Many children in the United States cannot read on level by fourth grade. Traditionally, teachers have delayed reading instruction until first grade. However, involving children sooner in literary activities may provide skills needed to enable them to read on grade level. The purpose for this study was to determine the extent to which daily writing in kindergarten influences the development of invented spelling and learning to read. Five teachers modeled writing with 78 kindergarten children who wrote every day or almost every day for 20 weeks. There were 51 children in an experimental group, and 27 in a control group who were given a pretest and a posttest using the Observation Study (Clay, 1993). Results from a mixed model ANOVA indicated a significant difference between the control group and the experimental group on the Dictation Task F (1, 76) = 11.76, P≤ .001 and the Writing Test F (1, 76) = 4.33, P≤ .01. Results from a z-Test of dependent proportions indicated there were significant differences in the reading levels of the control group from the pretest to the posttest (z = 7.51, P ≥ .05) because (z = 7.51, Zcv = 1.96). The experimental group results from pretest to …

As one of the most remarkable of the Scottish Covenanters, George Gillespie had a reputation in England and Scotland as an orthodox Puritan theologian and apologist for Scottish Presbyterianism. He was well known for his controversial works attacking the ceremonies of the Church of England, defending Presbyterianism, opposing religious toleration, and combating Erastianism. He is best remembered as one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly in London, which sought to reform the English Church and establish a uniform religion for the two kingdoms. This study assesses his life, ideas, and legacy. In Gillespie's estimation revelation and reason played complementary roles in the Christian life. While the Fall had affected man's reasoning abilities, man could rely upon natural law and scholarship as long as one kept them within the limits of God's truth revealed in Scripture. Moreover, he insisted that the church structure its worship ceremonies, government, and discipline according to the pattern set forth in the Bible. In addition, he emphasized the central role of God's Word and the sacraments in the worship of God and stressed the importance of cultivating personal piety. At the heart of Gillespie's political thought lay the Melvillian theory of the two kingdoms, …

The recordings of the legendary pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski are a valuable documentation of his piano performance style. Knowledge of late-Romantic performance practices gleaned from Paderewski's recordings suggest ways of approaching the performance of his Sonata in E-Flat Minor, Op. 21. This Sonata, composed in 1903 near the end of his compositional career, is a work of the highest caliber, deserving a permanent place in the concert pianist's repertoire. The purpose of this paper is to provide performance suggestions based on Paderewski's performance style which will produce a performance closer to the spirit of the times in which it was written. This study provides an overview of the project in Chapter 1, and a background of Paderewski's life as pianist, composer, and statesman in Chapter 2. A time-line chart of his complete works is included for reference. Chapter 3 analyzes Sonata, Op. 21 in regards to form, sound, melody, harmony, and rhythm. Following the analysis, the Sonata is compared compositionally to sonatas that appear alongside Sonata, Op. 21 on Paderewski's programs, including those by Chopin, Beethoven, and Liszt. Graphs summarize the form and dynamic density of the Sonata, and examples illustrate Paderewski's craft at thematic transformation. Chapter 4 examines Paderewski's …

Data warehousing (DW) in the last decade has become the technology of choice for building data management infrastructures to provide organizations the decision-making capabilities needed to effectively carry out its activities. Despite its phenomenal growth and importance to organizations the rate of DW implementation success has been less than stellar. Many DW implementation projects fail due to technical or organizational reasons. There has been limited research on organizational factors and their role in DW implementations. It is important to understand the role and impact of both technical but organizational factors in DW implementations and their relative importance to implementation performance. A research model was developed to test the significance of technical and organizational factors in the three phases of implementation with DW implementation performance. The independent variables were technical (data, technology, and expertise) and organizational (management, goals, users, organization). The dependent variable was performance (content, accuracy, format, ease of use, and timeliness). The data collection method was a Web based survey of DW implementers and DW users sampled (26) from a population of 108 identified DW implementations. Regression was used as the multivariate statistical technique to analyze the data. The results show that organization factors are significantly related to performance. …

