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- Creators: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Description
Meteorology is an uncommon term rarely resonating through elementary classrooms. However, it is a concept found in both fourth and sixth grade Arizona science standards. As issues involving the environment are becoming more pertinent, it is important to study and understand atmospheric processes along with fulfilling the standards for each grade level. This thesis project teaches the practical skills of weather map reading and weather forecasting through the creation and execution of an after school lesson with the aide of seven teen assistants.
ContributorsChoulet, Shayna (Author) / Walters, Debra (Thesis director) / Oliver, Jill (Committee member) / Balling, Robert (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Plants are essential to human life. They release oxygen into the atmosphere for us to breathe. They also provide shelter, medicine, clothing, tools, and food. For many people, the food that is on their tables and in their supermarkets isn't given much thought. Where did it come from? What part of the plant is it? How does it relate to others in the plant kingdom? How do other cultures use this plant? The most many of us know about them is that they are at the supermarket when we need them for dinner (Nabhan, 2009) (Vileisis, 2008).
ContributorsBarron, Kara (Author) / Landrum, Leslie (Thesis director) / Swanson, Tod (Committee member) / Pigg, Kathleen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
DescriptionBased on previous research and findings it is proven that a non-profit class to create awareness will be beneficial in the prevention of eating disorders. This analysis will provide significant research to defend the proposed class.
ContributorsAllen, Brittany (Author) / Chung, Deborah (Author) / Fey, Richard (Thesis director) / Peck, Sidnee (Committee member) / Mazurkiewicz, Milena (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Restraint stress is the most commonly used laboratory stressor. It is difficult to characterize as psychological or physical, because past studies show psychological features, but the nature of confinement adds a physical dimension. This was the first study to investigate how experience with restraint stress affects brain response to the next stress without a physical burden. Pair-housed adult male rats were transported to a novel context and restrained or left undisturbed (6hr). The next day, rats were returned to the same context and were either restrained or left undisturbed in the context (n=8/group). After 90min, rats were euthanized to determine functional activation in limbic structures using Fos immunohistochemistry and to measure HPA axis reactivity through blood serum corticosterone levels. Regardless of day 1 experience, context exposure on day 2 enhanced Fos expression in CA1 and CA3 of the hippocampus, basolateral amygdala, and central amygdala. Conversely, other regions and corticosterone levels demonstrated modulation from the previous day's experience. Specifically, rats that were placed back into the restraint context but not restrained on day 2 showed enhanced Fos expression in the dentate gyrus suprapyramidal blade (DGSup), and infralimbic cortex (IL). Also Fos expression was attenuated in rats that received two restraint exposures in the IL and medial amygdala (MEA), suggesting habituation. Only the DG infrapyramidal blade (DGInf) showed enhanced Fos expression to restraint on day 2 without influence of the previous day. While context predominately directed Fos activation, prior experience with restraint influenced Fos expression in the DGSup, IL, MEA and corticosterone levels to support restraint having psychological components.
ContributorsAnouti, P. Danya (Author) / Conrad, D. Cheryl (Thesis director) / Hammer, Ronald (Committee member) / Hoffman, N. Ann (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
This document builds a model, the Resilience Engine, of how a given sociotechnical innovation contributes to the resilience of its society, where the failure points of that process might be, and what outcomes, resilient or entropic, can be generated by the uptake of a particular innovation. Closed systems, which tend towards stagnation and collapse, are distinguished from open systems, which through ongoing encounters with external novelty, tend towards enduring resilience. Heterotopia, a space bounded from the dominant order in which novelty is generated and defended, is put forth as the locus of innovation for systemic resilience, defined as the capacity to adapt to environmental changes. The generative aspect of the Resilience Engine lies in a dialectic between a heterotopia and the dominant system across a membrane which permits interaction while maintaining the autonomy of the new space. With a model of how innovation, taken up by agents seeking power outside the dominant order, leads to resilience, and of what generates failures of the Resilience Engine as well as successes, the model is tested against cases drawn from two key virtual worlds of the mid-2000s. The cases presented largely validate the model, but generate a crucial surprise. Within those worlds, 2008-2010 saw an abrupt cultural transformation as the dialectic stage of the Resilience Engine's operation generated victories for the dominant order over promising emergent attributes of virtual heterotopia. At least one emergent practice has been assimilated, generating systemic resilience, that of the conference backchannel. A surprise, however, comes from extensive evidence that one element never problematized in thinking about innovation, the discontent agent, was largely absent from virtual worlds. Rather, what users sought was not greater agency but the comfort of submission over the burdens of self-governance. Thus, aside from minor cases, the outcome of the operation of the Resilience Engine within the virtual worlds studied was the colonization of the heterotopic space for the metropolis along with attempts by agents both external and internal to generate maximum order. Pursuant to the Resilience Engine model, this outcome is a recipe for entropic collapse and for preventing new heterotopias from arising under the current dominant means of production.
