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(1 - 17 of 17)
- Title
- EXAMINING SOCIOMATHEMATICAL NORMS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF DECIMALS AND FRACTIONS IN A SIXTH GRADE CLASSROOM.
- Creator
-
Nardelli, Marino, Dixon, Juli, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Social norms are patterns of behavior expected within a particular society in a given situation. Social norms can be shared belief of what is normal and acceptable shapes and enforces the actions of people in a society. In the educational classroom, they are characteristics that constitute the classroom participation structure. Sociomathematical norms are fine-grained aspects of general social norms specifically related to mathematical practices. These can include, but are not limited to, a...
Show moreSocial norms are patterns of behavior expected within a particular society in a given situation. Social norms can be shared belief of what is normal and acceptable shapes and enforces the actions of people in a society. In the educational classroom, they are characteristics that constitute the classroom participation structure. Sociomathematical norms are fine-grained aspects of general social norms specifically related to mathematical practices. These can include, but are not limited to, a student-centered classroom that includes the expectation that the students should present their solution methods by describing actions on mathematical objects rather than simply accounting for calculational manipulations. For this action research study, my goal was to determine if the role of the teacher would influence the social and sociomathematical norms in a mathematics classroom and in what ways are sociomathematical norms reflected in students' written work. I focused specifically on students' mathematics journal writing and taped conversations. I discovered that students tended to not justify their work. Also, I discovered that my idea of justification was not really justification. I learned from this and was able to change my idea of justification. By encouraging the students to socialize in mathematics class, I found that the quality of their dialogue improved. Students readily discussed mathematical concepts within small groups and whole class discussions.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- CFE0001650, ucf:47245
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001650
- Title
- CHALLENGING A TRADITIONAL SOCIAL NORM IN A SECOND GRADE MATHEMATICS CLASSROOM.
- Creator
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Egendoerfer, Lisa, Dixon, Juli K., University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
In an attempt to examine classroom dialogue within a second grade classroom, I encouraged students to participate in mathematics discussions without needing to raise their hands before speaking. I challenged this traditional social norm and established sociomathematical norms as the study progressed. My study showed the effects of this change on the dialogue of students in my classroom. Focus was placed on the participation in classroom discussions when traditional social and...
Show moreIn an attempt to examine classroom dialogue within a second grade classroom, I encouraged students to participate in mathematics discussions without needing to raise their hands before speaking. I challenged this traditional social norm and established sociomathematical norms as the study progressed. My study showed the effects of this change on the dialogue of students in my classroom. Focus was placed on the participation in classroom discussions when traditional social and sociomathematical norms were in place as well as when new norms were established. The study helped determine the effects of student-centered dialogue on conceptual understanding as demonstrated in the students' discussions, participation, and written expression.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0000946, ucf:46734
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000946
- Title
- COLLEGE DRINKING, GREEK AFFILIATION AND THE NEED TO FIT IN: AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL NORMS AND MOTIVATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH FRATERNITY AND SORORITY BINGE DRINKING.
- Creator
-
Dufrene, Chantel, Ford, Jason, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study proposes that members of Greek social organizations have higher rates of binge drinking as compared to other college students due to their greater acceptance of norms and motives that support binge drinking. The College Alcohol Study, a survey conducted by the Harvard School of Public Heath, was administered to 10, 904 university students. The survey measured various aspects of students' experiences at their respective universities including experiences with and perceptions of...
Show moreThis study proposes that members of Greek social organizations have higher rates of binge drinking as compared to other college students due to their greater acceptance of norms and motives that support binge drinking. The College Alcohol Study, a survey conducted by the Harvard School of Public Heath, was administered to 10, 904 university students. The survey measured various aspects of students' experiences at their respective universities including experiences with and perceptions of alcohol use. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine normative and motivational predictors of binge drinking for Greek and non-Greek students. The results show that Greek members binge drink at higher levels than do other students. The results also indicate that social norm and motive variables, which were thought to be predictive of binge drinking practices for all students, are better predictors of binge drinking for non-Greek members. Implications of theses findings, discussion of results, limitations of the study, and recommendations for future research are presented.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001270, ucf:46922
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001270
- Title
- Unintentionally unethical: How uncivil leaders violate norms and hurt group performance.