Human auditory perception is suited to receiving and interpreting information from the environment but this knowledge has not been used extensively in designing computer-based information exploration tools. It is not known which aspects of sound are useful for accurately conveying information in an auditory display. An auditory display was created using PD, a graphical programming language used primarily to manipulate digital sound. The interface for the auditory display was a blank window. When the cursor is moved around in this window, the sound generated would changed based on the underlying data value at any given point. An experiment was conducted to determine which attribute of sound most accurately represents data values in an auditory display. The four attributes of sound tested were frequency-sine waveform, frequency-sawtooth waveform, loudness and tempo. 24 subjects were given the task of finding the highest data point using sound alone using each of the four sound treatments. Three dependent variables were measured: distance accuracy, numeric accuracy, and time on task. Repeated measures ANOVA procedures conducted on these variables did not rise to the level of statistical significance (α=.05). None of the sound treatments was more accurate than the other as representing the underlying data values. 52% …

Twenty-first century learners have bought into a cafeteria-style mentality for obtaining higher education that learning should be available at the student's convenience. Institutions that ignore this postmodern trend will likely find their applicant pools dwindling along with significant reductions in entering class sizes. Students will simply choose other schools able to provide respected, accredited, and useful learning which fits their busy lifestyles. Since 1987, Dallas Theological Seminary (Texas), a 76-year-old graduate school of theology in the conservative, evangelical, free-church movement, has offered distance learning classes in both extension and print-based delivery models. Because the faculty plays a pivotal role in the successful or unsuccessful implementation of online courses (McKenzie, Mims, Bennett, & Waugh, 2000), the present study uncovered the attitudes of full-time, graduate theological faculty at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) regarding distance learning and the likelihood of faculty to adopt this delivery innovation. Bruce Manning's (1976) Trouble-Shooting Checklist (TSC) for Higher Education Institutions was the instrument used in the study. The TSC is a nonparametric test designed to uncover differences between the observed and expected levels of acceptance that a department, program, or institution possesses regarding change toward distance learning in contrast to residential learning. The checklist's two major purposes …

This study analyzed participants in an online professional development and certification program can to see if they could predict the learning value of individual distance education tools. The Texas Center for Educational Technology (TCET) funded by the Texas Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) designed the Technology Applications Certification Program (TACP). In the TACP, students are offered four graduate level classes which, when combined, meet the standards for the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) Technology Applications certification. The four courses that comprise the TACP are Computers in Education, Introduction to the Internet, Multimedia in Technology Applications, and Introduction to Video Technologies. The first course started in January 2002 with approximately 706 participants in 40 cohorts across the state of Texas. The TACP combines two different worlds of technology training. Half of the coursework was completed through asynchronous content and discussions, while the remaining classes were hands-on classes in local district computer labs. These face-to-face meetings enabled learners to get hands-on training with direct assistance. Between the online and face-to-face segments, a variety of learning tools were introduced to the participants. Participants were surveyed through the online Snapshot Survey in January and again in September.

This study was designed to examine how four-year-old children might be able to respond and interpret works of art. Informed by Jean Piaget's and Lev Vygotsky's theories of cognitive development, and building on Micheal Parsons' and Abigail Housen's theories of aesthetic development, the study investigated whether or not four-year-olds are able to expand their initial responses to achieve deeper levels of understanding about works of art.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a junior high school leadership program on the academic success and leadership development of its at-risk student participants. A secondary purpose, based on impact, was to evaluate the program as a potential school-based model for adolescent at-risk intervention. The leadership program investigated in this study is unique in three ways. First, the program is in a magnet school and the student population is heterogeneously mixed as to ethnicity and socio-economic status. Second, enrollment is open to all students. Third, its curriculum goals meet research-based criteria for effective intervention practices and leadership development. Academic success indicators associated with at-risk students included achievement, conduct, attendance, and school engagement. Leadership development indicators included leadership practices students had experienced and leadership positions students had held. The design of this post hoc study was the comparison of two groups of high school students who qualified as "at-risk" during their junior high years. Data collection included district or campus reports for cumulative attendance rates, grade point averages, and conduct demerits, as well as student survey responses for school activities, leadership practices experienced, and leadership positions held. Results of multivariate and univariate inferential analyses show …

This paper includes a 62-page book of original poems, 19 pages of which are visual poetry, and a 29-page preface which discusses visual poetry.

