In a time of extreme political polarization in America, it is necessary to understand how political attitudes are shaped and how and why political perspectives shift. This study explored political polarization and the search for common ground among American voters in order to evaluate 1) political orientation and associations with current and shifting political attitudes, perceptions, behaviors, and learning; 2) political efficacy and associations with political participation; 3) contributions of individual events, experiences, sources and/or social interactions to shifting political perspectives; and 4) the potential role of observational learning and experiential learning as it relates to political attitudinal change. Through a mixed-methods design, this study utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods in two phases in anticipation of the November 2020 U.S. presidential election. First, a survey was administered nationwide on Facebook in July and August of 2020. Second, a small number of participants that indicated that their political views had shifted during the Trump presidency were interviewed in October 2020 to discover more in-depth responses regarding both the formation and shifts of their political ideologies and attitudes. Quantitative statistical analysis from the survey (n = 1,313) revealed that 1) political orientation was significantly associated with a variety of current and shifting political attitudes, political participation, cognitive perceptions and emotions, social media and news media usage, and learning; and 2) personal and collective political efficacy was significantly associated with increased political participation. Qualitative analysis from the semi-structured interviews (n = 16) utilizing the Framework Method indicated that 1) social interactions with role models and media sources informed shifts in political attitudes, especially in regard to family; 2) deeper understandings of shifting political attitudes emerged when viewed through the observational learning subprocesses of attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation; 3) shifting political attitudes were associated with cognitive perceptions and emotions of partisan ingroups and partisan outgroups; 4) deeper understandings of shifting political attitudes emerged when viewed through the experiential learning stages of returning to the experience, attending to emotions, and re-evaluating the experience; and 5) barriers to shifting political attitudes were related to the cognitive perceptions of reason and emotion, whereas rewards for shifting political attitudes were related to increased political participation and learning. The study’s conclusions reaffirmed that there is widespread political polarization in the United States but that there are certain pathways towards common ground through civility and respect, intentional listening, and through the sharing of personal and emotional stories and lived experiences. Those who did shift their views shared an openness to learning through the observation of role models and sources (e.g., family, friends, mentors or teachers, religious leaders, media) and through reflection on past experiences. Aspects of political common ground were obtained not by agreeing on a contentious issue, but by acknowledging that multiple sides of an argument could be valid. It’s about how we approach the problem rather than how we solve the problem. Political orientation is much more complex than the dichotomous portrayal of left versus right.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two methods of listening and reading instruction when used in the language arts programs at the eighth-grade level as related to listening, reading, study skills, and English achievement. Two groups were studied; one was an experimental group receiving programed material present by the Listen and Read Program and a control group receiving instruction through the regular classroom program.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2015, Texas special education programs were rated among the lowest in the nation. School districts in the state have a substantial need for effective and efficient staff training. In this study, researchers implemented TAPS: A Talk Aloud Problem Solving Approach Packet to teach active listener qualities to staff members in a life skills special education classroom. A multiple baseline across staff members was used to evaluate the effects of the TAPS training on the presence and absence of the staff members' active listener qualities during a pre-test, a post-test, and probes. The staff members that underwent TAPS training acquired all of the active listener qualities as a function of the TAPS training, and the effects of the training maintained during probe sessions. Additionally, TAPS training appeared to improve staff members' scores on the Whimbey Analytical Skills Inventory (WASI) Test and anecdotally improved the quality of staff and student tutoring interactions. Several areas of potential research and improvement are discussed.

This project used an active research approach in order to measure how the incorporation of Directed Listening-Thinking Activities (DLTA) in the classroom promoted increased production in English oral language skills for Spanish speaking fourth and fifth graders.

The use of videotapes has become widespread in ESL classes in recent years. The decline in cost of tapes and VCR equipment has assisted in the spread of this technology. These tapes are often used in listening comprehension classes and may replace or supplement the use of audiotapes. However, research has not established that the addition of the visual element, especially in the movie or TV type context of many videos, is an advantage to the language learner. A total of seventy-six students participated in a listening comprehension recall exercise. Thirty-nine students viewed a videotape segment, and the remaining thirty-seven students listened to the audio portion of the same segment. Each group viewed or listened to the tape two times. Then the groups were given twenty minutes to write a recall. Each paper was scored for total idea units recalled, macropropositions, elaborations, and distortions .

