ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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Description
This thesis explores the extent to which entrepreneurship is possible for women in Saudi Arabia, and it's potential to increase Saudi women's socio-cultural autonomy, financial independence, and overall well-being. The study uses interviews and an online surveys to gather information from recognized female entrepreneurs, those officially registered with the Women's Business Center in Alkhober, Saudi Arabia, about how they founded their businesses, the challenges they have experienced, and the effects of business ownership. These women are interesting because their experience seems to run counter to Saudi society, which generally restricts women's activities. The study's findings show that despite their successes, Arab traditions still hinder the success of Alkhober female entrepreneurs, for instance, by requiring male guardianship and prohibiting travel unaccompanied by a man. From an institutional perspective, administrative and legal requirement can prevent women from fully realizing their potential as businesswomen. The existing women's rights legislation lacks authority because political opportunities for Alkhober women are still limited. For Saudi women entrepreneurship remains an alternative to joblessness and dissatisfaction derived from other employment sources. The challenges women entrepreneurs experience while starting businesses are lack of support from the executive branch of government, lack of quality education, and lack of available financial resources, in addition to the cultural barriers caused by Arab traditions restricting the activities of women. However, a key finding from this study is that the women interviewed all showed a high level of resourcefulness and creativity that helped them to circumvent such obstacles. This study recommends that the government provide financial services, or training programs to aspiring female entrepreneurs and offer incentives for women to register their businesses. This will benefit not just Saudi women but for the Saudi economy overall.
ContributorsAlhabidi, Mariam (Author) / C. Parmentier, Mary Jane C. Parmentier Jane (Thesis advisor) / Grossman, Gary M. (Committee member) / Crewe, Katherine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain condition characterized by debilitating fatigue. This study examined the dynamic relation between interpersonal enjoyment and fatigue in 102 partnered and 74 unpartnered women with FM. Participants provided three daily ratings for 21 days. They rated their fatigue in late morning and at the end of the day. Both partnered and unpartnered participants reported their interpersonal enjoyment in the combined familial, friendship, and work domains (COMBINED domain) in the afternoon. Additionally, partnered participants reported their interpersonal enjoyment in the spousal domain. The study was guided by three hypotheses at the within-person level, based on daily diaries: (1) elevated late morning fatigue would predict diminished afternoon interpersonal enjoyment; (2) diminished interpersonal enjoyment would predict elevated end-of-day fatigue; (3) interpersonal enjoyment would mediate the late morning to end-of-day fatigue relationship. In cross-level models, the study explored whether individual differences (between-person) in late morning fatigue and afternoon interpersonal enjoyment would moderate within-person relations from late morning fatigue to afternoon interpersonal enjoyment, and from afternoon interpersonal enjoyment to end-of-day fatigue. Furthermore, it explored whether the hypothesized relationships at the within-person level would also emerge at the between-person level (between-person mediation models). Multilevel structural equation modeling and multilevel modeling were employed for model testing, separately for partnered and unpartnered participants. Within-person mediation models supported that on high fatigue mornings, afternoon interpersonal enjoyment was dampened in the spousal and combined domains in partnered and unpartnered samples. Moreover, low afternoon interpersonal enjoyment in both the spousal and combined domains predicted elevated end-of-day fatigue. Afternoon interpersonal enjoyment mediated the relationship of late morning to end-of-day fatigue in the combined domain but in not the spousal domain. Cross-level moderation analyses showed that individual differences in afternoon spousal enjoyment moderated the day-to-day relation between afternoon spousal enjoyment and end-of-day fatigue. Finally, the mediational chain was not observed at the between-person level. These findings suggest that preserving interpersonal enjoyment in non-spousal relations limits within-day increases in FM fatigue. They highlight the importance of examining domain-specificity in interpersonal enjoyment when studying fatigue, and suggest that targeting enjoyment in social relations may improve the efficacy of existing treatments.