This study explored the extent to which graduate students enrolled in Higher Education courses were proficient at writing. While writing proficiency has been extensively studied in elementary students, high school students, and undergraduates, little attention has been paid to formally evaluating graduate student proficiency. Despite the relatively new idea of assessing graduate student writing, it is a concern for graduate faculty and a valid area for study. This study was based on a sample of graduate students enrolled in at least one course in Higher Education at public institutions of higher education in the United States. A total sample size of 97 students was obtained. Two instruments were administered to the participants: A General Information and Writing Experience Questionnaire (G-WEQ) and the SAT II: Writing Test, Part B. The G-WEQ was designed to capture demographic information about the participants, as well as allow participants to provide a self-assessment of writing and describe the writing experiences they are currently encountering in graduate school. To assess writing proficiency for the participants, the SAT II: Writing Test, Part B was used. The purpose of the test is to "measure [test takers'] ability to...recognize faults in usage and structure, and to use language with …

This study attempted to determine if the type of class schedule (traditional, A/B block, or accelerated block) used in Texas public high schools significantly affects students' achievement results, attendance rates and dropout rates. One thousand four hundred ninety (1490) Texas high school principals were surveyed to determine the type of schedule currently in use on each campus, the type of schedule previously used on each campus, the length of time the current schedule has been in place on each campus, and the length of time that the previous schedule was used on each campus. This study is particularly significant in that this research provides information to assist principals in determining if block scheduling is instrumental in improving achievement in reading and mathematics, in improving attendance and in lowering dropout rates. The results of the study indicated that the use of a particular type of schedule: traditional, A/B block, or accelerated block is not directly correlated to improved achievement, attendance, or dropout rates. An expectation that the implementation of a traditional, A/B block, or accelerated block schedule will be the sole factor to cause improved student achievement, improved attendance rates or improved dropout rates is inappropriate. Ultimately, campus and districts officials …

This study was designed to determine the effectiveness of short-term child-centered play therapy training with school counselor and teachers in Israel. A short-term child-centered play therapy course is an intervention that focuses on changing trainees attitudes and beliefs towards children while teaching them child-centered play therapy theory and skills. The experimental group, consisting of 18 volunteer school counselors and teachers in Israel received a total of 15 hours of child-centered play therapy didactic training with a variety of learning experiences. The control group consisted of 15 volunteer school counselors and teachers in Israel. The control group did not receive any training. All participants completed the Play Therapy Attitude-Knowledge-Skill Survey (PTAKSS) before and after the training as a means of measuring change in attitude, knowledge and skill. A second purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of short-term child-centered play therapy training with a comparison group semester long child-centered play therapy training course at the University of North Texas. An analysis of covariance revealed statistically significant positive increase in Knowledge subscale as compared to the control group. However the differences between the experimental and the control group were not significant on the participant's total score on the PTAKSS, their …

The purpose of this study was to assess the benefits that selected adult piano students reported receiving from their study. Adult piano students (N = 711) from 24 states representing all geographic regions of the U.S. each completed a questionnaire containing 31 individual benefit items. These benefits were organized into 3 categories: Personal, Skill, and Social/Cultural. The demographic characteristics of the study population were consistent with the findings of other adult music research. Students indicated the existence (yes or no) of each benefit and rated the importance of existing benefits on a scale of 1-10. The category of Skill Benefits was the most agreed upon and highest rated category in the study, with over 90% agreement for each of the 7 Skill Benefits. The 14 Personal Benefits were also rated highly, particularly benefits related to self-actualization and fun. Self-related Personal Benefits were rated moderately, while more introverted Personal Benefits such as Imagination/Creativity, Spirituality, and Aesthetic Appreciation were lower rated benefits. The 10 Social/Cultural benefits were the lowest rated and least important benefits in the study. The most agreed upon benefits were Skill Improvement, Musical Knowledge, Musicianship, Accomplishment, Skill Refinement, Technique, Play/Fun, Escape from Routine, and Music Listening. The highest rated …

The Light is a twenty-four minute composition for two narrators and chamber orchestra. The two narrators perform the roles of the Apostle John and Moses. After an overview of the piece and a brief history of pieces incorporating narrators, the essay focuses on my compositional process, describing how orchestration, drama, motive, and structure work together in the piece. The Light is organized as a series of five related scenes. In the first scene, God creates light. In the second scene, God places Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden to tend it, allowing them to eat from any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent appears, Adam and Eve succumb to his evil influence, and God banishes them from the Garden of Eden. Many generations have passed when Scene Three begins. Moses relates a story from Israel's journey in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. The people had become frustrated with Moses and with God. When God sent serpents among them as punishment, they appealed to Moses to pray for them. God's answer was for Moses to make a bronze serpent and place it on a pole. Whoever looked at the serpent would live. …

