The effect of multimedia instruction on achievement of college history students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of multimedia instruction on achievement of college students in AMH 2010 from exploration and discovery to1865. A non-equivalent control group design was used. The dependent variable was achievement. The independent variables were learning styles method of instruction, and visual clarifiers (notes). The study was conducted using two history sections from Palm Beach Community College, in Boca Raton, Florida, between August and December, 1998. Data were obtained by means of placement scores, posttests, the Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS), and a researcher-developed student survey. Statistical analysis of the data was done using SPSS statistical software. Demographic variables were compared using Chi square. T tests were run on the posttests to determine the equality of variances. The posttest scores of the groups were compared using the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at the .05 level of significance. The first hypothesis there is a significant difference in students' learning of U.S. History when students receive multimedia instruction was supported, F = (1, 52)= 688, p < .0005, and F = (1, 53) = 8.52, p < .005for Tests 2 and 3, respectively. The second hypothesis there is a significant difference on the effectiveness of multimedia instruction based on students' various learning preferences was not supported. The last hypotheses there is a significant difference on students' learning of U.S. History when students whose first language is other than English and students who need remediation receive visual clarifiers were not supported. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated no difference between the groups on Test 1, Test 2, or Test 3: F (1, 4 5)= .01, p < .940, F (l, 52) = .77, p < .385, and F (1,53) =.17, p > .678, respectively, for language. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated no significant difference on Test 1, Test 2, or Test 3, between the groups on the variable remediation: F (1, 45) = .31, p < .580, F (1, 52) = 1.44, p < .236, and F (1, 53) = .21, p < .645, respectively.

The United States and the politics of trade: the banana war with Europe and the Caribbean

This thesis examines the involvement of the United States in the decade-long trade dispute before the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the European Union's preferential banana regime. Washington's justification for bringing this case to the WTO comes from Section 301 of the U.S. trade act, which allows for disputes to be undertaken if U.S. "interests" are violated; however, this is the first case ever undertaken by the United States that does not directly threaten any American banana industry, nor affect any American jobs. Why, then, would the United States involve itself in this European-Caribbean-Latin American dispute? It is the contention of this thesis that the United States thrust itself headlong into this debate for two reasons: domestically, the United States Trade Representative came under pressure, via the White House and Congress, from Chiquita CEO Carl Lindner, who in the past decade donated more than $7.1 million to American politicians to take the case to the WTO. Internationally, the United States used the case as an opportunity to assert its power over Europe, with the Eastern Caribbean islands being caught in the economic crossfire. According to existing literature, in undertaking this case, the United States did as any nation would: it operated within both domestic and international levels, satisfying at each level key interests, with the overall goal of maintaining the nation's best interests.

Social paranoia and absurdist fiction in Cold War America and Soviet Russia: a comparative study

This thesis explores the theme of social paranoia as depicted in the Absurdist fiction of Cold War America and Soviet Russia. The central hypothesis informing this research maintains that, despite the ideology of moral and cultural “Otherness” constructed and reinforced by both nations throughout much of twentieth century, the US and the Soviet Union more often than not functioned as mirror images of paranoia and suspicion. Much of the fiction produced in Russia from the Revolution onwards and in the US during the Cold War period highlights how these two ostensibly irreconcilable nations were consumed by similar fears and gripped by an equally pervasive paranoia. These parallel conditions of anxiety and mistrust led to a surprising congruity of literary responses, which transcended the ideological divide between capitalism and communism and, as such, underscored the homogeny of fear which lay beneath the façade of constructed difference. I contend that, because Soviet Russia and the America of the Cold War period were nations consumed by fear and suspicion, authors living in both countries became preoccupied by the mechanics of such deeply paranoid societies. Consequently, much of the fiction of the US and the Soviet Union during this period was preoccupied with the themes of paranoia, conspiracy, intensive bureaucracy and the politicisation of science, which resulted in the terror of the Nuclear Age. This thesis explores how these central themes unite apparently diverse literary texts and illustrate the uniformity of terror which transcended both the physical and ideological boundaries separating the United States and the Soviet Union. In doing so, this research focuses primarily on the multi-faceted manifestations of paranoia in selected works by Soviet authors Mikhail Bulgakov, Daniil Kharms and Yuli Daniel, and American authors Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut. Focusing on key works by each author, this research considers these texts as products of two culturally diverse, yet equally paranoid societies and explores their preoccupation with issues of spying, infiltration and conspiracy. This thesis thus emphasises how these authors counter simplistic notions of Cold War Otherness by revealing two nations possessed by a similar sense of vulnerability and insecurity. Furthermore, this thesis examines how this social anxiety is reinforced by the way in which these authors position issues such as the mechanics of the bureaucratic system and clandestine scientific experimentation as the focal point of the paranoid imagination. Ultimately, by examining the concordance of paranoiac representation in America and the Soviet Union during this period, I demonstrate that these ostensibly divergent nations harboured similar fears and insecurities.