ContributorsMcKnight, John Carter (Author) / Miller, Clark (Thesis advisor) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Allenby, Braden (Committee member) / Daer, Alice (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this study is to investigate the literacy practices of three members of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and to explore how they use these practices to support and maintain their recovery in their lives. This study also aims to examine how each participant used specialist language, enacted certain identities and acquired the secondary Discourse in A.A. through literacy use. This dissertation study is the result of in-depth interviewing in which each participant was interviewed three times for 90-minutes. These interviews were then transcribed and analyzed using discourse analysis. Study results are presented in three chapters, each one designated to one of the participants. Within these chapters is a life history (chronology) of the participant leading up to the point in which they got sober. The chapters also include a thematic discourse analysis of the interview transcripts across themes of literacy practice and topics in A.A. A conclusion is then presented to investigate how literacy was used from a sociocultural perspective in the study. Due to the emotionally charged nature of this dissertation, it has been formatted to present the stories of the participants first, leaving the theoretical framework, literature review and research methods to be included as appendices to the main text.
ContributorsClausen, Jennifer Ann (Author) / Marsh, Josephine (Thesis advisor) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Serafini, Frank (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This study investigates the hidden curriculum of home learning, through participant observation of ten families, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), who chose to educate their children at home. The term "hidden curriculum" is typically used to describe the values and behaviors that are taught to students implicitly, through the structure and organization of formal schooling. I used the concept of hidden curriculum as a starting point for understanding how the organization and process of home learning might also convey lessons to its participants, lessons that are not necessarily an explicit object of study in the home. Using naturalistic inquiry and a multiple case study method, I spent a minimum of ten hours each with ten families, five who homeschool and five who unschool. Through questionnaires, taped interviews, and observation, I documented typical home learning practices and purposes. These families were selected through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling to reflect a diversity of approaches to home learning. Key findings were organized into four main categories that incorporated the significant elements of the hidden curriculum of these homes: relationships, time, the learning process, and technology. The study offers three main contributions to the literature on home learning, to families, whether their children attend public schools or not, to policy makers and educators, and to the general public. First, in the case of these LDS families, their religious beliefs significantly shaped the hidden curriculum and specifically impacted relationships, use of time, attitudes about learning, and engagement with technology. Second, lines were blurred between unschooling and homeschooling practices, similar to the overlap found in self-reports and other discussions of home learning. Third, similar to families who do not home school, these families sought to achieve a balance in children's use of technology and other educational approaches. Lastly, I discuss the significant challenges that lay in defining curriculum, overt as well as hidden, in the context of home learning. This research contributes insights into alternative ways of educating children that can inform parents and educators of effective elements of other paradigms. In defining their own educational success, these families model the kind of teaching and learning advocated by professionals but that remain elusive in institutionalized education, inviting a re-thinking of and discussions about the "one best system" approach.
