Matching Items (1,028)
Description
This study analyzes syllabi for first-year college composition courses and interview responses to examine how the choices made by instructors affect online course design. Using the Syllabus Assessment Instrument designed by Madson, Melchert and Whipp (2004), this dissertation looks specifically at attendance and participation policies, course behavior policies, contact information, required material choices, course organization decisions and tool decisions to reveal how instructors do or do not accommodate online class pedagogies. This study finds that the choices instructors make in syllabus design provide significant information about the overall online course design itself. Using Selber's multiliteracies as a frame for understanding the choices made by instructors, this study finds that instructors focus primarily on functional literacies in their discourses and in the way they communicate their choices to students. Instructors vary in how they inform students of the mechanics of how to interact with tools, how often to interact with the online course, and how to use the tools within the online course. While these aspects of online courses are important, focusing on these aspects of the online course overshadows alternative perspectives on tool use that could encourage critical reflection by both instructors and students. To help instructors and departments design more effective syllabi and courses, this study raises questions and offers observations about how instructors communicate policies and how they understand these policies and pedagogies in online courses. In providing general guidelines for syllabus design and course design, this study will help writing instructors and composition programs better understand the significance of the choices they make in online course design.
ContributorsPfannenstiel, Amber Nicole (Author) / Goggin, Peter (Thesis advisor) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Committee member) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This research is focused on two separate but related topics. The first uses an electroencephalographic (EEG) brain-computer interface (BCI) to explore the phenomenon of motor learning transfer. The second takes a closer look at the EEG-BCI itself and tests an alternate way of mapping EEG signals into machine commands. We test whether motor learning transfer is more related to use of shared neural structures between imagery and motor execution or to more generalized cognitive factors. Using an EEG-BCI, we train one group of participants to control the movements of a cursor using embodied motor imagery. A second group is trained to control the cursor using abstract motor imagery. A third control group practices moving the cursor using an arm and finger on a touch screen. We hypothesized that if motor learning transfer is related to the use of shared neural structures then the embodied motor imagery group would show more learning transfer than the abstract imaging group. If, on the other hand, motor learning transfer results from more general cognitive processes, then the abstract motor imagery group should also demonstrate motor learning transfer to the manual performance of the same task. Our findings support that motor learning transfer is due to the use of shared neural structures between imaging and motor execution of a task. The abstract group showed no motor learning transfer despite being better at EEG-BCI control than the embodied group. The fact that more participants were able to learn EEG-BCI control using abstract imagery suggests that abstract imagery may be more suitable for EEG-BCIs for some disabilities, while embodied imagery may be more suitable for others. In Part 2, EEG data collected in the above experiment was used to train an artificial neural network (ANN) to map EEG signals to machine commands. We found that our open-source ANN using spectrograms generated from SFFTs is fundamentally different and in some ways superior to Emotiv's proprietary method. Our use of novel combinations of existing technologies along with abstract and embodied imagery facilitates adaptive customization of EEG-BCI control to meet needs of individual users.
Contributorsda Silva, Flavio J. K (Author) / Mcbeath, Michael K (Thesis advisor) / Helms Tillery, Stephen (Committee member) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Sugar, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Both law and medicine are interpretive practices, and both systems have historically worked in tandem, however ineffectively or tumultuously. The law is, by social mandate, imagined as a "fixed" system of social control, made up of rules and procedures grounded in a reality that is independent of language; although we know that law is both revised and interpreted every day in courtroom practice, to imagine the law, the system that keeps bad people behind bars and good people safe, as indeterminate or, worse, fallible, produces social anxieties that upend our cultural assumptions about fairness that predate our judicial system. This imaginary stability, then, is ultimately what prevents the legal system from evolving in consonance with developments in the mental health professions, as inadequate as that discursive system may be for describing and categorizing the infinite possibilities of mental illness, specifically where it is relevant to the commission of a crime. Ultimately, the insanity plea raises the specter of the endless interpretability of the law and mental illness and, therefore, the frailty of the justice system, which makes each insanity defense trial emblematic of larger social anxieties about social control, fairness, and susceptibility to mental illness or the actions of mentally ill people.
ContributorsAlden, Andrea Lisa (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Carlson, A. Cheree (Committee member) / Roberts-Miller, Patricia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Although research has documented robust prospective relationships between externalizing symptomatology and subsequent binge drinking among adolescents, the extent to which internalizing symptoms increase risk for drinking remains controversial. In particular, the role of anxiety as a predictor of binge drinking remains unclear. Recent evidence suggests that one possible reason for these mixed findings is that separate dimensions of anxiety may differentially confer risk for alcohol use. The present study tested two dimensions of anxiety - worry and physiological anxiety -- as predictors of binge drinking in a longitudinal study of juvenile delinquents. Overall, results indicate that worry and physiological anxiety showed differential relations with drinking behavior. In general, worry was protective against alcohol use, whereas physiological anxiety conferred risk for binge drinking, but both effects were conditional on levels of offending. Implications for future research examining the role of anxiety in predicting drinking behavior among youth are discussed.
