This study examines the relationships between foreign language learning beliefs and preferences of 2 Vietnamese learners and beliefs and practices of 2 Native English speaking teachers in a private English school in Vietnam. The learners were not satisfied with learning English in public schools and had many expectations on the course and the teachers while the teachers had to make their learners pleased. Beliefs were reviewed as determinations of actions; beliefs entail knowledge, values, and attitude, and relate closely to identity and experience. The researcher adopted an interpretivist paradigm and three qualitative methods: Repgrid interview, Stimulated recall interview, and The COLT as an observation schedule. The interview data was coded inductively with content analysis method to build up the subjects’ beliefs and belief systems. Then, the systems were compared to find the relationships between their beliefs. To see how their beliefs related with learning preferences and teaching practices, the researcher analysed what they said and made use of the video record of their classroom activities; besides, the teachers’ beliefs were compared with the timing calculation of the activities in their classes. The results showed that beliefs about language learning affected strongly the participants’ preferred ways of teaching and learning and there were tight matches between the teachers’ beliefs and actions in class. There were influences of beliefs of the teachers and learners on each other, they were not direct influences but through their interpretations of the classroom events. However, the influences from the teacher were much clearer. After the course, the learners’ preferences and beliefs about some learning activities were changed and became more reflective. They also started to recognize the benefits of different ways of learning English. Meanwhile, the teachers’ interpretation of their learners’ expectations, learning preferences, and levels strongly affected what and how they taught.

Native advertising has rapidly gone from a relative unknown form of content marketing to a highly sought-after form advertising online in a few short years. With the help of ad blocking services and consumer rejection of advertisements that consumers perceive to invade their privacy, native advertising is projected to continue its rapid growth in popularity. By design, native advertising assumes the form and function of its host’s own content. This study examines whether native advertising has adopted not only the aesthetic form and goals of journalism, but the conventions of journalism formed over more than the past century. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Journalism and Multimedia Arts / MS; / Thesis;

The aim of this thesis is to study native advertising and the public perception of newspaper credibility, and if this form of advertising have any ethical implications for the newspapers. Recent studies show that native advertising is perceived, from the public’s perspective, as a deceptive form of advertisement. Therefore this thesis also seeks to understand how the public copes with this deceptive form of advertisement. This thesis employs a qualitative research approach through focus group studies that include three different age groups, reaching from students aged 20-30 up to retirees aged 65 and up. Findings suggest that native advertising has a negative effect on the readers; the respondents explained that they found this form of advertising deceptive and also ethically problematic for the papers. Results also showed that the readers preferred advertisement where they felt in control of the outcome of the persuasion attempt. The study concludes that the public’s credibility judgment towards the newspapers weaken by native advertising.

Abstract Background Online Advertising is a continuously developing phenomenon, which helps several websites stay financially alive. However, online advertising tends to often be avoided by the consumers exposed to it, due to a number of perceived issues linked to online ads. One group of websites that are particularly dependent on advertising revenue are online news sites. Research on why people avoid ads have been conducted, but is limited to traditional online advertising approaches and older consumer segments, creating a gap which this thesis strives to fill. Purpose The purpose of this research is to investigate Generation Y’s perception of traditional advertising as well as in contrast to the new emerging alternatives. As a result of this, one main research question was formulated alongside with three subquestions. Method The research approach of this study consists of an exploratory research conducted through a multi-method approach with in-depth interviews and focus groups in order to find out how, why and what the subjects experience and perceive when exposed to advertising. Deciding on how to select the sample for the empirical study, the authors heavily focused on finding the appropriate number of participants that also fit suggested profile. In order to analyze the data, the framework analysis’ method and triangulation through multiple analysts was used. Conclusion This study came to the conclusion that most perceived issues, as those described in previous literature, remain for the most part accurate. The perceived issues of Goal Impediment and Ad Irritation are the major influencers for online ad avoidance. Native Advertising is successful in diminishing the perceived issues of Goal Impediment and Ad Irritation, but increased the negative perception of Ad Skepticism. Whitelist indicates to be a initiative that could diminish the issues resulting in Ad Avoidance, but lacks practical implementations.

<p> Community colleges are increasingly accountable for student outcomes and have been focused on closing outcome gaps among groups of students. Nevertheless, Native American students have continued to be among the lowest performing ethnic groups. Yet there has been a dearth of studies on Native American community college student experiences. This dissertation addresses the lack of research by presenting perspectives of Native American community college students. Native American students&rsquo; perspectives on their educational experiences and how those experiences supported or hindered achievement of their educational goals provide a foundation for understanding why outcome gaps persist. Further, these perspectives suggest ways the gaps can be closed. The interviews and focus group conducted with 10 Native American community college students resulted in qualitative data that revealed factors that influenced students&rsquo; educational experiences and educational goals. This study finds that students&rsquo; pathways through community college, factors within the community college (faculty, campus environment, students, services, staff), student development, factors external to the community college (family, work, financial aid, &ldquo;significant life challenges,&rdquo; tribal community), and cultural factors (identity, symbols, behaviors, expectations, &ldquo;rez life,&rdquo; racism, curriculum, historical trauma, Native American classmates) influenced educational experiences and goals. This study posits that by supporting the positive factors and mitigating the negative factors, community colleges can better support Native American students in achieving their educational goals and thus move closer to closing equity gaps. Further, this dissertation recommends further research on each of these factors and how the factors influence and impact Native American community college student success.</p>

