Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 28
Description
The incorporation of electronic books (e-books) into the classroom and home of young children has been shown to have positive effects on the acquisition of early literacy skills. Dialogic reading methods, which include interactive conversations between caregiver and child about a story as it is being read, additionally are known to improve skills that lead to improved literacy during the school years. No research to date, however, has examined e-books and dialogic reading when used together. This study examines how using dialogic reading with a child reading an e-book will impact the acquisition of emergent literacy skills, particularly vocabulary knowledge and story recall ability. Twenty-three children aged 3 to 5 took part in a matched pairs experiment that included reading a select e-book four times in which half received a dialogic reading intervention. The children who received the intervention scored significantly higher in the story recall measure of the posttest than those in the control group. No differences were found between the experimental and control groups on the vocabulary measure, although mutual gains were found among both groups from the pretest to the posttest. The results suggest that dialogic reading when incorporated with e-books may improve a child's ability to recall a story. Further, the results indicate that repeated reading of the same e-book may increase vocabulary knowledge.
ContributorsFallon, Ashley Elizabeth (Author) / Connor, Carol (Thesis director) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Pacemakers in the early 1970s were powered by betavoltaic devices which provided long lasting battery life. The betavoltaic devices also emitted gamma radiation due to inadvertent radioisotope contamination, which could not be completely shielded. The betavoltaic devices were quickly replaced by lithium batteries after their invention, and betavoltaics were abandoned. Modern technological advancements made it possible to isolate beta emitting radioisotopes properly and achieve better energy conversion efficiencies which revived the topic of betavoltaics. This research project has studied state-of-the-art pacemakers and modern radioactive power sources in order to determine if modern pacemakers can be safely nuclear powered and if that is a reasonable combination.
ContributorsAwad, Al-Homam Abdualrahman (Author) / Holbert, Keith (Thesis director) / Aberle, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Generally, increasing the electrical size of an antenna will increase the directivity of the antenna. In the case of an array of identical antennas with uniform spacing, the electrical size can be increased by increasing the number of elements. However, directivity can be further increased by performing signal processing on the signals received by elements of an antenna array. This thesis focuses primarily on reproducing and expanding upon a method to increase the directivity of a two-element array using non-linear transmission lines periodically loaded with varactor diodes, which act as harmonic multipliers. Simulation and circuit design is performed using Keysight Advanced Design System, a microwave circuit simulation software package. Furthermore, a hardware implementation is discussed and recommendations are made for construction of the hardware array. Finally, possible expansion of the two-element array to a four or more element array is discussed, and preliminary simulations are examined.
ContributorsHanson, Elliot (Author) / Diaz, Rudolfo (Thesis director) / Aberle, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This study assessed preschool children's (N= 52) ability to introspect and monitor their own levels of certainty. After a book reading intervention, children reported that they were less certain of answer choices in a picture identification game. School differences showed that some groups of children reported improved levels of certainty monitoring, while other groups of children reported scores dissimilar to those predicted. This indicated that children who were immersed in rich learning environments, where strict curriculum and emotion understanding training were enforced, could be predisposed to this type of certainty understanding.
ContributorsHicks, Jordan (Co-author) / Sanyal, Awhona (Co-author) / Fabricius, William (Thesis director) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / Gonzales, Christopher (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
Both dialogic reading and embodied cognition have showed to be effective strategies in the development of early literacy skills. Additionally, the use of electronic books has been found to also have a positive effect, including in combination with dialogic reading. The effectiveness of dialogic reading and embodied strategy while reading an e-book has not been compared. The purpose of the study is to determine if embodied cognition can improve dialogic reading practices and possibly offer a theoretical framework for why dialogical reading practices work. Additionally, this study aims to determine the impact of embodied cognition and dialogic reading on the development of both vocabulary and story recall skills in preschool-aged children. Twenty-nine preschool children between the ages of 3 and 5 years old took part in a matched pairs experiment that included reading an e-book. Children in the experimental groups received four readings of either an embodied cognition condition or a dialogic reading condition. Following the four readings, the groups switched treatment. The children who received the embodied cognition conditions scored significantly higher on both story recall and vocabulary acquisition compared to those in the dialogic reading and control groups. Results of the study suggest embodied cognition in conjugation with dialogic reading practices could provide a more effective and improved model for promoting early literacy skills.
ContributorsMedrano, Danielle Alessandra (Author) / Glenberg, Arthur (Thesis director) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / Gomez, Ligia (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Introspective awareness refers to direct access to one’s own internal and subjective thoughts and feelings (Wimmer & Hartl, 1991). Two theories, simulation theory and theory-theory, have been used to understand our access to our mental states. Simulation theory (Harris, 1991) involves imagining yourself in another person’s situation, reading off of your mental state, and attributing that state to the other person. Theory-theory (Gopnik, 1993) involves an interrelated body of knowledge, based on core mental-state constructs, including beliefs and desires, that may be applied to everyone—self and others (Gopnik & Wellman, 1994). Introspection is taken for granted by simulation theory, and explicitly denied by theory-theory. This study is designed to test for evidence of introspection in young children using simple perception and knowledge task. The current evidence is against introspective awareness in children because the data suggest that children cannot report their own false beliefs and they cannot report their on-going thoughts (Flavell, Green & Flavell, 1993; Gopnik & Astington, 1988). The hypothesis in this study states that children will perform better on Self tasks compared to Other tasks, which will be evidence for introspection. The Other-Perception tasks require children to calculate the other’s line of sight and determine if there is something obscuring his or her vision. The Other-Knowledge tasks require children to reason that the other’s previous looking inside a box means that he or she will know what is inside the box when it is closed. The corresponding Self tasks could be answered either by using the same reasoning for the self or by introspection to determine what it is they see and do not see, and know and do not know. Children performing better on Self tasks compared to Other tasks will be an indication of introspection. Tests included Yes/No and Forced Choice questions, which was initially to ensure that the results will not be caused by a feature of a single method of questioning. I realized belatedly, however, that Forced Choice was not a valid measure of introspection as children could introspect in both the Self and Other conditions. I also expect to replicate previous findings that reasoning about Perception is easier for children than reasoning about Knowledge.