- Creator
-
Coultas, Christopher, Salas, Eduardo, Salazar, Maritza, Burke, Shawn, Fritzsche, Barbara, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Incivility is a common form of low-grade aggression that lacks a clear intent to harm, that violates community norms and values for interpersonal conduct, and is often chronic in nature (Andersson (&) Pearson, 1999; Cortina, Magley, Williams, (&) Langhout, 2001). Because of its subtleties, it is difficult at times to detect and even more difficult to prevent. However, it is an essential phenomenon to research, due to its ubiquity and negative impact on worker outcomes such as job satisfaction...
Show moreIncivility is a common form of low-grade aggression that lacks a clear intent to harm, that violates community norms and values for interpersonal conduct, and is often chronic in nature (Andersson (&) Pearson, 1999; Cortina, Magley, Williams, (&) Langhout, 2001). Because of its subtleties, it is difficult at times to detect and even more difficult to prevent. However, it is an essential phenomenon to research, due to its ubiquity and negative impact on worker outcomes such as job satisfaction and psychological health (Cortina et al., 2001). Incivility instigated by those in authority may be an even bigger problem, due to victims' fear of retaliation in the event that they choose to report the incivility (Estes (&) Wang, 2008). Furthermore, as the global economy shrinks and intercultural interactions become the rule rather than the exception, the norms for (")good interpersonal conduct(") become blurred, leading to even greater and more frequent incivility (Milam, Spitzmueller, (&) Penney, 2009; Pearson (&) Porath, 2005). Yet while it logically follows that incivility may be defined differently across different cultures, little research has been done on this topic. Furthermore, it is unclear how to (")fix(") the incivility problem in the workplace. Pearson and Porath (2005) suggested that organizational norms strongly endorsing civility could mitigate the occurrence of workplace incivility. The purpose of this research is to test the effects of internal cultural values and external group norms on perceptions of and reactions to leader incivility in a group setting.To test this, I manipulated leader incivility, cultural values, and group civility norms in a laboratory setting. Participants were exposed to a cultural value prime in which they were primed to endorse either high or low power distance values. Then, in a group setting, participants were presented with either a pro-civility or neutral group norm, and proceeded to engage in a groupivdiscussion with a confederate leader. This confederate leader was inconspicuously selected from among the participants and followed a script in which he consistently engaged in incivility towards both group members while conducting the group discussion. After completing the group discussion, the leader left for leader training and the participants engaged in an interdependent business simulation. At periodic segments throughout the experiment, I assessed participants' affective states as well as their perceptions of interactional justice and intragroup conflict.Regression analyses generally supported hypotheses regarding the moderating effect of values on perceptions of and reactions to incivility. Power distance predicted individuals' assessment of justice in the face of leader incivility; the interaction effect of power distance values and civility norms approached (but did not achieve) significance. Justice perceptions were strongly negatively correlated with participants' experience of anger; anger was found to mediate the relationship between participants' justice assessments (when the leader was present) and their perceptions of intragroup conflict (when the leader was absent). Power distance values and civility norms both moderated the relationship between anger and individual-level perception of intragroup conflict. At the group level of analysis, relationship conflict negatively predicted group performance, but task conflict positively predicted group performance, when there were pro-civility norms in place. These findings have implications for diverse organizations attempting to promote justice, harmony, and civility within their organizations. Incivility is a nuanced phenomenon and one that is perceived and responded to differently across individuals. Cultural values play a role, but so do organizational norms. Future research is needed to explore further the interactive effects of cultural values and organizational norms, and how organizations can leverage these to prevent the occurrence and negative consequences of workplace incivility.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004667, ucf:49899
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004667
- Title
- Replacing the "Raise Your Hand to Speak" Rule with New Social and Sociomathematical Norms in an Elementary Mathematics Classroom.
- Creator
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Brooks, Lisa, Dixon, Juli, Andreasen, Janet, Ortiz, Enrique, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This qualitative study documents the establishment of new social and sociomathematical norms in a second grade classroom. The teacher allowed students to speak directly to one another without having to raise their hands first during whole group mathematics instruction. Reform efforts in mathematics and the standards for mathematical practice contained in the Common Core State Standards call for students to discuss their reasoning with each other. Data were collected through interviews with...
