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- Title
- "IN TRANSITION": AN ACTIVITY THEORETICAL ANALYSIS EXAMINING ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO TOOLS' MEDIATION OF THE PRESERVICE TEACHER'S AUTHORING EXPERIENCE.
- Creator
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Fiedler, Rebecca, Baumbach, Donna, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Co-chairs: Dr. Donna Baumbach Dr. Gail West Background: Electronic portfolios are increasingly used to make critical decisions about teacher candidates and program accreditation. Adoption rates for portfolios are at nearly 90% for schools, colleges, and departments of education (Salzman, Denner, & Harris, 2002). Over 50% of institutions who rated themselves or were nominated by others as exemplary users of electronic portfolios use web-based database-driven electronic portfolio systems ...
Show moreCo-chairs: Dr. Donna Baumbach Dr. Gail West Background: Electronic portfolios are increasingly used to make critical decisions about teacher candidates and program accreditation. Adoption rates for portfolios are at nearly 90% for schools, colleges, and departments of education (Salzman, Denner, & Harris, 2002). Over 50% of institutions who rated themselves or were nominated by others as exemplary users of electronic portfolios use web-based database-driven electronic portfolio systems (Strudler & Wetzel, 2005b; Wetzel & Strudler, 2005b). There is a paucity of theory-driven, systematic, rigorous research on electronic portfolios and a need for in-depth, context-aware research on such initiatives. Purpose: To explicate the differential impact of different portfolios systems on preservice teachers. The overarching research question was, "What are the preservice teachers' experiences using tools to create an electronic portfolio?" Setting: The Teachers College at a large university and the Education Department at a small liberal arts college. Participants: Six preservice teachers at each institution served as key participants. Informal interviews with numerous other participants provided additional data. Research Design: Qualitative multi-site case study informed by Engeström's Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 1987). Data Collection and Analysis: Document analysis, focus group interviews, individual interviews, thinkaloud work sessions, and lab and classroom observations provided data. Qualitative data analysis was informed by Creswell's "data analysis spiral" and Engeström's CHAT. Findings: Visits at both institutions presented several of the key ideas in the CHAT framework including the networked nature of activity, the portfolio as a boundary activity, contradictions within the portfolio activity, and changes to the portfolio activity system. Additional themes included transition, creativity, reflection, and resources.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001015, ucf:46830
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001015
- Title
- PRINCIPALS' PERCEPTIONS OF CYBERBULLYING POLICIES IN SELECTED FLORIDA MIDDLE SCHOOLS.
- Creator
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Gardner, Margaret, Taylor, Rose, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This study investigated the issue of student cyberbullying in FloridaÂÂÂÂ's public middle schools. First, a content analysis of six Florida school district anti-bullying policies was conducted to determine the alignment between the state model policy and district policies. Next, 68 middle school principals from the same six Florida school districts completed the Cyberbullying Policies and...
Show moreThis study investigated the issue of student cyberbullying in FloridaÂÂÂÂ's public middle schools. First, a content analysis of six Florida school district anti-bullying policies was conducted to determine the alignment between the state model policy and district policies. Next, 68 middle school principals from the same six Florida school districts completed the Cyberbullying Policies and Response Principal Survey online. Survey respondents were either members or non-members of the state mentoring team against bullying and harassment. Findings showed that all six school districts' anti-bullying policies were comprehensive in addressing the definitions of bullying behaviors, to include cyberbullying, as well as for reporting and responding to bullying incidents. However, it was found that improvements could be made concerning periodic review and updating of bullying policies as well as addressing issues of inclusiveness. Additionally, it was found that the middle school principals were generally aware of the seriousness of cyberbullying regardless of their membership status on the state mentoring team against bullying and harassment. They enforced both technology and bullying policies to prevent and respond to student cyberbullying. This was done either by their own initiative or as directed by the school districts. It was also discovered that principals were sensitive to the fact that students at their schools had been cybervictims, cyberbullies, or both. Moreover, principals believed that a majority of those activities occurred off-campus. It remains, though, uncertain as to what factors influence whether or not a school has a campus specific cyberbullying policy. However, principals conveyed an understanding that education about and enforcement of cyberbullying policies was imperative. Hence, more research is needed to determine how educators can continue to confront this type of adolescent aggression both on and off-campus.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003174, ucf:48598
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003174
- Title
- A RHETORIC OF TECHNOLOGY: THE DISCOURSE IN U.S. ARMY HANDBOOKS AND MANUALS.
