correlates with the realization of accessible subjects as pronouns (finite) or as null (non-finite). The evidence shows that each account complements rather than competes with the other. The centrality of the interface between syntax and pragmatics to this one aspect of acquisition provides a glimpse into how different theoretical approaches can work together to provide a more accurate picture of language development. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Color is a complex and rich perceptual phenomenon that relates physical properties of light to certain perceptual qualia associated with vision. Hering's opponent color theory, widely regarded as capturing the most fundamental aspects of color phenomenology, suggests that certain unique hues are mutually exclusive as components of a single color. According to his theory, a color cannot be reddish-green or bluish-yellow. This thesis describes research in which this claim is tested experimentally. Results obtained in psychophysical experiments with solid and textured images demonstrate perception of opponent mixtures (forbidden colors), thereby suggesting that the color opponent theory is inadequate as a perceptual model of color contrast. In certain configurations spatio-chromatic interactions lead to a color induction--a shift in perception of color attributed to a surface, caused by spectral properties of surrounding areas. A neural model of chromatic induction presented in this thesis predicts the magnitude of this shift as a function of certain geometrical properties of an image and luminance contrasts between the adjacent areas. The model proposes a key neural circuit responsible for chromatic induction in solid and textured images. Computer simulations illustrate the model's compatibility with perceptual outcomes in color induction displays. This thesis analyzes the model's performance by varying geometrical and contrast properties of stimuli in a number of computer simulations. Simulation results compare favorably with previously published color induction data. The neural model of chromatic induction also addresses the direction of chromaticity shift in color space associated with chromatic induction. The model proposes a layer responsible for spatio-chromatic interactions based on neural units with dual spatially and chromatically-opponent kernels. The output from this layer represents four independent color qualia: red, green, blue, and yellow. Computer simulations of the model's spatio-chromatic interactions demonstrate non-opponent relations of primary hues, in agreement with the results obtained in psychophysical experiments. The structure of hue space emerging from spatio-chromatic interactions is four-dimensional and non-opponent, therefore inconsistent with the hue space implied by Hering's opponent color theory. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Many words can be used flexibly: a book can be physically heavy, but also have provocative content, a "chicken" might live in a coop, but could also be tasty to eat. What do the uses of "polysemous" words such as these reveal about the structure of language and thought? Paper 1 examined 4-year-old children's representations of polysemous words like "book." After being taught a novel word to refer to one of these words' meanings, children understood an extension to the other meaning, suggesting that the meanings rely on a common representational base. However, children did not extend a novel word between homophonous meanings (e.g., between "bat" [baseball] and "bat" [animal], suggesting they are represented as separate words. Paper 2 examined children's representations of the meanings of words like "chicken," which, unlike the meanings of "book," refer to different physical entities and are encountered in distinct contexts. Children understood extensions between the meanings of these words, while rejecting extensions between conceptually related meanings that are not polysemous (e.g., between "chicken" and "egg"). Children were also able to generalize polysemous relations to novel cases, predicting how the "novel" meanings of novel words can and cannot shift. This early abstract knowledge of polysemous relations could arise from experience using polysemous words, or could be independent of linguistic experience and follow directly from flexible conceptual structures. Paper 3 focused on a specific case of polysemy: the uses of words like "long" to describe both spatial length and temporal duration. Adult participants were better able to access a structural similarity between length and duration than one between length and loudness, suggesting that the uses of "long" reveal functional overlap between representations of length and duration. Nine-month-old infants showed the same pattern of results, suggesting that this functional overlap is not constructed because of learning to flexibly use words like "long," but might instead constrain children's expectations about how those words can be used. The findings of this dissertation are discussed as they bear on the representational basis of flexible language and the interaction between flexibility in language and in thought. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Adults are able to access semantic and syntactic information rapidly as they hear or read in real-time in order to interpret sentences. Young children, on the other hand, tend to rely on syntactically-based parsing routines, adopting the first noun as the agent of a sentence regardless of plausibility, at least during oral comprehension. Little is currently known about children's access to syntactic and semantic information during text comprehension as reading proceeds in real-time. To this end, this study examined two questions: (1) Are children as sensitive to adults to identifying sentences containing semantic and syntactic violations as adults? (2) Do children make use of semantic (thematic) and syntactic (subcategory) information to parse sentences during reading and, if so, at what age? To address these questions, event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral grammaticality judgments were collected from three groups of individuals (17 young adults, aged 18-22 years; 17 older children, aged 11-13 years; and 17 younger children aged 7-9 