Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 13
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- Genre: Fiction
- Genre: Art--Study and teaching (Secondary)
- Genre: Music--History and criticism--Web-based instruction--Arizona--Case studies.
Description
In times of fast paced technology, the ability to differentiate quality differences between a reproduction and an original work of art has new urgency. The use of digital reproductions in the classroom is a useful and convenient teaching tool, but can convey visual distortions specifically in regards to texture, size, and color. Art educators often struggle to achieve a balance between incorporating the use of digital technology and fostering an appreciation for experiences with original artworks. The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which Dewey's theory of experiential learning explains how thoroughly high school students differentiate between a reproduction and original artwork. This study also explored the influences of painting style (realistic or semi-abstract) and sequence on a student's ability to identify the differences and select a preference between the reproduction and original artwork. To obtain insight into how a student is able to differentiate between a reproduction and an original artwork, this study engaged 27 high school student participants in viewing a digital reproduction and the respective original artwork of one realistic and one semi-abstract painting at the ASU Art Museum. Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data suggests that sequence influences a student's ability to differentiate between a reproduction and original artwork. Students who saw reproductions before viewing the originals, demonstrated a more comprehensive understanding of the differences between the two presentation formats. Implications of this study include the recommendation that art educators address definitional issues surrounding the terms original and reproduction in their teaching, and consider collaborative ways to prepare students for meaningful experiences with original artworks.
ContributorsUscher, Dawn (Author) / Erickson, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Stokrocki, Mary (Committee member) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study examines the possibility of using social and historical contexts, image analysis, and personal themes to engage adolescent photography students in the craft of photography. This new curriculum was designed around large themes that correspond to the developmental stage of adolescence. Issues such as self-identity, teenage stereotypes, school, family, and community were explored through examining historical documents and photographs, comparing popular culture perspectives, and learning basic semiotics. The students then worked within these ideas by creating their own photographs and reflecting upon their art making choices. The new approach was implemented in an analog film class in which basic 35mm camera and film techniques are taught. It is argued that meaning making motivates the adolescent photographer rather than the achievement of strong technical skills. This qualitative study was conducted using an action research approach, in which the author was both the classroom teacher and the researcher. The study incorporates data collected from student-created photographs, student written responses, interviews of students, interviews of photography teachers, and the researcher's field notes. Major themes were discovered over time by applying a grounded theory approach to understanding the data. The curriculum brought a new level of student engagement, both in participation in the course and in the complexity of their image making. By incorporating the chosen topics, students' images were rich with personal meaning. Students retained concepts of historical and social uses for photography and demonstrated a base understanding of semiotic theory. Furthermore, the data points to a stronger sense of community and teacher-student relationships within the classroom. The researcher argues that this deeper rapport is due to the concentration on personal themes within the practice of photography. Setbacks within the study included censorship by the school of mature subjects, a limited amount of equipment, and a limited amount of time with the students. This study demonstrates the need for art curriculum to provide connections between visual art, interdisciplinary associations, students' level of development, and students' personal interests. The research provides a possible approach to redesigning curriculum for photography courses for the twenty-first century student.
ContributorsOverby, Alexandra (Author) / Young, Bernard (Thesis advisor) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Erickson, Mary (Committee member) / Stokrocki, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study examines the experiences of participants enrolled in an online community college jazz history course. I surveyed the participants before the course began and observed them in the online space through the duration of the course. Six students also participated in interviews during and after the course. Coded data from the interviews, surveys, and recorded discussion posts and journal entries provided evidence about the nature of interaction and engagement in learning in an online environment. I looked for evidence either supporting or detracting from a democratic online learning environment, concentrating on the categories of student engagement, freedom of expression, and accessibility. The data suggested that the participants' behaviors in and abilities to navigate the online class were influenced by their pre-existing native media habits. Participants' reasons for enrolling in the online course, which included convenience and schedule flexibility, informed their actions and behaviors in the class. Analysis revealed that perceived positive student engagement did not contribute to a democratic learning environment but rather to an easy, convenient experience in the online class. Finally, the data indicated that participants' behaviors in their future lives would not be affected by the online class in that their learning experiences were not potent enough to alter or inform their behavior in society. As online classes gain popularity, the ability of these classes to provide meaningful learning experiences must be questioned. Students in this online jazz history class presented, at times, a façade of participation and community building but demonstrated a lack of sincerity and interest in the course. The learning environment supported accessibility and freedom of expression to an extent, but students' engagement with their peers was limited. Overall, this study found a need for more research into the quality of online classes as learning platforms that support democracy, student-to-student interaction, and community building.
ContributorsHunter, Robert W. (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra L (Thesis advisor) / Tobias, Evan (Thesis advisor) / Bush, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Kocour, Michael (Committee member) / Pilafian, Sam (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The American culture of capitalism and consumerism is predicated upon the idea that the individuals inside the system are safe. The years since 2001 have seen such finite illusions of isolation and security irrevocably altered and a collective vulnerability rise in the vacuum. Today, with the birth of social media and immediate information, terrorism—as a form of reprehensible protest and a desperate act of war—has gained a new fundamental resource: violence can be broadcast around the world the instant it happens. But with this technological upheaval, a new rogue brand of vigilantism has been born online, and is continually gaining strength as the reach of the Internet snakes further into everyday life, hypothetically altering the notion of individual power and America’s sense of justice, all while potentially placing more innocent lives in harm’s way. And still, amid the uncharted and ever violent reality of war, technology, and the Internet, there live people: the scarred and delicate tissue of heart and body, ever healing, deceptively vulnerable, and increasingly alone.
