The purpose of this study is to describe the experiences and perceptions of three computer users with visual disabilities as they accessed and reviewed Web pages on the Internet. Attention is focused on the use of the Internet by individuals with visual disabilities: blindness, low vision, and deaf/blindness. Data were gathered through interviews and observation, during eight sessions with each participant. Data were qualitatively analyzed using an inductive process (Hatch, 2002). Data analysis revealed six categories of meaning: interactions with computer; personal characteristics, strategies to find solutions to barriers encountered; personal feeling and opinions; design features, and communication. Sites viewed included commercial, educational, non-profit, and governmental sites. Interviews consisted of structured and unstructured questions. The knowledge gained in this study will add to the literature of Web Accessibility and will contribute to raising awareness of the barriers that computer users with visual disabilities encounter when using the Internet.

This study investigated the life history and influences of Beatrice A. Wright on rehabilitation psychology. The research had four purposes: (1) to record and transcribe recollections of Beatrice A. Wright, the person known as a Founder/Mother of Rehabilitation Psychology, about her life and her work; (2) to trace the development of her major conceptual notions; (3) to explore the interplay between her life and her times; and, (4) to assess the merits of her contributions to the fields of psychology and rehabilitation counseling, as well as to disability rights. The data gathered for this life history included audio recordings of in-depth interviews with Dr. Wright and Louise Barker; a telephone interview with Dr. Miriam Lewin; field notes from non-recordable time spent with Dr. Wright; and her presentations in Knoxville, Tennessee in September 2005. E-mail communication also was used to collect and verify information, and primary and secondary sources were reviewed. Dr. Wright’s own words liberally were used in the body of the document, in order to preserve her personality and views. Data other than that comprising the introduction and conclusion were organized into major chronological segments of her life, which she identifies by major events or her geographical location at the time: the early years, war and transition, Kansas, and Wisconsin. Contextual influences of Dr. Wright’s life provide backdrops against which her actions were analyzed, especially the intellectual tenor of groups associated with Kurt Lewin during the 1930s and 1940s and the status of female psychologists from the 1930s through the 1960s. While Dr. Wright’s life has formed her ideas, the data reveal that her ideas have shaped her life. Dr. Wright has dedicated her professional life to the psychosocial aspects of rehabilitation psychology and their application to real life and has contributed so richly to these areas that recent research confirms her as the most-cited person in the world on those topics. At the same time, she has dedicated her personal life to her family and, still independent at ninety years of age, she continues to enjoy loving interactions with all four generations.

Interaction with the world begins with each window we open or door we pass through. Potentially our interactions alter another’s perceptions. Examining this premise through a philosophical investigation, this dissertation clarifies my position, roles, and the affect on the lives of my students by applying Maxine Greene’s (1995) aesthetic theory. Due to personal experiences teaching in public and private schools, concerns for effective teacher preparation, and meaningful practice, my research began with the question: What does Maxine Greene’s aesthetics theory offer K-12 education and educational reform? Theoretical underpinnings for this thesis were cultural studies, critical pedagogy, care theory, social justice in aesthetic education, and imagination. Each of these ideas filters the work of Maxine Greene in aesthetics education while leading me to add to aesthetics theory with my theory on imagination, the Web of Betweeness. The Web of Betweeness defines imagination as an electrically charged thought moving beyond the sense of self and into a multidimensional realm; imaginative thought spans from a personal thought into a creative action. The theory of a Web of Betweeness sees the imagination in a dual role helping a person discover who they are and who they may become.