Show moreThis qualitative study documents the establishment of new social and sociomathematical norms in a second grade classroom. The teacher allowed students to speak directly to one another without having to raise their hands first during whole group mathematics instruction. Reform efforts in mathematics and the standards for mathematical practice contained in the Common Core State Standards call for students to discuss their reasoning with each other. Data were collected through interviews with the teacher and students, field notes, and video-recorded lessons over the course of 23 days. An online survey tool was utilized to share selected video of the teacher's instruction. Initial professional development topics were chosen from research in mathematics education related to the social construction of understanding. Ongoing professional development was responsive to what occurred during instruction. The literature suggests that teachers often utilize traditional teaching methods and struggle to deviate from established patterns regardless of their desire to implement change. The teacher in this study learned that allowing students to talk openly provided him with insight into their mathematical conceptions and misconceptions. The students initially viewed mathematics as a set of rules to follow and exhibited the role of passive recipients of information. This changed as students were provided opportunities to participate in discussions and in doing so developed a new understanding of their role during mathematics lessons. Mathematical errors became a catalyst for communication and were viewed by students as opportunities for assisting their peers.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005308, ucf:50517
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005308
- Title
- THE INFLUENCE OF DISCOURSE AND JOURNAL WRITING ON SECOND GRADERS' ACQUISITION OF MULTIDIGIT ADDITION CONCEPTS.
- Creator
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Hensley, Elizabeth, Dixon, Juli, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The purpose of this study was to examine how second graders use writing and language when they are learning to add multidigit numbers in mathematics class. Second grade students were taught addition conceptually with a focus on sharing their strategies and thought processes with each other during the mathematics lesson. Two social norms were established with students so that sharing information and asking for clarity when they did not understand would be natural and expected. Students kept a...
Show moreThe purpose of this study was to examine how second graders use writing and language when they are learning to add multidigit numbers in mathematics class. Second grade students were taught addition conceptually with a focus on sharing their strategies and thought processes with each other during the mathematics lesson. Two social norms were established with students so that sharing information and asking for clarity when they did not understand would be natural and expected. Students kept a daily mathematics journal to answer the class's Problems of the Day. Patterns found in student journals indicated three stages of multidigit learning. In Stage One, students used little or no words to explain their solution, illustrations show students using counting by ones strategies. Stage Two represents students using appropriate mathematics strategies and vocabulary to explain their solutions in detail. Lastly, Stage Three consists of students solving multidigit problems with little or no word explaining their solution process and illustrations are few. Results of the study indicated that students' oral explanations of solutions to addition problems included more detail compared to students' written justification of similar problems.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2007
- Identifier
- CFE0001670, ucf:47218
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001670
- Title
- Superforecasting or SNAFU: The Forecasting Ability of the US Military Officer.
- Creator
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Raugh, David, Handberg, Roger, Dolan, Thomas, Powell, Jonathan, Gannon, Barbara, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
What is the impact of military institutional tendencies and habits on U.S. Army senior officer forecasting accuracy and how does this forecasting ability shape success in battle? Military leaders plan operations based on the forecasted strengths and vulnerabilities of their adversary. Negative habits, such as limited option development, confirmation bias, doctrinal overreliance, and over-consideration of sunk costs, inhibit effective forecasting. The tempo of the modern battlefield,...
Show moreWhat is the impact of military institutional tendencies and habits on U.S. Army senior officer forecasting accuracy and how does this forecasting ability shape success in battle? Military leaders plan operations based on the forecasted strengths and vulnerabilities of their adversary. Negative habits, such as limited option development, confirmation bias, doctrinal overreliance, and over-consideration of sunk costs, inhibit effective forecasting. The tempo of the modern battlefield, hierarchical culture, and institutional tendencies of the US Army may promote and reinforce these habits. I surveyed Colonels in US Army War College programs to measure their individual tendencies, levels of education, and accuracy in forecasting events during a three to twelve-month future. Quantitative analysis of the resulting data shows that these habits are present and negatively affect forecasting ability; additionally, higher levels of education positively affect forecast accuracy, possibly counteracting the effects of negative institutional tendencies and habits. Extending the research using historical and contemporary case studies of senior US Army Generals, including interviews of General David Petraeus and other high-ranking officials, I find that rejection of these institutional habits and tendencies enabled superior forecasting, leading to battlefield success. I conclude by examining how educational levels of commanding generals in the Iraq War affected military success. Exploratory quantitative analysis of data collected from the US Army historical archives shows that higher levels of education positively affected significant activities within the general's assigned areas.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007519, ucf:52609
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007519
- Title
- SOCIAL NORMS AND COLLEGE DATING VIOLENCE AMONG GAY BISEXUAL TRANSGENDER AND QUEER (GBTQ) STUDENTS.