years). In Experiment 1, participants read sentences containing a semantic (thematic role) violation as well as two types of control sentences. In Experiment 2, the same group of individuals read sentences containing a syntactic (subcategory) violation as well as control sentences. Analysis focused on ERP component activity elicited to the critical verbs in the sentences. Experiment 1 results revealed that adults exhibited a larger P600 ERP component to critical verbs in sentences containing a thematic role violation relative to controls. These findings support the view that semantic information, relating to the thematic "fit" between nouns and verbs, can guide parsing processes under some circumstances. Younger children demonstrated a larger N400 ERP component to critical verbs in sentences containing a thematic role violation compared to controls, indicating application of a syntactic strategy based on word order to parse sentences. Older and younger children also exhibited a P300-like component to control sentences relative to violations, suggesting task-based effects on parsing processes. In Experiment 2, adults exhibited a larger posterior P600 to critical verbs in sentences containing a syntactic (subcategory) violation relative to controls, supporting the view that the scalp distribution of the P600 can vary as a function of stimulus complexity. Younger children, again, exhibited an N400 component to critical verbs in sentences containing a subcategory violation, similar to the pattern of results observed in Experiment 1. Older children, on the other hand, demonstrated evidence of more adult-like processing strategies, as indexed by increased frontal P600 activation to subcategory violations compared to controls. Discussion focuses on the developmental changes in the cues that are used to parse and interpret sentences in typically developing populations. Results have implications for both theories of text comprehension development in good readers and provide a basis for future comparisons with populations who struggle with reading comprehension. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study was to investigate how an instructor's accent influences students' learning achievement. Furthermore, this study also explored how students' accent preference may affect their learning. Unlike native voices, accented voices were not natural to the native speakers; therefore, it required more cognitive resources for processing the information, compared to native voice, which reduces the quality of students' learning experience (Mayer, Sobko, & Mautone, 2003). However, this did not explain how students' accent preference might influence their learning achievement. In order to address this unique and challenging issue, the research needed to compare the students' accent preference to their achievement scores by determining at what level of accent the non native voice causes an increase in cognitive load. The study was experimental research. The study had three parts; survey, instruction, and assessment. Before the experiment, participants completed a short survey about their general knowledge of statistics, familiarity with multimedia learning, and accent perceptions. During the experiment, participants were randomly assigned to view a short multimedia instruction explaining how to use the software program, SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The instructions were given in either a native voice or in one of four different accented voices (mild and heavy European accents and mild and heavy Asian accents). After listening to the instructions, participants completed a short assessment. The average completion time, including survey, instruction, and assessment, was 25 minutes. The quantitative data were analyzed by both One-way ANOVA and Two-way ANOVA. Of the 192 participants, 187 were undergraduate students and 5 were graduate students, all from Ohio University. The research found that; (a) there was no significant difference between students' achievement scores when given native voice instruction and those with accented voice instruction; (b) students' perception toward accent did not influence their learning, in general; (c) only students who, prior to the instruction, said they disliked Asian accents and received instruction from an instructor with an Asian accent showed lower assessment performance (this was not the same for European accents); (d) there was a prior knowledge effect in both the native and European accented instructional voice groups, but not with the Asian accented instructional voice group; (e) the duration of time for completion of the study is influenced with ("lower" or "higher") achievement scores in the European and Asian accented voice groups, but not with the native voice group; (f) according to the instructor evaluation rating report, not only were the native voice rating scores significantly higher than both the European and Asian voice ratings, but also, European voice ratings were significantly higher than Asian voice ratings. A possible explanation for the no significant difference among different accented voice instructions is listening adaption. Unlike the previous study from Mayer and his associates, in which it took 140 seconds for the instruction, this study instruction time was 10 to 17 minutes. Furthermore, the combination of social identification and having greater experience with Asian instructors might have accounted for the difference between European and Asian accents on a student's learning. The most challenging aspect and notable limitation of this study was that the instruction was scripted rather than being recorded from a natural instructional setting; therefore, all other aspects of communication, such as grammar, vocabulary, and speaking style were excluded. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study seeks to explore and describe the role of cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational variables in conceptual change. More specifically, the purposes of the study were (1) to investigate the predictive ability of a learning model that was developed based on the intentional conceptual change perspective in predicting change in conceptual understandings of the cause of moon phases, (2) to examine the relationship between the coherency of participants' conceptual understandings and their level of metacognitive strategy use and the type of conceptual understandings they construct after instruction, and (3) to explore the role of metaconceptual awareness in the change and the durability of conceptual understandings. A total of 52 preservice early childhood teachers participated in the study. Participants were enrolled in a science method course, which was part of the early childhood education program. All 52 participants were interviewed before and after instruction. Sixteen out of 52 participants were randomly selected based on their level of metacognition for delayed-post interviews. Two data gathering techniques were used in the study: a self-report instrument and semi-structured interviews. To measure participants' use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies and their motivational beliefs, the "Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire" was used. To reveal the participants' understanding of moon phases, semi-structured interviews were conducted before, one to two weeks after, and 13 to 15 weeks after instruction. In delayed-post interviews, participants' level of metacognitive awareness was also assessed using an interview protocol that was designed for the study. Data obtained through interviews were analyzed using constant comparative method of analysis to reveal participants conceptual and metacognitive profiles. To make statistical analysis possible, participants' Pre-, post-, delayed-post conceptual understandings and metacognitive awareness were scored with rubrics designed for this study. Quantitative data were analyzed using a partial least squares path analysis and Kruskall-Wallis test. Results indicated that participants who frequently used elaboration and organization strategies were more likely to engage in conceptual change and construct a scientific understanding of the cause of the lunar phases. The use of metacognitive strategies facilitated participants' use of deep-level cognitive strategies, which in turn promoted conceptual change. Motivational beliefs had direct influences on participants' use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Participants with high motivational beliefs were more likely to use cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Thus, they were more likely to engage in conceptual change. The results provided evidence that the hypothesized model has a high predictive ability in explaining change in participants' conceptual understandings from the pre to post-interviews. Results demonstrated that participants with high a metacognitive state were more likely to construct coherent mental models. In other words, these participants' conceptual understandings of the cause of lunar phases included a single, coherent, causal explanation before instruction. They were also more likely to construct coherent mental models after instruction. Results also indicated that the participants who maintained their scientific conceptual understandings or progressed toward scientific conceptual understandings throughout the study obtained significantly higher metaconceptual awareness scores than those participants who regressed in their conceptual understandings or maintained alternative conceptual understandings. The direct effects of metaconceptual awareness on conceptual change and the durability of conceptual change were both statistically significant. Participants with high metaconceptual awareness score were more likely to change their alternative conceptual understandings after instruction and they also were more likely to retain their scientific conceptual understandings several months after instruction. The results provided evidence that metaconceptual awareness plays a significant role in the change and the durability of conceptual understandings. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Previous literature shows that language input is related to the language that children produce. Less is known about how the input provided to children relates to the way that they process language. In this study, this question was explored by looking at the relationships between children's word learning ability and the kinds of names provided by parents for objects. Whether these relationships varied with age and vocabulary size was also investigated. Children from five age groups at 12-, 16-, 20-, 24-, and 28-months participated in two types of tasks. First, to characterize the amount and type of labels used by parents, parents and children were videotaped in a naturalistic play in which they played with four sets of familiar and unfamiliar toys. Second, to characterize the children's ability to learn new labels, children were taught and tested on their learning of new words for familiar and unfamiliar objects either directly or indirectly (i.e. by inference). A factor analysis of parent's contrasts of multiple labels for the same object showed that the input was consistent with several factors suggested to influence children's successful learning of labels including the taxonomic level of the label, whether the name is for a whole object or a part, and whether the label is for a familiar or unfamiliar object. In the word learning task, children learned labels for familiar and unfamiliar objects equally well following direct teaching, but learned labels for unfamiliar objects easier following indirect teaching. The types of contrasts provided by parents were related to children's abilities to learn multiple names for objects such that parents' use of taxonomic contrasts was related to children learning more multiple names. Age and vocabulary size could not account for these relationships. These results suggest that the input provided by parents is related to several word learning principles put forth in previous literature. In addition, this input is related to children's performance in a word learning task. The implications for understanding several word learning processes are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Most previous work examining co-speech gestures (the spontaneous bodily movements and configurations we engage in during speaking) has emphasized the importance of their most "salient" or energetically expressive moments, known