ContributorsAamed, Mati (Author) / Fabricius, William (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
A hybrid PV/T module was built, consisting of a thermal liquid heating system and a photovoltaic module system that combine in a hybrid format. This report will discuss the work on the project from Fall 2012 to Spring 2013 and the extended section on the economics for the Honors Thesis. Three stages of experiments were completed. Stage 1 showed our project was functional as we were able to verify our panel produced electricity and increased the temperature of water flowing in the system by 0.65°C. Stage 2 testing included “gluing” the flow system to the back of the panel resulting in an average increase of 4.76°C in the temperature of the water in the system. Stage 3 testing included adding insulating foam to the module which resulted in increasing the average temperature of the water in our flow system by 6.95°C. The economic calculations show the expected energy cost savings for Arizona residents.
ContributorsHaines, Brent Robert (Author) / Roedel, Ronald (Thesis director) / Aberle, James (Committee member) / Rauch, Dawson (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
A hybrid PV/T module was built, consisting of a thermal liquid heating system and a photovoltaic module system that combine in a hybrid format. This report will discuss the work on the project from Fall 2012 to Spring 2013. Three stages of experiments were completed. Stage 1 showed our project was functional as we were able to verify our panel produced electricity and increased the temperature of water flowing in the system by 0.65°C. Stage 2 testing included “gluing” the flow system to the back of the panel resulting in an average increase of 4.76°C in the temperature of the water in the system. Stage 3 testing included adding insulating foam to the module which resulted in increasing the average temperature of the water in our flow system by 6.95°C.
ContributorsDenke, Steven Michael (Author) / Roedel, Ron (Thesis director) / Aberle, James (Committee member) / Rauch, Dawson (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
In modern remote sensing, arrays of sensors, such as antennas in radio frequency (RF) systems and microphones in acoustic systems, provide a basis for estimating the direction of arrival of a narrow-band signal at the sensor array. A Uniform linear array (ULA) is the most well-studied array geometry in that its performance characteristics and limitations are well known, especially for signals originating in the far field. In some instances, the geometry of an array may be perturbed by an environmental disturbance that actually changes its nominal geometry; such as, towing an array behind a moving vehicle. Additionally, sparse arrays have become of interest again due to recent work in co-prime arrays. These sparse arrays contain fewer elements than a ULA but maintain the array length. The effects of these alterations to a ULA are of interest. Given this motivation, theoretical and experimental (i.e. via computer simulation) processes are used to determine quantitative and qualitative effects of perturbation and sparsification on standard metrics of array performance. These metrics include: main lobe gain, main lobe width and main lobe to side lobe ratio. Furthermore, in order to ascertain results/conclusions, these effects are juxtaposed with the performance of a ULA. Through the perturbation of each element following the first element drawn from a uniform distribution centered around the nominal position, it was found that both the theoretical mean and sample mean are relatively similar to the beam pattern of the full array. Meanwhile, by using a sparsification method of maintaining all the lags, it was found that this particular method was unnecessary. Simply taking out any three elements while maintaining the length of the array will produce similar results. Some configurations of elements give a better performance based on the metrics of interest in comparison to the ULA. These results demonstrate that a sparsified, perturbed or sparsified and perturbed array can be used in place of a Uniform Linear Array depending on the application.
ContributorsSilbernagel, Drake Oliver (Author) / Cochran, Douglas (Thesis director) / Aberle, James (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
For many years now, early word learning in children has been an important subject among many researchers. There are many ways in which children learn word-object pairings including using co-occurrences, forwards integration, and backwards integration. This study primarily focuses on backwards integration. Backwards integration entails using learned information to be able to recall a word-object pairing from a previous time. In this thesis, three different studies were conducted with children aged 3-7 years old. In the general task, children were presented with a computerized word-learning task in which they could track word-referent pairings using co-occurrence statistics, forward integration, and backward integration. The goal of Study 1 and Study 2 was to determine the best task design to study backwards integration. The goal of the final study, Study 3, was to provide preliminary data on backwards integration. The overall results indicate that a between subjects design is the most beneficial way to test backwards integration because as a group, children were learning when compared to chance. In addition, the results from Study 3 showed that children were not learning in the task. In general, this suggests that this task may have been very difficult for children to complete. One limitation of Study 3
was that there was a small sample size of only 29 children. In order to account for this, the sample sizes in Study 2 and Study 3 were combined. This combined data did show that children succeeded at the backwards integration condition. It is noteworthy to mention that backwards integration was above chance in Study 2 and in the Study 2 and 3 combination. Therefore, the overall results suggest that children may possibly be able to backwards integrate; however, no evidence of learning in any of the other conditions were present.
was that there was a small sample size of only 29 children. In order to account for this, the sample sizes in Study 2 and Study 3 were combined. This combined data did show that children succeeded at the backwards integration condition. It is noteworthy to mention that backwards integration was above chance in Study 2 and in the Study 2 and 3 combination. Therefore, the overall results suggest that children may possibly be able to backwards integrate; however, no evidence of learning in any of the other conditions were present.
ContributorsLalani, Hanna Alyssa (Author) / Benitez, Viridiana (Thesis director) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / Fabricius, William (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05