- Creator
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Rivera, LaShawn, Jasinski, Jana, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
There is minimal research on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (GBTQ) dating violence on college campuses. This qualitative study was facilitated using focus groups that included students that identified as being GBTQ at the University of Central Florida (UCF). The focus group questions were open ended in a discussion format. Participants were recruited from student organizations like the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Student Union (GLBSU) and Knight Allies on campus. There were a total...
Show moreThere is minimal research on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (GBTQ) dating violence on college campuses. This qualitative study was facilitated using focus groups that included students that identified as being GBTQ at the University of Central Florida (UCF). The focus group questions were open ended in a discussion format. Participants were recruited from student organizations like the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Student Union (GLBSU) and Knight Allies on campus. There were a total of 10 students that participated in 2 different focus group sessions. Student's attitudes, thoughts and opinions about dating violence on college campuses in GBTQ relationships were collected. Additionally, participants provided their own definitions of the term dating violence. The students were most comfortable discussing dating violence among heterosexual couples, but did provide their thoughts about this issue in the GBTQ community. The results show that students had differing ideas on what constitutes a dating relationship, and behaviors that are positive and acceptable in GBTQ relationships, but are not considered socially acceptable. One example of this was public displays of affection. In addition, students identified negative behaviors in violent relationships that seem to follow some of the common themes that were found in the current literature. Participants were not aware of current efforts at UCF to address college campus dating violence from a prevention standpoint, but were familiar with intervention services offered on campus. They provided ideas on social messages that would be effective on campus to raise awareness about dating violence in the GBTQ community.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- CFE0002937, ucf:47974
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002937
- Title
- Undergraduate Prescription Stimulant Misuse: The Impact of Academic Strain, Social Norms, and Gender.
- Creator
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Norman, Lauren, Ford, Jason, Reckdenwald, Amy, Anthony, Amanda, Potter, Roberto, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study investigates the misuse of prescription stimulants among undergraduates for a variety of different purposes, including: academic, other instrumental, and recreational. This research is important as existing literature as well as national level surveillance data indicates a substantial increase in this type of prescription drug misuse, especially among young adults aged 18-25. Drawing from several theoretical frameworks, this research focuses on how academic strain, social norms,...
Show moreThis study investigates the misuse of prescription stimulants among undergraduates for a variety of different purposes, including: academic, other instrumental, and recreational. This research is important as existing literature as well as national level surveillance data indicates a substantial increase in this type of prescription drug misuse, especially among young adults aged 18-25. Drawing from several theoretical frameworks, this research focuses on how academic strain, social norms, and gender influence prescription stimulant misuse among undergraduates. Roughly 900 quantitative surveys were collected that specifically address undergraduate prescription stimulant misuse. The results indicate that college students are at an increased likelihood of misusing prescription stimulants if they experienced academic impediments and/or grade strain during the past academic year. Additionally, the findings show that undergraduates who have accepting attitudes of prescription stimulant misuse and who have peers that misuse prescription stimulants are also at an increased likelihood of misusing prescription stimulants. Furthermore, males were at an increased likelihood of prescription stimulant misuse for academic purposes if they had experienced grade strain during the past academic year in comparison to their female counterparts. Female undergraduates, on the other hand, were four times more likely than male undergraduates to obtain prescription stimulants from their close friends for free.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005854, ucf:50908
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005854
- Title
- THE EFFECTS OF PSUEDO-ALTRUISTIC BEHAVIOR ON THE LIKELIHOOD OF RECIPROCITY AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE SOURCE.
- Creator
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Rule, Reagan, Pryor, Burt, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The current study examines the roles of expectancy disconfirmation and pseudo-altruistic behaviors as communication strategies to increase receiver compliance, and their effects on perceptions of the source, including credibility and likeability ratings. While adding to the previous research, this investigation examines the effects on compliance when pseudo-altruistic practices are employed in a sales situation. Additionally, subjects' compliance responses in the treatment groups are analyzed...
