UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
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Item SEARCHING FOR A FACE: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF NON-FACE-TO-FACE UNDERGRADUATE LEARNING(2021) Stakland, Steven Keyes; Hultgren, Francine; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Online education is increasingly dominating the experience of formal learning. Although possible at any level of formal education this non-traditional program of learning via the Internet seems to be most accepted for undergraduates. Few have explored the meaning of the experience. The purpose of this dissertation is to present the meaning(s) of non-face-to-face learning for undergraduates. I define online education as non-face-to-face since it never requires a fully embodied encounter with others in real time, e.g., even in a synchronous video exchange reciprocal eye contact is impossible. I met several times with nine participants from different institutions who had taken or were currently enrolled in online classes (prior to 2019). Over the course of my conversations with these participants I recorded and created a text from our conversations and their written accounts. Using the method of hermeneutic phenomenology I present themes here based on my interpretation of that text. I have found that the loss of face-to-face contact is essential to the phenomenon in ways I did not anticipate. The meaning of the phenomenon is related to the essence of technology itself. Considering the meaning of online learning engages with the definition and purpose of education. Although the experience is described in terms of efficiency (ease and convenience) it is also shot through with absence, multitasking and voyeurism. The feeling of efficiency gives a sense that learning is absent. This leads to frustration with the experience. Non-face-to-face learning is described as a kind of game. It can give undergraduates a greater sense of responsibility for their education but without embodied presence with others the vulnerability that leads to community is absent. The explicitness of the asynchronous textual nature of the exchanges between students and instructors introduces ambiguity. The purpose of earning credits comes to dominate the experience instead of the means of learning. I give insights related to the vital importance of in-person learning and indicate paths for further phenomenological work in online education particularly related to teaching. Non-face-to-face learning should be thought of as something different than in-person learning. It cannot ever be a copy or full replacement.Item WOMEN’S CYBERBULLYING EXPERIENCES AND THE RELATIONSHIP TO SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE DISCUSSIONS(2020) Byrne, Virginia L; Ketelhut, Diane J; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In response to negative experiences like cyberbullying and online harassment, women have been found to chill their online participation by adopting defensive coping strategies in person and on social media (e.g., deleting their accounts, avoiding posting, increasing privacy settings). Cyberbullying affects the majority of undergraduate women, contributing to withdrawal from social media and chilling their participation in the growing world of collaborative online discussions. In this mixed-methods, three-article dissertation, I integrate surveys, observations, and interviews among undergraduate students (particularly women) to investigate how the chilling effect of cyberbullying extends into peer interactions within an increasingly common online instructional practice: online discussion boards. I observe that, in comparison to their non-victimized peers, women with prior cyberbullying experiences enact lower social presence and adopt self-silencing and conflict-avoidant coping strategies. In particular, these women avoid ever disagreeing with peers out of fear of starting “drama.” My research challenges educators to consider potential unintended consequences of instructional design choices and contributes to our understanding of how to design more equitable online learning environments for today’s socially networked adult learners.Item LEARNING PROCESSES UNDERLYING IMPLICIT MOTOR SEQUENCE ACQUISITION IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS(2016) Du, Yue; Clark, Jane E; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Children and adults are able to learn a motor sequence quickly, usually over a course of one learning session consisting of 4-8 learning blocks. This initial acquisition is referred to as fast learning. However, little is known about the learning processes underlying the fast acquisition of motor sequences. Therefore, the overarching objective of this dissertation was to examine the underlying processes that drive rapid motor sequence learning in children and adults. In a series of studies, children and adults performed a modified serial reaction time (SRT) task, a primary window into understanding implicit motor sequence learning. Study I demonstrated that fast learning of implicit motor sequences in six- and 10-year-old children was comparable to adults, while the performance (i.e., reaction time, RT) during learning was reflected by two age-related processes. Learning in six-year-old children dominantly relied on an offline process where RT improved after a short rest, while offline enhancement as well as online progressive improvement in RT reflected sequence learning in 10-year-old children and adults. In studies II, III, and IV, we demonstrated that the online and offline processes were neither by-products of task pacing constraints nor illusory effects of fatigue or reactive inhibition. Instead, these two age-related processes were more likely to be functional mechanisms underlying implicit motor sequence learning, which could be modulated by the involvement of procedural and declarative memory. In addition, study III characterized the developmental landscape of 5- to 14-year-old children and found that the developmental changes of online and offline learning were primarily present in early childhood. As fast learning is known to enable generalization (or transfer) of sequences learning, we expected, given the findings in studies I through IV, age-related differences in the generalization of implicit motor sequence learning. The results in study V, interestingly, demonstrated that the generalization of implicit motor sequence learning was better in children than in adults. However, in study VI, when greater procedural memory was required in the SRT task, learning in adults largely depended on offline learning; and, the age-related differences in learning generalization vanished, suggesting that offline learning may facilitate the generalization of implicit motor sequence learning. Taken together, results from these studies found two age-related learning processes (i.e., online and offline learning) that drive the fast implicit sequence acquisition and demonstrated that the age-related online and offline learning may lead to children a superior ability in the generalization of motor sequence learning. These results extend our understanding of the age-related development of implicit motor sequence learning and provide potential insights into the question of why childhood is an optimal period for learning.