The Mathematics Anxiety of Bilingual Community College Students

Math anxiety levels and performance outcomes were compared for bilingual and monolingual community college Intermediate Algebra students attending a culturally diverse urban commuter college. Participants (N = 618, 250 men, 368 women; 361 monolingual, 257 bilingual) completed the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS) and a demographics instrument. Bilingual and monolingual students reported comparable mean AMAS scores (20.6 and 20.7, respectively) and comparable proportions of math anxious individuals (50% and 48%, respectively). Factor analysis of AMAS scores, using principal component analysis by varimax rotation, yielded similar two-factor structures for both populations -- assessment and learning content -- accounting for 65.6% of the trace for bilingual AMAS scores. Statistically significant predictor variables for levels of math anxiety for the bilingual participants included (a) preparatory course enrollment (β = .236, p = .041) with those enrolled in prior preparatory courses scoring higher, (b) education major (β = .285, p = .018) with education majors scoring higher, and (c) business major (β = .252, p = .032) with business majors scoring higher. One statistically significant predictor variable emerged for monolingual students, gender (β = -.085, p = .001) with females ranking higher. Age, income, race, ethnicity, U.S. origin, science or health science majors did not emerge as statistically significant predictor variables for either group. Similarities between monolingual and bilingual participants included statistically significant negative linear correlations between AMAS scores and course grades for both bilingual (r = -.178, p = .017) and monolingual participants (r = -.203, p = .001). Differences included a statistically significant linear correlation between AMAS scores and final exam grades for monolingual participants only (r = -.253, p < .0009) despite no statistically significant difference in the strength the linear relationship of the AMAS scores and the final exam scores between groups, z = 1.35, p = .1756. The findings show that bilingual and monolingual students report math anxiety similarly and that math anxiety has similar associations with performance measures, despite differences between predictor variables. One of the first studies on the math anxiety of bilingual community college students, the results suggest recommendations for researchers and practitioners.

Casamientos católicos secretos de funcionarios y militares en Buenos Aires e Hispanoamérica : Intrínseca constitución de algunos de sus matrimonios secretos, de conciencia u ocultos. Siglos XVIII-XIX

El objetivo del trabajo es dar a conocer los casamientos secretos efectuados por la Iglesia Católica a espaldas del Rey y las autoridades virreinales en Buenos Aires; especialmente, de funcionarios y oficiales de las fuerzas terrestres y navales de la monarquía en el siglo XVIII. Los análisis se basan en el Derecho Canónico y lo establecido en el Concilio de Trento (1545-1563). Una variada bibliografía relacionada con la constitución de las familias en Europa e Hispanoamérica permitió explorar un marco desconocido de lo ocurrido con estos matrimonios secretos también llamados de conciencia u ocultos. Se explicitan las características de este tipo de nupcias y la casuística encontrada resultado del análisis hermenéutico de las Actas parroquiales porteñas.

Casamientos católicos secretos de funcionarios y militares en Buenos Aires e Hispanoamérica : Intrínseca constitución de algunos de sus matrimonios secretos, de conciencia u ocultos. Siglos XVIII-XIX

El objetivo del trabajo es dar a conocer los casamientos secretos efectuados por la Iglesia Católica a espaldas del Rey y las autoridades virreinales en Buenos Aires; especialmente, de funcionarios y oficiales de las fuerzas terrestres y navales de la monarquía en el siglo XVIII. Los análisis se basan en el Derecho Canónico y lo establecido en el Concilio de Trento (1545-1563). Una variada bibliografía relacionada con la constitución de las familias en Europa e Hispanoamérica permitió explorar un marco desconocido de lo ocurrido con estos matrimonios secretos también llamados de conciencia u ocultos. Se explicitan las características de este tipo de nupcias y la casuística encontrada resultado del análisis hermenéutico de las Actas parroquiales porteñas.