- Creator
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Steward, Sherry Ann, Jones, Dan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This dissertation examines the historical technical publications of the United States Army from 1775-2004. Historical research in Army technical communication reveals the persuasive characteristics of its technical publications. Elements of narrative, storytelling, and anthropomorphism are techniques writers used to help deliver information to readers. Research also reveals the design techniques writers adopted to unite the situated literacies of the troops. Analyses of print, comic, and...
Show moreThis dissertation examines the historical technical publications of the United States Army from 1775-2004. Historical research in Army technical communication reveals the persuasive characteristics of its technical publications. Elements of narrative, storytelling, and anthropomorphism are techniques writers used to help deliver information to readers. Research also reveals the design techniques writers adopted to unite the situated literacies of the troops. Analyses of print, comic, and digital media expose the increasing visualization of information since the eighteenth century. The results of such historical research can be applied to new media designs. Automating processes captured in paper-based technical manuals and adding intelligent functionality to these designs are two of many possible design options. Research also dispels a myth concerning the history of modern technical communication and illustrates the development of many genres and subgenres. Modern technical communication was not born of World War II as many scholars suggest, but was a legitimate field in eighteenth-century America. Finally, historical research in Army technical communication shows the systematic progression of a technological society and our increasing dependence on machine intelligence.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2004
- Identifier
- CFE0000060, ucf:46088
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000060
- Title
- PERFORMANCE SUPPORT AND USABILITY:AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OFELECTRONIC PERFORMANCE SUPPORT INTERFACES.
- Creator
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Rawls, Charles, Hirumi, Atsusi, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This study evaluated the usability of two types of performance-support interfaces that were designed using informational and experiential approaches. The experiment sought to determine whether there is a relationship between usability and the informational and experiential approaches. The general population under study was undergraduate education major students from the University of Central Florida. From the general population of three educational technology instructor-led classes, 83...
Show moreThis study evaluated the usability of two types of performance-support interfaces that were designed using informational and experiential approaches. The experiment sought to determine whether there is a relationship between usability and the informational and experiential approaches. The general population under study was undergraduate education major students from the University of Central Florida. From the general population of three educational technology instructor-led classes, 83 students were solicited to participate in the study by completing a class activity. From the general population, a total of 63 students participated in the study. By participating in the study, the students completed a task and a questionnaire. Students were predominantly English-speaking Caucasian female education majors between the ages of 19 and 20; most of them were sophomores or juniors working part time. They possessed moderately low to high computer skills and most considered themselves to have intermediate or expert Internet skills. An experimental posttest-only comparison group research design was used to test the hypotheses posited for this study. The participants were randomly assigned to either the informational interface group (X1) or the experiential interface group (X2), and the experiment was conducted electronically via a Web-based Content Management System (CMS). The observed data consisted of five outcome measures: efficiency, errors, intuitiveness, satisfaction, and student performance. Two instruments--a checklist and an online usability questionnaire--were used to measure the five dependent variables: efficiency, intuitiveness, errors, satisfaction, and student performance. The CMS was used as the vehicle to distribute and randomize the two interfaces, obtain informed consent, distribute the instructions, distribute the online questionnaire, and collect data. First, a checklist was used to assess the students' performance completing their task, which was a copyright issue request letter. The checklist was designed as a performance criterion tool for the researcher, instructor, and participants to use. The researcher and instructor constructed the checklist to grade copyright request letters and determine students' performance. The participants had the opportunity to use the checklist as a performance criterion to create the task document (copyright request letter). The checklist consisted of ten basic yet critical sections of a successful copyright request letter. Second, an online usability questionnaire was constructed based on the Purdue Usability Testing Questionnaire (PUTQ) questions to measure interface efficiency, intuitiveness, errors, and satisfaction. While these test items have been deemed important for testing the usability of a particular system, for purposes of this study, test items were modified, deleted, and added to ensure content validity. The new survey, University of Central Florida Usability Questionnaire (UCFUQ), consisting of 20 items, was implemented in a pilot study to ensure reliability and content validity. Changes to the PUTQ were modified to fulfill a blueprint. A pilot study of the instrument yielded a reliability coefficient of .9450, and the final online usability instrument yielded a reliability coefficient of .9321. This study tested two approaches to user interface design for the Electronic Performance Support (EPS) using two HTML interface templates and the information from an existing training module. There were two interventions consisting of two interface types: informational and experiential. The SPSS Graduate Pack 10.0 for Windows was used for data analysis and statistical reporting in this study. A t test was conducted to determine if a difference existed between the two interface means. ANOVA was conducted to determine if there was an interaction between the interface group means and the demographic data factored among the five dependent variables. Results of this study indicated that students at the University of Central Florida reported no differences between the two interface types. It was postulated that the informational interface would yield a higher mean score because of its implementation of HCI guidelines, conventions, and standards. However, it was concluded that the informational interface may not be a more usable interface. Users may be as inclined to use the experiential interface as the informational interface.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2005
- Identifier
- CFE0000807, ucf:46678
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000807
- Title
- Local Health Department Adoption of Health Information Technology and Its Impact on Population Health.
