Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item TOWARD A THEORY-BASED ACCOUNT OF THE L2 VOCABULARY PROCESSING AND LEARNING BENEFITS OF READING WHILE LISTENING(2024) Malone, Jonathan; Gor, Kira; Hui, Bronson; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The tantalizing prospects of learning benefits from multimodal conditions on second language (L2) learning in general, and L2 vocabulary development in particular, have important implications. Indeed, opening a language learning app on any device provides the immediate experience of simultaneous input modalities, and a wide range of input types. But how helpful is multimodality to vocabulary learning, especially when the focus of the learner is on the meaning of a text? Researchers have manipulated input to compare a variety of learning conditions and examined vocabulary learning gains. However, relatively few within second language acquisition (SLA) have utilized real-time monitoring of learner behavior to examine how learners encounter new words over multiple exposures during a reading task, and how the quality of these encounters may or may not influence explicit learning outcomes. Even fewer have mapped differences in the developmental trajectory of form-form and form-meaning mapping for new words at the group level, comparing reading only (RO) with reading while listening (RWL). Crucially, to my knowledge, none have made or tested predictions within RWL on possible psycholinguistic source(s) of reported benefits. Our understanding of outcome benefits, along with implications for optimizing input in classroom or individual instructed contexts, is thereby quite limited. My dissertation study was designed to address each of these issues. 119 advanced English learners read or read while listening to a 7,400-word short story under incidental conditions (time pressure, focus on comprehension, and unannounced posttest outcomes). The text was embedded with 25 target pseudoword items 10 times each, with target items replacing real nouns in object positions. Measures of real-time form learning were defined as faster reading times and fewer total visits to the new words across encounters (Godfroid, 2020b), and there were three post-exposure measures of explicit word knowledge (form recognition, meaning recognition, meaning recall). New to this area of vocabulary research, outcome items were presented in randomized item modality (visual or auditory), to ensure congruence between treatment and test items and reducing modality-specific testing bias (Jelani & Boers, 2018). Group-level comparisons examined differences in (1) developmental trajectory of form familiarity and meaning integration for RO and RWL groups, (2) learning outcomes, and (3) effects of multi-componential L2 proficiency and phonological short-term memory (PSTM) skills on processing and learning outcomes. Within-RWL analyses operationalized a theoretical source of benefit (reading slightly ahead of the audio) and its impact on reading time and posttest learning gains. Findings indicated differences between RO and RWL across three measures of eye movements: (1) gaze duration (GD), a measure of form familiarity with new words; (2) total reading time (TRT), a measure of meaning integration; and (3) visit count, or the total number of encounters looking at the words. The overall pattern for RWL indicated longer initial reading times for new words, fewer re-readings, and steadier decrease in GD and TRT across encounters. Additionally, differences in learning outcomes were most clearly revealed through auditory test items, with RWL superior to RO across all three posttest outcome measures, and a group by item modality interaction. In other words, RWL indicated superior overall effects compared with RO across all items in form recognition and meaning recall, across all three posttests in auditory items, and better scores on visual than auditory items in RO (but equal across test item modality in RWL). Within-RWL analyses revealed that reading ahead of the audio was a positive predictor of TRT, as well as the most difficult of the three outcome measures (meaning recall). While PSTM predicted processing of new words, it did not predict outcomes for any of the three measures of vocabulary learning gains for advanced-level L2 readers. In sum, this study provides convergent evidence that process (form-form / form-meaning acquisition) and product (learning gains) are both positively impacted for new words under multimodal incidental conditions for advanced L2 learners, along with an initial indication that audiovisual asynchrony may play a role in RWL benefits in learning new words above and beyond L2 proficiency or memory skills.Item Classroom Language Policy and the Role of Assessment(2023) Feagin, Karen; Peercy, Megan Madigan; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Students designated as English learners (ELs) make up a substantial and growing portion of the K–12 population in the U.S., so all teachers should expect, at some point, to be teachers of language learners and will need to address the complexities of managing a multilingual classroom. This management is considered classroom-level educational language policy and is an area of importance for understanding and improving the educational experiences of EL-designated students.This qualitative study used nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) to examine the nature of and influences on classroom-level language policymaking at two small Maryland