ContributorsNichter, Brandon (Author) / Chassin, Laurie (Thesis advisor) / Barrera, Manuel (Committee member) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic musculoskeletal disorder characterized by widespread pain, fatigue, and a variety of other comorbid physiological and psychological characteristics, including a deficit of positive affect. Recently, the focus of research on the pathophysiology of FM has considered the role of a number of genomic variants. In the current manuscript, case-control analyses did not support the hypothesis that FM patients would differ from other chronic pain groups in catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) and mu-opioid receptor (OPRM1) genotype. However, evidence is provided in support of the hypothesis that functional single nucleotide polymorphisms on the COMT and OPRM1 genes would be associated with risk and resilience, respectively, in a dual processing model of pain-related positive affective regulation in FM. Forty-six female patients with a physician-confirmed diagnosis of FM completed an electronic diary that included once-daily assessments of positive affect and soft tissue pain. Multilevel modeling yielded a significant gene X environment interaction, such that individuals with met/met genotype on COMT experienced a greater decline in positive affect as daily pain increased than did either val/met or val/val individuals. A gene X environment interaction for OPRM1 also emerged, indicating that individuals with at least one asp allele were more resilient to elevations in daily pain than those homozygous for the asn allele. In sum, the findings offer researchers ample reason to further investigate the contribution of the catecholamine and opioid systems, and their associated genomic variants, to the still poorly understood experience of FM.
ContributorsFinan, Patrick Hamilton (Author) / Zautra, Alex (Thesis advisor) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Committee member) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
When people pick up the phone to call a telephone quitline, they are taking an important step towards changing their smoking behavior. The current study investigated the role of a critical cognition in the cessation process--self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is thought to be influential in behavior change processes including those involved in the challenging process of stopping tobacco use. By applying basic principles of self-efficacy theory to smokers utilizing a telephone quitline, this study advanced our understanding of the nature of self-efficacy in a "real-world" cessation setting. Participants received between one and four intervention calls aimed at supporting them through their quit attempt. Concurrent with the initiation of this study, three items (confidence, stress, and urges) were added to the standard telephone protocol and assessed at each call. Two principal sets of hypotheses were tested using a combination of ANCOVAs and multiple regression analyses. The first set of hypotheses explored how self-efficacy and changes in self-efficacy within individuals were associated with cessation outcomes. Most research has found a positive linear relation between self-efficacy and quit outcomes, but this study tested the possibility that excessively high self-efficacy may actually reflect an overconfidence bias, and in some cases be negatively related to cessation outcomes. The second set of hypotheses addressed several smoking-related factors expected to affect self-efficacy. As predicted, higher baseline self-efficacy and increases in self-efficacy were associated with higher rates of quitting. However, contrary to predictions, there was no evidence that overconfidence led to diminished cessation success. Finally, as predicted, shorter duration of quit attempts, shorter time to relapse, and stronger urges all were associated with lower self-efficacy. In conclusion, understanding how self-efficacy and changes in self-efficacy affect and are affected by cessation outcomes is useful for informing both future research and current quitline intervention procedures.
ContributorsGoesling, Jenna (Author) / Barrera, Manuel (Thesis advisor) / Shiota, Lani (Committee member) / Enders, Craig (Committee member) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This dissertation theorizes nineteenth-century public performance of spiritual media as being inherent to the production of autobiography itself. Too often, dominant social discourses are cast as being singular cultural phenomena, but analyzing the rhetorical strategies of women attempting to access public spheres reveals fractures in what would otherwise appear to be a monolithic patriarchal discourse. These women's resistant performances reap the benefits of a fractured discourse to reveal a multiplicity of alternative discourses that can be accessed and leveraged to gain social power. By examining the phenomena of four nineteenth- century Spiritualists' mediumship from a rhetorical perspective, this study considers how female spirit mediums used their autobiographies to operate as discursive spaces mediating between private and public spheres; how female mediums constructed themselves in the public sphere as women and as spiritual authorities; how they negotiated entry into volatile and unpredictable publics; how they conceived of the vulnerability of the female body in the public sphere; and how they coped with complications inherent to Victorian era constructions of feminine corporeality. In conclusion, this dissertation offers a highly situated performative theory of subaltern publicity.
