As technology has advanced, corporations, government entities, and institutions of higher education have all begun experimenting with online classes and training. In colleges and universities around the world, everything from individual online classes to entire online degree programs are now offered. While many researchers and educators support this trend, many are concerned with whether online education is truly comparable to traditional, live instruction. The goal of this study was to evaluate an online version of a floral design course in comparison to the traditional version of the class. There were 140 students in the sample, including both the online and traditional classes. All were students at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. During the spring semester of 2003, the experimental group was enrolled in the online version of the course, while the control group was enrolled in the traditional version of the course. Students in both groups were asked to fill out surveys at the beginning and end of the semester to collect background information and to evaluate the course. Their floral designs were evaluated at the beginning and end of the class in order to measure design skill, and grades earned in the class were also collected at the end of the semester for comparison purposes. Statistically significant differences were noted in class grades, with traditional students outperforming the Web-based students in lecture points, lab points, and overall course grades. No statistically significant differences were noted in terms of student course satisfaction. In addition, students in the traditional class outperformed Web-based students in design skills. Besides class differences in performance, variables such as gender and distance course preparedness seemed to affect the outcome of some measures. Overall, females outperformed males in both classes. In the Web-based class, students found to be more prepared for distance learning courses fared better than students who were not as prepared. These results may indicate that certain students may do better in an online course than others, and it may be possible to screen these students in advance in order to maximize success in the online classroom.

Lovesickness is a common malady in British literature, but it is also an illness that has been perceived and diagnosed differently in different eras. The nineteenthcentury British novel incorporates a lovesickness that primarily affects women with physical symptoms, including fever, that may end in a female character's death. The fever of female lovesickness includes a delirium that allows a female character to play out the identity crisis she must feel at the loss of a significant relationship and possibly of her social status. Commonly conflated with a type of female madness, the nineteenthcentury novelists often focus less on the delirium and more on the physical symptoms of illness that affect a female character at the loss of love. These physical symptoms require physical care from other characters and often grant the heroine status and comfort. Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Charles Dickens all use subtle variations in lovesickness to identify the presence or absence of a female character's virtue. Jane Austen established lovesickness as a necessary experience for female characters, who choose only if they reveal or conceal their symptoms to a watchful public. Elizabeth Gaskell established both a comic socially constructed lovesickness in which a female character can participate if she is aware of popular culture and a spontaneous lovesickness that affects socially unaware female characters and leads to death. Charles Dickens establishes lovesickness as culturally pervasive by writing a female character who stages lovesickness for the purpose of causing pain to others and a female character who is immune to lovesickness and the rhetoric of love, yet is consistently spoken into others' love stories. Lovesickness becomes a barometer of the soul in several nineteenthcentury novels by which we read a heroine's virtue or lack of virtue and the depth of her loss.

none

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-200).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX97665.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Peter Easton, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Mar. 02, 2003). Includes bibliographical references.

Insug.-diss.--Freiburg i.B. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 182-186.

Issued also as thesis, Institut für Gesellschaftswissenschaften, Berlin. / Bibliographical references included in "Anmerkungs-und Quellenverzeichnis" (p. 239-250).

Diss.--Giessen. / Lebenslauf. Reviews especially the work of Engelke, Lersch, Bröger, Barthel. "Die Bekanntesten deutschen Arbeiterdichter ... von 1895 bis [1932]": p. 10-12. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. "Literatur": 2 p. at end.

Thesis (M.A.)--Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-180).