ContributorsYeung, Wan (Author) / Aiken, Leona S. (Thesis advisor) / Davis, Mary C. (Thesis advisor) / Mackinnon, David P (Committee member) / Zautra, Alex J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The connection between Hollywood costume design and the films of the 007/James Bond franchise, especially in regards to the changing perspective of the “Bond Girl”, is an intricate relationship that has previously been little researched. In the most recent Bond films, in particular, the female characters have become more powerful than the early characters and their roles within the narratives have changed with their characters taking on stronger and more integral roles. This thesis seeks to examine the films of the 007/James Bond franchise and how the rhetoric of the franchise’s costume design affects the representation of femininity and power in regards to the Bond Girls. After an overview of Bond history and costume theory, two films are analyzed as case studies: Dr. No (1962) which marks the beginning of the film franchise and Casino Royale (2006), which marks the more recent turn the films have taken. This thesis examines how the representations of Bond Girls and the use of costume design for their characters have changed over the course of the franchise from the days of Sean Connery to the recent reboot of the franchise with Daniel Craig as 007 James Bond. In addition to an examination of Bond Girl costume design, this thesis considers the role and influence of the costume designers. A designer’s vision of a character is derived from both the writing and the physical features of the actresses before them. Here this thesis considers how the rhetorical choices made by designers have contributed to an understanding of the relationship between femininity and power. Finally it shows how the costumes effect the power of the female characters and how the Bond Girls of today (Casino Royale) compare and/or contrast to Bond Girls of the past (Dr. No). This thesis combines the areas of feminist film theory and costume theory to provide an original rhetorical analysis of the Bond series in relation to costume design and examines the rhetorical statements made by the costume designers in their designs for the characters and how those statements influence the representations of the characters.
ContributorsSeverson, Andrea (Author) / Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Ore, Ersula (Committee member) / Lamp, Kathleen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In a conscious effort to combat the low enrollment of women in construction management, a program was created to retain women through a mentorship program - Advancing Women in Construction. A qualitative analysis, facilitated through a grounded theory approach, sought to understand if the program was indeed successful, and what value did the students derive from the programs and participating in the mentoring process.
ContributorsEicher, Matthew (Author) / Wilkinson, Christine Kajikawa (Thesis advisor) / Calleroz-White, Mistalene (Committee member) / Gibson, Jr., G. Edward (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This study was done in collaboration with the Kino Border Initiative. The Kino Border Initiative is a Catholic, bi-national organization run by Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist, Jesuit priests and lay people. The organization is dedicated to providing services to recently deported migrants and migrants-in-transit through their soup kitchen, women's shelter and first aid station in Nogales, Sonora. Based on their experiences in the women's shelter, the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist and researcher sought out to further understand migrant women's experiences of gender-based violence prior to migration. Using data collected by the Sisters, it was decided to use an analysis rooted in testimonio, and, in this way, use the women's words as a foundational basis for understanding the migration of women. The analysis is based on 62 testimonies related to women's histories of violence and their migration experiences, and the information from 74 intake questionnaires that were all analyzed retroactively. The analysis of data and testimonios has led to the realization that violence suffered by migrant women is not limited to the journey itself, and that 71% of women report having suffered some sort of violence either prior to or during migration. Often times, the first experiences of violence originated in their homes when they were children and continue to repeat itself throughout their lifetimes in varied forms. Their stories reveal how the decision to migrate is a consequence to the transnational and structural violence that pushes women to seek out ways to survive and provide for their families.
ContributorsConrad, Marla (Author) / Elenes, C. Alejandra (Thesis advisor) / Simmons, William P. (Committee member) / Téllez, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In October, 2009, participants of the Arizona Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) began receiving monthly Cash Value Vouchers (CVV) worth between six and 10 dollars towards the purchase of fresh fruits and vegetables. Data from the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) showed CVV redemption rates in the first two years of the program were lower than the national average of 77% redemption. In response, the ADHS WIC Food List was expanded to also include canned and frozen fruits and vegetables. More recent data from ADHS suggest that redemption rates are improving, but variably exist among different WIC sub-populations. The purpose of this project was to identify themes related to the ease or difficulty of WIC CVV use amongst different categories of low-redeeming WIC participants. A total of 8 focus groups were conducted, four at a clinic in each of two Valley cities: Surprise and Mesa. Each of the four focus groups comprised one of four targeted WIC participant categories: pregnant, postpartum, breastfeeding, and children with participation ranging from 3-9 participants per group. Using the general inductive approach, recordings of the focus groups were transcribed, hand-coded and uploaded into qualitative analysis software resulting in four emergent themes including: interactions and shopping strategies, maximizing WIC value, redemption issues, and effect of rule change. Researchers identified twelve different subthemes related to the emergent theme of interactions and strategies to improve their experience, including economic considerations during redemption. Barriers related to interactions existed that made their purchase difficult, most notably anger from the cashier and other shoppers. However, participants made use of a number of strategies to facilitate WIC purchases or extract more value out of WIC benefits, such as pooling their CVV. Finally, it appears that the fruit and vegetable rule change was well received by those who were aware of the change. These data suggest a number of important avenues for future research, including verifying these themes are important within a larger, representative sample of Arizona WIC participants, and exploring strategies to minimize barriers identified by participants, such as use of electronic benefits transfer-style cards (EBT).