To counteract the relative isolation and increasing de-valuation of the social foundations of education within teacher preparation programs in colleges of education in the United States, the purpose of this study was to contextualize the multi-faceted professional lives of educators who teach within this interdisciplinary academic field. Using a qualitative methodology encompassing elements of Delphi technique and grounded theory, current assessments of their employment in higher education settings included analysis of present conditions and changes they have experienced throughout the courses of their professorial careers. A comprehensive examination of the present circumstances of the foundations of education included a critique of the history of the discipline, considered foundational for scrutinizing contemporary issues. The social foundations of education are involved in another period of marginalization due to the current political and social milieus which define schooling success through the application of narrowly-conceived, quantitative accountability measures. Internal and external pressures on teacher preparation programs within colleges of education in the United States have impacted the viability of the social foundations in the following ways: isolation of practitioners within colleges of education; separate departmental placements from teacher education programs; decreases in course requirements and in new hires in the field; declining influence in curriculum development and implementation; dearth of participation in educational policy formation; and, student resistance to content related to pluralism in schooling and society. Recommendations centered on reconstructing a unified identity for the social foundations of education, clearly communicating the mission and purposes of its content and perspectives through collaborative efforts, and dramatically increasing the connectedness of social foundations educators to others. These diverse stakeholders included others within the discipline, teacher education programs and colleagues, other academicians, public school personnel, community members, and important national and global initiatives which affect equitable schooling opportunities for diverse individuals and groups.

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to gain a better understanding of daily routines in a prekindergarten setting. The study was conducted in a Tennessee prekindergarten in a pod-style classroom. Participants were nine adults (teachers and paraprofessionals) and 47 preschool children. Naturalistic qualitative methods of observation and participant interviews provided the data for interpretative analysis (Hatch, 2002). Knowledge of activities and participant perspectives was gained that was instrumental to understanding the more generic case of daily routines in early childhood settings. Factors found to be influential to routine design and enactment were the setting, teacher power and philosophical stance, and children’s developing memory for routine events.

In order to determine the concurrent and predictive validity of the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test- Group Ability Test (UNIT-GAT; McCallum & Bracken, in press), the UNIT-GAT and the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT; Naglieri, 1997a) were administered in counter-balanced order to 93 students. In addition, 40 students were rated on the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence – Gifted Screening Scales (UNIT-GSS; McCallum & Bracken, in press). The correlation coefficient of r = .36 between the UNITGAT total raw score and the NNAT was statistically significant at the p < .01 level. The UNIT-GAT scale score correlations with the NNAT total ranged from r = .18 for the Symbolic Scale to r= .53 (p< .01) for the Nonsymbolic Scale. The UNIT-GAT total raw score correlations with the UNIT-GSS composite and scales ranged from r = -.06 between both the Emotional and Science scales to r = .19 on the Creative Scale. None of the correlations were statistically significant. The correlations between the scales of the UNIT-GAT and composites of the UNIT-GSS ranged between r= -.05 (UNIT-GAT Memory Scale and UNIT-GSS General Aptitudes Composite) to r = .20 (UNIT-GAT Reasoning Scale and UNIT-GSS General Aptitudes Composite). Correlations between the scales of the UNIT-GAT and the scales of the UNIT-GSS ranged from r = -.30 between the UNIT-GAT Memory Scale and UNIT-GSS Emotional Scale to r = .25 between the UNIT-GAT Nonsymbolic Scale and UNIT-GSS Creative Scale. Stepwise multiple regression analysis did not reveal any significant utility by the UNIT-GAT total raw score or the NNAT total raw score to predict teacher-ratings on the UNIT-GSS General Aptitude and Specific Academic Aptitude Composites. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.