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model in which video materials are effectively used to develop students' listening communication ability. In order to reach this goal, the researcher designed the study procedure. In phase one, literature was reviewed to establish the theoretical framework for the model. In phase two, the validity of the model was tested using the Delphi technique. In phase three, the model Was field tested in two high schools in Japan with 251 11th grade students and 3 Japanese teachers of English participating. In addition, there were 12 teacher observers. Two sets of data, one from the student questionnaire and one from teacher questionnaire, were collected and analyzed along with the researcher's observations. The lesson, based on the model, was well-received by the students and teachers. Almost 80% of the 249 students responding to a 5-point Likert scale question rated the lesson as excellent or very good. Among 15 teachers, 12 rated the lesson as excellent and 3 rated it very good. To an open-ended question to the students, "What was the part you liked best in today's lesson?", 108 students responded "the use of movie/video materials." Teachers were also favorable toward the use of video as a teaching material. Both the students and teachers responded that they thought learners would improve their listening comprehension through this type of lesson. Based on the findings from this study, the researcher has concluded that this model can be utilized in the classroom and will improve listening comprehension of Japanese learners of English. Even though this type of lesson can be taught by any teacher of English in Japan regardless of his/her English language skill, it can be implemented more effectively if teachers are appropriately trained. Therefore, a three-phase workshop for teachers was recommended. / Graduation date: 1993

In Japan, English education in elementary schools is still in the process of innovation. The purpose of this project is to seek the most appropriate and effective way for elementary-level students to acquire listening skills in a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) environment.

The main aim of this research was to explore lecturers’ and students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of teaching listening skills to English foreign language (EFL) students at three Ethiopian universities with the purpose of proposing guidelines and recommendations for effective teaching and learning of EFL listening skills. The research was prompted by a number of research projects which indicated that listening skills and the teaching of listening in the Ethiopian context were not effective resulting in students who are ill equipped for listening effectively. A mixed method approach was followed as a design for the empirical research study. A pragmatic research paradigm, using both quantitative and qualitative methods and then blending the two methods was employed. Quantitative data were collected from 72 lecturers and 158 students at three Ethiopian universities by means of close-ended questionnaires using a five-point Likert scale instrument. For the qualitative phase of the study data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with lecturers and students. Observations of listening lessons presented in the classroom and in the language laboratory were done by means of completing an observation checklist and note-taking. These were used to triangulate data. The analysis of the data obtained by means of the questionnaires and the observation checklist were done using descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data obtained by means of unstructured interviews (which were transcribed verbatim) were coded and divided into themes. The research findings indicated that the lecturers’ perceptions of the activities used during the pre-, while- and post-listening phases and the use of listening material were more positive than those of students and that females perceived the effectiveness less positive than males. The data obtained by means of interview questions confirmed what was found in the quantitative part of the study. Observations carried out in the three universities showed that the teaching of listening skills was mostly poorly done and that the listening material used was not suitable and did not interest students. The use of bottom-up and top-down strategies were found to be used inadequately in the teaching of EFL listening skills. The teaching methods and strategies used, as well as activities provided during each listening phase were found to be generally poor. A model for teaching EFL listening in the classroom was proposed in this study. Lecturers and students expressed their challenges in teaching and learning EFL listening skills and also made recommendations for best practices on how to improve the teaching and learning of EFL listening. These challenges and recommendations for best practices mostly centred around lecturer-related, student-related and institutional-related factors. This study has suggested recommendations pertaining to the lecturers, students, institutions of higher education, the Ethiopian Ministry of Education and schools. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Didactics)

Advances in technologies of voice profiling shed new light on questions of listening and its entanglement with antiblackness as a structuring paradigm of modernity. To contest current conceptions of listening with regards to the question of race and antiblackness while also shining light on the potentials offered by blackness, this dissertation engages listening at three distinct sites that are entangled with this modern question of voice profiling AI. In the process, this dissertation elaborates on the ethical stakes involved in listening itself. Chapter 1 excavates the way in which the ears of enslaved Black lives were ritualized. It centers an analysis of the role of the punishment of ear cropping and how this performed both a claim over slaves’ belonging and an inhibition on their freedom. Scholarship from Hebrew law aids in uncovering the meaning of the specific form of punishment. The chapter concludes by comparing the conception of slaves’ ears to Black artistic expressions such as Harriet Jacobs’s various methods of narration in Incidents of a Slave Girl and Blind Tom Wiggins’ unique use of clusters and graphic notation in Battle of Manassas, so as to demonstrate their methods of resistance and refusal to a claimed all-encompassing regime of listening. Chapter 2 engages modern notions of sound and listening. The way in which sound is theorized and engaged in modern digital technologies is entangled with the conception of what listening is and what it entails. Hermann von Helmholtz provides an axis after which sound and listening, as well as the relation between an inner world of perceptions and an outer world of sensations, has to be engaged as a question of listening as entangled in societal questions. The chapter critically elaborates alongside questions of categorical distinction in sound, such as the use of skull shapes as referents for AI listening, instrument classification systems, and the general question of the form of sound, or sound as object. The concluding Chapter 3 discusses, alongside Sylvia Wynter’s work and Roscoe Mitchell’s piece S II Examples (date) the kinds of questions we must pose in the development of modern AI listening technologies to move past antiblackness. Immanuel Kant’s theorizing of race and his influence on Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s classification of skulls relate tomodern voice profiling AI technology directly through the question of using cranial shapes. Wynter’s work challenges both a turn to varieties that do not allow the addressing of structural antiblackness, and a continuation of claims to proper knowledge on the basis of antiblackness. Ultimately, Wynter aids us in hearing Mitchell’s continual shapeshifting practice on the saxophone as a proposal towards a refiguring of our conception of sound, listening, and us.