Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 335-348). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 335-348). Also available on the Internet.

Transcending the boundaries of literature, the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Stanislaw Lem contribute to a dialogue between literary, philosophical, and scientific cultures. A critical approach to these writers that ignores the epistemic dimension in their works opens itself to the charge of misunderstanding their artistic goals and aspirations. In my dissertation I thus define, justify, and conduct an interdisciplinary study of Poe and Lem's works. / My project is underwritten by the epistemological assumption that literary works, and notably works of fiction, can make a contribution to knowledge that can be assessed in terms of interdisciplinary criteria. In the first chapter, where I discuss literature and knowledge within the interdisciplinary context, I examine various epistemological arguments in light of my central assertion. Next I examine the concepts involved in the discussion of literary works. Following the pragmatic re-orientation in literary and philosophical aesthetics, many fundamental concepts we take for granted--artworks, fictions, and texts among them--require exact re-examination and definition. Consequently, in Chapters Two and Three I review and refine the recent theories concerning the nature of works of art, the specificity of literary fictions, and the problem of literary interpretations. / My subsequent discussion of Poe and Lem is built on the theoretical base of (literary) epistemology and analytical aesthetics. I study Poe and Lem's literary fictions and theoretical essays, and the contributions they make to various fields of inquiry. In the process I critique, and sometimes refine, the explicit and implicit hypotheses articulated in their works. Specifically In Chapters Four and Five I discuss strategic and game theoretic models in the interpretation of fiction, including the concepts of communication and rationality. In Chapter Six, completing the epistemological circle inaugurated in Chapter One, I discuss the epistemological and cosmological theories proposed in Poe's "Eureka".

The purpose of the study was to determine if social studies achievement and positive attitudes about social studies would increase when the traditional single textbook approach was supplemented by a related work of children's literature. Two intact classes were randomly assigned to the treatment group which received instruction based on the regularly adopted textbook and the trade book My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier. Two randomly assigned classes composed the control group and received instruction based on the textbook only.The participants in the study were filth grade students at an urban magnet school. Each of two teachers served as instructors working with one control class and one treatment class. The instruments used were the Attitudes Toward Social Studies instrument and the Macmillan test written for the unit of instruction entitled The Colonies Become a Nation. Pretests and posttests were administered to students in each group to assess differences in mean gain scores between groups in both attitude and achievement. In order to determine if the difference between mean gains between the two groups was significant, t-tests were used. An analysis of variance and the Tukey HSD multiple comparison procedure were used to determine how the four sections differed in attitude toward social studies and which differences were significant.There was no significant difference in mean social studies achievement gains between the treatment group and the control group. A significant difference in mean attitude gains between control and treatment groups was found. The results of the t test showed a significant mean gain in positive attitudes about social studies favoring the control group. Evidence from the analysis of variance and the Tukey HSD multiple comparison procedure indicated that the positive attitude gain was linked to the Hawthorne Effect. / Department of Elementary Education

Thesis (M.Ed.(Curriculum and Instructional Design and Development))-Universiteit van Pretoria, 2007. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1996. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-150). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1996. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-150). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S. Ed.)--Bank Street College of Education, New York, 1998. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 145).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 242-258).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-163). Also available on the Internet.