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The current study examined two methods of language sampling (interview and the Dixit Method) in early adolescents with typical language development. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the two procedures in eliciting lexical diversity in spoken language samples in the early adolescent population. To examine lexical diversity, traditional methods of analysis (type token ratio, average type token ratio, and mean length of utterance) were applied. However, because literature historically alludes to flaws in these traditional methods, the researchers also applied an ecological approach to analysis of lexical diversity proposed by Scott Jarvis (2013). Student participants (n = 22) in the sixth grade (11:0 -12:11 years of age) were recruited through a local middle school. Both methods of language sampling were compared in a within-subject design for diversity of spoken language samples by applying the previously mentioned analysis procedures. The data was evaluated using a pairedsamples two-tailed t test. Although the sample size was small, evidence from this study indicates the Dixit Method provides a more holistic view of lexical diversity than the traditional method by considering six ecological components that are reflected in typical language use.

Individuals in certified nursing facilities (CNF) often experience social isolation and have limited opportunities to exercise. Bingocize®, an evidence-based healthpromotion program, is a combination of exercise and Bingo and provides opportunities for CNF resident interaction. Limited tools are available to quantify social engagement displayed by nursing home residents. Research suggests that intergenerational programming can positively affect social engagement. The present pilot study focused on the implementation of the Fun and Social Engagement (FUSE) evaluation to measure social engagement displayed by nursing home residents during Bingocize® sessions. The FUSE combined observation and self-report measures to yield a total social engagement score. Social engagement data were collected during Bingocize® sessions with university students interacting with residents and without student presence. Participants (M age = 82) included 35 residents from certified nursing facilities in Kentucky that receive funding from the Civil Money Penalty grant by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The purpose of this study was to determine if participants display increased positive social engagement during Bingocize® sessions when students are present versus when they are not, as well as if there is a difference between the participants’ self-report measure of engagement versus the observational report. Data were collected across four Bingocize® sessions, two with intergenerational programming and two without. Paired t-tests were conducted to determine overall participant engagement scores with and without student presence. Because of absenteeism, only two of the comparisons had a sufficient number of participants to analyze the effect of student presence. Comparing scores of the same residents, FUSE scores were higher in sessions with students present versus when students were not (p < .05). A two-sample t-test revealed that residents who reported happiness had higher observational scores than those who reported they were not happy. The results of this pilot study are tentative due to limited number of participants at some of the sessions. Future studies are needed to determine reliability of the FUSE. Nevertheless, this study suggests that the FUSE is a feasible tool for measuring fun and social engagement during Bingocize® and that university students have a positive effect on resident social engagement.

Word recognition is based on the complex interplay of bottom up processing of acoustic input and corresponding top-down processing based on linguistic redundancies (i.e., contextual cues). Friedrich and Kotz (2007) investigated the timeline of integrating top-down and bottom-up processes among young adults with normal hearing using sentences presented in quiet. As a follow-up study, also with young adults with normal hearing (Experiment 1 of this dissertation), we used sentences embedded in multi-talker background noise and found similar results to Friedrich and Kotz (2007); but, with the use of principal component analysis (PCA) unveiled additional effects of phonological and semantic integration of spoken sentences presented in background noise. These past studies provide evidence of the time course of bottom-up and top-down mechanisms among young adult listeners in quiet and in noise; however, it is unknown if a similar pattern would be present among older adult listeners, which was the primary goal of the dissertation. In Experiment 2, we aimed to elucidate the time-course, and behavioral and neural correlates of word recognition primed by speech-in-noise in older adults with near normal hearing (i.e., thresholds ≤ 25 dB-HL through 3000 Hz and minimal high frequency hearing loss). Older adults often report difficulty understanding speech in the presence of background noise. Degradation in peripheral and central auditory processing along with age-related cognitive decline has been hypothesized as reasons why older adults struggle in the presence of noise.

Some disciplines are inherently complex and challenging to learn. This research attempts to design an instructional strategy for CBL systems to simplify learning certain complex domains. Firstly, problem transformation, a constructionist instructional technique, is used to promote active learning by encouraging students to construct more complex artefacts based on less complex ones. Scaffolding is used at the initial learning stages to alleviate the difficulty associated with complex transformation processes. The proposed instructional strategy brings various techniques together to enhance the learning experience. A functional prototype is implemented with Object-Z as the exemplar subject. Both objective and subjective evaluations using the prototype indicate that the proposed CBL system has a statistically significant impact on learning a complex domain. CBL systems include Learner models to provide adaptable support tailored to individual learners. Bayesian theory is used in general to manage uncertainty in Learner models. In this research, a fuzzy logic based locally intelligent Learner model is utilized. The fuzzy model is simple to design and implement, and easy to understand and explain, as well as efficient. Bayesian theory is used to complement the fuzzy model. Evaluation shows that the accuracy of the proposed Learner model is statistically significant. Further, opening Learner model reduces uncertainty, and the fuzzy rules are simple and resemble human reasoning processes. Therefore, it is argued that opening a fuzzy Learner model is both easy and effective. Scaffolding requires formative assessments. In this research, a confidence based multiple test marking scheme is proposed as traditional schemes are not suitable for measuring partial knowledge. Subjective evaluation confirms that the proposed schema is effective. Finally, a step-by-step methodology to transform simple UML class diagrams to Object-Z schemas is designed in order to implement problem transformation. This methodology could be extended to implement a semi-automated translation system for UML to Object Models.