Casamientos católicos secretos de funcionarios y militares en Buenos Aires e Hispanoamérica : Intrínseca constitución de algunos de sus matrimonios secretos, de conciencia u ocultos. Siglos XVIII-XIX

El objetivo del trabajo es dar a conocer los casamientos secretos efectuados por la Iglesia Católica a espaldas del Rey y las autoridades virreinales en Buenos Aires; especialmente, de funcionarios y oficiales de las fuerzas terrestres y navales de la monarquía en el siglo XVIII. Los análisis se basan en el Derecho Canónico y lo establecido en el Concilio de Trento (1545-1563). Una variada bibliografía relacionada con la constitución de las familias en Europa e Hispanoamérica permitió explorar un marco desconocido de lo ocurrido con estos matrimonios secretos también llamados de conciencia u ocultos. Se explicitan las características de este tipo de nupcias y la casuística encontrada resultado del análisis hermenéutico de las Actas parroquiales porteñas.

La fictohistoria o historiografía imaginaria en las literaturas románicas desde el siglo XIX: ensayo de tipología y panorama de un género formal insospechado (II)

El doble aspecto documental y artístico de la escritura de la historia ha quedado prácticamente oculto por la insistencia en el carácter científico de la disciplina y su expulsión subsiguiente del canon literario desde el siglo XIX. El cultivo de la historiografía ficticia o imaginaria (fictohistoria) surgió entonces como un modo de salvar la literariedad de la historia, en su calidad de género formal, mediante el uso del discurso historiográfico como procedimiento retórico para conseguir un efecto de historicidad en textos que son, no obstante, claramente ficticios, y que tienen a menudo un carácter satírico o admonitorio. Esto no está reñido con el hecho de que la mayoría manifieste en primer lugar una reflexión sobre el devenir de la humanidad, es decir, sobre la Historia. Los ejemplos de este género son relativamente abundantes y se pueden clasificar en varias categorías temáticas. Esta segunda parte del estudio se centra en la historia prospectiva.

Casamientos católicos secretos de funcionarios y militares en Buenos Aires e Hispanoamérica : Intrínseca constitución de algunos de sus matrimonios secretos, de conciencia u ocultos. Siglos XVIII-XIX

El objetivo del trabajo es dar a conocer los casamientos secretos efectuados por la Iglesia Católica a espaldas del Rey y las autoridades virreinales en Buenos Aires; especialmente, de funcionarios y oficiales de las fuerzas terrestres y navales de la monarquía en el siglo XVIII. Los análisis se basan en el Derecho Canónico y lo establecido en el Concilio de Trento (1545-1563). Una variada bibliografía relacionada con la constitución de las familias en Europa e Hispanoamérica permitió explorar un marco desconocido de lo ocurrido con estos matrimonios secretos también llamados de conciencia u ocultos. Se explicitan las características de este tipo de nupcias y la casuística encontrada resultado del análisis hermenéutico de las Actas parroquiales porteñas.

Militant Bodies: Policing Race, Religion, and Violence in the U.S. Sikh Diaspora

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-07

Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Labor Importation Programs, 1942-1964

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

CIVIL WAR SETTLEMENTS AND COMBATANTS’ BEHAVIORS: STRATEGY, PERCEPTION, AND REPUTATION

Three projects in my dissertation focus on the termination of internal conflicts based on three critical factors: a combatant’s bargaining strategy, perceptions of relative capabilities, and reputation for toughness. My dissertation aims to provide the relevant theoretical framework to understand war termination beyond the simple two-party bargaining context. The first project focuses on the government’s strategic use of peace agreements. The first project suggests that peace can also be designed strategically to create a better bargain in the near future by changing the current power balance, and thus the timing and nature of peace is not solely a function of overcoming current barriers to successful bargaining. As long as the government has no overwhelming capability to defeat all rebel groups simultaneously, it needs to keep multiple rebel groups as divided as possible. This strategic partial peace helps to deter multiple rebel groups from collaborating in the battlefield and increases the chances of victory against non-signatories. The second project deals with combatants’ perceptions of relative capabilities. While bargaining theories of war suggest that war ends when combatants share a similar perception about their relative capabilities, combatants’ perceptions about relative capabilities are not often homogeneous. While focusing on information problems, this paper examines when a rebel group underestimates the government’s supremacy in relative capabilities and how this heterogeneous perception about the power gap influences negotiated settlements. The third project deals with the tension between different types of reputations in the context of civil wars: 1) a reputation for resolve and 2) a reputation for keeping human rights standards. In the context of civil wars, the use of indiscriminate violence by the government is costly, and as such, it signals the government’s toughness (or resolve) to rebel groups. I argue that the rebels are more likely to accept the government’s offer when the government recently engaged in indiscriminate violence against civilians during the conflict. This effect, however, is conditional on the government’s international human rights reputation; suggesting that rebel groups interpret this violence as a signal particularly when the government does not have a penchant for attacking civilians in general.