Show moreThe current study examines the roles of expectancy disconfirmation and pseudo-altruistic behaviors as communication strategies to increase receiver compliance, and their effects on perceptions of the source, including credibility and likeability ratings. While adding to the previous research, this investigation examines the effects on compliance when pseudo-altruistic practices are employed in a sales situation. Additionally, subjects' compliance responses in the treatment groups are analyzed for relationships between compliance and several possible mediators, including participant's evaluations of the source, and feelings of obligation and guilt. A focus group was held to discuss the face validity of the scenarios. Additionally, a pilot study was conducted to verify the operationalization of the independent variable, and to reveal any items that needed to be modified before the actual study was conducted. 141 undergraduate students were assigned to one of six treatment groups, and responded to the scenario and questionnaire. Five-point Likert type scales were used for the source factor and compliance items, and seven-point semantic differential scales were used for the items which measured source perceptions. Additionally, an optional open-ended item was employed for subjects to explain the motives behind their decisions. Analysis of the data showed that participants in the pseudo-altruistic treatment conditions were more likely to return to Store or Dealership A, or tipped the server more than usual. They also rated the source as more expert and of higher character in the treatment groups that the neutral, control groups.This increase in compliance was consistent across all three scenarios. Regression analyses also revealed that source factors including concern, helpfulness, unexpected behavior, expertise, character, honesty, and likeability predicted 26% of the compliance variance. In conclusion, subjects were more likely to comply in the pseudo-altruistic treatment condition, regardless of the scenario. Their compliance is attributed to feelings of liking and higher ratings of the source, which facilitated reciprocal altruism and benefited the salesperson or server for their selfless behavior.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2004
- Identifier
- CFE0000067, ucf:46130
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000067
- Title
- THE EFFECTS OF PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGY INSTRUCTION, JOURNAL WRITING AND DISCOURSE ON 6TH GRADE ADVANCED MATHEMATICS STUDENT PERFORMANCE.
- Creator
-
Wittcop, Melissa, Ortiz, Enrique, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
There are two purposes to this study. The first was for me, as a teacher, to try something new in my instruction and grow from it. The second purpose of this study focused on the students. I wanted to see what level of performance in problem solving my students are at currently, and how the use of journaling and discourse affected the students' problem solving abilities. A problem-solving unit was taught heuristically in order to introduce students to the various strategies that could be...
Show moreThere are two purposes to this study. The first was for me, as a teacher, to try something new in my instruction and grow from it. The second purpose of this study focused on the students. I wanted to see what level of performance in problem solving my students are at currently, and how the use of journaling and discourse affected the students' problem solving abilities. A problem-solving unit was taught heuristically in order to introduce students to the various strategies that could be used in problem solving. Math journals were also used for problem solving and reflection. Classroom discourse in discussion of problem solving situations was used as a means of identifying strategies used to solve the problem. Explanations and justifications were then used in writing and discourse to support students' solution and methods. An analytic problem-solving rubric was used to score the problems solved by the students. These scores, along with explanations and justifications, and discourse were used as data and analyzed for common themes. The results of this study demonstrate overall improvement in student performance in problem solving. Heuristic instruction the students received on strategies in problem solving helped to improve their ability to not only select an appropriate strategy, but also implement it. This unit, along with the problem solving prompts solved in the journals, helped to improve the students' performance in explanations. It was discourse combined with all the previous instruction that finally improved student performance in justification.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- CFE0002075, ucf:47592
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002075
- Title
- UNDERSTANDING THE FEMALE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF SEXUAL ADDICTION AND THE ROLE OF ADDICTION TREATMENT.
- Creator
-
Douglass, Megan, Mishtal, Joanna, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Beginning with the diagnosis of nymphomania in the 19th Century, there has been widespread and continued interest across the mental health and bio-medical realm of what constitutes normality of female sexual behavior, and of the boundary at which sexual desire is deemed to be excessive, and thus abnormal. However, research questions that specifically investigate the subjective female voice and perspective in considerations of so-called hypersexuality or sex addiction remain understudied. This...
Show moreBeginning with the diagnosis of nymphomania in the 19th Century, there has been widespread and continued interest across the mental health and bio-medical realm of what constitutes normality of female sexual behavior, and of the boundary at which sexual desire is deemed to be excessive, and thus abnormal. However, research questions that specifically investigate the subjective female voice and perspective in considerations of so-called hypersexuality or sex addiction remain understudied. This research project proposes to examine the cultural pathways and systemic foundations which have historically in the West problematized female sexuality by investigating womenÂÂ's own perceptions of sexual addiction and their experiences in seeking (or not) addiction treatment. In addition, this research project proposes to investigate the perceptions of therapists (psychologists and psychiatrists) who treat hypersexual female patients, in order to examine their beliefs about the cultural and biological genesis of the disorder, and its appearance in female patients. Theoretically, this project aims to move away from the concept of individualized bodies suffering singularly from (dis)ease and abnormality, and investigate the ways in which Western cultural notions of normal female sexuality shape womenÂÂ's self-perceptions and notions about sexual deviance.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003138, ucf:48641
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003138
- Title
- Modeling social norms in real-world agent-based simulations.