This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part considers and develops some of the statistics used in genetic programming (GP) while the second uses those statistics to study and develop a form of incremental evolution and an early termination heuristic for GP. The first part looks in detail at success proportion, Koza's minimum computational effort, and a measure we rename "success effort". We describe and develop methods to produce confidence intervals for these measures as well as confidence intervals for the difference and ratio of these measures. The second part studies Jackson's fitness-based incremental evolution. If the number of fitness evaluations are considered (rather than the number of generations) then we find some potential benefit through reduction in the effort required to find a solution. We then automate the incremental evolution method and show a statistically significant improvement compared to GP with automatically defined functions (ADFs). The success effort measure is shown to have the critical advantage over Koza's measure as it has the ability to include a decreasing cost of failure. We capitalise on this advantage by demonstrating an early termination heuristic that again offers a statistically significant advantage.

In the computer science community, there is considerable debate about the appropriate sequence for introducing object-oriented concepts to novice programmers. Research into novice programming has struggled to identify the critical aspects that would provide a consistently successful approach to teaching introductory object-oriented programming. Starting from the premise that the conceptions of a task determine the type of output from the task, assisting novice programmers to become aware of what the required output should be, may lay a foundation for improving learning. This study adopted a phenomenographic approach. Thirty one practitioners were interviewed about the ways in which they experience object-oriented programming and categories of description and critical aspects were identified. These critical aspects were then used to examine the spaces of learning provided in twenty introductory textbooks. The study uncovered critical aspects that related to the way that practitioners expressed their understanding of an object-oriented program and the influences on their approach to designing programs. The study of the textbooks revealed a large variability in the cover of these critical aspects.

The motivation for the research carried out was to develop a rule based traffic management scheme for DiffServ networks with a view to introducing QoS (Quality of Service). This required definition of rules for congestion management/control based on the type and nature of IP traffic encountered, and then constructing and storing these rules to enable future access for application and enforcement. We first developed the required rule base and then developed the software based mobile agents using the Java (RMI) application package, for accessing these rules for application and enforcement. Consequently, these mobile agents act as smart traffic managers at nodes/routers in the computer based communication network and manage congestion.

This thesis presents an e-learning solution to facilitate formative assessment of electronically submitted open-ended written assignments.It is widely accepted that formative assessment is highly beneficial to student leaning. A number of researchers are active in developing specialized approaches and software systems for assisting formative assessment of student work. However, no comprehensive e-learning solution exists for facilitating formative assessment of students' open-ended written work. The project presented in this thesis has developed a new approach for using computers to facilitate formative assessment of electronically submitted open-ended written assignments.Based on the literature review of the education theories around formative assessment and current computer software technologies, this project has developed three principles for e-learning support for formative assessment of open-ended written assignments:1. It needs to facilitate all the activities that are potentially required for formative assessment of student assignments (for example, the creation of assessment criteria, the submission of assignments, and the analysis of the assessment results), not only the marking activity to create feedback on assignments.2. It needs to provide an onscreen marking tool which enables human markers to mark open-ended written assignments in an intuitive and efficient way by replicating their paper-based assessment approaches.3. It needs to provide a generic solution for facilitating formative assessment of open-ended written assignments from all disciplines, not a limited solution restricted to some specific domains (for example, computers science or business courses).Based on these principles, a specification of an e-learning system for facilitating formative assessment of open-ended written assignment was developed and a system was implemented accordingly. This system, called the Written Assignment Assessment (WAA) system, has been already used in the assignment marking of several courses at Massey University.

In recent years, new visualisation techniques and devices, such as remote visualisation and stereoscopic displays, have been developed to help researchers. In a remote visualisation environment the user may want to see visualisation on a different device, such as a PDA or stereo device, and in different circumstances. Each device needs to be configured correctly, otherwise it may lead to an incorrect rendering of the output. For end users, however, it can be difficult to configure each device without a knowledge of the device property and rendering. Therefore, in a multiple user and multiple display environment, to obtain the correct display for each device can be a challenge. In this project, the focus on investigating a solution that can support end users to use different display devices easily. The proposed solution is to develop an application that can support the ad-hoc use of any display device without the system being preconfigured in advance. Thus, end users can obtain the correct visualisation output without any complex rendering configuration. We develop a client-server based approach to this problem. The client application can detect the properties of a device and the server application can use these properties to configure the rendering software to generate the correct image for subsequent display on the device. The approach has been evaluated through many tests and the results show that using the application is a useful in helping end users use different display devices in visualisation.