1999 was the first year that Year 8 Maori immersion students were included in national monitoring in New Zealand. The thesis explores how bilingualism, being a second language learner, and culture impact on student performance. It details the National Education Monitoring Project�s (NEMP) efforts to create fair and valid cross-language and cross-culture assessment. The thesis looks at overseas research on the development, translation and administration of tasks and relates this to NEMP�s processes. Issues and problems that arose during the development, translation and administration of tasks are discussed. Several positions emerge from this thesis. Firstly, that despite the problems encountered, there were some clear �benefits�. Benefits lay primarily in: recognition of the complexity of cross-language and cross-cultural assessment, �improved� assessment and translation processes, professional development, new understanding and knowledge areas, identification of areas for future research and the accumulation of data (albeit in some instances problematic). Secondly, that NEMP went to great efforts to consult with and involve Maori. However, the relationship between NEMP and Maori was compromised in that some sectors within immersion education were ambivalent about participating in national monitoring. This ambivalence impacted in a number of ways on the project and the assessment of immersion students. Thirdly, that the inclusion of immersion students in national monitoring needs to be seen within the wider social, political and historical context of New Zealand. Assessment is not a neutral process. Assessment is a social and political activity that has the potential to advantage certain groups in society and disadvantage others. Fourthly, despite NEMP�s efforts to be fair, inclusive and thorough in its processes there were significant issues that compromised students� performance and the quality of the information gathered. Limited language skills of some students, cultural differences, translation and task administration problems at times worked to the disadvantage of immersion students and raise questions about the validity of some findings. Finally, I suggest that the inclusion of Maori immersion students in national monitoring is in some respects premature and unfair. In particular, questions need to be asked about the fairness and validity of making comparisons between bilingual, second language learners in Maori immersion settings and monolingual Maori students learning in English in the mainstream.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Virtual worlds are online communities that enable user interaction via avatars in a computer-based simulated environment. In recent years, the fast growth of virtual worlds and their enormous potential for various applications have attracted much attention. Though the uses of virtual worlds are becoming numerous in diverse fields, the core issue for their development from the perspective of gamers is to maximize user immersion. This paper tackles the issue from the perspective of game designers and explores the immersive dimensions of users via an experiment. The experimental platform is a specific virtual world, Second Life, and a particular gaming situation, dancing. The main manipulation involves altering the graphic realism level of both the avatar¡¯s appearance and the dancing environment. The research aims to find out whether there is a correlation between graphic realism and user immersion and, if there is, what element(s) or degrees of realism will lead to different levels of user immersion.

The study evaluated the effects of a Family Literacy program on Grade 1 French Immersion (FI) children’s language and literacy development. Family Literacy programs aim to encourage parents’ involvement in their children’s early literacy development and are associated with children’s increased performance on measures of early literacy. FI students typically lag behind their English program (EP) peers in English reading. It was hypothesized that a Family Literacy program for FI children would assist them in developing their English and French language and literacy skills. The study involved 71 Grade 1 children. The sample included both FI and EP children and their parents. The FI sample included a group of families who participated in the Family Literacy program and a control group of families who did not receive the intervention. The EP sample acted as a second control group. All children were administered a battery of language and literacy measures in English and in French (FI only) at three time points throughout Grade 1. Results showed that FI children who participated in the program made significantly larger gains in English writing than the FI control group. In addition, findings suggest that gains made by FI children following their participation in the program did not differ from those made by their EP peers who did not attend the program. Qualitative findings provide evidence that FI families who participated in the Family Literacy program increased their engagement in home literacy activities throughout the program, indicating that they adopted the strategies and techniques that were promoted by the program.

The study evaluated the effects of a Family Literacy program on Grade 1 French Immersion (FI) children’s language and literacy development. Family Literacy programs aim to encourage parents’ involvement in their children’s early literacy development and are associated with children’s increased performance on measures of early literacy. FI students typically lag behind their English program (EP) peers in English reading. It was hypothesized that a Family Literacy program for FI children would assist them in developing their English and French language and literacy skills. The study involved 71 Grade 1 children. The sample included both FI and EP children and their parents. The FI sample included a group of families who participated in the Family Literacy program and a control group of families who did not receive the intervention. The EP sample acted as a second control group. All children were administered a battery of language and literacy measures in English and in French (FI only) at three time points throughout Grade 1. Results showed that FI children who participated in the program made significantly larger gains in English writing than the FI control group. In addition, findings suggest that gains made by FI children following their participation in the program did not differ from those made by their EP peers who did not attend the program. Qualitative findings provide evidence that FI families who participated in the Family Literacy program increased their engagement in home literacy activities throughout the program, indicating that they adopted the strategies and techniques that were promoted by the program.