- Creator
-
Beheshti, Rahmatollah, Sukthankar, Gita, Boloni, Ladislau, Wu, Annie, Swarup, Samarth, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Studying and simulating social systems including human groups and societies can be a complex problem. In order to build a model that simulates humans' actions, it is necessary to consider the major factors that affect human behavior. Norms are one of these factors: social norms are the customary rules that govern behavior in groups and societies. Norms are everywhere around us, from the way people handshake or bow to the clothes they wear. They play a large role in determining our behaviors....
Show moreStudying and simulating social systems including human groups and societies can be a complex problem. In order to build a model that simulates humans' actions, it is necessary to consider the major factors that affect human behavior. Norms are one of these factors: social norms are the customary rules that govern behavior in groups and societies. Norms are everywhere around us, from the way people handshake or bow to the clothes they wear. They play a large role in determining our behaviors. Studies on norms are much older than the age of computer science, since normative studies have been a classic topic in sociology, psychology, philosophy and law. Various theories have been put forth about the functioning of social norms. Although an extensive amount of research on norms has been performed during the recent years, there remains a significant gap between current models and models that can explain real-world normative behaviors. Most of the existing work on norms focuses on abstract applications, and very few realistic normative simulations of human societies can be found. The contributions of this dissertation include the following: 1) a new hybrid technique based on agent-based modeling and Markov Chain Monte Carlo is introduced. This method is used to prepare a smoking case study for applying normative models. 2) This hybrid technique is described using category theory, which is a mathematical theory focusing on relations rather than objects. 3) The relationship between norm emergence in social networks and the theory of tipping points is studied. 4) A new lightweight normative architecture for studying smoking cessation trends is introduced. This architecture is then extended to a more general normative framework that can be used to model real-world normative behaviors. The final normative architecture considers cognitive and social aspects of norm formation in human societies. Normative architectures based on only one of these two aspects exist in the literature, but a normative architecture that effectively includes both of these two is missing.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005577, ucf:50244
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005577
- Title
- PERCEPTION OF CUTENESS AND BEAUTY.
- Creator
-
Jones, Danielle, Poindexter, Carla, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Upbringing and psychological make-up inspire individual norms for beauty and cuteness. The mannerist approach in my work is a product of the figural liberties found in cartooning, illustration and art history. By altering facial and bodily features, I relate the proportions of an infant to cuteness and innocence. However, I tailor the photographs to empower the subjects all the while mirroring trends in contemporary pop culture. I'm interested in themes of everyday life, vitality and...
Show moreUpbringing and psychological make-up inspire individual norms for beauty and cuteness. The mannerist approach in my work is a product of the figural liberties found in cartooning, illustration and art history. By altering facial and bodily features, I relate the proportions of an infant to cuteness and innocence. However, I tailor the photographs to empower the subjects all the while mirroring trends in contemporary pop culture. I'm interested in themes of everyday life, vitality and emotion placed in obscure, imaginary or exaggerated venues. I fictionalize subjects of my reality to compel viewers to identify with and fancy emotions, circumstances, moods and relationships. The intent is to amplify, yet be truer to their existence and idiosyncrasies through figural adaptations.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- CFE0002538, ucf:47637
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002538
- Title
- Not Woman Enough Harassment: Scale Development and an Integrated Model from Antecedent to Outcome.
- Creator
-
Wolcott, Amanda, Jentsch, Kimberly, Jentsch, Florian, Shoss, Mindy, Lopez, Stephanie, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The rise of research on workplace mistreatment in the past twenty years can be attributed to the realization that workplace mistreatment is associated with a host of deleterious outcomes for both the individual targets of the mistreatment and the organizations in which they work. However, the extant literature is failing to capture the full range of sex-based mistreatment that people may experience through a tendency to focus solely on sexual harassment and sex discrimination, which are very...