The study examined the effects of two conditions—task choice and reward—on 1) performance during a treatment phase and 2) performance and voluntary engagement after treatment conditions were removed. Voluntary engagement was measured during a continuous-choice activity during which students chose between math tasks and distractor tasks for 10 min. During the treatment phase, students assigned to the Choice conditions were given a choice of math worksheet types, whereas students in the No-Choice conditions were assigned a math worksheet type. Additionally, students worked under either a performance-contingent bonus point condition or a no bonus condition. During treatment, students completed one of two addition worksheets for a 5-min period and answered one question related to perception of choice regarding the task at the end of the assignment. In pretest, posttest, and followup phases, students participated in a 5-min math performance activity and a 10-min continuous-choice activity. A repeated measures analysis of covariance mixed design (with treatment phases as the repeated measure and choice condition and reward condition as between-subjects variables) was used in the analysis of both math performance and voluntary engagement in math activity. Neither voluntary engagement nor math performance was significantly affected by the treatment conditions. However, visual inspection of plots of the data indicate high levels of voluntary engagement during the posttest phase for students who received both the provision of choice and performance-based bonus points during the treatment phase, followed by students who received the provision of choice with no external reward. Visual inspection indicates that students who received bonus points and no choice of assignments showed the highest levels of performance while treatment conditions were in place (followed by students who received the provision of both bonus points and choice) and on the short-term posttest measure. The data tentatively suggest an additive effect of bonus points and choice on voluntary engagement measures. Students who received neither the provision of choice nor bonus points displayed the lowest levels of performance on almost all measures.

The current epidemic of obesity has caught the attention of the entire nation as the social, economic, and personal consequences of being overweight or obese affect everyone from politicians to insurance companies, employers to health care providers and health and medical industries across the country (National Institutes of Health, 2000). In response, the physical aspects of weight loss have been examined in great detail. However, the psychological, emotional and social factors that are an integral part of the process are often neglected. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the experience of significant weight loss. Utilizing the phenomenological method based on the philosophical underpinnings of Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962), 12 individual experiences of weight loss were analyzed to find descriptive themes of the weight loss experience. Individuals (23-72 years old) who had lost at least 20% of their body weight (50-200 pounds) participated in one-on-one audiorecorded interviews describing their personal experience with weight loss. Themes that emerged include: (a) Control/Freedom; (b) Changing; (c) Choosing; and (d) Size/Image. Each of these themes is grounded in Body, Self and Other (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). Individuals engaged in a continuous struggle between control (being controlled by weight) and freedom (controlling the weight and being free from it). Nearly all participants distinctly identified a conscious choice or decision to change their lives and thus through daily personal choices, external triggers, support, encouragement and setbacks along the way, the battle began. This lifestyle change was further described as a transformation, a path, a journey, and a process as physical, psychological, emotional, and social changes were discovered. Individuals described their bodies changing in physical size and image as they were personally aware of it as well as when others noticed it. Participants’ descriptions shed light on the phenomenon of weight loss which may aid researchers, teachers, health and fitness professionals, doctors and other health care providers in their treatment approaches. This research points to new possibilities for addressing the problems associated with overweight and obesity across the globe.

In order to determine when and where reading skill differences between males and females emerge, the performance of 1,332 students from a rural school district in East Tennessee was evaluated on five reading measures from the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) across kindergarten through fifth grade. Students were administered Initial Sound Fluency (ISF), Letter Naming Fluency (LNF), Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF), Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), and Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) measures based on the DIBELS administration schedule. A two-way repeated measures ANOVA with time of year (fall, winter, spring) serving as the within-subjects variable and gender (male, female) serving as the between-subjects variable was conducted at each grade level for each measure administered. However, in first grade, LNF was only administered at one time (fall). For this measure, an independent t-test was conducted. Significant differences were found in favor of females for all measures administered in kindergarten (ISF, LNF, PSF, NWF). Differences decreased to nonsignificance in first grade for LNF and NWF. While a significant female advantage persisted through first grade for PSF, the effect size decreased. For ORF, a significant female advantage did not emerge until third grade. This difference persisted through fourth grade, but decreased to nonsignificance in fifth grade. Discussion focuses on implications of these findings, limitations of the study, and directions for future research. Particular emphasis is placed on the implications of the findings regarding physiological-maturational and cultural-societal theories of gender differences in reading.

The dissertation intends to develop a new approach to the identification of the best factor pattern structure. This new approach is a multivariate regression analysis where factor scores are regressed on original variables. The dissertation shows the versatility of information model selection criteria, Bozdogan's ICOMP- type criteria in particular, in two types of modeling problems: determining the number of factors in factor analysis and working as the fitness function for Genetic Algorithm.