public high schools which exclusively serve EL-designated students. Maryland lacks explicit state-level language policy, thus creating a potentially neutral policy environment for the education of EL-designated students. Data sources included in-depth interviews with two principals and five teachers from the two high schools; documents from twenty years of meetings of the State Board of Education; and other state-level and federal policy documents. Data were analyzed using thematic data analysis. Findings showed that educators managed language in the school and classroom through instructional practices that positioned English as the default language of academics and as the predominant, if not sole, language goal. Language management was mediated by educators’ language ideologies and preparation in TESOL. Through the lens of their assessment literacy, teachers weighed the burden of testing against the benefits of the data obtained through testing and either implemented instructional practices that fully embraced the test and its associated policies or practices that minimally complied with the policies. Principals used their understanding of policies to navigate unavoidable constraints and create space for success. Finally, state-level policy was significantly influenced by federal policy, in particular, No Child Left Behind, and its legacy continues in Maryland education policy today. This study highlights the need for pre-service education and in-service professional development to clarify educators’ roles as language policy agents. Implications for teacher education also include a call for expanding offerings in asset-based language education and assessment literacy. Policy implications include recommendations for the State of Maryland to enact proposed policies from the English Learners Workgroup and to revise regulations that govern high-stakes testing for high school students.Item Tutors’, Spanish-Speaking Students’, and Writing Center Directors’ Dispositions Toward Literacy and the Effect of their Dispositions on Tutoring Sessions(2023) Ellis, Marina; Wilder, Sara; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)University composition classrooms and writing centers have continued to see an influx ofmultilingual students, particularly self-identified Hispanic students entering the academy and bringing with them a plethora of knowledge and experiences of their lived realities within and outside of academia. Yet these experiences are often overlooked for the sake of identifying one particular system for aiding them in their writing needs. This study uses semi-structured narrative inquiry-based preliminary interviews, observations of tutoring sessions, and follow-up interviews to examine the ways in which writing center tutors, heritage Spanish-speaking writing center tutees’, and writing center directors’ attitudes toward language and literacy are formed from their academic, sociocultural, linguistic, and cognitive experiences to understand the effects their lived realities have on tutoring sessions. In this way, this interdisciplinary study responds to calls from researchers in education, rhetoric and composition, and writing center studies for more research and expands upon current scholarship that highlights multilingual students’ lived realities as assets to the writing classroom and writing center rather than as deficits. Results from this study highlight the ways in which tutors and Spanish-speaking tutees’ dispositions toward literacy do have a positive impact on tutoring sessions, whether it is specific teaching styles the tutors have developed over time that are influenced by their own learning experiences, taking small moments within sessions to find commonalities with one another that therefore facilitate a collaborative rapport, utilizing techniques that encourage tutee agency, finding ways to empathize with tutees so that they feel comfortable enough to return to the center, and much more. These findings then have implications for improved tutor training initiatives that emphasize individualized instruction for multilingual students who attend writing center sessions, and assignments that require tutors to examine and reflect on their own literacy learning practices.Item Individual Variables in Context: A Longitudinal Study of Child and Adolescent English Language Learners(2023) Struck, Jason; Jiang, Nan; Clark, Martyn; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Millions of public-school students in the United States are identified as English language learners (ELLs), whose academic success is tied to their second language (L2) English education. Previous research in adult populations indicates that L2 proficiency is related to the contextual variable of the prevalence of one’s first language (L1) among their peers, called L1 density, which may also moderate the effects of individual variables such as age and exposure to the L2. Despite its substantial impact on the amount and quality of adult learners’ exposure to the L2, the variable of L1 density has received little attention in child and adolescent populations, even though it is unknown what role, if any, L1 density plays in L2 acquisition in a school context. Other outstanding questions concerning individual variables include the nature of the purported rate advantage of later starters and whether the similarity of one's L1 and L2 is related to L2 proficiency.The current study addressed these questions by analyzing longitudinal L2 proficiency assessment