- Creator
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Yeung, Tina, Wan, Thomas, Cortelyou-Ward, Kendall, Liu, Albert Xinliang, Dziegielewski, Sophia, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Since the enactment of the HITECH Act in 2009, the US has invested billions in building a robust health information technology (HIT) infrastructure that is secure, capable of the electronic transfer of data and allows for real-time access of patient medical data, among others. This empirical study explored the driving forces (coercive, mimetic, and normative) in the adoption of HIT (i.e. EHRs and HIEs) by local health departments (LHDs) and how it has impacted the population health of...
Show moreSince the enactment of the HITECH Act in 2009, the US has invested billions in building a robust health information technology (HIT) infrastructure that is secure, capable of the electronic transfer of data and allows for real-time access of patient medical data, among others. This empirical study explored the driving forces (coercive, mimetic, and normative) in the adoption of HIT (i.e. EHRs and HIEs) by local health departments (LHDs) and how it has impacted the population health of counties in the US. The researcher conducted a cross-sectional, quantitative study using secondary data sources. The study included data on 505 local health departments and 433 counties' population health data. Institutional theory guided this research and generalized estimating equations, logistic regression, and multiple linear regression were utilized to analyze health IT adoption by LHDs and its impact on county-level health outcomes. Results showed that normative forces, measured by the employment of IS specialists was most impactful in the adoption of both EHRs and HIEs. Mimetic forces, measured by the completion of a CHA and coercive forces measured by the implementation of the HITECH Act were not found to be statistically significant in the adoption of EHRs or HIEs. Finally, EHR adoption was statistically significant at improving population health at the county level. This research study has contributed in three areas: 1) to fill a knowledge gap on the impact of health IT adoption by LHDs on health outcomes; 2) to formulate a theoretically grounded framework to study population health and its variability; and 3) to identify target areas for public health interventions. In conclusion, a substantial amount of resources dedicated in creating a robust health IT infrastructure requires close analysis of the impact health IT has on the population health of our nation.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFE0006825, ucf:51801
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006825
- Title
- THE KIOSK CULTURE: RECONCILING THE PERFORMANCE SUPPORT PARADOX IN THE POSTMODERN AGE OF MACHINES.
- Creator
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Cavanagh, Thomas, Kitalong, Karla, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Do you remember the first time you used an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM)? Or a pay-at-the-pump gas station? Or an airline e-ticket kiosk? How did you know what to do? Although you never received any formal instruction in how to interact with the self-service technology, you were likely able to accomplish your task (e.g., withdrawing or depositing money) as successfully as an experienced user. However, not so long ago, to accomplish that same task, you needed the direct mediation of a service...
Show moreDo you remember the first time you used an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM)? Or a pay-at-the-pump gas station? Or an airline e-ticket kiosk? How did you know what to do? Although you never received any formal instruction in how to interact with the self-service technology, you were likely able to accomplish your task (e.g., withdrawing or depositing money) as successfully as an experienced user. However, not so long ago, to accomplish that same task, you needed the direct mediation of a service professional who had been trained how to use the required complex technology. What has changed? In short, the technology is now able to compensate for the average consumer's lack of experience with the transactional system. The technology itself bridges the performance gap, allowing a novice to accomplish the same task as an experienced professional. This shift to a self-service paradigm is completely changing the dynamics of the consumer relationship with the capitalist enterprise, resulting in what is rapidly becoming the default consumer interface of the postmodern era. The recognition that the entire performance support apparatus now revolves around the end user/consumer rather than the employee represents a tectonic shift in the workforce training industry. What emerges is a homogenized consumer culture enabled by self-service technologies--a kiosk culture. No longer is the ability to interact with complex technology confined to a privileged workforce minority who has access to expensive and time-consuming training. The growth of the kiosk culture is being driven equally by business financial pressures, consumer demand for more efficient transactions, and the improved sophistication of compensatory technology that allows a novice to perform a task with the same competence as an expert. "The Kiosk Culture" examines all aspects of self-service technology and its ascendancy. Beyond the milieu of business, the kiosk culture is also infiltrating all corners of society, including medicine, athletics, and the arts, forcing us to re-examine our definitions of knowledge, skills, performance, and even humanity. The current ubiquity of self-service technology has already impacted our society and will continue to do so as we ride the rising tide of the kiosk culture.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001348, ucf:46989
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001348
- Title
- CMOS RF CITUITS VARIABILITY AND RELIABILITY RESILIENT DESIGN, MODELING, AND SIMULATION.