MMORPG game as the a representative product of video game from its birth to the present more than several decades, have been developing at an astonishing speed and MMORPG player groups have expanded. Nevertheless, there are questions being raised of the relatively new and successful field of sense of immersion of MMORPG game design. In the previous studies, the theory of flow had been testified to be the tremendously significant to explore sense of immersion while performing the activities and it had been applied to many different domains. Based on three conditions of that are necessary to achieve the flow state, the paper addresses the predicaments by analyzing the research results in relation to previous design report on the sense of immersion of MMORPG game design. The paper also provides the constrictive thoughts and productive sketches on how to promote the sense of immersion of MMORPG game using the design artifacts in an early design process.

As interactors we often allude to a sense of presence, of being there, when experiencing interactive artifacts. Digital technologies can create a sense of presence within a synthetic environment, that of being in a technologically mediated space. As a result, ideas of space and place are fundamental to the use of digital media. Related metaphors pervade our language and use of technology; we explore virtual worlds, surf online, and chat in rooms. The field of humanist geography can be used to examine digital media practice across several domains. Exploring the concept of place in relationship to a video game, website, or mixed reality environments question contemporary definitions of presence. As a result, a theoretical foundation for the design of artifacts may create a strong sense of place, and thus enhance our understanding of presence.

The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of possible factors that lead to academic success for African American children who participated in two-way immersion programs. In order to examine the perceptions, the following areas were explored: 1.) The evolution of the academic achievement gap that exists between African American and Anglo children and the reasons theorists gave as to why the gap exists, as well as the importance of this connection to two-way immersion program participation 2.) The evolution of the modern two-way immersion language program via its development through bilingual education, and 3.) The development of Canadian twoway immersion language programs, and how political, economic, and cultural factors have impacted their successful implementation. The research method consisted of purposeful sampling of six African-American children in fourth and fifth grade who are participants in an elementary two-way immersion language program and their primary caregivers. The interviews were audio taped with notes taken for clarity. The data revealed that the primary caregivers perceived the participation of their children in a two-way language immersion program to be an educational move which would enhance the lives of their children economically, educationally and socially. The primary caregivers maintained involvement in the education of their children through facilitating homework completion in Spanish, communicating with teachers on a regular basis, participating in PTO, and facilitating structured and unstructured extra curricular activities with family and friends. The children perceived positive teacher interaction to play an important role in their academic success. They had positive experiences speaking Spanish with friends, family, and persons that they did not know. The primary caregivers perceived that the school and the district did not provide enough additional support to facilitate Spanish language acquisition for their children. This would indicate that more support from the school and the district is needed for future groups of African-American children in two-way immersion language programs.

This thesis first presents a novel and highly accurate methodology for investigating the kinetics of photoacid diffusion and catalyzed-deprotection of positive-tone chemically amplified resists during post exposure bake (PEB) by in-situ monitoring the change of resist and capacitance (RC) of resist film during PEB. Deprotection converts the protecting group to volatile group, which changes the dielectric constant of resist. So the deprotection rate can be extracted from the change of capacitance. The photoacid diffusivity is extracted from the resistance change because diffusivity determines the rate of change of the acid distribution. Furthermore, by comparing the R and C curves, the dependence of acid diffusivity on reaction state can be extracted. The kinetics of non-Fickean acid transportation, deprotection, free volume generation and absorption/escaping, and resist shrinkage is analyzed and a comprehensive model is proposed that includes these chemical/physical mechanisms. Then in this thesis a novel lithographic technique, liquid immersion contact lithography (LICL) is proposed and the simulations are performed to illustrate its main features and advantages. Significant depth-of-field (DOF) enhancement can be achieved for large pitch gratings with deep-UV light (λ=248nm) illumination with both TM and TE polarizations by liquid immersion. Better than 100nm DOF can be achieved by when printing 70nm apertures. The simulation results show that it is very promising to apply this technique in scanning near field optical microscopy. Finally, a rigorous, full vector imaging model of non-ideal mask is developed and the simulation of the imaging of such a mask with 2D roughness is performed. Line edge roughness (LER) has been a major issue limiting the performance of sub-100nm photolithography. A lot of factors contribute to LER, including mask roughness, lens imperfection, resist chemistry, process variation, etc. To evaluate the effect of mask roughness on LER, a rigorous full vector model has been developed by the author. We calculate the electromagnetic (EM) field immediately after a rough mask by using TEMPEST and simulate the projected wafer image with SPLAT. The EM field and wafer image deviate from those from an ideal mask. LER is finally calculated based on the projected image.

Diss.--Köln, 1998. / Bibliogr. p. [205]-226.