The purpose of this study was to determine if parents trained in the Landreth Filial Therapy Model could demonstrate child-centered play therapy skills as effectively as graduate play therapy students who completed an Introduction to Play Therapy course. The participants in both the parent group and the graduate student group were videotaped in play sessions with children pre- and post-training in order to measure change in adult empathic behavior as defined on the Measurement of Empathy in Adult-Child Interaction (MEACI). The specific skills measured in this study were (a) communicating acceptance to the child, (b) allowing the child to direct his or her own play during the play sessions, (c) demonstrating appropriate levels of involvement in the child's play, and (d) demonstrating empathic behavior toward the child. The Landreth Filial Therapy Model is a training system that utilizes both didactic and dynamic means to train parents and other paraprofessionals to be therapeutic agents of change with children. Parents are taught child-centered play therapy skills to use in weekly home play sessions with their children in order to strengthen the emotional bond between parent and child. The Introduction to Play Therapy course is a graduate-level counseling course at the University of …

Symmetrical cage-annulated podands were synthesized via highly efficient synthetic strategies. Mechanisms to account for the key reaction steps in the syntheses are proposed; the proposed mechanisms receive support from the intermediates that have been isolated and characterized. An unusual complexation-promoted elimination reaction was studied, and a mechanism is proposed to account for the course of this reaction. This unusual elimination may generalized to other rigid systems and thus may extend our understanding of the role played by the host molecules in "cation-capture, anion-activation" via complexation with guest molecules. Thus, host-guest interaction serves not only to activate the anion but also may activate the leaving groups that participate in the complexation. Complexation-promoted elimination provides a convenient method to desymmetrize the cage while avoiding protection/deprotection steps. In addition, it offers a convenient method to prepare a chiral cage spacer by introducing 10 chiral centers into the host system in a single synthetic step. Cage-annulated monocyclic hosts that contain a cage-butylenoxy spacer were synthesized. Comparison of their metal ion complexation behavior as revealed by the results of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), alkali metal picrate extraction, and pseudohydroxide extraction with those displayed by the corresponding hosts that contain cage-ethylenoxy or cage-propylenoxy spacers reveals …

The study investigated the relative effectiveness of different proportions of time spent on physical and mental practice, in the context of a music performance of a tonal pattern over harmonic progressions of two difficulty levels. Using a sampling without replacement procedure, sixty undergraduate students were assigned to four practice groups partially blocked for musical instrument. The groups included a physical practice group, a mental practice group and two combined mental and physical practice groups in the proportions of (a) 66% physical and 33% mental, and (b) 33% physical and 66% mental. Each subject performed a pretest, a 3 minute practice session, and a posttest on both harmonic progressions. Presentation of the harmonic progressions were counterbalanced to control for practice effects All pre- and posttests were recorded and scored according to number of note errors. An ANCOVA procedure using pretest scores as covariates revealed that: (a) there were no differences between the different practice groups on the measure of note errors, (b) there was a significant difference between the two harmonic progressions on the measure of note errors, such that performance on the easy progression was significantly better than performance on the hard progression, and (c) there was a significant interaction …

This Study examines the grades of students using study skill methods and those who do not. The experiment consists of giving the treatment group the opportunity to use well- known study techniques. The Control group could only read the material. Both groups were given ten minutes to read a pre-selected text. The text consisted of an 1,807 word lesson on the, "Technical Training Management System." Each group was given five minutes to take a twenty item quiz. Fifty-five students in the control group were limited to only reading the material. Fifty-six students in the treatment group could choose between highlighting, note-taking, and underlining. The results of the test scores were compared using a t - test for dependent samples. One week later, the same students in each group were re-tested, using the same quiz they had taken earlier. Students had five minutes to review study material. Study material for the treatment group included the same material they had annotated earlier. The Results from each group wascompared. Efforts were made to avoid potential flaws in previous studies, thereby producing more viable results. Results of this study indicate there is no significant difference between the grades of students who use the aforementioned …