records of 10,879 ELLs in grades 1–12 in the United States. The assessment was WIDA's ACCESS for ELLs Online Test, a national, standardized test with scores for each of the four domains of listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Multilevel models were used to estimate the effects of several variables: age of enrollment in a United States school, length of enrollment, language similarity, and L1 density. In the fitted model estimates, age of enrollment had a small, positive effect. Length of enrollment had a sizable, positive effect but attenuated over time. ELLs enrolling at a later age progressed slightly slower than ELLs enrolling at an earlier age, contrary to the widely accepted notion that later starters enjoy a rate advantage. Little to no evidence was found for a relationship between test scores and language similarity or L1 density, or that the effects of age of enrollment or length of enrollment varied with L1 density. The results of this study give evidence for the following conclusions for ELLs in United States schools: an earlier age of enrollment is associated with greater gains in L2 proficiency over time, speakers of different L1s are not expected to become differentially proficient in L2 English, and ELLs’ levels of L2 proficiency are not expected to vary with how many of their peers speak the same L1.Item ENHANCING PEER MEDIATION AMONG LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE LEARNERS DURING PEER LED SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONS IN ELEMENTARY SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSROOMS(2023) Himmel, Jennifer Gisi; O'Flahavan, John; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Findings from qualitative studies reveal an array of discursive supports that peers employ to mediate language and literacy for one another during collaborative and cooperative learning. Quantitative studies posit that enhanced literacy outcomes can result from students participating in these peer mediated tasks. Studies also suggest that the quality of talk employed by learners during these peer mediated tasks can be measured, and that higher quality talk can lead to enhanced learning. However, no study to date investigates both the discursive supports offered during peer mediated learning and robustly describes how they can lead to higher quality talk among elementary students who are learning in a second language. Moreover, little is known about how student uptake of these supports differs for elementary learners according to their English learner (EL) status. As a result, teachers do not have the pedagogical knowledge necessary to leverage all the benefits that peer interaction confers upon elementary ELs specifically. To address this gap in the research, my study explored and analyzed the impact of discursive supports on 52 third and fourth grade learners from two linguistically diverse classrooms during peer mediated small group discussions within science and social studies lessons. My embedded case study qualitatively explored how peers provided and responded to discursive supports from those in both an instructional and a peer role during small group discussions on informational texts. My study also probed the relationship between peer mediation and discussions that were more exploratory in nature. I coded and evaluated the types of discursive supports offered by students identified as ELs and non-ELs during small group discussions. I measured the frequency of the discursive supports provided during peer mediation and investigated student uptake of the supports. Using classroom observation data, field notes, instructional artifacts, and interview data, I examined the relations among the frequencies of different discursive supports for ELs and non-ELs, focusing on those that occurred in talk characterized as exploratory. My analyses reveal that ELs provided similar discursive supports as non-ELs, including support that is more likely to lead to exploratory talk. The findings also suggest a relationship between student uptake of discursive supports during peer mediated learning and exploratory talk, and that student uptake of supports might be an important mechanism to explore further in order to better understand how peer mediation enhances learning for ELs. I offer recommendations for future research and for classroom teachers who wish to implement peer led small group discussions on informational texts in elementary classrooms.Item Variation in Interlanguage: Evidence from Internal and External Patterning of Morphosyntactic Variability in the Speech of Second Language Learners(2022) Zheng, Qi; Jiang, Nan; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Language is inherently variable, and learner language is particularly variable. The variationist paradigm considers learner language a heterogeneously variable yet inherently rule-governed system. Specifically, learners’ alternation between native-like and nonnative-like variants of a variable or invariable target native speaker (NS) form constitutes learner language variation. Variation is also viewed as an indication of a transitional phase towards acquisition (e.g., Regan, 2013; Tagliamonte, 2011). With a particular concentration on second language (L2) morphosyntactic variation, this dissertation explored inter-learner variation and intra-learner variability together with interlanguage development by analyzing Japanese L2 learners’ oral performances in English oral proficiency interviews. The research observed