Show moreThe rise of research on workplace mistreatment in the past twenty years can be attributed to the realization that workplace mistreatment is associated with a host of deleterious outcomes for both the individual targets of the mistreatment and the organizations in which they work. However, the extant literature is failing to capture the full range of sex-based mistreatment that people may experience through a tendency to focus solely on sexual harassment and sex discrimination, which are very specific types of behavior based on one's sex and gender stereotypes. In this dissertation, I introduce the construct of Not Woman Enough Harassment, or the extent to which women perceive that they are treated unfavorably because they do not meet traditionally held stereotypes of femininity. A scale was developed and validated in order to measure this type of harassment, and a model from antecedent to outcome was proposed. Results demonstrated that not woman enough harassment was experienced by approximately 32.5% of the sample. The scale showed good psychometric properties, with two distinct factors of harassment based on physical and non-physical traits. Not woman enough harassment was demonstrated to be distinct from other forms of sexual and workplace harassment. Discomfort with gender norm conformity and masculine physical and non-physical expression were shown to be antecedents of not woman enough harassment, along with a moderating effect of job gender context. In addition, not woman enough harassment significantly predicted decreased job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and task performance and increased withdrawal and job stress. Similar patterns were found for males with not man enough harassment.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFE0006962, ucf:51629
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006962
- Title
- Robust Subspace Estimation Using Low-Rank Optimization. Theory and Applications in Scene Reconstruction, Video Denoising, and Activity Recognition.
- Creator
-
Oreifej, Omar, Shah, Mubarak, Da Vitoria Lobo, Niels, Stanley, Kenneth, Lin, Mingjie, Li, Xin, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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In this dissertation, we discuss the problem of robust linear subspace estimation using low-rank optimization and propose three formulations of it. We demonstrate how these formulations can be used to solve fundamental computer vision problems, and provide superior performance in terms of accuracy and running time.Consider a set of observations extracted from images (such as pixel gray values, local features, trajectories...etc). If the assumption that these observations are drawn from a...
Show moreIn this dissertation, we discuss the problem of robust linear subspace estimation using low-rank optimization and propose three formulations of it. We demonstrate how these formulations can be used to solve fundamental computer vision problems, and provide superior performance in terms of accuracy and running time.Consider a set of observations extracted from images (such as pixel gray values, local features, trajectories...etc). If the assumption that these observations are drawn from a liner subspace (or can be linearly approximated) is valid, then the goal is to represent each observation as a linear combination of a compact basis, while maintaining a minimal reconstruction error. One of the earliest, yet most popular, approaches to achieve that is Principal Component Analysis (PCA). However, PCA can only handle Gaussian noise, and thus suffers when the observations are contaminated with gross and sparse outliers. To this end, in this dissertation, we focus on estimating the subspace robustly using low-rank optimization, where the sparse outliers are detected and separated through the `1 norm. The robust estimation has a two-fold advantage: First, the obtained basis better represents the actual subspace because it does not include contributions from the outliers. Second, the detected outliers are often of a specific interest in many applications, as we will show throughout this thesis. We demonstrate four different formulations and applications for low-rank optimization. First, we consider the problem of reconstructing an underwater sequence by removing the turbulence caused by the water waves. The main drawback of most previous attempts to tackle this problem is that they heavily depend on modelling the waves, which in fact is ill-posed since the actual behavior of the waves along with the imaging process are complicated and include several noise components; therefore, their results are not satisfactory. In contrast, we propose a novel approach which outperforms the state-of-the-art. The intuition behind our method is that in a sequence where the water is static, the frames would be linearly correlated. Therefore, in the presence of water waves, we may consider the frames as noisy observations drawn from a the subspace of linearly correlated frames. However, the noise introduced by the water waves is not sparse, and thus cannot directly be detected using low-rank optimization. Therefore, we propose a data-driven two-stage approach, where the first stage (")sparsifies(") the noise, and the second stage detects it. The first stage leverages the temporal mean of the sequence to overcome the structured turbulence of the waves through an iterative registration algorithm. The result of the first stage is a high quality mean and a better structured sequence; however, the sequence still contains unstructured sparse noise. Thus, we employ a second stage at which we extract the sparse errors from the sequence through rank minimization. Our method converges faster, and drastically outperforms state of the art on all testing sequences. Secondly, we consider a closely related situation where an independently moving object is also present in the turbulent video. More precisely, we consider video sequences acquired in a desert battlefields, where atmospheric turbulence is typically present, in addition to independently moving targets. Typical approaches for turbulence mitigation follow averaging or de-warping techniques. Although these methods can reduce the turbulence, they distort the independently moving objects which can often be of great interest. Therefore, we address the