This study is based on a previous study made by Ivor Timmis (2002). It explores how important Swedish students find learning English to be and to what extent Swedish student want to conform to native speaker English now that it has become a global language with a multitude of common variants. (Sweden formerly allowed only British and/or American native speaker varieties in English education but have now allowed for other variants as well). The focus of this study was the attitudes and preferences of 69 university students from Västmanlands län and the data was collected using questionnaires. The results suggest that a clear majority of students prefer to learn native speaker English in areas of pronunciation, formal grammar and informal grammar.  Over half of the participants desire to master both formal and informal native speaker English grammar. The results also suggest that even though the students desire to learn informal native speaker English grammar, not all students understand what that means. Based on these results and Timmis’s, this study suggests that the majority of the Swedish university students that participated in the study would prefer to be taught native speaker English, but not all students. Some effort to teach more informal grammar might be wanted by the students since a great majority wish to learn it, but cannot identify it.

The goal of the study is to examine how five preschool teachers were working with children's language development, both in their native language and in the Swedish language. The study will also examine how preschool teachers can perform their work in this area with the same quality no matter what level of knowledge they have of the different languages they encounter in their work. The study is a qualitative study and is based on the empirical of the interviews and observations of five preschool teachers in three preschools in Stockholm, Sweden. The analysis is divided into three themes; The significance of conversation, Communication with several ways of expressions and Individual way of working. In these themes we have described the different ways of work ing with language development that we encountered. The results of the study show that there are many ways, with similarities and differences, to work with children's language development. The results of the study also show that whatever knowledge the preschool teachers had in the different languages, they found ways to teach the children their language, both the Swedish language and their native language. The results also indicate that the size of the group of children could affect how the preschool teachers worked with language development.

Native American Nations have perpetually had the highest rates of poverty and unemployment and the lowest per capita income of any ethnic population in the United States. Additionally, American Indian students have the highest high school dropout rates and lowest academic performance rates as well as the lowest college admission and retention rates in the nation. As Native Nations try to reverse these trends through sustainable economic development, they must do so with a limited number of educated, skilled workers in their own communities and with a complicated relationship with higher education that obstructs their ability to create a viable work force. This qualitative study proposed to research American Indian postsecondary access within the context of Native nations’ sovereignty and their social and economic development. Utilizing a theoretical framework of human capital and its role in rebuilding Native American economies, interviews were conducted with 19 education informants representing federally-recognized tribes in the Southern Plains Region. Major themes included financial issues related to college going in Native populations, familial and community influences, academic readiness, curricular development and delivery, the role of higher education in preparing students for tribal employment, and tribal economic development. Increasing Native American college student success and preparation for tribal employment requires collaboration between the sovereign nations and postsecondary entities that serve their populations. Ultimately, tribes will benefit from developing, or continuing to develop, a culture of college going in their communities, educational institution partnerships that create support services for their students, and curriculum to support the training of future tribal leaders. This study reinforces the importance of human capital in economic development for tribes and highlights the critical role that higher education can play in preparing American Indian students to serve their tribes.

Understanding the impacts of explosive contamination on vegetation is key to understanding explosives behavior in the environment. I quantified shrub growth responses to 1,3,5-trinitroperhydro-1,35-triazine (RDX) soil contamination across three life stages and I hypothesized that RDX would have the greatest impact on seed germination. Morella cerifera seeds were germinated on soils amended with RDX up to 1500 mg RDX kg-1 dry soil. Juvenile and adult individuals were exposed for 6 weeks to soil amended with RDX up to 750 and 1500 mg RDX kg-1 dry soil, respectively. Morphological responses were quantified for juveniles while physiological measurements were quantified for adults. RDX induced a significant response in all age groups and, in accordance with the hypothesis, germination was the most impacted of the three stages. Impacts varied by concentration in addition to life stage, showing that many variables influence plant response to RDX.

This thesis constructs the cultural biography of the National Museum of the American Indian’s Stockbridge-Munsee tote, a twentieth-century souvenir craft, in order to examine the tote’s cultural and cross-cultural associated meanings and how these associated meanings shift from one context to another. It follows the tote’s history including its production, purchase, and transfer. This thesis briefly recounts the Stockbridge-Munsee Indians’ history and focuses on a few examples of craft objects produced prior to the 1960s, when the Stockbridge-Munsee tote was made. Wisconsin Indian Craft, a craft cooperative formed in the 1960s, produced objects such as the Stockbridge-Munsee tote. This tote, along with seventeen other Wisconsin Indian Craft souvenirs, was purchased by the Department of the Interior Indian Arts and Crafts Board in 1964 and transferred to the National Museum of the American Indian’s collection in 2000. This thesis analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the inclusion of the Stockbridge-Munsee tote in the National Museum of the American Indian’s collection. From constructing the Stockbridge-Munsee tote’s cultural biography, this thesis concludes that the tote’s associated meanings do not merely shift from context to context. Rather, these associated meanings build upon one another to create layers of coexisting associated meanings.