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.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item "We band of brothers"? A social-identity-based study of military public affairs professional identity, organizational socialization, and collaboration(2019) Bermejo, Julio Javier; Liu, Brooke F; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Today, military public relations, or military public affairs (Levenshus, 2013), is drawing attention for the lessons it might have to offer to organizations more broadly. Yet, military public affairs has been neglected within the public relations scholarly field (Toledano, 2010). In the present study, I applied the “social identity approach” (Hornsey, 2008, pp. 204-205) as my conceptual framework to explore the development of military public affairs professional identity through socialization of public affairs managers in joint entry-level military public affairs training. Along with professional identity and organizational socialization, I explored the development and practice of collaboration as a public affairs competency. To complete the study, I conducted semi-structured interviews (27 initial interviews, three follow-up interviews) with 27 students, practitioners (i.e., former students), instructors, and administrators of the U.S. Defense Department’s entry-level Public Affairs Qualification Course. Findings supported the scholarly understanding that public relations practice is a boundary spanning function, with internal boundary spanning an important aspect of the public affairs manager’s work (Neill, 2014). Findings helped to extend understanding of organizational socialization by suggesting that the public affairs manager, as a nonprototypical member of the organization, must be accepted by the commanding officer and other leaders, often representing combat arms fields, to achieve inclusion in the organization (Wenzel, Mummendey, & Waldzus, 2007). Findings further helped to broaden understanding of public relations collaboration by drawing attention to vital collaboration partners that have been obscured through their agglomeration in the concept of the “dominant coalition” (Grunig, 2006, p. 160). Findings suggested the new insight that public affairs managers are socialized for proactivity, an unexpected outcome given the priorities of military organizations as “high-reliability organizations” (Myers, 2005, p. 345). Additionally, findings suggested that ambiguity attends the public affairs function and that this ambiguity can constrain public affairs, but also create opportunities for collaboration, especially under conditions of contextual uncertainty (L. A. Grunig, 1992; Rast, Gaffney, Hogg, & Crisp, 2012). Findings additionally suggested that collaboration opportunities may increase for public affairs when those efforts are more visible to the organization and are seen to benefit it (Platow & van Knippenberg, 2001).Item THERAPIST COMMON FACTORS’ INFLUENCE ON CLIENT CONSTRUCTIVE COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN COUPLE THERAPY(2018) Harbison, Liza; Epstein, Norman B; Family Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigated the relationship between therapist common factors behaviors and changes in client constructive communication during couple therapy. Research suggests that common factors are associated with client improvement, but research on these factors in couple therapy is lacking. This study was a secondary data analysis of 41 couples presenting with mild to moderate psychological and physical partner aggression who received ten sessions of couple therapy at a university family therapy clinic. The study examined the relationship between therapist collaborative behavior and use of systemically based techniques coded from the fourth couple therapy session, and changes in client constructive communication, measured by client cognitions during conflict, client and partner behavior during conflict, and video coding of couple communication. Minimal significant links were found, but unexpectedly, therapist use of systemic techniques was negatively associated with change in female constructive problem solving cognitions. Implications of these findings are discussed.Item JOURNEYING THROUGH EXODUS, DISPLACEMENT, AND MY CUBAN-AMERICAN IDENTITY: THE ODYSSEY OF MAKING AND BECOMING WAKING DARKNESS. WAITING LIGHT.(2017) Krogol, Colette Elaine; Widrig, Patrik; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. was an evening-length dance/multimedia event performed on October 7-9, 2016, in the Kogod Theatre at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. Created in collaboration with my artistic partner, Matt Reeves, the work explored themes of identity, family, displacement, journeying, and exile through the lens of research into my maternal family’s stories of life and exodus from Cuba, as well as investigations into my own identity as a Cuban-American. This paper journeys through the autobiographical research and collaboration process that went into creating Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. Sewn into the fabric of this paper is personal poetry written as part of my creative practice. The performance work and this paper journey between the start of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and present day America.Item Waking Darkness. Waiting Light.(2017) Reeves, Matthew Walker; Phillips, Miriam; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. was an evening-length dance/multimedia event performed October 7-9, 2016 at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Conceived and created collaboratively with Colette Krogol in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, the work evolved from individual research that wove together into one seamless performance. Using the choreographic elements of weight, time, light, and darkness, the work explored the action of transformation and intersections of dance, dream, and mythology. This thesis documents the research and creative process to make Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. The Monomyth Theory of comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell played a pivotal role in the research, laying a foundation for new methods of listening for universal mythic elements within a personal journey. Additionally this paper explores perspectives on how mythmaking and dance-making are similar in process, and the influence this perspective has on choreography.Item ProjectION: Investigation Operative Networks(2016) Louie, Adam Wong; White, Brent D; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Corporations and enterprises have embraced the notion of shared experiences and collective workplaces by incorporating coworking places. A great deal of the methodology carries from the studio culture that architecture schools foster as well as think tank culture. Maker spaces and incubator spaces are prime examples of places that engender creative thought and products. This thesis seeks to explore the impact that architecture has on collaborative spaces with a focus on augmenting to their generated learning and design activities. The investigation explores the collaborative design process as a series of interactions between groups of individuals. This involves the impact of technology and its implications on those interactions. The goal of this thesis is not to further the use of a tool or systematic procedure, but to use architecture as a framing device to form places for collaborative processes.Item A choreographer's refection on the dramaturgical process of creating "My Tempest"(2014) Farfan, Ana Patricia; Phillips, Miriam; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)"My Tempest" is a character-based evening-length choreography inspired by the main images and characters of Shakespeare's "The Tempest." It was performed March 12-14th, 2014, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in partial fulfillment of the M.F.A degree in Dance through University of Maryland's School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. The choreography and spoken word is a