as gesture "strokes" (Kendon 1980). In contrast, in this dissertation I explore the potential functions of intervals of gestural stasis, or gesture "holds", in which the hands or body maintain particular configurations across variable spans of time, interwoven with the stream of speech. Through the embodiment of a constant form within continuously evolving face-to-face interactions, holds make possible a unique and understudied array of functions relating to the maintenance of ideas and contexts across time. Chapter 1 introduces the corpus of videotaped dyadic conversations from which all of the examples are drawn, discusses the history of the concepts of "stroke" and "hold", and illustrates the structural possibilities for the timing of holds with respect to co-expressive speech: they bear content that is not just simultaneous with, but also "retrospective" and/or "prospective" of, portions of the full composite utterances in which they occur. Chapter 2 illustrates that holds lasting across pauses and disfluencies support continued expressiveness and interpretability, alternately presaging new content that will also be part of a fluent resumption, or maintaining retrospective links to prior content that can contextualize the resumption. Chapter 3 discusses the frequent expressive complementarity of co-timed speech and gesture, as it relates to the debate on speech-gesture synchrony, and further demonstrates that preliminary commitments to utterances are often partially "fulfilled" from the earliest moments because of gestural cues that are interpretable at all points of their lifecycles, including preparatory phases. Chapter 4 discusses the implications for attention and memory of gesture holds acting as temporary cognitive artifacts, forming "bridges" across interruptions and competing representations by interlocutors, thereby functioning retrospectively as "recall cues" to previous moments of the interaction. Chapter 5 focuses on instances of gesture holds combined with listener-directed gaze that are maintained across turn transitions, then released, allowing speakers to "hand off" control while enforcing a context for the next turn. Chapter 6 synthesizes the preceding chapters and suggests directions for future research. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Incorporating relevant numerical information into decision-making is a fundamental and important aspect of numeracy. However, the process through which weight is assigned to particular numerical values is not well understood. The central theory proposed in this dissertation is that the weight assigned to numerical information may be conceptualized as a function of a set of discrete and largely independent cognitive and representational cues, each of which makes a relatively unique contribution to the information weighting process. This study focuses on five cues that may frequently be important for assigning weight to numerical information (though this list is not meant to be exhaustive): (a) the ease with which information can be processed, (b) the extent to which information deviates from expectations, (c) the manner in which information is acquired, (d) the precision of numerical representations, and (e) the perceived uncertainty associated with a piece of information. For ease of processing, existing research was reviewed and implications for the practice of presenting numbers were considered. Experiments were conducted to investigate the roles of the remaining cues in the information weighting process. The first experiment's results indicated that when confidence in expectations was high, information received more weight when expectations were incorrect. However, contrary to predictions, information received more weight to the extent that it "conformed" to expectations when confidence was low. The second experiment's results showed that the weight assigned to numerical information was greater when it had been actively searched for before its value was learned (as opposed to being passively received). In the third experiment, the precision of numerical representations (as measured by the number of significant figures) was observed to be proportional to the weight assigned to information, while differences in precision across two numbers in a comparison made that comparison less influential. Finally, in the fourth experiment, the weight assigned to the probability level (as opposed to the interval width) was greater for confidence intervals with lower probabilities and narrower ranges, and also for intervals based on subjective judgments rather than empirical data. Implications were discussed for fields including education, journalism, and risk communication, among others. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Current models of normal reading behavior emphasize not only the recognition and processing of the word being fixated (n) but also processing of the upcoming parafoveal word (n + 1). Gaze contingent displays employing the boundary paradigm often mask words in order to understand how much and what type of processing is completed on the parafoveal word before the word is fixated. The word "beach" might be masked by a homophone ("beech"), a semantically related word ("shore"), or a string of random letters ("tcsok"), which can be either similar (b as compared to d) or dissimilar (b as compared to x) to the letters of the original word. Mask use is inconsistent and ill defined across studies. It is common for words to be considered masked with random letters if either all letters in the word are masked with random letters or the same first, second, or third letters of the word are used with random letters masking the rest of the word, thus leading to conflicting results in the body of the reading literature. This work examines the role of word shape and letter discriminability in two experiments in the context of experimental reading research. The first experiment manipulated mask similarity, either similar or dissimilar letters, and whether word shape information was provided or denied, while controlling for lexical frequency (high) and word shape frequency (rare). Results indicate a significant effect of letter similarity on the parafoveal preview benefit, but there was not an equivalent result for word shape. The findings for dissimilar masks impacting parafoveal processing more than similar masks are critical in terms of the methodology of reading experiments. Few researchers control for mask similarity in their studies as there was no indication, before now, that such a control was necessary. The lack of findings for word shape was attributed to the lack of a manipulation that tapped into higher order cognition. A second experiment was conducted that included a contextual constraint manipulation, either high or normal contextual constraint, while controlling for lexical frequency (high), word shape frequency (rare), and mask similarity (dissimilar). The results indicated a significant preview benefit and predictability effect; however, there was no significant finding for word shape. Thus, it seems that word shape still seems to be in poor shape for the race to the lexicon. Results are discussed in terms of models of normal reading. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Research shows that mental representation such as analogical reasoning is a fundamental cognitive tool for design problem solving (Daugherty & Mentzer, 2008; Hey, Lensey, Agogino, & Wood, 2008; Lewis, 2008). Not much is known, however, about the way students and professional engineers actively generate and change their mental representation when solving a engineering design problem. There are very few studies that show how different types of mental representations; such as metaphors, propositions, and analogies; interplay with higher order cognitive processes; such as planning, monitoring, and evaluation; as engineering designers navigate their problem and solution spaces. This empirical study investigated the mental representation and metacognitive regulation of student and professional engineers while they solve an engineering design problem. The intent is to gain a deeper insight in the differences that exists in the cognitive process of engineering students and professional engineers. The research questions guided this study were (a) How do the mental representations (propositions, metaphors, and analogies) of student and professional engineers differ in their problem and solution spaces in terms of their frequency, types, and attributes? (b) How does the metacognitive regulation (planning, monitoring, and evaluation) of student and professional engineers differ in their problem and solution spaces in terms of their frequency and characteristics? and (c) How do the mental representation and metacognitive regulation of students and professional engineers relate to their overall engineering design strategy? Concurrent and retrospective verbal protocols were collected from six mechanical engineering students and four professional mechanical engineers as they solved an engineering design problem. Their verbalizations were audio recorded, transcribed, and coded. The conclusions drawn from the data were: the use of mental representations such as propositions, analogies, and metaphors by experts and novice engineering designers in the different mental spaces are important in engineering design. Expert engineering designers use analogies differently in their solution space than do novice engineering designers. Expert engineering designers rely on within-domain analogies, between-domain analogies, heuristics, and formulas differently from novice engineering designers. In engineering design evaluation plays a larger role in the solution space of expert designers while novice designers tend to do more planning in the problem space. Finally, based on the findings recommendations are provided for engineering and technology education curriculum and instruction, engineering practice in industry, and for future research. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study tracks changes in three primary characteristics of Early New High German (ENHG) publications from 1499 to 1710: the complexity of the syntactic system of the language, the pictorial saturation of the publications, and the relationship between verbal text and illustrations on the ENHG printed page. Drawing on findings from literary studies, linguistics, cognitive science, and developmental psychology, I predicted that increased literacy and the cognitive changes associated with greater skill in reading during this period of increased literacy among German-speaking people would result in an increase in the syntactic complexity the language, an overall decline in the pictorial saturation of ENHG texts, and increasing independence between words and illustrations on the printed page. In a wide variety of ENHG illustrated publications, I measure syntactic complexity in terms of main-clause and embedded-clause framing, which increased over the period, adjusted for extrapositioning, or violation of the emergent framing rule, which decreased over the period. I measure pictorial complexity in terms of the narrative and symbolic depth of the illustrations in the texts; here, while the complexity of illustrations went up in the middle phase of the period, consistent with predictions based in learning stages of literacy, overall pictorial complexity declined over the period as a whole. I measure verbal-pictorial independence in terms of how much redundancy or overlap between the messages of words and pictures existed within each publication studied. As pictures became less connected with text over the period, as well as less complex, illustrations therefore carried a steadily smaller part of the overall semantic load in these publications. When I combine and interpret all these results in terms of cognitive-sensory modes and associated stages of learning literacy, the data offer a preliminary and observational confirmation of my hypothesis. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

