Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Computational Support for Bridging Analogies(2022) Rudd jr, David Anthony; Chan, Joel; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Analogies are comparisons between two topics in terms of relational similarity, such as comparing a spring and a flexible table in terms of how they both exert explain upward force on your hand. Far domain analogies --- analogical comparisons between topics that seem very different on the surface, such as the solar system and an atom --- have been identified as being useful for creative ideation. However, people struggle to benefit from them. In this thesis, I explore how bridging analogies, analogies that bridge between a knowledge anchor that is familiar to the problem solver and a target analogy, can aid in allowing innovators to benefit from far domain analogies. Utilizing a breadth-first search in a graph of concepts from Wikipedia, we identified bridging analogies that connect a participant's knowledge anchor to a far domain analogy. We conducted a think-aloud study in which participants were asked to brainstorm on three design challenges, alternating whether they were provided only distant analogies or far analogies and bridging analogies tailored to their knowledge anchors. Using qualitative analysis of the think-aloud data we observed that bridging analogies aided participants in producing more abstract solutions instead of more direct translation of the analogies in their solution. Our results imply that bridging analogies can effectively aid innovators in benefitting from far domain analogies when creative problem solving.Item The Effectiveness of a Color-Coded, Onset-Rime Reading Intervention With First Grade Students At Serious Risk For Reading Disabilities(2007-04-25) Hines, Sara Jane; Speece, Deborah L.; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Beginning readers who are weak decoders usually continue to fall behind in reading as they progress through school, negatively affecting their overall academic performance, self-esteem, and motivation. Therefore, it is imperative to develop instructional practices to assist the acquisition of effective decoding skills. Although existing remedial approaches have proven effective with a number of students with reading problems, they have not been successful with those students most at risk and have generally not resulted in transfer of skills to decoding novel words not targeted in instruction. I used a single-subject multiple probe design across participants to investigate the effectiveness of a color-coded, onset-rime based decoding intervention. The participants were first grade students determined to be at serious risk for reading disabilities based on their performance on screening measures. All four of the students made strong progress in learning the instructional words, increasing on average 73% over baseline (range 66%-78%). In addition, for novel words from instructed rime patterns, students increased their scores from baseline to post-intervention by an average of 56% (range 50% to 62%). There was limited transfer at the vowel level to uninstructed rime patterns, with students improving their scores by an average of 29% (range 17% to 50%). All students maintained their improvement in decoding skills for both instructional and transfer words at one week and one month maintenance. The fact that the children were able not only to master instructional words but also to use their knowledge of rime patterns to decode uninstructed words is important given the difficulty of students most at-risk for reading disabilities to master instructional words and transfer decoding gains. Furthermore, the three participants with the lowest performance prior to instruction showed strong improvement on a standardized measure of reading achievement (Woodcock-Johnson Reading Mastery Test-Revised, Normative Update). The effectiveness of the program in improving the decoding skills of readers who are significantly at-risk is a promising first step in finding an instructional approach that is successful with students who have been left behind not just by traditional classroom instruction but by remedial approaches as well.