and studied the variation pattern in the interview data and identified the linguistic, paralinguistic, and nonlinguistic factors and factor groups which may give rise to Japanese L2 learners’ repeated exercise of their interlanguage grammar for four morphosyntactic features: preposition/particle, article, object pronoun-dropping, and modal auxiliary verb. The data were analyzed by using classification trees, random forests, and mixed-effects variable rule methods which together identified a hierarchy of variable importance among potential factors and factor groups and the influential factor levels within each significant factor group. With modern mixed models, the dissertation concluded that the observed morphosyntactic variation is subject to inter-lingual and intra-learner factors. Additionally, learners may also have individualized baselines and grammar. More importantly, the findings of the current research have provided important theoretical and empirical justification on whether and how individual patterns mirror the interlanguage patterns and hence an inter-lingual developmental understanding of L2 morphosyntactic competence.Item "We just learned from each other": ESOL pre-service teachers learning to use digital tools across coursework and student teaching(2020) Durham, Carmen; Martin-Beltrán, Melinda; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Educators can use digital tools to meet emergent bilingual students’ unique needs (e.g., Andrei, 2017; Liu, Navarrete, & Wivagg, 2014; Lund, 2008). However, language teachers generally feel unprepared to use technology with students even though many use digital tools in their daily lives (e.g., Dooly, 2009; Kessler, 2006). Research can further examine how to prepare teachers to leverage technology to support emergent bilingual learners. In this study, I used ethnographic methods to explore six pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) experiences learning about and using digital tools in ways intended to support emergent bilingual students. I interviewed the PSTs and observed their participation across student teaching and a concurrent practicum course. I analyzed these data through the lens of cultural-historical activity theory (Engeström, 2001; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010) to examine how PSTs navigated dynamic, interacting activity systems. I also drew on polyfocality to conceptualize learners’ attention on multiple physical and virtual resources during interactions. Findings revealed that the PSTs’ participation in teacher education was characterized by a shared responsibility where all the PSTs, their teacher educator, and mentor teachers contributed new digital tools and polyfocally co-constructed knowledge about the possibilities for classroom technology implementation. The shared responsibility and polyfocal co-construction of knowledge afforded the PSTs opportunities to learn in the moment, and many described their learning as “playing around.” It also afforded PSTs opportunities to reflect on their future practice and evaluate new technologies. Within student teaching, the PSTs sanctioned specific digital tools, but their emergent bilingual students deliberately made choices about technologies that would support their learning about self-chosen topics. Because of the ever-evolving nature of educational technology and students’ complex uses of multiple digital tools simultaneously, teachers must be prepared to continually explore new technologies, critically analyze their benefits, and use them in ways that afford their emergent bilingual students opportunities to make independent choices.Item EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF AUDITORY INPUT ON INCIDENTAL VOCABULARY LEARNING BY L2 JAPANESE SPEAKERS(2020) Hillman, Kyoko Kobayashi; Ross, Steven J; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research on advanced L2 adult learners and viable classroom instruction for them has become increasingly important along with increasing global connections. This study investigated the effects of different kinds of spoken input modification on listening comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning by 106 advanced Chinese speakers of Japanese in Japan. The participants were randomly assigned to four types of input (genuine, simplified, elaborated, modified elaborated) used in four short academic talks by Japanese professionals. Each talk contained eight low-frequency nouns, each appearing three times. Learning outcomes were assessed using three different measures: form-recognition, meaning recognition with contextual information, and meaning recognition via L2 definitions. Participants responded to three types of comprehension questions (replication, synthesis, inference) while listening to the talks. Scores from an online proficiency test and two working memory (WM) tasks served as moderator variables.Results showed that elaborated input was the most effective of the four types for both comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning. Results also showed that modified elaborated input, a novel input modification type that contained the same elaboration but with shorter sentences, was more effective when higher WM was available. In contrast, elaborated input was least influenced by WM capacities. Regarding the relationships between input modification and type of comprehension questions, modified elaborated input had a marginally significant effect on replication items. For synthesis and