commentary on the role of subjectivity and the crisis of Otherness in our contemporary world; highly intertwining sets, props, music, costumes and sound designs contribute to the aesthetic discourse. Guided by the application of dramaturgy to choreography, and a search for intersections between dance and theatre, this paper details the research and creative investigations that occurred during the process of creating "My Tempest." The paper aims to contribute a better understanding of the potential dramaturgy has on dance and how it can support choreographers and dancers during the creative process.Item The Making of Visible Seams(2014) Crawley-Woods, Erin Rose; Widrig, Patrik; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Visible Seams is a roving tapestry of movement and sound that flows up staircases, rolls down hallways, perches in windows and poses in the courtyards of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Inspired by the films of Busby Berkeley and the expanse and elegance of the Center's common areas and corridors, I partnered architecture with choreography to create a journey of shifting perspectives for the audience. Sound and video installations displayed in the weeks preceding and following the performance foreshadowed and echoed the dance, encouraged a more fully sensual experience of the venue, and returned the ideas borrowed from Berkeley back to a recorded medium. This document is a chronology of the creative process of this work and charts the course from inspiration to collaboration, performance, and reflection. It serves as a record of the ins and outs, ups and downs, why and wherefores of creating a site-specific performance event.Item Building Shared Understandings in Introductory Physics Tutorials Through Risk, Repair, Conflict & Comedy(2012) Conlin, Luke David; Hammer, David M; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Collaborative inquiry learning environments, such as The Tutorials in Physics Sensemaking, are designed to provide students with opportunities to partake in the authentic disciplinary practices of argumentation and sensemaking. Through these practices, groups of students in tutorial can build shared conceptual understandings of the mechanisms behind physical phenomena. In order to do so, they must also build a shared epistemological understanding of what they are doing together, such that their activity includes collaboratively making sense of mechanisms. Previous work (Conlin, Gupta, Scherr, & Hammer, 2007; Scherr & Hammer, 2009) has demonstrated that tutorial students do not settle upon only one way of understanding their activity together, but instead build multiple shared ways of understanding, or framing (Scherr & Hammer, 2009; Tannen, 1993a), their activity. I build upon this work by substantiating a preliminary finding that one of these shared ways of framing corresponds with increased evidence of the students' collaboratively making sense of physical mechanisms. What previous research has not yet addressed is how the students come to understand their activity as including collaborative sensemaking discussions in the first place, and how that understanding develops over the course of the semester. In this dissertation, I address both of these questions through an in-depth video analysis of three groups' discussions throughout the semester. To build shared understandings through scientific argumentation and collaborative sensemaking, the students need to continually make repairs of each other's understanding, but this comes with the risk of affective damage that can shut down further sensemaking discussions. By analyzing the discourse of the three groups' discussions throughout the semester, I show how each group is able to manage this essential tension as they each build and maintain a safe space to sensemake together. I find that the three groups differ in how soon, how frequently, and how deeply they engage in collaborative scientific sensemaking. This variability can be explained, in part, through differences in how the groups use hedging, irony, and other discourse moves that epistemically distance the speakers from their claims. This work highlights the connection between students' epistemology and affect in face-to-face interaction.Item Application of the Abstract: Making Sustainable and Solar Design a Reality through LEAFHouse(2007-12-17) Singleton, Kimberly; Gardner, Amy E.; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)'Sustainability' and 'green design' are two terms that have become more common in both professional practice and architectural education. They are merely abstract terms however; concepts which many students find difficult to grasp at a high enough level for thorough implementation in a design project. As a result, sustainable and solar techniques become more of an afterthought, giving students a cursory, at best, understanding of the principles, preventing an understanding of how to implement the principles. Reflecting on the process, product, challenges and achievements of both the 2007 Solar Decathlon team and the LEAFHouse, this thesis posits the importance of hands-on, interdisciplinary design and construction work for the understanding and implementation of sustainable techniques and solar technologies. In addition, it suggests a change in the way that the built environment is conceived, designed and constructed, through the collaboration of practitioners and industry professionals from a range of disciplines.Item Service-Learning in Teacher Education: Weaving a Tapestry of Relationships(2006-04-24) Castellan, Catherine Marie; Valli, Linda; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this interpretive study was to gain an understanding of the sense freshmen elementary education majors made of service-learning in their teacher education courses. Data were gathered from six majors during their Introduction to Education course in the fall and Learning Theory course in the spring of their freshman year. Three majors participated in a regular model of service-learning while another three participated in a cascading model. Data were inductively analyzed from codes organized into categories and then synthesized into themes. This study was conducted at a private college in a Mid-Atlantic city where many of the students came from middle and upper middle class backgrounds. Service-learning projects involved a local urban elementary/middle school. Findings indicated that majors made sense of their service-learning projects by recognizing that service-learning offered them the opportunity to establish relationships. A collaborative relationship was established between the majors and individuals in the school which resulted in majors learning how to collaborate and the benefits of collaboration. A reciprocal relationship was established between the majors and the teachers and students in the elementary school where the majors' service activities met school needs. A cognitive relationship was established as majors connected their course content to their service-learning experiences and learned the content. A relationship was established between the majors and others in an urban setting resulting in opportunities for majors to experience, address and adapt to issues related to diversity. Service-learning allowed majors to synthesize teaching principles from their experiences in an urban setting. There were some differences in perspectives between the cascading and regular majors. Cascading majors' experiences allowed them to develop more specific and in-depth insights into the world of elementary education than their regular model counterparts as they planned and carried out service-learning projects with the elementary school students. The cascading majors also experienced reinforced pedagogy when they taught the elementary students and then watched the elementary students teach others the same material. The effectiveness of the cascading majors' pedagogical approach was assessed by the application of that knowledge when elementary students introduced and taught the material to others.