ContributorsLowry, Elizabeth (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Long, Elenore (Committee member) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
At its core, this dissertation is a study of how one group of ordinary people attempted to make change in their local and national community by reframing a public debate. Since 1993, over five thousand undocumented migrants have died, mostly of dehydration, while attempting to cross the US/Mexico border. Volunteers for No More Deaths (NMD), a humanitarian group in Tucson, hike the remote desert trails of the southern Arizona desert and provide food, water, and first aid to undocumented migrants in medical distress. They believe that their actions reduce suffering and deaths in the desert. On December 4, 2008, Walt Staton, a NMD volunteer placed multiple one-gallon jugs of water on a known migrant trail, and a Fish and Wildlife officer on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge near Arivaca, Arizona cited him for littering. Staton refused to pay the fine, believing that he was providing life-saving humanitarian aid, and was taken to court as a result. His trial from June 1-3, 2009 is the main focus of this dissertation. The dissertation begins by tracing the history of the rhetorical marker "illegal" and its role in the deaths of thousands of "illegal" immigrants. Then, it outlines the history of NMD, from its roots in the Sanctuary Movement to its current operation as a counterpublic discursively subverting the state. Next, it examines Staton's trial as a postmodern rhetorical situation, where subjects negotiate their rhetorical agency with the state. Finally, it measures the rhetorical effect of NMD's actions by tracing humanitarian and human rights ideographs in online discussion boards before and after Staton's sentencing. The study finds that despite situational restrictions, as the postmodern critique suggests, subjects are still able to identify and engage with rhetorical opportunities, and in doing so can still subvert the state.
ContributorsAccardi, Steven (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Long, Elenore (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This research examines four stateswomen fashion icons—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Diana, Princess of Wales, Michelle Obama, and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge—and the way these stateswomen used clothing and personal style to create a public identity. Dress is a powerful tool of personal expression and identity creation and when we look at stateswoman style, we see the ways that dress gives them agency to negotiate the “official” identity that’s being placed on them. Personal style is the way we use personal adornments (clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, etc.) to form messages about who we are, who we dream we could be, and what our personal values are. It is a system of communication with rhetorical influence on others that, in return, offers a way to embrace, challenge, or subvert societal expectations and cultural norms. The choice to embrace, challenge, or subvert to the expectations is fluid, and the women continuously move back and forth between these states. I argue for the ways the selected women in this analysis make choices and negotiate such expectations on the national stage through their clothing choices.
While personal style does not construct our identities on its own, our dress is often the first indicator of our identity and personality. Dress, therefore, becomes one way to express our identity, even in situations where we are otherwise silenced. Stateswomen are “not body as advertisement”—as celebrities are—but “body as a source of agency.” For every woman, stateswomen included, clothing is a rhetorical statement that they make every day. These women exemplify the way choices can be made powerfully—because they are “like us” more than fashion icons. These stateswomen icons show the public evolving negotiations between personal and public style and identity. They demonstrate the ways that clothing choices can be empowering ways to construct identity and use clothing as an identity statement. This is instrumental in helping average women of the public learn how they can use clothing as a rhetorical statement that creates agency and identity.
While personal style does not construct our identities on its own, our dress is often the first indicator of our identity and personality. Dress, therefore, becomes one way to express our identity, even in situations where we are otherwise silenced. Stateswomen are “not body as advertisement”—as celebrities are—but “body as a source of agency.” For every woman, stateswomen included, clothing is a rhetorical statement that they make every day. These women exemplify the way choices can be made powerfully—because they are “like us” more than fashion icons. These stateswomen icons show the public evolving negotiations between personal and public style and identity. They demonstrate the ways that clothing choices can be empowering ways to construct identity and use clothing as an identity statement. This is instrumental in helping average women of the public learn how they can use clothing as a rhetorical statement that creates agency and identity.
ContributorsSeverson, Andrea J (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Lamp, Kathleen (Committee member) / Boyd, Patricia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This purpose of this thesis study was to examine variables of the "War on Cancer" frame, loss-gain prime, and patient gender on treatment decision for advanced cancer patients. A total of 291 participants (141 females) participated in an online survey experiment and were randomly assigned to one of eight possible conditions, each of which were comprised of a combination of one of two levels for three total independent variables: war frame ("War on Cancer" frame or neutral frame), loss-gain prime (loss prime or gain prime), and patient gender (female or male). Each of the three variables were operationalized to determine whether or not the exposure to the war on cancer paradigm, loss-frame language, or male patient gender would increase the likelihood of a participant choosing a more aggressive cancer treatment. Participants read a patient scenario and were asked to respond to questions related to motivating factors. Participants were then asked to report preference for one of two treatment decisions. Participants were then asked to provide brief demographic information in addition to responding to questions about military history, war attitudes, and cancer history. The aforementioned manipulations sought to determine whether exposure to various factors would make a substantive difference in final treatment decision. Contrary to the predicted results, participants in the war frame condition (M = 3.85, SD = 1.48) were more likely to choose the pursuit of palliative care (as opposed to aggressive treatment) than participants in the neutral frame condition (M = 3.54, SD = 1.23). Ultimately, these significant findings suggest that there is practical information to be gained from treatment presentation manipulations. By arming healthcare providers with a more pointed understanding of the nuances of treatment presentation, we can hope to empower patients, their loved ones, and healthcare providers entrenched in the world of cancer treatment.
ContributorsKnowles, Madelyn Ann (Author) / Kwan, Virginia S. Y. (Thesis director) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Salamone, Damien (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05