ContributorsHinton, Marlene (Author) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Thesis advisor) / Faltis, Christian (Committee member) / Rolstad, Kellie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Many different levels of government, organizations, and programs actively shape the future of energy in Arizona, a state that lacks a comprehensive energy plan. Disparate actions by multiple actors may slow the energy policy process rather than expedite it. The absence of a state energy policy or plan raises questions about how multiple actors and ideas engage with state energy policy development and whether the absence of a comprehensive state plan can be understood. Improving how policy development is conceptualized and giving more focused attention to the mechanisms by which interested parties become involved in shaping Arizona energy policy. To explore these questions, I examine the future energy efficiency. Initially, public engagement mechanisms were examined for their role in policy creation from a theoretical perspective. Next a prominent public engagement forum that was dedicated to the topic of the Arizona's energy future was examined, mapping its process and conclusions onto a policy process model. The first part of this thesis involves an experimental expert consultation panel which was convened to amplify and refine the results of a public forum. The second part utilizes an online follow up survey to complete unfinished ideas from the focus group. The experiment flowed from a hypothesis that formal expert discussion on energy efficiency policies, guided by the recommendations put forth by the public engagement forum on energy in Arizona, would result in an increase in relevance while providing a forum for interdisciplinary collaboration that is atypical in today's energy discussions. This experiment was designed and evaluated utilizing a public engagement framework that incorporated theoretical and empirical elements. Specifically, I adapted elements of three methods of public and expert engagement used in policy development to create a consultation process that was contextualized to energy efficiency stakeholders in Arizona and their unique constraints. The goal of the consultation process was to refine preferences about policy options by expert stakeholders into actionable goals that could achieve advancement on policy implementation. As a corollary goal, the research set out to define implementation barriers, refine policy ideas, and operationalize Arizona-centric goals for the future of energy efficiency.
ContributorsBryck, Drew (Author) / Graffy, Elisabeth A. (Thesis advisor) / Dalrymple, Michael (Committee member) / Miller, Clark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This research is focused on competitive female video gamers. This study focuses on a specific group of competitive female gamers who participate in an all female online community group or clan known as the PMSclan. The purpose of the study is to analyze the highly competitive female video gaming clan members of the PMSclan in order to understand how resistance is displayed in a female centered video gaming community and how that affects the identity of the individual gamers through Shaw's (2001) theory of resistance. This study employs qualitative research design and uses content analysis of publicly available clan doctrines and member blogs through the PMSclan website. Findings indicate that collective acts of resistance lead to individual acts of resistance which can be seen through self-expression, self-determination, and empowerment. These acts of resistance have a positive impact on female gamers with outcomes of strength and power which can be displayed in a typically masculine society.
ContributorsPeña, Siobhan Jennell (Author) / Rodriguez, Ariel (Thesis advisor) / Knopf, Richard (Committee member) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The goal of this research was to understand the different kinds of learning that take place in Mod The Sims (MTS), an online Sims gaming community. The study aimed to explore users' experiences and to understand learning practices that are not commonly observed in formal educational settings. To achieve this goal, the researcher conducted a four-year virtual ethnographic study that followed guidelines set forth in Hine (2000). After Hine, the study focused on understanding the complexity of the relationships between technology and social interactions among people, with a particular emphasis on investigating how participants shaped both the culture and structure of the affinity space. The format for the dissertation consists of an introduction, three core chapters that present different sets of findings, and a concluding chapter. Each of the core chapters, which can stand alone as separate studies, applies different theoretical lenses and analytic methods and uses a separate data set. The data corpus includes hundreds of thread posts, member profiles, online interview data obtained through email and personal messaging (PM), numerous screenshots, field notes, and additional artifacts, such as college coursework shared by a participant. Chapter 2 examines thread posts to understand the social support system in MTS and the language learning practices of one member who was a non-English speaker. Chapter 3 analyzes thread posts from administrative staff and users in MTS to identify patterns of interactions, with the goal of ascertaining how users contribute to the ongoing design and redesign of the site. Chapter 4 investigates user-generated tutorials to understand the nature of these instructional texts and how they are adapted to an online context. The final chapter (Chapter 5) presents conclusions about how the analyses overall represent examples of participatory learning practices that expand our understanding of 21st century learning. Finally, the chapter offers theoretical and practical implications, reflections on lessons learned, and suggestions for future research.
ContributorsLee, Yoonhee Naseef (Author) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Thesis advisor) / Gee, James (Committee member) / Nelson, Brian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012