problem of simultaneous turbulence mitigation and moving object detection. We propose a novel three-term low-rank matrix decomposition approach in which we decompose the turbulence sequence into three components: the background, the turbulence, and the object. We simplify this extremely difficult problem into a minimization of nuclear norm, Frobenius norm, and L1 norm. Our method is based on two observations: First, the turbulence causes dense and Gaussian noise, and therefore can be captured by Frobenius norm, while the moving objects are sparse and thus can be captured by L1 norm. Second, since the object's motion is linear and intrinsically different than the Gaussian-like turbulence, a Gaussian-based turbulence model can be employed to enforce an additional constraint on the search space of the minimization. We demonstrate the robustness of our approach on challenging sequences which are significantly distorted with atmospheric turbulence and include extremely tiny moving objects. In addition to robustly detecting the subspace of the frames of a sequence, we consider using trajectories as observations in the low-rank optimization framework. In particular, in videos acquired by moving cameras, we track all the pixels in the video and use that to estimate the camera motion subspace. This is particularly useful in activity recognition, which typically requires standard preprocessing steps such as motion compensation, moving object detection, and object tracking. The errors from the motion compensation step propagate to the object detection stage, resulting in miss-detections, which further complicates the tracking stage, resulting in cluttered and incorrect tracks. In contrast, we propose a novel approach which does not follow the standard steps, and accordingly avoids the aforementioned difficulties. Our approach is based on Lagrangian particle trajectories which are a set of dense trajectories obtained by advecting optical flow over time, thus capturing the ensemble motions of a scene. This is done in frames of unaligned video, and no object detection is required. In order to handle the moving camera, we decompose the trajectories into their camera-induced and object-induced components. Having obtained the relevant object motion trajectories, we compute a compact set of chaotic invariant features, which captures the characteristics of the trajectories. Consequently, a SVM is employed to learn and recognize the human actions using the computed motion features. We performed intensive experiments on multiple benchmark datasets, and obtained promising results.Finally, we consider a more challenging problem referred to as complex event recognition, where the activities of interest are complex and unconstrained. This problem typically pose significant challenges because it involves videos of highly variable content, noise, length, frame size ... etc. In this extremely challenging task, high-level features have recently shown a promising direction as in [53, 129], where core low-level events referred to as concepts are annotated and modeled using a portion of the training data, then each event is described using its content of these concepts. However, because of the complex nature of the videos, both the concept models and the corresponding high-level features are significantly noisy. In order to address this problem, we propose a novel low-rank formulation, which combines the precisely annotated videos used to train the concepts, with the rich high-level features. Our approach finds a new representation for each event, which is not only low-rank, but also constrained to adhere to the concept annotation, thus suppressing the noise, and maintaining a consistent occurrence of the concepts in each event. Extensive experiments on large scale real world dataset TRECVID Multimedia Event Detection 2011 and 2012 demonstrate that our approach consistently improves the discriminativity of the high-level features by a significant margin.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0004732, ucf:49835
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004732
- Title
- EFFECTIVE SCHOOL CHARACTERISTICS AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT CORRELATES AS PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS IN AMERICAN STYLE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS.
- Creator
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Doran, James, Allen, Kay, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between effective school characteristics and norm referenced standardized test scores in American-style international schools. In contrast to schools in traditional effective schools research, international schools typically have middle to high SES families, and display average to above average achievement. Eleven effective school characteristics were identified and correlated with standardized test scores for grades 4, 6, and 8...
Show moreThe purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between effective school characteristics and norm referenced standardized test scores in American-style international schools. In contrast to schools in traditional effective schools research, international schools typically have middle to high SES families, and display average to above average achievement. Eleven effective school characteristics were identified and correlated with standardized test scores for grades 4, 6, and 8 and high school SAT scores. Data was gathered from an online teacher questionnaire designed for this study. All eleven characteristics were present in high performing international schools while frequent analysis of student progress, high academic expectations and positive school environment were more prominent. Positive school environment, high academic expectations, strong instructional leadership and cultural diversity were chosen as important characteristics of an effective international school. Learning time is maximized was the only characteristic that was significantly correlated with achievement and only in grades 4, 6 and 8. There was no statistically significant relationship found between norm referenced test scores and the aggregate effective school characteristics score.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2004
- Identifier
- CFE0000245, ucf:46244
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000245