When linguistic input provides inconsistent evidence for grammatical structures, children tend to regularize. For example, children learning languages from parents who are imperfect users of the language regularize their parents' inconsistent usages (Singleton & Newport, 2004). Previous studies (Hudson Kam & Newport, 2005, 2009) have examined this phenomenon using artificial languages and have found that children, but not adults, regularized this type of variable input. However, little is known about precisely how and when such regularization occurs. In a series of 5 experiments, we investigate how various aspects of the distribution of the input probabilities affect such behavior, as well as whether this behavior varies by age. Adults and children were exposed for 5 days to one of five artificial languages. Languages differed in the probability with which determiners were used. After exposure, subjects produced novel sentences; determiner use was scored. The first two experiments investigated the role of the type of variability present in the input. When taught a language with unpredictable, "inconsistent" variability, five- and six- year old children regularized the variability in their own language productions, always using the most frequent determiner more often than occurred during exposure. When taught a language with predictable, "lexically-consistent" variability, children did not regularize, but instead learned the pattern responsible for the variability, and used this pattern in their own productions. In both cases, adult's productions matched those present in their input. The second set of experiments investigated which feature of the distribution children are sensitive to, as well as whether this effect varies by age. Adults and 5-8 year old children were exposed to one of three artificial languages, differing in the distribution of determiners. Each language had a dominant determiner that was used more frequently than any of the other determiners, and a minority determiner that was used less often. The probability with which these determiners were used, was systematically varied such that a given probability of usage (40%) was the dominant determiner in one language, but the minority determiner in the other. In line with previous results, the 5-6 year old children in these experiments regularized the dominant determiner in their productions; adult productions reflected the probabilities present in their input. Children ages 7-8 regularized less than younger children, but more than adults. This suggests that the tendency to regularize begins to drop off at an early age, but does so gradually. Moreover, though a determiner is used equally frequently across two languages (40%), children regularize it only when it is the dominant determiner. It is thus the relationships between alternating forms--and not simple frequency--that affects the youngest learners. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

A basic challenge for research into the neurobiology of language is understanding how the brain combines words to make complex representations. Linguistic theory divides this task into several computations including syntactic structure building and semantic composition. The close relationship between these computations, however, poses a strong challenge for efforts to distinguish them at the neural level. This dissertation develops and tests a hypothesis derived from the computational linguistics literature that these computations may dissociate when considered as incrementally applied operations. Under this approach, different theories of the relationship between syntactic and semantic computations carry distinct predictions about incremental processing load. In this dissertation, predictions from formal, psychologically grounded, models of incremental parsing are tested against brain data from two experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG). Results from these experiments, where participants perform relatively natural tasks (reading or listening to a story), provide novel evidence concerning the localization and timing of brain activity involved in building complex linguistic representations. Comparing brain activity with predictions from models based on two different grammatical architectures offers evidence favoring grammatical theories which distinguish structure building and semantic composition as separate types of computations. As such, this work contributes to a broader goal to develop new methods for using brain data to evaluate theoretically informed models of linguistic competence and performance. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Program comprehension is the most important and frequent process in software maintenance. Extensive research has found that individual characteristics of programmers, differences of computer programs, and differences of task-driven motivations are the major factors that affect the program comprehension results. There is no study specifically addressing the program comprehension process. There is no study specifically focusing on the explanation of how the programmers' comprehension process is affected by beacons, the in-line comments, and the task purposes. In addition, most of the studies conducted in the past used either verbal protocols or cloze procedures to collect data. The verbal protocols require subjects to organize their ideas for speaking aloud; the cloze procedures are difficult to grade a program comprehension performance. However, using an eye-tracker to collect eye-movement data that reflect the cognitive process during the program comprehension process can reduce these difficulties. Furthermore, advanced technology makes it possible to collect the eye movement data with minimum intrusion. The current body of literature in program comprehension shows that there are few studies using the eye-movement data to analyze program comprehension process, although the eye-movement data has been studied for decades in psychological experiments. This dissertation examines the program comprehension process by analyzing the eye-movement data. The results of this study suggest that code scanning sequences are affected by the presence of the comments and the motivations of the tasks. Programmers can chunk bigger code blocks in programs with comments than in programs without comments. Different beacon sets are identified for different tasks. The results reveal that the presence of the comments does not improve compound beacon identification efficiency. Instead, it decreases the compound beacon identification efficiency. This study demonstrates that the eye-movement data is useful to trace and analyze the program comprehension process. The findings of the dissertation may shed light on the benefits of the beacons in program comprehension for machine learning. In addition, learning and teaching computer programming languages can benefit from the findings in this study. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Children have frequent access to technologies such as computers, game systems, and mobile phones (Sefton-Green, 2006). But it is useful to distinguish between engaging with technology as a "consumer" and engaging as a "creator" or designer (Resnick & Rusk, 1996). Children who engage as the former can use technology efficiently, while those who engage as the latter are creative and adaptive with technology. The question remains of how best to encourage movement along this continuum, towards technological fluency. This study defines three habits of mind associated with fluent technology engagement [(1) approaching technology as a tool and a creative medium, (2) understanding how to engage in a design process, and (3) seeing oneself as competent to engage in technological creativity], and examines the implementation of a learning environment designed to support them. "Robot Diaries," an out-of-school workshop, encourages middle school girls to explore different ways of expressing and communicating with technology, to integrate technology with personal or fictional storytelling, and to adapt their technical knowledge to suit their own projects and ideas. Two research purposes guide this study. The first is to explore whether "Robot Diaries," which blends arts and engineering curricula, can support multiple pathways to technological fluency. The second purpose is to develop and test a set of instruments to measure the development of technological fluency. "Robot Diaries" was implemented with a group of seven home-schooled girls between the ages of 9 and 14. Instructors from a home school enrichment program ran the workshop. The study utilized a mixed methods approach. Analysis suggests two distinct patterns of engagement in "Robot Diaries" are possible--an engineering focus (characterized by attention to the structure and function of the robot) and an artistic focus (characterized by attention to the robot's representational capacity). The ability to support and sustain multiple levels of participation is an important quality in a workshop designed to broaden engagement in technology exploration activities. Pre-post assessments suggest changes in confidence and (to a lesser extent) knowledge. This study has implications for the design of learning environments to support technological fluency, and for measuring this construct. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

While the auditory-only aspects of Mandarin speech are heavily-researched and well-known in the field, this dissertation addresses its lesser-known aspects: The visual and audio-visual perception of Mandarin segmental information and lexical-tone information. Chapter II of this dissertation focuses on the audiovisual perception of Mandarin segmental information. It strongly suggests that Mandarin speakers and English speakers are similar in their manner of audiovisual speech processing, despite differences in information across languages. It also strongly argues, along with previous research, that the McGurk-effect paradigm (although valuable in its own right) does not address the nature of information processing. Chapter III of this dissertation focuses on the visual perception of Mandarin segmental information. The synthetic visual speech of a computer-animated talking head was evaluated and subsequently improved. Also, the basic (or "minimum") units of Mandarin visual speech were determined for Mandarin initial-consonants and single-vowel endings. Although it may not be possible to completely standardize visual speech, at least some degree of standardization was achieved: The degrees of perceptual closeness among the items or categories were established. Chapter IV and Chapter V of this dissertation focus on the visual and audiovisual perception of Mandarin lexical tones. Under "ideal" conditions, there is visual tonal information, and it can influence tone-identification in the presence of ambiguous auditory tones. However, for naive or untrained participants, visual tonal information only had a slight (albeit statistically-significant) influence on tone-identification, and visual tones had no significant influences in the presence of clear auditory tones. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Natural language often contains dependencies that span words, phrases, or even sentences. Thus, language comprehension relies on recovering recently processed information from memory for subsequent interpretation. This dissertation investigates the memory operations that subserve dependency resolution through the lens of "verb-phrase ellipsis" (IPE) and "sluicing." Chapter One discusses two operations: (1) accessing an antecedent in memory, and (2) integrating that representation into the local context. Three studies investigated whether the first operation involves "search" or "direct-access" retrieval by measuring the effect of increased distance between antecedent and VPE on comprehension speed and accuracy. Distance decreased accuracy, indicating the quality of retrieved information decreased as distance increased. However, contra a search, speed was unaffected. This pattern suggests the memory structures formed during comprehension are content-addressable and retrieved with a direct-access operation. To address the second operation, three studies manipulated antecedent length and complexity. One kind of antecedent complexity lowered accuracy, notably, the number of discourse entities in the antecedent. However, the speed of interpretation was unaffected. This pattern is inconsistent with a strict copy operation, suggesting VPE interpretation may involve a "pointer" to extant structures in memory. Chapter Two discusses the pointer hypothesis via a study designed to detect forward search strategies in VPE. By manipulating the location of interfering material--either before the onset of the antecedent (PI) or intervening between antecedent and ellipsis (RI), we tested for forward and backward search, where retrieval dynamics should slow as a function of distance. However, the interfering material's position only affected accuracy: RI engendered lower accuracy than PI. Crucially, location did not affect the speed of processing, which is inconsistent with both forward and backward search. Chapter Three applies this approach to another type of elided dependency, "sluicing". Sluicing differs from VPE in that its retrieval cues provide more constraint on the identity of its antecedent verb, and is not subject to syntactic isomorphism, lending itself to testing the effects position and order information on dependency resolution, which were not testable in VPE. Though antecedent position adversely affected accuracy, the timecourse profile remained consistent with a cue-dependent direct-access pointer whose performance is shaped by general memory variables. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

