Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
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 Prompting Rural Students' Use of Prior Knowledge and Experience to Support Comprehension of Unfamiliar Content(2018) Hattan, Courtney; Alexander, Patricia A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Prior knowledge activation is foundational to students’ text comprehension. Yet, pedagogical techniques that teachers can use to prompt students’ knowledge activation are limited and empirical data on the relative effectiveness of those techniques is scant. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the effectiveness of traditional and novel knowledge activation techniques for supporting rural students’ comprehension of texts covering unfamiliar content. In this quasi-experimental study, 149 rural middle-school students were assigned to one of three conditions: knowledge mobilization (traditional), relational reasoning (new), or text annotation (control). Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling with text comprehension as the outcome variable and condition, relational reasoning ability, prior topic knowledge, gender, ethnicity, and grade level as predictor variables. The results demonstrated a statistically significant difference for overall comprehension between students in the relational reasoning condition and students in both the mobilization (β = 5.15, p < .00) and control conditions (β = 3.10, p < .00). There were no significant differences between students in the mobilization versus control conditions (β = -1.85, p = .07). Further, there were no comprehension differences for ethnic background or grade level. However, female students outperformed male students, and prior topic knowledge and relational reasoning ability were significant covariates in analysis. Qualitative analysis of follow-up conversations revealed the utility of the relational reasoning condition, especially for low-performing students. The results indicate that not all prior knowledge activation techniques are equally effective for all students engaged in the processing unfamiliar textual content. Additionally, the novel activation technique of relational reasoning proved highly effective for promoting students’ text comprehension.Item The Dynamics of Political Participation: An Analysis of the Dynamic Interaction between Individuals and their Political Micro-Environment(2012) Wendel, Stephen A.; Oppenheimer, Joe; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While political choices are rarely isolated or simultaneous, the vast majority of empirical models in political science assume they are. This dissertation examines the dynamic interactions over time between individuals and their micro-environment, in which a single factor both influences, and is influenced by, the act of voting. These dynamic interactions occur in a surprisingly broad swathe of the current literature on American voting behavior, as implicit but unexamined elements of four major research traditions. When these interactions are present, they establish feedback cycles that pose both theoretical and statistical challenges if not analyzed appropriately. Researchers ignoring these cycles tend to underestimate long term influences on voting behavior, make unrealistic assumptions about changes in voting behavior over time, and produce biased results under certain conditions. I propose a methodology that can successfully identify and model these interactions: employing simulation models to represent dynamic interactions in an intuitive format, and using optimization techniques to conduct parameter estimation and hypothesis testing against empirical data. To guide the development of these simulation models, I outline a theoretical framework of the major pathways by which dynamic interactions can influence voting behavior. I then present two applications of this methodology, to study the dynamic impacts on voting of political mobilization, and of social conformity over time. In both cases, the models receive strong statistical support, in benchmark tests against existing econometric models and against empirical data on voting behavior. Both mobilization and social conformity have unstudied indirect impacts that can lead to an additional 1.7% to 4% increase in voter turnout beyond existing models. Targeted use of peer pressure can lead to even more significant increases in turnout - up to a 30% increase among otherwise indecisive voters. In the long term, targeted mobilization can create cadres of repeatedly-mobilized activists, which raises questions about whether political campaigns effectively use their mobilization funds to build their parties in the long term. These two simulation models also provide a foundation for a host of new research questions, ranging from the impact of high-intensity get-out-the-vote drives on future mobilization efforts, to the effects of an aging population on turnout behavior over time.