- Creator
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Liu, Yidong, Yuan, Jiann-Shiun, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The work presents a novel voltage biasing design that helps the CMOS RF circuits resilient to variability and reliability. The biasing scheme provides resilience through the threshold voltage (VT) adjustment, and at the mean time it does not degrade the PA performance. Analytical equations are established for sensitivity of the resilient biasing under various scenarios. Power Amplifier (PA) and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) are investigated case by case through modeling and experiment. PTM 65nm...
Show moreThe work presents a novel voltage biasing design that helps the CMOS RF circuits resilient to variability and reliability. The biasing scheme provides resilience through the threshold voltage (VT) adjustment, and at the mean time it does not degrade the PA performance. Analytical equations are established for sensitivity of the resilient biasing under various scenarios. Power Amplifier (PA) and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) are investigated case by case through modeling and experiment. PTM 65nm technology is adopted in modeling the transistors within these RF blocks. A traditional class-AB PA with resilient design is compared the same PA without such design in PTM 65nm technology. Analytical equations are established for sensitivity of the resilient biasing under various scenarios. A traditional class-AB PA with resilient design is compared the same PA without such design in PTM 65nm technology. The results show that the biasing design helps improve the robustness of the PA in terms of linear gain, P1dB, Psat, and power added efficiency (PAE). Except for post-fabrication calibration capability, the design reduces the majority performance sensitivity of PA by 50% when subjected to threshold voltage (VT) shift and 25% to electron mobility (¼n) degradation. The impact of degradation mismatches is also investigated. It is observed that the accelerated aging of MOS transistor in the biasing circuit will further reduce the sensitivity of PA. In the study of LNA, a 24 GHz narrow band cascade LNA with adaptive biasing scheme under various aging rate is compared to LNA without such biasing scheme. The modeling and simulation results show that the adaptive substrate biasing reduces the sensitivity of noise figure and minimum noise figure subject to process variation and device aging such as threshold voltage shift and electron mobility degradation. Simulation of different aging rate also shows that the sensitivity of LNA is further reduced with the accelerated aging of the biasing circuit. Thus, for majority RF transceiver circuits, the adaptive body biasing scheme provides overall performance resilience to the device reliability induced degradation. Also the tuning ability designed in RF PA and LNA provides the circuit post-process calibration capability.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFE0003595, ucf:48861
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003595
- Title
- INTERACTIVE TEXT-IMAGE CONCEPTUAL MODELS FOR LITERARY INTERPRETATION AND COMPOSITION IN THE DIGITAL AGE.
- Creator
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Weaver, Elizabeth, Saper, Craig, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This dissertation focuses on text-image conceptual models for literary interpretation and composition in the digital age. The models investigate an interactive blend of textually-based linear-sequential approaches and visually-based spatial-simultaneous approaches. The models employ Gestalt-inspired figure-ground segregation models, along with other theoretical models, that demonstrate the dynamic capabilities of images as conceptual tools as well as alternate forms of text. The models...
Show moreThis dissertation focuses on text-image conceptual models for literary interpretation and composition in the digital age. The models investigate an interactive blend of textually-based linear-sequential approaches and visually-based spatial-simultaneous approaches. The models employ Gestalt-inspired figure-ground segregation models, along with other theoretical models, that demonstrate the dynamic capabilities of images as conceptual tools as well as alternate forms of text. The models encourage an interpretative style with active participants in open-ended, multi-sensory meaning-making processes. The models use the flexible tools of modern technology as approaches to meaning-making with art strategies used for research strategies as well as a means to appreciate reading and writing in the context of an increasingly visual environment.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003008, ucf:48335
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003008