While research into the role of semantic structure in the recognition of written and spoken words has grown, it has not looked specifically at the role of conversational context on the recognition of isolated words. This study was a corpus-based and behavioral exploration of a new semantic variable--sociality--and used on-line behavioral testing to obtain new word recognition data using the visual and auditory lexical decision tasks. The results consistently demonstrated that sociality is one of the most robust predictors of lexical decision performance. Overall, it appears that the visual lexical decision task is quite sensitive to the likelihood of words being used in conversations about people, and there is evidence suggesting this effect is multimodal and may extend beyond lexical decision. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Recent theories of phonology hold that phonotactic well-formedness may be gradient, with some legal structures being more well-formed than others. Linguistic and psycholinguistic research has demonstrated that "within" morphemes, speakers encode both categorical (*n/Onset) and gradient (st/Onset greater than sin/Onset) phonotactic restrictions. This dissertation investigated whether "heteromorphemic" sequences can be gradiently well-formed. In the first investigation, the effect of consonant similarity (the OCP) was investigated in tautomorphemic and heteromorphemic environments using an oral reading task. Subjects were slower to begin producing monomorphemic words containing similar/identical consonants (e.g., ""k"i"ck"", ""c"og") than words containing dissimilar consonants. Similar gradient effects were found heteromorphemically (e.g., ""d"imm"ed"") for four different suffixes ("-ed", "-s", "-ing", "-ness") and an effect was found in compounds where subjects were slower to begin uttering compounds that have a geminate (e.g., "pe"n" "n"ame") than compounds that do not. This indicates that not all heteromorphemic sequences equally easy to produce. The second investigation extends this result to focus specifically on the phonological grammar. In this investigation, the speech errors of a brain-damaged individual, WRG, are reported. WRG suffers from a lexical impairment that leaves grammatical processing intact. Despite the lexical locus of the damage, his errors are distinctly grammatical in nature, repairing phonologically dispreferred sequences through epenthesis. WRG's errors thus provide a "window" onto the functioning of an intact phonological grammar and provide an opportunity to investigate whether the grammar encodes gradient heteromorphemic constraints. WRG was asked to produce multimorphemic words containing legal heteromorphemic sequences of varying well-formedness (stress clash: "briskness", "aloofness" vs. no stress clash: "cleverness"; obstruent-obstruent coda clusters:" wal"ked"" vs. sonorant-obstruent clusters: "ba"nned""). WRG made insertion errors that improved the well-formedness (e.g., brisk"id"ness; walk.t"id") and made significantly more of these repairs on words containing the dispreferred structures. Crucially, these errors are shown to not be articulatory in nature, indicating that the errors arose at a phonological, pre-articulatory stage of processing. These results indicate that heteromorphemic sequences are subject to gradient phonotactic constraints in the phonological grammar. The "Activation-Conditioned Faithfulness Hypothesis", relating lexical activation to grammatical processing is proposed to account for how grammatical errors can result from a lexical impairment. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Hispanic-American students have the highest high school drop-out rate and as a group are considered to be at-risk for academic failure due to issues of poverty, immigration, language barriers, discrimination, and acculturative stress. This study empirically tested the extent to which cognitive flexibility and planning skills predicted social-academic outcomes among Hispanic-American students. Additionally, the extent that cognitive flexibility and planning differentiated Hispanic-American students previously identified as high, medium, or low resilience groups was also examined. The sample consisted of early elementary school aged Hispanic-American students from a previous research study who were categorized as high, medium, or low resilient. The participants, comprised of 113 Hispanic-American who were 7-to-8-years old, attended an urban public school. Each participant was administered individual neuropsychological assessment, group achievement tests and teachers completed rating scales. Results statistically substantiated that cognitive flexibility and to a lesser degree planning contributed to academic outcomes in math and to a lesser degree reading. There was no shared relationship between measures of EF and social competence. Furthermore, the high, medium, and low resilience groups previously identified were differentiated on the basis of current levels of EF and social-academic outcomes. Thus, Hispanic-American children with high cognitive flexibility and high academic functioning are likely to be classified as high resilience and Hispanic-American children with low reading skills, low social competence and moderate cognitive flexibility are likely to be classified as low resilient. These findings have implication for interventions that can enhance academic achievement and resilient outcomes. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]