inference items, statistically significant effects for input type were not found, contradicting previous results in the literature. Proficiency showed significant effects on all tests, whereas WM showed interaction effects with simplified and modified elaborated input. In light of these findings, the study concludes that (a) elaborated input is more beneficial for advanced L2 learners than genuine input regardless of WM, (b) modified elaborated input with short sentences requires WM, (c) input elaboration is more effective than input enhancement for incidental vocabulary learning for both form and meaning recognition, and (d) enhanced incidental vocabulary conditions using greater input elaboration are likely to provide L2 learners with better input and opportunities to learn more lexical items incidentally.Item SELECTIVITY IN LEXICAL ACCESS AMONG BILINGUALS OF ORTHOGRAPHICALLY DISTINCT SCRIPTS AND THE ROLE OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS(2020) Al Thowaini, Buthainah M; Jiang, Nan; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A fundamental inquiry within bilingual processing research addresses the underlying mechanisms of lexical access. Research involving bilinguals of orthographically similar scripts has revealed that cross-language activation is non-selective, which supposedly causes the bilingual brain to regularly manage the activation of two languages. Such continuous management of two languages has led some researchers to argue that the bilingual experience contributes to enhanced executive control. The research on selectivity in lexical access, nevertheless, has overwhelmingly involved bilingual speakers of orthographically similar scripts, with a scarcity of studies involving bilingual speakers of orthographically distinct scripts. Additionally, while active management of both languages is expected for bilinguals, little is known about whether language selectivity is related to individual variation in executive control. Instead, research investigating executive functions (EFs) in relation to bilingual processes has primarily been conducted within the context of switch costs, which has been associated with methodological issues. In light of the issues outlined above, the current study investigated selectivity in lexical access among bilinguals of orthographically distinct scripts and the relationship between the degree of selectivity and EFs (i.e., top-down goal maintenance, interference resolution, and working memory capacity). In addition to adopting an individual differences approach to lexical access, the study manipulated the degree of language task demands (comprehension and production). The study employed alternative non-switch tasks to investigate the relationships between EFs and cross-language activation. One hundred and thirty-eight Arabic-English bilinguals, 25 English native speakers, and 24 Arabic native speakers participated in a phoneme monitoring task and a masked primed lexical decision task involving monolingual materials. Bilingual participants also completed non-verbal visuo-spatial and visual single n-back tasks, as well as an AX-CPT task. The analyses revealed non-selective lexical access in language production but were inconclusive for language comprehension, where participants varied in the degree of selectivity. In addition, the results, although preliminary, demonstrated that top-down goal maintenance partially accounted for some of the variances in the degree of selectivity in language comprehension and production. The results suggest that selectivity is influenced by task-dependent variables as well as individual differences in executive functions.Item How Pre-K Teachers Support the Language and Literacy Development of Young Dual Language Learners: A Multi-Case Study of Four Exemplary Teachers(2020) Budde, Christina Marie; Martin-Beltran, Melinda; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This multi-case study uses an ecological theory of language learning (van Lier, 2004) as a lens to examine the teaching practices of four highly-effective teachers of young Dual language learners (DLLs). Young DLLs are children who are learning two languages, simultaneously developing their primary language and acquiring a new language. Analysis of over 150 hours of classroom observations, teacher interviews, and classroom artifacts illustrate how teachers skillfully drew upon a repertoire of instructional practices during both planned and spontaneous teaching moments to intentionally target the language and literacy development of young DLLs. High-quality instruction linked to positive language and literacy outcomes for pre-k children likely provides a foundation for effective teaching practice for young DLLs. However, high-quality instruction must be enhanced to meet the linguistic and academic needs of children acquiring English as an additional language. Findings include the detailed and descriptive analysis of the enhanced set of practices and corresponding micro-practices teachers used with-in and across their pre-k contexts to support their young DLLs’ language and literacy development. Additional analysis of teachers’ reflection of their practice, offers insight into how teachers perceived their work with young DLLs and elucidates particular experiences that teachers believed helped to shape their current teaching practice. Implications and suggestions for teacher education, classroom practice, and research on developmentally appropriate practice (NAEYC, 2019) are discussed.