ContributorsGarrison, Gary Joshua (Author) / Pritchard, Melissa (Thesis advisor) / Bell, Matt (Committee member) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The Book of Mortimer is a satirical account about the rise of a new modern day Mormon woman prophet named Champ. The mother of six—and wife to a very codependent man that can’t be left alone with a comfortable couch—believes a new testament is buried in a small field conveniently next to her kids’ bus stop. Taking place in a lower class area constructed entirely of beige apartments in Mesa, Arizona, The Book of Mortimer plays on similar themes of the early day Mormon Church and reimagines this American religion if it were discovered in the 21st century. Complete with an elite Home Owner’s Association, a corrupt frozen pizza company, a ten-year old capitalist, a trio of milk purveyors that hold a group of unfortunates hostage in the biggest grocery store in The United States, and an elementary school that is quite possibly run by a Neo-Nazi principal hiding his identity, The Book of Mortimer is an exhaustively entertaining novel, exploring themes of poverty and class, relationships and commitment, and figuring out one’s self-worth in an overwhelming world of persuasion and guilt.
ContributorsWilcock, Heath (Author) / Ison, Tara (Thesis advisor) / Bell, Matt (Committee member) / Rios, Alberto (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Rural Thrill is a broken fruit, an electric fence, and, at the end, the absence of body. It comes in three sections, with the first laying the foundation for the world in which the collection takes place—a small southern town, where there is obvious economic disparity and the supernatural is easily expected, believed, and in some cases, assumed. The second section focuses more closely on the main speaker of the collection who is growing into her own sexual desires against the backdrop of a murder which has swept through her town, complicating the speaker’s relationship to her body and the way she communicates desire. In the final section of the book, the poems come even closer as they explore the internal landscape of the speaker’s body and the many versions of the speaker that inhabit that place. The internal happenings of the third section of the book, reflect back on the external world mapped out in both the first and second sections. At the end, the energy of the body is all that remains with all boundaries of physicality erased, an example of how the body and mind negotiate safety in the face of risk and desire.
ContributorsAlbin, Lauren (Author) / Rios, Alberto (Thesis advisor) / Goldberg, Beckian F (Committee member) / Ball, Sally (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This collection explores the experience of members of the working class, living at the edge of poverty. Under constant financial strain, they exist in a state of uncertainty which breeds anger, anxiety, fear, and resentment. For the children born into these families, options are limited not only by their financial circumstances, but also pre-existing cultural expectations. Characters have a desire to understand their circumstances, their relationships with others, and on a larger scale, the world as they experience it. To avoid falling victim to an emotional fatalism that contributes to externalized violence against the self and others, characters must recognize that they have control in their lives, even if it is limited.
ContributorsIrish, Jennifer Hanning (Author) / McNally, Michael T (Thesis advisor) / Pritchard, Melissa (Committee member) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Junctions is a story collection about people at a crossroads, people who crave guidance from an absent parent or partner, people who don't know how to make their next move. Many of the stories are set in and around Charleston where characters push back against having Southern traditions dictate the way they live. Ghosts and spirits roam the pages, helping or trapping the loved ones they are haunting. Elaborate meals, simple comfort food, and even the ceremonial sacrifice of a pelican carry the burden of bringing characters back from the brink of self-inflicted madness and isolation. The complexities of mother-daughter relationships are picked apart and cobbled back together over and over. In Junctions the only way for the characters to reach the next step is to wade through the toughest parts of being themselves.
ContributorsHickok, Chelsea (Author) / Ison, Tara (Thesis advisor) / Bell, Matt (Committee member) / McNally, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Benefits and Challenges of Collaboration and Autonomy in a High School Beginning Art Class In the twenty-first century students are used to communicating. Using social media they often collaborate with peers. Despite this students may prefer to work independently rather than collaborating with fellow students in art class. Also, collaboration has become more common with twenty-first century artists. This study addresses the possible disconnect between the popular culture of today's art students' preference for the traditional independent autonomous practices in the art classroom, and the collaborative practice of many contemporary artists. The purpose of this study is to investigate how working collaboratively or working autonomously affects the artworks and oral and written responses about their artwork of high school beginning art students. I used a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to gather data. Data for this study are the artworks made by the participants, idea starter sheets, participant written reflections, their oral answers to interview questions, and my observations of the classes. The participants in this study are students from four intact classrooms of high school beginning art. This study produced multiple findings, such as: The artworks revealed differences between collaborative classes and autonomous classes. Additionally, no differences were revealed from the written and oral responses made by the participants in the two classes. I conclude that, when given the opportunity to collaborate or work autonomously, high school beginning art students in this study made different artworks but made no different oral and written responses.
ContributorsBomberg-Roth, Patricia (Author) / Erickson, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Stokrocki, Mary (Committee member) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
DescriptionThe strips in Mark's Feminist Froze to Default in an Implementation String transfer the lives of feminists absent and imagined, overbearing and empathetic--cross dressers, lethal injectors, expats, planets, and Canadian survivalists--in an autumn to characteristic, unsettle, and reassess controller utterances of masculinity.
ContributorsMcElroy, Alex (Author) / Mcnally, Thomas M (Thesis advisor) / Ball, Sally (Committee member) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015