Robert Schumann's D-minor Symphony endured harsh criticism during the second half of the nineteenth century because of misunderstandings regarding his compositional approach to the genre of the symphony; changes in performance practices amplified the problems, leading to charges that Schumann was an inept orchestrator. Editions published by Clara Schumann and Alfred Dörffel as well as performing editions prepared by Woldemar Bargiel and Gustav Mahler reflect ideals of the late nineteenth century that differ markedly from those Schumann advanced in his 1851 autograph and in the Symphony's first publication in 1853. An examination of the manuscript sources and the editions authorized by Schumann reveals that he imbued the Symphony with what he called a "special meaning" in the form of an implied narrative. Although Schumann provided no written account of this narrative, it is revealed in orchestrational devices, particularly orchestration, dynamics, and articulation, many of which have been either altered or suppressed by later editors. A reconsideration of these devices as they are transmitted through the authorized sources permits a rediscovery of the work's special meaning and rectifies long-standing misperceptions that have become entrenched in the general literature concerning Schumann in general and the D-minor Symphony in particular.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the perceptions of job satisfaction as defined by management and nonmanagement employees and to compare both parties' perceptions of organizational benefits to a list prepared by the organization's benefit personnel. Turnover is costly to the organization, both in money and in the impact it has on those individuals remaining with the organization. Every effort should be undertaken to reduce the amount of turnover within the organization. A contributing factor leading to turnover may be a gap between what the employees believe is important to them and what management believes is important to the employees. The boundaries of the gap need to be identified before any effort can be made to reduce or bridge the gap. Once the boundaries are identified, policies can be analyzed and the possibility of reducing the gap investigated. Management as a whole must be aware of the needs and wants of their employees before any attempt to develop a retention strategy is undertaken. This knowledge can be acquired only through two-way communication with the employee. The communication process includes the simple process of asking employees for this information and then listening to how they respond. This study suggests …

Advice for Web designers often includes an admonition to use short, scannable, bullet-pointed text, reflecting the common belief that browsing the Web most often involves scanning rather than reading. Literature from several disciplines focuses on the myriad combinations of factors related to online reading but studies of the users' interests and motivations appear to offer a more promising avenue for understanding how users utilize information on Web pages. This study utilized the modified Personal Involvement Inventory (PII), a ten-item instrument used primarily in the marketing and advertising fields, to measure interest and motivation toward a topic presented on the Web. Two sites were constructed from Reader's Digest Association, Inc. online articles and a program written to track students' use of the site. Behavior was measured by the initial choice of short versus longer versions of the main page, the number of pages visited and the amount of time spent on the site. Data were gathered from students at a small, private university in the southwest part of the United States to answer six hypotheses which posited that subjects with higher involvement in a topic presented on the Web and a more positive attitude toward the Web would tend to select …

Conducting research, evaluating research, and publishing scholarly works all play an extremely prominent role for university faculty members. Tenure and promotion decisions are greatly influenced by the perceived value of publications as viewed by members of faculty evaluation committees. Faculty members seeking tenure may be limited to publishing in a limited group of journals perceived to be valuable by members of an academic committee. This study attempted to determine the value of various kinds of periodicals (journals, magazines, and e-journals), based on three principal criteria, as perceived by professionals (university faculty, K-12 practitioners, and corporate trainers) in the educational/instructional technology (E/IT) field. The criteria for journal evaluation were Academic Prestige, General Reading, and Classroom Use. The perceived value of journals based on each criterion was compared to determine any significant differences. Members of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) were asked to rate 30 journals in the E/IT field using the three criteria. Statistically significant differences were found among ratings in 63% of the journals. The statistical analyses indicated that differences in the perceived value of journals among E/IT professionals across the three criteria (Academic Prestige, General Reading, and Classroom Use) were statistically significant. It is also noted …

The Latin Mass is a musical composition in five movements, scored for large choir, standard orchestra, and two soloists. The movements are the standard parts of the Roman Catholic Mass Ordinary. The language is set mainly in Latin with two exceptions: the Kyrie movement is set in Greek (which is the standard Roman Catholic setting), and the Credo is simultaneously recited in English and sung in Latin. The work is scored using conventional notation techniques and employs rather conservative technical demands on both the choir and orchestra. No extended techniques are required of any of the performers. It is set in a modal harmonic language.