ContributorsBertmann, Farryl M. W (Author) / Wharton, Christopher (Christopher Mack), 1977- (Thesis advisor) / Ohri-Vachaspati, Punam (Committee member) / Johnston, Carol (Committee member) / Hampl, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Dixit-Joshi, Sujata (Committee member) / Barroso, Cristina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In this mixed-methods study, I examined the relationship between professional development based on the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and teacher knowledge, classroom practice, and student learning. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The 50-hour professional development treatment was administered to the treatment group during one semester, and then a follow-up replication treatment was administered to the control group during the subsequent semester. Results revealed significant differences in teacher knowledge as a result of the treatment using two instruments. The Learning Mathematics for Teaching scales were used to detect changes in mathematical knowledge for teaching, and an online sorting task was used to detect changes in teachers' knowledge of their standards. Results also indicated differences in classroom practice between pairs of matched teachers selected to participate in classroom observations and interviews. No statistical difference was detected between the groups' student assessment scores using the district's benchmark assessment system. This efficacy study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it provides an evidence base for a professional development model designed to promote effective implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Second, it addresses ways to impact and measure teachers' knowledge of curriculum in addition to their mathematical content knowledge. The treatment was designed to focus on knowledge of curriculum, but it also successfully impacted teachers' specialized content knowledge, knowledge of content and students, and knowledge of content and teaching.
ContributorsRimbey, Kimberly A (Author) / Middleton, James A. (Thesis advisor) / Sloane, Finbarr (Committee member) / Atkinson, Robert K (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
A tiling is a collection of vertex disjoint subgraphs called tiles. If the tiles are all isomorphic to a graph $H$ then the tiling is an $H$-tiling. If a graph $G$ has an $H$-tiling which covers all of the vertices of $G$ then the $H$-tiling is a perfect $H$-tiling or an $H$-factor. A goal of this study is to extend theorems on sufficient minimum degree conditions for perfect tilings in graphs to directed graphs. Corrádi and Hajnal proved that every graph $G$ on $3k$ vertices with minimum degree $delta(G)ge2k$ has a $K_3$-factor, where $K_s$ is the complete graph on $s$ vertices. The following theorem extends this result to directed graphs: If $D$ is a directed graph on $3k$ vertices with minimum total degree $delta(D)ge4k-1$ then $D$ can be partitioned into $k$ parts each of size $3$ so that all of parts contain a transitive triangle and $k-1$ of the parts also contain a cyclic triangle. The total degree of a vertex $v$ is the sum of $d^-(v)$ the in-degree and $d^+(v)$ the out-degree of $v$. Note that both orientations of $C_3$ are considered: the transitive triangle and the cyclic triangle. The theorem is best possible in that there are digraphs that meet the minimum degree requirement but have no cyclic triangle factor. The possibility of added a connectivity requirement to ensure a cycle triangle factor is also explored. Hajnal and Szemerédi proved that if $G$ is a graph on $sk$ vertices and $delta(G)ge(s-1)k$ then $G$ contains a $K_s$-factor. As a possible extension of this celebrated theorem to directed graphs it is proved that if $D$ is a directed graph on $sk$ vertices with $delta(D)ge2(s-1)k-1$ then $D$ contains $k$ disjoint transitive tournaments on $s$ vertices. We also discuss tiling directed graph with other tournaments. This study also explores minimum total degree conditions for perfect directed cycle tilings and sufficient semi-degree conditions for a directed graph to contain an anti-directed Hamilton cycle. The semi-degree of a vertex $v$ is $min{d^+(v), d^-(v)}$ and an anti-directed Hamilton cycle is a spanning cycle in which no pair of consecutive edges form a directed path.
ContributorsMolla, Theodore (Author) / Kierstead, Henry A (Thesis advisor) / Czygrinow, Andrzej (Committee member) / Fishel, Susanna (Committee member) / Hurlbert, Glenn (Committee member) / Spielberg, Jack (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In 1959, Iwasawa proved that the size of the $p$-part of the class groups of a $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension grows as a power of $p$ with exponent ${\mu}p^m+{\lambda}\,m+\nu$ for $m$ sufficiently large. Broadly, I construct conditions to verify if a given $m$ is indeed sufficiently large. More precisely, let $CG_m^i$ (class group) be the $\epsilon_i$-eigenspace component of the $p$-Sylow subgroup of the class group of the field at the $m$-th level in a $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension; and let $IACG^i_m$ (Iwasawa analytic class group) be ${\mathbb{Z}_p[[T]]/((1+T)^{p^m}-1,f(T,\omega^{1-i}))}$, where $f$ is the associated Iwasawa power series. It is expected that $CG_m^i$ and $IACG^i_m$ be isomorphic, providing us with a powerful connection between algebraic and analytic techniques; however, as of yet, this isomorphism is unestablished in general. I consider the existence and the properties of an exact sequence $$0\longrightarrow\ker{\longrightarrow}CG_m^i{\longrightarrow}IACG_m^i{\longrightarrow}\textrm{coker}\longrightarrow0.$$ In the case of a $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension where the Main Conjecture is established, there exists a pseudo-isomorphism between the respective inverse limits of $CG_m^i$ and $IACG_m^i$. I consider conditions for when such a pseudo-isomorphism immediately gives the existence of the desired exact sequence, and I also consider work-around methods that preserve cardinality for otherwise. However, I primarily focus on constructing conditions to verify if a given $m$ is sufficiently large that the kernel and cokernel of the above exact sequence have become well-behaved, providing similarity of growth both in the size and in the structure of $CG_m^i$ and $IACG_m^i$; as well as conditions to determine if any such $m$ exists. The primary motivating idea is that if $IACG_m^i$ is relatively easy to work with, and if the relationship between $CG_m^i$ and $IACG_m^i$ is understood; then $CG_m^i$ becomes easier to work with. Moreover, while the motivating framework is stated concretely in terms of the cyclotomic $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension of $p$-power roots of unity, all results are generally applicable to arbitrary $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extensions as they are developed in terms of Iwasawa-Theory-inspired, yet abstracted, algebraic results on maps between inverse limits.
ContributorsElledge, Shawn Michael (Author) / Childress, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Bremner, Andrew (Committee member) / Fishel, Susanna (Committee member) / Jones, John (Committee member) / Paupert, Julien (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Researchers have postulated that math academic achievement increases student success in college (Lee, 2012; Silverman & Seidman, 2011; Vigdor, 2013), yet 80% of universities and 98% of community colleges require many of their first-year students to be placed in remedial courses (Bettinger & Long, 2009). Many high school graduates are entering college ill prepared for the rigors of higher education, lacking understanding of basic and important principles (ACT, 2012). The desire to increase academic achievement is a wide held aspiration in education and the idea of adapting instruction to individuals is one approach to accomplish this goal (Lalley & Gentile, 2009a). Frequently, adaptive learning environments rely on a mastery learning approach, it is thought that when students are afforded the opportunity to master the material, deeper and more meaningful learning is likely to occur. Researchers generally agree that the learning environment, the teaching approach, and the students' attributes are all important to understanding the conditions that promote academic achievement (Bandura, 1977; Bloom, 1968; Guskey, 2010; Cassen, Feinstein & Graham, 2008; Changeiywo, Wambugu & Wachanga, 2011; Lee, 2012; Schunk, 1991; Van Dinther, Dochy & Segers, 2011). The present study investigated the role of college students' affective attributes and skills, such as academic competence and academic resilience, in an adaptive mastery-based learning environment on their academic performance, while enrolled in a remedial mathematics course. The results showed that the combined influence of students' affective attributes and academic resilience had a statistically significant effect on students' academic performance. Further, the mastery-based learning environment also had a significant effect on their academic competence and academic performance.
ContributorsFoshee, Cecile Mary (Author) / Atkinson, Robert K (Thesis advisor) / Elliott, Stephen N. (Committee member) / Horan, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013